What Are Spiritual Gifts?
Do you remember being a kid and waking up Christmas morning to presents? The coolest toys were usually some kind of electronics, right?! But then at some point, you realized the unthinkable happened! One of your awesome new electronic toys wasn’t working. But why? Was it defective? You notice these three fateful words on the packaging: “Batteries not included”. You had a toy that lacked the power to do what it was designed to do.
In the same way, our calling is amazing, but it requires power. Here’s the good news: God doesn’t assign us a task without also empowering us for that task. To put it another way: the Christian life comes with batteries included. But to understand this concept we need to get the full context of Scripture from where we left off in the last chapter. We’re going to see two things:
01. We are helpless without God’s empowerment.02. God has provided the power of the Holy Spirit
WE ARE HELPLESS WITHOUT GOD’S EMPOWERMENT
God assigns Adam and Eve the cultural mandate, Adam fails. His calling was to glorify God by creating culture. Yet, by chapter three of Genesis, Adam fell into sin and plunged not only himself, but all human culture, into sin. In so doing, humanity was essentially disconnected from our power source, God Himself. Therefore, our task became insurmountable.
“To the woman [God] said, ‘I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children….And to Adam he said…cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you…you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’” (Genesis 3:16–19 summarized)
This is our state from the first sin onward. But the story doesn’t end there. There is another Adam: Jesus. And where the first Adam failed, Jesus—the second Adam—prevailed. He defeated Satan, sin, and death through the cross and resurrection. Then, fter glorifying God the Father in victory, Jesus essentially designed a new and better culture. He then called all those who follow Him to not only create culture generally, but to advance a Gospel-culture specifically.
“And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always…to the end of the age.'” (Matthew 28:18–20)
This is what theologians call the “Great Commission.” Do you see how similar the language is to the cultural mandate? Disciples—or followers of Jesus—are to rule. Not by force, but by forging the hearts and minds of people around them through the teachings of Jesus. They are to multiply, not just physical children but new disciples of Jesus everywhere. And as He concludes His charge to make a new Gospel culture, Jesus makes a point we need to notice at the end.
He says ”And behold, I am with you always…to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20).
What’s the significance of this? The task of creating a God-glorifying, Gospel-culture is impossible without His power and His presence. We, like the first Adam, are failures on our own. So, Jesus sends us, not on our own, but filled with the power and presence of God the Holy Spirit!
That’s our second point.
GOD HAS PROVIDED THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
”But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
Who is the Holy Spirit? He is the third person of the God-head. God exists eternally as one God, in three distinct persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is the doctrine of the Trinity. God is three yet one; diverse yet perfectly unified. So, when God the Holy Spirit fills us, Paul calls Him “Christ in you” (Colossians 1:27). The fullness of God lives in all who believe to empower them for the work of glorifying Him.
Now, there is no power that compares to the enormous endowment of the Holy Spirit living within you. In fact, it only keeps getting better as we learn more about His empowering.
You see, we are filled, not just with physical, mental, and social abilities at birth—oh it’s far better than that! You see, when you become a Christian, you are also equipped with real, new, spiritual gifts by the power of the Holy Spirit at your new birth. In other words, when God the Holy Spirit saves you at your conversion to Jesus, He also provides new abilities that you did not have—or you did not have in the same way—before you knew Jesus.
You receive gifts by the empowering of the Holy Spirit. These can be supernaturally received things that totally didn’t exist within you apart from God, or these can be ways that the Holy Spirit utilizes and enhances gifts and traits that He gave you at birth. But either way, you are freshly empowered for the calling to do God-glorifying work, multiply disciples, and advance the Kingdom of God. You are empowered to create a God-glorifying, Gospel-advancing culture.
IDENTIFY GOD’S GIFTING FOR YOUR CALLING
This is designed to help you explore your gifts. During this time, you’re going to wrestle through what natural and supernatural gifts God the Holy Spirit has given you.