Gifts of the Holy Spirit (Part 1)

I recently did a teaching at our church on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, and just wanted to share it.  Feel free to offer your feedback below!

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit are often misunderstood and misdirected.  My goal is to provide adequate explanation and direction for the role and function of these important gifts.  The premise that I am working from is this:  The Holy Spirit exists to connect people to Jesus, both privately and corporately.

With that said, the mission of every believer and church according to Matthew 28 is to “go and make disciples”.   Beyond that, in John 13:35 Jesus says, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”  So our goal is to work toward that mission of reaching and discipling people through the expression of love.  Everything we do should be covered in love.

In fact, one of the more famous verses in scripture, John 3:16, says “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”   God gave His Son Jesus as the greatest act of love in history.  When Jesus ascended to Heaven, though, the church (known as the “Body of Christ” in 1 Cor. 12), became that gift.  We as the church are God’s gift to the world to continue His ministry.

So our target is to reach the lost and make disciples…that is our end goal both personally and as a church.  This is something Jesus did on a regular basis.  He reached even the worst cases with His love and forgiveness.  But when you think about it, Jesus had knowledge that many of us will never possess.  He was discoursing with the religious leaders in the Temple as a child.  Although this is something Jesus did on a regular basis, how in the world are we possibly expected to do that?

There is no way any of us will have the knowledge Jesus possessed nor be able to communicate with the skill and tact that he did.  Of course He was reaching the lost and making disciples, He was Jesus!

But how do we do that?  How do we connect people to Jesus?

Well, maybe that’s it.

Remember I mentioned, the Holy Spirit exists to connect people to Jesus…this is why Jesus sent the Holy Spirit!

Throughout the book of Acts we read of the working of the Holy Spirit through the disciples as they continue to do the work of Jesus in the world.  The Holy Spirit is working through these men to connect people to Jesus…whether it was in a gathering of believers, an interaction in the Temple courts, or a conversation in the marketplace, the Holy Spirit was working through them to connect people to Jesus.

So up to this point, we understand that:

• Our personal mission is to reach and disciple people.
• As a church, we do this corporately as we are the gift of Christ to the world.
• The Holy Spirit was given to help us continue the ministry of Jesus and connect people to Him.

And we’ll put a comma there, and continue this further in my next post.

How does that sit with you so far?