Michigan Conference Campmeeting 2021: How Much More?

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Master Guide Skills Development

Dave Christenson

Understanding Your Spiritual Gifts

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2021 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Our Father, we thank you for the time that we have had together this week, for a chance to work on learning a little bit more about how to help your kids and help us that your love can shine through us and send your Holy Spirit to guide us as we do that and especially today here so that people can hear what you need them to hear and not just my words.

So we're looking at spiritual gifts this afternoon.

So it's important for Masterguides, we want to develop personal skills in ourselves and in the youth that we work with.

So what is a spiritual gift and is there a difference between a spiritual gift and a talent?

So a natural ability may be something you're born with like physical coordination, or maybe it's a talent you develop through the years such as playing a musical instrument.

These natural abilities or talents may be useful or entertaining, but they deal with the surface things of life.

The root concern of one's relationship to God is left untouched.

And I'm gonna say that depends a little bit on the teacher because for instance, there are some music teachers who will bring in, who will tie in some of that kind of thing and there are some PE teachers who will tie in some spiritual things.

But by and large talents and abilities affect people on a temporary basis, not an eternal 1.

And spiritual growth isn't necessary for their development.

You know, maybe a woman that opens her home for dinner guests and social gatherings, maybe she's selling Tupperware.

You know, you don't know what the motivation for doing things is.

For a spiritual gift, it's based on love for God and love for humanity.

And self-gain and glory, that's not the thing.

You know, and Paul tells us unless our motive is right, it's worthless.

So what is the goal of spiritual gifts as opposed to natural abilities?

Spiritual gifts are granted for the common good to equip the saints for the work of the ministry for building up the body of Christ.

That's pretty broad statement but that that is the reason for spiritual gifts so that we can have the tools and abilities that we need.

You know, as we talk about this stuff, you ask yourself, what is my motivation and goal in this area?

And These gifts can form the basis for our individual and collective service for God.

That will touch on a few references here.

If in Christ's object lesson we learned that if you're not receptive to the Spirit, you're probably not going to have them.

We have different gifts placed in the church.

Not all are imparted to every believer, but you don't have to have money to get them.

You don't have to be an intellectual giant to get them, which is really good news for some of us.

They're promised to every servant of Christ.

We don't talk about them a lot, but unity and cooperation are essential if we're going to be using them.

A spiritual gift is a special ability given to a member of the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit that enables him or her to work effectively with joy in helping the church carry out its mission to the world.

Now we don't want to confuse the gifts, spiritual gifts, with talents.

These gifts enable us to minister in such a way that God will have power that will tell on hearts.

And they're different from the fruit of the Spirit.

Fruit of the Spirit is reproduced in each Christian by the Holy Spirit.

And everybody's supposed to have all the fruit, but not every spiritual gift is given to every Christian.

You know, I may be an evangelist while someone else has the gift of teaching, yet We are all witnesses.

Witnessing isn't a special gift of the Spirit given to select persons, it's a role that all Christians share.

There have been times in the past where, in a couple different churches where I have had Pathfinder clubs, I've been able to utilize members of my club in teaching a Sabbath school, an adult Sabbath school class.

And it was a week when part of the lesson was on witnessing.

And so this is the part that I had for my pathfinders.

I had a half dozen people, half dozen of the kids, walk down the center aisle.

Now, my class was in the sanctuary, okay?

So I had kids walk down the center aisle and everybody was carrying something and they walked around my class 1 time and then walked out.

Didn't say a word and I just ignored them.

But this happened near the beginning of the class.

And so then we were going through the lesson and we're getting down toward the end and which is where they put part of the stuff on witnessing and then I said, did anybody notice anything unusual happening near the beginning of the class today?

And then I said, maybe like some kids walking through?

And some of them remembered it and of course as any good Sabbath school class has, we have to have latecomers, so they didn't see it.

So then the people who were already there told the latecomers what they had observed.

And I said, now, Do you know what just happened?

How much preparation did you have for that?

You know, They didn't need to look up any scriptures or have memorized how to explain the 2, 300 days.

They just told what they had experienced.

And it was interesting, every time I do that, it takes at least 3 people to come up with the list of most of the stuff that was carried You know, sometimes I had somebody carrying a crutch somebody's carrying a lunchbox I don't remember what else you know, but it's just everybody is supposed to do some witnessing.

This shouldn't be a big surprise to anyone for any good thing that God comes up with, the devil wants to come up with a counterfeit.

He isn't original, he doesn't come up with totally new ideas, he just makes counterfeits of good things that the Lord has.

So the counterfeit gifts are more often associated with the more miraculous, such as miracles, healings, speaking in tongues and and prophesying, they get more attention.

Miracle working will be 1 of the signs of the end but we need to test them carefully by scripture.

So we're going to look at different categories and while I think of it, administration, the ability to organize, manage, and supervise, working with and through others to achieve goals.

This meaning is to steer like the helmsman or pilot of a ship.

And here we're talking the ability to plan and launch projects to meet the needs of God's cause.

Apostleship, this isn't a word we commonly use today.

It means to be sent out, especially commissioned to represent the church in a broader ministry.

Here it might be more the spirit given ability to begin work in new churches.

Discernment, the analytical capacity to discern between truth and error, right and wrong.

This 1 comes up, 1 of the names that comes to my mind is Doug Batchelor.

He is speaking tonight and tomorrow, twice.

Yes, he's got Saturday night, so we'll have 3 chances to see him.

Evangelism, the ability to so persuasively present the gospel of Jesus that people are led to become his disciples.

Here we have the guy walking up to somebody sitting down at the mall and says, Sir, while your wife finishes her shopping, perhaps you'd like to get ready to die.

This word is derived from the same word that Jesus used for the Comforter or Holy Spirit, 1 who comes alongside to encourage.

Also it is the ability to stimulate people to action in the service of God.

So here what's being used as encouragement.

Okay, so here we have the illustration the pastor going into the church at 10.30, and he's got some questions about what all...

But afterwards, someone comes up to him and says, great sermon pastor, we need to pray for our pastors.

They're people just like the rest of us, but they have challenges that the rest of us don't have.

And there's good things and bad things, aspects of what we call the Great Advent Movement where pastors are moving usually within 5 years or less.

And this can put a real strain on them and we need to pray for our pastors.

It's actually permissible to tell your pastor you're praying for them and because that will encourage them knowing that someone is praying for them.

And sometimes they need something to spark their social life too.

Series

Master Guide Skills Development

Understanding Your Spiritual Gifts

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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