Your browser is out-of-date!

Update your browser to view this website correctly. Update my browser now

×

“Do we all have spiritual gifts?”

“Do we all have spiritual gifts?”

MARCH 12, 2021

/ Programs / Key Life / “Do we all have spiritual gifts?”

Steve Brown:
Do we all have spiritual gifts? Answer to that on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Welcome to Key Life. Our host and teacher is Steve Brown. He’s no guru, but he does have honest answers to honest questions about the Bible. God’s grace changes everything, how we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, purchase and worship. So here’s Steve and Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com with street smart Bible teaching for real life.

Steve Brown:
Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. Happy Friday.

Steve Brown:
Happy Friday to you too.

Pete Alwinson:
You’re not, you’re not preaching Sunday are you?

Steve Brown:
No, I just had a thought come into my mind.

Pete Alwinson:
What was it? Cause you paused and looked at me.

Steve Brown:
I think when Jesus was giving out spiritual gifts, he overlooked me. I told him I wanted to sing. And he just, and he started laughing.

Pete Alwinson:
No, you sing, you were in the, you were the deep bass voice.

Steve Brown:
I know, I’ve got this bass voice and the choir director said, if I can teach you the part, which is hard. You’ll make up for five basses.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right, man. You did.

Steve Brown:
That’s Pete Alwinson, as I’ve told you a number of times, go to ForgeTruth.com. Nobody is traveling much these days. I was gonna say your itinerary is there, but you don’t have one. You know, I was, I was on a gospel music association, web thing recently with 200,000 people. And they were talking about what singers are going through in Nashville and how hard it is. People are losing their houses. They’re losing their ministries, they’re losing their jobs, because they can’t get on an airplane and go places where they should do it.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow.

Steve Brown:
But when Pete starts traveling again, his itinerary along with a lot of other good stuff will be at that website. ForgeTruth.com and Pete comes in, as you know, and every Friday we answer questions. You can ask your question by calling 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 seven, and sometimes we’ll put your question on the air in your voice, or you can write to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
Maitland, Florida 32794

In Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

Or you can email us at [email protected]. And if you can help us financially, you can do it on your phone. You can text Key Life to 28950. And just follow the instructions. And we will be as faithful with your gift, if you help us, as you were in giving it to us, and we’ll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. And if you can’t, we understand. Pete, lead us in prayer and then we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
Alright. Our great Father, we come to you at the end of this week, just so thankful that we belong to you, that you came after us, that you awakened us by your Holy Spirit, that at whatever age was, you made us realize that we were incomplete, that we were sinners, that we needed to savior, and we couldn’t save ourselves. And you made that clarity come to our hearts and our minds and enabled us to believe in you. So we give you praise, as the one deserving, all worship and honor for our salvation. And Lord, we need you every day as we follow you, we commit to you, we commit ourselves afresh even at the end of this week. And ask that you would continue the great work of allowing grace to energize transformation in our lives. We ask that to that end, this weekend would be a real opportunity of transformation, as we gather for worship online and in-person Lord, if we can help us to be in person, we pray that you would be with our priests and pastors and teachers and leaders, and enable them to speak without fear, without any lack of clarity, so that it could bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to us. So we commit them to you and ourselves to you now, as we do some Q&A. As we pray in Jesus strong and Holy name. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
This is George Abihider. Hey Steve and Pete. It’s George, boy, I miss you guys, but I love hearing you on the radio. Hey, I ‘ve got a question for you and this is one I’ve never heard on Key Life. Does every believer have a spiritual gift? Look forward to hearing your answer. Take care, guys. Bye.

Steve Brown:
Hey, it was good to hear George’s voice,

Pete Alwinson:
I love that guy.

Steve Brown:
just so you know, Oh I do too. And, you know, he’s been such a gift to Key Life, and still is,

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
for family reasons, he had to move back to Mississippi. And he still edits all of our video and a lot of our audio from his studio in Jackson, Mississippi. But he used to be right down the hall and he was a real blessing to us. So that was good. That was a surprise.

Pete Alwinson:
I know.

Steve Brown:
Our producer, Jeremy didn’t tell us who that was going to be, because he wanted to give us, at any rate. Good question.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Do all Christians have spiritual gifts?

Pete Alwinson:
You know, I say, I think so, I Corinthians 12

To every every Christian has received the manifestation of the spirit for the common good.

Paul says. And then he lists in I Corinthians 12, Romans 12 and Ephesians 4.

Steve Brown:
Is that, are those lists exhaustive?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, I don’t think so. How about you?

Steve Brown:
No, I agree with you. I think there may be a lot of other gifts and they were, and Paul was using that as an example of these are some of the gifts that are obvious, but I think there are a lot, I think there’s a gift of artists have gifts of worship with God’s art for the people of God. And, I think there are a number of different gifts.

Pete Alwinson:
I agree. I think that’s, that’s a good point and the Old Testament supports that

Steve Brown:
I agree.

Pete Alwinson:
Holy Sabbath and others that had the gift of the artistry and the manufacturing gifts, to be able to use in building the temple.

Steve Brown:
Yep. That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
I think a lot of Christians, that Christians need to hear that we haven’t had a real, a lot of teaching on spiritual gifts, in our culture lately, I think. And Christians need to see that that’s how you minister to someone else and ought to find out how you can serve in your church through your spiritual gift. Cause that’s where you’re going to find the most fruit and enjoyment.

Steve Brown:
And Paul says it’s the same.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
I mean, he goes out of his way to illustrate with body parts, that maybe the gift that nobody wants, and doesn’t want to tell people that they have, is an important gift and your gift, and you got to find it. How do you find out?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, I think you, you, you read the Scriptures, first of all, then you look at the needs and step in and say, can I serve you, try in different areas of service and see how God uses you and see how you respond in those areas. And a lot of times you’ll hear things like, man, the Lord used you, when you did that, that really helped me. And, that’s, so it’s trial and error and getting out there and serving in different ways.

Steve Brown:
Leadership has a good part to play in that too, elders and leaders and Bible teachers, because sometimes they recognize gifts and will come to you and say, you know something, you, you ought to do more of that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
That’s a gifted thing.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
But yes, the simple answer to that question is yeah, every Christian in has a spiritual, a place, we say on our talk show, you will always have a place at our table. You can say that at church too.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. And I love Max Lucado’s line.

You play no small part, because there is no small part to play.

And I love that.

Steve Brown:
Such a good comment.

Pete Alwinson:
And, we all need take that by faith, because a lot of us struggle with identity issues and insecurity. And we, I’m not needed. Yes, you are, find a place

Steve Brown:
That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
And God will use you.

Steve Brown:
And not only that, there’s joy in that.

Pete Alwinson:
Great joy.

Steve Brown:
You know, people think, Oh, there’s something else I gotta do. But once you do that, for which you were created, there is incredible peace and joy in that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. You and I both know the joy, because we’re both teachers and when we we’re out there and we’re doing it, we’re saying I’m getting to use my gift.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
And then afterwards, they’re not all equal impact, but people are benefited when they say, you just feel so good that you got to be a part of helping someone.

Steve Brown:
And I don’t want to do it. Before I do it, I’d rather get a milkshake, but I know where God has called. And so I head for him. This is an email Pete, what’s the difference between obsessive sin and besetting sin? Do we generate obsessive sins and Satan generates besetting sins?

Pete Alwinson:
You know, I would love for you to give a definition of a obsessive sin and besetting sin, besetting sin as an older terminology. Obsessive sin is not one I have heard before.

Steve Brown:
Well, I think they’re both the same thing. I think it’s something you struggle with, and you try to get rid of, and sometimes you’re successful and sometimes you’re not, and sometimes you’re not successful at all. And it can be really debilitating, and really put a Christian. I mean, I know so many Christians who will name it to me in an email or a phone call or in a conference, they’ll come up to me, would you pray for me? I’ve been struggling with this for so long. And, that’s besetting sin. And you know something? It’s a gift, you know, if you can’t get rid of it and you’ve repented of it, that means that you have agreed with God about what it is, and it still comes up and bites you regularly. But if you know that. That may be the best gift that God gives you. I think Paul was teaching some of that in Romans 7, that it was the very thing that drew him to Christ. And maybe he wouldn’t be there, if he hadn’t said

The good I want to do, I can’t do. And the evil I can’t do is what I do. Oh, wretched man that I am.

That’s a good place to be.

Pete Alwinson:
It really is because it brings you to the end of yourself. It keeps you humble. And, and it, it makes you worship and be dependent. And when we grow, frankly, we do grow past many of our sins.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, we do.

Pete Alwinson:
And we can become very self-righteous.

Steve Brown:
That’s the other, that’s the flip side, go ahead and talk about that.

Pete Alwinson:
You know, that’s what happens and sometimes there are sins that are more difficult to deal with. Addictions, I tend to think more in terms of addictive sins rather than besetting sins, but that’s just another way of looking at it.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Well, and you may be right. I just had never thought about the difference between obsessive and there’s some of it, and a lot of addictions are, are, as you said, obsessive. So are sexual sins.

Pete Alwinson:
They are. They are. I think that when I think of obsessive sin, I think of obsessive people, that there are some psychological, emotional disorders that can happen in us, where, where we get it fixed that, you know, like you think of the idea of obsessive compulsive. I got to wash my hands 20 times or something like that. We could get into some of those other ideas too.

Steve Brown:
That’s very true.

Pete Alwinson:
Look at a baseball player before he goes up to bat and what he does in preparation, with his hands, genuflecting and all those guys have it.

Steve Brown:
But whether you’re obsessive in your sin, if it’s besetting sin or other sins, does the blood of Christ cover?

Pete Alwinson:
Absolutely. And that’s our hope.

Steve Brown:
Okay. That’s a good way to land this plane.

Pete Alwinson:
That is.

Steve Brown:
Always do it with the gospel and we’re out of here. But first Key Life is the listener supported production of Key Life Network.

Back to Top