David Diga Hernandez - The Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Introduction

The scripture teaches that God has given you a spiritual gift; this is a special ability empowered by the Holy Spirit. God has given us spiritual gifts for several reasons: to expand His kingdom here on earth, to evangelize the lost, and especially to build one another up in Christ. I am going to begin a brand new Spirit Church teaching series entitled «The Gifts of the Holy Spirit,» and I pray that as we go through this series, you will grow in your understanding of spiritual gifts and discover the gifts that God has given you. We’re starting this first part here on this edition of Spirit Church on Encounter TV. Before we begin, Steven Moctezuma is here with me, as usual; he will lead you in worship, and then we will get right into this lesson.

Show/hide text

So, what are the spiritual gifts? The spiritual gifts are special abilities that the Holy Spirit has given to each and every believer. God has deposited a gift inside of you. Now, I’ve broken down the spiritual gifts into three primary categories. The first category is what I call the service gifts. Here, I need to mention that I do believe that all of the gifts are used for service: the service of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, serving as the body of Christ to the world, evangelizing, and in various other ways. So, all spiritual gifts are service gifts, but just for the sake of categorization, I’ve given this first category the name «service gifts.»

So, what are these service gifts? Number one, there is the gift of exhortation, which is found in Romans chapter 12, verse 8. This is the gift of encouragement. There is the gift of giving, which is also found in Romans chapter 12, verse 8. Additionally, there is the gift of leadership, found in Romans chapter 12, verse 8, and 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 28. There is the gift of service, which is in Romans chapter 12, verse 7. Lastly, there is the gift of administration, found in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 28.

As I said, these gifts fall under the category of service gifts, at least how I’ve categorized them. The service gifts are essentially abilities that are empowered by the Holy Spirit and would otherwise not be as effective. You may look at some of these gifts and think, well, encouragement doesn’t seem supernatural, nor do giving, leadership, service, or administration seem to have a supernatural touch. The truth is that the Holy Spirit empowers us in both the supernatural and the practical. While these service gifts are practical in how they are carried out, they draw their source from the Spirit and are therefore supernatural in nature. In other words, you can encourage, give, lead, serve, and administrate at a level that you would not have been able to achieve without the aid of the Holy Spirit. We’ll discuss more about these in the coming sermons of this series.

Number two is the category of power gifts. These are gifts that possess a supernatural touch in how they are applied. First, there is the gift of discernment, found in 1 Corinthians 12:10. Second, there is the gift of faith, mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:9. Third, there is the gift of healing, also in 1 Corinthians 12:10. Next, there is the word of knowledge in 1 Corinthians 12:8. There is also the word of wisdom, which is found in 1 Corinthians 12:8. Additionally, there is the gift of miracles, mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:10. Also in 1 Corinthians 12:10 are the gifts of tongues and interpretation of tongues. Finally, in Romans chapter 12, verse 6, and 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 10, you will find the gift of prophecy. These are the power gifts, and I will also go over these in upcoming sermons. I just want to give you a quick overview of what the gifts are before we delve into the primary teaching for today.

The third category is that of leadership gifts. These are primarily found in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 11, but you will also see the teaching gift mentioned in Romans chapter 12, verse 7. In this category, there is the gift of the evangelist, the gift of the pastor, the gift of the teacher, the gift of the apostle, and the gift of the prophet. We are going to elaborate on all of these gifts throughout this series, but I want to share some truths that I think are fundamental to your understanding of the spiritual gifts. These are things you need to know before you begin to operate in them. We will be in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, where I will conduct somewhat of an expository teaching, going verse by verse to pull truths from the Scripture concerning the spiritual gifts.

Now, go to 1 Corinthians chapter 12. We will read verses 1 through 3 first. 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 1 through 3 say, «Now, dear brothers and sisters, regarding your question about the special abilities the Spirit gives us, I don’t want you to misunderstand this. You know that when you were still pagans, you were led astray and swept along in worshiping speechless idols. So, I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.»

The first thing that Paul mentions when writing about the gifts of the Holy Spirit is that he does not want the Corinthians to be captured or recaptured by paganism. The Corinthians were involved in witchcraft, sorcery, and paganism, so they operated, to some extent, in power, specifically demonic power. Paul the Apostle tells them he does not want them to misunderstand the gifts; he does not want them to be ignorant concerning the spiritual gifts. He acknowledges that many of them were worshipers of idols and engaged in idolatry and paganism. He is saying, «I want you to know that these gifts are different. These gifts are not like the demonic power that you used to possess.» He clarifies in verse 2: «You know that when you were still pagans, you were led astray and swept along in worshiping speechless idols.» Verse 3 reiterates this point.