The Holy Spirit #5: What are the Gifts? (Part 1)
Description
Kurt teaches from 1 Corinthians 12:1-7 that God made each of us as his handiwork, and that the Holy Spirit gives every believer a gift to be used "in the church and as the church" for the common good. He encourages listeners to move from consumer to participant, and to offer the simple next thing in front of them rather than waiting for a perfect fit. Above all, he reminds us that our gifts only matter when they flow from the love of God, received by grace and never earned.
Summary and Application
There's a verse Kurt says has always caught his attention, mostly because he can't quite believe it applies to him. "That is not how I see myself, even if that's how it describes me," he admitted. The verse is Ephesians 2:10: "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
Kurt explained that "handiwork" carries the sense of a work of art, a masterpiece. Many of us are more comfortable with a smaller idea: God tolerates us, maybe accepts us. But picture a child running up with a drawing, practically giddy: "Look at this! I made this for you." Can you imagine the Creator of the universe seeing you that way, "as you currently are, not as you will one day be"?
Made Before We Do
Kurt was careful to keep the order straight. Just before verse 10, Paul writes that "it is by grace you have been saved, through faith... not by works, so that no one can boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9). Doing good things doesn't earn salvation. Salvation is a gift. But that gift has a purpose: we're created for good works, not saved by them.
Gifts for the Common Good
That's where the Holy Spirit comes in. In 1 Corinthians 12:7, Paul says, "Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good." Kurt summed up the point this way: spiritual gifts are given to be used "in the church and as the church," meaning within a local community of believers and then carried into our workplaces, neighborhoods, and families.
Kurt was gracious about how most of us begin: as consumers. We check out the music, the teaching, the programs (and run the "what's weird?" check). That's natural. The risk is staying there. The shift is from "I'm a consumer" to "I'm a participant. I have something to offer." As Peter puts it, "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms" (1 Peter 4:10).
A Wide Range of Gifts
The New Testament lists gifts in several places (1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, Ephesians 4, 1 Peter 4). Kurt sees these as a representative list rather than an exhaustive one. He grouped them as speaking gifts (teaching, encouragement, exhortation) and serving gifts (giving, mercy, administration, helps). He also reminded us that some things are commanded of everyone. We can't say, "I don't have the gift of mercy, so I don't have to be kind."
He offered a football picture for the less visible gifts: when an offensive line is doing its job, almost nobody talks about them, yet the whole offense depends on them. Paul's call to honor the less prominent parts of the body works the same way.
Kurt also spoke briefly about the "sign gifts," such as tongues and healing. He affirmed that God still does miraculous things and noted that 1 Corinthians 14 says, "Do not forbid speaking in tongues." His concern is that these gifts are often practiced for the individual rather than the common good, when Paul says tongues are "a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers" (1 Corinthians 14:22), echoing Acts 2, where people heard the gospel in a language they knew. Thoughtful Christians land in different places here, and Kurt pointed to Orchard Hill's podcasts for more.
Why We Hold Back
Kurt named some honest reasons we sit on the sidelines: I'm too busy. The church will be fine without me. I don't know what my gift is. I'm waiting for the perfect fit. His encouragement: a busy season is legitimate, but "don't let your season become a year, become years, become a decade." And skip waiting for perfect alignment, because "rarely will everything align."
He pointed to Jesus' words in Matthew 25:31-46. There, the King commends a cup of water, a meal, a visit. He doesn't commend solving world hunger. "What is the next thing in front of me?" Kurt asked. He added that most people who serve at Orchard Hill serve about once a month, so this isn't a lifetime sentence.
Without Love, Nothing
Right in the middle of Paul's teaching on gifts sits 1 Corinthians 13: "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal" (verse 1). Kurt recalled a mission trip where the workers had come to see the people they served as an annoyance, and he remembers thinking, "There's something off here." Love that fuels our gifts comes from "continually appropriating the gospel message." We are loved, saved, made, and gifted by grace, so whatever we offer is never a performance.
For Reflection
When you picture how God sees you right now, not the improved version, what do you imagine, and where did that picture come from?
What is one "cup of water" within reach this week, and what would it look like to offer it from a place of being loved rather than needing to prove something?
This post was developed with the assistance of artificial intelligence based on the sermon "What Are the Gifts? How? (Part 1)" by Dr. Kurt Bjorklund (1 Corinthians 12:1-7, October 3-4, 2026). While every effort has been made to faithfully represent the content and intent of the original message, readers are encouraged to engage the full sermon audio or transcript for the complete teaching.
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Let's pray together. God, we thank you for how you're working in Betty's life and in the lives of literally thousands of people around Orchard Hill. And God, we ask today that in this moment you would work in the lives of those of us who are gathered, that your Word would speak to us, and that my words would reflect your Word in content, in tone, and in emphasis. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
There's a verse in Ephesians that has always caught my attention from the first time I read it. The reason it caught my attention is that when I first read it, I said, "That is not how I see myself, even if that's how it describes me." The verse I'm referring to is Ephesians 2:10, and it reads this way: "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
When I learned a little of the original languages and how to read the text that way, I discovered that the word handiwork in many ways means a work of art. I had always seen it as handiwork, and I thought, "I'm not really God's handiwork. I'm just kind of a guy." Then when I learned that God says, "You are my work of art, my masterpiece, if you will, created to do good works," it just didn't square with my self-conception. And I would guess that many of us who are gathered this weekend feel much the same way. We say, "Well, God tolerates me. Maybe God accepts me. Maybe God is gracious to me." But this text says that you are God's work of art.
Now think about this. Have you ever had a kid bring you one of their works of art and present it to you? If you have kids, or a niece or a nephew, somewhere in your life you've had a kid bring you a piece of art. And when they bring it to you, they're practically giddy. They're like, "Look at this! I made this for you." That is how they feel about their work of art. Can you imagine if that's how you saw the Creator of the universe seeing you as you currently are, not as you will one day be, but as made in his image for good works?
Now, it's substantial that this verse says you were created as God's handiwork, a masterpiece, for good works. It's not by your good works. In fact, in Ephesians 2:8-9, right before verse 10, we get a statement that is very clear. It says, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast." So there's no confusion: your doing stuff does not bring you salvation. Salvation is a gift from God, given through grace to those who believe in what Jesus Christ has done, those who acknowledge their sinfulness and say, "I need a Savior." But that doesn't change the fact that verse 10 says you are God's handiwork, created to do good works.
Now, we're in a series on the Holy Spirit, and today we're going to talk about the gifts of the Spirit. You heard a little of 1 Corinthians 12 read. First Corinthians 12 begins with a very simple statement. The heading above the text says, "Concerning Spiritual Gifts," and verse 1 says, "Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed." So now we're talking about what it is that the Spirit does. God creates you as a masterpiece for good works. Then the Holy Spirit, when you come to faith in Jesus Christ, is given to you, and the Spirit gives you a gift or gifts, spiritual gifts, for the purpose of doing God's work.
Verse 6 says it this way: "There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work." Verse 7: "Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good." Why does the Spirit give gifts for the common good?
You may have some natural gifts and talents that God has given you, but if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you also have a spiritual gift that God has given you for the common good. That phrase could mean the common good of the local church you're part of, or it could mean the common good of humanity. So I'm going to use a couple of phrases today to describe the point of spiritual gifts: your spiritual gifts are given to you to be used in the church and as the church.
By "in the church," I mean that the way God has designed the work of the Spirit of God in this age is to be through the church. So he calls anyone who's a believer to be part of a local church and to use their gifts in the church for the common good. And by "as the church," I'm referring to how, as you live and move in your career, in your neighborhood, with your friends, and in your family, you are to be the church in those places, using the spiritual gifts that God has given you.
But the challenge is that many of us approach church much more like consumers. I don't say that negatively, because it's very natural, at least when you first check out a church, to be a consumer. Of course you are. What do you do when you first look at a church? You say, "Let me check it out online and see if it looks okay." Then, if it looks okay, you say, "I'll go and check it out." And as soon as you come to check it out, the first thing is the "what's weird?" check. You know what I'm talking about, if you haven't visited a church in a while. The "what's weird?" check is: Are they handling snakes in the back? Are they doing anything weird? Anything that just feels off?
If you get past the "what's weird?" check, you begin to ask, "Is the music what I like? Does it move me toward God? Is the teaching relevant? Are the facilities nice? Do they have good programs?" Those are consumer decisions. And then you ask, "Am I going to fit in? Am I going to make friends? Is this a place I can see myself?" That's a natural process. But if we stay as consumers and never get to the point where we say, "I'm part of a body" (this is the analogy Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 12, where he says we all have these gifts that we bring and we're part of the body), and if we don't move into saying, "I'm not just a consumer, I'm a participant. I have something to offer. I am God's handiwork, and my participation in the church and as the church matters for the common good," then we won't fulfill the idea of the gifts of the Spirit. It's not just that you have a gift; it's that it's used.
In 1 Peter 4 there are a couple of verses that speak to this. Verse 10 says, "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen."
So if you're a follower of Jesus, God has given you a gift to serve others. This passage tells us that you should use whatever gift you have, and that there are speaking gifts and serving gifts. If you have a gift of speaking, speak as if you were speaking the very words of God. If you have a gift of serving, do it as unto God.
Now, there are four or five places in the New Testament where we get a list of gifts. I have a list here. In 1 Corinthians 12:8-11 there's a list, on the left. Then there's 1 Corinthians 12:28, Romans 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4. I think 1 Peter 4 is probably a category statement, speaking and serving. Depending on exactly how you count, some say there are 19 gifts, some 21. I believe this is a representative list, not an exhaustive list, meaning you can't say these are all the gifts; there are probably other gifts that aren't listed here. Using this categorization, I would add one other category, and it's the one that usually gets most of the press when we talk about the gifts of the Spirit. I'm simply going to call these the sign gifts.
I'll come to this in just a moment, but 1 Corinthians 14 tells us that there is a sign that God gives in the gift of tongues. So when we talk about sign gifts, typically we're talking about the gift of tongues, prophecy, miracles, and healing. I want to be very clear that I believe God does miraculous things, and that God heals today all the time. But these gifts, you could say, are sign gifts in that they were given to the apostles in the early church as a unique work of the Spirit to validate the beginning of the church and the gospel. Now that the New Testament is complete, they may work differently.
Let me show you why I say this. By the way, I'm not going to go into this in great detail today. We have a couple of podcasts on our Orchard Hill Plus channel, which is not "pay for Orchard Hill Plus"; that's free. "Orchard Hill Plus" made sense when we came up with it as a marketing term, because it's more content. But it's on there, in our Perspectives. There's one on prophecy, there's one coming this week on tongues, and there's one on some of the dangers or distinctions of charismatic theology. A church that would identify as charismatic or Pentecostal, versus a church like Orchard Hill that would say we're not: what are the real differences there, and why do they matter? All of that is there if this interests you.
But here's what 1 Corinthians 14:22 says: "Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers." Tongues is the idea that people speak in a language they do not currently know. If you go back to Acts 2, that's where tongues originated in the New Testament. In the footnote of basically any Bible translation you use, where it uses the word tongues, it will say "or languages." What happened in Acts 2, which is Pentecost (hence the name Pentecostal churches), was that people heard the gospel in a language they knew, as others spoke in languages that they themselves didn't know. So when Paul says this is a sign for unbelievers, he's saying that when people heard the gospel in a language they knew, even if the speaker didn't know it, they would say, "Oh, that's God."
For example, if today here at Orchard Hill somebody started to speak in a language they didn't know, and let's just say, for the sake of argument, it was Creole, which is what's spoken in Haiti, and somebody in the congregation said, "Oh, I used to live in Haiti. I speak Creole. I can interpret this. Here's what this person is saying," you would go, "Oh, my goodness, God showed up today." That's pretty cool. In fact, if you were here and somebody who doesn't speak English started to speak English and spoke the Word of God, you would say, "That's amazing." That is what tongues was in the New Testament.
Now, you can look in 1 Corinthians 14 and say, "Well, maybe there are some prayer-language elements to it." I understand that. But if you read tongues as a known language throughout the New Testament, it makes perfect sense. And I think the question really is: if somebody has this gift, why is it never a known language? Why is it always this prayer-language thing? Again, I'm not planning to go into this a lot, other than to say that the sign for the unbeliever means this is for the common good. This is not just something that people get to use to edify themselves.
In fact, think about healing. Again, I think sometimes God heals people in healing crusades; I've heard accounts of this. But if somebody really has the spiritual gift of healing, do you think the only time God would ever use it is when the TV cameras are rolling? Or do you think maybe if they went into Children's Hospital and cleared a floor, people would say, "God showed up"? Yet it always has to be in a certain context. I understand that what they would say is, "Well, we can't go into Children's Hospital because there are unbelievers there who don't believe, and without faith, it isn't healed. So we've got to be in the environment with the cool music and all of that to make it happen." But again, my point is that these were signs to validate the work of God at that time.
And again, I'm not saying there's no time in which God does this. I've seen God do things that are miraculous. In fact, the very end of 1 Corinthians 14 says, "Do not forbid speaking in tongues." So if God wants to give somebody the gift of language, God can do that. If God wants to give somebody an experience of being part of a healing, God can do that. But those gifts, the way they're often practiced today, are about the individual, not the common good.
That leads us to the speaking gifts. First Corinthians 14:1 says, "Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy." Now, this could lead to a debate about what prophecy is or is not. But speaking gifts are generally agreed to be teaching, evangelism, encouragement, exhortation, and words of either knowledge or wisdom. There are a lot of gifts within the church where somebody is speaking, not always in front of a group, but sometimes with a group: exhortation, encouragement, just saying, "This is what God does." Sometimes these gifts show up in different ways in conjunction with our natural talents. And these are ways you begin to say, "Okay, God, I'm using what you've given me to encourage or exhort other people."
At one point in this section, 1 Corinthians 12 through 14, you get the statement that the parts of the body that are lesser should be given more honor. By "lesser," it probably means the things that are less prominent. Maybe here's a way to think of it. I haven't used a football analogy yet this fall, so I'm going to use one, because they're easy right now. If you're a football fan, one of the things you know is that if your offensive line is bad, your running backs and quarterbacks look bad. But when the offensive line is good, almost nobody talks about them, because the running back, the quarterback, and the receivers all look good. That idea of saying that those who are thought of as lesser are actually more important is almost like saying there's an offensive line that makes the ministry of the church go. It isn't just about the people in the most prominent roles, so give honor to everybody.
Then there are the serving gifts, which are typically gifts of giving, mercy, shepherding, administration, helps, serving, and leading. These are ways that you serve. Certainly, when you look at a list like this, there are some things that are commanded for everybody. For example, giving is commanded, but it may not be a spiritual gift for everyone. Being merciful is commanded; it's not necessarily a gift for everybody, but it's commanded.
Here's what I mean. You can't simply say, "Well, I don't have the gift of giving, therefore I don't give," or "I don't have the gift of mercy, therefore I don't have to be nice to people." Instead, you say, "No, there's a difference." For some people, the gift of giving is that they understand how to leverage some of the resources God has given them, or they have the ability to make and manage money and therefore to resource ministry at high levels. As for the gift of mercy, you know the difference between somebody who comes and expresses care to you when you are hurting and somebody who just says, "Well, I guess I should be merciful." There's a difference there. Understanding gifting is part of understanding just how God made us.
So what do we say about this for you and me today? If you're not using your gift in the church and as the church, why not? Some of us would say, "Well, it's a really busy season in my life. I'm building the business. We've got the kids. I've got somebody else to take care of. We'll get there, but right now we're just really busy." Can I encourage you for a moment? You may have a season, and that can be perfectly legitimate, but don't let your season become a year, become years, become a decade, become a pattern of a lifetime. Because here's something I can tell you, as somebody who has lived through a lot of seasons of life: you think your life will slow down, but it probably will not. In fact, ask anybody around you who's older than you whether their life is slower than when they were your age. It's different, but it isn't necessarily slower. My point is, if your answer to why you're not currently using your gifts is "I'm busy, and I'll get there someday," there's a chance that someday will always be in the future for you, unless you decide to say, "I'm going to start making this a priority today."
Some of us will say, "Well, I don't know that it matters what I do. The church seems to function with or without me." That's kind of not the point, by the way, because it's about you, not just about what the church needs. But imagine for a moment if the thousands of people who call Orchard Hill their church home all said, "In the church and as the church, I will use the gifts God has given me for the common good." Do you think some of the shortcomings of the church would be stronger? Do you think the impact in the community would be even greater? I do.
Some of us may say, "I don't know where or how to use my gifts. I don't even know what they are." We've done gift seminars here in the past, and we'll probably do them in the future. But having been around church a long time, I can tell you that gift seminars are rarely the answer. What happens is you go through a gift seminar and somebody tells you, "Here's your gift." Then you end up asking, "Okay, how do I use my gift?" And it ends up being basically the same process: you just have to do something and see whether God is in it and working in your life in some way.
In fact, for some of us, the reason we don't serve is that we're waiting for the perfect thing. We say, "One day I'll serve more, I'll do more, I'll use my gifting more, when everything aligns." The challenge with that is that rarely will everything align.
One of the passages I love, and have referenced many times, is Matthew 25, where Jesus is talking about the end of time, when he separates people into the sheep and the goats. He says to the sheep, "Enter my rest. You gave a cup of water to people who were thirsty. You fed the hungry. You visited the prisoners." The reason I love that is that at the end, they're like, "When did we do this?" And he says, "As much as you did it for the least of these, you did it for me." But here's why I love this: do you know what it doesn't say? It doesn't say, "You figured out how to irrigate the entire Middle East," which is an arid climate. It doesn't say, "You figured out how to eradicate world hunger," or "You figured out how to reform the prison system." No. It's "You visited a prisoner, you gave water, and you fed somebody." Those are simple next steps, things that are right in front of us. And those were the things that the God of the universe says he commends at the end of time.
What that means for you and me is that it isn't about having to find the perfect thing. Now, some of us may be in a place where we can do something on a grand scale, but for most of us, the question is: What is the next thing in front of me? What can I do right now to use the gift God has given me to contribute to the common good? When we do that, we start to participate in the life of the church, in the church and as the church in the world. And that becomes a way that we let the Holy Spirit work in us and be a manifestation of the Spirit. That's what 1 Corinthians 12:7 says: it's the outworking of the Spirit of God inside of us.
Now, I get that some of you may be thinking, "If I put my hand up and say, 'I'll do something,' what's going to happen is they're going to assign me to a third-grade class weekly for the rest of my life, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life with terrorists in a locked room." Most people who serve at Orchard Hill serve about once a month. There are those who serve weekly, and those who serve seasonally, even less. This is not "Sign up for every week for the rest of time." This is about what God has given you. And the church without that gift is not all it could be.
As you say, "I'm going to serve in the church and as the church," you begin to flourish, because you were created by God as his handiwork to do good works. When you simply say, "Well, I don't see myself that way," what happens is you don't bring something that somebody else needs.
I was talking to somebody last night after the service. This is a person who has some significant physical challenges right now, and the person was saying, "It's hard for me right now." I said, "I totally understand." I took a moment and prayed with this individual, and I said, "As you come, you encourage other people who have physical challenges. Maybe that's your ministry right now: to be the person who other people see, still in the midst of it all, bringing yourself to what God has." It doesn't have to be big. It's a cup of water. It's saying, "I'm bringing who God has made me, and God made me the way I am today as his work of art."
As you think about this, I want to hit one last idea. First Corinthians 12, 13, and 14 are obviously in order. The biggest teaching on spiritual gifts in our New Testament, at least in terms of verses, is in 1 Corinthians 12 through 14, but 1 Corinthians 13 is right in the middle of it. Usually when we talk about 1 Corinthians 13, it's at weddings, which is appropriate, although it's about work in the church. We usually read the verses that say "love is kind, love is patient," and all of that. But let me read to you the first three verses. Again, the context here is spiritual gifts. Here's what he says: "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing."
Here's what he's doing in the middle of this section on spiritual gifts. He says, "You know what? You can use your gifts. You can do all kinds of great things, but if you don't have love, I am nothing, and I gain nothing."
I remember one of the first times I saw this. I was in high school or early college, and I went on a mission trip. These people had set up a mission for some people who were disadvantaged in our country. I still remember getting there and being impressed with the setup. Then, as I started to talk to some of the workers, you could tell they had gotten to the point where the people they were serving were an annoyance to them. I remember seeing it and thinking, "There's something off here."
The idea is that the love you and I have needs to be the love of God. In other words, we don't come with an air of superiority, saying, "I have it figured out. I'm on a mission from God to somehow solve the world." This is especially true as you function as the church in the world. Sometimes, especially in this era of social media, you'll get people who say, "I'm speaking for God," and the way they speak for God becomes something that helps hardly anybody come toward God. Instead of leading with love, it's leading with "I'm just a person who exhorts; it's my gift." But here Paul says, "Listen, you can use your gift, but if you don't have love, you gain nothing. You are nothing in the grand scheme of things."
Now, where does that love come from? Ultimately, it comes from understanding and continually appropriating the gospel message. We talked about it right at the beginning. We are not saved by our works. We don't do works to gain something from God. Our gain is given to us by God, meaning God has chosen to love you and to create you as his masterpiece. Jesus has saved you. The Holy Spirit gifts you, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ. Therefore, whatever you have to offer, whatever you have to give, is not because you figured it out somehow, or because you're good and have it all down, but because of the grace and the goodness of the God of the universe. When that becomes your default standing, then you're able to say, "Whatever cup of water I have to offer, whatever I can do, is me functioning in the church, as the church, in the love of the God of the universe." That is really the essence of understanding the gifts that God has given people as a manifestation of the Spirit.
Let's take a moment and pray together.
I just want to say for a moment, if you're here today and you're saying, "I don't really know about God. I don't even know about myself and how I fit," maybe today the message you needed to hear was just this: God made you exactly as you are, as a work of art. He's calling you to acknowledge your need of Jesus Christ, that your own ways are not sufficient, but Jesus' ways are. Through faith, you can be saved today.
Maybe you're here today and you've believed in Jesus for a long time, but down deep you've thought, "Well, God tolerates me. I don't have much to offer." Maybe you feel like your best years are behind you. Perhaps today is your day to say, "God, I will choose to use what gifts and capacities you have given me, in the church and as the church, where you've placed me." That can look different for so many of us. But if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you've been given a gift by the Holy Spirit, and anything other than saying, "God, how can I use this for the common good?" is ultimately a rejection of the beautiful gift that God has given you.
God, I pray that you would help us to be people who lean into what you have given us and use it not just for our own ends, but for the common good. We pray this today in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Have a great week.
