The Gift of Teaching

0:17 We know in this series entitled Living in the Power of the Holy Spirit, this is a section of that particular series that deals with spiritual gifts. and while there are three categories of these gifts, 1 Corinthians, Romans, and in Ephesians, in Romans chapter 12, and you might want to turn there, Romans chapter 12, what we have is we have those motivational gifts that Paul speaks of in this chapter. And here's what he says in verse 6. Since we have gifts that differ, that is, in the body of Christ, there are seven different motivational gifts. Why different ones? because the body of Christ needs all different gifts. And if you'll notice, he's what these gifts are. And the truth is we all need each other. We all rely upon each other. He says we've been given these different gifts according to the grace given to us.

1:11 That is, each of us is to exercise them accordingly. That is, the fact that you have a gift from God to enable you, to equip you, that deep down inside motivates you. He says, these gifts are to be exercised for the good of the whole body. And if you'll notice what he says, he says, exercise them according, that is, to the grace of God that's been given to you. And then here's what he says. If it's prophecy according to the proportion of your faith, if service in his servant, he who teaches in his teaching, he who exhorts in his exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, and he who shows mercy with cheerfulness. There's seven gifts. all of us need in the body of Christ. So today we come to the gift of teaching. We've talked about prophecy. We've talked about service, the gift of teaching. Now, I want to be sure to clarify something.

2:03 And that is because you say when you listen to this particular area, well, you know, that's not my gift. Well, think about this for a moment. You do not have to have the gift of teaching to be an excellent teacher. You could have the gift of service. And what motivates you is your desire to meet a need. And whether it's in a classroom in school or whether it's in the church or whatever it might be, that motivation, that drive within you to serve, what happens is the person with the gift of service can make a fantastic teacher. The person with the gift of mercy can make a fantastic teacher. Or the gift of administration or the gift of giving, whatever it might be. You don't have to have that particular gift to be very, very effective. So, what I want you to see is this. You can't say, I don't have this gift, don't have that gift, therefore, because it doesn't make any difference what your gift is.

2:59 The issue is this. God has given you a specific gift, and He will give you areas in which you can serve. So, we come to the idea of the gift of teaching, which Paul speaks of here. So, when you think about the whole idea of the gift of the gift of teaching and ask yourself the question, well, what are the characteristics? Now, watch this. A person with a gift of teaching is very orderly about the way they go about things. They lay it out in an orderly fashion. Now, that person sometimes when you are talking to them and you want to ask them a question, sometimes they will start the way they think. And they will start at the beginning and they'll take you through the series and you'll say, well, no, no, look, just give me the bottom line. They don't think bottom line. They want to get you there in an orderly fashion. So, if you're in your home with your children, whether it's in your business or whatever it might be, the person with the gift of teaching has a way.

3:58 They present things and orderly organize. That's the way they think. And for you to try to get them to think some other way, you're wasting your time. Because listen, God has given them, that's the way He's wired them, to think in an orderly fashion. And think about it. The truth is we all learn more. We all understand better if somebody starts at the beginning, explains it, and takes it step by step. The second quality characteristic of the gift of teaching is to be very thorough. They're going to sometimes give you very long answers when you just want a short one because they like everything complete. In other words, don't leave anything hanging at the end. So, you and I have to learn to listen to people. And one of the things that's so important about this series most people do not know how to listen to other people. They don't. The reason is we all have our own agenda. And so we want to give it to me short, give it to me quick, give it to me the bottom line.

4:55 The gift of teaching, very thorough, desire to know, and sometimes can become a little irritating if a person is a little impatient, number three. And that is the need to validate the information that they hear. For example, the personal gift of teaching, you can give them some facts and you know what? what, they don't stop at that. They want to know, well, where'd you learn that? How did you come to that conclusion? So they want to know why. They want to know how. They want to know when. They want you to validate and to prove oftentimes. So very important for the person with the gift of teaching to be able to validate the source. And oftentimes what happens is those people are alert to facts and ideas that other people skip right over them. We'd hear it and just go right over our head. But with a person who has the gift of teaching, their ears are open to the facts.

5:49 They want to know each detail. And so, oftentimes, they hear and see what we don't. Then, for example, there is the great delight in studying and researching. For example, the person who has the gift of teaching, they love to study. Now, here's the issue. Sometimes the person who has the gift of teaching is just happy learning it. And here's what happens. If that person happens to be a pastor and he loves to study, and when he gets up to preach and to teach, his goal, what satisfies him is that he's imparted knowledge or something's missing. Part of the problem is, here's somebody who probably has the has the gift of teaching and who's just satisfied having studied, worked hard, given the truth, they're happy.

6:45 And the problem is this. Listen, proclamation without transformation in people's lives is just passing words. There are many people who stand in classrooms who know all about the text but do not know the person Jesus Christ. Because listen, if your goal is simply knowledge, if the only, if what satisfies you is the fact that you just know and you have no desire to share it, there's something missing. The person with the gift of teaching who is walking in the Spirit is not only satisfied with knowing, but they want to tell it. Truth is to be presented for the purpose not of just people gaining knowledge, but that God would transform their life. Proclamation for the purpose of transformation in the life of the person who's heard it. Now, as a parent, for example, you see, just giving children, for example, information, but it's application and helping them to see, and you see, the teacher must be willing to be open and transparent and say, you know what?

7:52 I failed at this point. Here's a lesson God taught me, and here's how I failed. This is what he had to do in my life to get me to learn that. What opens people's hearts to receive the truth is not some person who is perfect and leaves the impression of being perfect, but somebody who's willing to be open and transparent and say, you know what? God had to teach me some very difficult lessons and it was hard and I didn't do very well and He's run me back through that three or four or five times. People identify with that. Another point here of characteristic is simply this, and that is clarifying misunderstandings. Watch this. Let's say, for example, the gift of teaching hears some information and they go along with information. All of a sudden they realize that's not true. Here's what the gift of teaching does. The gift of teaching doesn't say, well, forget it. We'll find out later. No, they go back and they say, all right, now, what is it I heard? What is it exactly what they said? And they want to trace it all the way up to the present time to see why they arrived at the wrong conclusion.

8:48 Now, watch this. The person who has the gift of teaching when they're dealing when they're dealing with someone else, here's what they're going to do. You come to them and you say, I'm in this mess. I don't know how I got here. I wish I, I don't know what to do. The gift of teaching says, let's start at the beginning, orderly. Tell me where you think you got off course. What was happening in your life? What was your environment like when you stepped out of the will of God? Who was in your life when that happened? Why do you think that happened? And so, they're going to say, well, why did you make this decision? What happened here? You know what their goal is? Their goal is to start from the beginning to retrace the wrong steps to help you understand where you got off track in order to get you back on track to be the person God wants you to be. The gift of teaching is extremely important.

9:45 Now, you don't have to have that spiritual gift to practice everything I've talked about. But listen, the motivation, the motivation for the gift of teaching is what's the truth? Truth, they're motivated, they're motivated for truth. But they must also be motivated for transformation of life. Now, watch this. There are a lot of people out there who have trusted Jesus Christ as their Savior, never been to college, never been to a seminary, don't have any degrees, names not in the paper, not on radio, not on television, none of that. Godly people who have great godly wisdom. Do not underestimate the power of the work of God in a person's life because they don't have this degree or that degree or the other.

10:38 For example, my grandfather never went past the sixth grade and certainly never, he probably didn't even know where know where college was. Never went to college, never went to seminary. The four basic truths, four basic principles that have guided me all of my life, I heard from my grandfather, who was a preacher, who'd never been in a school. Don't underestimate people that you know who are godly people. And they have godly wisdom granted to them by the Holy Spirit because they they have read this book and read this book. I happen to have his Bible. And all the edges are solid black. And some of them are torn. When I looked through his Bible, I didn't see, I may have seen five or ten maybe pencil marks, but could quote it coming and going.

11:36 All teachers aren't seminary students or theologians of the type. there are some people who have godly wisdom, who know the Word of God, who are very, very practical, that you and I must not overlook in life. I'd rather go to somebody who says, I seen Jesus, which is incorrect English, who's really seen Him, than to someone who says, I saw Him, but never did. You want godly wisdom. and godly teachers can give us godly knowledge. It is the Spirit of God who makes you wise. Now, listen carefully. You have all the knowledge in the world you want, but if you don't allow the Spirit of God to apply to your heart, you can be knowledgeable without wisdom.

12:31 Wisdom is the result of obedience to the Word of the living God. That's the source of wisdom. not talking to people. The source of genuine wisdom is obedience to God. Read the book of Proverbs and you'll find that's exactly what it says. It's the result of obedience to God. So, what is our responsibility? To take truth that you and I hear, to take this truth and apply it to our hearts. And as we apply the truth of the Word of God to our heart and we watch God work in our life, what happens? We become wise. We become wise because we see how God works. We understand the ways of God. We see Him working in people's lives. We're able to relate what He's doing to the truth of God's Word, the facts of how did He work in Abraham's life, Moses' life, Joseph's life.

13:26 How did He work in Daniel's life, in Paul's life, in Timothy's life, in Peter's life? How did He work in their lives? You can have all the truth that you want, but until you're able, listen, and are willing to apply the truth, See how God operates. And let him work this in your life, you're unwise. And you and I can look around us and see in the American society, most American heroes are total disasters. Because you know what makes them heroes? The magazines and the television and the media. You know who the wise people are? People who are in the word of God. and people who know that they're absolutely, totally dependent upon God. People who walk in the ways of God. Because you see, when it's all over, your popularity, your prosperity, your human knowledge, your recognition, your prestige, your prominence, all of your wealth, none of that will make you wise because look around to see people who've got all of that and what a total disaster they are in life.

14:35 You know why? Because they've got everything but the truth. And they've applied all the world's principles. And they got to the top or somewhere close to it. And oftentimes they get to whatever the world calls a top. And you know what happens? They topple over. But the simple reason, you cannot violate the truths of the Word of the living God. You cannot. Now, let me just simply close with this. I was out west photographing and I went down into this canyon with my friends and it's about 25 minute, pretty straight down with switchbacks. Took us about 45 minutes to get out, really giving it our best to get out. So, we're down there photographing and all of a sudden, here comes two gentlemen. Never saw them before.

15:27 And he asked me if I were not standing. And I told him yes. And so, he begins this conversation. Starts talking about God and about the Bible. And so, I'm listening. About three minutes into that, I thought, well, now, what's this all about? And then he began to tell me what he believed. I didn't ask him. He was just telling me what he believed. And so, we got in this discussion. And what he was trying to do is to convince me that I was wrong, and he was right. And so, I listened to him for a while, and so finally, it all came to surface.

16:12 I said, well, tell me about the God you believe in. Well, you should have heard it. It is a God that he created in his own mind. And I listened to him, and I realized, here's a man who is so frustrated. Hey, listen, he knew things I didn't know. He could tell me things archeologically that I didn't know and didn't think there was really necessarily all that important. He could tell me all these facts and figures. And I thought to myself, what a shame. Here's a man who has all this knowledge. And he walked, he and his friend walked down in that canyon. He didn't even have a camera. He walked down in that canyon to find me, to argue with me about about what he believed, as if to convince me, because he wasn't about to be convinced of anything.

17:05 And the frustration and the hurt and the pain, instead of responding correctly, he just decided to be angry at God. And in his anger, he decided, he wouldn't say this, but he decided to create his own God. And I could say to him, my God has given me the greatest sense of peace and joy and contentment. Your God hasn't given you any of that. This is a man-made God that you're serving. And the truth is, you're going to end up one of these days in the greatest disappointment of your life when you recognize that all of this talk is your attempt to escape the God whom you walked away from. Knowledge is not the issue.

17:57 It is a personal, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. And then the Holy Spirit will help you to understand the truth of God's Word. And you'll understand the ways of God and how He operates, how He works. There won't be a place for pride and arrogance, but humility, submission, and surrender to the will of Almighty God. That attitude make you a great teacher. That attitude will make you a great Christian. That attitude will make you a great witness. That attitude God will use to help you to have an impact on other people because you're presenting the truth lived out in your life. And that's where contentment, joy, and peace comes.