What Is the Gift of Faith? by David K. Bernard Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript) Kind: teaching Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12, Galatians 5, Acts 27, Mark 16, Hebrews 11 Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--what-is-the-gift-of-faith Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page. Free to copy and share with attribution. ------------------------------------------------------------ well that's a good question to to answer it it it appears to me that we can look at these nine gifts of spirit and actually see that there there there are what you might call Natural counterparts actually I think there there seem to be three levels so let's take wisdom for example the the word of wisdom is one of the other gifts well there can be natural human wisdom so an atheist or a Buddhist or a Muslim can become a wise person in the things of life but then if if someone is born again and they're living for God studying the word of God they get wisdom that comes from the scriptures from their relationship with God which goes beyond natural human wisdom but I think we would agree every Christian can and actually should acquire spiritual wisdom in your daily life but then 1 Corinthians 12 says God gives different gifts to different people not everybody has the same gift but the spirit gives as he wills and it says a word of wisdom so there is a specific portion of wisdom for a specific time that goes beyond natural human wisdom that atheists might have or everyday spiritual wisdom that every Christian should have or acquire there is a Divine impartation of a portion of wisdom for a specific purpose well I would say the same is true of Faith you can have faith in a natural sense in a sense everybody lives by some kind of Faith um you turn on the light switch very few people can explain how electricity works we just believe we turn on the switch it's going to work and most of the time it does um so but then every Christian the only way you can be saved is by faith so obviously every Christian has saving Faith but then as you point out in Galatians 5 the gifts of the Spirit as we grow in the Lord one of those qualities that the spirit Works in US is Faith or maybe it could be translated faithfulness the only way you can survive in your Christian Life is living by faith every day so what would be the gift of faith that not every Christian has well again I would say it's a supernatural impartation of a portion of divine Faith or trust in God for a specific purpose I'll give you an example in Acts 27 Paul was um Shipwrecked and he he said I believe God that he's you know an angel of God appeared to me and said we're going to all be safe so I believe God and if you stay with the ship you'll be saved well Paul was not a nautical expert from a human perspective he had no logical way of thinking that everybody's going to be saved in the Shipwreck but he had faith and it it came more than just the faith that he had as a Christian or even an apostle but an angel of God appeared to him with a word from God and said you're going to be okay you're going to be all of you going to be saved I'm going give the whole the all the past of the crew will be saved if they follow these instructions so Paul confidently tells the C from the ship I believe God he's going to protect us but we got to stay with the ship so to me that's a gift of faith um it's given when you have an extraordinary need and humanly speaking you don't have faith to overcome that but God gives you the faith of other kind I you know so in that sense it would be closely connected to Miracles healings but not not exclusively Divine protection uh it reminds me of when uh mark 16 talks about if you take up serpents or drink deadly poison I don't think we should ever do that as a test but it's talking about Divine protection from unintended harm or circumstances if you find yourself in a dangerous situation physically or spiritually um God you give you Faith to protect you for that time but I also think there can be an extraordinary impartation of Faith to endure trials so Hebrews chapter 11 is the great faith chapter of the whole Bible it talks about all these Heroes of Faith by faith they did this by faith they conquered by faith they overcame by faith they had Miracles but then it talks about others by faith they endured martyrdom they were killed for their faith they were persecuted it took great faith to trust God even when they were being persecuted or imprisoned or executed so it may take as much Faith to go through a trial and maintain your confidence in God as it would to receive a miracle and maybe you know we probably all thought this we read some terrible stories of people going through great tragedies or persecution or imprisonment or death and we think I don't know if I could survive I don't know if I could could still believe in God if I if I had that kind of tragedy happened to me and the truth is well we probably couldn't but what we would say is if that ever happened we believe God would give a special impartation of Faith sufficient for that need I'll give you an example many years ago I was 22 I had a cousin who 24 he was in Ministry and he was out hunting with a ministerial friend hunting for deer and sadly however it happened his they got separated his friend looked and shot at a deer and it was actually my cousin and he was instantly killed what a great tragedy so I remember going to the funeral the night before the funeral we were there with my cousin and the young man who had actually shot him had come but he was he wanted to pay respects but he didn't really want to be seen because he obviously felt greatly responsible when my uncle who was my cousin's father heard that he said no he needs to come and he I watched him as he talked to this young man and he said look God knew what was going to happen God could have miraculously prevented it but he didn't so we just have to trust God you can't blame yourself because God could have stopped it but he didn't he said one young preacher has been killed but if you're not careful this will destroy you and a second young preacher's ministry will be destroyed if you don't get over this he says I forgive you I want to pray for you don't let your feelings of guilt and regret caus you to destroy your life and your ministry and so I watched him pray for the young man who had killed his son how could you do that to me this is the gift of faith uh now I'll give you on the positive side I'll give you another testimony again this is years ago so this was 1985 I was teaching at Jackson College of Ministries and we had hired a man to help us he was our maintenance supervisor he was African-American and he was an independent Baptist preacher well through our witness he received the Holy Ghost we baptized him in Jesus name he ended up starting a church so he had a great burden for some of his friends he told me he says brother Bernard there are a lot of Baptist preachers and deacons that they would love to have training pastoral training but they have no opportunity he said what if we provide an evening class he said I think I could get 20 preachers and deacons to come and take this class and we could teach them about Pentecostal Doctrine so I said okay let's do it so I had a class about 20 now some of them had received thein Sign Holy Ghost although they were Baptists or Independent Baptist and God was moving among them so I knew a few had received the Holy Ghost but most had not so I just methodically started going through the book of Acts just teaching them the Theology of Acts well Lesson Four I felt you know what it's time to respond so at the end so here you got maybe 20 or so or more of these Baptists and I said um would you like to apply the lessons if you would God wants everyone to receive the Holy Ghost as we've been talking about said but to do that you can't come boasting and bragging I've been a preacher for 10 years I need the Holy Ghost you have to come humbly repenting surrender to God so I walked them through repentance and faith and I said let's pray so we all the whole all of us started praying well and I explain to them once you I feel that you've fully surrendered to God God you just start raising your hands worshiping God I will come lay hands on you and you just expect you're going to receive the Holy Ghost you're going to speak in tongues so we're all pray I went to the there was a great atmosphere of faith and I went to pray the first guy well we he was instantly speaking in tongues so I realized this is one of the guys that already has the Holy Ghost so I don't need to be praying for him so I went to the next guy prayed for him well he started speaking tongu so I well I need to find somebody that doesn't have the Holy Ghost so I ran the whole thing it turns out in a few minutes time five of these men had received the Holy Ghost instantly to me it was the gift of faith and operation it was more than just a normal service it was just an explosion of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost that superseded anything I could have said or done I believe it was in some way the gift of faith and we believe the gift of faith and all these other gifts of the Spirit are available for our listeners if they'll pray and seek earnestly the best gift Paul said they all work together and the thing is you don't have to try to pick and choose well I want this I want that and you can't make it happen and you can't give it to someone else but here's the thing if you're full of the spirit and your sense of the spirit and you're just seeking God and you don't care what gift or even if you don't know the definition you just want the will of God and the work of God what will happen is God will use you or bestow those gifts as they are needed at that time