The School Of The Spirit - Session 3

1 Corinthians 12, 5-11.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit of the common God good For to one is given, through the Spirit, the utterance of wisdom and to another the utterance of knowledge, according to the same Spirit To another.

Faith by the same Spirit To another.

Gift of healing by one Spirit To another.

The working of miracles To another.

Prophecy To another, the ability to distinguish between spirits To another.

Various kinds of tongues To another.

The interpretation of tongues.

All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit.

Who approve, a portion is to each one individually as he wills.

Great job.

Thank you, okay, nice job.

Yeah, joshy, I like being a tall man in the church, but you're about ready to pass me up.

Young man, you're a young man, right?

Okay?

So do everybody get your papers?

You don't have to use a paper if you don't want to.

It's just a tool that you can use to follow along and also to keep for later when you might want to remember what we talked about to share with somebody else.

So here's the first point.

The gifts of the Spirit are to be used for the common good, for the common good.

They are not meant to be used for our benefit as individuals, although we can benefit.

It's so much fun when God uses us to be a blessing to somebody else.

So it's like that verse that says it's more blessed to give than to receive.

There is a benefit that we receive from it in the joy of recognizing that God is speaking through us to somebody else.

But it cannot be with the motivation of how can I benefit from this?

What can I get from this?

Okay, so there's some listing of gifts there at the top of your sheet and we're just going to run through them real quick.

We're not going to go through and describe each one of these gifts in detail tonight, but I wanted you to have an overview that these are.

The passage that Josh just read from 1st Corinthians 12 is the listing of these nine gifts, so I wanted to make that clear tonight.

So the first one is revelatory gifts, and those are the gifts that help you to what it's right there on your sheet to know something, to know something.

So it gives you information that you do not know prior, but the Lord reveals it to you to be a blessing to somebody else, for the common good.

Okay, so revelatory gifts are the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge and discerning of spirits.

So those three, now the descriptions that we're using for the nine gifts, are found in the New King James Version, because that's what most of us learned back in the day when we were studying these scriptures, and so these nine distinctions or nine gifts that are talked about in this passage in 1st Corinthians 12 is most commonly referred to by the titles that are found in the New King James Version, but it's the same thing, it's just different wording and different translations.

So what is the word of wisdom?

So that first fill in the blank, I think, is wisdom the word of wisdom.

What is that?

It's a revelation of wisdom, usually about the present or the future, beyond natural human wisdom that enables a person to know what to do or to say to someone else.

So everybody understand that.

We read it one more time A revelation of wisdom, usually about the present or the future, beyond natural human wisdom.

In other words, it's beyond what I humanly know about that person.

Okay, that enables a person to know what to do or say to someone else.

Does anybody have an example of a time that you were either used by God to give a word of wisdom or a word of wisdom that you received personally?

Just a quick example of that.

If not, we're going to be working on it.

We're going to have one in the next couple of weeks, aren't we?

So a word of wisdom, and it's interesting because it's about the present or the future, because wisdom can't be used backwards.

Does that make sense?

You can't let go back to yesterday and apply wisdom to yesterday.

You can only apply wisdom to today or moving forward, right?

Neil Silverberg gave us, amy and I, a word of wisdom when he came to our church in North Carolina.

He met with us for lunch and we had been pastoring that church for 15 years 10 years by ourselves and we had come to a point in time where we loved the people, we loved being there, we were committed to it, we were faithful, weren't planning to make any changes of any kind, and he took us out to lunch and he just but I was expressing to him every year the Lord would give me like a direction for the year, something to consider and to bring to the church as vision and direction for the new year, and for that year I couldn't get anything.

It felt like the Lord wasn't speaking to me.

And Neil looked at us and said to us is it possible that God may have a different plan for you than you think that he has?

And we said well, not sure what that means.

He said let me make it even clearer Is it possible that God is finished using you here in this local church and he has something else that he wants to do?

Now, he didn't say it to us like in a forceful way, he didn't say it like thus says the Lord, but he said it to us in a way that we I could tell that God was speaking through him, and so what we did was we prayed about it and the Lord spoke to us that we were supposed to close that church and send everybody out as missionaries to other local churches who were.

A lot of them were denominational churches, which is great.

But they went out, you know, believing what we believe and the people that were a part of our church.

As we described that to them and explained what the Lord was doing, even though we were all heartbroken over the loss of relationship, we understood together as a group that this was the right thing to do.

And then Amy and I ended up moving to Florida and working with Neil for a year and at the end of that time he said to us we said to him, we went to dinner with he and Shelley and we said if you ever work in a local church again and you need some help, please let us know.

We'd love to be a part of that working with you.

And so we go back to North Carolina.

I'm working in a like a large Baptist church with several different sites in North Carolina as their life groups, pastor, and Neil, out of the blue, calls me up and goes you're never going to guess what I'm about ready to do.

He said I'm going back to Knoxville to pastor Trinity and I was.

The weird thing is I had been coming to Trinity for years prior to that because I was a part of TCOM, which was their College of Ministry, and so I would drive from Knoxville, north Carolina, four hours over here and be a part three and a half hours, three and a half hours over here, and I would be a part of the classes and then I would drive back and work and be a part of the church there in North Carolina.

I did that for quite a while, at least a year, maybe two years and and so, huh, two years.

Yeah, I think it was two years.

Yeah, felt like two years Just because of the driving, a lot of driving.

But I was so excited to be a part of that and whenever we were here, whenever I was here, it was like I felt like I was at home.

It was a strange thing and it's not like I was ever felt like moving to Knoxville.

It's just Trinity, the church, for some reason felt like home to us.

And so Neil said he was he's not great at marketing, I'll give him, he's a lot, he's great at a lot of things, but he said to us there's no job, the church is in deep debt and I can't guarantee you anything ever, but we'd love to have you come.

I'm just praying about it.

And so we prayed about it and here's the interesting thing we had moved our kids around within two years like four times, and there were teenagers and they were just getting settled into making another new friends group.

And so I looked at Amy and said I don't think I can do this to our kids.

I don't think I can.

Even you know, how seriously do we want to pray about this?

Because we may not want to hear the answer.

You've ever been like that in your life where you weren't sure if you really wanted to hear from God.

And so we just met with our older kids and we shared it, just told him what I just told you.

And Hannah, our daughter, who Probably doesn't like change more than anybody in our family she looked at us and immediately said we have to go.

And Amy and I looked at each other like oh, we weren't prepared for this.

What?

So we need to really seriously pray about.

In Jordan, right, jordan was getting ready to get plugged into a really good school.

He had been accepted to it.

It was like a prestigious thing where he was going to be able to do high school in some college, I think, at the same time and he was so excited about it.

But immediately he said she's right, we got to go, and so we prayed, and, and so what I'm saying is our kids Gave us words of wisdom from God because there's no way in their own minds that they would have contemplated.

They didn't have time to contempl, contemplate it.

Hannah's a deliberative person as well, which means she likes to think about things, think about things, consider them and then maybe give you an answer.

That might be like, I suppose, but when she said we need to go, it was like God was speaking directly through here, her to us, and so the miracle was that God provided money for us to be able to come to Knoxville and be missionaries to Trinity Chapel at the time for 18 months, provided all of our income, didn't have to worry about it.

And then, at the end of that time, there was a position that opened up in Trinity and Neil Brought brought me on board, not knowing again, not knowing this was nine years ago, not knowing that we'd ever end up in this place where I was.

I'm the lead pastor of Trinity Community Church.

So just an example of the word of wisdom, and I won't take time on all of these like that, but I think it's important for us to understand Practically what this looks like, because God may use you to do the very same thing to help other people.

Now, you don't want to put God's name on it, like I said, unless you're sure that he's you're hearing from him, but you can say things.

What is something you could say if you felt like God was speaking to you, if God was speaking something to me for Lance, how could I phrase that in such a way that would help him feel like he should consider this, because it but it's not an arrogant statement from me what is?

What are some phrases we could use?

Yeah, you can ask questions.

You know, lance, are you?

Have you been considering your future and trying to decide between going to a technical school or going ahead and just continuing to work like you've been doing?

That Could be, that could be a way, and then his answer to that Will help you discern whether or not you're hearing from God or not.

Right, and you might another way to say it yeah, you start with you know I love you, but yeah, yeah, those are.

There's only a few Samoaks in this world, so you got to be sure that you're one of those people first.

Yeah, we do miss him.

Yeah, but Another thing you could say is I feel like I, it feels like to me, like God is saying this, but you see how that leaves room for some humility in that it's very important, very important.

People have ruined other people's lives by speaking words over them that they acted on that were not from God, not from God.

So we need to, we don't need to be afraid from the standpoint of not doing what we feel like God is speaking, but we need to be careful in how we communicate that, translate it Okay.

So what's it?

Yeah, yeah, exactly the thing about that's good, about God.

We didn't just go on the word of our, our kids.

The Lord confirmed to us so many times over that he was the one that was speaking, and we needed that because we were so unsure of what we were really supposed to do and we knew it was going to take a great step of faith to step out without any income or any any hope of anything.

Yeah, gee, yeah, and that's humility too at the end of it saying you know, does that?

Does that make sense to you?

Does it mean I've, I've said give, said things to people in the past and asked them what do you think about that?

Does that fit for you?

Absolutely not.

Okay, well, you know what.

I made a mistake and I apologize.

Can we just pray that whatever it is that God wants to communicate with you, to you, that he'll do that in whatever way he chooses.

So we're it's not.

It's not like we're not walking around with capes on.

You know, here to save the day, we have a savior.

We don't need that and we don't need another Holy Spirit.

We just need people who are willing to be obedient, to step out and to take a chance on something right, because sometimes it's the very thing that people need to hear they really do.

So what's the word of knowledge?

How's the word of knowledge different than a word of wisdom?

Pretty basic difference.

Word of knowledge is about something that already has happened or is presently happening.

Okay, so a revelation of information, usually about the present or past for a person, group or situation that could not have been known by any natural means.

Any, any examples of that anybody has there was yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, and the thing about that is God.

God was there, god saw that, god knew what happened and so for him to be given that word of knowledge for that lady who is is in a these.

These ladies were in a drug.

They were forced into a rehab program by the, by the state, and I don't know how all that works, but basically they were in that system.

They came to the meeting that we had, the prophetic meeting.

They were being prayed for.

They came up for prayer at the end and this is an example of a word of knowledge it was given.

That's very specific in nature, now, the.

The good part is that it's good in some ways, but it was accurate.

I mean she had this had actually happened to her.

So for her, that gave her a Window, an opportunity for her to put her faith in God.

And she did, and the Lord set her free.

We had a Bible that she asked for.

We gave her a Bible and you know they went back to their program.

But that woman will never be the same again Because of the word of knowledge that God gave to an individual to speak to her, to let her know that God cares this much about you.

He knows, he knows about you, he knows your name, you know Powerful.

Next one is discerning of spirits.

Discerning of spirits this is a person's ability to perceive what type of spirit is an operation in a given situation.

So what if we're to list categories of spirits?

What are some categories?

Angels that's great.

Demons yeah, got two of the big ones crossed off.

What else?

God, yeah, yeah, I mean I would equate them unclean and demon, yeah, yeah, scripture uses different language to speak about what I believe to be the same thing.

We know that demons are the fallen angels that sided with Lucifer in heaven and God cast them out of heaven, and so they roam about this earth seeking to try to bring destruction.

That's what their job description is, right, but the good news is, for our young people especially there are two thirds of the angels that didn't fall, and so you put them, you put them up against each other, and plus we have God the Father, god the Son and God the Spirit.

It's no match right, and Jesus has already won.

He's defeated them, and so the only power that demonic powers have in the earth is the power that's given to them by people who choose to align themselves with the.

I'm just gonna say darkness, with the dark side of things.

We as believers, we can be influenced.

We can be oppressed, depressed.

You know there's lots of ways that demons can try to lie to us and get us to feel a certain way about something, but they have no authority over us as far as our spirit.

Our spirits, when we become believers in Jesus Christ, are born again.

They're made alive to God and there's nothing evil that remains within our spirit.

We're brand new and that's good news.

Now we can be again influenced and affected.

I didn't plan on going into all this, but we'll just trust the Lord in it.

So we'll talk about that more on another time.

There's also human spirits you can have.

God can give you discernment about human beings.

You know, and it's we have to again.

You have to draw a line, because it can easily become criticism or judgment, you know.

So you're looking at people and you say, oh, that one's this, that one's this, that one's that, this one.

If God's gonna give you discerning of spirits, there's a reason for it.

He either wants you to pray, he wants you to be careful, because maybe you're getting ready to enter into a business arrangement with somebody and the Lord reveals to you, the spirit reveals to you that this person's spirit is not right, that they are not wanting to help you, they're wanting to harm you, right?

So that's important, that kind of discernment really key.

So those are the, those are the.

Let me, let me just I just quickly just have this thought, because I don't know with all of all of the young people that are here, but there is such a drive now for the paranormal.

There's so many shows about it, so many.

It's just become culturally relevant.

Whatever you want to call it, it's just in the, it's in the front of everything.

Just want you to know that spirits that appear as another person who's already died are not from God.

That's, the Bible calls them familiar spirits, and so when you see what they call ghosts or they call paranormal, those are demonic powers who are appearing in a certain way.

The Bible says that Satan himself can appear like an angel of light, and that's why what question do we need to ask?

Any being that appears to us?

Well, any being, though, a good, bad, ugly, what is a question you can ask them to determine?

Yet you can say to them say, jesus, christ is Lord.

You can test the spirits.

And if they will not acknowledge the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord.

You know that that is not a spirit from God, right?

So even Satan, who could appear as an angel of light?

How do you think that all of these atrocities and world leaders that have done these wicked things have gotten to that point?

It's not because Satan appeared to them with a pitchfork and a, you know.

It's because he appeared to them in a way that lured them into a type of thinking that took them down a path that caused them to create havoc and ultimately, usually ruined their own lives.

Completely Right.

So, discerning of spirits, we thank God for that gift, the power gifts.

What are the power gifts about?

They, on the page, do something.

They do something, there's activity involved.

So the three that are on in the list there in 1 Corinthians the gift of faith, the gifts of healings it's important to see the plurality of that the gifts of healings and working of miracles.

So the first one there is the gift of faith, and that's the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit Upon the believer that empowers him or her to trust fully that God will act in a supernatural way at a particular time.

Okay, has anybody ever experienced this?

It's like you're in a situation that is desperate.

That is, you know if something doesn't change, it's not, it's going to end very badly.

And all of a sudden, it's like you feel this surge of power whatever you want to call it and this belief that, no matter what is you see happening right now, that God has something else that he's doing, and so you stand up in the midst of whatever it is, you're going around and make a declaration Right, has anybody experienced that before?

You have Christine, well, in Colombia especially.

Right, all kinds of yeah, some people seem to operate more in this particular gift than others.

It's not faith itself is a gift from God.

So it's not we're not just saying regular faith, which not looking at degrees either but regular faith that we have.

You know that trust in God that we have is normalized, but the gift of faith is like.

It's like Popeye eating spinach.

I mean, it's this larger than life belief that God has said to you this is going to, something's going to happen.

You can trust me in this.

You can stand on this.

I am going to move.

Okay, almost I.

Yeah, yeah, and that's awesome, man, the Lord just showed up in that moment in time when I had my crisis, I was seeing spiders and stuff.

I don't know what that means.

Is that?

That's another time, another story, another time.

So, yeah, we'll talk more about the gift of faith as time goes on.

Gifts of healings it's a supernatural manifestation for the healing of sicknesses or diseases in varying ways, without any natural source or means.

So when you think about your human body, lance, have you?

I know you do some lawn work, right?

So have you recently scraped yourself?

Or, you know, have you bled anywhere recently from doing your work?

Yeah, and if you treat that and leave it alone right, and aren't touching it all the time and all that stuff, what will happen over time?

It will heal.

Why is that?

Yeah, because God made our bodies.

He put in us the ability for us to be healed right, for our bodies to restore, to replenish, to rejuvenate, to refresh, whatever you want to call that.

So healing shouldn't be a foreign concept to us.

What I believe healing is is the speeding up of that process.

So it's, it's.

God can heal through a process, through a lengthy period of time, or God can heal instantaneously, or God can heal in a week, span, two weeks.

The timing is always up to Him, right.

So why would we need different types of healing?

If there are plural gifts of healings, why is that important?

Different sicknesses, right?

Different types of illnesses?

Some people seem to have faith for cancer and they just believe God that when they pray for cancer, that God is going to deliver that person, and they've seen that happen, you know.

So that may be one way.

Also, you think about a human being.

We're made up of more than just our bodies, right?

We have our soul and our spirit, and it could be that God gives you the ability to minister to people who are having a very difficult time in their minds, you know, and they're filled with anxiety or depression or fear, whatever that is.

So that's another reason why I believe that it's plural there gifts of healing.

The other thing is that you know, back in the day they've made movies about it in documentaries, but people that they would call healing preachers and basically the idea was that they could heal anything anytime, anywhere.

Now we know that Jesus did that because we can read in Scripture where he would show up somewhere, there'd be a crowd of people there, they'd all be crying out for him for help and he'd heal all of them.

So we know that there's the ability.

That can happen, but more times than not, god deals with individuals right.

And so there are times you read the story of Jesus when he went to the man who was was laying down by the pool of Bethesda and he asked him if he wanted to be healed, and Jesus healed him, right.

But there's also probably 75 or 100 people laying on mats around there and there's no indication we don't know for sure, there's no indication that the rest of them were healed in that moment.

So the key to this, in my opinion, in operating in these things, is you've got to be able to hear the voice of God speaking to you.

I'm moving right now on her life.

Would you be willing?

You know the Lord's like saying come into agreement with me in what I'm doing here.

And so we go and we pray with the individual.

Now we should pray.

If anybody asks us to pray, we should pray, right.

But there are certain times when it's obvious to us that God is moving on a particular person's life at a particular point in time, okay.

The next one is the working of miracles.

What's the difference between a healing and a miracle?

I'm going to come to this side now because you all are just so quiet.

What's the difference, do you think, between a healing and a miracle?

Yes, Miracle is sometimes unbelievable and impossible.

Yes, that's, she said the word.

It's something that man would say is impossible, but with God all things are possible, right?

So there are times when God decides to move sovereignly, to affect people's lives in such a way that it's obvious to them and to those that are around them that there's no way that this could have just happened accidentally.

There's no way that even a doctor could have caused this to happen, or whatever the case is, because miracles are more than just in the physical realm.

Right, one time, I'll just quick tell you a story this is going to.

I'm just not going to worry about getting through everything, is that okay?

Okay, because I think the stories are important.

There was a time when I was young, my dad was in it, and, if I've, you may have heard this story, but it's been a while.

So there was a time when I was young, my dad was a pastor of a church.

My brother and I and my mom and my dad lived on Easy Street that was the name of the street, but for us, at that particular point in time, it wasn't easy at all, because my dad had stood up for some things that he believed to be true in the Scripture, and so the people who were wealthy, that were a part of our church, rose up against that and told him, basically, either you change what you're teaching or we're gone.

And he prayed about it.

He looked at the Scriptures and he said I can't, in good conscience, not say what I believe the Bible is saying about these things.

And so they left.

Well, that left us, the church, my family, without any income.

It was just our, you know, the four of us and my aunt.

We went to church on a Wednesday night and right beforehand my mom was making.

We had two chicken pot pies that were in the back of the freezer.

It was all that was left in the house.

Food wise, she put those things in the oven.

My brother and I were so hungry, standing in the hallway smelling these chicken pot pies cooking, couldn't wait for them to come out of the oven.

Well, the beeper went off.

She opened the oven door and I don't know if it was just because she was, you know, distressed or what happened, but as she was pulling the tray out to take out the pot pies, they flopped over down into the bottom of the oven along with an uncleaned, an unclean spirit, an unclean oven that wasn't sanitary.

And so about that time my brother and I just got real quiet and my dad came in the room and he said we're going to trust the Lord and we prayed together as a family.

We left.

We went to church Wednesday night it was the four of us and my aunt.

My aunt gave a dollar in the offering.

So on the way home we stopped by I think it was Wendy's back then there were very few restaurants in Sheridan Wyoming but it was.

I believe it was a Wendy's and it was like a two for a dollar hamburger.

And so my parents ordered a two for a dollar hamburger, so two hamburgers, and they handed them back to us, and so my brother and I, you know scarfing down these hamburgers, and I remember looking in the mirror and seeing my parents watching us eating hamburgers as they were very hungry themselves.

And so we got home from that night, we unlocked the door and went inside and there were 12 bags of groceries on our kitchen table.

Now, all the doors and windows were locked.

Nobody had access to the house that we know of.

Nobody ever left a note or took credit for any of that.

But I'm telling you, the world's greatest food for kids was in those bags.

I mean, there was all the stuff that you would want as a kid.

There was even Catherine, I'm sorry there was some.

There was some sugar cereal in the bags and my brother and I really my mom was anyway we were pretty strict about that stuff.

So, and it was, none of it was expired, it was all good.

There were steaks in the fridge, there were vegetables and things in the freezer and to this day, as we tell this story, we have no clue how that miracle happened, except for God did it.

God did it.

God provided for us at a time when we had no other way to provide for ourselves.

Cool right, that really happened.

All right, the last category proclamation gifts.

These are gifts that say something.

They say something.

So we have prophecy, the gift of tongues and the interpretation of tongues.

So prophecy is what we're going to land on tonight.

Prophecy is speaking a message from God in a known language for a particular person or people in a specific moment in time.

Let me read that again, because there's a lot to it Speaking a message from God in a known language, a language that the hearer will understand, for a particular person or people in a specific moment in time.

So it's God giving a direct message through an individual to another person in their time of need.

Right, it may be a scripture, it may be a you know again, we've talked about seeing pictures it may be a phrase, it may be encouragement Lots of different ways that God speaks through people.

But to prophesy the word prophesy really just means to declare, to declare the word of the Lord.

So, brooke and Zach and the rest of the team, when they're up worshiping God, a lot of times they're prophesying, they're declaring the word of the Lord.

You know, sometimes on Sundays you'll see us as elders.

We're preaching along, we're talking about our points and all that, and then all of a sudden there's like this, that's the prophetic nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ that comes in, comes over us, so that we are able to declare a specific word for that moment in time.

Okay, and we'll get into there's a lot more detail there.

Gift of tongues is the supernatural ability to speak to someone in a language known or unknown.

But the caveat is the person who's giving this message doesn't know the language.

So it's a gift.

The gift of tongues is God giving you the ability to speak something in another language that you don't know.

Okay.

And then the next, the counterpart to that, is the interpretation of tongues, the supernatural ability to understand and explain messages spoken in tongues into the language of the hearers.

How many of you have experienced this in a church setting before tongues and interpretation?

Okay, yeah, so most of you.

So God may give a person a message in tongues that they say out, that they speak out, but then in.

We know, in 1 Corinthians 14, it says, if that happens in a public setting, that there needs to be an interpretation that comes with it.

Why is that important Confirmation?

And so that people can understand what it is that God is actually trying to say.

Right, and so the way I look at it is the gift of tongues.

We're going to talk about prayer language and we're going to really dig into tongues next time.

But the gift of tongues expressed in a public setting plus the interpretation of tongues equals prophecy.

So you put those two together.

They have to be together, they're partners, and so I always tell people and I tell myself if you're going to step out and give a gift, if you're going to speak a message in tongues, if nobody else interprets it, the person who gives it needs to be prepared to give an interpretation for it.

Now that does not mean that you understand.

Like it's not a translation, does that make sense?

So it's not like you have to be able to translate word for word what it is that God is speaking, but there's an interpretation, there's an explanation of the basics of what God is trying to say, right?

So I have seen times where it was interesting because the gift of tongues was given in a very loud, thundering voice that sounded very authoritative, and then the person got up to give the interpretation and they said the Lord just really wants you to know he loves you so much.

You know, and it's like it could be that could be the interpretation of the tongue that was given.

But usually, usually, if God's speaking a message to somebody, if the person that's speaking that message is yielding to the Holy Spirit, they'll pick up the tone of it as well, not just the actual words spoken out.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, let me tell you a horror story with prophecy.

Real quick Got to tell you the bad stuff so you can know the good, know how to find the good stuff.

But in our church in Wyoming same church my dad was teaching on the gifts of the Spirit and people were starting to get activated.

They're starting to hear from God and wanting to use those gifts.

And so one Sunday, in the middle of right in the middle of worship, a lady stood up and she said the Lord says some of you in this room need to stop gossiping.

In fact, there's one of you in particular that needs to stop talking about somebody who you know that you're talking about.

They were basically saying stop talking about me, right?

And the other woman that she was speaking to stood up and said the Lord says there are some in this room that need to be silent in the church because God is not wanting them to speak at this time.

I'm not kidding, this is going back and forth and I'm looking at my dad I'm like eight years old, thinking this is good.

My dad stood up and he said now, ladies, we can talk after the service if you want and work through this, but this is not God right now.

God's not speaking like that, and I have no idea I can't even remember what happened to those ladies, but it was an interesting thing.

When we use, when we put the name of God on something, that is really our desire, that we're speaking right or our words that we're speaking.

It's like the ultimate power trip to say and God said you need to shut your mouth.

You know, yeah, and I've wanted to say that before, but I haven't really felt led by God, so okay.

So 1 Corinthians 14, 1 in 3 says pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.

So before you ever get active in using the gifts of the spirit and I don't mean using them in the wrong way, I mean God using you in the gifts of the spirit the first thing that we have to know is that love is always the motivation behind using the gifts.

Even something that is corrective in nature, if not done in love is not from God.

Love is the key.

Okay, if you read 1 Corinthians 12 and then 1 Corinthians 14, what do you find in the middle of that?

A whole chapter about love.

And why is God put that?

The Holy Spirit put that chapter right in between the gifts of the spirit and how to operate in the church with the gifts of the spirit, because without love we're not representing Him properly.

Right Now, love can look like a lot of different things.

Many of us that have children, we love our children, but we've displayed that love in different ways based on what they needed at that time.

Right, okay, here's the reason why that's so important.

It's because what a person builds with their gift, they can easily be destroyed by their character.

So I have known many powerful people in my life who stood up with a microphone and spoke in such powerful I would call anointed I would say anointed or passionate ways that it would be hard to believe that this person would ever do anything wrong, that they must be close to being perfect.

The reality is, the gifts of God are given without repentance, and so there are times that a person who has been given a particular gift will operate in that gift, even though their lives are so far from where they need to be.

And the ultimate reason for that is because and I asked the Lord I went to a meeting one time where there was all kinds of crazy stuff going on, and I happened to know the minister who was speaking and I had been a part of a back room type meeting where I saw them just not displaying the character of Jesus.

I'll just say that.

So I'm sitting there and people are getting healed, miracles are happening, they're going up on the stage and sharing the stories and I'm sitting there going God, why are you doing this in this place with that person?

And he spoke to me.

I don't know how he speaks to you, but he speaks to me pretty plainly.

He said to me because my people have needs and they're reaching out to me, and so God can use a donkey to cause his word to be spoken or to cause his purpose to be accomplished.

But the problem is, you cannot go long term in that kind of state and not be exposed by God, because God cannot allow his name to be denigrated and abused.

And so we've seen their stories right now in the news of, unfortunately, and I don't look at these.

I never look at these with joy.

I always look at them with great sorrow great men and women of God who stood on stages and proclaimed the Word of God in such clear tones and notes and so powerfully, who are now denying that Jesus even is who he says he is.

How can you do that?

Well, because if you don't go deep, if your character isn't established first, if the first work of the Holy Spirit in your life is not the fruit of the Spirit, then you'll never be able to sustain the adrenaline, the rush, the excitement of being used by God in the area of the gifts.

And so that's why, at Trinity, we have spent the last several years focusing primarily on character and on the fruit of the Spirit.

We are now, I am now sensing that the Lord is wanting to now awaken the gifts of the Spirit because they can be used in such a way that will not destroy, that will not harm, that will build up and not tear down, and that's exciting to me.

That's exciting to me, and you guys are a part of that.

That's not going to just happen on the stage.

Okay, last point for tonight.

We are commanded, according to 1 Corinthians 14, to earnestly desire the spiritual gifts.

It's not like a there's no caveat like earnestly desire spiritual gifts, if you want to or earnestly desire spiritual gifts, to occasionally use or earnestly desire spiritual gifts.

There's no, there's no, but it's just all clear Now, to earnestly desire something is like it's not to be driven in the negative sense, but it's to be so desirous of it that you, that you're asking the Lord for it, you're pushing in, your, you are, you're open to hearing from him, and your reason for wanting that is not for your benefit, your own benefit, but to benefit other people.

And so God may never use you to raise somebody from the dead.

He may, but he may not.

But he sure might use you to speak a word of knowledge over somebody's life, or to speak a word of wisdom, or to have discerning of spirits to protect your family in the future.

There's all kinds of ways that the gifts of the spirit can be used in the right way.

Right, that makes sense.

If I were Paul and I was speaking to the church church at Corinth, which is 1 Corinthians, he's speaking to them, he's bringing correction to them because of immaturity in the way that they were using the gifts I would have probably said hey guys, you probably need to pump the brakes a little bit.

You know, let's let's just settle down, let's hit the pause button and and we'll revisit this once you grow up a little bit right?

But he didn't do that.

It's interesting.

He said to them don't you realize that spiritual gifts are what got you into trouble?

He did.

I would have said don't you realize that spiritual gifts are what got you into trouble in the first place.

The reason he doesn't say that is because spiritual gifts were not the cause of their problem.

What was the cause of their problem?

Huh yes, immaturity and carnality.

They were trying to mix living in the way you know, according to the ways of this world, with operating according to the spirit.

And Romans 8 clearly says to us that we who are born again, that we are to walk after the spirit, that we're to live by the spirit, and that's not primarily.

They're talking about using the gifts.

They're talking about how we're to walk out our Christian faith, how we're to live as believers.