Unlock Your Gifts | Pastor Brandon Beals | Venture Church

Hey, everybody, this is Pastor Brandon. I want to thank

you for watching our YouTube channel. Please in the comments

below let us know where you're watching from. It's always

a blast for us to see from where people are

watching from around the world.

Thank you for watching. Enjoy the service, guys.

All right, you guys can all grab a seat. Thank

you for coming to Venture Church. If I have never

met you before, I'm Brandon. I am the lead pastor

of the church. If you're new to Venture, I'd love

the opportunity to say hi to you. I'll be hanging

out in the lobby after the service. Please come up,

introduce yourself to me. I'd love the opportunity to shake

your hand. Love the opportunity to meet you. I want

to welcome to some of our guests. You might have

noticed a bunch of motorcycles out front and all these

guys in the front row and gals. They are a

part of a minute. Why don't you guys all stand up.

They are a part of a ministry called Black Sheep

in a good way. This is a Christian motorcycle club.

They're just here today to say hi. They'll be hanging

out in the lobby by the bikes after the service.

If you're a biker here, you're looking for some guys

to ride with and gals to ride with.

Talk to them.

They'd love to talk to you about their ministry, love

to introduce themselves, and probably show off their bikes. Thanks guys,

thanks for coming today today. This is the I'm starting

off with a bunch of announcements.

Isn't this awesome?

We have about ten people from Venture that are hiking

Mount Baker right now, my wife and my son in.

Law being two of them.

And they're hiking Mount Baker raising awareness and raising support

for one of our ministry partners, that is an anti

sex trafficking organization called at List Free. So just do

me a favor. Be thinking about them, be praying for them.

My wife is a crazy person who hikes all over

the world, and she's actually a little bit nervous about

last night. I could tell she was nervous. So be

praying for them, and say an extra special prayer for

my wife who's nervous. But she'll do fine, all right.

Grab your bibles. First Corinthians, chapter twelve, verse one. We

are in the middle of a series on the Holy Spirit.

Get ready, you were warned First Corinthians, chapter twelve, verse one.

These are the words of the apostle Paul. He says,

now about the gifts of the spirit, brothers and sisters,

I don't want you to be uninformed. I want to

ask everyone to buy your heads, close your eyes, repeat

this prayer after me. Everyone say, Dear Jesus, speak to

my heart, change my life in Jesus' name.

Amen.

I acknowledge that my journey is unique. Not only is

it unique to me, I mean all of our journeys

are unique to us, but mine is, in particular a

unique journey. I didn't grow up in church, started going

to church when I.

Was in high school.

I had like no church comprehension, no church Bible knowledge

at all until I started going to a large, wild,

crazy charismatic church. I end up getting saved at this large,

wild charismatic church. And remember, when you have no church

paradigm to begin with, the only church that you've ever

seen is this large, crazy charismatic church.

What do you naturally assume every church is like you?

Assume every other church is like this church that I

got saved in.

And I was very wrong.

I didn't realize how unique my experience was at the

church that I started going to. Every gift of the

spirit was evident in almost every service. In fact, the

services were like two and a half three hours long.

In the middle of worship, there was a microphone in

these be like a microphone in that aisle and a

microphone in that aisle, And during worship, people that were

attending would come and they would stand in front of

this microphone, and it would like sometimes go all the

way back to the auditorium, and then there would be

a pause in the middle of worship when the people

that were standing in these microphones would begin to move

in their different gifts of the spirit. They would give

prophetic words, they would give words of knowledge, they would

give a tongue that would then be interpreted.

They would share.

Discerning words, and this would, honestly, at any given service

go on for like forty five minutes. If you ever

wonder why we don't do that at venture in the

midst of our morning service, because it would go on

for like forty five minutes. But this was normal. So

I assumed this was normal, and so like everyone else

in the church, I sought Jesus for what my spiritual

gifts were and I can honestly tell you that I

knew all about the Holy Spirit before i'd ever read

the entire book of Genesis. I was speaking in tongues

before I could tell you who Abraham was. I was

used what I believe was in the prophetic. Before I'd

read the four Gospels. I had seen people healed, undeniably,

absolutely seen it with.

My own eyes.

Before i could tell you not who the twelve disciples were,

but who three of the twelve disciples were, I'd seen

God move in extraordinary ways before i'd ever read One

Corinthians twelve, verse one. Needless to say, getting saved in

this environment, I have had zero hang ups with gifts

of the spirit.

Zero.

I have now been a pastor for twenty two two

years leading this church, and I realize my experience is

unique to most of yours.

So I want to.

Talk to you today about what I believe are the

two things.

That you need to accept and.

Unlock to open yourself up for more of the Holy

Spirit in your life. We've been talking about when you

come to church, seek after God, seek after God's Spirit,

and there are many of you. Your testimony would be

I have responded to services I've gone forward.

People have prayed for me.

This has happened for years and nothing has happened, and

it's frustrating, it's almost hurtful. You don't understand why. And

I believe that there are a couple things that we

need to unlock that fully put us in a position

where we can receive from God. And I want to

set you up to tell you what's happened in the

next couple weeks. Next week, Pastor David is making his

preaching debut Adventure.

He's very excited, and.

David is going to talk to you about the importance

of worship entering us into the presence of God.

So that will be awesome.

Then the next week, a great friend of Venture Church,

Jared Ming, Senior pastor of Higher Vision in Los Angeles,

is coming. He's going to be talking about baptism and

the Holy Spirit in the morning, and then we're doing

a revival service at six o'clock that night where we

are going to pray that you are filled with the

Holy Spirit. Alters will be open. We are ready to

wait seek Jesus. Believe that God will touch you. My

job today is to put you in a position to

receive in those services. So I want to help you

unlock these two areas that sometimes we get wrapped up in,

and they are the reason why we are struggling to receive.

Number one is this, you need to unlock first fruits

in your life. So last week I shared with you

from the second chapter of Acts, and I described Peter

before the Holy Spirit, and then I described Peter after

the Holy Spirit, and I asked you what changed, and

I at the end I gave you the punchline, which

was Peter encountered.

The Holy Spirit and he was different.

You might have missed the setting with which the Holy

Spirit came the first time I taught on it, but maybe.

It didn't set in.

So this is the understanding of first fruits. So when

the Holy Spirit came the first time, the Israelites were

celebrated the festival of Shavuoat, and now I figured out

how to pronounce it, thank you, because I got corrected

so many times after that service. And the festival of

chavu Oat is the harvest festival. This is the festival

of first fruits. The Israelites had been celebrating this for

a couple thousand years. Israelites from all the nations around

Jerusalem would travel to Jerusalem during this festival, which is

also known as the Festival of Pentecost, and they would

come and present their first fruit offering. This was the

first of their harvest, and they would do this as

an act of gratitude to God. It was thanking God

for the harvest and believing that God was going to

continue to send a harvest in the months to come.

So all of.

Israel celebrated this festival in Jerusalem, and it was all

about giving this offering. And you got to think of

it this way. The atmosphere in Jerusalem was one of joy,

one of thanksgiving, generosity, gratitude. It was I would say,

it was a worshipful spirit all through Israel. And that

is the setting with which the Holy Spirit came the

first time. And I think some of you you were

struggling to receive because you don't understand the principle of

giving your first fruits. You need to start giving, you

need to start tithing. You're asking God to give you

a gift, yet you were being stingy.

Those two things don't make sense.

You're asking God to give to you, but you are

withholding from God over here for whatever reason, and sometimes

people say, well, peebe man, I don't tithe because I mean,

I just I got issues with it and all the

different issues that people have, And they say, I don't

tithe because man, I just don't feel it. I just

don't have a good attitude about it.

Do you know?

Sometimes you do things strictly out of obedience.

That's why you do it.

You do it initially because you're supposed to do it.

You know how many.

Things I do because I'm supposed to do them, but

I don't necessarily want to do them. When I drive

home after church, I don't want to drive thirty five

miles an hour down thirty fifth, I want to drive fifty.

Why do I drive thirty five? Because I'm obeying the law. Hopefully,

there are some things we do out of obedience.

Here's the crazy thing about giving.

When you start giving just simply as an act of

obedience to unlock God's blessing in your life.

For some of you, what is that blessing?

That blessing is the Holy Spirit coming on your life.

There are some of you what is locking you out

of this encounter is because you are struggling with the

area of generosity. Once that happens. It opens you up

and you can receive. It begins with obedience, but then

you see God come through. You see God meet all

your needs. Like every preacher throughout history is ever said

about giving, and then it starts happening to you, and

then giving transitions from obedience to generosity. I shared the

story in the first service, and I'm gonna share it

in this one. I did lunch with a younger guy

in our church. He's in his early twenties, he's been married,

is in fact, his one year wedding anniversary is the

month of August. And I didn't know why we were meeting.

I was just excited to get to know him better.

And halfway through our conversation, he goes, Peepe, I want

to talk to you about tithing. And I said, okay,

And here's what I knew about this kid. I knew

that since he was a teenager he has been tithing,

and now he is a very successful for his age

person and he continues to tithe.

I have noticed.

So I didn't know what he was going to say,

and he says, he goes, you know, I really struggled

with tithing, and I was like, I was surprised hearing

that because this kid is so generous. And he said,

my parents met with me when I first got a

job at fifteen, and they talked to me about tithing.

By the way, those are some good parents.

And they said this.

They said, we are not telling you you have to,

but we wanted you to know that this is something

that we have done since we gave our lives to Christ.

And then they talked about the blessing that God has

been in their life, and this family is like incredibly blessed.

And they said, we're not telling you you have to

do this, but we wanted to let you know that

we do this. So I love the fact that they

taught their son but didn't make their son. And so

he started tithing his minimum wage job at fifteen. He

is very successful and now he continues tithing.

And he brought this up to me.

He said, at first, I only did it out of obedience.

He said, in fact, there were times I felt guilty

because I didn't really want to tithe, but I did

it anyways. And he said, now my whole life is blessed,

my marriage is blessed, everything about us is blessed. And

now you know it's transition from obedience to generosity. By

the way, that's the process, it really is. Starts with obedience.

You see God come through, and then it is the

joy of your heart to give. He ironically was meeting

with me because he wanted to know if there were

other needs in the church that he and his wife

could fill, Like, are there people that need help over here?

Can I help send more kids to camp over here?

And again, I was just reminded of the simple fact.

If you're here and you make one thousand dollars a month,

and you struggle tithing one hundred dollars, and you think,

someday I'm gonna make more money and.

It'll be easier to tithe.

Do you think it's easier when you make ten thousand

dollars to write a thousand dollars check.

It doesn't get easier.

You learn that principle and that discipline while you're young.

It begins as an active.

Obedience, and it transitions into just a generous heart.

I've told you over and over again that I.

Believe it is irresistible for God to bless a generous person,

that if you were generous, God will bless you. That

was the setting with which the Holy Spirit fell the

first time. They were coming in an active gratitude, in

an active generosity, giving of their first fruits. It is

important to know they did not do this at the

end of the harvest. They did it at the beginning

of the harvest. They did it knowing and believing that

if we, as an act of obedience and submission, give

our first fruit, God is gonna bless the.

Remainder of the harvest.

Some of you, that's your step today is start giving,

give your first fruit. Starts with obedience and it eventually

morphs into generosity. And did you know God is okay

with you giving begrudgingly. He's okay with you giving as

an act of obedience to him. He's okay with that.

The second thing that you need to unlock is that

many people, when it comes to the Holy Spirit, need

to be informed. What does Paul say He said about

the gifts of the Spirit.

I don't want you to be uninformed.

What a weird word that he used, And just about

every translation of one Corinthians twelve to one uses that

same word.

He doesn't want us to be uninformed. Let me use some.

Other words that he could have used to help explain

it a little bit better. He could have said, I

don't want you to be unaware. There are some of

you you just have never heard about the Holy Spirit before.

You'd heard about a trinity, and you'd heard about this

Holy spirit, holy ghost in the trinity, and it just

kind of seemed oooh out there a little bit, and

you're just unaware of the Holy Spirit. There are some

of you you're confused about the Holy Spirit, maybe because

you've been in environments where people claim to be spirit filled.

Then you see them outside of that environment and they

live like the devil, and it made no sense.

And so when people talked.

About this, it's just a confusing topic because their life

does not bear witness to the things they say, and

that can be confusing. There's others of you you're just

you were raised in church, but you're just ignorant of

this topic because you were raised in a tradition where

they never talked about it, and all of a sudden,

you come to venture this large charismatic church that always

seems to be talking about the Holy Spirit and it's totally.

Foreign to you.

It's not that you are unwilling to learn about it.

You just don't know much about it. There's others of you.

Uninformed means you were duped, You believed things that you

ended up finding out did not align correctly in the future.

I want to explain something. So I was a youth

pastor in the nineties. Now, the nineties they call it

today the heyday of youth ministry in America. This was

back when youth ministries were mega youth ministries. The youth

ministry that Pastor Tyrone, who I introduced last week, that

he and I led together in Modesto, we had over

a thousand students. For years, I pastored a church smaller

than the youth ministry I left to start the church

to leave then when I was at a church in

Everett that some of you were a part.

Of my youth ministry.

There, our youth ministry was over five hundred students.

It was huge.

Nowadays, churches with a large youth ministry like Venture, there's

one hundred students in the youth ministries. So I was

a youth pastor during the mega youth ministry days in America.

One of the reasons.

That youth ministries were so huge back then is it

was a I would say a youth revival happened, there

was a move of the spirit, and there were lots

of things going on in the services. But one of

the things that happened we called it, Uh, let me

explain before you leave. When I say this, all right,

we called it being slain in the spirit. You've probably

seen it, maybe in some tiktoks or maybe some reels.

You've seen some videos. You've seen this before. It's when

people get prayed for and they fall over. Okay, So

that was a phenomena that was normative in the nineties

in church. Now I bring that up in some of

your like, oh, no, here we go.

I knew.

I knew the venture was gonna eventually come true eventually, Okay.

I started doing research on this.

Because I am an academic, and I studied this like crazy.

I could not deny that in a lot of instances,

God was sincerely moving in the lives of people. I

also couldn't deny that there was beginning to be learned

normative behavior that wasn't necessarily God moving, but people were

doing what had become normative behavior.

He following me, So I thought, what does the Bible say?

And honestly, I couldn't find it anywhere I could stretch

scripture to say, well, you could maybe say this was it,

and things like that. So here's how I concluded this.

I concluded that being slain in the spirit so weird

to say it because it sounds so painful, slain in

the spirit. I concluded that this was a human response

to the presence of God. A human response to the

presence of God. Can I tell you what else? Is

a human response to the presence of God. Crying like

all of a sudden you feel the presence of you weep.

Sometimes you feel the presence of God and the hair

in the back of your neck stands up. Sometimes you

just kind of just tremble when you're in the presence

of God. There are times like you can't help yourself.

You just have to come forward during worship and worship

in front. It's a human response to the presence of God.

Falling on your knees is a human response to the

presence of God. By the way, none of those things

are wrong, not one of them.

What's good for you is good for you.

But when you start going to services seeking after a

human response to the presence of God, something is wrong.

That is not right. We are never to seek after

a human.

Non biblical response to the presence of God.

And by the way, none of those things are wrong.

If you're a cry or cry, if you're a shaker shake,

if you're a dancer dance, if you're a faller, fall,

I don't care what you do. But the goal of

a service is not for you to have a human

response to the presence of God. That's where things got

screwy for people. That's where people got duped because we

are never to pursue a human response to the presence

of God. Who are we to pursue the God like

we pursue God, We chase after God. We pursue the

Holy Spirit, not a human response. And so some of you,

the whole talk of the Holy Spirit, you have PTSD

from your youth days in the nineties, and it just

it just you're like, no, I'm I want to step

away from that.

I get it. Others of you.

Uninformed for you means you were just taught wrong. You

were in services where they weigh over emphasized things, or

you were in services where they just flat out didn't

teach things, and you just grew up with incorrect knowledge

of the Holy Spirit. When I started realizing this confusion.

It actually this kind of shout out to my Wednesday

Night growth group people as a bunch of you here.

It happened because.

Of my discussion with them. In our discussion, I asked

this simple question. I said, what hang ups do you

have about the Holy Spirit? Because growing up with my background,

I got none. Like I got none at all. I've

seen everything. I've seen abuses, but I've worked through them.

I've seen it be real and I want more of it.

I have none.

But I couldn't deny how many people had legitimate hang

ups in there. And I thought, well, the difference really

is my upbringing versus theirs.

And you struggle with this.

If your upbringing is one of these three number one,

you were a part of an upbringing that had an

over emphasis on one gift and no emphasis on the

other gifts. This is a shout out to my AG brethren.

AG churches are amazing at teaching the gift of speaking

in tongues and terrible at mentioning any other spiritual gift.

In One Corinthians twelve, Paul very clearly lines out nine

different manifestation gifts of the spirit. Some of you are

hearing me say the word manifestation, and you were thinking,

I don't know if I like that word. That word

sounds crazy. All that word means is an action or

event that clearly shows or embodies something.

So it is an.

Action or event that clearly shows you are filled with.

The Holy Spirit.

Paul gives nine examples of them in one Corinthians twelve.

Some of you were raised in a tradition where it

was only speaking in tongues, and you would come forward

and week after week, year after year, you were prayed

for it, and nothing happened, and you left the service

wondering does God love me? Is there too much sin

in my life? Maybe these other people are more spiritual

than I am.

How do I know that?

Because I have been doing this job for over thirty years,

I have heard it a lot. And that is because

they failed to teach you that there are actually nine

clear manifestations of the spirit. So the following week in

our growth group, my wife asked tell us a story

where it might have been the Holy Spirit working in

your life, and one after another they would tell stories.

So this is the week following the hang up on

the speaking and tongues thing. The next week they're telling stories,

and after each story, for those that were there, they'll

tell you this was true. I paused, and I say,

that was discerning of spirits. After they would tell that

is the gift of wisdom. You just had a word

of knowledge. God just used you in the prophetic And

I would point out one after another, and I said,

you're describing what a spirit filled life is. You all

have evidence of the Holy Spirit in your life because

you have one of those nine manifestations of the Spirit

in your life.

Some of you, you're.

Hung up on speaking in tongues, and I'm telling you,

I'm an ag pastor. Again, I spoke in tongues before

I knew who Abraham was. But I'm telling you you

can let it go. You can seek after other stuff.

In fact, many of you, God has been clearly using

you in other gifts of the spirit.

And you feel less than.

Someone else solely because you've never spoken tongues before.

Let it go, be okay with it? Yeah, there you go.

Sean's gonna bust out in a Taylor Swift song. True story.

My wife Die, You all know Die. She's probably the

most spiritual person you know. When you think of someone

who's spiritual life.

Do I respect or look up to?

Most people say Die, I can be baiting someone for

a compliment, saying, all right, who do.

You look up to spiritually?

And I'm like, maybe you know this person's been investing

in your life, maybe you started at church. I mean,

I can be baiting for the compliment and they'll say,

you know, Die. That happens all the time. I joke

that if this is a joke, by the way, I

joke that if God ever decided to expand the Trinity,

and I is God, Jesus the Holy Spirit.

Maybe a fourth would be Die. So that is my wife.

Here's what you don't know about Die.

When we first started dating, we were students at Northwest University, freshman.

I had gotten saved recently at this wild, crazy charismatic church,

and I was a holy role times one hundred. I mean,

I was all about God moving. Die got saved at

a Lutheran church where she went all the way through confirmation,

and she knew the Bible backwards and forwards, but had

never heard about the Holy Spirit before. So crazy charismatic

guy and deeply intellectual educated girl start dating. Guess what

we fought about for weeks the Holy Spirit.

I didn't care about Abraham.

I wanted to know when was the last time God

used you somehow? And we would just fight like crazy.

It was the only thing we thought about. And then

one day the Holy Spirit speaks to me and says,

tell her to get up five minutes early the next day.

And then she normally would and just pray and ask God,

all right, I'm tired of fighting with Brandon about this.

If this is real, touch me tell her to do that.

Now I had an option in that moment. Some of you,

this is the mistake you make when all of a

sudden God speaks to you. You have got to make

it some orchestrated production. Maybe you're drinking coffee with someone

the Holy Spirit begins to speak to you about that person.

You're one of those people that does this.

Hold on, I think God's speaking to me, and then

you stand up in front of everyone at the coffee

shop and say, thus, say.

The Lord, get up five minutes early.

I mean, you're one of those people, and you wonder

why people think you're weird. I knew that if I

did that, it was probably gonna end my relationship with Die,

So I did it. In a normal conversation. I was like, hey,

we're always fighting about this. We just let's just try

one thing. Let's just do this.

I felt clearly God had spoken to me about this.

But if I would have.

Said God said to her, I'd have been shut down immediately.

And by the way, why do we do the orchestrated thing.

I call it show off time? Really makes us look

super spiritual. But most of the time the Holy Spirit

moves in your life, it's really normal.

It's an urge.

We talked about the word unction last week. You just

have a thought and instead of making it.

Weird, make it normal. So I just said to Di, go,

why don't you, why don't you do this? Get up

five minutes earlier than you normally?

Would you just pray and just say I think my

boyfriend's crazy, But if this is real, touch me and

I will get up five minutes early too, and I

will pray that something will happen to you.

Let's do that. And I said, and here's the deal.

If you do this, die and nothing happens, I will

never bring this up again. So the only reason she

did this is because I swore i'd never bring it

up again. And my wife is one of those people

that like, she holds me to everything.

I say, always so uh.

She gets up the next morning does what we had

agreed to do. I had to work all day and

so it was the end of work. I get a

phone call from Die and I'm telling you, I was

dreading this call because I thought this was gonna be

We're never talking about this again now.

And this is literally what she said. She goes, uh, she.

Goes Brandon it happened, And I go, what happened? She

goes the speaking and tongues thing. I went, wait a second,

you smoking tongues? And she said it was this subtly

she goes, I think so, And we never thought about

it again, and she became super digh.

Over the years.

But there's a lot of people that are confused because

there's been an over emphasis on one gift and no

emphasis on the other gifts. Another one like dies, there

was just zero emphasis on any gifts. I went to

a Lutheran church that never taught through the Book of Acts.

At best, she would.

Have thought that the gifts of the spirit ended with

the apostles in the Book of Acts. There are some

of you you just have never been taught on the subject.

You're super smart, you're educated in just about every other

area of God's word, but you have to accept I'm

ignorant when it comes to this. And my advice to

you is really simple. You should always be inhumility, in

a position that says, if there's more of God to have,

there's more of God I want. In other words, your

attitude should just be one, all right, Jesus. I don't

know if this is real or not, but I'm open,

touch me, feel me. If there's a chance this is true,

I'll come forward, have somebody praying for me, and just

believe that you could do something. Last one and I

know this one's legit too. There's some of you you're confused.

So the uninformed category is because you've witnessed abuse of

the gifts. You witness people that I've seen these reels too.

I've seen these tiktoks too. It embarrasses me too. I

am not embarrassed by the ministers that abuse the gifts.

I'm more intrigued by people that are willing to follow them.

I just don't understand that because I stand in the

lobby after every service and I get questioned by things

I say by.

Like thirty people every service.

So I don't know how people can say things that

don't align biblically.

And there is just a bunch of sheep that follow.

I don't get it, but I acknowledge that there are

some of you. You're hung up because you witnessed abuse,

you experienced the abuse of these gifts, and your response

is I don't want anything to do with that ever again.

And I would challenge you, don't throw out the baby

with the bathwater. The problem that we have is that

we are not supposed to seek after a leader, chase

after an experience. We are to seek after the Jesus,

chase after the God. We are to chase after him.

And whenever we make a man or a woman a hero,

that is a minister, we have taken them out of

the position that they're supposed to be. I've told you

hundreds of times that my job is to make Jesus

the hero of the story. If Brandon becomes the hero

of the story, I have failed. I am simply a spokesman.

That's it.

I am no better than the male man. You don't

care about the male man. You care about the male

If you're a male person we do care about you.

Please do your job right. But you get my point,

and I realize there are people that you experienced abuse

and it messed with you. And I'm gonna tell you

don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, because there's

way more of God that you are missing out on

and you could be experiencing. Finally, this is all I

want to say, is just three words. I shared this

in the first service. Did you know that this was

just my introduction. I was actually going to teach through

the nine manifestation gifts of the Spirit. And then after

thirty minutes, I was thirty five minutes. I was like,

I only got through my introduction, So we're cutting that out.

I'll do a podcast where I'll teach on it or

have a little bit more time. But three words that

I want to leave you with. Gift God, Good gift, God,

Good gift.

God Good.

This sums up One Corinthians twelve. Everybody gets a gift

from God. By the way, the greatest gift from God

that you have been given is your gift of salvation.

This is it.

Like you were here today worshiping Jesus with hope for

your future, knowing that no matter how difficult this world

may get, Heaven waits for you.

You are saved.

It is a gift by grace, so that no one

can boast. It is the greatest gift. But as you

saw evident in the life of Peter that Peter was

clearly saved, clearly a follower of Jesus, and he had

a subsequent encounter event with the Holy Spirit that literally

changed him. So I believe that God gives you the

gift of salvation, and then in your faith journey, he

will give you spiritual gifts, and he gives them without merit.

He gives them by his grace. You don't deserve them,

You did not earn them. He chose to give these

gifts to you. And there's nine of them spelled out

in one Corinthians twelve.

So he needs all nine of.

Them actively involved in the church for the church to

be whole. He doesn't need all of us just practicing

one gift, or we are neglecting the eight other gifts.

We need all of them active in the life of

the church.

It is a gift.

Understand that that gift comes from God and it is

for one purpose, the common good. God does not give

you a gift of the spirit primarily to edify you.

He gives you a gift of the spirit for the

blessing and edification of the entire church.

I use this example. I'm done.

I'm going on vacation now. Josh Talent has been a

part of our church about four years, and many of

you go to small groups that josh leads or classes

that josh leads. I love to lead small groups with

Joshua primarily because Joshua gets to teach and I get

to sit in there and his ability to articulate God's word.

I am the one with the PhD and I sit

under Joshua. And last Monday night, as I was hearing

this guy break down the Lord's prayer, I mean, I'm

having full on epiphanies.

I'm like looking around at these other guys. I'm like,

are you hearing this? Like this is blowing my mind.

I preach on this.

And I need to repent of what I.

Preach before and do it again.

And I just think, in the end, this is an

example of all of us utilizing our gifts. So Joshua

has this amazing gift of wisdom, he has this amazing

gift in the prophetic and words of knowledge, and what

are they that you're able to take God's word and

communicate in a way that speaks to people right here,

right now. And the ironic thing is he's a software engineer,

that's his day job.

He just teaches for free for the.

Church because he's gifted at it, and him utilizing his

gifting is a blessing to all of us that experience it.

God gives you a gift from Him for the common good.

You need to seek out what your gift is from God,

and then once you discover it, and some of you

you just need help figuring out exactly what it is

and maybe defining.

It a little bit.

But it's supposed to be used for the good of

the whole church. But you got to get rid of

some of these hang ups. You gotta let them go,

and you gotta be willing to say, all right, Lord,

here i am. I'm at this revival service. I got

nowhere else to go this Sunday night, fill me, touch me,

use me. That's the first Sunday in August. Everybody stand up. Hey,

you guys have been great. I'm sorry I went a

little bit long, but it could have been way longer. Honestly,

my desire for our church is that.

We just be people whose attitudes are really humble.

If you clearly know what your spiritual gifts are, that

you use them in humility, that you don't think more

highly of yourself than you ought to think, but you

realize that this was a gift given to me unmerited

by God.

I didn't deserve it. He gave it to me.

But then, in addition, if you're one of those people

and you're still seeking after the end of First Corinthians twelve,

is that Paul says, all of us are to eagerly

desire spiritual gifts like keep seeking, never stop. So I

want everybody close your eyes, Lord Jesus right now.

I thank you for our church. I want to.

Pray that our attitude would be one of humility, that

our spirit would be one of gratitude and thanksgiving. Lord,

that you would put us in a position. For some

of us it is starting to give. For others of us,

it is letting go of things that we've been hung

up on as it pertains to this topic, put us in.

A position where we can receive.

And now, Lord, I pray that you would fill each

and every person that's here. May they discover the gifting

that you have given them, and Lord, I pray that

they would actively move in that gift. Lord, I thank

you for this great church people coming smack dab in

the middle of the summer. Bless them this week in

Jesus's name, and thank you for watching today's service. I

hope it was beneficial to you.

Please like subscribe, let us know what you thought. Look

forward to seeing you next week.