The Power Gifts

Thanks so much for joining us today, and we're excited about you getting to hear this message from the series called Gifted.

I hope that God speaks to you.

Please let us know how we can help you take your next steps in your spiritual journey.

We want to help you any way we can.

We believe that everybody should be connected in a local church.

So let us know how we can help you wherever you live.

I'm praying that God would richly bless you as you hear the Word of God talk to you today.

Amen.

It is great to see all of you guys this morning.

My name's Russ.

If I had a chance to meet you, it's awesome to have you with us this morning.

I want to ask you a question.

I want to ask you what your your greatest need is this morning.

And if you would be honest, if you would um if I asked you, do you need a miracle in your life?

Or do you know somebody in your family that needs a miracle?

Or do you have a loved one that needs a miracle?

What would be your response?

Would you need you do you need a miracle in your life?

Do you need God to work in your life?

I believe that miracles still happen, and sometimes those miracles come through the activity of the gift of the Spirit that God places in the life of a believer.

And so as we are in this series called Gifts, and we're teaching about the spiritual gifts, we looked at the life of Jesus the first week and how he at his baptism, that the Holy Spirit was shown and came in the form of a dove, and he he it was this transformation that was a model for us, that we would all at some point receive the gift of the Spirit.

We were received the Holy Spirit at the point that we uh encountered Jesus.

And that just like Jesus walked in his humanity, and he was able to speak and teach, and and he was able to prophesy, and he was able to heal, and he was able to do works of miracles that we, the body of Christ, collectively, when we walk in the gifts that God has given us through the Holy Spirit, God can still work in miraculous ways.

And so we we believe that there's just one, there's nothing worse than God giving gifts and those gifts lying dormant, unused, unactive, um, inactive or unactivated.

And so God wants you to walk and to live and to understand your spiritual gifts.

We said spiritual gifts are these special attributes given by the Holy Spirit to every member of the body of Christ, every person in the church.

They're given according to God's grace.

They're used for the glory of God and the good of other people.

And so the purpose of this series is for us to understand the spiritual gifts.

Jonah last week did an awesome job teaching about motives and the spirit behind the gifts of the spirit.

He talked about the passivity and how many of us never seek, we never pursue our spiritual gift.

We never walk in it, we never activate it.

We don't we they go unused.

And he also talked about the abuse or the dominance and how how how uh gifts are often misrepresented.

And so many of us have been in churches where we've we've seen this this extreme uh abuse or extreme um focus on certain gifts rather than seeing them operating in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so, for the purpose of what we're doing the next few weeks is we're gonna talk about each gift.

It's hard to go in depth, but we're gonna look in at three categories of the gifts.

They're divided into three categories.

There's power gifts, there are love gifts, and there's word gifts.

And so Bobby Clinton and a guy named John Thompson divided these into three categories.

I'm not saying this is perfect or this is exactly how how you know um God intended for it, but it helps us to understand the difference of the gifts.

They're all given.

Power gifts demonstrate the power of the presence and the reality of God.

Word gifts clarify the nature and the action and the purposes of God.

And love gifts manifest the love of God in practical ways.

And so together, these three categories of gifts create amazing harmony and unity and clarity in the church.

Every church needs all three of these areas in operation.

And so I'm gonna talk today.

Hey, I'm just gonna go head into the gifts that are the ones that most people are afraid to talk about, the power gifts.

And the big idea is the power of God, through these power gifts, the power of God works through the people of God to reveal the presence and the reality of God.

Andrew Wilson says this.

He said, the early church was a charismatic community.

And the word charisma just means gift.

It means the gifts were in operation.

It was a charismatic community.

Of that there can be no doubt, no doubt.

From the day of Pentecost onward, the book of Acts is a story of Holy Spirit breakthrough, speaking in other languages, prophesying, healing, casting out demons, angelic encounters, miraculous prison breaks, visions, dreams, evangelistic preaching, building, shaking, the dead being supernaturally brought to life, and on occasion the living being supernaturally brought to death, boldness in the face of persecution, joy, and even one story of teleportation.

Wow.

I don't see any of that in the American church today.

And here's my question is is it because that we're we're it's it's our lack of faith?

Is it because we've been been saturated with with religion?

What is it?

But I want everything that God wants for us.

And I I'm not I'm not saying that the book of Acts and everything in the book of Acts is prescriptive.

Which means I'm not saying that everything in the church today has to be just like it was in the book of Acts.

I'm not saying that it wasn't necessarily prescriptive.

But I do think that God intended that his power would be manifest through his church regardless of what season or what age or what time of history we would be in.

Amen.

And so Romans 12, we're going to be in Romans 12 and and several verses, Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, which those are the two chapters that deal most with the spiritual gifts.

Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, there's some other passages.

But but Paul says in Romans 12, verses 4 and 5, he says, just as our bodies have many parts, and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ's body.

Romans 12:4

We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.

In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well.

So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you.

Galatians 3, 5, you don't have to turn, but listen to this.

Galatians 3.5 says, I ask you again, does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law?

Of course not.

It's because you believe the message you heard about Christ.

And James 5, 14 and 15 says, Are any of you sick?

You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.

Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well, and you will have, uh and if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.

So this is New Testament Christianity.

Why are we not seeing more miracles, more manifestations of the Spirits, the supernatural gifts?

I do not believe, we do not believe that the supernatural gifts cease to exist at any time in history.

That's just not what the scripture teaches us.

Supernatural gifts, all throughout history, we see it.

We see it in the early church.

We see it, we see it in the age of Augustine.

Augustine initially, this is 354 to 430 was his life.

Initially, he advised Christians not to expect miracles, but after several undeniable wonders in and around his churches, however, he revised his position, concluding that it wasn't that miracles ceased, but that the church had stopped talking about them.

Early churches have historical records throughout the Middle Ages of people testifying, speaking in unknown tongues, experiencing fillings of the Holy Spirit, receiving the gifts by the laying on of hands.

There are stories in the 1100s where King Edward I blessed people, and many people had testimonies of healing.

In more modern times, we look at the great awakenings.

At some of the great leaders like John and Charles Wesley, where there were supernatural healings.

There were supernatural works of the Holy Spirit.

And you you may or may not agree, or you may or may not understand this, but I want everything that God has for us.

I want everything that God has for me.

Now you may have heard about it.

There's several powerful revivals where the Holy Spirit, where there were power and unexplainable things that happened out of the natural realm.

The great Welsh revival of the early 1900s.

The Azusa Street revival in the early 1900s in Southern California where the Holy Spirit was poured out.

In modern times, and within my lifetime, there was a great revival on the campus of Asbury Seminary.

And this was a Methodist seminary.

And they just started praying.

And the short prayer meeting turned into a day and then another day, and it continued.

And young people experienced manifestations of the Holy Spirit, things that can't be explained outside of the power of God.

And so if we're going to see a mighty move of God in our lifetime and to see revival come to our nation that I so desperately believe that we need, I want everything that God has for us.

And if God shows up in ways that are going to make us a little bit uncomfortable, I'm okay with that.

So here, let's look at these gifts.

Some of you have taken the shape, uh, church at the grove.com forward slash shape, and and you've begun to discover and maybe understand your spiritual gifts.

Many of you serve, you already understand your gifts, but we're going to look at these power gifts, and we're going to we're going to go through them pretty rapidly.

Um, and and and then we're hopefully gonna end with a time of prayer.

The first one is the gift of prophecy.

A lot of us think this is all about just like predicting the future.

It's really not.

It's about giving God's word, but but it's but it is it is done sometimes in a way that has a predictive type nature.

This gift is exercised when someone, usually in a large congregational gathering, has the capacity to deliver truth in a predictive nature or a situational word of God is given.

And so the result is is exhortation, edification, comforting of believers, um, maybe a message from the Holy Spirit.

And so I was trying to think in my life when when I've been in settings, and I um my family all had different backgrounds.

We did not grow up going to church.

The butcher family did not grow up going to church.

And so there's three butcher boys.

There's my oldest brother, Butch.

And so Butch came to Christ in a Baptist church, and and that's really all he's ever known is being in a Southern Baptist church.

Well, my brother Eddie came to Christ, and he ended up in a full-blown Pentecostal charismatic church.

And he invited me to church with him over and over and over, and I kept blowing him off.

And then finally I ended up in the back of a police car and I and I ended up in a police station.

And so my mom and my brother Eddie came to pick me up, and on the way home, I said, Eddie, I think I'll I'll go to church with you this Sunday.

And so I got saved on New Year's Eve 1983 in that church.

And I spent the first part of my life in this charismatic Pentecostal church, and I'll tell you, I've seen, I've seen the dominant abusive side of some of these gifts.

But I was in a service where my grandmother was in a service, and a man, a preacher, pastor, exercised the gift of prophecy.

And he did not know my grandmother had never met her, and he pointed at her and he said, Ma'am, would you please stand up?

And she stood up and he said, Ma'am, I want you to know that God hears your prayers and that your seed will do great things in the kingdom of God.

Now there not only were was our family unchurched, I mean, none of us were were, the ministry was not even on the radar from my brother and I.

But I look back at that and I see the gift of prophecy spoken to my grandmother, and how God spoke a word through her that has been fulfilled.

And when I say that, I'm I'm talking like just my brother.

There's no telling how many lives, how many generations, how many people, through his preaching, through his investment, through planting churches, how many lives will be transformed.

And so 1 Corinthians 14, 3 and 5, but one who prophesies strengthen others, encourages them, and comforts them.

A person who speaks in tongues is strengthened personally, but one who speaks a word of prophecy strengthens the entire church.

I wish you could all speak in tongues, but even more I wish you could all prophesy, for prophecy is greater than speaking in tongues, unless someone who interprets what you are saying so that the whole church will be strengthened.

So let's just go to the next one.

The gift of tongues.

This is the one everybody wants to talk about, right?

The gift of tongues.

The gift of tongues allows one to speak, worship, or pray in a language unknown to the speaker.

And the gift of interpreting of tongues goes together often with the gift of tongues and is the ability to spontaneously respond to a giving of an authoritative message in tongues by interpreting this word and clearly communicating the message given.

This gift has caused lots of controversy in churches.

And Paul writes almost a whole chapter in the letter to the to the church at Corinth because they were infatuated with tongues.

And even today, people are infatuated with it.

I mean, people will talk about if you are really spiritually mature or if you really have the spirit, then at some point you'll probably speak in tongues.

And I don't believe that at all.

So we're not going to spend a lot of time on this.

I know that the gift of tongues at Pentecost was specifically given so people from all the nations could hear the gospel spoken in their own native language.

There's another word that Paul uses that is translated in the English as tongues that is addressed in the New Testament.

And it's it's uh it's it's for the the benefit of the individual.

And Paul says that it's very selfish when you you put this gift above all the other gifts.

Amen.

So 1 Corinthians 12, 7-11, it says a spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.

So the point of a spiritual gift is to focus on the glory of God and the good of others.

So an unhealthy pursuit of a gift and to be infatuated with it is not what God wants.

To one person, the spirit gives the ability to give wise advice, to another, the same spirit gives a message of special knowledge.

The same spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else, the spirit gives the gift of healing.

He gives one person the power to perform miracles, another the ability to prophesy.

He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit.

Still, another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said.

It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all of these gifts.

He alone decides which gift each person should have.

And so the next gift is the gift of faith.

The gift of faith refers to the unusual capacity of a person to recognize in a given situation that God intends to do something and to trust God for it until he brings it to pass.

See, the gift of faith is a spirit, uh is a gift, and it's a, it's a, it's it's this ability to see something that God wants done and to sustain unwavering confidence that God will do it regardless of the seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

Faith for Jesus' followers is informed trust.

It's knowing that God is able.

We follow Jesus by faith.

Hebrews 11:6 says it is impossible to please God without faith.

Hebrews 11:6

Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.

Elizabeth Elliott says, faith is not instinct.

It certainly is not feeling.

Feelings don't help much when you're in the lion's den or you're hanging on a wooden cross.

Faith is not inferred from the happy way things work, it is an act of the will, a choice based on the unbreakable word of God who cannot lie and who showed us what love and obedience and sacrifice mean in the person of Jesus Christ.

And so there's faith needed for salvation, but there's faith that goes beyond just faith needed for salvation.

It's the faith that Joshua and Caleb have in contrast to the other ten spies when they're sent into the promised land.

And the ten spies said, say, we are like grasshoppers compared to the giants in the land.

And Joshua and Caleb said, Yeah, they're big, but our God is greater.

The story of George Mueller, you maybe you've heard the story of George Mueller that started an orphanage in England, Bristol, England, in the 1800s, and by faith he operated this orphanage for 60 years, and he was able to feed and to to clothe and to take care of over 10,000 orphans over a 60-year period.

Now, the interesting thing about George Mueller is he never publicly asked for money.

He decided early in his life, he said, I'm gonna pray by faith that God will provide.

There were times where the kids sat down at the table and George did not know where the food was gonna come from.

They prayed the blessing over the meal, and somebody knocked at the door with the food.

Who wants that kind of faith?

We need faith, the gift is faith.

Gift of the discernment of spirits.

Discernment aids the body, the church, by recognizing the true intentions of those within or related to the body.

Discernment tests the message and actions of others for the protection and well-being of the body.

1 Corinthians 12, 10.

Great verse for that.

And I will tell you this is the primary gift that my wife, Jill, operates in.

There's something about the gift of discernment that just that seems like that women have.

And I'm just, I mean, I'm really, there's so much truth in that.

1 John 4.1 says, Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit.

You must test them to see if the Spirit have, if they the Spirit they have comes from God, for there are many false prophets in the world.

Many false teachers don't know they are false teachers.

Always go back to the written word.

Every spiritual gift and how it operates has to match with the written word of God.

And so the gift of discernment is this special ability where we can understand that there is behavior or activity that is sometimes from God, or it's in the human flesh, or it's satanic and it's evil.

But like I we we we have a partnership in Haiti, and we haven't been able to go to Haiti because of just the political and violence that is that is happening there.

We just haven't been able to go.

It's just completely unsafe to go.

But there's something that just you, I know, I know, I feel in my spirit when I get off the plane in Port-au-Prince.

Where voodoo is one of the primary religions of a nation.

And the church planning pastor that we work with, his father is still a voodoo priest.

God saved him out of that life, and he put his faith in Jesus.

And so the gift, the next gift, the gift of wisdom and uh the gift of wisdom of knowledge, or wisdom or knowledge, words of wisdom, words of knowledge.

Wisdom is the is this gift, or the word of wisdom is the gift that discerns that the work of the Holy Spirit in the body, it recognizes it and applies his teachings and actions to the needs of the body.

This gift is a bit like the gift of prophecy, but maybe not experienced as much in the congregational setting.

It's more one-on-one.

And it's where people receive a word from another believer.

And it may be a word of encouragement or exhortation, or it might be a word of rebuke and correction.

There are times when the Holy Spirit will prompt you.

And some of you know what I'm talking about, where there's a prompting in your spirit.

And it always will match with the word of God, never going against the word of God, but the Holy Spirit prompts you to pray for somebody, to speak a word to somebody.

And so that word of wisdom, a word of knowledge is prompting based very often.

Then there's the gift of the works of power through miracles.

I asked a question, who needs a miracle?

I'm serious with you.

If you're in a situation in life and you say, you know, I need God to show up in a specific way in my life or in my family's life.

And I'm just, I'm, I mean, we either we're we're all good, which is means that, um, and it's very strange that everybody is good in church, or you're lying.

Who needs who needs God to show up?

All right, see, that's so it's so good to be honest.

You're here, I'm gonna be honest, you're you're scared to death of what we're gonna do this morning.

I know that, right?

He's preaching on the power gifts, and I'm so scared of what he's gonna do.

Maybe you should be.

The gift of miracles, it's supernatural.

I mean, I mean, when we read scripture, I mean, it can be it can be casting out demons, raising the dead, changing the course of nature, but but it's used to bring people to Jesus.

It always matches up.

It's used to set people free that are already in Jesus.

Hebrews 2, 3 and 4 says, so what makes us think if that we can escape if we ignore this great salvation that was first announced by the Lord Jesus Himself and then delivered to us by those who heard him speak and confirmed, and God confirmed the message by giving signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit whenever he chose.

Very often these gifts and miracles specifically is given to authenticate the teaching, especially in places, and we have the word of God.

How many, many of you have multiple copies of God's word on your shelves at home?

But there's still places in the world where they don't have the written word in their language.

And so if God will show up in a way where they don't have the word, so they start preaching the gospel, and for for them to believe what is being taught, they need a miracle to authenticate.

And that's one reason this this some of these gifts were so powerful in the early church, is they didn't have the written word.

I was on one of the early mission trips I took in my ministry was in Moldova.

And we I had the opportunity to preach the gospel at a youth camp in this campground that had been used to indoctrinate young people into communism.

And so Moldova was a Soviet bloc nation before the Soviet Union was dismantled.

And so you you had a generation that were, and generations and generations that were raised that taught that there is no God.

The God is the government.

And so we had this opportunity to go and do a youth camp, just like we send our kids to youth camp.

We did a youth camp, but it was it was it was young people that had never had the opportunity to hear the gospel.

And I remember preaching a sermon to these young people, and there was this young teenage girl that had come to all the meetings dressed very provocatively.

And she just she didn't want to be there.

She was forced to be there.

She didn't want to hear the gospel.

She was sitting there and she came on in one meeting and she sat on the front row.

And I mean, if I told you what she was wearing, it was just I don't even want to paint the picture.

And so I was preaching, I and I was young, I didn't know anything.

But I'm preaching the gospel, and it's the spirit was so, this evil spirit was so powerful, I just stopped and I started praying against the dark spirit.

That God would remove the evil spirit that was in that setting, in the room where the Spirit of God could freely work in the hearts of these young people.

And I said, in Jesus' name, and speaking through an interpreter.

Amen.

And then I just went back and preaching the text.

And the girl got up and walked out.

And I thought, man, I I just cast the demon out.

I mean, I know I didn't think that.

I just thought she was mad.

And she just said, I don't want to hear this, and she walked out.

And she came back and walked in with tears streaming down her face, wearing a pair of baggy jeans and a big old sweatshirt.

And when we did the altar call at that service, she walked forward and she put her faith in Jesus Christ.

The power of God at work.

The last gift is the gift of healing.

Gift of healing is the ability that God gives certain members of the body of Christ to pray for and for the power to work through those people as conduit for God to cure illness and restore health, a part of natural means.

And I believe that God uses medicine and God uses doctors and God uses medical medical care, all those things.

Here's my prayer for today and for our church and for this series and for us moving forward is that we would simply be open to what God would want to do and not be scared of any way that the Spirit would choose to manifest himself in and through the people of God for the purposes of the glory of God and the good of his people.

Amen.

Have a time of prayer.

And I don't know what you're dealing with.

I know that depression and anxiety, heartbreak are at all time are at all time highs, loneliness, all of those emotional issues that people are dealing with.

I know that some people are sick physically, that there is there is cancer, there are other medical issues that you may have walked in here and you're struggling with it and you don't know what to do about it.

And I'm saying, let's just pray.

And so I'm gonna ask if some of our men and women, leaders who would feel comfortable that would just come up here to pray for people.

So some of our leaders, Chantel, Paul, Steve, would you be willing?

Um you don't have to be a pastor, an elder, or a certain if you feel comfortable.

Dacia, thank you.

Is there a couple of ladies that would maybe come and ladies might be more comfortable having ladies pray for them?

Jonah, come on, Meg, thank you.

And so I'm gonna I'm just gonna ask our team just to lead us into a time of just worship.

We want to ask for the presence of God to show up in a real, powerful way.

And if you want somebody to pray for you, you can come and have somebody just put their hand on your shoulder.

If you feel comfortable telling them what it is specifically, that's great.

If you don't want to, you don't have to.

If you want to come and just kneel at the altar and just ask God, God, show me yourself.

Make yourself real to me.

That is the purpose of spiritual gifts, is that God would be known, that he would reveal himself, that he would be glorified, he would be lifted up.

Father, we pray right now, we just pray for you to use this time to encourage, to exhort, show yourself in a real way.

I know some people have hurting hearts, and people have real health issues.

And God, you have called us as a body to exercise our gifts.

And so we want to ask your Holy Spirit to show up.

God, we want to pray believing, believing that you can heal, believing that you can work in a powerful way.

And so I'm gonna ask you to stand.

And as you if you feel comfortable, make your way to one of our leaders and ask them, just just ask them to pray for you.