Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Your Divine Design | Part 4

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Well, it is great to be with you, and I love getting to be uh a pastor.

I've done that for a lot of years, but you're always first and foremost a father.

And I was watching, man, Ryan's got so many things going on, and he happened to be teaching on something that I'd done a lot of work on, and spiritual gifts is something we'd been uh launching as a ministry, and I thought, you know, maybe I could help out.

I don't know about many of you.

I did not grow up as a follower of Christ.

I never opened the Bible until I was 18.

And of all the things, when I got involved in beginning a relationship with God, spiritual gifts were like confusing, either confusing or people were arguing about them.

I grew up in a church that didn't believe in the scriptures, and I think you'd call us a social church, so I never heard spiritual gifts.

I came to Christ through FCA just before I left for college.

And then I was discipled by a group that was very committed to the scriptures, very word-based.

And so we would, I learned Bible study and memorized scriptures and met one-on-one in small groups.

It was absolutely tremendous.

And as I came home, my folks were like, boy, what happened to our son?

And we we like it, but it's a little weird.

You know, you're reading the Bible and your life has changed.

My dad got very interested.

And simultaneously, in our social church, uh, this was late 70s and mid-80s, a thing called the charismatic movement moved through a bunch of social churches.

And it was people who believed more in sort of the more spectacular gifts.

And my mom and dad came to Christ through the charismatic movement.

And so, you know, my dad's in the garage speaking in tongues and dancing, and and uh, you know, I go to a couple services that are like, whoa, this is kind of blowing me away.

I'm not I'm not used to all this.

And and uh so then I go back to college and we're in the Bible a lot, and it was like this, God, what I mean, what's right, what's true, what's valid, what's not.

I was just flat out confused.

And so I'll fast forward and um I had a chance because I played basketball to play in a number of countries throughout South America and the Orient, and we met people from all kinds of different churches, you name it, uh Baptist, Pentecostal, and everything in between.

And I met wonderful people in all backgrounds, and it sent me on a journey to figure out what the Bible actually says about spiritual gifts.

And uh Ryan is we're way down the road.

I I put some notes, if you'll pull those out, because what I've taken is uh is a message that is gonna be sort of background, you know, and I have uh all the gifts that Ryan has not yet covered.

I have a definition in your notes, but um at the very bottom of your notes there's a QR code.

Because one of the things uh I have discovered, and I'll tell you why in just a minute, if you ever get serious, and not just discover your primary motivational spiritual gift, but then start to exercise and work at developing it, and you put it into practice, um, it will it will not only change your life, it'll change the life of a multitude of people around you.

And and so um that little QR code, uh we spent about six or seven years and several hundred thousand dollars to create that in 15 to 20 minutes will give you a very good idea of your spiritual gifts, your core values, where you fit on a team, uh, your work style, uh, how you relate to other people.

It's kind of like strength finders on steroids.

And uh we'll we'll charge for that in 2023, but because my son and his wife go to awakening, I'm gonna give it to you for free.

So uh, and our ministry would love to do that.

Father, please speak to think that you died in our place, to ponder that you descended in the lower parts of the earth so that you would ascend and defeated sin and Satan and death, and the evidence is you led a host of captives free, and you gave gifts to men.

Would you help us to grasp how serious and wonderful spiritual gifts are in Christ's name?

Amen.

With that said, let me give you uh five specific reasons why spiritual gifts matter.

And um number one is direction and purpose for your life.

You know, if you have certain skills, doesn't it make sense that if God wanted you to do something, he would give you an ability and some skills to do it.

So when you discover your spiritual gift and gifts, super helpful there.

Number two is freedom to embrace and enjoy who you are.

We live in a world in a culture where most of us spend lots of energy trying to be like someone else.

When you discover your spiritual gift, you realize this is my family of origin, these are my natural strengths, here's my experiences, good, bad, and ugly.

And I've been gifted, I can like me in a good way and be free to be me.

Three is joy that results from impacting lives.

Um, I got real clear direction about what to do and probably more about what not to do when I discovered how God wired me and then what my spiritual gifts were and the joy I've experienced of getting not to do something special, just do what he made me to do, and watching the ripples in other people's lives has been awesome.

Fourth is affirmation of your victory in Christ.

I kind of quoted part of uh Ephesians chapter four when I was praying.

That when God delivered us, when sin was defeated, part of the evidence is your spiritual gift.

And number five is accountability that we'll be held responsible for just the stewardship.

I had a great conversation with a young man in between services, and we got talking about this and that.

And out of the blue, he said, you know, I didn't think much about spiritual gifts.

And as you walk through that, and I thought, he goes, This is really like a stewardship, isn't it?

I said, like, yeah.

So Matthew 25, I mean, not for our salvation, but every single believer is going to stand before Jesus for spiritual rewards, and he's gonna say, So, what did you do with the time I gave you?

What did you do with the skills?

What did you do with the talents I gave you?

What did you do with the money I gave you?

What did you do with the supernatural ability, the spiritual gifts I gave you?

And we'll give an account for that.

And so it's it's you know, I most of my early, first early years, I was a Christian, even hearing about spiritual gifts, it was kind of that's nice, sounds confusing.

Hope someone can explain it to me someday, some way, but I'm not really into it.

And some of the people we're gonna talk about argued about it, so I didn't want to get in an argument.

And so I just like spiritual gifts was this, it would be nice to know them, but it probably doesn't really matter all that much.

I'm here to tell you it doesn't matter all that much, it matters a lot, it matters a whole lot.

You understanding, growing, developing, and then deploying your spiritual gift will literally change the trajectory of your life.

This isn't a little thing that you would be nice to know.

This is something you have to know, and then you have to grow it, develop it, deploy it.

There's uh developing your spiritual gifts.

We talked uh, and Ryan did last week about the three kinds of spiritual gifts, three types of spiritual gifts.

Number one, every believer has one primary motivational gift from Romans chapter 12, 6 through 8.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

And we're to concentrate on discovering and deploying this gift, and I'll explain why in a minute.

Secondly, this motivational gift, this drive or this ability, can express itself through a variety of ministry gifts.

We'll show you a chart in just a minute to see how these things fit together.

And third, when you and I exercise our motivational gift through our ministry gifts, the Holy Spirit determines what manifestation or impact or effect it's gonna have with other people.

So if you'll open your notes now, and you'll notice uh that I've given you in this chart a paradigm, if you will.

And so all I want to say is a lot of really smart, godly people have looked at the spiritual gifts from a lot of different lenses.

This isn't from Mount Sinai, this is just like from Chip and some other smart people I know that I've studied.

And it's just a practical way to look at spiritual gifts.

And so I respect people looking at these in different ways.

This has been the most helpful way, and I think it's pretty clear from Scripture.

Uh you I put part of it in your notes, but if you turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 12, let me tell you where I get these three columns.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

He's talking about spiritual gifts.

Beginning at verse 4, he says, now there are a variety of gifts.

You know, Ryan told us charismata, but a variety, but the same spirit.

There are a variety of ministries and the same Lord.

There's a variety of effects or manifestations, but the same God who works all things and all people.

But to each one is given a manifestation of the Spirit purpose clause for the common good.

And then He gives some examples here.

He says, To one is given a word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another, a word of knowledge according to the same spirit, to another, faith by the same spirit, and to another, gifts of healing by one spirit, and to another the effecting of miracles, or to another prophecy, and to another distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another interpretation of tongues.

And then verse 11.

But the one and the same spirit works all things, distributing to each one individually, just as he wills.

And so we're commanded to aspire to gifts and say, Lord, you know, whatever gifts you want to give me, I want to pursue the ones that help people the most.

But the Bible says that God has assigned as He wills because He has a purpose for your life and He knows what you need or what I need to be gifted.

And so you can see those three columns.

Notice there's motivational gifts.

We get that word charismata.

And I love the way Ryan put it.

Every one of us, last week we learned, you know, proclaiming God's word, prophecy, serving, teaching, encouragement, giving, leadership, mercy.

We're all commanded to do that with some at some level in some way, whether with roommates or family or in a small group or church, but there's some of you that one of those things drives you, it really motivates you.

What I've discovered over the years, rather than all these gifts, and I wonder which ones are mine, and for years I would ask people, what's your spiritual gift?

And they go, I've got a little administration, I think I've got a little mercy and maybe a little bit of leadership, and I play the piano, and you know, what is it?

Where's that one?

And it didn't make any difference.

And so I'm gonna tell you a little story, and as I tell this story, I want you to ask yourself, which one of these seven people would I be?

And the only reason I'm gonna do this, this is sort of the anecdotal little way for you to start.

Maybe that's my motivational gift.

And then I want to talk about how that plays into ministry gifts and manifestations and sort of give you a picture and a package so that you would walk out of here.

Here was my goal.

My goal wasn't to explain every single gift, all the definitions are there.

But my goal is that you would walk out of here and go, Whoa, this is really serious.

Then you would say, Whoa, I'm not sure, but I think my motivational gift is probably this.

And as the lights come on, I need to study these other gifts to understand how that might work out.

And then that you would go so far to say, I'm going to figure out a way and a time to talk with either a couple friends or some people that know me or my small group, and I want to get some genuine feedback, and I'm gonna take that little test and get some feedback, and then I'm gonna jump in the water, and I'm gonna start practicing what I believe my gifts are, and I will tell you, if that happens, and I'm not overstating it, you'll never be the same.

Your Christian life will never be the same.

Clarity, vision, direction, affirmation.

So here's the here's the little story.

Uh it's a imagine it's a church banquet, and there's you know all these round tables, and there's some big event.

Maybe they're celebrating their 25th birthday instead of their 10th.

And so they actually have a building and there's some carpet and there's round tables, and people have come to celebrate it.

And so they have a meal and they've brought a special speaker and they're gonna talk about God's faithfulness looking back, which I always think is a great idea.

And so everyone has done with their meals, and they have a group of people that are clearing the table, and then their guy is bringing out the desserts, and he has a big one of those big things that you have, and he's got like 12 desserts on it, and as he walks in, one person clearing the table turns this way, he's coming around the corner, he slips a little bit, the trays kind of slide, it crashes to the floor, it goes up like this, the speaker has junk all over the outside of his suit, crash everywhere, everyone gets up and wonder what's happening.

Now, what happens?

Now I want you to listen carefully to seven responses from seven different motivational gifts.

A person with a gift of prophecy says, I could see this coming a mile away.

It was a mistake from the beginning.

You can't take away the plates and bring dessert at the same time.

Motivation?

People with a gift of prophecy first see what's wrong and want to correct it.

Second person is a gift of service.

This person says, Let me help you with that, and begins to wipe them off and clean up the mess together.

Motivation to fulfill a need with practical means.

Person with the gift of teaching says, Well, the real reason this happened wasn't that we were taking away the plates and the desserts being served.

I begin to analyze that waiter and the way he was carrying that.

There were five desserts on the left side and seven on the other, and I noticed the kind of shoes he had that had leather soles instead of rubber.

And the reason he slipped and fell was person with the gift of teaching wants to discover why something happened and educate everyone else on how not to do it or how to do it.

Person with the gift of encouragement says, I have an idea.

Next time, just serve the dessert with the meal.

This is that person, par a kala'o.

They come alongside to comfort and encourage and help people grow.

And the idea is they're gonna come next to a problem or a situation, and what they want to do is they want to correct things and help people for the future.

The person with the gift of giving jumps in, says to the speaker, takes off his sport jacket, here, give me that one, I'll have it cleaned, I'll have it back to you, or buy you a new suit.

You can use mine.

And hey, everybody, look at this mess.

This carpet's been a junk for the last 10 years.

I'll put in$5,000.

Who joined with me?

And we'll get new carpet for the church.

The person with the gift of leadership says, Jesse, uh, find them up.

Mary, can you uh get some paper towels and get this going?

Ben, can you coordinate the waiters?

We need to make some adjustments.

Can you have the worship team go ahead and play a couple more songs?

Everyone needs to be ready in 15 minutes.

Uh, that motivation is to get things back on track and to accomplish the attended goal.

And then finally, I love this one.

I'm married to someone with this ministry gift.

Someone kneels down and says, Oh, don't feel bad.

This is this could have happened to anyone.

It's gonna be okay.

It's a gift of mercy, and the motivation is to relieve the embarrassment and just help the person make it through.

If you had to characterize yourself as one of those, who would it be?

Which one did you just, I mean, first to connect with.

And what I want you to know is that there's a motivational gift that you have, and then it gets expressed in these various ministry gifts, some which we already have been taught a couple weeks ago from uh Romans 12 and Ephesians 4, and then all the rest of the gifts I've listed there with a definition.

And here's what I want to do.

I just want to try and give you a paradigm to see how these work.

Let me give you two or three examples.

If you have a pen, pull it out, and I want you to circle in the left-hand column service, and then I want you to go to the second column where it says pastor teacher and circle it, and then go on down and circle the word administration, and then circle the word helping.

It's it's a sort of an offshoot of the gift.

And then just from that one thing where it says service, I want you to draw lines to those three, and then I'll tell you a quick story.

Uh, I've had a chance to observe this person for well over 20 years.

Uh he came to church out of the Silicon Valley.

He was an engineer, was a project manager for Cisco back in the day, later for Palm Pilot, his family of origin, uh some really tough stuff he came out of.

And so he comes to Silicon Valley, is very successful in business, has this love for technology.

His motivational gift is service.

And so, in a church that I had an opportunity to pastor, he ended up recruiting all the servants for all the lights, all the technology, all the sound, got them all in small groups, because his other ministry gift was administration.

He could organize anything.

Then he's pastor teacher, so he didn't want just the lights to come on and the sound to be good.

And, you know, we had a greeting team and a setup team and a teardown team.

And so he got them all in various groups and being a pastor teacher, then he developed ways where even if they couldn't meet during the week, they met early and they prayed together and they began to build teams.

Well, pretty much he had more people reporting to him, and so he eventually came on staff.

And then when I moved, he eventually moved with me.

Craig has a motivational gift he always wants to serve.

He expresses it through organizing organizations and pastor teaching and providing specific help to individuals, especially when there's a problem.

Now, if you would take some of those circles, then what you could do is put an arrow over to wisdom.

People wondering, well, what should I do and what's my best role in this church or this organization?

You could put another arrow over to knowledge.

Oh, I didn't know this about me, or I didn't know this is how things worked.

And then you could put an arrow down to discernment.

Because one of the things he does for us is he works with our HR department.

And he he watches, we go through such a process, it makes me crazy because of my gifts and personality.

We take so long to hire people, it makes me nuts.

Hey, they're a good fit, I think they'll do great, they got a great background, let's go.

They don't do that where I work.

They go through all this process, then they meet team members, then they go through more of a process, then they go through member multiple interviews.

And Greg is always saying, it needs to be a fit.

This is the season we're in, this is the season this person is in, this is how it fits together.

And then over time, you know, if you're in an organization for a long time, the organization grows and people grow.

And sometimes people keep up with the growth, or sometimes the organization grows, and what you hired them for, really they're not good at that anymore.

Actually, they're actually good at something else that you learned.

So he pastor teaches people through the organization.

And some uh we just have a guy who came in, uh, he used to be in charge of all the fulfillment and ran a big warehouse.

And the more we got to know him, what Greg discovered was he's got this heart, he has this hidden theological training, and what he wants to do is coach and help different pastors and people that call in.

So we moved him out of that over to here.

Other people, their season was different, they needed to be in another organization because they had more of a passion for evangelism or something that we're not as good at.

All I can tell you is because he understands his motivational gift, what his ministry gifts are, the impact in the lives of people, it's amazing what happens.

And when people ask him to do all kinds of things because he's good in technology and he's good in this and he's good at that, he has the freedom to say, thank you, but I need to say, everyone keeps wanting to promote him because he makes everything work.

He says, No, no, no, you understand.

I'm a manager, I understand leadership.

Uh, in fact, at one point in time we had a major shift in the organization, and we brought in a consultant, and when he helped us develop a new strategic plan, he said, you know, I got to do this in a really big way over here, and I've been consulting, but I kind of helped you write this plan.

I I'd actually like to lead it.

I said, Well, but since you did the evaluation, I couldn't pay, I couldn't pay you half of what you've made anywhere else.

And he looked at me and goes, Oh, that'd be okay.

I said, What?

He said, Yeah, that'd be okay.

I I I just I just see the potential.

You're here.

And I had a little meeting with Greg, who was my chief operating officer at the time.

He goes, you know, if we hire that guy, I need to report to him, not to you.

So, see, in other words, what he got was, this is who I made to be.

The role, the title's not important.

I need to do what I need to do.

We hired that guy.

He's been with us for over 10 years.

The organization exploded under his leadership, and Greg has maintained managing one of our offices and helping people in ways because he says, you know what brings me joy?

Being in my sweet spot.

What brings me joy is not what other people think of me.

What brings me joy is not, you know, I got a, you know, a higher level.

Now he's a senior VP, probably more because of all of his history, not because of necessarily the role that he has in the organization.

But what he's done is he's understood this is where I serve best.

My wife, if you put a box around the area where it says exhortation in the ministry one, that's a person who comes along to comfort and encourage people to spiritual growth.

We get the same word for the Holy Spirit, peracleo, someone who's called alongside.

She gets called alongside, usually hurting women, because God just doesn't use your gifts.

He uses your hurts and your family of origin.

And she's been through all kinds of pain and all kinds of rejection.

So for 40-some years, I've watched people around our table be women, especially who hurting and struggle, rejection, been abused, been walked out on.

And so she wants to come alongside, but her ministry gifts, if if you would put a box around that, you know, over here where it says encouragement, you could take her ministry gifts and you would put a box around teacher, and then you put a box around, actually has a gift of administration as well.

And I think she has some gifts of healing.

Now, now not in the not in the uh, we always think of the ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.

Now we've prayed for people.

I'm gonna talk about healing in just a minute, but I've watched marriages heal, women's self-image heal.

I've watched people that people had given up on, you know, living on the streets.

And after time with my wife over time and bringing them into community and leading them to the Lord, and what you I watch healing occur.

Well, the manifestations are, so you get the idea?

I could just go through person after person after person.

Can you imagine?

Pause.

Can you imagine what would happen if you knew for sure which of these seven is the driving factor?

And by the way, as you go through this list, you realize at least two of them.

You know, the prophecy is not only a motivational gift, but look at the second column.

It can also be a ministry gift.

A person, I have a good friend who's a worship pastor whose primary, are you ready?

His primary ministry gifting is mercy.

He just feels for people.

He just feels for people.

He so hurts for people that motivates him.

But he creates experiences through music and through art and through video that proclaims boldly.

But his motivation is not to be a producer, his motivation is he sees hurting people when he wants to help hurting people.

When you get clear on these things, because if you're good at something, everyone will want to stick you in a box where you can be productive for them.

And God instead has created you not with a box, but with a gift and with ministries and with ability that as you do those things, then what happens is people receive wisdom as you exercise your gifts, or people receive healing or knowledge or uh discernment about how to make a decision.

And so that's how those three work together.

Then you notice under this, it says, Now to each one, the manifestation of the spirit is given for the common good.

This isn't um spiritual gifts, are not uh what what's what's a little thing you guys are into way more than me at this stage of my life?

You know, you're I'm a two or I'm an eight, or there you go.

I mean, there's like this, right, M MPI, and I mean, we are all fascinated, right?

Almost all of us will take a test because this is this is human nature.

This does not make us bad.

If you walk by like glass that's reflective, or walk by a mirror, guess what you do?

You do the same thing I do.

Right?

You can't walk by a mirror and not look at yourself.

One of the challenges with all the inventories and tests that we have, we we have what I call the the gazing of the navel.

I'm a two, I'm an eight, well, I'm a I'm a I'm a 7.3, well, I'm a D on the disc, but I'm an I over here, but on the NMP, I'm an introvert, well, I'm an extrovert, well, I'm a this one.

I process, you know, and pretty soon we make it.

Are you ready?

All about us.

And those inventories can be very helpful.

In fact, I just gave you a QR code that's gonna help you in about five different areas.

But this passage says what?

For the common good.

See, there's this weird principle that Jesus taught.

He came, and you know, you've heard that word, the kingdom of God.

He came, and there's the kingdom of this world.

In other words, all that is is how life works here.

Get, get, get, take, take, take, power, power, power, me, me, me.

Now we we can spiritualize it, but the human nature, that's what it is.

And he flipped it and he modeled, give and it'll be given unto you.

For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.

And it's in giving that you receive.

It's when you die to yourself that you experience real life.

And so, what spiritual gifts are are an ability to be developed to serve and love others.

And as you do that, their lives are touched and improved.

And what happens is you receive this amazing joy as you give your life away.

And so that's the whole point behind spiritual gifts.

Now, there's a couple things that have been very uh confusing, controversial, and get people in arguments.

And so uh if you went through them, like I've I've got mine open, if you go to the second page, uh miracles, healing, uh, not wisdom and knowledge, depending on how people uh describe those.

Back page, distinguishing of spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues.

There's there's there's probably three or four different views of all those things.

But the two major views are one is all the really supernatural kind of things like healing or speaking in another language that you don't know, or understanding another language you don't know, or actual miracles.

That happened in the first century with the early apostles, and it doesn't happen anymore.

And the other view would be uh God does anything anytime and he can do it.

In fact, but but over here is and it has to happen all the time, exactly the way it happened in the first century, and if it's not happening with the same regularity, it's because people don't have enough faith and it's all their fault.

And I would say what the third and the balanced position is, and this is this is where God led me, all the definitions I gave you, uh I just studied every single one of the gifts, and I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I looked at all the smartest people that I knew of, and then because of where I went to school, you had to learn all the languages.

So, in all the original languages, I looked at every verse that had every one of these and came up with a definition that the Bible actually says, along with kind of checking my own air by some of the wisest people that I know.

And here's what I've learned: what I've learned is that we need to be completely word-centered in anything about gifts or anything else.

If it doesn't line up with scripture, it's not true and it's wrong.

And second, we need to be open to whatever the Spirit of God would want to do, and that we're in fact a body.

And the two major, I would just say, heresies that are killing the church and became so vivid over COVID.

One is the prosperity gospel.

This this is that God wants everyone to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, and Jesus came to make your life happy.

And the pandemic happened, and we were with all these pastors in India and especially in Africa and parts of South America, and all the prosperity teachers were dying.

And these poorest people had been giving their money to someone.

If I give him a dollar, you know, I'll get$10 back.

If I give$100, I'll get$1,000 back.

And it was this whole give to get, just a corruption.

And God says, no, we've been given gifts and we're to be generous with our time and our energy and money with no thought of return.

And the expectations are that God will be with us through all things, but he doesn't promise to deliver us out of everything.

I mean, think think about this.

Um, you know, eleven of the 12 apostles were in the center of God's will.

They preached the gospel, they literally turned the world upside down in one generation.

Can anyone remember how their lives ended?

11 of the 12 were martyred.

What does that mean?

They didn't have enough faith.

See, suffering is a part of life.

In fact, the end of Philippians 1, we're reminded it has been, the word is root word for grace, it has been granted to you not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake.

And so our expectations are not.

If we love Jesus and read the Bible and are generous with our money, our lives are going to be, you know, suffering free.

God sometimes delivers us out of things miraculously.

That's what I always pray.

Option one.

The more common is option B.

He delivers us through things by perseverance.

And sometimes he delivers us unto himself.

There's some saints, very young and middle-aged and some old, that they are so precious to God, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his godly ones.

And so we need to have this eternal perspective.

The second one is this the issue of the healings and miracles.

And, you know, we have, you know, if you turn on the TV, you know, by the way, there's some really good Christian teaching on TV.

But of all the Christian teaching on TV, the really good is about like this.

And there's a lot of stuff out there.

And a lot of stuff that, you know, I didn't become a Christian because when I turned on the TV, and there was only three channels back then, I thought, who are the idiots that would believe these people?

I mean, money, money, money, gimme, gimme, gimme.

And so the the danger, however, is is that the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater.

And so what I what I want you to understand is this is God can do anything.

But he doesn't do it just if you have faith, or the problem with any issue of not a miracle didn't happen or someone wasn't healed, the issue isn't just because someone doesn't have faith.

This air that, you know, by his stripes we were healed there for healings in the atonement, that's absolutely true.

But salvation is in the atonement as well.

And salvation is there's some immediate results, and then there's some that won't be realized until we meet Jesus face to face.

And so, yes, we're told to pray and to ask God.

I've laid, I've laid hands on people.

In fact, uh my my grandson saw a healing when they went down to Mexico that he shared just a few weeks ago.

And I've prayed for people, and I've seen a brain tumor gone the next day.

I I've seen miraculous things.

But I've also prayed and have many friends, pastors here and all around the world, and people who love God.

And two weeks later I buried them.

Or three months later, I buried them.

And and the sort of the word faith movement that you'll hear out there is if you just believe, if if you just believe, if in other words, if your cancer doesn't go away, if your leg isn't healed, if this doesn't happen, you don't have enough faith.

And so all the onus is on the people out there.

I've studied every single miracle in the New Testament.

And I'd encourage you, if this is an issue, go through and look, go just go, every miracle, go through and just list it on an Excel sheet.

I almost said a yellow pad that that would date me yet again.

I did it on a yellow pad.

And what you'll find is this is an unbeliever that has no faith.

Be healed.

They are over here, daughter, your faith has made you well.

Boom.

Over here, no faith.

There is no formula whatsoever.

Here's what I want you to know.

We need to be men and women that soak our mind like the one group that I was around and memorize and meditate on the scripture.

And then we need to be like my Pentecostal, my charismatic brother, and have the supernatural worldview and say, why don't we open all these things in Ethiopia and Africa and India?

And why do we do it now?

And conservative people say, because we don't have any money.

Well, won't God provide?

Yeah.

Well, when we get the money, we'll go.

And my Pentecostal brothers will say, Don't you have to put your foot in the water before the Red Sea parted?

And they'll go, Yes, it does say that.

And so my Pentecostal brothers, most everything we do around the world is because it's not how what they believe about gifts.

They believe God wants to show up in supernatural ways.

Here's the question do you?

My more word-oriented men and women are saying, yes, let's learn from our Pentecostal brothers.

And by the way, let's learn to worship like they do too, because we're so inhibited and they're so free.

But if you listen to this side of it, sometimes everything's based on emotion or experience.

Every group has their air.

What we need to do is learn from the different groups.

Multiple gifts.

My reformed brother have this amazing high view of God, and they have such a central focus on the gospel.

My dispensational brothers have such a sense of dividing the word.

And some of you are saying, what's a dispensational brother and a reform brother?

Don't worry about it.

If you know about it, great.

If not, forget it.

But here's what I want you to get.

We can learn from one another as we exercise our gifts.

And I just cannot encourage you enough to recognize that you're so valuable to Jesus.

And his stamp of affirmation that you matter, that you have a purpose, that you can be used by him to be a part of a transformation.

And sometimes it's wisdom, sometimes it's knowledge, sometimes it's healing, sometimes it's insight.

But you can be an instrument that can change the course of fellow believers and unbelievers' lives forever.

But if spiritual gifts are, well, you know, it's kind of confused, and I heard people argue, I'm not sure that's big a deal.

I got news.

It's a really big deal.

And you really matter.

Can I encourage you to determine today?

I'm going to discover a motivational gift.

I'm going to take that test and find out sort of how God has wired me.

And then I'm going to jump in the deep end of the pool, talk with a couple friends, maybe a small group, and I'm going to at least start trying some things that I seem to be gifted to do and see what God does.

Sound good?

Why don't you stand as Ryan comes and gives us a benediction to go forth and fulfill what God's made us to do and called us to do.com slash cards.