Don't Misunderstand Spiritual Gifts pt2

You're very welcome to today's Triumph Church podcast.

We pray that you enjoy the message.

If you brought your Bibles, tablets, phones, we're going to

begin in One Corinthians chapter 12 this morning.

I'm going to be continuing a teaching that I'd begin, I guess

3 weeks ago now, the 26th May, I'd talk, begin talking about

spiritual gifts about don't misunderstand spiritual gifts

'cause there's a lot, you know, when you start talking about

spiritual things, there's a lot of misunderstandings that can

happen, especially if we're basing things on opinion or on

what we've heard instead of on, on God's Scripture, right?

Scripture makes everything clear.

And so every, everything that we, we base our life on,

everything we base our doctrine on, like it should be founded on

scripture, not my opinion, right?

Not your opinion, not the opinion of, of someone that

you've heard on, on YouTube, right, But on Scripture and

scripture alone. And I was listening to the other

night with Pastor Amy and there's a, a guy that was on

there and he's a, a Bible scholar and he knows a lot of

different things, a lot of Greek and Hebrew in things.

And, you know, as as he's talking, I'm like, he doesn't

really actually know what he's talking about concerning this

topic. He's talking about the Holy

Spirit. And I'm like, it's interesting

how you can have someone who knows all this Greek in Hebrew,

but then when it comes to something spiritual, you know,

comes to things like the Holy Spirit.

He didn't really know what he was talking about.

It's because it's easy to rationalize things with our head

and try to have an understanding of things with our head.

But have you ever thought about the things of God and tried to

reason God with your mind, right?

God expects us to use our mind. He gave us all the brain here,

right? Everyone has a brain, don't you?

Yeah. If you don't, you're brain dead.

Means you're dead. Everyone has a brain here.

God expects us to use our mind, to use common sense.

God's the one that made this squishy matter in our craniums,

right? Like he expects us to use that.

But spiritual things can't be understood from here.

And a lot of people try to understand spiritual things from

their head, and you can't. There's a lot of incredibly,

incredibly smart people, some of the smartest people in the

world. But when it comes to spiritual

things, they're ignorant because they don't know.

That's not a bad place to be. Ignorant doesn't mean you're

dumb, right? Ignorant just means you don't

know. They're smart people, but they

just don't know about spiritual things because spiritual things

are understood from your heart. You can't understand the things

of God apart from your heart, your spirit man, right?

God is a spirit and he speaks to your spirit.

The devil's the one that speaks to your head.

Trying to understand from God from here is impossible.

You can't. You can go to the university and

you can learn a lot of things, but you can't understand God

from here. And a lot of people are trying

to, but you can't. So the apostle Paul in one

Corinthians chapter 12 and verse one, and this is a continuation

of that message that I started on the 26th May there.

If you weren't here for that, you can go back.

Listen to that online triumph church dot IE it's called don't

misunderstand spiritual gifts. Be good for you to listen to

that. I'm not really going to go back

and review things in there today.

We're just going to continue on from that.

But in One Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 1, the apostle Paul

said this. He said, Now dear brothers and

sisters, regarding your question about the special abilities the

Spirit gives us, I don't want you to misunderstand this.

Many churches avoid the topic of the Holy Spirit in spiritual

gifts because they don't understand them.

But Paul expressly stated here in One Corinthians chapter 12

and verse one that he doesn't want us to misunderstand the

special abilities or spiritual gifts.

And as a pastor, I I don't want you to misunderstand what they

are either because they're an important part of the ministry

of the church. And we need spiritual gifts

operating in the church and operating in our lives if we

want to be effective in reaching people, right?

So we're going to read on. In One Corinthians, chapter 12

and verse 7 through 11, the apostle Paul begins to kind of

talk about what these spiritual gifts.

All right, starting in verse 7, he says there are diversities of

gifts, but the same Spirit and there are diversities of

activities, but it is the same God who works.

All in all, verse 84 to 1 is given the word of Wisdom through

the Spirit to another, the word of Knowledge through the Spirit

to another, faith by the same Spirit to another, gifts of

healings by the same Spirit in verse 10 to another, the working

of miracles to another, prophecy to another, discerning of

spirits, to another, different kinds of tongues, and to another

the interpretation of tongues in verse 11.

But one in the same Spirit works all these things, distributing

to each one individually as He wills.

So today I'm going to talk about 3 gifts.

There's nine in total, right? We'd be here until late this

evening if I talked about all nine of them.

So we're just going to talk about three of them this

morning. And these are three that we

encount would probably encounter a lot, especially in a church

setting. And it's these three, the word

of knowledge, the word of Wisdom and prophecies are called the

utterance gifts. All right, the apostle Paul

spends 3 chapters in Corinthians really trying to clear up some

misunderstandings that the Corinthian church had concerning

spiritual gifts. He spends chapter 12, he spends

chapter 13, and he spends chapter 14.

What's interesting about that is he talks about spiritual gifts a

lot in chapter 12. He talks about spiritual gifts a

lot in chapter 14, but sandwiched in the middle like an

Oreo, that creamy inside is love.

Apostle Paul spends a lot of that chapter right in between

those 2, chapter 13, talking about love.

Something that you need to understand is that God knows

everything, right? He knows what's going on in your

head. He knows what's going on in your

heart. He knows what's going on in your

life. He knows what's going on in, in

public, He knows what's going on in private.

And spiritual gifts, the things that he's given that the body of

Christ are to help us. All right.

And the first thing we're going to talk about this morning is,

is the word of word of knowledge.

The word of knowledge is a supernatural revelation by the

Holy Spirit of certain facts. All right, not all the facts, a

small fragment of facts. And sometimes the Holy Spirit

takes a small piece of that knowledge that He knows about

everything in our lives and gives it to a believer

specifically for the purpose so that they can pray more

effectively. How many of you would like to

pray effectively for your loved ones, for your friends, for your

family members, right? He also may give us a, a piece

specifically for the purpose to more effectively minister to

someone. You know, have you ever had

anyone while they're, while they're praying for you, you

know, have some information about your life while they're

praying and you're like, how did they know that, right?

Were they looking on my Facebook?

Were they looking on my, my Instagram?

They probably didn't even know your name to be able to look

that up, right? They got that from the Holy

Spirit, right? The Lord is, is giving them some

information to help them pray and to help them minister to you

more effectively, right? And there's always a purpose to

the Lord giving someone that information.

And what do we do if we're the ones that receive some

information from the Holy Spirit?

There's always a purpose whether we're supposed to pray about

that or if we're supposed to share that information.

And with these things, this information isn't for us to

dissect. For example, there, there's a

lot of different kinds of prayers in, in Scripture, all

right. And sometimes we can get, we can

get so focused on the things, the word of knowledge, the word

of wisdom, prophecy, whatever it, it may be, you know, Hmm,

are they operating in the word of knowledge, right, or the

discerning of spirits, or is it the word of wisdom or prophecy?

I wonder, Hmm, let me look in Scripture and find, Yep, it's

the word of knowledge, right? We can get so involved in, in

what it is that we kind of miss the, the point of what the the

Holy Spirit is trying to do. All right, So what's going

through this information isn't so we can try to dissect

everything that that's happening in a service or while people are

ministering or in our in our own lives.

It's to it's to help us to bring clarity, all right, so that we

can have faith in something, to be able to step out into

something. All right.

But there's all these different kinds of prayer that's in

Scripture as well, you know? But while I'm praying, you know,

I'm not thinking about, I wonder what kind of prayer this is that

I'm praying in right now. Lord, you know, no, I'm just

praying. All right?

So I'm saying that to encourage you, you know, don't get so

bogged down in the details. That's not what this is about.

This is just so we're clearing up any misunderstandings, right?

We want to understand spiritual gifts so that we have the faith

in the ability to be able to walk in these spiritual gifts.

OK. And their purpose is to help

people. The word of knowledge is always

about the past or the present. OK Word of knowledge is never

about the future. It's only about the past, things

that have happened or things that are happening right now.

Let's look at a, a, a good example, probably one of the

clearest examples in, in Scripture.

And this is Jesus operating in this gift.

And I don't know if you know the, the story of the woman at

the, the well, you know, Jesus was traveling through Samaria,

you know, and he was thirsty and there is a well there and he's

like, huh, I'm thirsty. He sent the disciples ahead and

he goes to the well and he, there's a woman there and he's

like, Hey, woman, can you give me a drink of water?

I'm, I'm thirsty. And he begins to minister to

her. All right, And he starts to talk

to her about living water. And in this we get this in John

John 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4 in verse 15 through 18.

In verse 15 she says, please Sir, the woman said, give me

this water and then I'll never be thirsty again and I won't

have to come here to get water. And Jesus responded in verse 16,

go and get your husband. Jesus told her in verse 17, she

says I don't have a husband. She replied and Jesus said,

you're right, you don't have a husband.

And then verse 18 for you have had five husbands and you aren't

even married to the man that you're living with now.

Wow, that's pretty wild. It's pretty specific as well,

isn't it, man? How would you like to have your

mail read like that? But the purpose of that wasn't

to condemn this woman. It wasn't to put her in her

place or position. The purpose of that was to help

her. Because from that, she's like,

you're not a man who could just know something like that.

Like, how are you getting this information?

And he was able to minister to her and reveal to her that He's

the one that can give this living water.

The Holy Spirit used that information to bring that woman

to a point to receive from Jesus, right?

The gifts of the Spirit are to help people.

Jesus didn't learn this information in a conversation

that he had. He didn't guess.

He, supernaturally, by the Holy Spirit, knew these facts about

this woman's life, and the Holy Spirit revealed those facts for

the purpose of breaking through any defense that she had.

Because initially when Jesus was talking with her, her defenses

were up and he was not able to have a conversation with her,

Right? She was confrontational with

Jesus. Have you ever been

confrontational with Jesus? She's being confrontational with

Jesus, and so the Holy Spirit revealed some information to

Jesus that would bypass those defenses to help her.

And the important part, part that Paul is making in One

Corinthians 12/7 is that these spiritual gifts are to help

people. They're an act of God's love.

It's saying I see you and I'm here to help, and that's what

God is revealing through these. The second thing I want to talk

about the next gift is the word of Wisdom.

And this one gets confused with the the word of knowledge more

than any other gift in this list.

But here's how to distinguish them.

The word of knowledge, as I said, deals with the past and

deals with the present. All right, The word of Wisdom

deals with the future, right? And like I said, don't get

caught up on dissecting these. And you know, if someone that

you know is, is ministering or whatever, hmm, are they

operating? Don't worry about that.

It's just God speaking, all right, to help people.

This is just to help us. All right, So let's look at an

example. In Acts chapter 21, you have a

Acts 21 · chapter mention

prophet named Agabus, and he comes down from Judea to share

something that the Lord had given him to the apostle Paul.

This is found in Acts chapter 21.

Acts 21 · chapter mention

We're going to read verses 10 and 11.

Verse 10 it says several days later a man named Agabus, who

had the gift of prophecy, arrived from Judea.

And in verse 11, he came over, took Paul's belt and bound his

own feet and hands with it, and then said to him, the Holy

Spirit declares, so shall the owner of this belt be bound by

the Jewish leaders of Jerusalem and turned over to the Gentiles?

That's really good news, isn't it?

Thanks, Lord. Why you're revealing that to me?

That's information I didn't want to know.

But that isn't just information. It's a specific glimpse into the

future revealed by the Holy Spirit.

And there's a purpose to that, right?

Sometimes the word of knowledge may give direction.

Other times it may give you comfort and may give you

stability. Right?

Agabus here isn't telling Paul something that he already knows.

He's telling the apostle Paul something that's coming.

And the purpose is, is to prepare the apostle Paul so that

he'll be prepared and not panicked.

The Holy Spirit is revealing this to bring Paul's stability

to a coming situation that was unstable, a trial and

tribulation that the Holy Spirit is warning them.

You're going to go to Jerusalem, Paul, and this is what's going

to happen. But don't be afraid, but check

out what happened next in Acts chapter 21 and verse 12, it says

Acts 21 · chapter mention

and when they when we heard this, we and the local believers

all begged Paul not to go to Jerusalem.

They read something into what the Holy Spirit was telling

Paul. The Holy Spirit wasn't

necessarily telling Paul don't go to Jerusalem, right?

The Holy Spirit was telling Paul through Agabus something that

was coming. So that as Paul stepped into

that and as he went to Jerusalem, he was prepared for

it. He wasn't going to be taken

surprise that when he was arrested, right, That he's like,

oh, Lord, what are you doing? No, he knew and we he was

prepared for that. But what did the believers there

try to do? They tried to talk the apostle

Paul out of following the Holy Spirit.

They put their interpretation on what they believed the apostle

Paul should be doing. And we have to be careful if we

receive something from the Lord, we don't put our interpretation

on that, right? That's between that individual

and the Holy Spirit. I may have something for, for

Aiden, all right, but I have to be careful as the one that the

Holy Spirit has given me this, this word of wisdom, this word

of knowledge or this prophecy for Aiden, that I'm not putting

my spin, my interpretation on that because he's not supposed

to follow my interpretation or my opinion.

He's supposed to follow the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is giving something through me, an

imperfect vessel, right? It's giving Aiden some

information, and that information is going to align

with his spirit. Because before the Lord tells me

something, he's probably already talking to Aiden.

What I'm telling Aiden is just confirmation about something the

Holy Spirit has already been talking to him about.

And if it doesn't confirm, if in his spirit man, right, Not his

head, right, in his spirit man, if that doesn't bear witness, if

he doesn't have a piece about that, then he shouldn't act on

what I've just told him. This is to bring stability to

our life. If it's bringing instability,

all right, I might have missed it, or this imperfect vessel,

you know, might have got my interpretation into that word.

But we have to be careful, all right, that we're not putting

our spin on something or if we hear something that someone else

has given a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, a prophecy

that we're not trying to interpret that ourselves, like

these believers there and say, no, don't do that, right?

Don't get arrested. But the Apostle Paul has to

follow where the Holy Spirit is leading him.

All right. It's to help you.

How many of you have ever gone through a trial or tribulation

and someone has prayed for you or had a word of wisdom or

knowledge or prophecy about something and that helped bring

stability or it helped you make that decision?

I gave the example on the 26th May there about a big decision

that Pastor Amy and myself we're having to go through.

We had it on our heart. The Lord began to talk to us

that we're supposed to step down from our positions at her

parents church and that he was going to be moving us to

something else. Well, what is that Lord?

Pastor Amy kept asking, Well, what is it?

I don't know, Holy Spirit hasn't told me that yet and it took

some time. Well, well, guess what?

We, we struggled with that decision for a a while.

We didn't step down for a while because it was a really big

decision, right? Stepping down from her like we

moved to Ireland to help with Pastor Amy's parents church.

Right, we're going to live and die in Limerick helping in this

church. Well, obviously that didn't

happen. I'm still living.

But we really struggled with that decision.

All right, the Holy Spirit's talking to us, but we're like,

well, OK, Lord, but, but, but, but, but, but, but all right.

And so we were at a conference and you know, you all know

Pastor Sam, who was here for a three-year anniversary.

We were at a conference in America and, and he had a word

for the Lord and he didn't really know that it was for us

at the time. I'm sitting on the on the front

row. Pastor Sam is probably like,

like right here from, from me and Pastor Amy, you know, and

he's, and he's sharing this word from the Lord.

And it was like he was just reading like all the

conversations, the private conversations that we had had

together, like he's stating all these different things.

You've been talking and we're like, Oh my gosh.

And I knew it. He's like, I don't know who this

is for. I knew who it was for.

It was for it was for Pastor Amy and myself, and I just knew it.

It bore witness with my spirit. This is the Lord talking to us.

He's using Pastor Sam to confirm what he had already been talking

to us about. This is a big decision.

And one of the things he said was if you don't begin to move,

you're going to miss this window.

And so it took a little bit of time, but we did begin to move

and we wound up moving over, Long story short, moving over

here to this part of the country.

And it's kind of begin the process of starting a church.

And then COVID happened, right? If we didn't begin to move, we

probably wouldn't have, we would have missed that window.

And we needed that confirmation just to help give me a, a, a

kick in the rear end, get me moving.

I move pretty slow. I'm not a fast mover.

When the Lord talks to me, I spend a lot of time processing

that. And the Lord knows that He

started several years before because I move so slow.

But it got to the point where the Lord had to say through

Pastor Sam, hello McFly. If you don't start moving,

you're going to miss the window. You might want to start putting

some steps 1 foot and the other in front of the other, right?

But that was a word from the Lord, but no one else could put

their interpretation on it. It was important that that one

that confirmed in my spirit that this was the Lord talking.

I knew it. I didn't understand it from

here. I knew it from here.

The Lord was trying to help us, to move us.

And that's what these spiritual gifts are.

It's to help people. The next thing I want to talk

about here is prophecy. One thing I want to say too,

before we go into that is that just because someone says I've

received something from the Lord for you, that doesn't mean that

you move on that one first. You're going to know it inside

if it is something from the Lord, but pray about it.

You know, Pastor Amy and I, after that word from the Lord,

from Pastor Sam, we didn't like, you know.

Hey, Dad, Mom, we quit. We're moving.

I want to move over to. No.

It took some time. It was a process.

We prayed about it. We processed.

We asked the Lord about it. Well, OK, Lord, what do you want

us to do? We know now we need to start

moving. We need to start going a

direction. What is that direction?

He didn't even tell us that direction yet.

We knew it was Dublin. We need to start going.

So we started taking all these day trips and, and driving all

over Dublin, the north, the South, the West, not the east,

because we'd have to be in a boat for that.

Well, we were travelling all over, just praying.

OK, Lord, where would you have us?

You know, he parked us right here in the middle of clean.

We're like, Lord, why clean? You know, it's a, it's a

village. It's not even in Dublin really.

It's like, well, what are you doing?

But the Lord had a plan, right? You were part of that plan.

Amen. Aren't you glad we listened?

So let's talk about prophecy for a minute here.

And I really want to be clear about what this is and and what

it isn't, because prophecy really is one of the most

misunderstood gifts in the charismatic church.

And you have many people on YouTube who are YouTube

prophets, right? But really, the vast majority of

of those people aren't prophets at all.

All right? Like we need to be careful what

we're connecting our, ourselves to.

So it's important to point out that that the ministry gift of

the prophet mentioned in Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 11

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

is, is different than the spiritual gift of prophecy.

All right, The ministry gift of the prophet is a ministry

position, right? So are the apostle, the

evangelist, the pastor, and the teacher.

Those are ministry positions, ministry offices.

All right, That's different than gifts of the Spirit.

Just because someone has prophesied doesn't make them a

prophet. Some people, they, they

prophecy, prophecy something. The Lord uses them in a, in a,

in a way. And they're like, all of a

sudden, you know, I'll start calling me Prophet Bradley,

right? You're not a prophet just

because you've shared a prophecy, right?

You're operating maybe in a gift of prophecy, but you're not a

prophet. The prophet itself is an office,

all right? It's a ministry position.

Does that make sense? The simple gift of prophecy is

speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in a known

language for the purpose of building up and encouraging and

comforting. This is what the Paul said in

One Corinthians chapter 14 and verse three.

He pretty much blinds it out really clearly.

He says 1 Corinthians 14. Three, he says, But one who

prophecies strengthens others, encourages them and comforts

them, right. Is that what that says?

That simple prophecy? Its purpose is to build people

up, all right? To encourage them.

It isn't to direct them. It isn't to tell them you need

to do this, you need to sell all your possessions and blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah. No, it's to build you up, to

strengthen you, to encourage you and to comfort you in many of

these spiritual gifts, the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge

and, and prophecy. You know, they may, they may

work in conjunction with, with one another.

You know, the Lord may reveal to someone, tell them about

something about your past, right, and then reveal something

about your future and then may then comfort and encourage and

build you up with something. You have all three of those

gifts operating at once. That's what I'm saying.

Don't, don't try to dissect things.

Just follow the Holy Spirit, however he directs you.

The apostle Paul gives this direction specifically for

prophecy, and it would be wise to apply this really to all of

the the gifts of the Spirit here.

The apostle Paul advises this in One Corinthians 1429.

He says let two or three prophets speak and let the

others judge. You know something about the

Corinthian church as they were a young church and they didn't

really have a lot of spiritual maturity.

And so they had they had a lot of spiritual sensitivity, all

right, but not the maturity. And the church was just chaotic.

Everyone comes wanting to prophet prophecy.

Everyone comes wanting to give some word of wisdom.

Everyone comes wanting to give some, some, some word of

knowledge. And like you just had people

popping up and shouting and like it was chaotic, right?

Can you imagine if our church like you can't even hear you

ever been in a in a loud room and you have all these people

talking and you can hardly even hear the person next to you

talking. You're trying to have a

conversation with them and you're just hearing all this

noise, right? It, it's difficult.

Well, imagine that in the, in the church setting, you know,

how's the Holy Spirit supposed to do something when everyone's

yelling up and standing up and shouting.

And, you know, so the Apostle Paul is trying to bring order,

trying to bring understanding to spiritual gifts here.

And so he says, let two or three prophets speak and then let the

others judge. And that's the part that I want

to talk about here for a moment is, is that every prophecy,

every word of knowledge, every word of, of wisdom needs to be

weighed against God's word. Not opinion, not thought, not

what this world thinks needs to be weighed against God's word.

Does it first line up with God's word?

Is it something scriptural or is it something unscriptural?

The Holy Spirit isn't ever going to try to lead you, guide you,

direct you, encourage you into something that is not in

Scripture. The Holy Spirit is only ever

going to line up with Scripture. If it's not in here, all right,

it's not of God. So this is the first way that we

judge anything, any spiritual gift.

The second thing is that it needs to line up with our heart.

All right, our spirit. If it doesn't bear witness with

our spirit, someone's giving us a, a word of knowledge or

something, it doesn't bear with our with our spirit.

Then you just do need to do as I say is just take that and you

just put it on the shelf, right? You don't need to do anything

with it right now. Just put it on the shelf.

Thank you for that. God bless you.

I appreciate that. You don't even have to tell the

person. Well, that doesn't bear witness

with my spirit, right? No, just thank you.

Be gracious, all right? And put that on the shelf.

And if it and you pray about it, you go back home and in your

prayer time you just pray about that.

OK, Lord, someone came to me and gave me this word of knowledge,

this this word of wisdom or this prophecy, you know, is that was

that of you? Is there something you want me

to do with that? Right.

That's how we need to deal with it.

That's how we judge that. All right.

We first judge it with the word, then we judge it.

Does it bear witness? Do we have a piece about it in,

in our spirit? Then if it's something to deal

with the future, you'll know if it comes to pass, all right?

If it, if it's from God, if it comes to pass, you know, years

ago, before Pastor Amy and I moved to Ireland, you know, we

were in three different parts of America travelling, raising

support. So we could move here because at

that time we, we couldn't earn any money inside Ireland.

All of our money had to come from outside of Ireland.

So we had to raise support. We're at these different cities

across America, at these different churches, different

people who had absolutely no connection to each other.

And at three different places, they, they, they gave a word

that was something along this lines.

You know, at the first part, it's going to be hard, you know

it, but after that it's going to be fun, right?

We've joke to each other all the time.

Well, when's it going to be fun? Right, You guys are making it

fun. Thank you.

But it's been a joke of ours, you know, but the point is, you

know that that's something obviously that's just in the in

the future, but at some point it's going to be fun.

You know, for a while things weren't things aren't always

fun, are they? So you just put that on the on

the shelf. First you judge it according to

Scripture, then you judge it according to whether you have a

piece about that for bears witness on the inside of you.

All right, and and then, of course, if it's something to do

with the future, then you know if it's God because it'll come

to pass. All right, listen, all these all

these things that we're we're talking about and talking about

the gifts of the Spirit. And what these things are is

these things are like a a safety net for us.

All right, and the reason why is the pastor of the church.

I'm talking about spiritual gifts and that so that we don't

have a misunderstanding of those.

You know, we haven't had this happen in our church, all right.

But there have been some other pastors that we know where

people have come who aren't part of the church that come and they

just start giving everyone a word from the Lord, you know,

prophesying over people and, and telling them God said such and

such and such and such. Well, they're not even part of

that. That church, you know, the Holy

Spirit isn't going to do that, all right?

Unless Pastor Amy and Brad have asked someone say like Pastor

Eddie or someone else to come here to minister in the church.

Pastor, the Holy Spirit isn't going to violate the authority

of this church, right? He's not going to have someone

come in and and just start giving a word to everybody who's

not connected to us at all. So as a as a, as a pastor, I

want us as a church, as a church family, to have some

understanding about how spiritual gifts work.

All right, Because that's important.

OK, so I want to close with this real quickly about walking in

spiritual gifts. It's really quick in One

Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 11, and really, really quick

'cause I'm just hot. It's warm up here. 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

chapter 12 and verse 11, the apostle Paul says, and it is one

and only. It is the one and only Spirit

who distributes these gifts. He alone decides which gift each

person, each person should have. The Holy Spirit, the apostle

Paul says, who decides that? You're not the one that gets to

determine. All right, I'm going to walk in

the Word of Wisdom today. I'm going to prophecy today.

I'm going to walk in special faith or gifts of healings or

no, it's the Holy Spirit who decides those things.

This isn't like a buffet where, you know, I can go to, you know,

what's that restaurant Cosmo, right at the Liffey Valley Mall,

You know, you can go up there. What is that like on the 3rd

floor? And it's a lot of Asian cuisine

and different things. It's pretty good, you know, But

you can go and you can choose what it is you want to eat.

You know, you walk up with a plate.

You know, if you're like me, you walk up, you know, two or three

times, maybe 4 times, you know, fill up your fill up your plate

and you know, this is all you can eat, right?

I'm going to get my money's worth.

Like they don't mind. No one says a thing, right?

I can go up there four or five times, fill up my plate.

I still eat like I'm a teenager. I don't know what's wrong with

me, right? But, but so, you know, the gifts

of the Spirit, it isn't like that, all right?

He's the one that determines what gift you operate in.

That's an important part that we need to understand, right?

He says he alone, the Holy Spirit decides which gift each

person should have. So how do we recognize the Holy

Spirit's leading with these gifts?

That's probably an important discussion, isn't it?

Firstly, the Holy Spirit speaks to your spirit.

The enemy speaks to your mind. Sometimes we speak to our mind

as well, but the Holy Spirit speaks to your spirit.

If you're getting something, you, you think, is this a word

of wisdom and knowledge, prophecy?

What is this right? And it's coming through here.

Let me just tell you, that's probably not the Holy Spirit.

Now let me know, let me take probably out there.

Let me tell you, it's not the Holy Spirit, right?

The Holy Spirit doesn't speak to you through your mind.

He speaks to you through your spirit.

That's a really easy way to tell if something is from God or

whether it's from the enemy, right, Because the enemy talks

to you too, doesn't he? Right.

You ever had any crazy thoughts? I have.

Don't act so spiritual, right? God speaks to your spirit.

So what does this practically look like?

It might just be like an impression.

You just feel something, an impression in your spirit.

It might be an, an inspiration with some words, perhaps it may

feel like a bubbling up in your spirit.

You know, like you, you feel like I can, I can hardly even

contain this. The Holy Spirit's telling me,

telling me something. And what are you supposed to do

with that? And, and it may happen while

you're praying. It may happen while you're

worshiping a lot of times, you know, while we're worshiping

here on, on Sunday morning, the Lord's speaking to me all the

time. The Lord speaks to me while I'm

worshiping all the time. You know, sometimes the Lord may

speak to different people differently, all right?

He may speak to you while you're praying.

He may speak to you while you're doing dishes or laundry or while

you're at work or while you're driving.

The Lord speaks to me a lot while I'm worshipping, OK?

But you also might be doing absolutely nothing.

You might be on the bus, all right, not even thinking about

anything religious or whatever. You may be thinking, what should

I do after work today, right? And all of a sudden, you just

feel something inside the Lord telling you something.

All right. He may give you a word of

knowledge about the past or present.

He may give you a word of wisdom about the future.

He may give you a a prophecy to strengthen or comfort someone.

And if you believe you that you've received something from

the Holy Spirit, you should first ask him what you should do

with that. Don't ever act on it right away

unless the Holy Spirit tells you.

I need you to act on this right now, you know, otherwise ask the

Holy Spirit what he wants you to do with that.

Should I pray about this Lord? Are you telling me this for me

to pray for someone or are you telling me this information that

I'm supposed to share this with someone?

So let's talk about some practical steps to something

that's very spiritual. I have just have a couple things

here really quick is believe that God has a spiritual gift

for you. You know, these spiritual gifts

aren't reserved for full time ministers.

They're reserved for the church, for individuals, because we all

have a ministry, don't we? I can't go and talk to everyone

that you know, that'd be impossible, right?

I don't know all the people that you know, God has a ministry for

you. And these spiritual gifts aren't

just for us here in the church. It's for it's to help us out

there outside of these walls to be able to help people just like

Jesus with that woman at the well, right?

He wasn't in the temple. He wasn't in the synagogue.

He was at a well getting a drink of water, right?

So believe that God has has a gift for you and the Holy Spirit

distributes these each as he wills.

The next thing is to create space to hear right?

A lot of us may not have ever walked in in gifts, a gift of

the Spirit before. Some of us might not have ever

even heard of gifts of the Spirit.

Wow, Pastor Brad, I've, I've read these chapters before, but

I never really thought about gifts of the spirit in in my

life, right? But the Holy Spirit wants you to

walk in these things. So createspace to hear these

gifts operate as you are yielded to the Holy Spirit.

Spend some time in prayer and in the word and learn to pay

attention to those impressions of the Spirit in your heart.

All right, you just, you just start with small things.

The Holy Spirit begins to reveal things to you, not necessarily

for you to go to act on those things.

It's just so that you begin to recognize.

I recognize that I recognize the voice of the Spirit, right?

That's that's an important thing.

All right. The next thing is test what you

receive. Don't run with every impression

that you get. As you're growing, the Lord may

reveal things to you as you're learning to hear his voice.

Those things aren't necessarily for you to run with, all right,

but to learn from. Test those things against the

word and if needed, all right, bring those to a a trusted

member of of leadership, Pastor Amy, myself or anyone else in in

the church who's who's mature and can help you with those

things. All right, and that helps bring

stability. And then the next thing is be

humble. The Holy Spirit wants to work

through every believer, and it's an amazing and thrilling thing

to hear the voice of the Lord and we're all special.

All right, but none of us are a special case.

That's because you hear from the Lord.

Don't let that go to your head, all right, remain humble.

You know, when we're humble, the Bible says humble yourself in

the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up.

A humble heart is important when you're ministering to people,

you know, people that start to get a big head because the Lord

starts to use them is a a dangerous minefield that the

enemy begins to use in your life to try to trip you up and to try

to trip other people up. So stay humble.

Recognize that how amazing it is for God to use Someone Like You.

You know, God likes to use the unlikely to do the unusual

things, the amazing things. We are all special, right?

But we're not a special case. Does that make sense?

All right, so I'm going to close with this.

The church is not a performance hall, OK?

These gifts aren't to show how spiritual we are, right?

The church is a place where many people come for help.

They need something from the Lord.

And the really cool thing is that God has placed these

ministry gifts within the church for us to help people.

All right, I'm happy to pray for anyone who needs prayer, but it

is such a blessing to me as the the pastor to see people in our

church praying for one another, encouraging one another,

building up one another, or someone coming to me with a

story of how the Lord used them to bless someone outside of this

church. All right, it's an amazing

thing. So my question to you this

morning is, are you willing to allow the Holy Spirit to speak

through you to help others? It's a big step, all right, but

there is nothing more thrilling than for God to be able to use

us, to speak through us, to help someone who needs help.

Amen. Let's all close our eyes and bow

our heads, and I just want us to pray this together.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your gift of the Holy

Spirit. I believe that you speak through

your church. I believe that you speak through

me to help others. I open my heart to every gift

you have for me. Help me be sensitive to Your

Spirit and use me to build up the people around me.

I believe your word. Can I receive your gifts in

Jesus name? Amen.

Thank you for listening to the Triumph Church podcast this

week. If it was a blessing to you,

share it with someone you know. For more information on Triumph

Church, you can visit us at www.triumphchurch.ie.