The Gifts of the Holy Spirit | Brad Straarup

I'm so expectant for today because I really believe that the Holy Spirit wants to come today.

And He is wanting to put some gifts inside of you that I think for so many of us we haven't accessed.

Have you all ever had a gift that was yours, but for some reason you didn't access that gift?

Anyone ever had that happen to you before?

I remember a couple years ago, uh my iPhone was getting so old that I couldn't open up any apps, like messages weren't working, like my connection wasn't working, like it was just terrible, I was running out of space.

And what I did is I said to Paige, I was like, hey, I think we need to buy some new iPhones.

So I bought these new iPhones and they arrived, and I was so excited.

And I grabbed them and I put them in the drawer.

And I remember one week kind of went by, and you know, two weeks went by, and I'm like, okay, you know, when you do the whole iPhone flip, like you're like your photos need to come across, and I was like, I need to do it, I need to do it right.

So I'm gonna make sure that I have enough time to do it right.

And two weeks went by, and three weeks went by, and four weeks went by, and there came a point where I was so frustrated because I was like, my messages aren't working, like I don't have the connection that I need, like none of my apps are working, and yet there was power that was available to me the entire time, but it was sitting in my drawer.

All the connection that I need, like the ability that when I'm lost, it can now connect to satellite and it can tell me where to go.

Everything that I needed was in this drawer, but for some reason I wasn't accessing what I had access to.

I think that's true for so many believers who are in this place that we can have the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and He has given you these gifts, but for some reason we're not opening the drawer and we're not using the very thing that God has allowed us to do.

Last week, what I talked about is I talked about the power of the Holy Spirit.

The week before that, I talked about the person of the Holy Spirit, and today what I want to do is I want to talk about the gifts of the Spirit.

Because that power came down for a reason, and it was to equip you, and it was to give you gifts.

And to start this, I'm gonna need the help of my man Paul.

So if you have your Bibles, I want you to go to 1 Corinthians 12.

And of course, if you're following along on the app, you can tap the disc right in front of you, and our notes are all there on the Spirit app.

But 12 verse 1, it says this.

Now, about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, that's all of us.

I do not want you to be uninformed, and I think that's important because I think so many believers are uninformed and misinformed.

And that could be because of your upbringing.

There could be many reasons why we're uninformed and misinformed.

In fact, Barner did a study and they said 75% of Christians do not know their spiritual gifts.

Okay, that's eight in ten people, eight in ten Christians that do not know their spiritual gifts.

Paul is saying, I don't want you to be uninformed, and yet for so many of us, we're walking around uninformed.

And he continues, verse 4, he says this there are different kinds of gifts, but the same spirit distributes them.

There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.

There are different kinds of workings, but in all of them and in every one, it is the same God who is at work.

What he's doing in this moment is he's using a parallel structure that I want you guys to be able to see.

He's not giving three separate categories, he's giving three separate angles.

So three times he says, it is different kinds, but the same.

It is different kinds, but the same.

He says there's different kinds of gifts.

The Greek word there is charisma, and it's derived from the word grace.

And what that is, is it is a grace gift that has been given to you that you didn't earn.

Like sometimes we think the way to get the gifts of the spirit is by reading our Bible and praying.

And if you pray hard enough and you read your Bible long enough, you're gonna get that gift.

No, no, no.

It is a grace gift.

The word is charisma.

He says it is a gift, but it's the same spirit.

He says it is the same service, it's different kinds of service, and the Greek word there is diokonia, and what that is, is it's a waiting word, it's an apron word.

He says there's different kinds of service, in other words, like a waiter would come.

This is servicing people.

He says there are different kinds of service, but it is the same Lord.

And then he says there is different kinds of workings.

The word there is energomia, and what that is, is it's saying that there is activity, but it's God the one who is actually doing it.

And he ties it all with the Trinity.

He says that there is the Holy Spirit, it's different gifts, but the same spirit.

It's different service, but the same Lord.

It's different workings, but it is the same God.

So, what are the gifts of spirit?

I want to give you a definition that you can know what it is so that you can be informed.

Here's what it is: a spiritual gift.

A spiritual gift is a grace-given ability, that's the word charisma, through which the Holy Spirit works, that's that word inergemia, for the good of or in service to others.

And that's the word diokinia.

Okay, so let me read it again.

A spiritual gift is a grace-given ability through which the Holy Spirit works for the good of others.

Okay?

Let me make that plain to you.

Or some people say, Can you explain it to me?

Okay, I'm gonna explain it to you.

Here's what it is a spiritual gift is God at work through you for someone who isn't you.

A spiritual gift is God at work through you through for someone who isn't you.

So my question today is this what are the gifts that God has placed in your hands that is actually the answer to someone else's prayer?

And God is wanting to use you to answer that prayer that someone else has.

And he's saying, I put it in your hands, I just need you to use it.

And you're like, Brad, but I don't have any spiritual gifts.

Yes, you do.

Because literally in verse 7, he says this a spiritual gift is given to each.

Okay, do me a favor, say each.

Here's my question: Are you in each?

Okay, it has been given to each of you so that we can help each other.

And you guys are like, Okay, okay, it's been given to each of us, okay.

I get that, but I don't understand what they are.

So before I tell you what they are, I'm gonna tell you what they are not, because I think there's a lot of misinformation about the spiritual gifts.

The first thing that you're taking notes, I want you to write down is this spiritual gifts are not natural talents, they're not natural talents.

Some of you are gifted in business, some of you are gifted at school, like we remember you.

You gifted in school.

You're the people that you're in school and we're all trying to get out and praying that the teacher doesn't remember the homework, and you're like, Teacher, isn't there homework?

And we're like, Yes, why are you here?

Why are you speaking?

You have the you have the gift, someone's lifting up their hands, they're like, That's me.

There we go, that's me.

You have the gift in school.

Some people have gifts when it comes to singing.

You need to know this.

When you are born naturally, God gives you natural talents, but when you are born spiritually, God gives you spiritual gifts.

Okay, and they are different.

You have unbelievers that can sing really well.

Singing is not a spiritual gift.

Can I get a good amen?

Gifts are spirit-empowered, they're not personality powered.

So that's the first thing.

The second thing is this spiritual gifts are not for the elite few.

God isn't like you've been so good, so I'm gonna give you a gift.

You've been so bad, you get no gifts for you.

It's like Santa giving out gifts, and it's like you get a call.

That's what you're gonna get because you're not.

That's not how it works.

It's not for the elite few, it is for everyone, it is for each.

Again, are you and each?

Third thing is this spiritual gifts are not the fruit of the spirit.

Galatians 5, we did an entire series on that.

That is our values as a church: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Those aren't gifts of the spirit, those are fruit of the spirit.

I've talked to people and they're like, Brad, I don't have the gift of love.

I don't have the gift of joy.

Like I wake up in the morning like I don't I don't have that gift.

It's not a gift, it's a fruit.

And we're supposed to have all of them.

It's like an apple tree.

How do you know an apple tree is an apple tree?

It produces apples.

If you have the Spirit of God inside of you, you should producing, you should be producing all of this fruit.

That's how we know that you're a Christian.

That's how we know that the Holy Spirit is inside of you.

If someone says they're following God, but the fruit is never evident in their life.

They might be a cultural Christian, but not an actual Christian.

They might say they're following Jesus, but they're not following Jesus.

Now your fruit may be small, you might be a baby Christian, you're like, I'm starting to follow Jesus, but there still will be fruit.

It is the evidence of our salvation, the fruit of the spirit.

Spiritual gifts are not the fruit of the spirit.

The fourth thing is this spiritual gifts are not something to fear.

I said this in the beginning of the series.

Uh, the fruit or the gifts of the spirit are not weird, people are.

People just be weird.

Man, people just do weird stuff.

Okay, now I grew up charismatic, so I've been to the weird.

And there's times that I'll see something and I'll be like, man, that's disorderly, and that's not of God.

And I think for some of us, you may have experienced places like that, and you've rejected the spiritual gifts because someone did something weird.

Let me just tell you something.

The Holy Spirit is not weird.

Can I get a good amen?

He ain't weird.

And these gifts are for you.

God wants to help you use these gifts, they are given to you so that you may minister to people.

And it's something that I desire because I want to minister to more and more people as God gives me the ability.

The last one is this the spiritual gifts are not a spiritual maturity badge.

It's not like you have one gift, and because you have that gift, you're like super special.

And this is kind of what was happening in 1 Corinthians.

Like, we don't know what was happening, but there was some, there was like this ranking of spiritual gifts that started to happen.

I think it might have been about tongues because he literally spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about tongues.

You need to know this.

If you speak in tongues, okay, and we'll talk more about that next week because I think it's probably the most controversial.

Like, we're gonna talk about it, and it's gonna be beautiful and great.

Encourage you to come.

You can bring your friends, it ain't gonna be weird because I am not weird.

Okay, we're gonna talk about tongues, and I think this is important.

If you speak in tongues, you need to know this, okay?

I don't know if I've said this to the church.

I speak in tongues, okay?

Speaking in tongues does not make me better than you, it makes me better than me.

It doesn't make me better than you, it makes me better than me.

One gift is not more important than another gift.

Okay?

Paul talks about this.

I want to read the scripture, and it's a long scripture, but I think it's so important for you to grasp this.

First Corinthians 12, 12, he says this the human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body.

So it is with the body of Christ.

But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it.

The eye can never say to the hand, I don't need you.

And the hand can never say to the feet, I don't need you.

In fact, get this.

Some parts of the body seem weakest and least important, but they are actually the most necessary.

Some of you feel like the gifts that you have are so behind the scenes that you feel like they aren't necessary.

Like, oh, I'm not speaking in front like Brad, so the thing, I don't have the same gift.

Yo, this church is run on prayer.

There are people behind that curtain praying, praying for you.

The backbone of our church is not this, the backbone of our church is prayer.

Something that can be hidden can actually be more important.

It says, and the parts that we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care.

So we carefully protect the parts that should not be seen, while the honorable parts that do not require this kind of care.

So God has put the body together that extra honor is given to those parts that have less dignity.

This makes for harmony among the members.

So all the members take care of each other.

If one part suffers, all parts suffer with it.

If one part is honored, everyone is glad.

That beautiful.

All gifts are necessary, it is not a maturity badge, and the proof of that is the Corinthian church because they had all the gifts within their church and yet they were acting like toddlers.

Like you can have all the gifts in the church, but people can still be acting that way.

And the reason we know that is, and and some people might not know this, but 1 Corinthians was actually not the first letter that Paul wrote to Corinthians, to the church in Corinth.

Okay?

And the reason you know that is if you read chapter 5, he will say this, the letter that I wrote you.

And if you read chapter 7, he says, the letter that you wrote me.

In other words, 1 Corinthians is a response to a letter that was written to Paul, which is why when he says, now concerning the gifts, what he's doing is he's actually answering a question that they had.

He says, Now about all those gifts that you're asking, I do not want you to be uninformed.

So let me tell you what the spiritual gifts are.

There are four categories in the Bible if you're taking notes.

We're not gonna hit all of them.

The first is motivational gifts, you can find them in Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

The second is manifestation gifts, you can find that in 1 Corinthians 12.

That's what we're gonna hit today.

The third is ministry gifts, you can find that in 1 Corinthians 14, and the fourth is ministerial gifts, you can find that in Ephesians 4.

That is not gifts of the Holy Spirit, that is the gifts of Jesus that He has given to the church, the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher.

A lot of these gifts remain unopened by the body of Christ.

So my goal today is that you can open them.

And what I want to do is I want to talk about the manifestation gifts found in 1 Corinthians 12.

And I pray for many of you, you'll be activated in these and you'll start to operate in these in a brand new way.

Verse 7 says this.

Now to each one, again, everyone say each.

Just in case you think you're count counted out of this verse.

To each one, the manifestation of the spirit is given for the common good.

Verse 8 To one there is given through the spirit a message of wisdom, that's one of the gifts.

To another, a message of knowledge by the same spirit, to another, faith by the same spirit, to another, gifts of healing by the same spirit, to another, miraculous powers or the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another, distinguishing between or the discernment of spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues.

All of these are at work through the same spirit, and he distributes to each of them just as he determines.

Now let me just comment on these gifts, okay?

These gifts are given, they are not owned.

Let's say it again.

These gifts are given, they are not owned.

Sometimes people will come up to someone or they'll come up to me and they'll be like, Well, how many gifts of the spirit do you have?

Like, are you a five-gift person?

Are you a three-gift person?

Are you a seven-gift person?

You need to know this.

I don't own any of the gifts.

I steward the gifts.

I don't have them in that absolute sense.

The Holy Spirit has them, and I have the Holy Spirit.

I have access to the Holy Spirit, and He chooses to manifest those gifts through me.

But so often we can pray for someone, and someone might be healed, and we're like, I have the gift of healing.

You just need to call me healer.

I'm Brad Healer guy.

Like, my name is Brad, and I'm a healer.

You can call me prophet.

If you're girl, you're like, you can call me prophetess.

And like these things can happen, and all of a sudden, we're like, This is just who I am, this is just what I do.

But you pray for one person and they're healed, and you pray for another person and they're not.

You can't just turn it on.

Why?

It's not yours, it's the Holy Spirit's.

He is walking in and through us.

I remember hearing the story about Reinhard, who was this German evangelist in Africa who saw 79 million people give their lives to Christ.

Don't hear that?

79 million people.

And I saw him in an interview, and someone asked him, How many gifts do you have?

And he said, None of them.

And they're like, What do you mean?

And he says, Sometimes I wake up and God says, today I want to use you to heal some people.

Here's a hammer.

He says, and I use the hammer.

And other times he's like, hey, today I want to use you to give prophetic words.

Here's a scanner.

And he says, and at the end of the day, I give those back to God.

He says, some days God is saying, Today I'm going to enable you to do this.

And other days he says, I'm going to enable you to do this.

He says, none of them are mine.

The Holy Spirit just chooses to work through me in specific times at specific places.

Now the gifts are given.

The Bible talks about that, but I think we get it messed up when we think that now we own these gifts.

We don't own them.

Saint, my son, he thinks he has an iPad.

Like my guy thinks he has an iPad.

Like we go on a trip and he's like, I'm gonna watch the iPad.

So we're driving, and I'll give him my iPad.

I'm like, okay, I'm gonna put on a show for you, and I'm put on this show.

And then my daughter, who's one, will reach for the iPad and he says, No, sissy, my iPad.

And I'm like, boy, you don't have an iPad.

Did you pay for that iPad?

No.

Did you charge that iPad?

No.

Did you download YouTube?

Did you put on the show?

No.

You don't have an iPad.

You have a father, and your father has an iPad, and your father has given you the iPad.

The gifts are not ours, they are his.

I don't have them.

He has them, but he gives them to me for a moment.

And it is my job to steward what he has given.

Does that make sense?

We don't own them, we steward them.

And there's times that he chooses to manifest those through us.

That's what's happening in 1 Corinthians.

They're starting to rank it.

They're like, I think I'm kind of better than you because here's what I did.

And they moved from look what God is doing to look what I can do.

And if we ever get to that place, we are in a dangerous, dangerous place.

Okay, so let me give you these nine spiritual gifts.

Lord help me.

It's gonna be great, it's gonna be amazing.

I could preach a sermon on every single one of them, but we're gonna fly through this.

Nine gifts, and I'm gonna put them in three categories because that's gonna make it easy for you guys.

You get discerning gifts, declarative gifts, and dynamic gifts.

The first category is discerning gifts.

The first one is this a word of knowledge.

Okay, word of knowledge.

Let me give you the definition for this.

To know something specific without having known it by natural means.

To know something specific without having learned it by natural means.

Have y'all ever had something that you just knew and you shouldn't have known what you knew?

Like God just told you something, and you're like, I just know that this is the case.

I feel like, ladies, you have the spiritual gift, most of you, because y'all just know when people be pregnant.

My wife, like, I'm walking and I see a girl, and Paige is like, she's pregnant.

She's like two weeks pregnant.

Paige is like, she's pregnant.

I'm like, how do you know that?

And she's like, I just know.

Like, ladies, you just know.

I don't know how it works, but you just know.

Us guys, y'all know.

She can be nine months pregnant, about to give birth, big belly, and we're like, we're not going near that.

Like, I'm not gonna say she's pregnant because there's times that I've said it and I'm wrong.

So I'm like, I do not have that gift, but ladies, y'all have that gift for some reason.

I'm being dumb.

But how many of you have ever actually known something?

And you shouldn't have known.

Jesus operated in this all the time.

He had knowledge that he shouldn't have known.

When he was meeting with the woman at the well in John 4, he said, Go fetch your husband.

And she says, I don't have a husband.

And he says, You're right, you've had five, and you're not living with him, and the man that you're living with now is not your husband.

And she says, Sir, I think that you're a prophet.

Jesus operated in all of these gifts because he had the Holy Spirit.

And I know you might be thinking, Yeah, but that's Jesus.

Like he's Jesus.

Of course he's operating in them.

He's Jesus.

No, no, no.

You must remember, Jesus laid down the privileges of his divinity, and when he moved in power, it was with the enablement of the Holy Spirit.

Okay?

That's why he was able to do what he did.

And the reason you know that is because when did Jesus start doing miracles?

After his baptism.

That's when you start seeing it happen.

Luke 3 22, he is baptized, the Holy Spirit descends upon him.

Luke 4, verse 1, it says this that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit and he's led into the wilderness.

Luke 4:1

He is tempted 1 through 13, and in 14, 4.14, he returns to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.

Now Jesus is starting to move in the power of the Spirit, and what that means is he was completely yielded to who the Holy Spirit is.

He moved in full power, John 3 34.

For one is coming whom God has sent, who speaks the word of God, for God gives him the spirit without limit.

Jesus had the spirit without limit because he was fully consecrated to God.

And I think for some of us, we have the spirit, the spirit, but we're not moving in the power of the spirit because we have sin in our lives, we have a bunch of things in our lives.

The Holy Spirit is trying to speak to us, we're ignoring him, we're searing our conscience, and what we need to do is repent, say, Father, forgive me, come back to him, say, Holy Spirit, fill me, and then we can begin to move in greater and greater things that God has for us.

We have to be consecrated.

Jesus moved in full power, the power of the Spirit.

Acts 1, verse 8.

Acts 1:8

That's the same word.

You will receive power.

This has happened to you, I'm sure it's happened to me.

I was praying for a guy once, and um, I didn't know who he was, and I was praying, and as I was praying for him, um, I just felt like God gave me a picture of a building.

So I'm like, hey, I don't know if you know this, but I'm like, you know, this is this building, and I'm like trying to give him this word that I feel like I have for him about a building.

And I leave, and uh I talked to my dad, and my dad's like, Who are you praying for?

I'm like, him, and my dad was like, What were you saying?

And I told him, and my dad was like, you know, he's an architect, right?

And I was like, No.

But literally, as I was praying for him, God was giving me all these architectural metaphors.

Okay, what is that?

It's a word of knowledge.

I had no way of knowing that, but the Holy Spirit in that moment really loved him enough.

Not loved him enough that he wanted to get a message to him.

The second one is this it is the word of wisdom, a word of wisdom.

Here's the definition a divine answer or solution for a particular event.

You see this in John chapter 9, there's a man born blind, and the Pharisees come up to him and they say, Who healed you?

John 9 · chapter mention

And he said, This man, Jesus, and they said that man is not of God.

And he turns to them and he says, It's crazy because since the beginning of time, no one has ever heard of a man born blind being healed.

And if that's the case, it can only be God.

And they were speechless.

What was that?

A word of wisdom.

How many of you would like to be in a moment and the Holy Spirit gives you a word of wisdom for the situation that you're in that you couldn't have done by yourself?

I remember in the 2008 housing market crash, my dad was a real estate broker, and it got so bad for our family.

I was a teenager at the time that what my dad used to make in a couple days, he made in a year, and we were on the verge of bankruptcy for an entire year.

And I still to this day cannot tell you how it happened.

But I remember watching my dad every day walking around the block, crying, literally crying, praying to God for wisdom.

And it was like day by day, it was like daily bread.

God will give him insight.

Into a situation or a business deal, and he sustained us through that entire time.

What is that, a word of wisdom?

Wisdom that he did not have by himself, if you ask him, wisdom he did not have by himself.

The third one is this the discernment of spirits.

Okay, and this is to be made aware of the presence of a demonic spirit.

Acts 16, you see it.

Paul and Silas are walking in Philippi, and there is a girl with a demon inside of her.

She is a person that does a lot of divination.

And in verse 17, she says this These men, talking about Paul and Silas, these men are servants of the Most High God who are telling you the way to be saved.

Watch this.

Every word she was saying was true.

She was actually giving them credibility in a city where she was known as a spiritual leader and they were not.

And the Bible says that Paul turns to her, annoyed, and casts the spirit out.

Why would he do that?

It's free advertising.

Here's why.

Paul needed discernment not to know that what she was saying was accurate, but to know that what she was saying was coming from the wrong place.

It was accurate, but it was the wrong place.

And if he came into agreement with that, he would be coming into agreement with someone who was demon-possessed, who was part of the slave trade.

And Paul was like, no, I'm not going to be a part of that.

You need to know this.

Discerning of spirits is prime is not primarily about detecting hostility, it's about detecting the source when the content sounds right.

It's discernment of spirits.

Okay.

And a little note on this, okay?

People will often say, I have the spiritual gift of dis of uh of discerning, of discernment.

Okay?

There is actually no spiritual gift of discernment.

Do you all know that?

People are like, I'm I just got that gift of discernment.

No, no, no.

It's the discerning of spirits.

Now the Bible tells us that we need to be discerning.

We do need to be discerning people, but often when people are like, I got the spiritual gifts of discernment, don't hate me.

I don't think you have the spiritual gifts of discernment.

Sometimes we say that, but what we actually have is a spiritual gift of criticism.

We good?

Y'all love me?

Are we okay?

We're like, I'm really discerning.

Did you hear?

I just sense something's off about her.

And what we have is we have the spiritual gift of gossip.

It's discerning of spirits, which means I can tell that there's something behind that that is operating that thing that isn't right.

Now I'm not saying that God can't warn you about someone.

You can have a word of knowledge about someone.

Okay, but I think sometimes we call uh we call it discernment, but it's actually criticism.

I love y'all.

Let's move on.

Okay.

Second category, the declarative gifts.

And these are things that you would use with your tongue to declare.

The first one is prophecy, which is this a message of encouragement from God through a person.

First Corinthians 14, 3 describes it.

The one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouragement, and comfort.

I want you to know this.

The spiritual gift of prophecy in the New Testament is encouragement, not condemnation and not correction.

People will be like, I have a prophetic word for you, and they'll start correcting someone and then tag on, thus saith the Lord.

No, no, no, no, no, not thus saith the Lord, thus sayeth you.

And let me just say that if you're condemning someone in the name of a prophetic word, I have the discernment of spirits to say that that's not from God.

That isn't from God.

Prophecy is encouraging, it builds you up.

That's what it's supposed to be.

First Corinthians 14, 31.

For all of you can prophesy.

But do so in turn that everyone may be instructed and encouraged.

The enemy is the one who condemns.

The next declarative gift is tongues, which is this a message from God in a language unknown to the person through whom the message comes.

I'm going to talk about that all of next week because there is a benefit of the Spirit which is tongues.

Benefit, not evidence.

Some people will think you only have the Holy Spirit if you have the evidence of speaking in tongues.

Uh uh.

It's not an it's not evidence, it's a benefit.

Okay, so let's just make sure that we get that right.

You need to know that in scripture there is a big difference between the gift of tongues and the grace of tongues.

Okay.

You can have a gift to do something, and you can also do something and not have that gift.

Okay?

I have faith.

I don't know if I have the gift of faith.

I can sing.

I don't know if I have the gift of singing.

Some of y'all think you have the gift of singing, but nah, you can just sing.

Okay?

And others of you, you have the gift of singing.

The gift of tongues is this it's a message directed to people that requires interpretation.

And Paul talks about that in 1 Corinthians 14.

The grace of tongues is this.

It's a prayer language directed to God.

One is rare and governed, and the other one, Paul says, build you up.

And I believe that not everyone can operate in the gift of tongues, but I believe everyone can operate in the grace of tongues.

Does that make sense?

1 Corinthians 12, Paul is specifically not talking about the grace, he is talking about the gift.

And I think sometimes people will come up to me and they'll say, Brad, is a spirit church?

I'm like, yeah.

They're like, spirit filled?

I'm like, yeah.

Like spirit-led?

I'm like, yeah.

And they're like, why don't we pray in tongues in a service?

And I'm like, oh, easy.

Because the Bible tells us not to.

Like, what do you mean?

I'm like, okay, let me show you.

Okay, here's what it says.

First Corinthians 14, 23.

So if the church comes together, the whole church, kind of like this.

If the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and inquirers or unbelievers come in, will they not say you're out of your mind?

Yes.

Yes.

Can you imagine you brought someone far from God and I'm up here just doing the thing?

They'll be like, where have you brought me?

What is going on?

They don't even understand what is happening.

Thank God you can bring your unsaved friends and we're not gonna do weird stuff.

Does that make sense?

He says, He says, they're gonna think you're out of your mind.

You're like, Brad, please behave.

I'm trying.

Swiss says.

27.

If anyone speaks in a tongue, two or three and most should speak, one at a time.

And if you're gonna do it, someone must interpret.

Because if there is no interpreter, the person should keep quiet and should speak to himself and to God.

I've been in services before where someone literally has come up to me and they're like, I feel like I have a tongue.

And I'm like, okay, I'm like, well, wait, we'll see if there's an interpretation.

Someone else comes who didn't even know that that happened, and they're like, I feel like God has given me an interpretation of something.

Okay, very rare, but I've seen it happen.

I was once at a church service with a bunch of leaders, 2,300 pastors, and we were in worship, and literally it was a low moment of worship, and someone broke out in this three-sentence tongue, and I was like, Oh, that's kind of like out of order.

You didn't check if that was okay.

I'm like, we're all pastors, so I think this is fine.

Like, I'm just like, and literally, as they as they finished their last words, someone on the opposite side of the auditorium interpreted the same cadence, same length, and the entire room shifted.

It was one of the most powerful things I'd ever seen.

Okay?

One of the most powerful, but it was a room full of believers.

Paul guides it, he says, we're not just gonna do that crazy stuff.

There's guidance to it, okay, which is the third, the interpretation of tongues, the third declarative gift.

And it's this understanding or expressing the thought or intent behind the message of tongues, okay?

It says interpretation, not translation.

When you read your Bible, you read a translation.

Agree with me?

What is a translation word for word?

Okay, what is an interpretation?

It's like here's kind of what they mean.

Does that make sense?

Like we all have different interpretations of things.

Like if you ask Paige, how was your day?

She says, it was good.

Because her interpretation of that question is it was good.

You say, Brad, how was your day?

I'm like, well, I woke up, I made some coffee, you know, so great.

I had oat moguls, great.

Like, like, I'll give you the whole gamut.

I don't know why, but we're like flipped.

Maybe that's why I talk.

Maybe that's why I'm up here.

I'm the talker in our relationship.

We're flipped in that, okay?

But Lady's night, she's gonna be the talker.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you're gonna come to that.

That's gonna be fun.

It's gonna be fun.

Okay, we have different interpretations of things.

Okay, there's an interpretation of tongues that's saying, hey, here's here's what that means.

First Corinthians 14 5 says this.

I would like every one of you to speak in tongues.

Let me just say this.

If you don't believe in it, you have to come to grips with that passage.

Because Paul didn't write that, the Holy Spirit did through Paul.

I would like every one of you to speak in tongues.

Okay, is this okay?

Am I challenging y'all?

Is this okay?

But I would rather you prophesy because the one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, and people are like, yes, see, tongues don't count.

Prophecy is where it's at.

Unless someone interprets, then they're the same.

So that the church might be edified.

Does that make sense?

It is a gift of the Spirit.

The last category is the dynamic gifts, dynamic, dunamis, it's where we get the word power.

Acts 1 verse 8, you will receive power.

Acts 1:8

In other words, these are the gifts that are explosive.

Okay, the Holy Spirit explodes out through you.

The first one is this faith.

Definition a supernatural impartation of belief and confidence for a specific situation.

I told you all this.

I have faith, but I don't have the gift of faith.

Okay?

There are people in our church that have the gift of faith.

They'll come up to me and they're like, Brad, I'm praying for a building.

And I'm like, that's crazy.

I'm like, no, I've been in church before, and I'm like, it kind of takes like five years, like you like need to pray a ton and save a ton, and I'm like, I don't know how that's gonna happen.

They're like, no, no, no, I'm I'm praying.

They have faith, and I'm like, praise God.

I'm like, if you're praying, I'll pray with you.

Like, that's just what we're gonna do.

They have the gift of faith.

Okay?

I don't have the gift, but I'm like, I'm gonna share your faith.

It's gonna be awesome.

Let's do this together.

Every y'all have y'all ever gone through a difficult time and God gave you supernatural faith for that situation?

Like you shouldn't have had faith, but you did.

Okay, it's the Holy Spirit working in us.

The second of the dynamic gifts is the gift of healings, the gifts of healings.

Here's the definition: supernatural empowerment, endowment of divine health.

I mentioned this before, but when I was a kid, um, when I was a teenager, I remember going to a worship night, and there was a guy who came in who was paralyzed.

He had been paralyzed in a car accident, and he was paralyzed and was gonna be paralyzed.

And I remember we just felt like the Lord was telling us to pray for him, so we prayed for him.

And that night he got up and he took one step.

And we're like, this is this is crazy.

And we didn't see him, it was a Friday night.

We didn't see him the rest of the weekend, but on Monday he walked into school.

Okay.

Um, y'all can clap for that.

That's God, that's awesome.

Y'all, yeah, that's awesome.

Another time I remember praying for someone who had uh pain in his lower back, chronic pain in his lower back.

And um, I remember uh God, I felt like God told me to pray for him, so of course I prayed for him, and then I said, How did you feel?

And he says, I feel exactly the same.

And I said, Oh no.

So I was like, Let's pray again.

So I prayed again and I said, How did you feel?

How do you feel?

And he says, I'm still in pain.

And I said, Jesus help me.

And I prayed for him again and I said, How did you feel?

And he's like, I feel exactly the same.

And then and then I'm trying to back out of this because I'm like, oh my god.

I'm like, you know, Paul prayed for one in his flesh.

Sometimes God, I'm like just trying to come up with anything to be like, how do I get out of the situation?

But I prayed for him, and someone came up to me the next day, um, our receptionist at our office place, and um, she said to me, uh, hey, were you at this campus yesterday?

And I was like, Yeah.

And she's like, Oh, a man called in and he said that some dude with massive holes in his ears prayed for him.

And I used to have gauges, so I was like, Oh, there's me.

And she said, He wanted you to know that God healed him in his sleep last night.

Okay, and I remember in that moment the Holy Spirit said to me, I didn't heal him in that moment because if I had, you would have thought it was you.

So I needed to heal him apart from you that you would know it's me.

Okay, gifts of healings.

We see it, we will see it, we believe for it.

The final one is the working of miracles, which is a divine intervention that alters our natural circumstances.

Question Has anyone ever seen a miracle?

Before lift up your hand if you've ever seen God do a miracle.

I want you to do me a favor, when you look around.

There are people that believe the gifts of God has stopped.

And what I want you to know is if they have just happened once, people believe that after Acts they stopped.

If it has just happened once since the book of Acts, that statement is not true.

And we just had an entire room put up their hands.

We have seen miracles.

God is a miracle working God.

God wakes up in the morning and he does a miracle, he doesn't wake up, but that's who he is.

He does miracles, he's done it throughout the Old Testament.

And I don't know how your theology can say that as God gets as we get older, as the world gets older, that God is less and less powerful.

No, he still wants to move, he is the same.

Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

God does miracles, that's what he is.

You're breathing, that's a miracle.

Everything about that is a miracle.

And when we have our worship night on Saturday night, it's not gonna be weird, it's gonna be powerful.

But we're gonna pray for miracles.

If you're sick, come.

We're gonna pray.

If you have a friend who's sick, bring them.

Let's pray.

Let's trust God.

You're trusting God for something, come.

We're gonna pray.

We're gonna trust God.

Amen.

The gifts are at work today.

So, like, Brad, what do you what should I do about all of those?

You should discover them, you should discover your gifts.

People can come up to you and say, Hey, I feel like you have this gift, that's one way.

Another way is by knowing what those gifts are.

That's why we encourage people to go through growth track.

What we want to do in growth track is we just expose you to the list of gifts, and you're like, Okay, cool.

Like, I feel like I I kind of am starting to understand what those gifts are.

Discover your gifts, and then what you gotta do is you need to start developing your gifts.

Develop them.

Some people, when you get saved, like the thing that you might want to do is you might want to be a greeter because someone greeted you when you were far from God and you felt like the church was gonna reject you, but they accepted you.

That might be what you need to do.

But as you grow, you might be like, Okay, I I can greet, but I want to lead a group, I want to disciple people, I want to walk one-on-one with people.

What's happening?

You're growing in your maturity.

You see, because when you're a baby apple tree, a couple people can eat of your fruit, but when you become a mature tree, more and more people can eat of your fruit.

Does that make sense?

It's okay to start in a specific place, and if you don't know where to start, start somewhere.

Start using, developing, using the gifts that God has for you.

Paul literally says to Timothy, stir up the gifts that God has placed inside of you.

And the final thing is you just got to use them.

Man, you gotta start using your gifts.

Because as you do, you're gonna see the power that can actually come for that.

One final verse, and we'll pray.

Psalm 139, 13.

It says this for God, you created my inmost being.

You knit me together in my mother's womb.

The same way that he gave you a hair color, he gave you gifts.

He says, I praise you.

This is David.

He's like, I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made.

I think for men that's so easy for us to do.

You know, like women, like you go up to a mirror and you like point out all like the bad things in the mirror.

Like men, you go up to a mirror, it doesn't matter what's wrong.

You might like pick up 20 pounds and you're like, hey, what's up?

Like it's like, what's up, dude?

Like for some men, we can say that easily.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

You're like, yes, praise God.

Your works are wonderful, and many people can't say this.

And I know that full well.

I know that full well.

He wants you to know that.

It says this all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

And I just believe there are people in this room, and you've made some mistakes, you have done some things.

Hear me, every single one of us has a day we hope no one finds out about.

Every one of us has a day that we hope no one finds out about.

It says that all my days are written in your books before one of them came to be.

The thing that I love about God is, man, there's some chapters in this my story that I have written that God didn't write, but He can still make the final chapter fit.

Like if you're wanting to go to Sedona, you can drive north, or you can get there through humor.

It's gonna take you longer, but you can get there.

And some of you are in Yuma thinking, I have missed it.

And God is saying, No, you can still get to the place that you need to go.

I can still make it fit because I'm that good.

Here's what I want us to do, as we've been doing throughout this entire series.

I just want you to take 30 seconds.

Say, Holy Spirit, what are you saying to me?

Just listen to him.

What is my next step?

What do you want me to do?

Take 30 seconds.

Ask him.

Thank you, Jesus.

So Jesus, I pray for every single person who's here.

Holy Spirit, I pray that you'll speak, that you'll do what only you can do.

Show them their gifts, help them develop their gifts, help them use their gifts.

Let us not be afraid of it.

May we operate in the power that you have for us.

While you continue praying, there might be some people who are here, and for some of you, you need to discover your gifts, and for some of you, you just need to discover Jesus.

You've never said yes to him, you're not walking with him, you're not walking in the gifts of the Holy Spirit because you're not walking with Jesus.

And uh, maybe someone's told you about Jesus, maybe you're worried about the mistakes you've made.

You just need to know this that Jesus died for your mistakes.

And you can come back to God, you can be in a relationship with a God who loves you, who wants to spend eternity with you.

All you have to do is say yes to Jesus.

The Bible says that if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, that you will be saved.

And if you're here, you've never made that decision.

I just want to encourage you to pray this prayer.

Just pray it off to me.

Just say, Dear Jesus, I know that you're the Son of God and the Savior of this world.

I know you came to this earth and you died on a cross and you were raised that I can have life.

And right now, make you my Lord.

Make you my Savior.

In Jesus' name.

Jesus' name with every head bowed and eyes closed.

If you're here today, you pray that for the very first time you're coming to Jesus.

So when you wave at me, say, Brad, that's me.

No one's looking around when you do it on the count of three.

Here we go.

One, two, three.

If you just made that, it's awesome.

Thank you, Sarah.

I love that.

I love that.

Hey Church, can you do me a favor?

People have come home today.

Can you put your hands together and celebrate?

Well, God is done.

We love you, church.

And if you just said yes to Jesus, let me tell you, that is the best decision that you could ever make.

But you do have a next step today.

We would love for you to text the keyword Jesus to 480-485-3405 because we want to send you an incredible resource we created called You Said Yes.

It's a 21-day devotional because you are not meant to walk this journey with Jesus alone.

So we would love for you to let us know that you just made that decision today.

And hey, if you call Spirit Home or you've been watching for some time, we would invite you to pray about two things.

One, we would want you to pray about inviting someone to watch with you.

Send this message to somebody.

You never know how much a simple share could change somebody's life.

And two, we would love to invite you to pray about partnering with us financially.

You never know how much your giving makes this possible, the reason you're watching right now.

And so we want to say thank you for the way that you give and pray about considering partnering with us financially.

Well, we love you, church, and we will see you right back here next week.

And remember that with God, there is more.