Gifts that flow: Do miracles still happen today?

[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, good morning everyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Good to see you.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is still morning for half an hour.

[SPEAKER_00]: Great to see you guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to everyone joining us in the parents room.

[SPEAKER_00]: We see, we'll you see us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't see you, but we know that you're there.

[SPEAKER_00]: So welcome to you and everyone joining us on the podcast as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be talking about different kinds of gifts.

[SPEAKER_00]: today, and I hope it's okay if we do a little bit of teaching as well as a bit of preaching, but I am grew up on a street where about 300, 200 meters from my house, there was a creek that ran through some, you know, some would be generous to call it a paddock, but a couple of blocks of land.

[SPEAKER_00]: and it was about knee deep usually in that creek and as a kid I used to love going there, exploring in there, the different creatures that you would find, the different things that you would see.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah about knee deep usually and then every now and then when the big rain came through,

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, it burst over the banks, the creek was in flood, and then you got to see a whole lot of things that you never usually see that would come up with the water and land on the outside.

[SPEAKER_00]: You might find an eel or a couple of fish or maybe even a shopping trolley or a BMX bike that would just magically appear

[SPEAKER_00]: when the creek was in flood and it would give you all of these gifts and today when we think about the way that the Holy Spirit moves in and through our lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're a Christian here today and you have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of you and you're filled to overflowing with him what he does often times is bring from underneath the surface from the unseen places

[SPEAKER_00]: into the scene places gifts that bless others.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your life has been designed to overflow with the things of God and that the people around you should receive a benefit from the fact that you and God are close.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the way that He's designed us in the church is that we would be a blessing to each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, show of hands if you have ever experienced a miracle.

[SPEAKER_00]: show a hand, if you've ever experienced that what anything that you would consider to be a miracle.

[SPEAKER_00]: What is a miracle?

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's simplest, a miracle is an act of God that goes beyond ordinary, natural explanation in a reveals his power, presence, or compassion.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the way that God has designed the world, it has laws and rules, which is a really good thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because it means that if you drop a tennis ball, it falls at exactly the same rate every single time you do it.

[SPEAKER_00]: If the world didn't have laws and rules and if a tennis ball dropped at a different rate every single time you dropped it, it would make the game of tennis quite difficult.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it would also mean that the entire universe is quite unstable.

[SPEAKER_00]: You wouldn't know, it would change the way that we drove our cars.

[SPEAKER_00]: It would change the way that you'd jump the way that you moved, the way that you grabbed things and all of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so God in his infinite wisdom has designed things with stability.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we can tell, and we know what's going on.

[SPEAKER_00]: But every now and then, God, because he's fun like that, just goes, you know what?

[SPEAKER_00]: and changes it, right, which is what happens when somebody who's unwell and all of the science and all of the doctors say, well, this is usually what happens when someone gets this and is unwell.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is usually the outcome.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then the church prays in all of a sudden, sometimes God goes, you know what?

[SPEAKER_00]: Nah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he rewrites the laws and creates a miracle.

[SPEAKER_00]: and something different turns out.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what a miracle is.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, if you like, it's a glitch in the Matrix, something that happens that's different to the way that we usually expect or experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: M.T.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wright says these are signposts pointing to new creation, which means it's not magic.

[SPEAKER_00]: God's not doing it to create, you know, kind of spiritual fireworks to make us go, ooh, and ah,

[SPEAKER_00]: When God does a miracle, it's pointing to something.

[SPEAKER_00]: What's it pointing to?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's pointing to the fact that believers who have faith in Jesus Christ don't just go to heaven when they die, but God is in the business of bringing heaven here.

[SPEAKER_00]: And every now and then, we see these miraculous little glimpses of the way that God brings heavenly realities, new creation, a world where everything is healed, restored, and whole, and he brings it into our now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Christians, throughout history, have kind of landed in three different places when it comes to spiritual gifts and miracles, generally.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to talk to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's OK, you can be a faithful believer and hold any one of these views.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some believers will hold to a view of cessationism which says, when as soon as the apostles all died and the Bible had finally finished being written and compiled, the supernatural gifts and miracles naturally kind of died out.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's cessationism.

[SPEAKER_00]: Secondly, is this other word continuationism, which says all of the gifts and all of the things that we see in the New Testament, the stories that we read about in Jesus' life and in the book of Acts are still available and active to Christians today.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we can expect to see people get well from sickness, we can expect to see blind people receive their site, we can expect to see miraculous things because God promised them in His Word.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the second view.

[SPEAKER_00]: The third view is kind of like the second, but with a stack hat, a seat belt that says, we believe in those things, but we're very careful.

[SPEAKER_00]: about what we say about them and we're very cautious to say if it was God or not.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now you will find if your new or visiting today most people at Discovery Church would be somewhere between B and C. Most of the time, I love the fact that if you're unwell, we have the opportunity to pray for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: to believe that God might do a work in your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love the fact that if you're really struggling for answers or there's something going on that we can ask the Lord of heaven and earth to intervene and perhaps we will see a glimpse of heaven, a glimpse of the new creation happening on earth now.

[SPEAKER_00]: But of course it's a challenge.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is a challenge that we all feel when it comes to miracles, isn't it?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because if miracles are real, why doesn't God just do them all of the time?

[SPEAKER_00]: How can we pray for one person over here and their cancer goes away?

[SPEAKER_00]: And how can we pray for somebody over here and it doesn't?

[SPEAKER_00]: How can we see God do a miraculous breakthrough in someone's life over here?

[SPEAKER_00]: And then sitting right next to that person is someone going through exactly the same thing who has an exactly opposite experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a challenge for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the answer and my true philanthropy is, I can't tell you, I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: All I know is we've been asked to not control the outcome but to control the inputs.

[SPEAKER_00]: And our input is we pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our input is we believe.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our input is we stand in the knowledge that God has sovereign, good, compassionate, faithful, slow to anger, abounding instead, fast love.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we leave the outcomes to Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, it doesn't matter where you land on that cessationist continuous, or the one in between.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every Christian, everyone who has faith in Jesus believes in at least one miracle, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what that is?

[SPEAKER_00]: The resurrection of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: We all get on board with that miracle, because it is a miracle.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why is it a miracle?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's most people will tell you that people who die usually stay dead.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, they don't naturally automatically just come back to life, and yet that is a miracle.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every Christian believes in, it's just how far do you go beyond it?

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we see these glimpses of restoration, but we don't see total restoration yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: We experience little breakthroughs now, but we're still all awaiting that resurrection that's gonna come to all of us on that final day.

[SPEAKER_00]: We pray your kingdom come, you will be done because our world is still broken, and we need God to intervene.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so into that tension, Paul says these words in one Corinthians 12.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there are varieties of gifts, Paul says, but the same spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are varieties of service, but the same Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there are varieties of activity, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he says to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for what?

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say this one together for the common good, for the common good.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love this passage.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love these verses.

[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't it beautiful how Paul effortlessly weaves trinitarian theology in through here?

[SPEAKER_00]: We have varieties of gifts, but the same holy spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the first person in the Trinity.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have varieties of service, but the same Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the second person Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we have varieties of activities, but the same God, our Father God, who empowers them all in each and every one.

[SPEAKER_00]: How good's that?

[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't even have a word for Trinity yet and Paul's using it in these verses here.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's beautiful.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so as we operate in spiritual gifts and as we seek to serve one another in ways that people need to be served, you are operating as a part of and a part not in the Triune God.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are invitations to become part of what God is doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: A life in overflow brings gifts from the unseen to the scene.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a Greek that fills over its banks that blows over the other side and we see fish and eels and BMX bikes that were hidden and are now seen and can be gifts that are given to others.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Paul lands on these words here, the manifestation of the spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: What's going on in Corinth right now is Corinth is experiencing a lot of these kind of spiritual happenings.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it's over the top.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're going mad, going nuts.

[SPEAKER_00]: They've just keep pouring petrol on this fire and churches get an out of hand.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so what Paul does when writing to the Corinthians is it doesn't squash it and say it's all bad, it's all wrong, stop it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gives

[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, I won't keep going, but let's operate within these kinds of parameters, these kinds of boundaries.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so when Paul says here, he uses these words, the manifestation of the spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: That word manifestation in the Greek means making something visible, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So you've got something that's hidden, something that's under a cloth, or under a blanket, and then when you reveal it, you're making it manifest.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the first point.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're making something that was invisible visible.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, when we're seeking God for these kinds of spiritual gifts or God is doing, working in miracles, what who's being made visible?

[SPEAKER_00]: What's being made manifest?

[SPEAKER_00]: Our smartness, how cool somebody is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who are we seeing?

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul says, we're seeing God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I love it, I love the gift of the church because what it means is there are days when I wake up and I'm like, man, I can't see God anywhere.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe he's left me, maybe I'm all by myself, maybe my whole life has been a lie, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: To honest, anyway, sometimes that's what I think.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then I meet someone in part of the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they speak to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they say to me, hey, how you gone?

[SPEAKER_00]: I was praying for you for this this week.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think, well, my goodness, how did you know that?

[SPEAKER_00]: And they knew, because they were talking to the Lord of my behalf, and guess what?

[SPEAKER_00]: What was unseen is now seen.

[SPEAKER_00]: God has been made manifest and now I, all of a sudden, my whole outlook has changed.

[SPEAKER_00]: God is alive.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's doing stuff in my life,

[SPEAKER_00]: Something was unseen, became manifest.

[SPEAKER_00]: God's revealing his presence and his spirit through each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, of course, this is where, and perhaps if you've been in church for five minutes, you may have seen a few things that kind of got a bit weird.

[SPEAKER_00]: What do we do when things get weird?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a good question.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because there's usually two responses.

[SPEAKER_00]: One is squash everything, don't do anything, don't believe in miracles, don't believe in any of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just leave it over on the side and just not stress about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: The other side is, poor petrol on it, it goes wild and it's crazy and everyone's a bit confused.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now my test for this is not just did it feel powerful, but did it build the church?

[SPEAKER_00]: Did it build the body?

[SPEAKER_00]: The spirit may move beyond our comfort zones, not everything unfamiliar is wrong, but also not everything unfamiliar is also great.

[SPEAKER_00]: Does it build the church?

[SPEAKER_00]: Does it strengthen encouraging comfort?

[SPEAKER_00]: Or does it create confusion, ego or spectacle?

[SPEAKER_00]: So Paul gives us a filter here.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, one Corinthians 14, one pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, both, pursue love.

[SPEAKER_00]: So love one another, build one another up, care for one another on one hand.

[SPEAKER_00]: And pursue the spiritual gifts on the other hand and do both of them at the same time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't give one away for the other, and don't give the other away for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because he says that it's given for and we said this together, he anchors it in the common good, you see?

[SPEAKER_00]: When we are seeking to serve one another and you're filled with the Holy Spirit and you want to bless and serve somebody, it is for their benefit, it's for the common good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Currents were treating gifts like status symbols.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, who's the healing guy?

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, who's the prophetic girl?

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, who's the one who's really discerning?

[SPEAKER_00]: And they were getting really proud.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, oh, this starts to feel really good.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all of a sudden, those gifts become about me, not about he, badges of spirituality.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I love to think about it this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is anyone ever done one of those personality tests?

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you do the personality test where it's my as Briggs or another one.

[SPEAKER_00]: They have those kinds of things for spiritual gifts as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, where you can go through and we're gonna list these nine that Paul lists in just a minute.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you can go through and be like, oh, which ones do I do?

[SPEAKER_00]: And am I, you know, the healing person or Emma?

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I don't think it's completely unhelpful.

[SPEAKER_00]: but I also don't think it's completely helpful.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here's why, I prefer to ask the question, not what gift do I have, but what need can I meet?

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, not what gift do I have, but what need is in front of me right now that the Lord might be asking me to meet.

[SPEAKER_00]: For example, I'm on a desert island, me and another guy, just to two of us there, that's where the only two on this desert island, he cuts his arm, he's mortally wounded, bleeding everywhere, ah, right, I come over.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, ah, and he's like,

[SPEAKER_00]: Pray for me, I need healing, I'm gonna, my arm, I'm bleeding.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if I said to him, sorry, mate, I don't have the gift of healing, but I do have the gift of prophecy, and I can tell you that your days are done, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not helpful.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can't say all that, I don't have that gift.

[SPEAKER_00]: What he needs in that minute is for me

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And if I can't find it, at least pretend.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: at least just pretend because he's gonna die, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So what we need to ask ourselves is, what, not what gift do I have, but what need can I meet?

[SPEAKER_00]: And so you will meet this all of the time and it will talk about the environments in just a minute.

[SPEAKER_00]: It might be on a Sunday, it might be in your small group or in a team, it might be in your workplace.

[SPEAKER_00]: And somebody is going to have a need that miraculously the Lord will ask you to serve and he will become seen.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will become made.

[SPEAKER_00]: The gifts aren't identifying your spiritual superpower.

[SPEAKER_00]: The point is meeting needs through love.

[SPEAKER_00]: How can God use me to serve someone else?

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so we're gonna speedrun these next nine gifts.

[SPEAKER_00]: They come directly in the passage that we just read, one Corinthians 12, Paul lists these out in order, and we're gonna list them out.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna explain them all really briefly, and they're gonna be all up on the screen.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you wanna screenshot them at the end, you can do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: The first one, Paul says is, word of wisdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is where you get spirit given clarity for a complex situation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul says that one of the spiritual gifts is a word of wisdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, have you ever had a complex situation where you were like, oh my gosh, I just really love to know what to do in this moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: All you're meeting with someone and they're telling you something and you're like, man, that sounds really rough or really tricky.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're told that one of the spiritual gifts is the ability for you to be able to give a word of wisdom to someone who really needs it in a complex situation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you ever had that experience where you were like, I just, I didn't know how, but I just knew what to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know really, it wasn't in my mind, but the answer came to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a word of wisdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's a word of knowledge where sometimes God might reveal something to you that's hidden about somebody else, a word of knowledge.

[SPEAKER_00]: Knowing something that you could not naturally know.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we have to be careful with this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because with a word of knowledge, sometimes God reveals something about somebody, and you have a choice, you can shame them.

[SPEAKER_00]: you can blame them, you can expose them, or you can simply ask, hey, how you're doing?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to be able to pray with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: When it's genuine, there's gentle humble and it's not performative.

[SPEAKER_00]: What about a gift of faith?

[SPEAKER_00]: There are some people that I know who, where I've seen them in this space, not saving faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if you're a person who follows the person of Jesus, that's the saving faith that you have in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this is like an extra layer of faith, where I've met some people in impossible situations, and for whatever reason, they're just like, yeah, I know it's gonna turn out.

[SPEAKER_00]: They have this like, obscene faith in God that no matter like the worst kind of scenario, it's gonna be all good.

[SPEAKER_00]: And actually, it's going to turn out to be great.

[SPEAKER_00]: And most of the time, I'm not in that space, and I'm like, man, I think you're in trouble.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, no, no, no, no, this is, I just know.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you can have a gift of faith for someone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Speak a word of it and just say, hey, this is not the end for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can see the way that God's going to work through this.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a gift of faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: What about the gifts of healing?

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe God still heals today, not always, not predictably, but I've seen too many, I've heard too many stories.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen too many examples of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's too many to be able to just go, I'm to let the disappointment of the ones that didn't get healed kind of rob me of the joy of the ones that did.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's just been too many experiences of that for us to not pray for it and believe for it every time.

[SPEAKER_00]: We stay humble because we don't control God, we don't twist His arm, we don't manipulate.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not making it working of miracles.

[SPEAKER_00]: This has got intervening beyond natural explanation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Black moments of impossible provision.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you've heard those stories and maybe this has even happened for you where the exact amount of money came under the door at the exact right time, or the visions of angels that were surrounding a house or a car at a time where it was particularly needed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Moments where there's a miraculous, unexplainable occurrence that could only be drawn back to the grace and the kindness of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then Paul says, prophecy, speaking God's heart for strengthening encouragement and comfort.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now this is not for predicting lottery numbers or writing down like end time dates.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what this is for.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, all you have to give to prophecy, you should be rich by now, you know, you should know who, what, what, horse is going to run and what.

[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't build the body.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is about serving and speaking to someone for their encouragement, their constellation or their comfort.

[SPEAKER_00]: not foretelling the future, but foretelling what God is saying to somebody in a particular moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: What about discerning of spirits?

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what's seen what's happening spiritually beneath the surface.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know this one gets leaned on by parents and business owners everywhere.

[SPEAKER_00]: You walk around and you're sometimes just like, oh man, there's something that just doesn't feel.

[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody feels off.

[SPEAKER_00]: With this particular situation, this particular moment, this particular location, this particular place or environment, something just feels off as a discerning of spirits.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I lean on the discernment many times of others to tell me if this is got in this or not.

[SPEAKER_00]: Gifts of tongues, prayer or praise beyond natural language.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now in the book of Acts, you'll see a few different kinds of gifts of tongues being operating here.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit comes and the fire falls on them and they're all gathered in the upper room and they start speaking.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were speaking in other languages.

[SPEAKER_00]: So natural languages.

[SPEAKER_00]: So imagine we had 20 nations here, and then all of a sudden you knew Japanese, and you were saying out the wonders of God and Japanese.

[SPEAKER_00]: So all the Japanese people here would be like, oh yeah, I get that.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's saying, he's praising Jesus, or she's praising Jesus in Mandarin, or something like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's one of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the other one is this prayer language that I use when my English runs out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I have things on my heart that I don't know how to express or I've run out of words.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in that, some of you will have experienced this where if you've been filled with the spirit and the Lord's given you a gift, that means that you have a prayer or prays language other than your native language.

[SPEAKER_00]: and I'm grateful for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then the last one is interpretation of tongues, which is not one that we see very regularly.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm particularly not on a Sunday where somebody will come up and say, I feel like I've got a message for the church in another language, and then we hope and pray that someone's got the interpretation for that, so that it makes sense, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the ninth one, and they're the ones that Paul lists here in one Corinthians 12.

[SPEAKER_00]: So these gifts are best expressed in different ways.

[SPEAKER_00]: The church in Corinth were trying to figure this out, and they were trying to kind of wade through, how do we live as though we're a group of people where God is living amongst us, and where God is speaking amongst us, and God is active amongst us, and God is seen amongst us, how do we live in that?

[SPEAKER_00]: But also, go home feeling like,

[SPEAKER_00]: As we gather, when we're in an experience like this, our priority is worship and praise and song and lifting up the name of Jesus and hearing from His Word.

[SPEAKER_00]: As we gather in the bigger group, you've got the more to kind of tie, you've got to be in terms of the way that the Paramedes.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that's our goal when we gather, yes, we will pray, yes, we will pray for healing, yes, we want conversations.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our words are knowledge and words give to wisdom and faith to be coming out in every conversation that's happening in and around our Sunday gathering.

[SPEAKER_00]: But from the platform, we're trying to prioritize the teaching of the Word of God and the exulting of Jesus in song and

[SPEAKER_00]: But in small groups, I love it.

[SPEAKER_00]: The first word of knowledge that I ever felt like I received, I was so glad there was only five people there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And two of those people were like older than me.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they were able to say, hey, to the person who I was speaking to, just don't listen to him, messin' it, don't worry, he's wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I was so glad that I was able to express spiritual gifts

[SPEAKER_00]: that was small, that was controllable.

[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't, you know, and these are the ways that we can encourage and serve and love one another and look into one another's eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: And say, hey, I'd love to be able to pray for you for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know you've been struggling with your asthma.

[SPEAKER_00]: Cool, do you mind if we'd pray together for healing for that?

[SPEAKER_00]: I know you've been struggling with this particular situation.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just have faith that it's going to turn out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you mind maybe we could just pray about that together?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the spiritual gifts that work in a small group or in a team.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a beautiful place.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, thirdly, there's also your workplace, or the place where you go, your school, your university,

[SPEAKER_00]: where you're hanging out by the water cooler, and you're able to talk to somebody and just use that natural intuition of God speaking to you to bless and encourage someone else.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not Jenny by the water cooler.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sensing right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord is falling upon you in this moment, and Jenny's just standing there with her coffee going, are you done?

[SPEAKER_00]: Not like that, not like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But hey, you know, I was thinking about you this morning, and I was thinking about what you said at lunch yesterday, and I just wanted to check in and see how that's going.

[SPEAKER_00]: And is there anything, you know, I'd love to be able to pray, I'm a person of faith, I'd love to be able to pray for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Would that be okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think really simple.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember in Acts 3,

[SPEAKER_00]: They're not even in the temple, they're walking to the temple, and there's a guy there with this shingle out shaking it from money and penis, like I don't have any gold or silver.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what I do have, I'll give it to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the name of Jesus, get up and walk, and he lifts him up.

[SPEAKER_00]: No worship songs before, no all to call after, just a man who was unable to walk and now is able to.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's...

[SPEAKER_00]: Where we land, there's a simple filter that I like to ask before I use a gift.

[SPEAKER_00]: I try to ask, is this loving, is this helpful, is this clear, and is this the right moment?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's nice, helpful, little filter that keeps it not about us and all about Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: When a close team would you like to come?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to read as Romans 15, verse 18 and 19, and then we'll talk about what we're gonna do next.

Romans 15:18

[SPEAKER_00]: So Romans 15, 18 and 19 says, for I will not venture to speak of anything, Paul says, except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed.

[SPEAKER_00]: by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: So notice that, signs and wonders are companyed the preaching of the gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't replace it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And at Discovery Church, we will always see these manifestations of the Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Working's a spiritual gift to serve, to serve primarily the Word of God, to serve the message of God, to serve the story of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if we can see the word of God then come to life, indeed, how beautiful.

[SPEAKER_00]: Manifestations of the Spirit for the common good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because ultimately, Jesus is the perfect picture of all of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Once you think about it, all of those gifts that we just read operating in and through the life of Jesus at different times, perfectly.

[SPEAKER_00]: Fill with the Spirit of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every manifestation of divine power, every active healing, every word of wisdom, and he never used any of it for self-promotion.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every miracle was for others, for the outsideer, for the sick, for the grieving, for the broken, for the forgotten.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, at the cross, something incredible happens.

[SPEAKER_00]: Though he was the very fullness of God,

[SPEAKER_00]: he lays it all down and submits all of that power to death submits it all even on the cross they were saying hey you've got the power to kick yourself out if you want and he chooses no he submits this great power to become the greatest gift for us and to us

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, as we bring this time to a close, you may notice that we have set up community stations around the auditorium.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're in the parents room, there will be community in for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're watching at home, I would encourage you to find some elements of the bread and the cup that you can share with us in this.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to do a couple of things at once.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to create some time and space.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to give a few moments to this.

[SPEAKER_00]: for you to come out of your sea and receive communion at one of these stations and you will take the bread which represents Jesus' body and the couple trip presents his blood and take it back to your sea and spend some time in quietness meditation for the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: At the very same time as that, we're also going to create a space at the front of the platform here for people to receive bread.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there's a whole list of things that we just read out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe you need wisdom, maybe you need healing, maybe you need knowledge, maybe you need faith today.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now, pastors, leaders, team, life group leaders are going to be available, and they're just going to simply place their hand on your shoulder and pray for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: That God would work in your life, that He would do something in your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're going to have that all happening at once.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in just a minute the team are going to play and where I'm going to invite you to stand up and I'm going to move to one of the stations, take communion and take it back to the

[SPEAKER_00]: come forward and receive prayer, and in a few minutes time we'll all move back and we'll let the time together, and close our service in a few minutes time, and before we do that, let's pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Jesus, we thank you, that the manifestation of your Holy Spirit is given for the common good.

[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you, Lord Jesus, that there is nothing supernatural or

[SPEAKER_00]: But Lord, that we might be a river that you would flow through to others.

[SPEAKER_00]: I pray Holy Spirit, would you feel our lives to overflowing?

[SPEAKER_00]: That we would be filled a fresh, with the spirit of the living God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that would cause gifts to bubble up, into and over the surface for the blessing and benefit of those who are around us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul is spirit with thank you for your presence with us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, we thank you for your great sacrifice.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are beginning the gift for us to overcome sin and death, and ultimately to overcome the grave, so that you'd make away.

[SPEAKER_00]: You'd make away for not just for us to be able to go to heaven when we die, but for heaven to invade our spaces and places right here.