All right, well, welcome back if you're watching this morning or
sometime in the near future to come, We want to welcome you to
the service this morning at North Life and we also want to
invite you to come be with us in person for easy to find.
We're 115 E Main Street, right in the heart of the old historic
part of Gaylord and the old movie theater.
So come and find us sometime soon, especially for Easter.
Easter is coming up. That would be a great.
Time to come and to worship with us.
Right, notes to the message are on the new back table back
there. And are they still, are we out
of there? Still back there?
I see people walking up matter. There's still notes back there.
We, we out if there are. Okay, good.
So notes to the message are available on the back table.
You can pick them up now as I'm teaching or take them home with
you. Just grab one on your way out
and encourage you to do so. Luke Ramsey just built us that
new little shelf there for the notes.
So thank you to Luke for that. If you have your Bibles, please
take and turn them to the New Testament.
About 90% into your Bible. You'll find the letters to the
Corinthians, first and 2nd Corinthians.
So this is after Rome, after Acts and Romans, which are the
some of the bigger books in the New Testament.
And we're going to start in chapter 12.
So this is the apostle Paul writing to the church at
Corinth, and I'm going to start reading for you in chapter 12,
verse 4, Paul writes. Now there are a variety of
gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are a variety of service
but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but
it's the same God who empowers them in all, in everyone.
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for
what? The common good.
So why are spiritual gifts given?
They're given for the common good of the church, the body of
Christ. This morning I want to talk to
you as we finish our teachings on the Holy Spirit.
I'm going to teach this morning about the gifts of the Holy
Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Let me pray for us, God, we've come today for one purpose, and
that is to honor and worship you.
And we do it by being together. We do by singing to you.
We do it in our giving. And now we do it through our
openness to your truth. So Holy Spirit, we invite you to
come and boldly speak to us. For some of us, what we're
learning today, it's going to be what we're talking about.
It's going to be old news that we know for many years ago.
And for some of us, maybe we just haven't had a refreshing
and maybe something to dust off some of these thoughts.
And for some of us, this is so new.
I talked to people after the first service or who who said,
wow, this is something they've not really been taught before at
all. And so wherever we land and our
understanding of the spiritual gifts, we pray that you'll just
increase our understanding this morning in a way that will grow
us as a church and grow us also as individuals who are chasing
after Jesus. We pray this in the name of
Jesus and everyone said. Amen and Amen.
Now I have this is you know, we don't do a lot of series
necessarily here at our church. I did a series on Samuel last
year. My pastor Steve was three years
ago. We did a series on the parables,
but we just kind of navigate through and as the Lord prompts,
then we will dive into such things like this study that
we've done. And it is a study.
Hopefully you've looked at it that way.
You know, I'm not a fan of giving homilies.
Do you know what a homily is? A homily is like a little brief,
10 or 12 minute, like feel good little little message, right?
So if homilies are for you, then I might overwhelm you, right?
Because, because on Sunday mornings, we're going to.
Dive in and. Really try to study in a way
that again will shape our lives and certainly shape our church.
OK, so we've done this again. This is the 7th talk I've done
on the Holy Spirit we missed last week because I want us all
to be together for this final message.
And so we had church from home last week, Jason, I did a
service from home and many of you were able to be with us
together at that time because of the storm.
And then the week before, our students came home from the One
Heart Conference and gave testimony and shared with such a
beautiful service. I love that service every year.
So. So it's been a couple weeks
since we've been in this topic. So now we're going to wind it
down this morning, next week's Palm Sunday, and then it'll be
Easter. So I want to put a bow on this
series that we've been doing and give you understanding to the
gifts of the Spirit. Now, in brief, I just want to
remind you that Jesus tells the disciples Week 1.
Jesus told the disciples that, hey, I'm going to go away and
it's better for me to go away because I'm going to send you
the comforter. God is a Trinity, the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit all equal, all three different
personalities, if you will, in the Godhead.
And when God comes to the earth as a human being then.
He by his design, Jesus was only able to be in one place at one
time. But Jesus says it's better for
me to go away, because when I go to be with the Father, we'll
then we'll send the. Comforter, the Helper, the Holy
Spirit, and He won't just be with you, He will be.
In you. So as believers, followers of
Jesus, the Holy Spirit is in US. And we saw that in the Old
Testament that God used to manifest and dwell in certain
places. Now God is omnipresent.
He's everywhere at all times. And yet in his goodness and in
his sovereignty, God would manifest.
Like. Show up.
And so he gives Moses a plan, a design to build a tent, and then
it became a Tabernacle and eventually a temple.
But the Holy Spirit of God would go and abide, dwell near his
people in the tent or the Tabernacle and in the temple.
And Paul and other writers in the New Testament point.
Out that now we are now the tent or the.
Tab Tabernacle, Temple of the Holy Spirit, He abides.
In US, and that is not to be. Taken for granted, but God
throughout Scripture has been there with us.
We sang this morning come rest on us this morning and the
opening line is as the Spirit was moving over the waters.
Spirit can move over us and that's alluding to for Genesis
chapter one, verse 2 right after verse one, it says in the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth and theirs
was. Void and without form and then
it. Said, But the Spirit of God was
hovering over the waters. So right at the beginning, the
dawn of time, the Holy Spirit of God is there moving.
OK. And then you see it's in the Old
Testament, it's in the New Testament, and now it's in us.
Now, when did the disciples receive the Holy Spirit?
On the day of Pentecost? No, after Jesus was crucified
and buried and resurrected, he reappears to his disciples.
And one of the times that he's with them, the Bible says he
breathed on them. And when he did he, he breathed
on him. He said receive the Holy Spirit.
So they had the Holy Spirit before the miraculous spiritual
gifts that showed up on the day of Pentecost.
So when did we receive the Holy Spirit?
We received the Holy Spirit. God comes to dwell on us when we
surrender our lives to His lordship in US.
OK, OK, so so that's when the disciples received it.
We receive it at the point of salvation.
But then on the day of Pentecost, there was a filling
or baptizing or an immersing. So one of the weeks I talked to
you about that, that they were immersed in the Spirit of God
and that we also are invited to be filled with the Spirit of God
and that it's not a one time event.
Instead we receive the Holy Spirit of salvation.
But DL Moody said that we leak, right?
The famous preacher, DL Moody. So he said he needed an ongoing
filling of the Holy Spirit. And that's what we're eager and
hungry for, to be ongoingly filled and immersed and the Holy
Spirit. And then one of the weeks I
talked about the fact that we can offend and grieve and quench
the Holy Spirit. That's an amazing revelation of
who God is because God gives us the ability to offend him.
Did you know that God's offendable and that that God
even gives us the ability to quench the moving of His Spirit
because it doesn't force it on us.
So if you're not careful, you can offend and quench and grieve
the Holy Spirit. We don't want to do that.
Instead, we want to invite the Spirit of God ongoing throughout
our lives to move among us and stir us to greater commitment
and faith in him. So with all that in mind this
morning, what I want to do is say, OK with all of that
building up to this, putting a bow on the idea of the Holy
Spirit is what about the gifts of the Spirit?
There are unique gifts, according to Paul and other New
Testament writers that are available to us and we can
flourish and grow in them. And this is what Paul points out
in the passage that I read when we opened First Corinthians
12427. I think this passage is better
understood if I paraphrase it backwards.
OK so I read it to you at the first but watch what he says if
I go backwards in his rhythm. He's saying that for the common
good. The Holy Spirit manifests to to
empower us with a variety of gifts of service and activities.
OK, so the Holy Spirit wants to move.
And why does he want to move? For the common good, the good of
our church, the good of your life, the good of the body of
Christ at large. How is the Holy Spirit going to
move in us? He's going to give us these
unique spiritual gifts. And the Holy Spirit wants to
empower you. And knowing this and knowing
that he wants to give us these unique gifts that are spiritual,
knowing it that it makes us hunger and look for them even
the more. If you don't know their
spiritual gifts, you won't look for them in your life.
But when you know about them, then it encourages you to lean
in to expect them. Now I want to point out that
there's a difference between talent and gift, spiritual
gifts. OK, so some of us, we were, we
have, we have potential propensity towards certain
talents. OK, But a talent takes
developing, right? I didn't, I didn't just play
guitar without practice. Many of you, you didn't do your
career, whatever it is, if you're a Carpenter, if you're a
teacher, if you, if you own a business, then you had to
develop your talent to flourish in that career.
OK, so on the only hand you have talents that yes, God wires us
for these talents. But watch this.
You don't have to be a follower of God to get a talent, right?
You can become a great artist. You can become a great, you
know, all kinds of careers. You can flourish in those
without even following Jesus because you have talent that you
can develop. But then when you become a
follower of Jesus, now you have that talent, and then you have
spiritual gifts. And knowing that they're
different and knowing that you can combine them to become even
more effective is worth knowing. And knowing that, OK, I don't
want to just leave this church out of my talents or my
abilities. No, I want to leave this church.
Yes, with my talents I guess, and the skills I've developed in
my life. But if I only lean into that,
then it's going to be empty and I want to combine them and then
I want to see what God can do with.
Them Now the reason why this is so important to understand is
because some people look at the spiritual gifts as a talent and
why is that wrong? Well, sometimes people add to
the list of spiritual gifts thinking it's a talent.
So they will tend to over spiritualize their talent.
OK, and not to overly use too many musical ideas with this,
but certainly singing. Sometimes people say, oh, my
spiritual gift is singing. OK, I'm going to read you the
spiritual gifts and you're going to find that singing is not one
of the options. It's a talent that you develop
especially and then we'll watch this when we when we over
spiritualize our talent, then we can inflate our talent.
You've seen American Idol, have you ever seen people inflate
their idea of how they think they sing?
Right? They come on, they're just
terrible. They're awful.
They're awful, they're terrible. It's like who maybe though their
mom was the only one ever telling them that they were
great at singing. And someone should have said
it's not really the case. OK, But in the church what
happens is if we're not careful, we can over spiritualize our
talent by calling it a spiritual gifts.
And when we think singing is our spiritual gift, then we'll never
really learn what our true spiritual gifts are because
we've taken our talents and hyper spiritualized them to be
spiritual gifts. So when I read the list of
spiritual gifts, you're going to go, oh, OK, wow.
And my hope is that you're going to say, OK, well, maybe, maybe
that is a spiritual gift that I could.
Resonate with right some of you are going to I'm going to read
you some and I'm going to tell you and some of you know me well
enough to go yeah it's certainly not your gift Kurt when I get
there right when I get there you'll go yeah it's not one that
you have but I have some other ones right so but watch this
learn what your talents are develop them and you get you
know I want to give God glory for all of my life and yet your
talents yes you're giving God glory for them but you've.
Got to develop them. Your spiritual gifts.
Well, they do take some development, but really it's
more just like God just shows up and uses you in this way.
And I'll unpack that for you more as we proceed.
But talents are here, spiritual gifts are here.
Make sure that you understand that they're different, but be
willing to bring them together and see what God can do in you.
OK, now before we get to the list of the spiritual gifts.
I want to remind you that they're all valuable and they're
all supernatural. And why is it important to
understand that they're supernatural, all of them.
The reason why it's important is because there is disagreement
among Christians about which gifts that I'm about to read to
you are still available today. And I've mentioned this in the
past couple weeks, but you're not here every week.
So or maybe you forgot when I mentioned it several weeks ago.
So I'm going to just re mention this is that there are within
Christianity those who are cessationists and they believe
that when the Bible was completed and all of the
apostles died, they believe that the miraculous supernatural
gifts were no longer needed or available in the church.
So they differentiate between gifts that they can, they
consider, I guess not supernatural or miraculous and
they say those are still needed, but the other ones went away
with the disciples. They have reason for believing
that that I don't agree with. So in Christianity you have
people who love each other. I love cessationists.
I do. But I'm a continuationist.
I believe that the gifts of the Spirit, all of them, are still
available for the Church today for the common good of the
Church. Then in that.
I look at all of them as being miraculous and supernatural.
And as I unpack them, I want to tell you that before because as
I go through the list, I want you to go, oh, yeah, they're all
miraculous and supernatural, although some of them are going
to just seem a bit mundane. For example, mercy.
Did you know mercy is a spiritual gift?
We should all have mercy, OK, as a follower of Jesus, but some
people have it supernaturally as a spiritual gift.
And what do you look at mercy go?
Well, that's not supernatural. It's not miraculous.
Well, sure it is. Of course it is.
It's equally as miraculous as miracles and healing.
And to make some of them more supernatural than others, I
think belittles some of the gifts.
OK, so divide him up. The gifts between miraculous or
extraordinary is belittling to the working of the Holy Spirit.
Now, I also know this, that all Christians should have the fruit
of the Spirit. And I want to tell you that the
fruit of the Spirit is different than the gifts of the Spirit,
because you're going to see that the gifts of the Spirit are not
given in their entirety to every believer.
But the fruit, it's a singular, the fruit of the Spirit should
be in. All of us.
And what are the fruits of the Spirit?
Paul writes to the Church of Galatia in Galatia, and he says,
but the fruit of the Spirit. Is love and joy and peace.
And patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and
gentleness and self-control against such things.
There is no law. So what are we aiming at?
We're aiming at all of all of us get the fruit, but not all of us
get every gifts. OK, so then we want to know what
are the gifts and which ones do I flourish?
In. Well, let's look at the list
that Paul gives. This is still in first
Corinthians 12/8 through 10. Now he starts giving us a list
of these unique special gifts that God gives for the common
good. Verse 8 for to 1 is given
through the Spirit, the utterance of wisdom, and to
another the utterance of knowledge.
According to the same Spirit, there is a spiritual gift of
being able to utter wisdom, and there's also a spiritual gift of
being able to utter knowledge. And how are they different?
I love this. There are people that you know,
people that I know that I think have the spiritual gift of
wisdom, and they're just wise. And they're not wise because
they have a lot of knowledge. They just seem to be intuitive.
And there are people in my life that I go to for wisdom
believing that they have the spiritual gift of wisdom and
it's to be utilized for the common good.
And the beautiful thing about the gift of wisdom is that you
don't necessarily have to be very educated or very well read.
You can just be wise, right? And I will tell you, I don't
think I have the spiritual gift of wisdom, OK.
But interesting enough, I do think I have the spiritual gift
of. Knowledge.
I'm hungry to know things. I want to know a lot about a
lot, right? And then I want to be able to
utter about that knowledge. I want to be able to speak about
the knowledge that I gained. OK, so but the knowledge that
we're knowledge and wisdom are different again.
It's like wisdom is just instinctive and natural.
Oddly enough, I'm pretty stupid in some areas of my life.
Right, I just didn't like like I got a chainsaw last year and and
friends who love me. Well said.
Whatever you do, don't use it. So I, I, I mean, they're sits.
It's never even started, right? It's just like, because I don't
have the spiritual gift of wisdom, sometimes I've done some
really dumb things in my life. They were not evil.
They were just just, it wasn't very wise, right?
So that's who I am, right. But some of you have the
spiritual gift of wisdom and you're just instinctively wise
about stuff and you might even be quiet about it.
But there's a spiritual gift of being able to utter that wisdom.
OK. But then Paul contrasted with
the spiritual gift of knowledge, and that's valuable also in the
church for the common good. And then he says to another
faith by the same spirit, and to another gifts of healing by 1.
Spirit and I love these both, but I don't think I have Now I
have faith. Without faith it's impossible to
please God. You can't come to Jesus without
faith, right? But some have the.
Supernatural spirit. Spiritual gift of faith.
I don't. I get in my head too much.
I overthink things and so when I overthink things, I like to be
around people. They just believe.
If anything, I'm probably given to doubt, right?
I'm given the doubt, so I when I can be.
Around people that are just full of faith.
And it's not. Because they've worked it up.
It's because the Holy Spirit, according to Paul, gives the
spiritual gift of faith to some, and they're good for the common
good within the church, right? So I would love, I love it when
people in our church have more faith than me.
And some of you have that you do.
I get around you and you stir me in my faith.
OK and then watch this next to faith he says to another gifts
of healing by 1 spirit. Now do I have the spiritual gift
of healing? No, but some of you do.
Now will I pray for you? In faith, believing God to heal
you. Yes, greatly.
Man, I do not like to be around Christians that pray like this.
Lord, if you like, let's let's say you have some difficulty in
your life or you're sick or something.
If you have some people pray for you and they're they're praying
for you like, well, Lord, if it's your will, whatever your
will be, Lord, we just pray you're, you know, just be
sovereign God. And if you want to heal them,
God, heal them. That's one way of praying.
I don't like being around people like that.
I like being around people. It's like in faith, God, we pray
that you will heal miraculously this person.
God, we believe that you're good.
You can heal cancer, You can heal marriages.
God, we believe for it. We come to you believing in your
goodness. And we want to pray fervently.
God, heal them, heal them. OK, so that's the type of prayer
I want to hear people pray. It doesn't come as naturally to
me, but there are some people they just, according to this,
they just abound in faith. And it even is in the context of
healing. And I've seen people with that
gift. Terry's here.
Where's Terry? Terry Martin's are here
somewhere. Terry.
Terry experienced the healing a couple months ago and she told
us about it, right? Pastor Duane was here and taught
on an on an evening and she had an issue, which I won't tell you
about, but she had something. She was praying for healing.
He prayed and she got healed from this, right?
I think Pastor Duane who is here, I think he does have a
spiritual gift of healing. He prays for people with need
and often more than when I pray for them, I think he sees fruit.
And so we need those with the the gift of healing also in the
church. It is a very real thing and it's
still for today. Now to another, the workings of
miracles. There are some people.
Who about outside of healing? I mean just the miraculous.
And they just have faith to encourage others to believe that
God could do miracles. Maybe I want to think I have
this gift. I'm not sure.
But according to Paul, it is a unique spiritual gift, the
working of miracles and to another prophecy.
Now let me unpack this prophecy. Paul's not saying here that some
have the gift to tell the future.
That could be a part of it. But more than that, I think what
Paul's saying here is that there are some people that are
prophetic in nature. And what does that mean in the
Old Testament? When you look at the prophets,
man, they were pointed people. Elijah was like in your face.
Samuel was in your. Face Isaiah, the prophet
Jeremiah, they were prophetic in nature.
The New Testament you have, of course, John the Baptist, he was
prophetic in nature. Sometimes people who have this
spiritual gift. They're not a lot of fun to be
around. Right, because they speak truth
to us in a way this may be a little painful and I don't have
the spiritual gift. If anything, Jason and I were
someplace, we were out within a couple the other night and she
wasn't throwing me under the bus at all.
She was just, it was true what she was saying.
It's like sometimes Curtis too nice, right?
And I do tend to default that way.
It's like I don't have a prophetic nature if I'm not
necessarily great at confronting, right?
But some of you, you, you are able to do that.
And it's not because you're mean or angry or cruel, but the but
according to this, I do think that Paul's saying some of you
are prophetic in nature and you're able to speak truth in a
way that might hurt, it might sting.
And that's necessary in the church and in our lives.
I want people in my life that are like that.
And then he says that to another, the ability to
distinguish between spirits. We are in spiritual battles.
We're in spiritual warfare. And some of you have more of an
intuition because of the Holy Spirit in you supernaturally to
discern between something that's good or evil.
And you know how to navigate through this.
I will tell you, my wife, Jace, she grew up in Nuremberg,
Germany, which is a big city. And in the city that she grew up
in, when she was little, like 5 or 6, her dad showed her the way
to her school, which was across town.
He had to get on like a bus or a subway and then go through as a
little girl. She's doing this.
So she is very St. savvy, right? So she can discern things right
naturally, But I also think supernaturally.
And it's not my gift. If anything, I'm pretty
gullible. If you want to pull one over on
me, you probably could. Because I just, I'm overly
trusting at times and it's like I'm not.
Overly discerning sometimes when it comes to stuff like this, and
that self-awareness is healthy for us.
For me it's. Healthy and especially with my
wife, because there are times where she will say, I my
discernment here is this and I'll be like, I don't, I don't
see that. That's not the way I see it.
And I have to learn to trust and go, oh, wait a minute.
She has the spiritual gift of discernment.
So I need to lean into that a little bit more for the good,
for the common good of us, our relationship, but also our
church. OK, so they are those who have
the ability to distinguish between spirits and then to
another various kinds of tongues and to another the
interpretation. Of tongues now let.
Me unpack this for you because there's some confusion about
this. So in in Acts chapter 2, there's
the day of Pentecost and there are people in Jerusalem from all
of these different nations that are Jewish, but they've been
they were dispersed once the Assyrians and the Babylonians
conquered Jerusalem and Israel. So now they're coming back to
Jerusalem and they speak other languages on the Day of
Pentecost, supernaturally, they're able to preach in
languages they don't know, and they're able to understand
languages that they don't know. And so this is misunderstood by
a lot of people because they think maybe it's like a heavenly
language that would be available to us.
OK, that could be true, but really in the context of the Day
of Pentecost and this ability to just to various kinds of tongues
and to another, the interpretation of tongues, I do
think that Paul's speaking about real specific languages because
that's what happened at Pentecost.
Now, on another occasion, Paul talks about praying in tongues,
but that's not for public, that's not for preaching, that's
prayer. And so is there such a thing as
praying in tongues? I believe that there is.
Does everyone get it? Well, I'm going to get to that
here in a minute. But what he's talking about in
this context is speaking real languages, so.
This is still. Happening on the face of the
earth today, Jason and I, about five years ago, we were driving
to, I think, Boston or Audi somewhere, maybe New Jersey, and
we had LED worship at a church there.
And we were coming back and it was like two or three in the
morning in Ohio. And we were on the Ohio Turnpike
and we went in and we were the only.
And we went in this rest stop, right, These restroom and, and
you know, those rest stops, a lot of times the doors are open.
There's no door there. It's just kind of an open walk
into. So.
So I am in the men's restroom. And also I hear Jace calling for
me. Well, it's like two or three in
the morning. So it scared me a little bit.
So I'm like, OK, come on. Are you OK?
And she was standing there with
this elderly woman. And you could tell by the way
this woman was dressed that she appeared to be an immigrant.
And I've been to Eastern Europe several times throughout Eastern
Europe. And she just immediately was
like, OK, she had that vibe about her.
And she had been in, she was cleaning the restroom and Jason
gone in and out. And she was Jay speaks Croatian,
German and English, but this woman was I think was from
Romania maybe. And so maybe Poland, I don't
remember. But but so all of a sudden, Jay
says, she said. She's saying to me.
That she has cancer. Somehow in just in the bathroom,
this came up and she's asking and Jace, when she said, well,
you have cancer, she said, well, my husband is a pastor, maybe we
could pray for you. So Jace, you know, here we are
standing in the lobby of this rest stop and Jace is talking
with her. I can't understand what they're
saying, but they're talking. And so we pray over this woman.
And it was. One of the most.
Beautiful holy moments. And we were shocked that Chase
understood the language that she didn't know and that's this
woman was speaking to us. And there's nothing that you
could do to convince me that that wasn't a moment where God
supernaturally did something in that moment where we were able
to communicate with each other and we were able to encourage
her. Kim, who attends church here,
about a month ago, we were in the lobby and we were talking
about these messages and and she said to me and she was asking a
question. She said she she developed a
friendship some years ago, maybe 10, no longer, I think was in
her college years. And this friend of hers was an
immigrant. She was Muslim.
And somehow, over a period of a couple days, they were able to
communicate, though this woman didn't speak English and Kim
didn't speak this woman's language.
She said but it. Was really crazy because we were
really talking about deep things and all these years later, as I
was teaching a few weeks ago, she said to me.
Do you think that that could? Have been a moment.
Where there was like the spiritual gift of.
Tongues and I said yes, sure, it could have been.
Maybe it? Was how cool is that?
Because God's still moving in these ways And that might shock
you and you might be cynical and you might get in your head too
much. But I'm telling you, I've seen
it in my own life. And I hear, I hear testimony
after testimony after testimony about often where God is still
preaching the gospel and helping people communicate and languages
that they don't know. And watch this at the Tower of
Babel. Remember in the story in
Genesis, remember they were building a tower that was going
to reach to the heavens and they thought they were greater than
God. And what did God do?
He confused their languages. What's happening after
Pentecost? God's making sense of our
languages. So that is the gift of various
kinds of tongues and interpreting tongues.
Now in verse 11 Paul says all these all these gifts are
empowered by 1 and the same Spirit.
Who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
So the gifts are spread out. It's not like the fruit of the
Spirit where all believers get the same fruit or should.
This is like the Holy Spirit chooses to give them to in
different ways to different people.
So he divides the list up. Now he's he's he's got his list
of gifts and then he's going to have more gifts to talk about.
But he goes into this discussion about the body and he uses the,
the metaphor of the body being like the church that has lots of
parts, but all are important and equal in importance, right?
And so he's illustrating that. And for the sake of time, I
won't read that to you, but just know he, he has like a little
side, like a little tangent, OK, But then he gets back to his
list of the gifts. And then verse 28 he says, and
God is appointed in the church, first apostles and 2nd prophets
and third teachers. Let me unpack that briefly for
you. Some Christians think that the
apostles were only those who saw and walked with Jesus like Peter
and John and James, the original disciples.
OK, Paul saw Jesus, the apostle Paul saw Jesus when he was on
his horse on his road to Damascus.
So he did see Jesus, right? So some think, oh, the apostles
were only those who saw Jesus, but others I believe that, well,
no, there's really like an apostic style of leadership that
that are like leaders to leaders.
And I think this is important in the church.
OK, so in my life, I'm a pastor and I have a pastor and I have
people that I go to for wisdom and I have AI have like, I don't
know, 3 pastors in my life that that pastor a lot of pastors.
And in my opinion, I would say that they are Apostolic.
They're like apostles. They're leaders of leaders.
Now it's not a they don't, it's not a government type thing.
It's not a governing body they don't have.
It's not like that. It's more like I seek them out
and I appreciate now I don't call them apostle.
They probably would would want me to call them apostle, but I
think that it's a it's a mantle of leadership that is on some
and I think it's beneficial and valuable for the body of Christ.
OK. And then second, we have the
prophet. So here he is relisting some of
them. He's being a little redundant in
his list of the gifts. And so those who have to get the
prophecy, they're like prophetic in nature.
They're pointed. They might preach not as nice as
me. They might be more direct, but
they are there. And then they're third, the
teachers. And I want to think that I have
a spiritual gift of teaching, but I'm not the only one in our
church that has a spiritual gift of teaching.
And This is why I'm so grateful right now that we're getting
more and more and more small groups because if you have the
spiritual gift of teaching, then I want to encourage you in that.
I want to help you develop as a teacher, and I want to encourage
you in that. So it's great to see more
teachers rising up in our church to build our church up.
OK, so there are the teachers and then the miracles.
Some of you again. Have.
Faith for miracles and I love being around you.
Then there are gifts of healing. We talked about that.
Then watch here, he says There are gifts of helping.
Some of you. Never want to be in front of
people there. There's some who attend our
church very faithfully who love to come by in the daytime when
no one else is here, and they love setting up chairs and they
love doing odds and ends around the church.
They love helping. That is a spiritual gift and
when you marry, the spiritual gift of wanting to serve and
help with your talents. See how well that can work
together. OK, so there are those who have
that helping. There's some.
Let's just administrating. Wow.
Some of you. Are great at administrating,
like getting your head around systems.
And numbers and that type of thing.
I'm terrible at this one too, man.
As I'm looking through this, I'm terrible at a lot of these.
OK, so administrating. But some of you, really, you
just, you're wired for it. But it's not just your talent.
Maybe you went to school and you grew and you learned this system
and that system. But then when you understand, oh
wait a minute, the Holy Spirit can give me a supernatural gift?
Of like administrating oh I want to.
Put those together and see what happens.
OK? It's a spiritual gift according
to Paul. And then he again says in
various kinds of tongues. Now, then he says in verse 29,
he uses a rhetorical device, we would call it.
He's going to ask a question that he knows the answer to.
You do this with your kids. When you say, have you cleaned
your room? You know they haven't, but when
you ask them the question, you're making a point, right?
You know they haven't. So watch.
He's asking questions that he knows the obvious answer to.
Now he'd said they're all the gifts were apportioned.
So he says verse 29 are all apostles, are all prophets, are
all teachers, do all work miracles?
Do all possessed gifts of healing?
Do all speak with tongues, do all interpret, but earnestly
desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more
excellent way. OK, now watch this.
What is this excellent way? He's like, OK, do you?
Not everybody gets all these gifts.
Some of you will get some, some of you get others.
And then he goes and he says you don't all get them.
And I'm I'm. Going to show you a more
excellent way than even the spiritual gifts.
What could be better than the spiritual gifts?
Well, this is where this passage, you know it, you've
heard it in wedding, after wedding after wedding,
Valentine's cards, all kinds of stuff.
The more excellent way than the manifestations of the gift is
love because in the next verse is this is where Paul goes to
talking about love and he says, watch.
This is going to make more sense now because you hear the part of
the wedding where love is patient, love is kind, but how
does he get there? In verse one The next chapter
says if I. Speak in the tongues of men and
of angels. But I have not love.
Then I'm a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.
And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and
all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains
but have not love, I'm nothing. Watch here.
He's reworking his way through the supernatural gifts.
He's saying them in a different way and he's like, watch this if
I have them. But I don't love then they're a
waste, he says. If I give away all that I have,
that's a spiritual gift of of giving generosity, and we'll get
to that. And if I deliver up my body to
be burned but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is better than the gifts. And this is where he gets the
part, you know. Love is patient and kind, and
love does not envy your boast. It's not arrogant, it's not
rude. It does not insist on its own
way. It's not irritable or resentful.
I won't read the rest of. It you know it, it goes.
On and on and on and he. Says in verse 9, For we know in
part and we prophecy in part, but when the perfect comes, the
partial will pass away. And in this, this is where some
who again believe that the gifts have ceased, They get this from
here. And they think that when Paul's
saying, for we know in part, we prophecy in part, but when the
perfect comes, they think it means the Bible.
When when the Bible is finished, then that's perfect.
Things are perfect. Those of us who believe the
gifts continue, well, we think, no, no, when Paul's saying that
he means when we get to heaven, when we're resurrected to be
with Jesus forever, well, that's perfection.
Until then, the gifts are still available, but they're not
meaningful or valuable if we don't have love.
And that is his point. So the spiritual of the context,
spiritual context of him talking about this type of love is in a
discussion he's having about spiritual gifts.
And maybe you didn't know that. Now Paul talks also about
spiritual gifts in Romans chapter 3.
Here's some other ones. OK, starting in verse three, he
says for by grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to
think of himself more highly than he ought to think.
OK, so whatever he's going to talk about before he gets to
talking about, he's like, hey, whatever you do keep.
Pride at Bay, because. I'm going to talk about
something that can lead to pride, OK?
So whatever you do, don't think of yourself higher than you
ought to think, OK? And he says but but think with
sober judgment, each according to the measure.
Of faith that God is assigned. So he addresses pride before he
approaches his other gifts and he said for as in one body, he's
back to using the body metaphor they use in Corinthians.
We have many members and the members do not all have the same
function. So we though many are one body
in. Christ and individually members
of one another and then watch verse 6 he's.
Teed up by addressing pride and talking about the fact that
we're the body. And in verse 6 he says having
gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.
Let us use them if prophecy in proportion to our faith if
service. Here he goes back to this idea
of serving if some of you were just wired supernaturally to
serve in our serving the One who teaches.
In his In his teaching. The one who exhorts or
encourages there is a spiritual gift that he's talking about.
Some of you could just just get people fired up and encouraged.
And you're an exhorter in his exhortation, the one who
contributes and generosity. We should all be givers, but
some of us have a supernatural gift of being even more.
Generous like it's a. Spiritual gift, according to
Paul, you might have that gift. You should be flowing in it.
And then he's just the one who leads with the zeal.
If you're a leader in your business, you might think.
Man, I've got a. Business.
I'm a teacher or whatever it is. I've got a business.
And and I have these. Skills to lead people, but wow,
there's a spiritual gift of leadership.
Oh, I want to marry. Those together I want to lead
with a supernatural gift of leadership.
And when you do that, you combine it.
It leads. To new levels of great
leadership. And then it says the one who
does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.
I love this one. Mercy is the fruit of the
spirit, I said, But then there's a spiritual gift of mercy.
Some people supernatural, just more empathetic.
I don't have this. 1 I want to have the fruit of mercy.
But some of you, you're just, you just are wired
supernaturally to just love with mercy.
And we need that in the church. And in my opinion, mercy is
miraculous. It's supernatural.
It's not one of the mundane gifts, but instead it's equal in
value to prophecy and teaching and leadership and the others
now. I'm going to wind down, but as I
do, I just, I I have in your notes here the abuse of the
gifts to the level of fraud in news recently.
You must know that the reason why a lot of people are not open
to the gifts of the Spirit is because they've seen the concept
or the belief of it misused or weirded.
Out you saw some. Weird.
Teaching about the gifts and because of what you just kind of
thought, wow, none of it is for good I guess.
When I was, I would have been like 14, we went to a church.
It was considered like a Word of Faith type church and people who
love the Lord, of course, great people.
But I remember being in the service and they were praying
for people to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
And I told another story a couple weeks ago that was
different. OK, this is a different story.
But in this service I was praying to receive the Holy
Spirit, right? I wanted to receive and be
filled, baptized in the Holy Spirit.
And so in this church tradition. The evidence of being filled
with the Holy Spirit would be speaking in tongues.
OK, so this particular it was a pastors wife who was teaching
and she said that when you when you get filled Holy Spirit, then
you're going to speak in tongues.
And she said it's like being a baby.
And when you're a baby, you don't speak in full sentences.
You don't, you don't like you. Instead you get like a word or
two. So she said that's how babies
talk. Well, your baby now is what she
was saying in the Holy Spirit. So she said, if you get like one
word, just say that one word over and over and over again.
So she said like, let's for example, and this was her word.
She said, what if you get the word macaroni and just pray
Macaroni, macaroni, macaroni, macaroni, macaroni, macaroni,
macaroni, macaroni until the Lord gives you more words.
That's weird. And I don't think that's the way
it works, so OK, so. I that was me, right?
14 years old and bless her heart, that's a sudden saying
that maybe I should use some different saying, but you know,
but. I'm not.
I don't. Want to be overly judgmental or
overly harsh? But that type of weirdness, it
it does. It affects us when it comes to
our openness to the gifts of the Spirit.
Because we think this is stupid. That must not be real.
And you're like, wait a minute, it doesn't negate the gifts of
the spirit because somebody had some weird thought about it.
OK, Yeah. That that's not the end of it.
OK, I'll tell you another story. So once OK Right out of college,
my first job was such a great job.
I directed short term mission trips.
So I'm 2122 years old and I would go to like Venezuela with
me and another guy and we would plan, like to bring sports and
performing arts teams that were high school and college students
to Venezuela. So we'd go down for like 10
days. We'd book hotels, book
restaurants, book buses, we'd schedule sports matches and
concerts. And it was really, really,
really great. And so I'd gone to Venezuela
several times. I'd gone to the Ukraine back
then about 1/2 a dozen times in the 90s, maybe then four or five
times. But so I was working at a church
in the Saint Louis area and the pastor, you know, wanted me to
lead mission trips. I'm like, I, I, I got that.
I got experience in this. I love doing this.
And so, but he, he named where he wanted me to go, OK.
And he wanted me to go to Guatemala.
And there was a ministry that, that the church had relationship
with. So we went to Guatemala.
And I must tell you, we didn't do any missions work at all.
It was like a sightseeing trip at best.
So we go and this this particular missionary had this
big hanger with all these fancy planes in it.
And it was kind of this thing of like, we were there to see his
planes and it was like behind this gated community.
And I hate to sound critical, but I'm critical.
OK, So when I'm there we didn't really.
Do any ministry It was just watching.
They're wealth on display. OK, so I'm like, God, I want to
go back to the Ukraine. I want to do real like I I know
people there and I can get my hands in the.
Dirt and we could do things right.
So there was a minister. There was a woman.
Her name is Marilyn Hickey. I'll tell you her name, Marilyn
Hickey. Some of you have heard of her.
She is now she's probably 90 years old and she's a legend of
sorts. So she pastors with her husband.
I guess he's a pastor and she's a speaker in in Denver.
OK, so this woman comes to the church that I was the worst
leader at this have been like 94 and I was really kind of greed
because I'm thinking, I just got back from this Guatemala trip
and I asked the pastor, can I go to Ukraine next time?
And he was like, it wasn't open to it.
So we're in a service and she she says to me, she's like, I
have a word from you, from the Lord.
And she said, God is showing me you have a heart for Ukraine,
you have a heart for the Ukraine.
And God is saying, hold on to that, don't let it go, etcetera,
etcetera, etcetera. You know what happened?
The pastor let me take a missions trip to Ukraine the
next time. Now, how could she have known
that? I just think the Lord spoken to
her. But maybe you've seen that type
of thing used in a, in a, in a fraudulent way.
So recently in the news, there's a guy, his name is Sean Bowles
BOLZ and he is a speaker, I guess, pastor.
And he would do these big events, big like conferences and
it came out in the last month, maybe saw it.
It's in the news a lot of places.
And what he was doing is if you went to his conference, you'd
put your name and maybe your address or whatever.
And he would go through and he would look at the people that
were coming to the conference and then he would he this is
what they know now. He would go to Facebook and he
would mine information about those people from Facebook.
And then he would stand up in the service and he'd say, OK,
stand up, 10th row right over there, 4th stand up, OK, Or, or
he'd say, is there a John Doe in the house?
Where's John, John Doe? Stand up, OK.
And he would tell them their address.
He'd tell them how many kids they had and he would tell them
all the stuff that he'd found out on Facebook.
The people of the congregation were like, oh wow, isn't that
amazing? Wow.
Well, no, in the end it was fraud and he was fleecing people
for money. It's a big mess now.
Does that mean that that that can't happen?
Happened in my life, Pastor's wife said.
You have a heart for Ukraine. And it altered something that I
would I had a passion for, right?
So my point in that is that you're going to see a lot of
preachers who say they're flowing in the gifts of the
Spirit, but they're fraudulent and they're crooks or they're,
they're just, they're just, it could be as simple as macaroni,
macaroni, macaroni. Is she a heretic when she was
saying that? No, she's just weird, right?
So you're going to see people that are that are flowing in the
gifts. Some are going to be fraudulent,
like criminal, some of them are just going to be a little.
Off, but that doesn't mean that they're not for us to lean into
and to utilize OK, I'll tell you one last story because I think
stories help also when I was in college, I would have been like
20 years old 21 and I was in this this band that was touring
and we were in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Holland.
It was really cool. We're there for like a month and
then we would. Come back and tour over the
States and and so when we were in Germany, we played for this
youth event. And if thousands of kids, let's
say 3 or 4000 kids at this event and we're the worst team, you
know, And back then, by the way, I learned, we learned songs in
German and I later found out how bad we were singing them because
when I met Jason, I was so proud of my I know some German worship
songs and I'm like, do oh, it was a song we sing called like
you, O Lord, you're exalted above the earth.
Right was the English version. And so we sang that all over,
you know, Germany. And that summer.
Then later when I met Jace and I told her this, she goes, oh, my
gosh, she goes, you're singing you, oh, Lord, you live
upstairs. So whoever translated it was
supposed to be like, you're exalted above all God.
You're higher than everything. But they translate it.
You live in the upstairs part of the house.
OK, so. So.
But we're playing at this youth event.
OK. And after we've LED worship, I
sit down. And the speaker was from India.
I can't even tell you his name. But I was like sitting just
right on the front row and he said, young man, would you stand
out? And he went into this like the
Lord wants to speak to you. And he then like went into some
things I won't. I thought about getting getting
what he read or what he said to me because I ended up getting a
cassette of it. This was 35 years ago.
I got a cassette of it and I typed it.
Out and I put it like taped it in one of my Bibles that I
really. Loved back then.
Now it's all beat up and and this Bible's not one that I go
too often anymore, but every so often I'm like, oh, I need to go
find that Bible because I have that word like it's a it's an
Ebenezer, right? We talked about this last week
and it is so it's there. And he said things to me like in
the seasons and chapters to come, there will be really
obvious times where I stepped in Curt and you reached out to me
and thus. Like this is the Lord speaking
to you, that I will be there for you.
In those moments when you reach out, I will be there for you.
It's generic. He could have said it to anyone,
but I'm telling you, as the years went by, these 35 years,
every so often I'll go back and read.
I'm like, man, that really was profoundly for me.
Not not individually for me. It could have been others heard,
but it was like it meant something to me.
It was meaningful and. I.
Look back and I'm. Grateful for that now.
I tell you these stories because.
Man, I would love to. See our church grow in our
spiritual gifts and so. How do you?
Figure out what yours.
Is well, you can go online and there are spiritual gift
inventories you could take and they'll ask you some questions.
And certainly if you want to do that, by all means do that.
But I might shock you by telling you that when Paul wrote this to
the early church, they didn't have the Internet and they
didn't have a place to go to take a spiritual gifts
inventory. So how did they figure it?
Out. Well, here's what I think.
I think they chased after. Jesus and not the spiritual
gifts see because if you start going after the.
Gifts. Well, then you can get.
Prideful about them and you can lose focus on I'm really just
wanting to be about Jesus and I want to be about being filled
with the Holy Spirit, but but it's not that when I get filled
those I get this evidence. No, it's more like I just want
to be about the things of God and then as I am, then what
you'll find is that your spiritual gifts will come to
the. Top you'll start seeing.
Yourself flowing in. Them now you got to learn and
you got to know that they're there and you've got to be
looking for them. But but I don't think it's as
simple as I think some of the spiritual gift tests, yes,
they're insightful. OK, I don't want to be totally
negative on them, but I just want to encourage you to say it.
Can be more organic. Than that and you might be
surprised. And you might be.
What's interesting for some of you is your, as I was talking,
maybe you went, oh, I have that one.
Maybe you go, I maybe you know, mercy or or serving or teaching
or administrating. You might go, oh, I already had
that. And now you're like, oh, it's a
spiritual thing. I didn't know that it was coming
from the Spirit of God. I just thought it was a talent
or. Something so when you when you
see. It for what it is that it can
lead you to a place. Where you lean into it.
More and say God fill me again and when you fill me again, God
let these gifts. That you have dormant in me or
maybe in their infancy in me. Help them to grow to greater
heights for the common good. Of the body, let me pray for us.
God, this was a lot of information this morning.
And I hope it wasn't just a fire hose.
Instead, I pray that Holy Spirit, you would enable us to
gather what is really important in this message.
And I do pray that as. Individuals who would grow.
Us in our spiritual gifts and as a church God, how much?
Greater could we? Be for each other, for our
families, for our community if we flourish.
And grow. In our spiritual gifts, so we're
open and we're hungry. So grow us, we pray, and Jesus
name. And everyone loudly.
Together said Amen and Amen. Let's all stand together.
Hey by the way, I did. I I meant to say this I.
Really recommend this book by RT Kendall called Holy Fire.
OK, if you're eager to learn more about these things, you can
get it on audio. The audible version of it.
This is the version I read that was and paperback by RT Kendall.
Holy fire. If you forget, e-mail me and
I'll send that out to you. All right, I want to send you
out now with a blessing. So if you'll prepare at your
heart to receive this blessing before you go.
And now may the Lord. Bless you and.
Keep you and may he. Make.
His face to shine. Upon you and.
May the joy of the Lord that is unspeakable and full of glory,
may it abound to you, and may the peace of God the past.
Is all understanding. May it surprise you in the midst
of all of the challenges that life brings, and then may the
mercies of the Lord, in other words, the forgiveness of God.
That is new every morning. May it be especially new to you
now and your mornings to come. And now, may the Lord Jesus
Christ guard your heart and your mind.
You were salt and you were light.
Go now and be salt and light into the world.
You are blessed. We'll see you again sometime
soon.