Gifted! - Lesson 2: Understanding the Reality and Necessity of the Gifts of the Spirit

Let me kind of tell you what I'm going to do and what I'm trying to do again is I'm attempting to teach on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, not following any denomination. I want to clarify that because especially in two weeks when I come back, I'll just go ahead and give you a preview, in two weeks I'm going to teach what I believe the Bible teaches regarding the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the filling of the Holy Spirit, and why I believe the way I believe on those things. And so what my goal is, is that I don't necessarily offend any denominational background, maybe that's the best way to say it, but try to keep us biblical. So anyway, it'll be a lot of fun, and by the way if you are coming and you don't know me, let me just go on and throw it out there since we're in gifts of the Spirit anyway, I do speak in tongues, so if that worries you that, oh no, a Baptist is going to try to give a Baptist way and tell why they don't work, I'm in, I'm all in, I walk in them, and we're going to talk more about that. In fact, let me just go ahead and tell you a story that happened, I was at a conference several years ago now, I guess probably, I was pastor here, but it was a conference, and it was a conference of Baptist pastors and their wives, and I went to it, I don't really like going to those things much, just because I get there and I really feel kind of out of place, not that because I'm not a Baptist pastor, it's just, I don't know, I don't, my thoughts on things sometimes don't line up, and so I learn when I go on to them a lot of times, I just try to keep my mouth shut. Well anyway, on this particular one I was at, the person who was up speaking at the time just started talking about how we believe the Bible, and you know, that's, hey, I guess there's probably about 70, 70 to 100 people there I guess, and he said, you know, then he started talking about him, and because we believe the Bible, we believe that God still heals today. I said, hey man, everybody's, you know, and I'm going, wow, where are we going with this, you know, in fact, we kept on, and then he said, as a matter of fact, we just believe that God can do it right now. I'm like, wow, man, this is great, and so he said, if there's anybody here that needs God to just bring a healing in their body in some way, would you just stand up, and so, well, several people, and it just so happened a very prominent pastor sitting in front of me, and Kathy's sitting here, I'm sitting here, was sitting right here, and his wife was sitting there, and she stood up, and so, then the guy that was leading it said, hey, this is what I want you to do. If you're around

close to them, why don't you, let's lay hands on, we believe in, you know, laying hands on people, lay hands on them, and pray for God to heal them, and so, I thought, man, this is great, I mean, I'm like, I feel like I'm at Crossgates, you know, and so I put my hand, and it just so happened where it came, it landed on the lady's back, right in here, and I put my hand on there, and I'm praying, and you know, there's other people, but as I'm praying, my hand starts getting hot, and then it starts getting hotter, and it starts getting hotter to the point that I'm thinking, I'm just waiting for it to light up, you know, but I know, I've had it happen before, and I've had it happen several times, and what I've noted is, it doesn't happen all the time by any stretch, but when it's happened in my life in the past, God was releasing a healing, and so, finished praying, and I went away, and I, that, so that, we went to bed that night, I got up the next morning, I was out walking and praying, and as I was walking and praying, I really felt the Lord was telling me, you need to talk to that pastor, and tell him what happened. Well, that was again, I was at a Baptist conference, and I was nervous about that, because I thought, okay, I don't mind telling him, hey, when I was praying for your wife, and just, I really felt like God probably healed her, but the Lord wanted me to tell her, tell him about what happened with my hand, and so, I'm like, oh gosh, and I mean, this guy would, if I named who they were, you would know who it is, and so, I went to him, and I said, hey man, I need to tell you something about last night, and he said, what is it? I said, you know, we were behind you, and your wife stood, and I put my hand on her back, and my hand got really hot, and when that happens, God's usually healing them, and he said, well, let me tell you the rest of that story. So, when we got back to our room, my wife told me that, and said, that heat was like a fire coming into her back, and said what you don't know is she was standing to be prayed for healing because her back was having deep problems that she was worried she was going to have surgery and you happened to put your hand right where the pain and the problem was and said God healed her back last night. And so I just want to tell you that God does that and He does that through us and so as we continue to talk about gifted and we're going to be tonight, we're going to be looking at what I'm calling understanding their, I'm talking about their being the gifts of the

Holy Spirit, their reality and necessity and so as we step into this I just want to remind you again about what the goal that we're talking about, I believe I have it in your outline and that is to help believers understand and unleash the gifts of the Holy Spirit into our fallen world for the building up of the body of Christ. Now we're not talking about the building of the body of Christ, I'm talking about it in two ways, one is the body of Christ that are current believers but also the body of Christ that are those far from God people that they would be saved and I'm even going to talk a little bit about that tonight regarding the gifts of the Holy Spirit and so as we think about this we're talking about that I think it's essential that we understand the gifts of the Spirit. I think we need to understand them, not necessarily just all the details, I'm going to talk about all the details, but understand what they are and how they function but also we also need to unleash them and so tonight as we think about that I just wanted just to talk about, you know, I mentioned last week just about the reality of there being such a stigma about them in our culture, I talked about the cultural bias that we find in our culture, I left Monday and I went to a church to teach on what I taught here last fall on spiritual warfare and it's because they have had at their church, just it's happening now quite a bit, they've really been praying for God's presence to come and God's moving but because God's moving and it's the same thing happens here is He starts bringing messed up people and when He brings messed up people they've had I think three or four different times, they had three at one of the churches, it was actually two churches were there and they've had one at another church where the person they knew had some kind of demon that was starting to manifest and they were clueless on what to do and so they wanted me to come and so I was there Monday night, taught Monday night for about three hours and then yesterday morning for about another, I guess probably four hours on that but whenever I talked about cultural bias and I remember I talked about this last fall and then I mentioned this last week, it was kind of shaking to them, they didn't realize how much they read their Bible as an American rather than as a believer and the same thing goes with the gifts and because of that what happens is we start and we kind of read the Bible observationally and what I mean by that is we look at what is around us so if you for instance grew up in a church

that never, I don't want to say it, never had any supernatural things happening in your church and you're looking at people like I mean I don't remember my dad having any supernatural things that he, happened in our church service, now he told me about several miracles that happened in his, in mom's life personally but if they're not seeing it there you kind of think well this must be the way the Bible functions and so we read the Bible and miss all the other stuff, does that make sense? And we tend to do that, all of us tend to do that and then what I said last week was about the fact that the reason why a lot of people have come up with all these theoriologies is what I like to call them about why the gifts don't function is because they assume that for themselves they're already spiritually mature and if there are such things as the gifts functioning they would have them which and I'm careful even though in the book that I'm finishing up I did talk about it is that's why the Pharisees rejected Jesus, you just go read the New Testament the reason they rejected him because they were under an assumption they were the spiritually mature and if the Messiah comes he's obviously going to come to them and he's obviously going to agree with what they've been teaching about him, does that make sense? And so that's, that's kind of, and so we do the same thing with the gifts of the Holy Spirit and our cultural bias is what really kind of messes it up. is up. So as we come tonight, what I'm going to do is I'm going to actually, in fact, I was going to do all three questions, but I'm going to have to hold off the third question until two weeks from now. But the first question I'm going to talk about tonight is who has the gifts of the Holy Spirit? I'm going to talk about who has these gifts. I think it's important for everybody to know this. And then the next question I'll get to is what are the gifts of the Holy Spirit? I don't mean what are they as far as the individual, but what in the world are they? What's the overall arching, I mean, why do we have them kind of thing? And then the third one that I will wait for two weeks to talk about is how do we unleash the gifts of the Holy Spirit? So let me just kind of give you, this is kind of a logical step. So just write these down and we'll talk through them a little bit. First of all, who has the gifts of the Holy Spirit? Every person who has the Holy Spirit has access to the gifts. Every person who has the Holy Spirit has access to the gifts. Let's just go look in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 7 and see what it says. It says,

to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. The each that is used there is everyone in the group. In other words, you know, he's going to later in 1 Corinthians 12 going to talk about us being a body and we're all the different parts of the body. And so I would just kind of want you to think about it this way, that if you were to stand up and start walking, you know, down here to the front, that every part of your body is going to come walking down to the front, right? It's not going to be, well, the feet are doing all the work, so they'll just be the ones that go down there. It's the whole thing. And so what Paul is saying is in here and is wanting us to hear is that to each, that means every part of the body of Christ is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. So the first thing is that every person who has the Holy Spirit has access to the Holy Spirit. Second statement that we make here is that every believer has the Holy Spirit. Now, I know you know these things, I think, but I'm trying to help you understand because the next thing I'm going to say is going to be pretty important for us, okay? But I felt like I've got to say these are pretty obvious. Now, I've talked about these several times, but it says in Romans 8, verse 9, it says this, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ or the Holy Spirit does not belong to him. You cannot get that any more clearly than the way he says that, that if you are a follower of Jesus, you have the Holy Spirit, okay? Does that make sense? All right, so the first statement we made is that every person who has the Holy Spirit has access to the gifts. Now it said every believer has the Holy Spirit, so I'm coming to a conclusion. Therefore, every believer, now this is where I want you to hear, is responsible to manifest the Holy Spirit. It is not an optional thing for you. The Holy Spirit wants to manifest the gifts through you. And I'll tell you some things, some ways I've tried to help and I've used to help people many, many times over many, many years, but let me just read that verse again in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 7. Why would I say that? I mean, what's the use, you know? Why would it be? God doesn't want to use me, it's what a lot of people say, but I want you to hear again why this is a big deal. To each is given, it means to every part of the body, is given the manifestation of the Spirit. Why? For the common good, for the body of Christ. Believe it or not, the reason why you need to be here each and every week ready to be used by the Holy Spirit is because God's going to have people here that need the gifts

of the Holy Spirit to be released through you. You see, and I'm going to talk more about this in two weeks, why I believe the way I believe about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, filling of the Holy Spirit, and these kind of things, is because I am 100% convinced that every true follower of Jesus Christ has the Holy Spirit dwelling in them, and the Holy Spirit that dwells in them wants out. He wants to just minister to people. The New Testament church is not a spectator sport. It's just not. I'll talk more about that even in two weeks. To really clarify, I'm going to have to share with you honestly what I believe the New Testament teaches about salvation because I believe it's a salvation issue. I believe why we have a lot of the confusion we have is because we don't really believe this, but we don't think we do, but we actually have more of Roman Catholicism work salvation in us than we think we do. And I'm going to show you why I believe and what the Scripture says in two weeks, okay? So just a heads up, all right? Let me kind of say for the common good. I want to tell you, I'll tell you another quick story is one of the things that I've done for probably, oh gosh, 35 years, I guess, is God's used me even longer than that on discipling particularly young men. I just, I don't know why He just has over the years. And one of the things that I have found in discipling people is that, you know, ever so often I might take a book and we might walk together, but I don't call that discipleship really. I just call that teaching. Discipleship I believe is almost like apprenticeship, and that is they're going to learn through observation and experience. And so, you know, in other words, I'm not trying to disciple them to become just a student. I want them to be kind of like a plumber has an apprentice. I want them to, you know, fix some leaks, learn how to do that, and learn how to, you know, run some pipes and things like that. And so, so one of the things that I've done to try to help people that, and again, remember, I am convinced, convinced that every believer has the Holy Spirit in them, and therefore every believer is responsible for the manifestation of the gifts through their life as the Holy Spirit gives. Okay? So I'll get those guys usually together, and I just started this a long, long time ago. I just don't know what else to call it. So I just started calling it the hot seat. I know it sounds weird, but what we would do is let's say, well, let me just tell you a story. I had about 10 of those

guys. Whenever Caleb, my youngest son, some of you know I've told you this, when he was at Mississippi College, he was a freshman, and he just, we were in the truck together, and I'm driving, and he just kind of said, Dad, I don't know how else to say it. And I said, what? He said, and he was kind of, I don't know why he was nervous, but he said, could you teach me how to walk with God like you do? And I said, you know, my comment, believe it or not, I didn't just go, oh, man, this is great. I said, are you sure? He said, yes. I said, okay. And so I started going over every Tuesday night, and I did it for five years, and I went over to MC, and him and then some other guys that wound up being, I guess probably about, I don't know, 12 or so over the years, 12, 15, something like that, and we'd meet. And what I would do is I'd start just talking to them about really how I'm walking with God, what I'm hearing God say to me today. You know, that's, by the way, if you want to get messed up, I used to do this all the time, and then I backed away because I was making too many people nervous, is whenever I saw another, and if you're a believer, when I saw another believer, I would just say, they would say, hey, how you doing? I'd say, good. I'd say, hey, tell me what God's been saying to you today. If you want to mess some people up, they're quick to tell you they got saved when they were nine, but what's God talking to you about today? Because I believe that you ought to have a daily walk. Anyway, so we were doing that, and what we'd do is we'd get together, and then we'd take one of the guys, and they would sit in what's called the hot seat, and then the rest of us would be there. We'd all be standing up, and so I would ask the person, well, tell me, is there anything we can pray for you about? And they might mention something. Sometimes they'd say, you know, I can't really think of anything. I mean, just whatever, and so, but a lot of times they would say things, and so then I would say, okay, guys, now here's what we're going to do. We're going to ask the Holy Spirit to fill us. Let's get clean and ready. We're going to ask the Holy Spirit to fill us, and then what we're going to do is we're going to ask the Holy Spirit to gift us with every spiritual gift we need so that He might minister to this person in the hot seat because He knows what He wants to do in their life, and so they would, you know, I can tell you, when you start it, they're all, first of all, scared to death. They're all thinking they're not going to hear anything, and they're so worried they're going to mess

it up, and usually the way it always starts whenever I'm with people like that is he always will tell me, because I've done it many, many times, and he'll kind of say some things to me. And what I've noticed, the way it's kind of worked is they'll start going, they'll observe it, and then after usually maybe the second or third time, usually right in there, I'll be walking and asking God what he's saying, and he won't say a word to me. And here's what I know. I get excited in those times, because what I know is he's just giving one of the other guys something, and they're scared to death. And so I begin to, and they would kind of, well, I kind of think maybe I don't, you know, and I heard this, I think it's verse, and then I would help them learn how God talks to us, and how he puts together, and actually what I've called it, I've actually written on this, but I call it the prophetic puzzle, how he puts a little puzzle together of what he's wanting to do in this person's life. And it's supernatural, I mean, it's awesome to watch. Well, anyway, on this particular night that I'm going to share about here, we'd been doing it for a while, and the guys had gotten better at it, still a little nervous, but they'd gotten better. And anyway, while we were there, we had a guy come, and he hadn't been with us but just a couple of times, a couple of weeks, and so it was his turn, so he was sitting down in the hot seat, and asked if he had anything, and I don't remember what it was, but anyway, we start praying, and God isn't saying a word to me, and all of a sudden one of the guys says, I keep hearing, it's like a rattling of chains, and he looked at him, and he said, I really think what I'm hearing in my spirit is that God's telling me that you're chained to something, and something's chained to you, and you want to get away, but you can't. Well, one of the other guys, it was really funny, I mean, if you'd have been there, it's just really funny, he goes, oh my gosh, oh, I'm so glad to hear that, and I'm like, what? He said, because I had the weirdest vision, and I was so afraid to say it, I said, what was it? He said, well, I had this vision come up, and it was a dog chained to a pole, and he was yanking, trying to get away, but he couldn't. Well, can you imagine if that would have been the first one? I mean, he's like, I ain't saying that, you know, it may have been something I ate last night, but you see, when he heard the first one, and so then what I said, because I've done it a while, I said, okay, guys, listen, that's two witnesses, God's going

to, we got somebody, this guy's chained to something, and I looked at him, said, God's getting ready to set you free tonight. As I said, all right, let's gather around, well, as we gathered around to pray, one of the other guys, I just happened to look at him, and I knew that he was the one that was supposed to pray, and so I just called him and said, hey, called to him and said, hey, I want you to lead us in prayer as the Holy Spirit's leading, and he stood there for about 15 seconds and didn't say a word, and then he said, he looked at him, he said, look at me for a minute, he said, I keep seeing in my spirit the word unworthy. Dude, the guy broke, and he said, does that make sense? He goes, all my Christian life, I've never felt worthy. It's one of the reasons why I have struggled, even coming to this, because I don't feel worthy to be here with you guys. And then he told some other things about his past and why he felt that way, some, some growing up things. Anyway, that night he got delivered from that stronghold. And here's what I'm telling you. If we would not have been open to the manifestation of the gifts for the common good and all of us involved as the body of Christ who were there, a guy who loves Jesus would have walked out still chained like a dog to an unworthiness that God wanted to set him free. Does that make sense? That's how the gifts work and how we function in the gifts. It wasn't weird, even though the vision was a little odd. I thought it was funny. I thought I could see God doing that because, you know, he's, he's a good father, but he also, I'm convinced is funny. I just think God's got a sense of humor. I think that's why we enjoy laughter. You know, that's why the Bible says laughter is good medicine. I think, I don't mean he's a standup comic. I just mean, I think that the father, as I say it, because I've been a dad, I'm a dad of three boys, likes to mess with his kids. And this particular guy that had that vision, that was a perfect one for him. Just anyway, but what I'm saying is the gifts are, are, are for all of us. And so every believer is responsible to manifest the Holy Spirit, which the gifts of the Spirit. is what I mean by that. Okay? All right. Move on. What are the gifts of the Holy Spirit? And what I mean by that is, as a whole, what are they? What are their purpose? What's the purpose of the gifts? So let me just give you, I'm going to give you four things and I'm going to try to explain them and just see if we can't help at least a little bit. And so the first thing is this, that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are a revelation of God's

kingdom on earth. Now I gave you that last week, but I just wanted to repeat it because I said last week when I gave it to you, I said, I'll talk more about this later. But the gifts of the Holy Spirit are a revelation of God's kingdom on earth. Now again, as I said last week, the word revelation means to unveil. It's an unveiling of God's kingdom. That's how God manifests heaven on earth, which, as I said last week, Jesus told us to do. He said, when you pray, pray like this, Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. And then he says this, to pray this way, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now actually, I've taught this before, but just to kind of say it again, is that whenever it says that, there are two imperatives that Jesus told us, imperatives He told us to pray. The first imperative that He gives us here is the word come. So another way to say that is come, kingdom of God. And then the second one is the word be done. That two words is a Greek word that is in the imperative, to be done. And so literally He's saying that be done, will of God, on earth as it is in heaven. So as we are praying, He's saying that we are asking, in reality, for the gifts of the Holy Spirit to be made manifest, to be unveiled, that heaven would come to earth for the glory of God. Okay? That His will would be done. All right, so that's the first thing. Second, and this one I'm going to talk about in just a minute, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are the demonstration of the gospel. And I believe that this, in my mind, may be the most important purpose. I know it's not, but in my mind I think it is. So I taught Evangelism Explosion, which is a system really of, and it's a good thing, but it's a system of how to share the gospel. You may have heard somebody, if you've ever been through it, or even CWT that used to be around for a long time, used to use the same terms, you know, if you were to die today and to stand before God, what would you – do you know for certain that you'd go to heaven? And then if you were standing before God, and He were to say to you, why should I let you into my heaven, what would you say? And so that was kind of the way it started. Anyway, I did that, taught it, you know, a long time. And so many times, though, we think, well, that's the gospel. And so what we need to do is get better at telling people the gospel. And so we put together programs, and I'm not against them, not against them at all. I just think we're only telling half the story. Let me give you why – I'll tell you why I think that. So this is kind of what's been taught in Western theological training kind

of things, even outreach kind of things, is this idea. So if you were to look at the sermon, the first sermon of the church, where is it found? Acts chapter 2, right? Peter gives the very first sermon as the church. And if you were to read it and kind of walk through it, it is very Bible, and it is laid out in a very biblical way to biblically-minded people, and they say, what do we – what must we do to be saved? And they get – so the belief is that, well, when you're – when you're speaking to church people or people who are very familiar with the Bible, you can use terms that are Bible terms, like you can talk about, you know, Moses and the parting of the Red Sea and those kind of things when you're in a Bible culture. However, if you're not in a Bible culture, they've started pointing out that we go to the – to the sermon that's found in Acts chapter 17 when Paul was in Athens. And they… we go to that one, and if you look at that, he does an unbelievable job of giving an… an oratory, a compelling oratory gospel presentation to an un-Bible people, just to pagan people. And I say, look, this is what we need to be doing now because as America has become less Bible and more unchurched, we need to be using this. And so, man, that's been used, and I say this, no. Let's go read what Paul said. So you guys may remember that Kathy and I went to Greece, and this is actually what's called Mars Hill that you know Paul preached Acts 17 from. I stood on it, and Kathy said, you're going to fall and break your neck, you know. But anyway, I'm standing, I couldn't help it. Over there, up there would be at the top thing of that would be the… what's it called? Shoot. They got one of them in Nashville. What's the thing called? Parthenon. And so it was… it was the… kind of like the seat of all the greatness of Athens and the intellectual community of Athens. And so whenever they said, we want to hear what you got to say, they took Paul to Mars Hill, and it was kind of a… almost from their side a humorous thing because above him, way up here, was the… the Greeks' intellectual stuff. We're going to let you speak down here on this one. And so that's where he did Acts 17. So I was there, we… Kathy and I were there, and whenever he was there, let me just read some things to you. It says here in Acts chapter 17, which is the story of when he was in Athens, it tells us a little bit. Let me just read some of the verses. It says, now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within

him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So, now listen to what he did. He reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons and in the marketplace every day. So he went to the Jewish people and reasoned with them. They were Athenians, Jewish people living in Athens. But then he went out into the marketplace and he did the same with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, now I've talked about what those are. You know, the Greek culture basically believed that the body was evil and that the soul was trapped in an evil body. And so the Epicureans said, well, since the body is evil anyway, just let it do what it wants to do. You know, it's the eat, drink and be happy kind of people. But the Stoics said, well, the body is evil, don't let it do anything. It basically would be the way you'd see them. So if you've ever heard of somebody being Stoic, what do we say they are? They're just kind of somber and kind of thing. Well, that would be the two different basic philosophies. So that's what he's talking about here. Also conversed with him and some said, what does this babbler wish to say? Another said, he seems to be a preacher of a foreign divinities, of foreign divinities, of foreign gods. Because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus saying, may we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. So in other words, why was it strange? Well, they believe the body is evil. Now he's talking about the resurrection of a body. That just sounded bizarre to them. That didn't fit their cultural bias that they had, if that makes sense. Okay. And then it says, we wish to know therefore what these things mean. Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. It sounds like a college campus almost in a way, doesn't it? The word reasoned there really means the word that's used there is to have formal discourse with others. And then conversed is to express different opinions or to debate. So that's what they did a lot. And so anyway, he was there and he tells, I don't read, I'm not going to read the whole sermon, but he just, in fact he quotes a couple of their philosophers in the middle of it. He's a brilliant man. But then he goes down to Acts chapter 17 and this is kind of the conclusion. It says, now when they heard the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, but others said, we will hear you again about this. So Paul went out from their midst, but some men joined him and believed among whom

also were Diocinus, yes, you won't know which way I say it anyway, will you? Areopagite, I guess the way it is, and a woman named Damaris and others with them. Here's the bottom line. Paul didn't stay there long and he was very unsuccessful. So he went to reason with them, following and doing it the way they could, quote, understand it, and they just wanted to argue and debate. And he was very unsuccessful. So he leaves Athens and goes on a 43-mile journey to the next city, and in fact I've been there, I've been there, the city of Corinth, and this is what it says in Acts, if you're following, go from chapter 17 to chapter 18, it says, after this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. So this is his very next place. So he has just left what seemed to be, it sounds as though it's the most incredibly crafted sermon to unchurched people about the gospel you could ever hear, and it really makes no impact. And so he walks 43 miles and goes to Corinth, again, Kathy and I were there. Actually, if you look at that right there and you can see it, see the mountain in the background? We didn't get to go to that mountain. I really wanted to. If you can see a little square on that bigger mountain, there's a little bitty T-90 in the picture, that was actually a prison, and that was where Paul was imprisoned whenever he wrote some of the gospel letters that he wrote, or some of the New Testament letters. But in the place right in front of it was actually that little square area there is where he taught from, or they let him preach from. And so anyway, we were there, and he gets to Corinth, and surprisingly, he stays 18 months because he has unbelievable success. I mean, it's amazing. Now, what was the difference? You know, did he do anything different, or was he just a better orator in the second one than he was, you know, in Athens? Well, you know, he told us. On that 43-mile journey, he made some decisions. I want you to listen to how he shifted his tactics. We all know this, but I want you to listen to it. It says in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 1 through 5, it says, And I, when I came to you, brothers, when did he come to them? Acts chapter 18, right? Just left giving one of the greatest sermons, you know, a master communicator. But he says, And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony, or the word there really is mystery, of God with lofty speech or wisdom. And why would he use those terms? Because of where he'd just been. Does that make sense? For I declared to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He said, I'm going to simplify. I'm not… I'm not here to impress you.

But he says… he does something else. And I was… when I was… And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but what? But in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Did you hear that? Did he preach with words? Yes, he did. Did he preach with more than words? Yes, he did. The gospel is obviously word… it has words. The focus is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But the gospel always… also carries with it a demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Does that make sense? You say, well, no, I don't know if I know… well, let me just… let's listen again what Paul said about the way he preached. In Romans chapter 15, verses 18 through 19, it says, yet I dare not boast about anything except what Christ has done through me, bringing the Gentiles to God by my message, and by the way I worked among them. So by my message… so here's his message and the way he worked among them, verse 19. They were convinced… how were they convinced? By the power of miraculous signs and wonders, and by the power of God's Spirit. In this way… notice what he says he did. In this way I have fully presented what? What? The good news, the gospel of Christ from Jerusalem. You know, look here, he goes on, from Jerusalem all the way to Elycrium. In other words, he says, I didn't just do it there. I realized this is the gospel. I don't need to try to convince people that Jesus is God. I need God to convict them, and as He convicts them, the Holy Spirit through me will then convince them. Does that make sense? Why do we need the gifts of the Holy Spirit? So that we can have a cool time and talk about the stories? No. So people can be saved. Not just convinced, but convicted and transformed by the power of the gospel. So I believe that, yes, our nation at one time, we could almost preach Acts 2 kind of sermons that were kind of Bible. We could tell them stories, and they'd heard them. They grew up in knowing. Most people in America did. But then we've reached a time where we went to an unchurched nation, and in that we've attempted to use Acts 17 type messages, and they're okay. They're okay. I believe we need to be preaching Acts 18 kind of messages. The gospel, making it the gospel, not just signs and wonders, but the gospel. So whenever we look at that, and he talks about signs and wonders, what are we talking about? Here's what we're talking about. Signs and wonders are the temporary glimpses of God's kingdom

interrupting the normal course of our fallen world. Why? To awaken our attention and demand our response. Let me just say it this way. We've had it happen. I remember a couple that came. They had a child that was deathly sick. Neither one of them even really went to church, but they were in a panic because the baby was sick. Came to our church. We had people lay hands on them, pray for divine healing. The baby was miraculously healed. You think that that had any effect of them believing that Jesus really is God? You better believe it. You better believe it. And so what I'm telling you is that when we look at the gifts of the Holy Spirit, they are not a side show or a side issue. They are part of the gospel. They're a demonstration of the gospel. Let me go to the next one, and I talked about this if you were here in the last semester, is that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are weapons to battle against the kingdom of darkness. They are our weapons to battle against the kingdom of darkness, to battle against Satan's kingdom. How do we defeat him? By the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony. And we're releasing God's kingdom in our weapons that we have are the gifts of the Holy Spirit flowing through us according to the Word of God. 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verses 3 through 5, for though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. In other words, we're not waging war according to man-made weaponry. We're not doing it that way. So how do we do it? Well, look at what he says. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take captive – and take every thought captive to obey Christ. We're in a battle, and God says, I want to release my kingdom for you to walk in the victory that's already been won. Amen? And so that's how we pray. That's how we function. That's how we fight. Again, just to remind us, we all know this, but let me just say Ephesians 6 verse 12, for we're not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, against evil spirits in the heavenly places. We're in a spiritual battle. You don't win a spiritual battle using fleshly tools and fleshly weapons. You use divine spiritual weapons, and that's what the gifts of the Spirit are and how they function. So we need to see that. When I talk about the purpose of the gifts, it's just kind of what I've learned over the years is that they have power. The story I told about the boy that had the

word unworthy, God broke something that was on him spiritually, the lady that I prayed for. Again, I'm not going to tell you who they are, but I will tell you this. At that time, the husband did not believe supernatural gifts still existed. He has had a complete 180 and is being used by God now, not because of that, but because of some other things as well. But God's using him in a powerful way, even in Southern Baptist Rome, about believing in the power of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit and the work of the gifts through the church. So I'm just telling you that in this, as we're in this, God is ready to do more than we could imagine. He's ready to tear down strongholds in people's lives. And let me give you the next one. The gifts of the Holy Spirit, and I've talked about this, are God's grace made manifest. Now, if you were here last time or if you were here whenever I've taught through 1 Corinthians, or I think I've taught this another time too around here, you've heard me say this, but I think it's something important for all of us, and if you haven't heard it, maybe this will help you. Just quickly as we're coming to an end here, is that when we go to the original, into the Greek language, and we look at the term, the word that's used for spiritual gift, the word whenever we translate it, spiritual gift, the word is charismata or charisma. So if you've ever heard of charismatic, that's where that comes from. And so you've got charisma, charismata. So the root word is charis, and I know I've asked this before, last time I didn't, actually somebody knew. But do you know what the Greek word charis translates into? I guess that person's not here. Grace. The word charis, C-H-A-R-I-S, is the word grace. The ma, M-A, or mata, M-A-T-A, on the end of it, is what it means that when that's on

a word, what it means is that word is literally, it's made manifest, or it's an endowment, so it's grace manifest. And so what the spiritual gifts are, are the grace of God being manifest among us. Does that make sense? So that's what God's doing. So whenever we talk about the spiritual gifts, what my goal is and what my hope is, is we can gain some more understanding about them, get excited about them, and not only that, but we can learn how to unleash them ourselves, to be used by God. I've got an email that came, I told you I was at this other church and taught Monday night and yesterday morning, and got an email about that long from a guy that we had a conversation there, and he just wants to walk more in the supernatural, and anyways, it's cool, I'm going to try to help him in that, and so I'm just encouraged, and I want you to be encouraged that God is wanting to do that, and I believe will do that through you. You'll be surprised. You may be sitting here saying, well, he wouldn't do that through me. You are the very one I promise he will use. Next week, or two weeks from now, remember we're not here next week, right? Or I'm not here. You guys are here. I'm not here. I'm going to be teaching a group, about 50 of us are going, and I'm going to be teaching on, you remember what I did in, when I was doing spiritual warfare and I talked about our boat? Anybody remember that? Yeah. B-O-A-T. I'm going to be teaching on that, and I think God's going to use it in their lives. Anyway, when I come back, I'll talk about how do we unleash the gifts of the Holy Spirit, how do you do it, and we're going to look at that, how to do that, and get ourselves positioned so that God can work through us.

Amen? All right. Why don't we pray together, and I have to go to a meeting. I hate to say that. I love hanging around, but they've already started the meeting, and they're not going to wait on me, and if you really need me to not go to a meeting, I may be okay with that, all right? But I probably ought to go to this. So let me pray for us. Lord, I just thank You that Your good news is not simply telling us what to do or how to do it, but You decided to come be among us and show us. I thank You, Lord, whenever it even came to our salvation. You didn't simply... You tell us to get our acts straight, and if we would do these things and not do these things then we'd go to heaven, but you decided to come and live and demonstrate and redeem. And now you've sent your Spirit, and you use vessels like us, a little crooked and messed up, but you love to unleash your power through people like us to change the world around us. So Father, I pray you would encourage us, everyone here, in fact while we're here, why don't we just do this, just there with you and God, why don't you just tell Him, Lord, I say yes to you, Holy Spirit, I pray you'll unleash through me the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Father, we just thank you that you want to do it more than we even want you to. So show us how to do that, and guide us so that we can be the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that the gospel can reach every area in which we live and beyond, this region and beyond, for your glory, we pray it in Jesus' name, Amen.