Gifted! - Lesson 3: Unleashing the Gifts of the Holy Spirit

All right. Well, man, I listened to Adam. He did a great job last week. Man, I was just excited to hear him listen to what God was saying through him. And then, man, Ben did an awesome job Sunday, too. Man, that was awesome. So we just praise God for just these young men that God is raising up in our midst. Man, it's just exciting to see how that works and so as we come in tonight, I'm just going to continue on. And what I've titled tonight is I've just titled tonight's lesson, Unleashing the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. We have them, but how do we release them? Now, I'm going to talk about this from about 10 different angles over these weeks that we're going to be walking. And I'm doing that because it's everywhere in scripture. You find it at every turn. But I also know that in the church, there is about every flavor of belief when it comes to the gifts of the spirit and how you get them and how you release them and all that stuff. So as we're going through, I'm going to go and just try to walk through best I know how on what God's word says. But then I also know this, you know, I like the variety that God has given us in the way he shares these things. So there are going to be some things I'm going to say you may disagree with. There's going to be some things I'm going to say that, you know, you may not even really like, but I don't mean to. I'm going to try to share with you just a lot of it is out of what I've learned over 40 years of walking in this and some things I've seen along the way and experienced along the way. So I'm going to be talking about those. But as we get started, let me just tell you, start off with just a story that took place here. It was several years ago and it was on a Sunday night and we were having services and God was just moving in a powerful way. And at the end of the service, we came to a time of prayer and, and we would have people that would come if they needed healing or deliverance or anything like we do. And, uh, had a young lady come. She was part of what is called ballet Magnificat. You may have heard of it. You may not know what it is. It's a Christian dance studio in Jackson area. And she came to me and she was pretty upset. And what had happened was that, uh, this, that week, uh, prior to that Sunday night that she had been having some trouble and she didn't know what was going on and just was really struggling. And so she came to me because she had gone to the doctor and had just found out they had gone in and done all kinds of tests and found out that she had a hole in her heart and it had been there since birth and it had never bothered her, but something was going

on that was bothering her now. And they were feeling as though they were going to need to go in and close it. And so as, because of that, she was from Canada. And so in order to have that happen, she was going to have to go back home and it was just very upsetting to her. And so she just came down saying, would you pray for me to be healed? Well, if you've ever watched me over the years, many of you have, and many of you've been part of it. Whenever I'm here, I'm very sensitive to no one. Okay. Who does God want to be joining with us in this? And at that time there was a guy, many of you know him and his wife, but Davis Manning was sitting right over here about the second or third row. And Davis Manning at that time, he's retired since, but he was a professor at the University of Mississippi medical school. And so he had his medical degree, but then also had a PhD in, I don't know what, some big long name. He's, if you ever talked to him and know him, he's a super smart guy. But anyway, man, spirit filled, loves Jesus big time. So I said, I just felt as we were, she was here talking to me, telling me that I needed Davis to come. And so Davis came down there. I told him what she had said and where we were. And, and so I said, Davis, I'm going to start us in prayer and then I'm going to turn it over to you. And so I just prayed, thanking God for just the fact that he is the Lord, our healer. He is the one who has delivered us. He has bought for us the healing, you know, by his wounds, we hear those things. And then I just said, Davis, just pray that healing into her body. And as he did, I was praying in the spirit, I was doing it, you know, silently, but quietly as he was praying now, but as I'm praying in the spirit, I'm also can, I'm listening to him too. And I, in fact, I mean, I did this several times through the years. I loved listening to him because he knew the part of her heart from a medical side where the hole was. So he calls to that big long word of what that area was. He asked, cause he asked her some other questions and she told him that they say, I've got a blue, you know, and I don't know what it is. But, he starts calling to it. He starts then praying and asking for healing to come, for God to come down and begin to close that hole in the name of Jesus in that area. He called out what it was and what it would take to do it.

He then began to call the blood to start flowing to that area in her heart so that it would heal anything there. And when he finished, I'm like, that was awesome. As he's praying, she starts going, she says, something's going on. Well, we knew God was doing something. So anyway, when we got finished, it was either Davis or me, I can't remember which one, probably Davis, said, why don't you go back to the doctor and just get another checkup? Well, she came back the next week just shouting and rejoicing because when they checked her again, there was no hole in her heart. And it was just cool to see that. So as we talk about the gifts of the spirit and we think about the work of God and the power of God, we need to understand that God does continue today to release the healing of his kingdom, that that's what he does. So today as we're stepping into this, I wanna just step into the part because this is what I believe about us and for us is that he wants to do the same thing through us, not only to us and in us, but also through us. And so how do we get there and how do we do that? So again, let me just go through some things here about the goal of the course, what's the goal of the course? And my little thingy's not on here,

so I don't know really what to do. Maybe they'll get it up there. Yeah, there it is. And it's this, here it is. Here we go. It's this right here. The goal is this, 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. And so in this, I've told you that there are two parts that I hope that we can do as we're walking together through this is first of all, understand the gifts. I think an understanding is essential. I think we need to understand the gifts. That doesn't mean we understand all the nuances, but we understand kind of what they are and how they function. And then second is unleashing the gifts. And it is also essential. Not only do we need to understand them mentally, but we also need to release them spiritually, that God wants to unleash them in a powerful way. And so two weeks ago, whenever we were together, I just went over about who has the gifts of the Holy Spirit and talked about all believers have the gifts. And we are responsible to release those gifts. We are responsible, a true believer is. Second thing talked about

is what are the gifts of the Holy Spirit? And we talked about what they are. Basically, as we looked at that and talked about those things, we just talked about the reality of all those things about the gifts. And so that as we talked about that, we wanted to walk through and look at some things. So I wanted to talk today, when we start talking about unleashing the gifts of the Holy Spirit, let me just say this, I'm not gonna explain everything this week. I'm gonna go on and continue next week about the idea of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I'm gonna talk about it, but I'm very careful about it. Not in a bad way. I'll say it this way, I believe in it. I don't believe in it in the term that it is and in some of the ways it has been handled in some areas. So I'm gonna talk about that. I don't call it the baptism of the Holy Spirit for a reason, I'll talk about all that. But in saying that, let me just say that as I've looked at this, I've just debated much within myself about how to proceed. How do I do this? Because here's what I know, there are some of you here

that have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and what you know it to be the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and it was so life transforming that the danger is you're gonna think that I'm against that. I am not against that. I hope you know that. There are others of you here that you have been told that if you haven't received the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, you're not fully a Christian. That is not true. And so I'm attempting to try to say what do we do and then why do we have this issue? In other words, many of you may strongly believe that the only way the gifts of the Holy Spirit can be unleashed is by receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Others of you may strongly disagree with that idea. Again, I'm gonna address it, but I believe I need to address something that I believe is the main issue. It's not the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That's what people think it is. That's not what it is. I believe that the issue we need to deal with is what does it mean to be saved? I believe that's the issue. The reason I say that is because if you believe, in other words, I've got to be careful, don't

go farther than I want to go here. There is an overarching belief in the western church that if you say, if you accept Jesus, basically you're saved, you can still live like a hellion, have no desire for the things of God, never even attend a church, boy you're going to go to heaven. That is not found in the New Testament. But if you believe that that is true, of course there is something next that happens. Now with me, I believe for many that next was actual salvation. Then there's also people in the church, and there's a boatload of us, that actually were saved, had zero understanding of the Holy Spirit, we knew little to nothing about the Holy Spirit, but we were saved. And then we went through a time of just this total surrender to Christ, and in the middle of it, something changed. And so as we look at that, I really think the essence of it, in many ways, is salvation. And so, in 2 Corinthians chapter 13, and I'm not saying, I'm talking I believe to believers, okay, but I want to try to help you where I'm coming from whenever I'm walking in this. 2 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 5 says, examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourself? Now listen to what it says, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fall, you fail to meet the test. So what I did, is on the back, I taught this 10, 12 years ago, I don't know. I'm sure the majority of us here have never seen it, and that's okay. I had to go look it up myself, so I'm not getting on to anybody. But what I did is, I did this years ago, I just went through 1 John, because whenever the Apostle John wrote that letter, 1 John, he wrote it in a way for believers to know what it means to be a believer. What does it look like? For the church to know, hey, you're going to have people in your church, and if they say that they love God, but hate their brothers, they're lying. And he goes through several of those. And so I just made a list of seven of them there that you find in 1 John, and you are welcome to go look them up, and check them out. But what I want to do is, I'm going to take one of them that I believe is important, and one that I think can help us in the idea of understanding what does it mean to be saved, and that is found, it's actually the second one on there, confession to Jesus' Lordship, and that's 1 John chapter 4, verse 15. And here's what it says, whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. That's pretty simple. But in that, he actually has four things that he says, and they come in two different sections. The first half of that verse really focuses

on the activities of our confession, I guess. What are we doing, whenever it says in there, whenever it says, whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, what is actually happening in that? And then the second half of that verse is more focused really on what I'm just, what I call is the realities that take place of what we have received. So, let me just go through them quickly. You know, to confess, he says, whoever confesses, what does it mean to confess? To confess doesn't mean just say words. To confess is to give allegiance to. It is saying, I am giving my allegiance to this. I am giving myself to this, is what it means. Declaring Jesus is God, whenever it says, confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, when we say that, it's not just saying, well, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Let me just tell you, there are Muslims that say that, but they're not saying that. What we're saying, and this is the core, I think, of an important part of this, and that is declaring Jesus is God means he is your ruler and not yourself. That's what that means. You remember what, what the temptation was that the serpent had there in the Garden of Eden? Can you eat of any tree? Well, we can't eat of that one. We eat of that and we'll What did he say? You won't die, for in the day, God knows that in the day you eat of it, you'll be what? You'll be like God. That is the core bent of the fallen nature, is to be my own God. Many people who are in church, I mean here, we still believe we have a vote when it comes to the things of God. We don't. When you enter the kingdom of God, you enter a monarchy, not a democracy. You and I don't have votes on what God's going to do. He's God, and we're not. And so when we give our allegiance to the declaration that Jesus is God, we're saying, I'm giving my allegiance that he's God. I'm not. Does that make sense? So whenever it says in Romans chapter 10 verse 9, it says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will

be saved. It's not just saying, you're saying words, it's saying, you're making a declaration. You're saying, I am giving my allegiance to this. Now, let me just say this real quick. An eight-year-old doesn't understand all the massive parts of that, but you know what? The Holy Spirit can bring them to that place where they understand, I'm giving my life to Jesus. That's what my wife did. She was eight years old when she got saved, and she got saved. And believe me, whenever I first got saved, I was pretty hard on that. And I asked many times, are you sure? And she is. So I'm not saying that a child can't step into this. What I'm saying is, when you step into this, there's a change that takes place. It may not, it may still be small, it may still be dormant, but there is a change that something begins. Now what is that change that happens? And it's second part of this passage talks about it. But let me think, let me give you this is just, this is what I'm trying to say. If you have your outline, true salvation is giving the right to rule your life over to Jesus. It's just pretty simple. Doesn't mean that you're going to do it all perfect. It doesn't mean that you're going to live at all. It doesn't mean you're going to live in sinless perfection or that you never mess up or that you never do something wrong. It doesn't mean that you understand everything. As a matter of fact, if you were a drunk before you got saved, you may still want to drink. I'm not saying that everything dramatically turns. I'm saying there's a shift that takes place here.

I remember whenever, we'd go on mission trips to an area, it's called East St. Louis, Illinois. It's just right across the river. And it was, at that time, it was the seventh poorest city in the nation. And it was, half the buildings in East St. Louis at that time were gutted out, burned out, empty, abandoned. It was just bizarre. And so, and we went there and we worked with a guy named Chet Cantrell, who had a mission there in the inner city with kids. And he told us, when he said, now listen, man, when you're going to notice something, I just need to give you a warning. So now when these kids get saved, don't be surprised if they don't keep cursing for a few weeks. And he said, I learned it's not my job to clean them up, but I have found the Holy Spirit will. And when they get saved, it's just like it's something that starts, he does it, not me. And so, what is that thing that happens, the realities of our possession? What does it say here, whatever, what we've received when we give our life to Christ? It says, whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him. First is that God lives in you. Secondly, is, and he, or the person that got saved, in God. You live in God, through Christ. And so as we think about that, that God lives in us, Romans chapter 8, verse 16, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. That word abiding there, that God abides in us, and we abide in him. The word means to remain, or to stay continually connected. John chapter 15, verse 5, just says, I am the vine, Jesus said, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. It's just a reality of where we are. And so let me just give you a couple of statements, I think, that I have.

have there. First is a therefore, okay? And I think I have it in your outline. I've got four different things here I want to give to you. First are the therefores. First of all, therefore, not everyone claiming to be a Christian is truly born again. You guys know this stuff. I'm just going over it again, all right? You know this. Not everyone claiming to be a Christian is truly born again. Secondly is this, and this is a little bit more close to home, not every member of a church is truly saved. That's kind of a scary thing whenever you think about it. But we know that. I mean, many of you who remember when Billy Graham used to travel the world preaching. I mean, he said, and this was back in the fifties. He said, and somebody asked him, do you believe everybody that goes to church is saved? He said, no. He said, what kind of person are you? He said, I believe, and he kind of sat there a minute and he goes, 50%. That means that probably on a Sunday morning, one of the greatest mission fields is attending a local church. At our church, if we have 2,000 people here on Sunday, according to what Billy Graham said, 1,000 of them have never given their life to Christ. When you think about it that way, that kind of is mind blowing, but it's that idea that not every member of a church is truly saved. However, let me give you the next two. Everyone born again has the life of God through the indwelling Holy Spirit living within. Everyone born again has the life of God through the indwelling Holy Spirit living within. Romans chapter 8 verse 11 says this, if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. Second thing that I believe the Scripture teaches, and we'll all do it at different levels, but I believe this is true, everyone born again will mature in Christlikeness. I'm not saying we're going to move to sinless perfection, but the Bible is pretty clear this is kind of actually on God to do this. He's put this on himself to raise his kids. It says this in Philippians chapter 1 verse 6, and I am sure of this, Paul says, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. He's working on us. He's maturing us. Now listen, I've found that in doing that, there's a, man I'm doing pretty good, oh I'm not doing so good. But here's what I want to say, just kind of as we're going forward, I have debated, as a matter of fact, what I'm about to show you, I just put it together at about 5 o'clock this afternoon, so I've been debating on whether

I ought to show this, not show this, but I do want to say this, that as I'm going to be talking later, and I'm going to talk about this many times, I don't agree with the term baptism in the Holy Spirit. It's a real term. When I say I don't, when I don't agree with it, I say I don't agree with it, in the way it's used. In the sense that, you know, you're saved and then you have an experience where you receive the Holy Spirit. Does that make sense? You have the Holy Spirit, so you're saved. But there is, I believe, an experience. In fact, I believe that you can have multiple ones. In fact, I have, where there is this overflowing, in fact, Jesus told us, you've heard this talked about. John 4, whenever he was talking to the woman at the well, what did he say? If you knew who was talking to you, you would ask of me, and I would give you living water. And he talks about this, that there would be this, the way it's talking about is an artesian well, a well of living water in you. But then in John 7, whenever he talks about, again about water, and talking, referring to the Holy Spirit, he says, out of your innermost being will flow rivers of living water. And he says in this, he's referring to the Holy Spirit who was yet to come. And so I do think, and I've taught this before, there is, I say it this way, at salvation, there is the enablement of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, that we have in us, and he is producing the life of Christ in us. And then there comes those moments of surrender where he overflows through us. And so I call it the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. And I do that, just, here's what I have. If I'm going to look at the church, and I think about people here at church, I just made this little picture, and if you don't like it, hey, I get it, I told you when I did it. But in the church, I think we have a group of people that are unbelievers. They're in a church, the Bible talks about them, Jesus told the parable about the tares and the wheat. He even said in there that the thief came at night, and he sowed tares among the wheat, and they said, then they were asking, well, should we pull them? He said, no, leave them till harvest. And then later, he explained what that was. And that was lost people in the church. That at harvest time, when Christ returns, and the angels will come and separate the wheat from the tares. So, I mean, he talked about it, he talked about it all the time.

He talked about the fact in the kingdom of God, it's like a fisherman went out and threw out a net, and he brought in fish of all kind. And then, he says, he talks about, and then in the kingdom of God, the angels will come and separate the good fish from the bad fish. He talked about, in Matthew 25, about the sheep and the goat. He talked about them constantly. There are unbelievers that are claiming to be following Jesus, but they do not have the life of God dwelling in them. Okay, does that make sense? And so, I was one of those. So, you've heard me talk about that. And so, I understand that side. However, then we have, on the other part, we have believers. Let me go back to that. We have believers that are there. And I didn't know what to call them. You can call them, in 1 Corinthians 3, they're called carnal believers, they're called immature, you know, they're called all different kind of things. They're just believers that are not functioning in the power in which God has us. You could call them infant believers as well, because I do believe we have a lot of Christians in the church that are living in what I just called prolonged infancy. You know, babies are cute whenever they're a year old, six months old. But somebody who can only function as an infant and they're 20? We call that a tragedy. That's not natural. And in the kingdom of God, it's also not natural. So, as we think about it, I think there are those. And then I just put, and you see, let me get it back up there. I put that little dotted line.

Whatever you want to call that, there comes a moment, I believe, when we fully surrender our lives to Christ. We've surrendered our life to the Lord. We've given Him our life at salvation. But there comes this moment, and I'll talk about this many times. Let me just say this real quick, and I'm going to hurry up, because I want to get to the other part. But there's a picture of this that is a beautiful picture, and I don't have the Scriptures, but I want to tell you real quick, we'll get to it. But there's a beautiful picture in the Old Testament. And you remember that whenever Moses was called to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, they had to go through the wilderness. You remember? And so they all came out of Egypt, and they were in the wilderness, and then God was teaching them how to trust Him, how to watch Him. Oh, we're thirsty. Oh, provides water from a rock. Oh, we're hungry. He brings manna from Him. He's taking care of them, showing them, you can trust Me. He brings them to Mount Sinai to give them the word, give them the law. He speaks there. They know not only He's real, but that the word of God is what they're to follow. They learn that. And then He brings them to Kadesh Barnea, and He brings them there, and He sends some in to go check it out, and they come back and say, Hey, man, it's a beautiful land. It's awesome. Dang, there's giants in there. And they reject God, and they spend 40 years wandering in the wilderness. God's intention was never the wilderness. God's intention was the land of promise,

the land of Canaan. And in this you see a picture because 40 years later, the next crew come up, he brings them back to the Jordan River. Now they've got a new leader. You know what his name is? Joshua, Yahshua. I've told you this before. I've got a Hebrew Bible in my office that came from Jerusalem. And there's a New Testament in there also, in Hebrew. In Matthew 1.1 it says, it talks about that in the Toledot, it's what it's called, but these are the generations, the Toledot of Yahshua HaMashiach, Jesus the Messiah. And so it's really kind of cool. But anyway, so Joshua is at this place, they're here at this place, and he says, we're going to take three days to purify ourselves. He says, because God's going to take us to a place we've never been before. He's about to take us on a journey to something we've never been a part of before. And then he brings them there to the Jordan River. You remember what happened? So the priests, what do they have? They have the presence of God, the ark of God. They step into the waters and what happens? Does anybody know where the water is separated? I've told you this actually before. The Bible tells us where the separation of the water, where it's separated. Because you need to know this because it's a picture of what it means, I believe, to walk in the Spirit-filled life. It says that the water is separated from a city called Adam. It's the only place in the Bible that we are, that a city of Adam, every other reference to Adam in the Bible is the first man. From Adam all the way to the Dead Sea. It's a picture of death to the old life. He has made a way for us to cross over into the promised land. And so we, on this side, have to have that confession, cleansing, readying, and then we step out and we cross over. When we get on the other side, as we've stepped into the promised land or the land of promises, who's the first person that met them there? You remember? The Bible calls him the commander of the army of the Lord. The Lord Jesus meets them there. And He meets them there so that they can conquer the land and receive the blessings that He has for them. And so I believe it's a beautiful picture of what happens, that God rescued us from Egypt. He calls us to walk with Him. But you know what? Not everybody's going to. Some are going to die in the wilderness, never walking in the promises, never receiving all that God has for them. But those that do will cross over. They will die to self. They will cross over by faith. They will then follow the commander of the army of the Lord, obeying Him and watching Him win victory upon victory upon victory. I believe it's a picture of what it means

to walk in the Spirit-filled life. Does that make sense? Anyway, that's Dave's two cents now that I've hopefully not confused everybody. Let me go to the next part here because how do we do this? How do we cross over? And that's what we're going to be looking at really several times over the next, especially over the next two weeks. I just call it unleashing the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And I just want to start off by saying this about them real quick, about the gifts, because that's what we're here, gifted. First is, when we think about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, what are they? Well, first of all, they're not optional but essential. They're not optional but essential. Second thing that they're not, they are not evidence of spiritual maturity. I've told you before, what's the evidence of spiritual maturity? Christ's likeness. Christ's likeness is the evidence of spiritual maturity. The gifts of the Spirit are, what are they then? I've told you these two I've given you before, but let me just give them again. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are a revelation of God's kingdom. Kingdom of God come. Will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven. They're also a demonstration of the gospel. Good news. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2, so that our faith would not rest upon the wisdom of men but upon the power of God. So how do we step in? Well let me just say that there's a lot of ways, but I want to talk to you about how do you and I, this is what I'm hoping to help you with, how do we walk in this? How do we step into what God has for us and then walk in it? And I would say this would be for all of us, even those of us who have received the baptism or are already spirit filled, have been empowered, you've walked in those things, how do we continue? And I could have picked a boatloads of verses and I will over the weeks we go because I just want to help you get it. 1 Corinthians chapter 14 verse 1 though is as clear as you get I think, and there's others that are clear too. But it says this, pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts especially that you may prophesy. In this one verse there are two commands that God gives, or that Paul gives through, Holy Spirit gives through Paul, two commands.

The first command is to pursue. What does that word mean to pursue? Well, you can write this down, to pursue, it means to strive toward something with intense effort. Pursue love, to strive toward love with intense effort. Now for those of you who know this, it's obvious, but some of you may not realize that this is going to be a lot simpler than you may think. What's the chapter that precedes 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Corinthians 13, very good class. And if you look at that at the end of 1 Corinthians chapter 12 he says, but let me show you a better way, a more full way I think, but it's a better way. And in it, let's just talk about some things here real quick because when he talks about pursuing love, you remember whenever Jesus was asked, what's the greatest commandment? His reply, Mark 12, 29 through 31, he says this, Jesus replied, the most important is here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. So God is telling us to pursue love, the Holy Spirit says that needs to be our pursuit, to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, but also to love our neighbor as ourself. And again, in 1 Corinthians, he talked about that, but you remember when John 13, whenever Jesus was talking to his disciples, this is what he said to them, he says, a new commandment I give you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. In other words, we are to pursue love, loving God with all of our heart, loving one another as we love ourselves. That is the pursuit that we are to pursue. And as long as we're pursuing that, God is doing something.

Again, Paul explains the basis of this kind of love in the preceding chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, beginning in verse 4, it says this, through verse 7, love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. Love is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. But the truth is this, this command to love cannot be produced in our own strength. And we've talked about this. That's why Galatians, that's why I push Galatians chapter 5, verses 22 through 23, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control against such. There is no law. And so as we look at this, we're to pursue love. And I think I've got a thing there that I gave you to fill out, I think I did. You will only produce God's love to the measure you surrender to the Spirit's control. I've told you about me. I've told you many stories. God's taught me this many, many times. I found He puts me, He likes to put me in positions and in situations that I'm not the most loving. And then when He reminds me of it, and I say, well, you know, I'm basically, in my mind, I'm like, well, this is obviously an exception. And He's like, no. And I said, well, I can't love. And He said, I know, but I can. Let me do it through you. That's the pursuit of love, that we're pursuing that to be released through our life. The second command is to earnestly desire. It's the second command. What does it mean to earnestly desire? It means this, to set your whole heart on. I'm convinced the reason why most of us don't function in the gifts of the Spirit is we haven't set our heart on them. But if you have set your heart on the gifts of the Holy Spirit to be released through you, I can promise you they will. They will. I mean, that was me. I told you. I've told you my story many, many times. I remember being around Kathy's mom, Ann. You know Ann. She sits over there with us on Sundays.

Again, I love her, man, to the bone. And just watching, she was spirit-filled. She called herself, when I first met her, the first time I'd ever heard the term. I heard it through my mother-in-law. She called herself a Bapti-costal. And I'd never heard that. But I'll tell you what, I saw it. She had something I didn't have. She had a walk with God that I was just longing for. And she wasn't crazy about it. She was just powerful. It was just believing. I mean, you know, we'd be talking about something. She'd say, well, why don't we just pray about it right now? At that time, I'm like, well, can you do that? I mean, and we went to pray. And it was attractive to me. I wanted that. And so I said, well, how do I, as I became a believer, I said, how do I do that? How do I want, I want that. Whatever it is, I want it all, you know. And she said, ask. And so, you better believe, I went to earnestly desiring the gifts of the Spirit. I wanted all of them. I didn't care what, I just, I don't care, you know, God, I just, I'm ready. Let's do this thing. And eventually they began to start flowing. And so as we walk in this, that's what God calls us to. But let me just say this. We need them both. We need them both. They function as a unit. So let me give you this last part here. Why do we need them both? I just say it this way. Pursuing love without also desiring spiritual gifts can lead to a powerless, explainable gospel. And we see it in the Western church ad nauseam. In fact, probably many of you, if you grew up in church, could probably say, you know, you may have grown up in a church. We used to say, we went to a church and said, man, the preacher up there is just fanning the dead.

You know, fanning the dead is all it seemed like was happening. Nothing was going on. It was explainable. It was powerless. In fact, you've heard me say this. I mean, I've been, my dad was an awesome pastor, so never hear this as cutting on him. He believed in the gifts, he believed in the miracles, he walked in those things. He did it, but I didn't know what he did in all of it because he was a Baptist pastor. He never talked about it in church. I never heard him talk about it at home either. And so I was confused in a lot of that stuff. But I can tell you the church I was in growing up, it was just dead. I mean, you know how they are. If you've been, if you was in a dead Baptist church, let me tell you what I know you had there. You had deacons that were as mean as junkyard dogs. You had a pastor that preached on Sundays, but didn't necessarily live it on Monday. And you have church members that just kind of were worldly. The church was basically, in fact, when I was growing up, and if you're younger you don't know this, but when I was growing up, a lot of people would become church members because it was a great way to drum up business. Now that's just what happened in a lot of those. And then I gave my life to Christ and I met Kathy's mom and I'm going, that's not the same thing. I want that. And so I went to pursuing, but in it, here's the thing, there's a second part here that I don't want you to miss, because I have seen this. Second part, desiring spiritual gifts without also pursuing love can lead to a faulty, superstitious gospel. I have watched it. It's why I've said, man, you've got to be careful.

So they've received the baptism, and maybe they did, but they're still living in rebellion and they're mean and they're judgmental. If you've been around some, you know what I'm talking about. And it's terrible and it breeds division. And many times it can lead churches into superstitions. That's why I've said, and I've been saying this now for over 30 years, that you need to know about the spirit world. And I've said it here, I think even last fall, everywhere God's moving, know this, Satan is also moving. There is a spirit world that is active and moving around us. And if you are not connected wholly to Christ, walking in a surrendered way with Christ, and you just open yourself to the spirits, know this, Satan's more than ready. And if you don't believe that can happen, go read 2 Corinthians 11, for I'm afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a pure and simple devotion to Christ. For if someone comes preaching another Jesus than we preached or another gospel than we proclaimed or brings a different spirit than the one that we brought, you put up with it. And then right after, it's where he says, that's for Satan disguises himself as the angel of light. So we need to know that we have to say, God, I'm surrendering to you. I'm going to follow you. But at the same time, I'm going to pursue the gifts of the spirit. I'm going to earnestly desire, I want them flowing through my life, but I'm going to pursue love with everything in me to die to self, that you might live through me. Which brings me to the third thing, and that's this one, and that's just simply this. Pursuing love while also desiring spiritual gifts leads to a powerful, supernatural gospel. Does that make sense? As we go on, I'll tell more stories. The great thing, and I'll say it this way, I'm so grateful for Kyle being here and just how God's using him in such a powerful way.

But let me tell you another thing that's kind of from my side. I'm not the senior pastor. I'm under his authority. I don't want to say anything that would go out from under that, but I'm not the senior pastor and I'm 66 years old. So as you get a little older, you just kind of say things and say, well, here we are. But I just want to tell you that I've had experiences of surrendering before God that have transformed my life. I'm going to talk about different things along the way as we get going about how God wants to do more and move more in our lives and wants to do greater things. I've told you this before. I had just come to Crossgates. I hadn't been here very long as a pastor, and in fact, Tommy Creel would remember this. I got up, I was walking through one morning at our house, and the Spirit of God just that quick said, I want you to have Jack Taylor. and Jack Hayford lay hands on you and pray over you. Now, some of you may not know who Jack Taylor is, but Jack Taylor wrote a book called The Hallelujah Factor. He's just super spirit-filled, was a Baptist pastor and filled with spirit, and man, he just was amazing. And then Jack Hayford was just an amazing man of God, pastoring a church out in Los Angeles, California. Anyway, I'm like, I don't know how that's gonna happen. I'm in Mississippi, and at that time, be honest with you, of course, you know how you do, you say things to God and then you think about them later, and you go, that was really a dumb thing to say. But I said, Lord, I don't even know if Jack Taylor's still alive. Now, I don't know why I would say that to God

if he asked me to have him lay hands on me and pray over me, but I did. And then, of course, caught myself, oh yeah, well. Anyway, God sovereignly set everything up. Jack Taylor just happened to be coming here, was gonna be speaking for a week at Hope Fellowship, and David Hurdle, the pastor there, and I were talking. I said, oh my gosh, and I told him about that, and he said, man, I'll get him to pray over you. And then Tommy Creel came by and handed, put on my desk, a conference that was gonna be called, it was called for, I think it was the King and His Kingdom, and it was at Hayford's Church in Los Angeles. A conference, well, I'm going, you know? And before I left on Monday morning to go to that conference in Los Angeles, I met with Jack Taylor at a hotel. We talked for a while, and then he laid his hands on me and prayed for an anointing to be on me, man. I want the power of God on my life. I'm earnestly desiring spiritual gifts. And then I'm just, I'm ready to receive what God has. And I get on a plane to fly to Los Angeles, get there Monday afternoon, Monday night, we have service, Tuesday morning, we have first kind of session, it's like 800 people, 900 people there. We walk out in LA, doesn't matter what time of year it is, it was just sunny outside, and they didn't really have a, what you might call a vestibule, you just walked outside.

And so we were out there, and there was, you know, coffee, tea, drinks, water out there. And as I'm standing out there, and people are all milling around, the Spirit of the Lord just says, go back inside now. Well, I walked back in, and sure enough, down at the front was Jack Hayford, was standing down there. So I just start walking toward him, he walks toward me. And I don't know if, does any of you, you know who I'm talking about? Does anybody know who Jack Hayford is? He passed away, but listen, you need to read some of his stuff. He was phenomenal, big tall fellow, and skinny, and big old long nose. And I say all that because whenever he came up to me, he got closer, and I was, you know, I'm looking at him, and I'm looking at that nose looking at me. And so I just said, I said, Pastor Jack, I said, my name's David, I'm a pastor of a Baptist church in Mississippi. And I told him, I said, back months ago, the Lord, I believe, told me that he wanted me to ask you if you would lay hands on me and pray over me. And I said, but hey, listen, if you don't feel comfortable, I'm fine with that. I'm doing my parts, basically, where I was. And he just looked at me, you know? And I said, what are you doing for lunch?

I said, I'm, you? And he spent an hour with me. And man, it was the most incredible hour of just a man of God who's been a man of God for a long time, just talking to me about things, the spirit, talking to me about the gifts. And then he laid his hands on me. And his assistant, who'd been with him at that time, 33 years, was there and laid hands on me as well. And man, he prayed the anointing of God on me. And when they finished, the guy who was with him said, I saw a vision. And in the vision, there was a rock. He said, pastor, I believe you're that rock. And from it was ripples. And he said, I believe that God's gonna ripple your ministry out like that. And I can still remember it like it was yesterday. I'm telling you that to just say, I believe if you'll practice, you will see God unleash through you his power in ways that you would never have dreamed. Amen? Amen. All right, well, let's pray together and we'll go. Father, thank you for the fact that, again, I say this all the time, but Lord, you and I, I tell you this all the time. I don't know what I'm doing. We really don't know what we're doing, but God, you do.

You know what you're doing. And Lord, I know that there's a lot of confusion on all this. Part of it, I don't mean this wrong, I think part of it is, Lord, You like variety. So I thank You that with so many people worldwide that You have taken and they have received the baptism and it has been life transforming, an unleashing they didn't know was there. For others, Father, they have surrendered and You have filled them with the Spirit and they have unleashed the power of God in amazing ways. I thank You, Father, that You love variety. I pray for us that our focus in even walking through this together would not be to be right but to be righteous, to be empowered, to watch Your kingdom be released. So Father, as we go, I pray that You would right now stir in our spirits in a fresh way, a longing to daily surrender to Your Spirit, lay our life down so that You might live through us and produce through us the fruit of the Spirit to those around us that Your love would flow in just unprecedented ways. But also, Father, as we earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that we would prophesy. God, we pray that You would release even this week, whether it's at work or at home, whether it's here at church on Sunday or wherever it is in our neighborhood, whatever, that You would release through us those powerful gifts to minister the kingdom to those around us so that they might experience the gospel and their life be changed. And Father, I just ask You to do it all obviously for Your glory. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen.