Gifted! - Lesson 7: Unleashing the Power Gifts

and they were trying to talk and discuss it, and the person who said that, "Hey, we've got people in our church that do," and as they were talking about it, the guy who's talking with him that just doesn't really know, he wants to know, but he asked them, and neither one of them spoke in tongues. And I thought, "That's why you don't know really what you're talking about. You know it from from hearing and seeing, but," and so I'm sitting there saying, "As I'm watching the YouTube video, I'm raising my hand." Literally, "Can I come? I'll help." So, anyway, two weeks, I'll be sharing some of those things. All right, let's pray together, and then we'll get started. Father, I thank you that your Word is living, and God that you desire to teach us and take us places that are just surprising. So, I pray that today, as we're together and looking at this lesson, Father, that you will guide us. I pray Holy Spirit that you'll speak. You're speaking to our hearts, and I pray that you'll stir our spirits, and now that you will begin to even take us a step farther toward unleashing the work of your kingdom, not only personally in our lives, but in our families, but then beyond that into our neighborhood and even beyond, not so that we can tell people, "Hey, I can work the gifts and walk in the gifts, but so your kingdom will advance." So, the loss to be saved, saved to be lifted, the hurting will be healed, the downtrodden will be encouraged. Father, we pray that you would guide us in tonight to take us in those places, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well, we're going to continue on in tonight. As we are looking at this, I'm moving to the next part, which is unleashing the power gifts, and we're going to look at what those are in just a few minutes. But let me just kind of again, and I know I go over this every time, but I do it for a reason, and that is that I know sometimes there's some people who hadn't been here or this many of your first time, or you were here, it hadn't been a couple of weeks coming back. So, what are we doing? And so, in it, the goal is to do a couple of things, really, and I'll talk about that again this week, but it's to help believers understand and unleash the gifts. It's not what my goal is, it's not just to teach, but for us to step into learning how to function in the gifts. And so, we're going to be looking at how do we do that, and again tonight, I'm going to be talking about that. The gifts of the Holy Spirit into our fallen world for the building up of the body of Christ. And so, as we go to that tonight, what are we doing? Similar to last week, but I just said this, what are the power gifts? It's what my goal is for tonight, what we're going to focus on, and how do we unleash them? So, that's really what I want to do tonight,

is for I want us to look at what they are, and then how are they unleashed. Let's just read again, and I'm focusing in, if you weren't here last week, on the gifts that are in 1 Corinthians 12, beginning of verse 7 through verse 11. So, let me just read them again, and let's just walk through it, okay? To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good, for to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, or as we looked at last week, a word of wisdom. And to another, the utterance or a word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit, and to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by this one Spirit, and to another working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. And so, last week, we looked at a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, and the discerning of spirits. And so, this week, let me just go back and give you those, they're in nine. This is the way I'm dividing them out. This is not anything that's original necessarily with me. It kind of is, I've kind of, some of my wording maybe, but it's still dividing them out. And it doesn't mean this is perfect. It's just an easy way to kind of walk through them, or an easier way to walk through them. And so, last week, we looked at what I call the perceiving gifts, how we can know things that are supernaturally known, and how we can understand things that are supernatural, and how we can even discern of spirits that are functioning in a particular area. And we talked about a lot of that. And if you were in my class of taught last fall regarding spiritual warfare, I talked a lot about the discerning of spirits, because it's a pretty, pretty important gift whenever you're dealing with. And so as we move forward, what we're gonna be doing tonight, and I think I have this in your outline is the power gifts. And we're gonna be looking at those three. And so we're gonna try to fill that in tonight. Your outline's pretty simple tonight, but it's really just kind of something to keep us focused in where we're going. So let's go ahead and we're gonna start, first of all, with the gift of faith. And as we look at this one here,

in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 of the first part of verse nine, it says to another faith by the same spirit. And so as we come to that, what is faith, first of all? And then we're gonna look at what is the gift of faith 'cause they're the same, but it's a part of what faith is. So faith literally is this. Faith means to believe to the extent of complete trust and reliance. When I say I'm putting my faith in Jesus, it's not that I am agreeing with the principles or precepts, even though I am, but that's not saving faith. Okay, that's not the faith that the Bible talks about faith. It is stepping into it, okay? That's what faith is in the Bible. I'm talking about biblical faith. And so in speaking about that, let me give you some various kinds of faith that are related to us biblically. The first one is what I just mentioned. They're saving faith. And saving faith is when you give your life to Jesus Christ, you place your faith in him. And so, and when we think about that, we have course Ephesians 2 verse eight. It says for by grace, you've been saved through what? Through faith. And it's not of your own doing, it's the gift of God. And so they're saving faith. The second kind of faith that we find scripture

talks about a lot, I just call it this, sanctifying faith. And sanctifying faith is that faith that grows over time, that God is growing, so saving faith saves us and draws us into the body of Christ and the grace of God there in that. But then sanctifying faith is it expanding each and every day along the way. In Galatians chapter five, listen to what it says as part of the fruit of the spirit. It says, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness. And then here translated faithfulness is actually the same word that's used in 1 Corinthians 12, nine for the gift of faith. So it's a faith that is growing and developing. It's the kind that believers develop over time and grow and mature into over time. So those are those kind of, there's a third type of faith that is spoken of here in a more particular way and I just call it supernatural faith. The reason why I distinguish it from sanctifying is I believe that sanctifying is something that grows and continues to grow in our Christian life as we're maturing as believers. God is challenging us to grow more in faith and develop in faith. And we know that there are degrees of it because how many times do we read in the scriptures where Jesus says, oh you of little faith. And what always bothers me about that

is that he said that to the apostle Peter whenever he was walking on water and I'm thinking okay, I would call that pretty great faith. I hadn't done water walking, at least not much lately, but I can say that that just lets us know there are growing levels of that. And so as we look at supernatural faith, here's what it's really talking about. So let me just give you this if you have that outline, I wanna write this in, this is supernatural faith is a supernatural impartation of belief and confidence for a specific situation. So whenever he talks about the gift of faith in this as far as the manifestation, the grace gifts, the supernatural, the manifestation of God's grace in a particular situation that he's talking about here, he's talking about a faith that is the impartation of belief and confidence for a specific situation. And so whenever we think about that, what are we talking about? Well, let me just kind of give you maybe an idea of sanctifying faith and then we'll go to supernatural, just kind of look at a story or a verse that the Bible talks about in Matthew chapter 17, look at what it says beginning in verse 19 through 20. Says then the disciples came to Jesus privately Talking about a demon that was in a little more. And he says, he said that to them, "Because you of your little faith," for truly I say to you,

"if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, "you will say to this mountain, "move from here to there and it will be moving." So that's that, you see how faith grows. It's a sanctifying faith that grows and develops. However, supernatural faith is a little bit different. So you have these supernatural moments where faith, you just know something. You know that God's about to do something and you can't explain. I'll talk about kind of what I mean. Let me give you a couple of them. First of all, would be one that we read about Elijah in the Old Testament and the idea of the drought that was gonna be coming. In first Kings chapter 17, verse one, it says, "Now Elijah, the Tishvite of Tishvie in Gilead, "said to Ahab, as the Lord, the God of Israel lives, "before whom I stand, there shall be neither do nor reign "these years, except by my word." How do you know that? Because God had told him. He knew it was something he knew in here in his spirit. He knew that God was gonna do because God told him he was gonna do it. And so we see that one and then we go later, you go into chapter 18 and you look in verse 36, listen to what it says, and at that time, and at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah, the prophet, came near and said,

"O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, "let it be known this day that you are God of Israel "and that I am your servant and I have done "all these things at your word." God gave him a word. God spoke to him and told him he was gonna do these things and that's why he did it. But here's what I want us to get. So whenever we talk about this supernatural faith, I want you to understand that the Bible, wants us to know that we in, through the Holy Spirit, have the opportunity to walk in this in James chapter five, look at what it says in verse 17, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. And he prayed fervently that it might not rain and for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth. Did it not rain because he prayed for it not to rain or did it not rain because God told him I'm gonna do this. In other words, it was the word God gave him and then he prayed it in the beat. Do you see, that's what faith does. Faith agrees with what God's word has said and believes it because God said it. And maybe that'll help a little bit. I'll, let me tell you a story. I've told this, I think here, I believe I have either this semester or less, I can't remember, but this is when I know that I know that God gifted me with faith.

It was whenever I was praying for a friend of mine and his wife, Donna and Steve Gaines. It was a long, long, long time ago, I've told you the story about her being healed. And in her healing, she was, she had found a lump on her breast and just Steve was in a panic and from preliminary kind of things that we're gonna do biopsy, but it wasn't looking good, put it that way. And so we were all praying and I've told you about it that that was whenever all of a sudden the gift of tongue started flowing through me and as it's happening, I'm not doing it out loud, they don't hear it 'cause I'm with four baptists that are, they believe in it, but I would have, it would have messed up the prayer time publicly. There's a private thing me and God talking. So anyway, as I'm doing it, my mind is working and I'm asking the Lord in my mind, what's going on here? What are you doing, what's happening? And in my spirit, the Lord said, I'm healing her. And so I just let her keep doing. And whenever we finished, in fact, whenever it came around my turn to pray, I so knew God just healed, I knew it. It wasn't a, I hope he did, I think he might have. Maybe it happened, I knew it as much as if they would have shown me the hospital report that she was healed.

And so when finished, I'm thanking God, while I'm praying, I'm thanking God to heal her. And so it came around and it wasn't an arrogant, you've been around people that will say things and it's almost like, man, I believe this was God, but they're, you know, they're trying to convince themselves as much as you, I don't know if you've been around. That wasn't what this was, it was just not, he did. And so I man, I said, hey, God just healed you. And they said, well, I hope so. And I said, no, he really did. that they went and the doctor's first preliminary look when they did a biopsy was it had to be taken off to be to the pathology stuff. And when he first saw it, he said it doesn't look good, what he saw, but after they did the report, came back, no cancer. And, but I knew it, does that make sense? That's what the gift of faith is. It's not something that happens all the time. It's not a, you know, I've been around people, but you know, believe it and see it and all that kind of, you know, the, you know, this false idea of that. I'm gonna believe it. So it happens, you know, what the gift of faith is, God's already said it's happened. And he gives you that manifestation of the spirit, that gift to believe it with him, he's already, in the heavenlies it's done deal, I guess is a way to say it.

So that would be that gift of faith. Let's go on down to the next one. And that's the gifts of healings. And again, the second part there in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse nine says, and it just says it this way, into another gifts of healing by the one spirit. And actually the words that are there are both in the plural, it's actually gifts of healing, gifts of healings. And so let me just give you what that is. Let me find it, there it is. So in that, it says this, it says that healings, or this is what I'm saying, the healings are, this gift of healings is a supernatural power given by God to an individual removing disease and infirmative, pretty simple and was easy to say it. You know, in Matthew, they had a time where Jesus had been healing, there was a lot of healings going on in a particular time. And then this is what it says in Matthew chapter eight, verse 17, this fulfilled the word of the Lord through the prophet Isaiah who said he took our sicknesses and removed our diseases. Does anybody know where that actual that quote comes from? Probably if you're looking at a Bible, you can see it down in the bottom. But Isaiah, yeah, it's Isaiah 53. And there he says, he bore our guilt, our griefs and carried our sorrows. But the Hebrew words that are used there,

elsewhere in the Old Testament are sicknesses and diseases. And so just to let you know that that's where that, that comes from, it's not changing the words, it's actually was 'cause they used the Greek translation is where it came from. So let me just give you some things, and I wanna say a couple of things here because healing especially is a big deal. And we have seen multitudes of people healed here over the years, you have seen them probably, many of you here have experienced healings and man praise God for that. But let me say a couple of things that I had to learn personally, okay. Whenever I first began leaking into all this, many, many, many years ago, I had some ideas and maybe you have some of these whenever it comes to the gifts of healings is I had some ideas, well, if somebody has the gift of healing, why don't they go empty out the hospital? Makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, if they have it, go do it, you know? And I would say that there are some people that I personally don't believe they have the gift of healing. They just claim to have the gift of healing. But I do believe that all of us can manifest the Holy Spirit in the gift of healing, that the Holy Spirit living in us wants to release that gift through us. And so I've told you this before,

but I just remember years ago, as long before I came here, long before I was around here as I don't want anybody to take this wrong, all right? I wasn't here, I was in Alabama, I got a call from a church, wanted to talk to me about becoming their pastor, that's why I'm saying it, it was a long time ago. And so the guy that called me was an evangelist that was a member of the church, but they had asked him to call. And so whenever I knew that it was a guy that was in the ministry, had a degree, I thought, okay, game on, then we can talk here, 'cause I wouldn't ask too many theological questions to a person that wasn't at that. So anyway, we're talking. And I said, well, tell me about your church And he said, well, it's really a smaller version of, and he named a person that you would well know, that I know, that I'm not gonna name him here, but this particular guy is very clear, that he does not believe that the supernatural gifts are still functioning. And so as soon as he told me that, I wanna know, I know where they are, and I can't believe they got my name of all people. And so I said, oh, okay, well, tell me. Gosh, do you know, obviously the way you're saying that, do you believe that the supernatural gifts

are still functioning? Do they function in your church? Basically, if I want what you said, I don't think you do. And he said, well, we kind of, and he's a minister, so I'm not trying to bust somebody here or hurt somebody, but I'm just honest. And so as we talked, he said, well, no, we don't believe those still exist. So do you believe that people are still being healed? Yeah, so you believe in healing? Yeah, who does it? Do you believe God's doing it? Well, yeah, couldn't that be the gift of healing? I mean, to me, that's just logical. Or is it some kind of random, you know, blip in the anomaly of the supernatural that God ever so often just does something, and we don't know why. That's not what scripture teaches is anyway. That conversation quit kind of, you know, landed like a lead balloon. You know, it's kind of boom, and I said, "Yeah, probably not the guy for you." He goes, "Yeah, probably not." (laughs) So I say all that because whenever we talk about the gifts of healings, here's the struggle many of us have, but what if he doesn't? And that was a lot of churches have that fear and a lot of people like, you know,

if you're gonna pray for somebody and you believe God wants you to pray for their healing, there is gonna be in us a little bit of hesitation that says, yeah, but what if I pray for them to be healed and then they're not healed? And sometimes we think if I do that and they're not healed, then they might blame God that he's not there or that he, big enough, or maybe there's something wrong with me and on it, listen, I have gone through every one of those myself, all right? I've done all of them and I just came down to a decision and that is, do I believe that God still heals? Yes, we do. Do I believe that God can use the gift of healing even through me to heal people? Yes, I do. Therefore, I don't know what he's gonna do. Let me give you another way of looking at it. Do you believe that we've got over 5,000, do you believe that every person on that list that are all listed here, that every one of them can get saved? Do you believe that God's grace is big enough to save all of them? Yes. All right. So, if we share the gospel with everyone, if we pray for every one of them to be healed, I'd be saved. If we, I mean, cry out to God,

we share the gospel with every one of them, will they all be saved? So, should we not share the gospel? No, we shouldn't. Yeah, I can't, I know you corrected yourself. Yes, we share the gospel. Our job's to share God's job's to save. When it comes to the gift of healing, our job to pray for healing God's job is to heal. What he does between him and them, I have to believe that's bigger than me. But we need to do our part. And so, as we come in there, though, I want to share some things with you, just to kind of help me a long, long time ago, when it comes to the gift of healing, because it was something I needed to see. And I just, I, there's a statement, I might as well just say it. I don't believe that someone with the gifts, gifts of healings can heal anyone at will. I believe that's the Holy Spirit, manifesting as he wills, not as they will. I can say this, that Jesus didn't heal at his own will, at the whim of what he decided to do. In fact, he said, I do nothing, unless I see the Father doing it. I only do what I see the Father doing. You think about this whenever Jesus, I know that you've thought about these things,

but in John chapter five, Jesus goes to the pool at Bethesda. Let me just read it to you, and let's just, beginning in verse two, says now there is a certain, there is in Jerusalem by the sheep, gate of pool and Aramaic, it's called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids. I want you to hear a multitude of invalids within these, blind, lame and paralyzed. So we just got the background, get it pictured. We now want to come to the pool of Bethesda, that's got five colons coverings. And there is a multitude of sick people all over the place. One man was there who had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, do you want to be healed, which I think is an interesting question. The sick man answered him, sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred. And while I'm going another steps down before me, Jesus said to him, get up, take up your bed and walk. And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath, so I want you to picture it. I know this sounds weird, but you've got to get this in your heart. Jesus walks in to, I mean a boatload of sick people and heals one. Why didn't he heal the others?

I don't know. But I do know he healed one. Right? Here's another one. In Acts 3, you've got to know when this was. This is within weeks after Jesus ascended and within weeks after Jesus ascended. So in other words, they're in Jerusalem, the disciples are in Jerusalem, and Jesus had been there. Okay, I want you to get all that. Because here's what it says in Acts 3, verses 1 and 2, says, now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour, and a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the beautiful gate, to ask alms of those entering the temple. Now what does it say? Every day was brought there, right? Lame, and he was brought there. In other words, he was there lame while Jesus was here on earth. He was there lame while Jesus was around the temple. Why didn't Jesus heal him? Well, I do know that answer because Peter and John, just weeks later, went in and he was healed. These things helped me because in my mind, I had built this false idea that ever where Jesus walked,

there was just a trail of healings happening behind him. I mean, he would just walk through an area and people were just popping up, you know? And I didn't mentally just tell us, but here's what it did, and here's what it does to many believers. Well, I ain't him, and he could heal everybody, and everybody that he prayed to be healed were healed, so I'm not saying they weren't. But what I am saying, this encouraged me to let me know, hey, what it says is, well, I quoted this earlier, but it says in John 519, it says, so Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, the son can do nothing on his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing for whatever the Father does that the son does likewise. Listen to what it says, took place in Luke chapter 5 verse 17, says, on one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem, and listen to what it says, and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. Why would it add that? Because there were times the Father wasn't releasing healing, but there was there. And again, I just say these things have helped me. Why does God sometimes not heal? I can tell you story after story after story that have confused me over the years.

I mean, I've told you a lot of them, but I've had so many times where I've prayed and God's done miraculous healings. I mean, it's just been amazing. And then I've prayed, I've had this happen many times. I've had where, pray for some to obviously people to be healed and they weren't and they died. I've had God miraculously heal people. I mean, supernaturally heal them of just unbelievable. I had one, I think I told you this before, a young lady and a couple of us in our church that just awesome couple. And he had leukemia and he was at UAB Hospital and they asked me to come over and he was, he was put in a solitary kind of place and just, you know, he was in bad shape. And the wife said, oh, come on in and took me in there with her and she was standing across on one side. When I was on this side, he was just laying there bad. And I started, I laid hands on him, I know him with old, laid hands on, started praying for healing. And they're just, I mean, that's sweet couple in our church. And I finished praying and she looks at me like she has just seen a ghost or something. And I said, what? And she said, well, you were praying. God told me to look at my husband. She said, I looked at him and his face was glowing. I think God just healed him.

They went and did another report and they, leukemia was gone. He comes out and we're rejoicing, praising God, didn't God good? Three months later, it came back. And I did his funeral. I don't know why. I wish I did. I can tell you it caused in me a crisis. What am I doing wrong or should I've done better? I still don't know fully. And I had to make some decisions. Was I gonna believe that God heals or not? Was I gonna keep praying and believing for God to heal or not? And I made a decision that I'm gonna believe God. And one day I'm gonna stand before him and probably it's me. There's probably lack of faith in some way in me. And I get that and I want to grow from that. But I'm telling you that the gift of healing will flow through you. So use it when somebody's sick. I had a lady alone, many years ago, she was dying of cancer and I went to see her. And as I went to her bedside, she was just sweet lady in her church. And I asked her, I said, "How do you want me to pray?" And I'll never forget what she said. She looked at me and she held my hand

and she says, "Always pray for healing." All right, let's do it, you know? And I did her funeral not long after. I'm just telling you, I don't understand, but I'm not gonna back away because I've seen too many miracles. And this is the way I look at it, okay? When people come to this altar and they come and they said, "Brother David, I'm ready to get saved." Okay, man, let's pray for you to be saved. And then we go baptize them. And then we rejoice with them. Do I know for certain that person got saved? No, matter fact, sometimes they didn't. When we find out later, they didn't. Does that mean that I should never give an altar call for people to be saved? No, that part of it I can't worry about, all right, I'll drive myself nuts. I've decided I'm going after the other side of it. I believe in healing, I believe in the gift of healing. I believe God still heals. I believe in spite of me. If I pray for healing, God's gonna heal something. So let's do it, all right? So anyway, I hope that helps. I hope it a little bit anyway. Let's go on to the next one. The next one we've got here, and I'll just call it the working of miracles.

He just says that in verse 10. To another, the working of miracles. So what is it? Well, it's similar to the healings, I guess, but a little different. I just say it this way. It's a supernatural power given by God. It's miracles. Now, the miracle can be a healing, but it can also be many other things. I've told you many things. Many times where God's worked miracles over the years and different things. But he does them, you know, listen to what it says in Galatians chapter three, verse five, it says, does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you, do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? So it's a faith. So what's important to me here is that he knows, it's God working the miracles. Second, those miracles are released through Spirit-filled believers, hearing God's word and then exercising faith. It's an exercise of it, God's gonna work miracles. And so let me just kind of say it. So I'm kind of splitting hairs a little bit because if somebody gets healed, was it a miracle or was it a healing?

Well, it was both. I mean, you know, but then there are times he works miracles that aren't healings. And sometimes there's healings that I'm not saying it's the gift, it's the working of miracles. It's, you know, so anyway, it's a little fuzzy, but let me just kind of say it this way. That basically gifts of healings are for removing diseases and infirmities, sicknesses. And let me just say this, these may or may not be immediate. It may not be immediate. In fact, I've seen that happen or where the healing is, it happens and it's happened. If I will tell you a story in just a minute, but it happened, but maybe it happens over a period of time. While the working of miracles are supernatural signs and wonders and these almost always are immediate. They just, they happen quickly. And so there's this balance we have to walk into. What are some examples of these miracles that can be healings? But I think they're also, I just kind of call them miracles. In Luke chapter eight, we know the story of the woman and Jairus' daughter, those two stories that are there together, we could spend all day on those, but let me just read this in Luke chapter eight, verses 44, 36, talks about the woman that came. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment and immediately her discharge of blood ceased.

And Jesus said, "Who was it that touched me?" When all the night at Peter said, "Master, the crowd surrounding you and are pressing in on you." But Jesus had someone touched me before I perceived that power had gone out from me. And so there was a miraculous healing, a miracle, you know, that happened. In Luke chapter eight, verses 54 through 55, it says, "But take her by the hand, but by taking her by the hand," he called saying, "child arise and her spirit returned and she got up at once and he directed that something should be given to her to eat." And so, you know, you see that happening. I would say this too, and this is another thing that I have seen in kind of interesting, is that you'll find a lot of times in scripture that there's a close tie between the working of miracles and demonic deliverance. You'll find those things happening, you know, similar in sometimes simultaneous in people's lives. And so those things happen. Let me go on down to some other ones about a thing that would, I call it miracles, but sometimes they're called mighty works. They're called supernatural miracles. Let's read in Acts chapter eight in this story here. It says, verses six and seven says,

"And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip is whenever Philip went to Samaria. When they heard him and saw the signs that he did." And listen to what it says. "For unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of many who had them and many who were paralyzed or lame or healed." Again, you find this miracles, deliverances, healings. It's this supernatural thing happening around in that. Often you find that Acts chapter eight, verse 13. Listen to what it says, continuing on and says, "Even Simon himself believed after and after being baptized, he continued with Philip and seeing signs So there are miracles being performed, there's incredible signs being performed. You know the story about whenever in Acts chapter 20, whenever Paul was preaching and he got late in the night and Eutuchus fell, I know some of you, if you were sitting on a ledge when I'm preaching, sometimes that could happen. We might have to work a miracle, you just fall asleep on me. I understand, I've often said that I must have the ability for some to be that dose to break any kind of insomnia issues somebody might be having. But in Acts chapter 20 verses 9 and 10, listen what it says, it says, "And the young man named Eutuchus sitting in a window sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer.

And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead." But Paul went down and bent over him and taking him in his arms said, "Do not be alarmed for his life is in him." I believe that he raised him from the dead, he was dead and he came back. So whenever we talk about miracles, there's miracles that happen that we need to, and I'll say it, they happen here a lot, a lot more than we talk about. I'll tell you one, that's 'cause it's still, it's kind of fresh, but it started back on September the 29th of last year. Lady in our church had a co-worker, a young lady that was very sick and just not doing well at all. Young ladies, young couple, they had moved in our area. She's, I would say they're late 20s, early 30s. But anyway, on that Sunday morning, she had invited them and said, "If you'll come, let us pray for you for healing." One of the problems that she had had, and I'm going to a lot of details, and I actually talked with them today, and we're gonna keep for right now the name Anonymous. The Anonymous, I hope to be able to share who they are and even, I would love to have them come sometime and share. But anyway, came down after the service, came to Kyle,

and then Kyle listened to their story, told them to come see me, Kyle and me, so we were there, and the young couple, she was, I'm talking about late 20s, she had a walker, and she had oxygen. That's how bad she was. And had longed for long, they had longed to get pregnant, but they were unable to. And so, right here is where it happened. So anyway, on that Sunday morning after everybody's pretty well gone, she's telling her story, now this is what I do. I just quietly pray in the spirit. I'm listening to what they're saying, but I'm also praying in the spirit. And as she's talking, as I'm listening, I hear the Lord tell me, she's believing some lies, that need to be broken. There's certain lies that she's believing in, and she didn't mention them, but after we finished, I said, hey, can I just share a couple of things that I feel like God maybe has told me that I just want to share with you, it's not true, hey, I'm good, but I think this. I believe the Lord's told me, there's some lies you're believing and the enemy is using them to such an extent that literally it has you in a place of hopelessness and it's making you sicker, even in that.

I said, one of the things that I just sense in my spirit that the Lord has let me know, it's a fear that has gotten on you. One is that you're never gonna be a mama. The other one is that you have a fear that because you can't get pregnant that your husband's gonna leave you. And he's standing there and he didn't say nothing in this, but in here I said, and I think those are lies that you may be, but now I didn't know that. I found out later that it's exactly what the enemy was using. I said, so we're gonna pray and break those and then we're gonna pray that you become pregnant. Okay, she said, okay, and it was neat 'cause as we're praying and as I'm praying over her, in here I knew she's receiving this. God's doing something. You know, you can, I don't know how to explain it. I just knew. And so we finished praying for, that was on September the 29th. Two days later, the co-worker, who was with a walker had to sit, you know, had one of them kind that you turn it around and you sit on it, she had to sit while we were talking. She said she came walking into my office and walking, not out of the walker, not with oxygen, and walked in and she said I believe that it is what he said. I believe that worked Sunday night or Sunday. I'm a praise God. And then I sent back and I just said, hey, encourage her that this is what I found. And when God's working miracles and doing these things, stay with it. If you sense that, hey, something's come back, let's keep praying. Let's pray this thing through. Let's don't just, you know, one and done, let's just keep believing, keep praying. But we're with

you. We're going to stay with it on this. So we kept praying, kept believing. And this week, trying to think when it was, Monday? Yeah, Monday. Another email. And in this other email that I received from the co-worker that was with him said, I just had to let you know. He just told us. She's 12 weeks pregnant. So remember we're rejoicing. I believe it's a miracle. I've told you that my oldest granddaughter, actually, I got four of my grandkids. I am convinced to this day our miracles. And let me tell you how I know it happened and how it happened. One is my daughter-in-law, which I've shared this with you before, is an nurse practitioner. She is a nurse practitioner at Vanderbilt's Children's Hospital. She works in the intensive care of the Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt's University. So she knows a little bit about medical stuff and say that. She was told that it would be impossible for her to have children. Medically, it was impossible. They came here to church. And at that time they had come, not long before that, Gigi, sitting over here, God had given her a word because they were trying to have children and something was stopping it, keeping it from happening. And she said the Lord showed her what it was. She just believed that the Lord told her that the enemy, Satan, is trying to stop the next generation of preachers and prophets and missionaries and major people of God, men and women of God, from being born. I mean, if you can't stop them from getting saved, stop them from even being born. So I remember believing that. And it wasn't long after that, though. We had our little boy, didn't we? And so it's whenever she said that, "It's spoken here to me." So whenever they came, it's years, years ago, because Harper Now is 10. But after the service, I know they did. Carolyn, I believe you were part of that praying. And they came and prayed for God to work a miracle. And I'll never forget. Listen to her tell the story when they found out she was pregnant. She, you know, did the test and just sat in the floor of crying and screaming and hollering, calling Kevin. He thought something had died, blown up. It was all over. And she couldn't even hardly talk. And then they wound up, God gave them twins, still believes part of the miracle. And then on the last one, they weren't, they decided, you know, "Hey, we're going to try one more time, one year." Nothing thought, "Well, I guess it's over. God's done." But she felt in her heart, Blair did. God wanted to bring another one. And so they were getting ready to kind of decide, "This is it. We're not going to have any training more." And on the week before they were going to take care

of that and do that, she did one more test, found out she was pregnant. And I believe those are miracles. Because God still works those. And I could tell you so many more stories. We had on a Mother's Day back, not, I mean, it's years ago now, whenever I used to do this, but several times. But on Mother's Day, there's always people here, there's always women that are here that want to have a baby, they have infertility issues, and it's just a downing day for some women. And so on that particular one, I just said, "Hey, listen, if you're here, and you're just saying, 'You know what? We want to have a child, but we just right now having trouble, and you just want us to pray for you. Hey, I'm not trying to embarrass you, but if that's you, would you just stand?" And there was a couple. They didn't go to this church. They visited a family, some friends that were in the church, but happened to be and said, "Hey, lands are a prey." And found out through that friend, they went back to another state where they were from and found out that not long after that, she got pregnant, had a baby. God's in the middle of working miracles. That's who God is. So I wanted to share those things with you, and, but I want to go back to a little bit about what I did last week because I think this is important. How do we unleash these things? And it talks about, you know, whenever we start off the question I ask, what are the power gifts and how do we unleash them? I know that you want to release the gifts through your own life. You want to pray for people and watch them be healed. You want God to work through you, to work mighty. And I know that He will.

If the Holy Spirit lives in you, as I say it all the time, the Holy Spirit living in us won't out. How does it happen? And we talked about it last week. Now just quickly, I'm going to not spend as much time this time, but I talked about the fact that God made us a body, a soul and a spirit. The Bible talks about it. Our body is our world awareness. It's the world we understand the world we live in. The soul is our self-awareness. It's the mind, the will, the emotions. It's what we know there. And then the spirit is our awareness. And I said, God awareness, but it's really spirit, world awareness. It's that side of it. And so that's why God made us. And so as we come to it, how do we release the spirit? If you were here last week and tried to, I gave out walnuts. Didn't bring you some of you probably came in and looking for me, having those bags again this time. Sorry, but the point was if you were here, you remember how the only way you can get the life inside out was you have to break the outer shell.

And that's the way that for the spirit, where the Holy Spirit dwells, for that to be released, there has to be a breaking that takes place. And that's the way God tends to work. And so again, what I shared last week, the second most often quoted statement of Jesus in the Bible, Luke chapter nine is one of them, one place it's found, but verses 23 and 24 says, and he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take of his cross daily and follow me. Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. And so I just said that last week I talked about this, how we battle as believers with the sinful nature that still wants to be in control and the Holy Spirit that dwells in us that wants out. It's a constant battle. We all have it, I have it, we have it all the time. Galatians five, I taught, it's why I quote this verse so many times, says, but I say walk by the Spirit and you won't gratify the desires of the flesh for the desires of flesh are against the spirit of the desires of the spirit or against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you wanna do. And so what I wanna do for just a few minutes is I wanna share something with you. I've shared this many, many, many, many years ago,

the gun I started using this, but I wanna try to help again, how does this work? And so, you know, the Bible talks about as believers that what dwells in us is a big deal. The Bible says it this way in 2 Corinthians chapter four verses six and seven, it says, for God who said, let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure, what, the light of God? We have this treasure in jars of clay. To show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. So when God releases the gifts, it's not us. We're just the clay pot. He's the treasure. And so I want you to think about that for just a minute. I want you just to kind of think about a vase. And I want you to think about this vase representing you. Okay? Now, when you see that vase and it represents you and I tell you, hey, there's a treasure inside, how will you know it? You say, well, take the lid off or something like that, you know, but that's not the way we often see it happen. As a matter of fact, that vase will say that does have that light, Matthew chapter five verse 14 says this, you are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. How does God's light, that God's treasure

that lives in us shine through us to the world around us? Listen to how Paul continues in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. This isn't gonna be happy fun, all right? But this is the truth of what the Scripture teaches. It says this to us, it says to us, it says in verses eight through 10. It says, we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed. Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested, there's that word, in our body. So I want you to think about this with me for just a minute. What happens is that whenever God begins to work those things, in other words, in your life, maybe you're going through a difficult time. Maybe there's some struggles that you are having, or all of us in here could tell the stories about the problems that we have, the issues that have happened, the hard times in our life. We could all go back and look at them, why is it happening? Well, it can be for a lot of reasons, but I believe one of them is that vase, God's breaking it. And as he starts breaking the vase, he's not doing it because he's mad at the vase. He's doing it to expose what's in the vase. Do you see? It's a work of the kingdom that flows through us,

and it happens when those things happen. Let me just, as we think about that, let me just kind of continue on because it goes on, listen to what it says as he continues in 2 Corinthians chapter four, verses 11 through 12, it says this, "For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be," there's that word again, manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. I know that that is not the health, wealth, happiness, gospel, but it's the gospel. The sorrows and struggles you've gone through, God hasn't allowed him because he's mad at you, because he doesn't like you, because Christianity doesn't work. Those things aren't happening because, well, we don't know what we're doing. They happen in our lives because God says there's a treasure in you. I'm gonna use it. He doesn't cause them, but he works through them. And because he does that, guess what happens? As the brokenness continues, as the difficulties continue, suddenly what happens is the people around you start seeing what's really on the inside. And they begin to see and experience the treasure that dwells in. And I believe that's how the power of God flows.

At least that's what I read in the New Testament. And I know I'm not saying that everybody has to go through horrible times for the Spirit of God to flow. I'm not saying that, but I am saying this. I learned a long time ago that God has, and he's done it many, many times, is he says, David, are you willing to die so that I might live? Are you willing to give up your rights so that I can flow in greater power? Are you willing to say no to your flesh in order to say yes to the Spirit? I know that doesn't sound popular, but one of the reasons why, here's what happens. This is the thing that drives me just ballistic about American Christianity. I listen to these theoreologists or theologians or whatever they wanna call themselves. Talk about why we don't see the gifts happening in our nation and why they happen over in Africa or why they happen in South America. Let me tell you why they happen. I've been there because those people are living in difficult times, they're struggling. I got a pastor, I'm gonna see him this summer. A pastor that literally is not making enough money to even survive hardly. And yet the money he's making, he's investing back in the church

so that the church can minister to more people. And you wanna know why you're seeing prophecy and power of God and healings and deliverances? I believe it's because in his death to self, the life of Christ is flowing like a river. While we sit and relax on the sidelines and write theological books about why those things don't happen in, Now, I've gotten on my soapbox, I'll step off. (congregation laughing) But I'm just telling you, we've been fed just a feel good Christianity that says you can live like hell, still get to heaven, that you can do what you wanna do and God's still happy. And that's not the New Testament. I'm not saying you're not going to heaven. I'm just saying, I think we're missing the treasure, but I also wanna flip that. I know in this room, a lot of you have things that have happened in your life that have broken you in a lot of ways. I was gonna say, I know I'm in a room full of crackpots, but I thought, (congregation laughing) probably I'll not go that far. But I wanna encourage you. God uses that. He didn't make it happen. He's not mad at you, but he is releasing a treasure through you. When you think back at the miracles

that God's worked through you, even the times you've prayed for people, be encouraged, that's how they get slow. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for your word. I thank you, Lord, that you really are for us, not against us, God, that you really desire to release a river. And so Lord, I wanna pray that first of all, you've encouraged the ones that have been going through difficult times, tough days, struggles at times. Some may be in the middle of them right now. I pray the first of all, they know you're not mad at them. Secondly, Lord, I pray that they would know that you didn't make this happen or anything, but this world we live in is a fallen world. And even in these struggles that you can use them, you can make all things work together for good. So Lord, I pray that they would know that even in the midst of this, they may not feel like it in the moment. I got in the midst of it. There's a treasure that's flowing through them. Every time they have a love they shouldn't have or a joy they shouldn't show or a peace that doesn't make sense. Every time they pray for somebody and you move. And God, I pray that for all of us, God, we just be reminded that you've called us to a mission

that's from another world. It's not from this world. And then I pray we would step into it and ask you to do all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Remember we're not here next week. [clears throat] (sniffling)