Manifesto of Frutifulness | The Fruit of the Gifts

Word of Lord says this, "The end of all things is near, therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. Above all, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins." Grumbling. "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides so that in all things, God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever, amen." This is the word of the Lord. You guys can have a seat. All right. Good evening, Church of the City. If we haven't met, my name is Ron Wahlborn. I'm part of the pastoral team here and my role at Church of the City is to launch and lead our new School of Ministry. And let me take you. Let me take just a few minutes and kind of bring you up to speed on where we're at with the School of Ministry. This year is what we're calling the incubator year, where we're offering four courses to just the general population of Church of the City. If anybody wants to take it, they can. And so we're just finishing up a course on new mythology, which is on the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And we started on October 8th, a class called spiritual. Am I doing anything wrong? It's just echoing. Okay. We started on October 8th, a class called spiritual formation for leaders. And we've got 106 in that class on Thursday mornings. And then this spring, we're going to offer an Old Testament survey course and a course called Jesus, our divine healer. And you can register for those courses right now. In fact, I get to be the first registration on rock RMS. So I think that's what Jesus was talking about when he said upon this rock, I will fill my church. I'm hoping so. Anyhow, and then so that's this year. Next year is the official launch of the School of Ministry. And we're going to narrow our focus a little bit to students that feel a call to full-time ministry or people that want to remain in their vocation, but they just want to go deeper with their ministry training. And so next year, the School of Ministry will offer six courses. It will be on site by application only. We've had people calling saying, hey, can it be online or can it be live stream? We've actually told them no, because we believe New York City is the classroom. And we believe active ministry in the urban setting is part of the curriculum. And so there's going to be academic work. There's going to be internships, mentoring. You're going to have full access to the ministry of church of the city. So if you know someone that has a call in their life, they want to go deeper, refer them to us, let them know. There's information

about the launch year up on the screen. The application is not yet available, but it will be soon. And we will let you know as soon as it's available. And if you are here and say, you know what, I want to help with this. Do you need some volunteers? Do you need some people to help? We sure do. I need all the help I can get. And so if you feel a call to help train and equip people and empower people, just shoot me an email and we'll set up a time we can talk. All right, let's pray before we look into God's Word. Father, I thank you that when we praise you, you inhabit the praise of your people. And tonight, Lord, you have come. We feel your presence. We acknowledge you are here already. And so we open our hearts. We open our lives. We say, Jesus, would you do anything you need to do in us that you might do everything you want to do through us? And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. This summer, for the first time in about five years, Juan and I were able to get our whole family together. The older they get, the harder it is. And so this summer, all four married kids, their spouses, all seven grandkids, all 17 of us. There we are. There's the tribe. We got together and we had a blast now. It's 17 now, but we're having another and eighth grandchild in December. So we'll be up to 18. Our quiver is full. It's fun and we're blessed. But when my kids were little, Christmas was my favorite holiday. I mean, Christmas is still my favorite holiday, but it's different when you have little kids in the house. It's just magical. And so for us, Christmas wasn't a single day. It was the whole season we celebrated. I mean, the Amy Grant Christmas album went on before Thanksgiving. And I mean, it was just getting ready for the culmination on Christmas morning when we would celebrate by giving gifts to one another and celebrate the birth of Jesus, and it was just awesome. Well, after we would open gifts, the kids would play with their toys and their gifts, and Juan and I would kind of retreat to the kitchen to work on the meal. And inevitably, the piece of this beautiful holiday would be interrupted by screams coming from the living room, mine, that's mine, not yours, as the annual tradition of fighting over the gifts began.

And we would have to go out into the living room and kind of separate them and try to do some peacemaking. Now, this got a little bit better, the older they got as they matured, a kind of lesson, but inevitably, this would happen. Well, one Christmas, it was especially quiet in the living room after we opened the gifts. And how many of you know, quiet is not always a good sign. And so I snuck out to see what was going on, and they were all playing with their gifts and playing with one another, and I said, "Guys, what are you doing?" They said, "Dad, we figured out if we share our gifts, "we get four times as many presents." And so that's what we're doing. I went not in my head, I walked back into the kitchen, I said, "There is a God in heaven, Wanda." (audience laughing) And we are getting parents of the year award, okay? Now, it only lasted about 15 minutes before the screams erupted again, but it was really good while it lasted. Well, friends, in our text today, Peter exhorts the first century believers in verse 10 to use whatever gift you've received to serve others as faithful servants as stewards of God's grace in its various forms. Now, Peter gives us three very important words in this text, receive, use, and serve. So let me give you a very simple theology of spiritual gifts.

Every single follower of Jesus has received gifts from God and we're supposed to use those gifts to serve others. Sounds simple, sounds good. We can go home now, that's it. But unfortunately, we see in scriptures and in our own world today that many times Christians behave more like selfish children on Christmas morning with their gifts. And they become possessive, they become selfish, and instead of receiving gratefully and using generously and serving gracefully, we end up filling the area with shouts of mine, that's mine, it's all about me. But the gifts were not given to be possessed by us. The gifts were given to serve people and to reveal Jesus. In the Holy Spirit and the gifts class that I teach, when we do the section on spiritual gifts, I title it spiritual gifts, tools for building the kingdom, not toys for entertaining the church. One of my favorite titles, okay? Because the gifts of the Spirit are to reveal Jesus and extend His kingdom. And so today in our fruitful series, I wanna talk about the fruit of spiritual gifts, not the fruit of the Spirit. John dealt with that a few weeks ago, but I wanna talk about what is the fruit that God wants to bear in your life

when you start to move in the gifts that He's given you? And I wanna do three things today. My goal is to, number one, define what the scriptures mean by spiritual gifts. What are we talking about here? And I wanna talk about their use in the context of the church today a little bit in that first section. Secondly, I wanna lay out some foundational biblical values that I think will help us move in the direction of health in terms of the way we use the gifts of the Spirit. And then finally, I wanna close by giving you a four step incubator process for discovering and developing the gifts of the Holy Spirit in your life, because that's our goal in this place. All right, now the first, let's start with the definition. My favorite definition for spiritual gifts comes from an Anglican bishop named David pitches. He has since gone to be with the Lord. He was the Anglican Bishop of South America. And he wrote this little book called Spiritual Gifts in the Local Church. Here's his definition for the charisma or the charismatic and the plural in the Greek. Spiritual gifts are the grace empowered ability to do ministry in the authority of Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit to help people to encourage and edify the body of Christ and expand the kingdom of God on this earth. Now I love that definition because right away he makes it clear we're not talking about just human abilities.

We're not just talking about talents, natural talents. We're talking about spirit empowered, grace driven abilities that come from God, the gifts of God that are edified and encourage the body of Christ. And then I love this to expand the kingdom of God You can find lists of and teaching on spiritual gifts in a few different places in scripture. You can find them in 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Corinthians 14, Romans 12, Ephesians 4, there's a few other places that they are acknowledged and talked about, but I obviously don't have time in a single sermon to define all the spiritual gifts in one sitting. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna send you out some things this week, some resources. In fact, one resource is gonna be definitions and scriptural support for all the gifts of the spirit that we have listed in scripture. And the second thing we're gonna send you is we're gonna send you a short article. I wrote a few years ago called Expectation Without Agenda. And when Pastor John was one of my students, that was one of the articles that I had him read, and he's quoted it, and now I'm gonna make sure that you get that article so you can read it. And so we'll send those out this week. Now in our text today, Peter says that when we use our gifts, we become faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms.

I love that phrase. We become faithful stewards of the various forms of God's grace. Here's what that means. In essence, we become sacraments of grace to people when we move in and flow in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And so when we move in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, sometimes grace looks like encouragement. Sometimes grace looks like generosity. Sometimes grace looks like the gift of leadership. Sometimes grace looks like the gift of teaching. Sometimes grace looks like mercy. Sometimes grace looks like discernment. Sometimes grace looks like a prophetic word that reminds someone that God sees them, and God loves them. Sometimes grace looks like praying for someone who is sick and seeing Jesus extend his healing gifts to them. Sometimes grace looks like supernatural faith arising in the room like we felt tonight. Sometimes grace looks like quietly serving when no one else sees and no one else notices. But behind all those gifts are the grace gifting of the Holy Spirit. Now when we talk about the gifts of the Spirit in today's context, in the church today, there are generally two camps among believers regarding the gifts of the Spirit. The first side are called cessationists. Sessationists believe that the signed gifts

of the Spirit like prophecy, healing, tongues, and others have ceased to be in operation and have ended with the apostolic age and with the formation of the biblical canon. The other side are called continuationists. Continuationists don't believe there's any biblical grounds for saying the supernatural gifts have ceased. In fact, to the contrary, continuationists believe that the New Testament gives clear instructions on how we're to move in the signed gifts of the Holy Spirit in a healthy way. Now with that said, we fully embrace our brothers and sisters who disagree with us on this issue. This is not an issue that should divide us or keep us from working together for the advance of the gospel. It's a third tier issue. It's important, but it's not something we're gonna divide over. Now a few weeks ago, in our fruitful series, John did an amazing job of unpacking the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And when it comes to, and he mentioned in that sermon that it's possible to have the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but not have the fruit of the Holy Spirit. I would also say that it's possible that people have the fruit of the Holy Spirit, but there's not much power in their life. And when it comes to the gifts of the Spirit and the fruit of the Holy Spirit,

I don't think it should be either or. I think it's gonna be both and. And if we're gonna be compelling, healthy, compelling missional disciples, we've gotta manifest both the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. Now keep in mind that sometimes we get kind of a skewed understanding of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a power we get to use. The Holy Spirit is a person who wants to use us. And when the Holy Spirit begins to take over your life and my life, he is going to bear the fruit of the Spirit. He's gonna bear the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And when we move in the fruit of the Holy Spirit, we manifest the personality of Jesus. And when we move in the gifts of the Spirit, we manifest the power of Jesus. And how many of you know we need the personality of Jesus and the power of Jesus to be flowing through us? And so when we move in the gifts and the fruit of the Holy Spirit, we're doing this. We are lifting up Jesus. We're exalting the life and person of Jesus Christ. We're making Jesus famous by showing the world his personality and his power through his people. Now, let me give you a little historical context here. Contemporary historical context. As you can tell, I'm old enough I'm only mildly offended by that laughter, Sam, okay? I heard that, I heard that. And so when you look at the 20th century,

I kind of refer to the 20th century as the century of messy restoration. And when God restores something to the church, how many of you know it's not always neat and clean? Sometimes it's messy. In fact, one author suggested that when something gets restored, it's like a pendulum that swings. It's swung out to one extreme. And when it swings, it doesn't stop at balance. It swings out to excess and abuse. Let me give you three examples of how this happened in the 20th century. And they were moves of God that was happening in the 20th century, but we don't always handle the movement of God well. So the first example was in 1906, there was a revival called Azusa Street. Many of you have heard of it. It was out in Los Angeles. It was kind of the birth of the modern Pentecostal movement. It was an awakening. It was a revival. And God restored a manifestation known as tongues to the church in that revival. Well, people were so excited about this gift that they had recovered and begun to walk in that the pendulum swung from disuse to often misuse and abuse. And what would happen is people would see the abuse

and the excess and they would swing the pendulum back to disuse. Now, I believe the answer to abuse is not disuse, but right use. But unfortunately, we're pendulum swingers and we like to react. Well, then healing begins to get restored to the church. In fact, right here in New York City, there was a man that was an early pioneer of the healing movement and his name was A.B. Simpson. And Simpson was actually pretty balanced about the healing ministry of Jesus. But as the century kept going, people would go to excess and abuse. And there were lots of reports of all kinds of craziness. And so people would see the excess and they would swing back to disuse. Well, then the charismatic movement came along in the '60s and the Jesus revolution, the Jesus people revival in the '70s. And prophecy began to get restored to the church. Well, the pendulum swung. And people began to prophesy dates, mates, and baby names. And you should wear green on Thursday and crazy stuff that really had nothing to do with the mission of God or the edification of the church. And so people would see the abuse and they would swing back to disuse. Well, I am praying that the 21st century becomes the century where we finally get it right,

where we move in both the fruit of the spirit and the gifts of the spirit in a healthy way so that Jesus has exalted, so that we make sure God gets all the glory and we don't get any of it and we do it in a healthy way. And that's our goal here at Church of the City. Now, in order for us to do that, I think we have to look at some biblical values here. Let me suggest seven foundational biblical values that I think will help us move in a healthy direction. Here's the first one, I've already alluded to it. The gifts of the spirit are for use in the context of the body, but also in the establishment of the kingdom of God. So what that means is when God gives you, yes, you're gonna use it here. This is a safe place. You are loved, you are accepted. This is where we can kind of grow and make mistakes, but ultimately we're to take the meat to the street and what God has gifted us with, we're to use in the advance of the kingdom. Now, I mentioned earlier, I teach spiritual formation also. Spiritual formation gets unhealthy when it gets too inwardly focused. When it becomes really monastic and self-absorbed and it's all about Jesus and me and it becomes disconnected from community and it becomes disconnected from the mission of God. I love spiritual formation, I love the spiritual disciplines,

but the goal of spiritual formation is that we would be like Jesus for the benefit of others so that we could advance the kingdom and help set the captives free. In the same way, when spiritual gifts become just toys that entertain Christians, just toys that we're kind of tinkering with and playing with, it gets really unhealthy. They get disconnected from the mission of God and so when we develop these gifts, they are for use in the advance of the kingdom and we have to use them in a way to advance what God is doing in this world today. That's why we like to say every Christian should have a ministry in the church and a mission in the city because it'll keep us healthy and grounded. The second value is this. The spiritual gifts are owned by God, not us, and we are stewards of those gifts. Now, listen, they are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, not the gifts of Ron, not the gifts of Billy or Sam or John. They're the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In fact, our text today says we're stewards in 1 Peter 4, 10. It means that someone is a household manager who is responsible and entrusted with the care of someone else's resources. Guess what? You and I have been entrusted with resources called the gifts of the Holy Spirit

that do not belong to us. They belong to God. But we are going to be held responsible for how we use what belongs to our Father in heaven. And so they're owned by God, not us. That's why I try to avoid using the language of ownership when it comes to the gifts. And so I try to avoid saying I have the gift of teaching or I have the gift of prophecy or I have this gift. The truth is I don't own anything. The Holy Spirit owns it all. And the Holy Spirit owns me. Now here's the good news. He gets to distribute those gifts to whomever whenever he determines. That's what God word tells us. And so I avoid that language of ownership. I think that's especially true when people start talking about the gifts of healing. Now over the course of my ministry, I have really enjoyed seeing Jesus touch and heal people. We're seeing all kinds of reports of healing at church in the city. And often people will come up to me and they'll say, "Hey Ron, do you have the gift of healing?" And I always say, "No, but I know a guy. "His name is Jesus. "And he is here to distribute his healing gifts "to broken hurting people through his kids." Guess what?

We get to participate with Jesus as he brings gifts of healing to people. But guess what? I don't own it. And I am not gonna put my hand on it because I want God to get all the glory. And so the spiritual gifts are owned by the Lord. Third, value is this. The gifts are given by God and developed by us. Now I want you to catch this because even though they are gifts from God, nobody gets a fully developed mature gift. You see, we have to grow in them. We have to make mistakes in the process of learning how to flow in them. And that's why we need a safe place where we can kind of incubate and make those mistakes where we're loved and accepted, where we're not gonna get condemned, we're not gonna have a harsh response. And so we've got to find safe places to incubate them because nobody gets a fully mature gift. I am really glad that none of you had to hear my first sermon I ever preached. It's not a happy memory. Man, I was convinced I was called to preach and I went into seminary with just a full head of steam. And I remember I'm in my first homiletics class and they put me up to preach and it was 15 minutes of disaster.

I mean, it was one of the worst experiences of my life. And as bad as it was for me, I'm sure it's worse for the people that had to listen. And I remember sitting down after I preached that 15 minute sermon thinking I totally missed it. I need to drop out of seminary, I'm done. This is horrible. Praise God, there was a seminary professor in that class that saw what no one else saw. How many of you know we need people in our life who see what God sees? And you know what he said to me? He said, Ron, you can't give up. I know that was rough today, but you got something there, kid. You got something that God has given you and you need to grow in it and you need to develop it. And if something is worth doing, it's worth doing poorly. Now think about that for a minute. What that means is you're not gonna do it perfectly the first time. So you gotta keep jumping in, making mistakes, learning, growing as you begin to develop the gifts that God has given you. I have a former student named Rich Velodis. He pastors a church out in Queens called New Life. And every few years he'll pull together an incubator group of young creatures, maybe 10 to 12 young people in his church and he'll teach them to preach. He'll teach them basic principles of homiletics.

And then they'll preach in a safe place where they're not gonna get condemned, where they're not gonna hurt anybody with their mistakes and they learn and they grow and they spend a year doing this together. And out of those cohorts, those incubators, he has launched dozens of people who are now in full-time ministry. I talked to him last night and he told me that he's getting ready to start another one. And friends, that's exactly what we wanna do here. We wanna develop an incubator at Church of the City where you are growing and developing the gifts that God has given you. All right, let me move on. The fourth value is this. We probably don't have an all-inclusive list of the gifts in scripture. Now I mentioned that we have lists in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 and Romans 12. But I wanna suggest that God has a variety of ways he wants to grace gift his kids that may not be listed. Let me give you a couple of examples. How many of you know that worship leading is a gift? I mean, if somebody is a talented, you know, but they may not be able to lead us into the presence of the Lord. And then I've experienced a guy that only notes three chords on a guitar and he strums those three chords

and the tangible presence comes. Why? Because there's a gift of worship lead. I think there's also a gift to be a missionary, to go cross-cultural with the gospel. And there is a gifting that comes on people where they can cross socioeconomic, cultural borders, and they can effectively communicate the gospel to people who are not like them. That's a spiritual gift. And yet it's not specifically listed. And so I want to encourage you that God has a variety of ways that he wants to release his grace gifting through his children. All right, value number five. The purpose of the gifts is to edify the body. If your gift doesn't edify, stop it. I know that sounds harsh. But I've had people come to me and say, well, Pastor, you're grieving the spirit if you don't let me move in my gifts. I say, no, you're grieving the spirit if you're not edifying people. Well, one of them a prophet. Profits are supposed to be a little edgy. Well, prophets are supposed to strengthen, encourage, and comfort according to 1 Corinthians 14. And if you are weakening people and discouraging people and discomforting people,

that's not of God. And you're not gonna do it here. I had a guy in my church in Reddit. He heard from God. He definitely had a prophetic gifting. The problem was it came through the filter of his anger. And so every time he prophesied, his anger distorted the prophetic word and people were getting hurt. And I had to go to him and say, listen, brother, you gotta stop this. He looked at me and goes, you don't understand. I'm an Old Testament prophet. I go, yeah, the problem is we're in the New Testament, dude. Okay? (congregation laughing) The age of mercy has come and you need to stop it. Well, to his credit, he went and got counseling. And he dealt with his anger. And by the time we left, he was flowing in a prophetic gift where people got strengthened, encouraged, and comforted. And so friends, listen, you need to know that the shepherds here, at Church of the City, we want everything that God has for us. But we are also gonna keep an eye and make sure that we're good shepherds of God's flock. Because if your gift doesn't edify, don't do it here. We wanna make sure it strengthens, encourages, and comforts. All right, number six, our stewardship of the gifts

must be more dynamic than static. Okay, what does that mean? Well, some of us have heard some teaching on the gifts of the spirit that goes like this. Every Christian has at least one gift. Have you heard that? The problem is what's kind of implicit in that teaching is you only get one, don't ask for any more. And so we have people that have this static view of spiritual gifts that say, I've got helps, I'm not gonna do anything else. Here's what this looks like, in reality. I gotta call one Saturday night. And it was a woman in my church and she said, pastor, I need you to get over here. My neighbor is on my couch, she's crying, she wants to receive Jesus. I need you to come over and lead her to Jesus. I go, why don't you lead her to Jesus? She goes, no, I don't have the gift of evangelism. I only have the gift of hospitality. You come over, lead her to Jesus, I'll make coffee. So I had to say, okay, let me gently instruct you on the dynamic nature of God's Holy Spirit that He is within you. And while you're gonna have a cluster of gifts that you flow in, that's gonna be your area. That's the principle of the body. Guess what, He can give you what you need in the moment. And we can be on our way to the hospital and say,

Lord, I may not flow in mercy, but I need your mercy. I need your compassion. I need your healing anointing to flow. And we need to have a dynamic view of the gifts of the spirit, not a static view. Now, final value is this. Our stance towards the gifts should be to eagerly desire. I give you permission in Jesus' name to get hungry for everything God has for you. I give you permission, like Paul says, to eagerly desire to see all the tools that the Holy Spirit wants to pour out on you so that you can advance the kingdom, make Jesus famous, eagerly desire. Now, please understand, the giver is always more important than the gifts. We're never gonna worship the gifts. We're only gonna worship the giver. I have a friend from Africa, and he likes to say, when I follow Jesus, signs and manifestations will follow. But when I follow signs and manifestations, Jesus will not follow. We're always gonna follow Jesus. but I also give you permission to eagerly desire to flow in everything Jesus wants you to flow in. And I have good news for you, God has more for you. I don't believe we scratched the surface of what God wants to do in us and through us. All right, now, how does this work its way out? Finally, how do we discover and develop our gifts, okay?

I'm gonna give you a four-step incubation process that Juan and I have used over the last 40 years to help people discover and develop their gifts. So in answer to the question, what's the best way? I think we also have to ask the question, what's the worst way to discover your spiritual gifts? Can I answer that question? I think the worst way is to take a questionnaire. Okay, personal story. I'm a young pastor, somebody hands me this Wagner-hoats-modified spiritual gifts questionnaire and they go, "Take this and you'll know what your gifts are." Okay, so I took this. I scored a zero in prophecy. I scored a zero in leadership. I scored a zero in healing. I scored a zero. I zeroed out in a lot of areas. You know what? 'Cause I had not scratched the surface of what God wanted to do in me. And listen, your past experience is a lousy predictor of future results in the kingdom. And when you allow your past experience to put a limitation on you, then people have put something over you that God never put over you. And it's time to lift the lid and say, "God, we've got to discover what you have for me." So I think the best way is in community

to use this incubator that I'm gonna give you. All right, so by the way, this just happened this week. I taught on prophecy and how to get words of knowledge on Tuesday morning in the Holy Spirit class. And then we did some ministry. Three people got visions from God. They had never gotten visions before. They used those visions to minister to people and you should have heard how excited they were. You know why? 'Cause God's got more for you. You haven't scratched the surface of what God wants to do. So let me give you this four-step process. The first step is this. The Christian role, obedience. Here's what I suggest. Step out and do in the natural what scripture tells us to do. And so I'm gonna share my faith. I'm gonna teach God's word. I'm going to pray for people who need prayer. I'm gonna kneel down and pray. And when we do this in our natural ability, you are opening the door to God's power to come. I love what Smith Wigglesworth says. He says, "When I pray, I start in the flesh and I end in the spirit." Now he didn't mean he starts in his sinful nature. No, he starts in the natural. He doesn't wait for the anointing to obey God and get down and pray.

He gets down and begins to pray and then the anointing comes. And so at this stage, we're encouraging people to step out, to do what they see God doing. And in fact, the best place to do this, friends, is in our community groups. And if you're not already in a community group, that's where this kind of stuff is gonna be happening. That's where you can step out. People are gonna be loving, they're gonna be affirming. And when you begin to step out, what happens is the gifts begin to show up. And so step one is obedience. Step two is the gift, the gracelet. One of my professors at Fuller called the gifts of the spirit, the gracelets of God or the anointing comes. So this is where we're praying for somebody and all of a sudden the anointing of God comes and they begin to get ministered to. And the gift of God begins to show up. Or we're sharing our faith and someone comes to faith in Jesus. We experience the gift of evangelism. Or we open up our home and all of a sudden hospitality begins to flow and people feel safe and loved. And so here at this stage is where this is where the community gets involved. We begin to say things like, "Man, hey, that Ralph has the gift of encouragement. Hey, Mary, she's got a gift of mercy."

And we help people fan into flame what God is bringing to the surface in their lives. Now when I first started ministry, the first guy I led to the Lord was a used car salesman from Bridgeport, Connecticut named Mario. And so I'm shopping for this car and I go to this car dealership and Mario's trying to sell me this car and I'm trying to sell him Jesus. So he's telling me about the car. I'm telling him about Jesus. Now I'm a tough sell, you know, so I didn't buy the first time. So I left, I came back, I think two days later and he's telling me about the car, I'm telling him about Jesus. So I didn't buy that day either. I come back the third time, okay? I'm telling him about Jesus, he's telling me about the car. I said, "Are you ever gonna accept Jesus?" He said, "I'll tell you what, you buy the car, "I'll accept Jesus." I said, "Dio, where do I sign?" He said, "Where do I sign?" I said, "Okay, good question." Now, here's the good news. The Lord redeemed my less than stellar methods of evangelism and Mario got born again and he started coming to our house on Thursday nights.

He started to dig into God's word. And so one night, I realized something. I realized that because Mario was raised in the hood of Bridgeport, he had more non-Christian friends than my entire church. Now, this little church that I was at, the average age was death, you know, so it was up there, you know, and I don't think these people knew any non-Christians at all, okay? And so I said to Mario, "Here's what you do. "You share what Jesus has done. "I gave him a simple gospel presentation." He goes, "Okay." So the next week, he shows up at Bible study, he's got four friends with him. I go, "Mario, who are your friends?" He goes, "Oh, there are four guys "I led to the Lord this week." I go, "You mean you told them about the Lord?" He goes, "No, I'm a salesman. "When I tell people about Jesus, they get saved." (congregation applauding) And the four guys nodded their head. Yeah, they're in, okay? Well, over the next four or five months, Mario led nearly 20 people to the Lord. I mean, he was a one man wrecking crew for Jesus. And so people in our little church started to say, "Hey, that Mario, he's got the gift of evangelism." And so when we see the gifts begin to emerge,

that's when we fan them in the flame, and that's when we help people develop and grow in them. Now, the third step is when a ministry begins to emerge. And a ministry is when we experience an increase of the occasions and the use and dimensions of the gifts in our lives. It usually involves a cluster of gifts flowing together. And usually when your ministry begins to emerge, that's when your talents come in as well. That's when your passions come in as well. That's when the Lord begins to flow in your life in such a way that everything you are and everything you have begins to serve the purposes of God for your generation. That's a ministry. And every single one of you can have one. And so back to Mario, Mario said to me, "I want you to teach me how to teach the Bible." So he sat right next to me and he watched as I taught these Bible studies, inductive Bible studies. And then I said, "Mario, I think it's your turn "to teach a little bit." And after a few weeks I had him lead. And then he met this girl in our church named Lori, fell in love, Wanda and I did their pre-medal counseling. She had the gift of encouragement, the gift of mercy, the gift of hospitality. When they got married, they started a evangelistic Bible study in their home on Tuesday nights. Friends, that was probably 35 years ago.

And Mario and Lori are still ministering in a ministry of evangelism where their gifts and calling flow together. And so it starts with obedience. Gifts begin to show up. And then a ministry begins to emerge and it begins to impact not just the church, but the community around the church. And then finally, the fourth step is an office is given by God and recognized by the church. Now I want you to notice how I said that because the church does not have the authority to give offices to people. That has to come from heaven. Heaven is the one that ordains and gives offices to people who have walked through obedience and gifting and ministry. You see what that means is just because a church calls someone an elder doesn't mean they're an elder. You see, you've got to walk through the obedience and the gifting and the ministry. And sometimes we get it right and sometimes we don't. How many of you know, sometimes we put an office on somebody that hasn't walked through the developmental process? They might be rich, they might be wealthy, they might have influence. And so the church gives an office and the Holy Spirit's going, man, you got that one wrong. Because you have to walk through a process

that not only develops your gifts, it develops your character and it develops your fruit. That's why the Bible says lay hands on no one quickly because if they don't walk through that developmental process, there's a problem. Let me share one last story with you and then we'll pray. In my first church, we had a young couple named Mark and Jackie who were part of a sect of Christianity known as the creasters. Have you heard of the creasters? Yeah, they come to church at Christmas and Easter. That's it, okay. Now they're not here tonight so we can make fun of them, okay. Just kidding, okay. Well, one and I really liked Mark and Jackie and we tried to get them involved in our church and we, you know, went to visit them and we took them out the lunch and didn't work. Christmas, Easter, Christmas, Easter, that's all we ever saw them. So finally, one summer, I think was in June, walk in the office and I go, "Hey, Mark and Jack, you're good to see. It's not Christmas. It's not Easter. What's the occasion?" And they were a little embarrassed and I was okay with that. And they said, "Well, Pastor, we've come because we need a pastoral reference." I go, "Really? What do you need a pastoral reference for?" They said, "Well, we believe God has called us to be missionaries and we signed up with this mission board and we need you to fill out a pastoral reference so that we can officially become missionaries." And I go, "Well, Mark and Jack, you've got to help me out here because I don't know anything about your life, your obedience, your ministries, your gifting. Tell me about your ministry and your neighborhood." Oh, no, no, we don't have a ministry in our neighborhood. That's why we're signing up to be missionaries.

I go, "Well, okay, tell me about your gospel presence in your neighbor." And they go, "No, you don't understand. Our neighbors don't even know we're Christians. That's why we're signing up to be missionaries." Now, at this point, I'm scratching my head and I wanted to say, you do know a plane ride is not going to bring on the anointing of God. If you don't have it here, you're not going to have it there. And if you get an office that you haven't been prepared for, this is not going to end well for you because when you get a higher level, you also get a higher devil and you get attacked. And if you haven't walked through a developmental process, then you're not going to be ready for the warfare and the pressure that comes with the office. And so I said, "Listen, I can't fill this out. Why don't you come to my Bible study on Thursday nights? Come to church a little more often. I can watch your ministry, your life, and see." And after three or four months, maybe I can fill this out. Well, they got so angry. They stormed out of my office. They went down the road. They went into a church. They'd never attended, made an appointment with a pastor. And after one hour, he filled out their reference form for them. Friends, I don't want to be harsh, but that's pastoral malpractice because he didn't know them. And yet he gave them a reference. And off they went to the mission field to become missionaries. And here's how it went down. Within three months, their marriage was falling apart. Their lives had fallen apart. The pressure had just torn them up and they ended up coming back. Now, to their credit, they came back and said, "Okay, pastor, you were right. Can you help us?" And they got involved in the church and we were able to bring some healing to them. But friends, this process of the Christian role, obedience, and then experiencing the gifts and developing them and making mistakes along the way, it's got to happen in community. It's got to happen in small groups. And then ministries begin to emerge. And often then the Lord says, "Pastor, teacher, apostle, evangelist, intercessor." There's all kinds of offices that God gives to his children. Now, let me show you this in Scripture. In Scripture, we read about Philip a few weeks ago. John mentioned him. And Philip, in the fruit of evangelism, you see him serving tables in Acts 6. And then in Acts 7, the persecution breaks out and Stephen gets martyred. And in Acts 8, they are scattered because they're in fear of their lives. And I want you to notice that because this is not a sin Saturday where they just trained them in evangelism, prayed over a group and sent them out. No, they're running for their lives. They're not feeling the anointing to evangelize. They're feeling the anointing to avoid being killed. But here's what they do.

They preach the gospel wherever they go. They're obedient. And so it starts with obedience. And we see Philip proclaiming the Christ. And there's lots of signs and wonders happening, but there's no record of any evangelism that takes place. Well, then when we get to the end of chapter 8, and I won't read it all, that's where Philip meets the Ethiopian Union. And he's reading from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. And by the way, it's interesting. Philip starts with the prophet Isaiah when he gives the gospel. Important evangelistic principle. Start with where people are at, not where you want them to be. And give them the gospel from that place. Well, Philip does it. And guess what? The Ethiopian Union says, look, here's water. I'm ready. I'm in. And Philip gets his first convert. And so here he's walked in obedience. And now a gift of evangelism has come up. Now, when you get to the end of chapter 8, it says that the spirit swept Philip away. And we don't see him again until we get to Acts 21. But we know what he's been doing. He's been being obedient. He has been experiencing gifts of evangelism. He's been experiencing an ministry growing. And when we get to Acts 21, I want you to notice what it says in verse 8. Leaving the next day, we reach Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip, the evangelist. Friends and office has been given. Now, if you think I'm making too much of this, look what it says in verse 9. Philip had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. It doesn't say they were prophets, but they were in the gifting and the ministry stage. But then in verse 10, So even in the early church, they were incubating through obedience and gifting and ministry, and offices were being given by heaven and recognized by the church. Friends, this is how God wants to do it here. And I wanna encourage you to jump into our community groups because we're gonna run this incubator process because God wants to stir up the gifts of the Spirit in you. Will you stand with me? (congregation applauding) I wanna pray for you, but before I pray, I believe there's some marios here tonight. I believe there's some people that you don't yet know Jesus

and you're going, wow, this all sounds good, but I think I need the giver before the gifts, you do. And he's here tonight to meet you. And so I wanna encourage you, tonight's your night. And the lingering prayer team's gonna come, folks you can come right now, and I would encourage you not even to wait for the music because you know that Jesus has been calling you and it's time to surrender. Now, for the rest of us, I wanna close with second Timothy, chapter one, verses six and seven. Paul says to the young man Timothy, "For this reason I remind you, "fan into flame the gift of God, "which is in you through the laying out of my hands. "For the spirit God gave us, "does not make us timid or intimidated, "but it gives us a spirit of power, of love, "and self-discipline, of a sound mind, "some translations read, and church of the city, "it's time to fan into flame the gifts of God. "Some of you have gifts that you know you have. "It's time to fan those into flame and develop them. "Some of you, in fact, I would say most of us, "have gifts that we have no idea God's poured into us. "And it's time to begin to say, Holy Spirit, "would you awaken me, open the eyes of my heart, "open the ears of my spirit, help me to see what you're doing, "and Lord, I want you to activate whatever's inside of me. "We'll just extend your hands.

"I wanna pray for you. "This is not a perfunctory prayer. "Come, Holy Spirit, come, fire of God. "We sang about it earlier, "and I felt like heaven was about to invade earth "with the fire of your presence, and so Lord, "we're saying, do it now, come, Holy Spirit. "So, Church of the City, I bless you to activate, "to fan into flame and develop the gifts you receive from God. "I bless you to serve the body of Christ, "to advance the mission of God and make Jesus famous. "And tonight, tonight, the Holy Spirit is going to "put a fire in you, he's gonna put a fire in you, "and he's gonna activate things in you "that you did not know were there, "and I bless you to walk in them. "Step out, use 'em, serve others, love others, "edify them, encourage them, strengthen them. "And when you do that, God will increase "the anointing he has in your life. "In Jesus' name we pray, amen."