Stir Up the Gifts | Pastor Jason McKinnies | Purpose House Church

I'm Jason McInnis, the pastor here at Purpose House Church. I want to thank you for joining our broadcast on the Pando app. We love you and we're praying for you. But if you have a Bible, we're going to be going through a lot. But turn with me first to John chapter 14. I was last week going to kick off a series on giving. And if you were here last week, we didn't get to it. And then Monday, we gave the staff the day off. I got to work a lot of that day. The more I thought about things and the questions that people were asking me. Pastor Melissa wanted to go away. I had a doctor's appointment Monday morning. She wanted to go away and process what the doctor said to me. She wanted to go away to process what the doctor said to me. And so we went to her favorite place because we believe in compromise. And so I emailed the staff on Tuesday, told them, keep the series name the same. But I want to I want to rework it. And we want to talk about the gifts of the spirit, because if you notice, it's happening a lot. And many of you, this may be the first time you've ever experienced this. And when you went through membership, you were told that this was a non-denominational church with a Pentecostal flair. And really, right now, it's a Pentecostal church with a non-denominal flair. And so you're just trying to figure out what's happening. And so I want to walk you through some things. And so before we go to John chapter 14, verse 26, that's where we're going to turn, John chapter 14, verse 26. But before we read that verse or we read any other verses today,

I want to say something very plainly. Because I think a lot of people, when we start talking about the gifts of the spirit or things start happening in the church, you are already bracing for something. I think the gifts of the spirit are almost as taboo as offerings. So when the gifts of the spirit come up, some people just start expecting weird things to happen. They expect flighty. They expect unpredictable, almost borderline out of control, like we're just one song away from starting to handle snakes. Never going to happen here. Never going to happen here. Or there's going to be a whole lot of new doors in this building. And so I want to correct just that expectation before we go any further. Because it's because the thinking that the gifts of spirit are flaky or weird, that's not just backwards, it's wrong. What I loved about Pete and John just down here praying for people with cancer, some people be like, well, they didn't get all excited and they weren't screaming and spitting on them. When you have the authority of the name of Jesus, you just use that authority and it has to go. So when we talk about the Holy Spirit, Jesus had a specific name for the Holy Spirit. He called him the Comforter. In the Greek, that is a word named parakletos, literally mean one called alongside to help. How many of you need some help? You're raising your kids, they're now teenagers. They figured out they got a mind of their own and they know everything. Need some help.

The parakletos, literally one called alongside to help. Notice he does not call the Holy Spirit the disruptor, not the unpredictable one, he calls him a Comforter. Let's read it, John 14, verse 26. I want to teach this to you versus preaching this. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he would teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. But the Helper, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name. So who's sending it? The Father is sending it in Jesus' name. So if God is sending it, it's good because every good gift and every perfect gift comes from the Father above. So if it's disrupting, if it's chaotic, if it's fleshy, that's not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a Comforter. He's called alongside to help you. So for those of you maybe that are brand new to the Holy Spirit, when you read through the scripture, you start looking in the Old Testament and the New Testament, there are actually five things in the Bible that are symbolic of the Holy Spirit. First, there is the fire, which is purifying, illuminating and searching. Then there's we would say the oil of the Holy Spirit and the oil heals and it comforts and it consecrates or sets us apart. Then there is water. So we are washed by the water of the word or our minds are cleansed by the water of the word. And that's the cleansing water or life giving water. Then there is the dove and we can go all the way back to Noah's Ark

and the dove that is there. The dove is gentle. It is peaceful. It is calm. Comforting it is guiding but it's also warning it gives a warning And so then there's finally then there's the fifth symbol is the wind of the Holy Spirit and we go to Acts chapter 2 The wind that was in the book of Acts. It's the same wind that was spoken by Ezekiel in the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel 37 it's the wind of the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit wasn't the wind itself. It was like the wind There was hope it was there the person and the power and the strength of the Holy Spirit But it was like the sound of a rushing mighty wind. So it's fire. It's water. It's oil it's the dove and then it is the wind but all of it is the Holy Spirit and Every gift of the Spirit that we're going to talk about over the next few weeks flows out of the same The same source the comforter So if the operation of a gift ever feels like the opposite of comfort Like fear or confusion or manipulation that something has gone wrong With how the comforter is being carried. There is not a problem with the gift itself It's how somebody is carrying the gift Now that's worth remembering every week of the series that not just this week, but every week There's nothing wrong with the Holy Spirit Everybody good nothing wrong with it So I also want to say this very clearly because I know some of you have probably Come from maybe some theologies that teach us that the gifts have somehow expired They have ceased we would call them cessationist so some people taught that gifts like prophecy healing and tongues were only for the Apostles and They've quietly just stopped once the New Testament was completed. Well, the New Testament hasn't been completed yet. I Don't find in Scripture and I don't believe that God who says of himself in Malachi chapter 3 and verse 6 I am the Lord I do not change and who is described in Hebrews chapter 13 verse 8 as the same yesterday today and forever somehow handed his church a set of tools to begin the church then revoked or Repossessed those tools a few decades later after the church started and then said to the modern church

Continue your mission continue the mission without all the tools that I gave the early church Instead I believe that the tools that God established in the early church are Also the tools that are in the modern church for us to be able to establish the kingdom of God on the earth Everybody good. I don't think that God repossessed the gifts. I Don't think the early church got a gift that is somehow different than the gift we got I Believe it's the same gift. So I need a word of knowledge. There's the words of knowledge There's words of wisdom. And so what God is still speaking God is still comforting God is still confirming God is still leading. He's still guiding. He's still directing his people how does he do that through his people and A word of knowledge will come to a person and it confirms something you already sensed, but you needed to hear from someone else's mouth There's dreams there's visions They lead and guide us in a direction that we could not have plotted on our own There's gift of healing and this directs God's power into a situation that no amount of human effort could touch None of that is flighty. None of that is spooky or crazy. All of it is comfort wearing work clothes It's the comforter doing a work through people now Let's just go back to maybe where most of you may read about the gifts in Corinthians Before Paul ever tells the Corinthians Church to calm anything down and don't anybody mistaken I'm not telling you to calm anything down. I want to give you some guidance today. I'm not upset with anything that's happening I'm trying to help those who thought this was a non-denominational church and aren't sure about the Pentecostal flair side of it So he tells them First how grateful he is for how much is going on in the Corinthian Church? Listen to how he opens his letter in 1st Corinthians chapter 1 verses 4 through 7. He said I thank my God always Concerning you for the grace of God, which was given to you by Christ Jesus That you were enriched in everything by him in all utterance and all knowledge Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you so that you come short in no gift Eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ now Let me read that last line again so that you come short in no gift of All the churches that Paul planted Corinth that church of Corinth was like a church in Heron

They had a long list of problems if you You think this church is perfect? You have no idea what's going on. Because we are all humans. We have a long list of problems. So by the time you work through the entire letter of 1 Corinthians, that's a letter written to a church of Corinth, it's the first letter. They had to write a second letter. As you work your way through the letter, you realize just how long that list really is. There was a division in the church. Believers were picking sides between Paul and Apollos and Cephas, the way that people argue over the jersey color that's in the bookstore. It's green, Notre Dame, God's color, not burnt orange. So people get all worked up about the Kansas City Chiefs or the Dallas Cowboys. So there was division. People picking sides. Then there was a lawsuit. Believers were dragging each other into and in front of pagan judges instead of resolving it inside the church. There was a man sleeping with his father's wife. And that would never happen in Southern Illinois. That's a Kentucky problem. I just needed you to laugh so I could cough. There was a man sleeping with his father's wife and instead of the church grieving over it,

the church was proud of how tolerant they'd become. There was confusion over marriage. There was confusion over singleness. There was confusion about how believers were supposed to live inside of a culture that didn't share their values in chapter seven. There was open arguing over whether it was even permissible to eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols. There were believers showing up to the Lord's table, taking communion and getting drunk while others went hungry. They were turning a sacred meal into a display of who had more than the other. By first Corinthians chapter 15, some of them didn't even have a straight theology about the resurrection. If you're going to guess about which church Paul would open a letter to by bragging on them, saying, you have come short in no gift, Corinth would not be the one you would think. You would not think, you would say, my goodness, that church, with all the problems they got going on, there should be no gifts operating in the church. Well, Paul said to the church at Corinth, you have come short in no gift. Paul isn't exaggerating. He isn't being Pastor Jason, being sarcastic. This was a church that was absolutely loaded with God's grace, with God's gifting and utterance. The gifts of the Spirit were not a rumor in the church in Corinth.

They were everywhere. They were in every gathering, in nearly every mouth. They were happening in D groups. They were happening on Sunday nights. They were happening on Mondays. They were happening on Tuesdays. They were happening on Wednesday mornings. And every group, and if you don't know this, and I'm talking about me as the pastor, there is the operation of the gifts of the Spirit happening in prayer meetings, and happening all over the place. And people are like, well, Pastor, you need to be in there. No, this church has not come short in any gift. It's operating in membership. We had tongues and interpretation in the middle of membership on a Saturday. Are we eating Panera? But the enemy would have you to believe that if there are problems, then you can't have gifts. If you're not in the church service, and there's not a full band, and a worship team, and the pastors are not there, then the gifts can't operate. No, the gifts can operate, because we are not in control of the gifts. Everybody good? So, he said, you come short. They're loaded. It's in every gathering.

Now, I just wanna slow down just for a moment, because the original language of that text gives us more than English does. Paul says Corinth was enriched in everything, in all utterance and all knowledge. Utterance, that's the Greek word logos. It's something spoken, vocalized, given a voice. Knowledge is the word gnosis, and it's insight that comes by revelation, not by study. So, if you went back last week when Pastor Pete was up here, Pastor Pete was operating with a word of utterance, and it just came forth out of him. It just burst out of him. And some people say, well, he must have planned that. No, the Lord planted that. And then it just began to spring forth into the church. And so, Paul puts those two words together, logos and gnosis. And he's telling us that Corinth was overflowing specifically in what we would call the vocal gifts. Tongues, interpretation, prophecy. They were also in the revelatory gifts, words of wisdom, word of knowledge, and the discerning of spirits. In fact, we have an image for you just so you can kind of get an idea of how the categories are in the gifts of the spirit, how they're kind of broken down. And they're gonna show you that in just a moment. They're way behind on me

because I'm jumping through my notes. So they're in the Church of Corinth. There's two whole categories, two whole categories. They're gonna leave that up just for a moment so you can see it. So you got motivational gifts, you got ministry gifts, you got, then you have manifestation gifts. And so their gifts are just kind of broken down. And when we start talking about gifts, you go, oh, I'm scared of these gifts because the Holy Spirit's spooky. He is a comforter, one who has been called alongside to help you. So out of the two whole categories, out of the whole list that we have, they're just operating in that church in Corinth. So before Paul ever sits down to teach on the gifts, because a few verses later he says, the manifestation of the spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. It's given to each one for the profit of all. So when somebody begins to operate in their gift, it may not affect you individually, but it's still for your profit. It's still beneficial to you that other people are operating in their gifts. You say, well, how is that possible? Number one, it should confirm to you that the Holy Spirit is real. So he says the manifestation of the spirit

is given to each one. Manifestation in the Greek means to make visible or to bring out into the open. So the gifts were never designed to stay hidden inside of you. Say that again. The gift that God gave you was never designed for it to stay hidden inside of you. They are meant to be evident, visible, and known to the people around you, not just something true about you that nobody ever sees. So let me show you a real world example of this. How do I know what Pastor Pete is capable of or what John Gordon is capable of or Andrea Bradley is capable of unless I have seen them operate in the gift that God gave them? So my job as the senior leader of the church is not to operate in all of their gifts. My job is to lead the orchestra. And when it's time for Pastor Pete's part, my job is to make sure Pastor Pete is where Pastor Pete's supposed to be because I know how he operates and I can move him into position so that he can operate in what he's good at. And the same thing with John Gordon or Andrea Bradley or anybody else in the room. If I know how you operate, then that allows me the capacity then to move you into position for you to be successful.

Let me put it in more modern terms. If I was the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals and there was a guy coming up to bat and he was really good at hitting a right-handed pitcher, but I've never seen you pitch so I don't even know you're left-handed. But I need a left-handed pitcher and if I know you're a left-handed pitcher, I can call for a relief pitcher and say, instead of John maybe operating in this, I need Pete in this moment because Pete's gonna give him the heater. Throw him the heater, Jimmy. See, how many of you know that movie? And we bring in the right person for the right thing. But if you are hiding your gift, we can never properly position you because we don't even know what you're operating in because you have taken your gift and you have hidden your talent. You have buried your talent. Everybody good? So Paul says that manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. It's to be evident and visible. Then he says, each one. It says, the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. That phrase, each one, deserves to take a look at very slowly.

In the Greek, it's hekastos. It's an all-inclusive word. How many of you have ever been on a cruise and you got the all-you-can-eat part of it? How do you feel when they're like, hey, it's all-inclusive except, has anybody lost their Holy Ghost? On somebody, when you're like, let me explain to you what all-inclusive actually means. It means all. And they're like, but down there in the fine print, it excludes the crab legs and the filet mignon and all the good stuff. Then, my friend, it is not all-inclusive. If it is all-inclusive that means it's all-inclusive and he's saying here listen each one It's an all-inclusive word that means everybody who names the name of Christ and as who has received the Spirit has a gift and Some of you are already looking for the fine print to exclude yourself You have a gift and it's been given to you by the Holy Spirit that thing You thought cease is what drew you to the father in the first place, and it gave you a gift He gave you a gift that you have that get this all-inclusive And it's not some not just the mature ones not the ones who have been members the longest not those who you think are close To the pastor it means every single person. No one has been left out So if you're sitting in this message, and you're thinking he's talking to somebody else no, I'm not Talking to you And you and you and you and you and oh, yeah you too all y'all I Can talk Southern Illinoisan? You need be washed Washed by the water of the word all y'all get it all clean every part of you Now Paul doesn't open this letter

Praising the Corinth Church's maturity or their discipline Because by nearly every other measure in the same letter they had neither maturity or discipline They did have the operation of the gifts So the operation of gifts is never an indicator of how spiritual congregation or an individual is It's an indicator of God's grace When we see someone walking in a gift of healing or a strong word of prophecy our instinct is to assume that they must have earned some sort of deeper level of holiness and I love pastor Pete, but I'm not gonna worship pastor Pete because the gift he operates in I Worship the one who gave him the gift that he operates in And I'm using pastor Pete because I think y'all are well aware that he's very gifted That means God's grace is very much on pastor Pete It's God's grace So many times we think oh, I need to live like that person. No, no, just operate in God's grace in your life The gifts were never a merit badge There's simply what happens when God's grace lands on a person who's willing to be used Now I'm gonna pick on miss Tina for a while because often you hear miss Tina's voice Operating in the gift of interpretation and I know I've got the emails Why can't somebody else interpret because nobody else is willing to allow themselves to be graced to be used in that moment? Last week The second time there was a pause She was waiting Nobody else wanted to be used in that gift and so God's gonna listen I'm gonna be obedient to my word and I'm gonna use her because that sister is Yielded to the grace of God in her life. That doesn't make her extra special It just means she's yielded to the grace of God. Everybody good Don't think I'm picking on them and it's like I'm upset I'm trying to explain because you can explain biblically what's happening in our services Okay, so so he's opening up and he's like listen, it's just about God's grace God's grace landing on them nothing more complicated than that. So the idea didn't start with Paul either long before the New Testament Long before Paul wrote it the word charis for grace the Old Testament had already given us a concept in the Hebrew and

It was a Hebrew word called chin ch en it means favor freely given favor That has nothing to do with what the person receiving it deserves It's a word that we find in Genesis chapter 6 and verse 8 where Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord Not because Noah had out earned everybody else in the world That was so corrupt that God was prepared to wipe it out. But because God's favor rested upon Noah Can I tell you there's nothing special about purpose house other than that? We are yielding to what God wants to do What's going on in purpose house and the baptisms and the healings and the miracles? What the reason why it's happening is because we're just saying God you be God Can I tell you that God would do it at any church at any time anywhere if they'll let him We're not super special here, we're just saying we yield to you God you do it So by the time we go Paul gets to do chapters 12 through 14 of the same letter. He spends three entire chapters 12 13 and 14 Teaching the church at Corinth how to bring order to what was happening He ends this section in the first Corinthians 14 verse 40. He says let all things be done Decently and in order That instruction was never written for a dry, quiet, gift-starved church. It was written to a church that was enriched, came short in no gift, and he's like okay listen, the gifts are operating in such a way we probably need to teach you how to operate in them, how to deal with them. So he needed three chapters on order because the church was moving and then because it was moving it was starting to step on itself. Remember just a few minutes ago I said we're in revival, now we're gonna have to learn how to have church in revival, during revival. You're gonna have to learn how to or we're gonna start stepping on ourselves. So moving in our gifts or operating in our gifts isn't a problem to be managed down or to be controlled into something smaller and safer. It's evidence of a grace that we need to learn how to steward and steward it very well. Just gotta steward it. So the goal by Paul was never to slow the Corinth down, the church of Corinth down until the gifts stopped. The goal was to create a maturity in them so that their maturity caught up to the measure of grace that was being poured out. Everybody good with that? So I want the same thing for us. I do not want less moving of the spirit, I want more maturity so that we can carry ourselves. It happened over in the baptism. We were trying to call Pastor Pete over from the left side of the church to the right side of the

church because only Pastor Pete can deal with the demons. No, if you have the Holy Spirit operating inside of you, you can speak to a demon and tell it to leave too. And what the enemy wants us to do is oh we only got we got a special team of people for that. No, we got a church full of people that can cast out a demon. So we need to become a little bit more mature and and have some confidence in the gift that God gave us. So I want to begin just here and I'm probably going to end right here and where I'm going to begin. How many of you have ever sat around a fire? Love sitting around a fire. Every fire that I've ever sat in front of usually goes in the same cycle. Somebody takes all the time in the world to build the fire up. The fire roars for a little while. Then everybody gets busy talking. We're watching the game. We're watching Notre Dame whoop Ohio State. Yes Jesus. And then when when that's happening we're eating our pizza watching the game. Nobody's tending to the fire. We've gotten caught up now in talking about all the stuff and George how much Georgia stinks and we're talking about that and how I don't know how a tide can roll in Tuscaloosa. There's no water and and and the fire goes out and because the fire goes out about an hour later you look over at the fire and you're like it was roaring and we've gotten caught up and now there's no flame at all. Just a bed of gray ash with a little bit of an orange glow down the bottom buried somewhere deep beneath it and the fire though really isn't out. It just needs somebody to stir. Anybody ever stirred the fire? Just stir the coals and then you'll find some heat down there. Add a little kindling. Start blowing on it a little bit and 30 seconds later you got a flame again and the fire didn't need to be relit. It just needed to be stirred. Now a few years ago I was walking through Dillard's. I have no idea why Dillard's was selling a fire pit. I was there for a necktie and I walked out with a fire pit. This is the most amazing fire pit I've ever owned in my life because this this thing it creates a little space over the top of it and it's got a rechargeable like fan that runs the entire time that you can plug into it and because of this I can get busy talking about how great Notre Dame is and how you guys don't even know how to spell dog. It's d-o-g. There's no a no w. We number one. You don't even know how to spell dog. So we can talk about that and I can talk trash all night long and not worry about this fire because this fire comes with this little rechargeable battery pack and it hooks right here on the side. I mean this is the city boys fire starter. This thing is amazing and so what it does when you recharge it you turn it on.

See if you can hear this. Can you hear that? Glory to God. Wind and so it feeds there's this pipe down the middle of it. I didn't know this when I bought it. That's the coolest thing in the world. There's this pipe that runs down the middle of it and it constantly is feeding air to the fire so that the fire never goes out. Now all I have to do is that whenever the battery pack goes dead, is to take it and plug it back in so that I can keep the fire going. So every time Melissa wants a fire, I build a fire for her and she never comes out of the house. I'm like, I just lit a six hour log and you went to bed and I gotta stay up all night long making sure the house don't burn down. Pastor Ed is in agreement right now. Lord Jesus help him and Ellen on the way home from church. All you have to do is recharge the thing that produces the air and the Bible talks about the Holy Spirit as pneuma, as being air that constantly feeds the fire of the Holy Spirit. Then all you gotta do is come and get recharged and plug it back in, come to church, get fired back up and then you go out and then over your life, cause your fire's not out, you just need to have some air blow across it.

Now I learned that there's a secondary benefit of this because Melissa did come out one time. She's oneness. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one time around the fire pit. One husband, two girls. So she comes out and she's like, I like this. Like, why do you like it? She goes, there's no smoke. Lo and behold, there's not just one little pipe through here. There's a pipe here and a pipe here. So it blows the smoke into the middle and straight up. So she can sit by the fire. Listen to this. She can sit by the fire and not have to take a shower because the smoke don't get in her hair. And sometimes when you get fire and it's uncontrollable, it start getting nauseous to people around the fire. You just have an out of control fire. You need the wind sometimes to come in and kind of straighten things up a little bit so that the smoke of the fire doesn't make people have a distaste for the fire. Everybody good? When the wind of the Holy Spirit starts blowing, it shouldn't be so annoying that people don't want to sit around the fire anymore. Some of us need to get recharged and allow the wind of the Holy Spirit to come into our lives

so that we're not so annoying and flaky and weird and blaming our personality on the Holy Spirit. Got tight in here. I got a t-shirt. I would wear it, except somebody would take it inappropriately. It says, when it's tight, it's right. You're blaming the Holy Spirit on your personality. How about you represent the Holy Spirit like he is? He is a gentleman. He's not trying to make people get all weirded out and smoke in their eyes and their hair. No, he wants them to enjoy the fire of the Holy Spirit and get warmed by it and be able to eat from it and be able to enjoy the community that comes around the fire. And you're over there smoking and blowing smoke in their face and calling that the Holy Ghost. No, that you've been surfing on Facebook and calling that a word of knowledge. That you're sitting in a gossip circle called a prayer circle and then going out of the prayer circle and walking over and saying, the Lord spoke to me. The Lord didn't speak to me, speak to you. Depressed Doug spoke to you. And you call that the Holy Spirit or here you go. You got your little shirt on and I'm a Jesus freak, but you lost your mind

and dropped the F-bomb on the McDonald's worker and then turn around and want to prophesy over somebody. Oh, I'm a pastor, but you're grooming kids. That's a whole lot of smoke and it will not do in this revival. You're gonna have to have the wind of the Holy Spirit. You're gonna have to have the dove of the Holy Spirit. You're gonna have to have the oil of the Holy Spirit. You're gonna have to have every function of the Holy Spirit so that it's real and it's genuine because you're in a generation that doesn't want to talk about how much you know about God. They want to see the power of God and all this fakery and mockery and this nonsense has got to go. Don't be weird. That's just you. And I grew up around some weird folks. You know what we call them? Church folk. Church folk got all kinds of crazy stuff going on. The Holy Spirit is not weird. He is not obtrusive. But when somebody walks up and says the name of the Lord, see, there was something happening in the service today. I was looking because I had knowledge. I have knowledge as the senior pastor of the church that none of you else, nobody else in this room has. Not Pastor Michael, not anybody. There's nobody that has as much.

Knowledge about this church as I have so that's why I stay out of the altar because if I walk up to you and I lay Hands on you somebody probably told me what was going on in your life I would rather somebody else walk up to you and say thus sayeth the word of the Lord over your life and then you can Receive it because they have no idea So just a few minutes ago pastor Aaron who has no idea what was going on in a situation Walked over here laid hands on a man and the man went out in the Holy Spirit now We can talk about falling out we can talk about all that stuff But what happened was is God began to use pastor Aaron He walked over here and dealt with a situation that I had knowledge of and as soon as he laid hands on that man the power of the Holy Spirit began to operate in that Life and that man had no other choice, but he got weak in the knees and he went down Now there now listen that also can be a learned behavior. So be careful with that If you really want to know whether it's real go find it in Scripture they never fell backwards they fell in their face So when you want to start falling in your face before the Lord, I know it's genuine wham Dagon fell before the Lord on his face and now people gonna say he's against people know if it's genuine will know The Holy Spirit will speak to us So when we get the wind of the Holy Spirit and the pneuma the breath the wind behind it God Allows his spirit to begin to flow Let me close here Paul writes to Timothy. He says I remind you to stir up the gift of God Which is in you through the laying on of my hands for God has not given us a spirit of fear There is such a thing as a spirit of fear, but God didn't give it to you but a power of love and of a sound mind Notice the first word Therefore I remind Paul is not introducing new information to Timothy. He's not telling Timothy something Timothy has never heard about He's reminding Timothy of something. He already knows and he already possesses But at least for the moment, he's forgotten to use it So Paul says stir up. It's one word in the Greek word in the Greek. It's a fire word It means to rekindle to fan back into a flame to stir up embers that are still glowing But have stopped producing visible fire. It's the word

you use For exactly what I described just a minute ago. It's taking a poker or the wind and Kindling the fire getting it stirred up and this is why it matters for us who think about spiritual gifts Paul is not telling Timothy go get a gift He's telling him Timothy. You've already got a gift You now need to be rekindled set of them set ablaze again Because most of us are like Timothy and we have quietly decided to do two things or say two things To ourselves number one. I don't have a gift number two, I'm waiting on God or Somebody else to stir it up for me and both of those thoughts let you off the hook Those thoughts let you off the hook both of them are wrong. You already have a gift and stirring it is your job So I think that we need to go back and just say God I need you to stir up the gift in me You have a diversity of gift and what a lot of us do is say I don't operate like Pastor Ed Guess what? I don't either We have the same spirit though We just differ in How we operate in our gifts If everybody in this room was an Alabama fan, it'd be really boring in here Some things that light your fire don't like mine and Things that light my fire don't like yours We should not be judging each other by what lights each other's fire So when somebody begins to operate in their gift, it may not operate the way we would operate but that doesn't mean they're not gifted There's things that what happened today back there in the baptistry that were out of character for even me I Normally want to be calm cool collected and orchestrate pieces But when I saw something happen in that water, we stepped up and we started taking authority over it Because there's something that begins to light your fire Because there's something that begins to light your fire and you begin to operate and when you get your fire lit my friend Do not quench the Spirit of God on the inside of you There are diversities of gifts the way they operate we can go through first Corinthians chapter 12

There are division diversities of gifts, but the same spirit there are differences of ministries, but the same Lord There are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works Gifts all in all, all three lines. Gifts differ, ministries differ, activities differ, but the spirit is the same. Gifts differing in Romans chapter 12, verses three through eight. For time's sake, I won't read it, but it says gifts differing. Not everybody is operating in the same gift, but not everybody gets stirred by the same thing. Let me close it like this. There are people who teach that you only receive one gift and that's the only gift you can ever operate in. And then I would say, when you're in a position, let's say your gift is you're a hammer. You're a hammer. That's wonderful if the problem you're dealing with is a nail. That's wonderful, you can use a hammer to drive a nail. But what if I need something cut? I don't use a hammer to cut an electrical wire. I need a pair of pliers. So if you ever hear me say this, this is what I mean by this. To a hammer, everything is a nail. If I only have one gift and that's all I ever operate is that one gift, then every time I don't operate in the gift of healing, come out, devil! To the hammer, everything is a nail.

I don't operate in the gift of healing, I don't operate in the gift of faith. But if you're the only one in the hospital room and the gift of faith is what is needed, it's the same spirit, it just differs in its activity, its function and how it manifests. So I'm not normally on the devil demon chasing team, but this morning we were back there and the same spirit that rests in Pastor Pete, Pastor Ernie or John Gordon lives on the inside of me. And so if it came time to rebuke the devil, then I can operate in that gift. But if it took the gift of faith, then I can operate in that gift, why? Because I have the same spirit, but I may be more acclimated to operating in a different gift all the time, like preaching and teaching and exhortation. But if it demands me to operate in another gift, then the same spirit cannot operate inside of me. So somebody said, I don't operate like that. You would if it depended on it, because the spirit of God would raise up on the inside of you and you begin to operate in that gift. You say, I've never given the gift of interpretation. You will if it demands it. I've never given a word of knowledge. It would if it demands it, it will be manifested and it'll operate through you because it's diversities of gifts,

not the diversity of a spirit. It's the same spirit. I hope y'all mind what I'm talking. So if the gift is already there, why has it gone dormant in your life? Paul answers that question in the same breath when he told Timothy, he said, stir up the gift. He said, for God has not given the spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind. Fear is the first thing that makes you back away from your gift. Fear of what people will think, fear of being the one who stood up, fear of the one you didn't think it would operate like that. Fear is very quiet, by the way, it doesn't announce itself. It just slowly lets the fire go from a flaming fire to a flicker. Then it just becomes embers to ash and I wanted to step to this pulpit today and say, stir up the gift of God. Stir up the gift of God. And I wanna end with this story. I'm gonna change a few details to keep the guilty guilty. My dad was a very gifted man, very, very gifted man. In fact, one of the last conversations I ever had with my dad before the enemy took his speech

was to me and my brother about not quenching the gifts of God in our lives. My dad operated in the gift of knowledge, the gift of wisdom, the gift of exhortation, very gifted man. In fact, one night, we were in church and my dad was preaching that night and I don't know why, but he was not on the pulpit. He was down front and he was pacing back and forth in front of the whole church. And all of a sudden, he went from his sermon to rehearsing a suicide note. He was quoting the suicide note verbatim. And he just, just like Pastor Pete last Sunday, I mean, it was just that kind of unction of the Holy Spirit just come over him and he starts quoting this thing. And the whole church is just like, and we remember, he's operating the gift and it was for one person, but it was a prophet to all of us. I'm sitting there going, man, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen. And all of a sudden, he wheels around and he says, and you're in this room, you wrote that letter before you came to church and God wants to save your life. And this woman stood up from the side of the church and she runs to the altar and she's still alive. to this day. But here's what happened. Some super spiritual person called the pastor. I mean his title was the pastor. Went to my dad and said you can never operate like that again. Don't ever do that again. I'm trying to keep the

details changed but the guilty are guilty. And the board said I can tell the truth as long as I do it in love. And so years go by and my dad has been instructed by the leadership of the church to never operate in that gift. Never operate like that. So God would move on him and he would not be able to move because he's trying to be honorable to the people that are over the top of him who have said don't do it. To the point then when he became the senior pastor of the church he tries to operate in that gift and it's just dormant. He just he's working hard to try to get back to that gift and he's quenching the spirit. So here's my dad laying on his deathbed. He's been paralyzed by cancer. It's robbing him of his voice. It's eating his lungs away. It's already paralyzed his spine and he pulls me and my brother into the room and he was not talking about hey work hard. You know do good. Here's his command to us. Don't ever quench the Holy Spirit's gifts in your life. So you want to know what makes me motivated to allow other people to operate in their gifts? I do not want to stand over your deathbed and be the one who said don't use your gift. Stop it. Don't do it. I'm saying let your maturity catch up with the measure of God's grace in your life and God will tell you because why? Because the spirits are subject to the prophets. You if it's not the right time for you to release it, God will give you the right time. He'll give you wisdom and knowledge. If you're going to operate in the gifts of wisdom and knowledge, you should operate with wisdom and knowledge. People say I just couldn't contain it anymore. It'll keep. Pastor Pete was proof positive here of how being honorable to the system of what had been aligned in 1st Corinthians how it works. God gave him. Then he said God I'm gonna put a fleece out before you. I walked over and it happened and God orchestrated the whole thing. Pete didn't have to be rude. He didn't have to be anything. Why? Because Pete is an honorable man who realizes that the spirit that gave him is also subject to the prophet who is operating with it. Everybody understand? So don't get out of control. The Word of God will keep. It'll keep and God will provide the right moment for you and when that moment happens everybody in the church is going

to be like oh man I knew that was coming. I felt it coming. Why? Because the spirit of God that is on the inside of you is testifying to the spirit of God that is in them. Because if everybody in the room was spirit-filled there would be no need for an unknown tongue to come forth. That's what he said in 1st Corinthians. Because our spirit would testify that what they're saying is a word of prophecy. The reason why tongues come forth is for the non-believer or the unbeliever to understand that what is getting ready to be said is not from a human mind. It came from the voice of God. Some of you are like I've never heard this before. Welcome to Purpose House Church where the Bible is the best commentary on the Bible. So I want you to just to think about just for a moment as we close. The gift is already in you. The Corinth Church it was overflowing in them and Paul says all right hold on a second here Timothy those gifts are in you and I need to remind you to stir up the gift. And I have found and I've been coached the voice of God often sounds like Melissa that I need to be more verbal. So I would like for you just for a moment to think about a gift that you operated in or you have desired but it has grown cold or stagnant or stale or once was a flaming fire and now it's just an ember. Just for a moment I want you to close your eyes and I want you just to think about it. Maybe you were like my dad and somebody just well-meaning but were ignorant of God's Word. Said something to you that caused you to have fear and fear has caused you to back away from the God's gifting in your life. I want you to bring that back to the forefront of your mind. And now just look at me just for a moment. Remember I told you we're going to talk to your neighbor. I want you to do what my wife coaches me on. I want you to verbalize that to your neighbor. I need to be better at operating in the gift of knowledge. Or I need to be better at operating in the gift of wisdom. Or I need to be better at the gift of faith. Maybe, Pastor Pete, I need to be better in the gift of giving.

Whatever that gift is, I want you to tell your neighbor. And now, I would like for our prayer teams to come. See, Paul said something to Timothy that we should read very carefully. He said, there's a gift of God in you by the laying on of my hands. There's something powerful about the laying on of hands. He said, I want you to stir up the gift of God that is in you by the laying on of my hands. So I'm gonna ask just a couple extra people to come. Marilyn and Joe and Andrew and John and some of you that are in the Power Gifts class, Pastor Pete and Miss Sherry, if you would come. And I know normally we leave the middle open, but I would like for you to fill the middle spot here. Jean. I'm gonna keep the pastors where they are because all of a sudden we'll get a pastor line. And maybe fear has overwhelmed you and overtaken you. Or maybe you desire to operate like they operate. Then I want you to go to them and say, I would like for you to lay hands on me. So just a moment, we're gonna stand and we're gonna dismiss you. I understand the time. And if you go outside and this heating and air unit sounds like a 1940 truck with a carburetor that's went bad, we know about it. Right now, there's a lot of people in this room that are very gifted.

But you've also been very threatened. The enemy has threatened you and created fear in your life. And today we want to remind you that God did not give you the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. So as we stand across the building, if you desire prayer from our prayer team, or you need them to lay hands on you so that the gift of God will be stirred up in your life, I would like for you to come right now. If you have to go and be dismissed, I said, thank you for staying. We're 40 minutes past our normal time. Thank you. But I believe it's vital for us to operate in our gifts. And may the gift of God be stirred inside of you in Jesus' name.