Empowered by the Spirit: Embracing Spiritual Gifts

We thank you for reminding us today that without your power, you said, Jesus, I'm sending you Holy Spirit to be with you, to empower you. And so, Lord, forgive us for the times that we just sort of put that on the back burner or just sort of escape it. But you said desire spiritual gifts. And so, Lord, we pray that and teach us today, Lord, that we don't have to run on empty, but there's a power source that's available to us. And, Lord, help me to say what you want me to say. Don't let me say anything I shouldn't say. And at the end of today, I pray more than anything else, more than anything else, more than anything else, that you would be glorified. You'd be lifted up. You'd be honored today in our worship, Lord, in our receiving the Word today and responding to the Word. And second of all, that your people here today would be edified, built up, comforted, strengthened. And, Lord, then the enemy would be terrified in the name. In the name of Jesus, amen, amen. [00:32:12]

But the manifestation, manifestation there just make, is saying, make it visible. Say, make it visible. So, you don't want to just have Holy Spirit within you. But you want the gifts. You want the gifts to be visible so people know that there's something, there's a power source in your life. So, the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. And then he goes on to list those. For to one is given, say it with me, word of wisdom through the Spirit. To another, say it, word of knowledge through the Spirit. To another, faith by the same Spirit. To another, gifts of healings. Notice the plural, gifts of healings. To another, working of miracles. To another, prophecy. To another, discerning of spirits. To another, different kinds of tongues. That's important. Next week, we'll cover that more in detail. Different kinds of tongues. To another, interpretation of tongues by the same Spirit. [00:34:59]

There's no such thing as a gift of healing that you own in your life. You are not a healer. If you are, then go to every hospital that you see and empty it out. Come on, let's get real, all right? It's a gifts of healing. For a specific time, for a specific person, in a specific way. You don't just have it in your back pocket. I cringe when I see somebody say, well, I have the gift of healing and I'm going to heal you. No, you don't have the gift of healing. You have the gift of ego. You have the gift of ignorance. You don't know the Word. He distributes the gifts as He wills. You don't own it. So when our prayer team comes down front, you know what they pray? Lord, we pray that gifts of healings and miracles will work through our life. And so that's why it's important when the prayer team comes down front, you agree with them. It's not a counseling session. It's what do you need? We're going to pray about that and we're going to believe. [00:39:09]

Miracles are not pulled out or progressive. They happen instantaneously. What do you have? Well, we have some fish and we have some loaves, but we got like 10,000 men and women. Okay, good. Let me show you something. Blesses it, passes it out. The more they pass it out, the more they have. What is that? It's a miracle. It's a miracle. Why don't we want more miracles in our life? Something beyond the ordinary. People say, man, I just wish we could see more miracles, like in the book of Acts. Have you ever counted how many miracles there are in the book of Acts? If not, I'll tell you. There are 30 exactly, say 30. You know how many years the book of Acts covers? 30. So if you average that out, that's a miracle a year. So I think maybe even we're doing that, a miracle a year, okay? But I believe, listen, I believe, listen to me prophetically. I believe the closer we come to God, the more we as a church hook up to the power source, we're gonna start seeing more miracles in our midst. [00:43:38]

And prophecy, boy, here's one that's really good. It's a spontaneous, supernatural, vocal expressions of inspiration in a language that, look, strengthens, say strengthens. Encourages and comforts. Now, some people define this as just good preaching. Good preaching. But you prepare for teaching, so that's not spontaneous. Sometimes in the midst of my teaching, I will sense something as a prophetic word, just like I said a few minutes ago. It's a divine inspired speech that would encourage you. That would encourage you. Now listen, here at the Father's house, and I'm gonna talk about something else in a minute, but here at the Father's house, here's how we work prophecy. Here's how we work if somebody feels like I have a word from the Lord. 1 Corinthians 14 and three says, if you have your Bible, look at that. But he who prophesies speaks edification, say edification, exhortation, and comfort, to men. Now, let me give you words that we might use. When somebody gives a word of prophecy, a word from the Lord, you would be strengthened. [00:44:56]

Because in this body, I'm responsible for whatever word is released. And if somebody comes into this house and I don't know their history, I don't care how many things they've got behind their name. If I don't know their history, I'm going to say to you, you need to bring that word over to one of our pastors. They'll judge it. Do not deliver it into the open congregation because I'm not going to let an incorrect word come to you. Do you believe that? That's how we feel. you say, well, that's restrictive. You're right. Now, I'm hoping that in life groups and small groups, we participate more and more of the gifts of the Spirit. You don't stand up and say, yea, yea, I say to you. Yea, yea, I say to you is somebody who comes from a Pentecostal background, and that's how you've always heard words given. But you don't find that in the New Testament. Look in the book of Acts. I don't see Paul ever standing up and saying, yea, yea. I don't see somebody else. Where do we get that? It's from background that we have. So we say, if you have a word, and we love the words, if you have a prophetic word, write it down. [00:47:01]

I'm just saying, yeah, there's an order. See, some of you come from a background, you never had any teaching about Holy Spirit, and you've been so kind to open up and say, well, I don't know. I don't know, but I'm willing to learn. Some of us come from a Pentecostal background, and we think we know it all. But I want to tell you, you need to back off also, just like other people, and say, let's just look at a fresh word, look at a fresh word, and if Terry's wrong, I'm willing to be corrected by our elders, or by the board that corrects me, or my overseers. If I get out of line, I'm not perfect. So I try, everything we do with this, I try to make sure, I've submitted to our elders, and we're safe together. Because, look, I could lead you astray, any person could lead you astray, if they ever get away from this word. Do you receive that? If you do, and you still love me, give the Lord a hand clap. [00:52:36]

God will say, read your Bible. I've already done that. Why are you asking me to do that again? And so Peter stands up and says, look, he's pouring out his spirit on all flesh, not restricted to men, all age. All sex, all social rank, and all race. I want to wade in on something right now that many of you come from the background and you've never balanced all the scriptures about women preachers. So just take a deep breath. Yes, we have women pastors. You say, is that biblical? Well, you ask God. Why would he call somebody that it wasn't biblical for them to do that? Some of you come from, some of you come from a background that have taken one passage of scripture out of context and you said, women could never teach, women could never preach. You're wrong. 1 Corinthians 11 and 5, Paul says that women can pray and prophesy in church. Check it out. But in 1 Corinthians 14 and 34, it seems that women, now this is one case, women were abusing their gifts and using them out of place. Paul, does not say women have no spiritual gifts. [00:55:24]

I believe that there should be a male distinctiveness, whether that's her husband or whether that's an apostolic pastor that's over that church. And this little book talks about that. But those of you who say women cannot preach, women cannot teach, you need to read this book. I don't want your emails. We've prayed. We've looked through that. That's our culture. That's who we are. If you don't like women preachers, you're not going to like this house. If you don't like women who pray, you're not going to like this house. Because in the Bible, it talks about equality. But even in equality, there is a headship that happens. Amen? Amen. So I'm not arguing. I'm not taking debates. We prayed over this for years. We prayed before we ever put this out exactly how we have. And if you want a deeper paper, I'll give you a deeper paper from Dr. Ron Cottle, one of the greatest theologians. And he'll show you that there were apostle women in the early church that went along. But I'm not opening that can today. I better move on. Philip had four daughters that prophesied. [00:59:05]

It's the ability to distinguish between works of the Holy Spirit and works of another spirit, a demonic spirit or a human spirit. People say, well, I have the gift of discerning of spirits and I can judge your faults. Nope. Ignorance. It's not a critical spirit. It's like the curtain is pulled back and you're able to see the what behind that person. You're able to discern. For instance, Acts chapter 16. Paul discerned that the slave girl was demonic. Oh, I know who you are. You're Paul. You're Paul. Saying the right words. But the gift of spirit, the gift of discerning of spirits well up in Paul. And he said, nope. Nope. That's not of the spirit. That's not even of you as a person. That's demonic. In Acts 8 and 2, Peter was able to see that Simon Magnus was filled with bitterness. So why wouldn't we want that? You see, one of the things that we do is that when we talk to somebody, we try to pray and ask the Lord to give us discerning of spirits. [01:03:00]

So that means if you're Spirit-filled, if you come to Jesus, knowing Jesus, and He's filled you, you have the ability for the Holy Spirit to work these in you. So what are our action steps? Here they are. Number one, discover. Discover. Say discover. Learn what the Bible teaches about spiritual gifts. I can't cover it all this morning, but in the Spirit-filled study Bible, there's a whole section in the back about spiritual gifts. Number two, desire. Say desire. 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 says desire. Desire spiritual gifts. Desire. You know what that word means? It means to fervently boil over with zelliness for the object desired. Man, when I met Anita, I boiled over with zelliness for her. Woo! And I still do. But she came up here a while ago and flung her little hair around. I told Simone, I said, isn't that just a really cute little hairstyle she's got on today? Why wouldn't we desire? Desire. Gifts of Holy Spirit. [01:07:58]