Power With Purpose

Well, we are continuing our series / / E2E: Encouraged to Encourage, or if we go on what I said last week, Encouraged to Engage! Because that’s what this is all about, it’s the great spiritual experiment of the Body of Christ, right? Where we are discovering new things, learning how to apply them to our lives so that we can demonstrate to the world the truth of God and His Kingdom.

/ / The Holy Spirit wants to work in and through us for:

1. To transform our own lives

/ / 2. To help, serve and encourage the body of Christ

Which means we’re part of each others transformation process.

3. To be a witness to those who do not yet know Jesus!

But it takes forward motion, doesn’t it? I was talking to a friend this week and again was encouraged or maybe confronted by the truth of James 1:22, / / But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.

Talk about a consistent challenge and encouragement to not just be brain oriented in our walk with Jesus. Not just believing in our heads, but learning what it means to walk that out. To apply the teachings of Jesus, be transformed by the truth as the Holy Spirit works in and through us!

And of course we’ve been looking at these “spiritual gifts” as a way that we are able to encourage each other. And think about this. Some of these gifts are a direct encouragement to an individual, right? But some are an encouragement to the whole body by the working out of them.

Having an administrative gift, where you can organize and figure out the best way to do things might not seem like much of an encouragement to a person, but to the body, to a group, to an organization trying to get something done, well, that just becomes absolutely invaluable, right?

I want to make sure we are always keeping in mind the things that Paul talks about in regards to these gifts. Not just the specific gifts themselves, but the working of them in a community.

/ / 1. We are all part of the body

1 Corinthians 12:12, The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ.

/ / 2. We are all equipped with some sort of gift or gifts mix

1 Peter 4:10, God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts.

/ / 3. The gifts are given by the Holy Spirit

We aren’t talking about natural talents necessarily, or let me say, natural ability alone. If you are talented, but you lean into the leading of the Holy Spirit, that’s pretty powerful. But the Spiritual Gifts are given by the Holy Spirit and meant to operate with the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:4, / / There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all.

/ / 4. The gifts are given so that we can help, serve and encourage the body.

1 Corinthians 12:7, / / A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.

1 Peter 4:10, / / Use them well to serve one another.

/ / 5. We have to pursue the gifts.

These gifts don’t just happen. You wake up one day and you’re super awesome at something. Not without pursuing the Holy Spirit in your life. BUT… if you ARE pursuing the Holy Spirit in your life. Kelley, when she was learning to play piano, would go to bed, have a dream about playing a particular song, and wake up able to play the song.

But she was pursuing the Holy Spirit, and learning piano ONLY for the purpose of leading people in worship of God. Had nothing to do with her just wanting to play piano.

1 Corinthians 14:1, / / …you should also desire the special abilities the Spirit gives...

/ / 6. These gifts have to be used properly.

Now, that’s not saying these gifts can’t be used poorly. I’ve seen that happen many times. But it is on us to learn how to use them properly.

This has to be done with right intention and motive, the Holy Spirit working His gifts in and through you., surrounded by the love of God that has worked and is working in and through you.

1 Corinthians 14:1, / / Let love be your highest goal.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3, / / If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I had to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

Why? Because Jesus said:

/ / 7. How we love each other will show the world we are his disciples, and through that the world would give glory to His Father.

John 13:34-35, / / “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

Matthew 5:14-16, / / “You are the light of the world - like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. NO one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”

How we love and what we do with what we’ve been given are the greatest way to show that God loves the humanity around us!

So, let’s do the briefest of recaps here:

So far, we’ve looked at:

/ / Leadership / Organizational Gifts

Administration

Apostle

Leadership

Pastor

/ / Speaking / Communication Gifts

Evangelism

Exhortation

Prophecy

Teaching

/ / Inspiration / Insight Gifts

Discernment

Knowledge

Speaking in Tongues

Interpretation of Tongues

Wisdom / Counsel

/ / Serving / Helps Gifts

Giving

Helps

Hospitality

Mercy

Serving

And today we’re going to finish up the gifts that we’re looking at by getting into what we’ll call the / / Power / Demonstration Gifts, which are:

Faith

Healing

Miracles

Now, depending on how you grew up, what you were taught, what churches you’ve been a part of, or maybe this is your first church, or you’re new to these topics, this will be an interesting list of gifts to talk through.

Not because they are controversial in of themselves, but because since the events of the New Testament were 2000 years ago there’s been a lot of times where these haven’t necessarily been a focus, and there has been doctrine created and taught that these gifts just don’t exist anymore, among some of the other gifts we’ve talked about.

There are entire denominations of Christians who don’t believe God heals today. There are entire denominations that believe God ONLY speaks through the pages of the bible and not in a personal context. And so when it comes to talking about these things we have to really look at what scripture means and how we approach them.

There has also been through the history of the church these pendulum swings, where there are seasons or groups that focus primarily on one aspect of what scripture says while others focus on another aspect of what scripture says. There are entire movements created out of focusing in one particular way, and there are others created completely out of wrong interpretation.

There was an entire group of Roman Catholic priests that would literally beat themselves with whips, wooden rods and sticks as some sort of penance to cleanse themselves of sin. In the 14th century it was done during what is called the Black Death to hopefully stop any divine judgement.

Where do people come up with this stuff?

Some is just completely ill conceived, and others are misinterpretations of scriptures or bad theology.

Now, not believing in healing is definitely a far cry from whipping yourself, but all through the history of the church we see these types of things come up, even now, there’s massive rifts in denominations over theology and doctrine. And the worst part about it is that it can easily look like churches are pitted against each other rather than unified in the faith. And When Jesus said to the disciples that the world would recognize we are his disciples by the way we love each other, yes, we need to take that most seriously for us within this community, for the people we are next to, there’s no point in inviting people into disfunction, but it also means we have to learn or reconcile loving those who believe differently from us. Loving people we don’t agree with. Loving people we actually very strongly disagree with.

Can you love someone that believes a lie and then turns around and shares that as gospel truth? That’s not always an easy thing to do.

That doesn’t mean we accept it as truth, or even tolerate it, or don’t speak up about it. But can we love, not war?

And I would say that in my life I’ve been on both sides of that coin. Believing things I shouldn’t but thinking it is truth, while other times seeing things I disagree with that are clearly not the truth of God.

One of the passages of scriptures on these gifts of the Spirit that we’ve been reading from is 1 Peter 4:9-11, but listen to what Peter says RIGHT before that...

/ / The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers. Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:7-8)

Most important of all!

And then in the next chapter he says this, which I think is the fundamental key for living in a time and space where there is such potential dysfunction and opportunity for tension within the church… 1 Peter 5:5-7, / / And all of you, dress yourselves in humility as you relate to one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares for you.

Humility. I only know what I know and sometimes I’m wrong, so I shouldn’t be so bullheaded to assume I’m always right, right?

I believe what I believe, and yet there are smarter people out there than me.

Always, always, always be open to learning.

You don’t have to be looking for how you are wrong, but always be open to hearing that you might be wrong.

Always be open to hearing truth. Not new truth, not “my truth” but THE truth.

Always be asking Holy Spirit to encourage you with the truth, teach you the truth and lead you in the truth.

James 1:5 says, / / If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you.

So, Wake up everyday and commit to God’s way.

Wake up everyday and commit to following Jesus.

Wake up everyday asking for Holy Spirit to bring you wisdom and truth.

Psalms and Proverbs says repeatedly: The beginning of knowledge AND wisdom is what? The fear of the Lord. That is the awe of who God is. That’s the beginning of wisdom, and wisdom will produce discernment. That’s being humble before God.

And I say all of that because the gifts we’re looking at today can and have caused division in the church for 2000 years. Like I said, some believe they don’t even exist today. They aren’t an option for us as Christians. We don’t get to heal, that was for another time.

Well, you know we don’t believe that because we pray for healing every week. We believe God heals because we’ve seen God heal. And we won’t stop praying and believing.

So, let’s jump in right there with the spiritual gift of...

/ / Healing

All three of these gifts we’re looking at today are listed right in a row. 1 Corinthians 12:9-10, / / The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles...

So, specifically for healing, this is obviously one of those ones where whether you think you have the spiritual gift of healing or not, you can pray for people and God can heal them. That is as true as anything. There is no limit on God’s receptiveness to prayer, and there is no demand that you must have a spiritual gift of healing different from someone else for you to begin to pray for people to be healed. Let’s just settle that 100% right at the beginning.

I would say that the greatest difference in just anyone praying for healing and someone with the gift of healing would be in both / / confidence and desire.

First desire. You WANT to pray for healing. It’s something you desire to do. Your belief that God heals is so fundamental to you that you are passionate to see it happen!

Second, confidence. Jesus said in Mark 11:24, / / “I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.”

There are sometimes where we are so confident about what you are praying for it seems there is just no room for any doubt, and then there are some times where you feel more like the father in Mark 9:24 when he asks Jesus to heal his son and Jesus says, “Anything is possible if you believe.” And the father’s response is, / / “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”

What’s that mean? I take that to mean, I know you CAN, but I struggle with if you WILL.

I would say that the person with the gift of healing continues to pray and has a God given, Holy Spirit inspired and infused confidence when it comes to God’s power to heal.

Peter Wagner says very simply that / / God gives this gift to certain people to serve as human intermediaries through whom it pleases God to cure illness and restore health apart from the use of natural means.

Now, I tend to believe that God works through people’s natural desire to help as well. I think there are medical professionals that have a Holy Spirit led ability to heal. Meaning, wisdom, discernment, knowledge, administration, seeing a plan of care for someone leads to healing. But what Wagner is saying is that the gift of healing is the supernatural ability to heal without the aid of medical services or natural means. And I think I would agree with that. A doctor that was producing miracles by just praying for people might hit the news, ya? But a doctor with wisdom and other gifts operating might just slip under the radar still.

A great example of the raw power of this gift of healing is in Acts 3:1-10. Let’s read it. / / Peter and John went to the Temple one afternoon to take part in the three o’clock prayer service. As they approached the Temple, a man lame from birth was being carried in. Each day he was put beside the Temple gate, the one called the Beautiful Gate, so he could beg from people going into the Temple. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for some money.

Peter and John looked at him intently, and Peter said, “Look at us!” The lame man looked at them eagerly, expecting some money. But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!”

Then Peter took the lame man by the right hand and helped him up. And as he did, the man’s feet and ankles were instantly healed and strengthened. He jumped up, stood on his feet, and began to walk! Then, walking, leaping, and praising God, he went into the Temple with them.

All the people saw him walking and heard him praising God. When they realized he was the lame beggar they had seen so often at the Beautiful Gate, they were absolutely astounded!

Like Wagner says, this is specifically, I have no physical ability within myself to help you. I don’t have money. I don’t have ability. What I do have is the name of Jesus that is the power to heal. And you’re so confident of that that you speak it out even in the face of impossibility.

See how the scripture says it. Peter tells the man to stand up, he doesn’t wait for the feet to be fixed and then tell him to stand up. He’s like, “I’m so confident this is going to work…go ahead, stand up.” and reaches out his hand to help pull him up.

And scripture says, AS HE DID, the man’s feet and ankles were instantly healed and strengthened.

That’s amazing!

Now, I want to speak to something very honestly here. Because I think that in the Christian spheres that I have grown up in there was a misinterpretation of these gifts. I would say, especially in the evangelical charismatic church in the western world, there has been an expectation, and a teaching, that everyone should be doing this all the time.

Pray for everybody you see. And keep doing it until you’re essentially a healing evangelist that sees everyone healed.

This is unhealthy for two reasons.

First, Paul says clearly there are people who have been given the gift of healing. That’s important to note, isn’t it? Now, I’m not saying don’t pray if you don’t feel you have this gift, or don’t pray for everyone. I would say do pray for everyone. Pray is wonderful. God works through prayer. But the reason this can be unhealthy is when that becomes the focus and we don’t talk about what happens when it doesn’t happen?

What happens when the person doesn’t get healed?

Now, I want you to hear me so very clearly this morning.

God heals.

God works miracles in peoples bodies.

I remember one night when I was in ministry school. I’m 19 years old. And we were up past curfew and one of our friends had a shorter leg than the other, and it was disrupting how he walked. We prayed for his leg and all of us, in absolute shock and amazement watched as his leg literally got longer… and it seemed it went a bit past, and then settled at the right spot.

I can not explain that. I can’t.

And there all kinds of reasons to doubt it. Oh he was moving his leg. His foot was moving. That’s ridiculous why would it grow past and then back...

I don’t know.

But if you know me you know I’m a decently sane person. And I am telling you I saw this happen with my own two eyes as we prayed.

Now, I’ve been a part of a church culture and community that relentlessly prays for healing and has seen countless numbers of people healed from all sorts of sickness and disease.

But what I have come to see is that the one thing we didn’t teach well, or address well is what happens when it doesn’t happen? And when we are so focused on, “You have to pray for healing” and not talking about what happens when it doesn’t “work”, we can easily let two people down - the person praying, and the person hoping they get healed.

How do we handle people NOT getting healed?

And the way we did it wrong was we looked for a place to put the blame, rather than continuing to trust in faith and walk a road of faithfulness.

Oh, you didn’t have enough faith.

Oh, maybe there’s a demon involved. I will never forget the time I was told that. I have had really bad plantar fasciitis in my feet since I was a teenager. And I went up to the front of a meeting for prayer, and the main pastor, who I did not know, I was very new to these things, it was the beginning of the school year. He placed his hand on me, prayed for healing in my feet. And then asked me how my feet felt. Not a bad question, we don’t really know if we are healed or not unless we check it out, right?

Well, my feet felt worse. And so I said that, “Well, the pain is actually getting worse.”

And so he turned to the rest of the room and I guess he felt to use this as a teaching moment based on what he believed and he said, “Often times when the pain gets worse as we are praying for healing, it means there is some form of demonic activity involved.”

Oh gosh, I was a young kid with zero theological framework for anything even remotely close to this statement, and I walked away thinking that the person I was looking up to just told me I had demons.

Now, is that true? It can be. Read scripture. Many times it says that someone came to Jesus for healing and he cast a demon out of them and they were healed. So I’m not disputing that as a possibility, but these things have to be handled with wisdom and love and grace.

Jeff Carver says this, and I am inclined to agree with him. / / Gifts of healing involve a special measure of [faith]. This gift is interesting in that there is no guarantee that a person will always be able to heal anyone he or she desires. It is subject to the sovereign will of God, as all spiritual gifts are.

Read that again…As all spiritual gifts are...... subject to the will of God.

This is something we’ve had as a focus all throughout this series. That although some of these gifts seem more natural, and some seam more supernatural, they are all spiritual, meaning, It is by the Holy Spirit working in and through us that these gifts are more than just natural talent and ability.

And when we recognize that it is by the Spirit, then we can neither take credit for success or shame for failure!

Let me repeat that slower...

/ / When you realize that the Spiritual Gifts are the Holy Spirit working IN and THROUGH you, you can neither take credit for their success or shame for their failure!

And let me tell you, I’ve taken both. And the worst is feeling like you’ve done something wrong and the person didn’t get healed, and it’s your fault. The worst is seeing the disappointment in someone’s face that they didn’t get healed, like hope is dashed, and you don’t know what to say except, “I’ll keep praying.” and you walk away feeling dread and shame.

Let me ask you a very simple question. If God doesn’t shame us when we sin, do you think he wants us to feel shame when we are trying to follow him?

My guess is no. My guess is God doesn’t want us to feel the failure of not producing a miracle we couldn’t produce anyway.

Now, the other big component of healing is that this gift is very near and dear to the heart of Jesus. We talked about mercy last week, as a helps gift, right? The ability to sit with someone in their sorrow, their affliction, their trial, for as long as is necessary, which sometimes is til the end.

Jesus had something similar, except instead of being with the person in their affliction, he got rid of the affliction. But the feeling is the same. In Jesus’ case, scripture tells us that he had compassion. Matthew 14:14 says, / / … [Jesus] left in a boat to a remote area to be alone. But the crowds heard where he was headed and followed on foot from many towns. Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

Jesus healed people because he had compassion for them!

Now listen to Matthew 9:35-38, same wording but with a bit of a twist, / / Jesus traveled through all the towns and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.”

Can you hear Jesus saying in those words, Look, there’s so much to do, ask God to give people the compassion to meet the needs of the people...

Sounds similar to what Paul is encouraging when it comes to spiritual gifts. Earnestly desire the spiritual gifts… why? to be helpful...

So, I would suggest that the spiritual gift of healing is marked by 4 things...

/ / Desire

A real, deep and intense desire to pray for people to be healed

/ / Confidence

A confidence in the healing power of God that works through us ordinary ol’ humans

/ / Compassion

The compassion of Jesus Christ. They are moved with compassion.

/ / Persistence

They have a persistence that is not deterred when it doesn’t happen.

Look at Paul, arguably the greatest apostle in scripture. He says in 2 Corinthians 12:8-10, that he has an affliction, and he says, Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.”

So, / / there is compassion that leads to healing.

And there is mercy and grace that encourages us and carries us through.

So, the gift of healing. If you have that desire, that confidence, that compassion, then begin to pray for healing. When someone says they aren’t feeling well, Ask, “Hey, I believe in the power of prayer and that Jesus heals, do you mind if I pray for you?”

/ / Miracles

Again, all listed together, By the same spirit God has given.... Faith, Healing and Miracles.

Now, these are all kind of similar in theme, so we won’t go heavy into each one. But let’s give a little biblical basis for what a Holy Spirit inspired miracle might be.

Peter Wagner defines this gift as / / Christians serving as a human intermediary through whom it pleases God to perform powerful acts that are perceived by observers to have altered the ordinary course of nature.

Key line there… / / Alter the ordinary course of nature.

You have what seems natural, and you just broke that.

Now, healing is very much a miracle, isn’t it? It is the supernatural power of God touching humanity and healing something that is broken, not working properly, infected, diseased, removing what isn’t supposed to be there or putting in what should be that currently isn’t. Those are all altering the ordinary course of nature.

But what we would define as a miracle in this context, the gift of miracles....well, let’s see a great example.

Coming out of a scripture we just read, Matthew 14:14 where we saw that Jesus had compassion and healed the sick… the story continues with a great miracle.

Starting in vs 15, / / That evening the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.”

But Jesus said, “That isn’t necessary - you feed them.”

“But we have only five loaves of bread and two fish!” they answered.

“Bring them here,” he said. Then he told the people to sit down on the grass. Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he gave the bread to the disciples, who distributed it to the people. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers. About 5,000 men were fed that day, in addition to all the women and children.

Alright, so that is about 15 - 20,000 people being fed by 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.

We could read story after story, through the Old Testament and New, but for sake of time, just one more.

One of the best from the book of Acts. Philip, one of the apostles, has been traveling and the Holy Spirit tells him to go a certain direction and he meets a man who is the treasurer of Ethiopia. The Holy Spirit says, “go walk along side the Ethiopians carriage.” So he does, and he overhears the man reading from the the old testament prophet Isaiah. And so he asks him, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” And the man says, “How can I unless someone teaches me.”

Well, Philip talks him through it, shares the gospel message with him and the man says, “How can I be baptized?”

They stop the carriage, get out, go down to the water, Philip baptizes him and Acts 8:39-40 says this, / / When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away. The eunuch never saw him again but went on his way rejoicing. Meanwhile, Philip found himself farther north at the town of Azotus...

He was transported by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Multiplication of food.

Weather patterns changed.

Earth and water moving on command. I wanted to read from the parting of the Red Sea in Exodus, or the Sun standing still in Joshua, or the Manna appearing day after day in the dessert.

Transported… Altering the ordinary course of nature.

Just read through the bible, you’ll see miracle after miracle. And the bible even says that Jesus performed more miracles than could even be written about.

Our God is a God of Miracles, and not just through divine intervention, but through the Holy Spirit working in and through the body of Christ!

Carver says, / / Those with the spiritual gift of miracles often have a heightened sensitivity to the presence and power of God through His Holy Spirit. They have a special measure of faith and desire for God to reveal Himself and draw many to faith in His Son Jesus Christ. They take care not to draw attention to themselves or have a following of people, but are constantly pointing others to Jesus!

HUGE point in there.

This is about drawing people to Jesus Christ.

This is NEVER about power.

This is ALWAYS about God receiving the glory.

This is not magic, it’s not a toy, it’s not for our enjoyment. This is a sovereign work of God for the purpose of providing, rescuing, healing, or interacting with the humanity that He loves.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed before. There have been food drive days that I am 100% convinced we don’t have enough food, and somehow not only did we have enough, but we had extra. Was that a bonafide miracle? I don’t know. I’m not about to call the news papers to come out and do a story on it. But I for SURE at the end of those days say, “Thank you God for bringing the provision we need.”

People with the gift of miracles need to be humble, sensitive, and be dedicated to prayer and relationship with God. Because to do miracles and it not be about yourself, you have to stay humble.

Watch what happens to Paul. Paul was on a boat that was shipwrecked. And they are on the shore of Malta, an island. And Acts 28:3-6 says, / / As Paul gathered an armful of sticks and was laying them on the fire, a poisonous snake, driven out by the heat, bit him on the hand. The people of the island saw it hanging from his hand and said to each other, “A murderer, no doubt! Though he escaped the sea, justice will not permit him to live.” But Paul shook off the snake into the fire and was unharmed. The people waited for him to swell up or suddenly drop dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw that he wasn’t harmed, they changed their minds and decided he was a god.

So, the gift of miracles…altering the ordinary course of nature.

Are you a god? No.

Has the One True God chosen to work in and through you for the benefit of others? Yes.

The story goes on, because of that miracle Paul is able to pray for the father of a very influential man, he is healed and many others as well. And because of that they end up providing everything they needed for their trip.

God provided in the natural, by doing something that altered the natural order of things!

All I can say to you on this is the following:

/ / If you have a desire to see the miraculous happen, start in the silence of your own quiet times, pursuing the Holy Spirit. Stay humble before God. And ask for wisdom and discernment to recognize the right time to step out in faith and believe and pray for a miracle!

/ / Faith

The last one we’re looking at today, and actually, this brings us to the end of the 21 gifts we are looking at in this series.

Faith is such a massive topic. I have a friend right now that’s teaching an entire series on Faith.

But there’s a clear distinction here. First of all, / / the spiritual gift of faith is not talking about the faith we have in Jesus for salvation.

Faith in the greek is / / pistis and it carries this idea of confidence, certainty and trust. It is an assurance in the object of faith.

What’s that mean? Well, salvation is available to us by grace through faith. Ephesians 2 says that it is a gift from God, so that none of us can boast about how we’ve been saved.

Everyone has that. If you believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world you’re squarely in that. But the gift of faith gives people a trust and confidence in God that allows them to live boldly for Him and manifest that faith in mighty ways.

We would say biblically that / / The spiritual gift of faith is having faith that produces works of faith.

And that’s why these three gifts are so closely tied together. / / Faith is what’s behind healing and miracles.

There’s such a confidence that what we say is you “stepped out in faith”. That’s Peter putting his hand out to the lame man and saying, “Get up and walk” BEFORE he sees a healing miracle.

That’s Jesus saying to his disciples, “They don’t need to go get food, YOU feed them” Before there’s enough actual food to feed the people.

In some ways that’s us ordering $7,000 of school supplies before we have all the money! We are absolutely confident that God will provide.

But this gift of faith, that produces works of faith, also produces a genuine deep faith that I believe is part of the body working together.

Faith isn’t JUST for miracles or healing. Faith is truly believing. Being confident in God!

This used to frustrate me, but sometimes you ask someone a question about God or scripture, and how they know that it’s true, and maybe you’ve heard this response, “I just know that I know that I know...”

Seriously? How?

Sure, maybe some people don’t actually have the answer, so that’s what they say, but I also think that is how we respond when there is a gift of faith beyond just believing in the salvation of Jesus, but sometimes, and maybe just in some ways, God gifts us the ability to believe deeply for certain things. And maybe for some that’s faith in healing, or miracles, or theology, or the kindness of God. Maybe it’s faith in knowing what He’s doing in this earth. Maybe it’s faith in believing a certain aspect of His grace..... and any and all of those for this purpose.... to minister and help others in the body of Christ.

This is important because the practical needs to be balanced with the divine.

Someone with a gift of discernment might lean toward pointing out all that is going wrong. And sometimes, rightfully so. They see it, and they make us aware of it. But add that with someone who has a gift of faith to encourage the rest of us to continue to believe BEYOND what we see in the natural.

It’s a healthy balance, not one person being irrational and one person lacking faith, it’s the gifts of the spirit operating together to produce in us a closeness as the body, and a reliance on God in this life!

If you have faith that is unshakeable, and you run into someone who’s struggling with believing, you are in the perfect position to encourage them in their faith. Whether it is through physical means or not, the gift of Faith is given to some in the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit to encourage and build up the rest of the church in our confidence in God.

Is the world dark? 100%

Is God still on the throne and know what he’s doing? 1000%

Someone who trusts that God is sovereign and good. They trust Scripture. They trust they can confidently place their lives in the very capable hands of God, and in so doing encourage others to do so as well, EVEN in the midst of struggle, trial, dark times and more...

Have you ever been around someone that is so confident you suddenly feel confident as well? Ok, I’m milking this example for the third week in a row. But I’ve said the last two weeks I was facing an issue that I didn’t know how to resolve and it was the confidence of Tommy that helped me be confident enough to move forward. It wasn’t my own confidence. I didn’t have it. It was because of what he talked me through.

/ / Those with the gift of faith are confident in the things of God and are able to relate that confidence to those around them!

I want to finish with this thought this morning. / / What about when I don’t feel confident? Maybe some days I do, some days I don’t. Am I letting God down? Am I being unfaithful?

There’s something about these gifts… Most people don’t teach a duality, and maybe that’s because they think they are being double minded, which scripture says we shouldn’t be, and I don’t know the reason. But, the reality is, that when it comes to the things of God there are often two sides.

/ / You can not teach healing without mercy - if there is a gift to sit with someone through affliction, and there is a gift to heal the affliction, then we have to preach both.

/ / You can not teach faith without reality - Jesus said both, ask anything and it will be given to you AND in this world you will experience trouble. Well, if I have it my way, and I can ask anything and it will happen, then I’ll never actually experience trouble. Except it was Jesus who said both of those, so we can’t just choose to preach one. Not everything is a trial or trouble, and not every request gets answered. Why? I don’t know.

/ / And you can’t teach miracles without wisdom… Again, if I could make it all happen I would, but I can’t, so I have to learn both. Believe for God’s power to save and set free and deliver and provide, while also looking to Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith, our hope and our eternal home, regardless of what I am experiencing here on this earth, and ask for wisdom to navigate the natural, everyday of this life while also believing He can work miracles I can and cannot see.

These gifts, all of them, everything we’ve talked about in the last few weeks, we have been given these gifts so that we can help each other.

When I don’t feel full of faith, my bet is one of you does, and you can come along side me and boost my faith.

When you don’t feel full of wisdom, I bet there’s someone in this body of believers that has the wisdom you need in the moment.

Whatever it is, we have been given gifts to help, serve and encourage one another.

Now, we might not have all the gifts present in this church. And we might not have the gifts operating in their highest ability at the moment. That’s ok. Remember, the great spiritual experiment is what we’re after. To learn, grow and figure out how this works, because it is so worth it.

We have a test for you to take home. It’s a big one, alright, don’t get overwhelmed. Take a few days, pray, ask Holy Spirit to work with you and then honestly answer the questions. There’s 125 of them. And you’ll take your responses and put them into a separate paper to give you an idea of maybe what God is gifting you with.

This isn’t an exact science. Some people are against this simply because it can try to pigeon hole you into one particular gift. But Paul says earnestly seek the gifts, especially the more helpful ones. Well, I wouldn’t be helpful with all of the gifts, but some of them, I would be. And often times our spiritual gifts lean into our natural abilities, because this is what God wants to do in and through us.

You will grow, and learn and maybe that means you’ll see change as well. Gifts that are important for a season. And maybe God wants to move in and through you in different areas at different times. I have seen that in my own life. I haven’t always operated out of the same gifts. There have been ebbs and flows in different seasons. But generally I see a sense of commonality in my own life.

Another thing, this is the test that Peter Wagner uses. He taught on more than the 21 gifts that we have gone through, which means you might come up with some of those. There are 4 gifts that are in this test we didn’t talk about.

Voluntary Poverty - Which he defines as the ability to renounce material comfort and luxury and adopt a personal lifestyle equivalent to those living at the poverty level in a given society in order to serve God more effectively. I would say think Mother Teresa.

Celibacy - The ability to remain single and enjoy it; to be unmarried and not suffer undue temptations. Think Carmen - married at 61.

Intercession - the ability to pray for extended periods of time on a regular basis and see frequent and specific answers to their prayers, to a degree much greater than which is expected of the average Christian (probably because they are so dedicated to it. The more you pray the greater chance those prayers will be answered.)

Deliverance - the gift of deliverance is casting out demons and evils spirits.

Whether or not these are spiritual gifts you can choose to read into them a bit more. There’s some scriptural basis for them in the paper at the end of the test.

I said at the beginning, there’s no one list of these gifts. There are many variations of what the church has defined as Spiritual gifts, and whether they are even usable or valuable anymore. I believe they are both!

Here’s what I will finish with for today, because this is what I do know.

John 16:13, / / When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.

Romans 8:11, / / The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you.

1 Corinthians 12:4,7, / / There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.

That’s what I know. And that’s a great place to start! Do the test, see what it says, bring it next week, go back and watch the weeks on the gifts you score high in and see what you feel and pray about it, ask Holy Spirit to highlight things for you, and be open to being led by the Spirit of truth into all truth in regards to the gifts that God wants to work in and through you for the benefit of the church!