Untitled Sermon

So, we started our new series last week, / / Everybody Loves a Gift! And yes, we’re going to be talking about the different gifts that I listed last week, but I think the most important part of this whole thing is that we truly understand that each and every one of us not just has value, in the sense of, You are worth it, but recognizing that you have something someone else needs. That God has equipped you to be an asset to someone else.

We looked at the fact that the gifts that God gives the church are not for the purpose of our individual benefit, but that we are meant to be outwardly focused and looking for opportunity to be of value to someone’s life.

Romans 12 says, / / Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them! Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. Be patient, and when you see God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be ready to practice hospitality.

We said this last week: / / The gifts of the spirit are not for us, they are for serving and looking after others.

There are a few really important things we have to understand if we’re going to see the type of church the bible talks about.

/ / EACH Person MUST KNOW who they are.

You have to be comfortable in your own skin. Remember what Paul said to the church in Romans 12:3, / / I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be HONEST in your evaluation of yourselves...

Some people use that first part to feel down about themselves. “You’re right, I need to make sure I don’t think of myself too much. I don’t want an ego! I don’t want to think I’m better than other people.” So they swing hard in that direction and don’t think of themselves at all. Or they don’t focus on who they truly are meant to be.

But I think the more important part of that verse is the second part, / / Be HONEST in your evaluation of yourselves… This means we have to be honest with ourselves about what God has given us, about our gifts and talents, about what we have to offer. And that those things were meant to be used within the community, the body of Christ to the benefit of each other.

Yes, don’t get an ego, don’t think of yourself as more important than others, or of having a higher value than others, we are all on a level playing field, but learn to honor who you are. Remember Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love God, but also to love each other AS WE love ourselves. The most honorable thing you can do is recognize that God made YOU to be something, and when you realize that God made you special, you’ll begin to see others the same way.

There’s something really powerful about having a HEALTHY good self image.

If I can say of myself, “Hey, I don’t deserve to be treated that way!” then I should also be saying, “Wait, that means you don’t either.”

If I can say of myself, “I deserve to be loved, respected, cared for...” then I can also say of you, “You deserve to be loved, respected and cared for.”

I deserve honor. that means, You deserve honor.

I am valuable. That means, You are valuable.

By the grace of God my sins are forgiven. By the grace of God your sins are forgiven.

Me no less or no more than you. You no less or no more than me.

Alright, let’s do this thing....together!

Which really is the next thing we have to realize and understand to see the church become what it’s supposed to be...

/ / You have to WANT to be involved.

I don’t know how to explain this other than the benefits of living a life of getting involved FAR OUTWAY living life with a non-committal attitude.

Like I said last week. I am so grateful that my parents made church a priority. I watched my parents be involved in church, my dad was always something. Deacon, Elder, Book Keeper, Drummer, Plumber & master of hanging drywall. I’ve seen my dad do more church renovation projects in my life than I can count. I guess I know where I get it from! And my mom has been no different. And that hasn’t changed with age. I’m their youngest and I’ll be 40 next year, and to this day they serve in so many areas of their church.

And one of the things that sticks out to me thinking about growing up in that kind of environment is that I also saw my parents friends come over and sit around the table all night playing cards. And those friends were the friends we all went to church with, were all involved together. And as a natural result all the kids were friends, because we were always around each other too. Some of those friendships, more than 30 years later are still there. In fact, my brother married one of those friends!

We talked last week about the body, how the eyes can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” and the head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you either...”. But the same is true if the hand shows up and says, “Ya, i’m just no feeling it right now. I’m gonna tap out.”

Imagine if one of your limbs did that. You wake up one day and your arm just doesn’t work.

Have you ever sat wrong, or just on the wrong chair, for too long, and when you get up your foot has fallen asleep or your leg is numb, all pins and needles and you can’t use it?.... You’re walking funny, you’re off balance, it just doesn’t work, does it?

Being a part of the Body of Christ means something, and when members don’t show up, a part of that body is missing. It’s like our foot fell asleep and we’re limping! This is something that’s really been on my heart lately, the priorities I have in life, and the priorities I want to see built into our community.

So last week we did an introduction to the gifts of the Spirit that God gives the church. And I want to clarify a couple things before we jump into a specific gift today.

First of all, I mentioned a number of gifts. I probably shouldn’t have, simply because at the same time as mentioning a Number, I was saying, We can’t put a number on the gifts that God can give us. So, although we’re talking through a specific list of gifts, we can’t really put a number on the gifts of God.

And this is really apparent because as you begin to research these gifts, and do some study on them, there is no definitive list of the gifts of the spirit. We ready from 3 different scriptures last week, some of the gifts get repeated, some scriptures mentioned specific ones only. And some people will say that the three scriptures we read last week are the list, and some include other scriptures, some include things found in the Old Testament as well. So, depending on what you’re reading, it could be 7, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, or more or less.

And the reason I’m telling you this is because I always want you to be doing your own reading and researching. You should never come to church on Sunday morning expecting all of what you need to know will come from here. It won’t. God desires you to grow and learn in your own personal life even MORE than we do together as a church. Your greatest moments with God should be personal, not corporate.

So, another thing to be aware of, if you happen to search out and read more on the gifts of the Spirit is that some studies on this will list certain gifts with different words, and some will group certain gifts together.

Like the gift of teaching. Some people link Teaching with Pastor, Word of Knowledge and Word of Wisdom, while others separate all of that into 4 separate gifts. Again, like I said last week, I believe the purpose of these gifts that Paul talks about in the three passages of scripture we read last week is to give these early churches, that are learning how to be churches, learning how to be Christians, learning what it means to follow Jesus, a structure to build a foundation and grow upon.

I think somehow I even missed mentioning Pastor as one of the gifts. But it is definitely listed in Ephesians 4:11, / / Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the PASTORS and teachers.

All of that is to just bring a bit of further clarity in this process. But we’re not going to be getting in to an exhaustive study of these gifts right now. What I believe God wants to do in this time is to build our desire and motivation as a body to begin to explore what it means to be the church. To be the body. We talked about that last week, the importance of being the body. And I think if we can begin to ask God, “What makes me unique?” “Why have you led me here to Cutler Bay Worship Center?” And trust me, you’ve been led here by God. I have no doubts about that.

- You are here for a purpose. I believe that with everything in me.

- I believe God has put you here because you have a desire and a need for community.

- I believe God has brought you here because you have inside of you the same heart and same desire to see our local community be blessed and encounter the love of God.

- And I believe that you have something in you that the rest of us need!

We are on the same journey of following Jesus. On the same mission of serving our community. And have the same purpose of giving ourselves to better each others lives. None of us are meant to do life alone. I’ve said this and I believe it is true. / / The church is worth investing in because YOU are worth investing in!

So, this week I want to talk about something that I believe helps in the guiding of what these gifts are, recognizing them in our lives, and creating a posture in our lives to actually want them and to use them. And that all happens with one of the gifts we’ve listed. Today we’re going to look at / / The Gift of Prophecy.

Last week we read through the gifts in 1 Corinthians 12, and then saw how Paul says in chapter 13 that, listen, you can have all the gifts, you can have amazing powers. In vs 2 he says, / / 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.

The reference to moving mountains is from something Jesus had said in Matthew 17, a man comes to Jesus and asks him to heal his son, that he had brought the boy to his disciples, but they couldn’t heal him. So Jesus heals the boy and afterward the disciples ask him, why couldn’t we do that?” And Jesus’ response is, / / “You don’t have enough faith, I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.”

So Paul isn’t just making something up here, he’s reminding the people of Corinth that Jesus said this. He probably taught them about this, or they maybe had read Matthew’s writings and they knew the story. However it may be, Paul is saying, listen, remember how Jesus said if we have faith we could move a mountain? Well, if we could do that, but we don’t learn to love people, that’s just pointless.

So then when we get to 1 Corinthians 14:1 it makes all kinds of sense that he says, / / Let love be your highest goal!

But listen to what he says next. BUT you should also desire the special abilities the Spirit gives - especially the ability to prophesy.

OK, Prophecy. We should desire these gifts of the Spirit, but especially the gift of prophecy.

Now, if you’ve been reading along with our Daily Bible Reading, you just read this past week in 2 Samuel 12, / / So the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to tell David this story.

And after he tells this story, which is all about confronting David about his sin and what he’s done, he says in vs 11, / / This is what the Lord says...

That’s some confidence right there. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. You’re about to hear what GOD himself is saying to you! So you better listen up!

I mean, Prophets in the Old Testament were pretty powerful people. Some of the books of the Old Testament are basically giant prophecies from visions and dreams that people had from God. There’s one story in the book of 1 Kings 18, it says that the prophet Elijah was the only Prophet of God left, and Israel had turned away from God, they are doing their own thing, and they are even worshipping these false gods, these idols from other nations. So in this complete defiance towards God, they have set up these 450 “prophets” who represent this god baal, who they’ve now got statues to, and they’re abut to have a showdown.

Elijah says, let’s build two alters, we’ll put some wood up there, get a couple bulls, you can pick first, whichever one you want, and we’ll put them on the alter. Here’s the catch. You can’t set the wood on fire. You have to get your “god” to do it. OK, you go first...

It says in 1 Kings 18:26, / / Then they called on the name of Baal from morning until noontime, shouting, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no reply of any kind. Then they danced, hobbling around the alter they had made. About noontime Elijah began mocking them. “You’ll have to shout louder,” he scoffed, “for surely he is a god! Perhaps he is daydreaming, or is relieving himself. Or maybe he is away on a trip, or is asleep and needs to be wakened!”

It says they kept going, getting more crazy all afternoon until the evening, and nothing happened.

So Elijah says to the people of Israel, Alright, let’s make this interesting, go get four large jars and fill them with water and pour it over the sacrifice I’ve prepared. Make sure that wood is good and soaked. Ok, now do it again. Yep, one more time. 3 times they poured 4 large jars of water all over the sacrifice until it completely drenched it, and even filled a large trench he had dug around the alter.

Night time comes and Elijah prays, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that you are God in Israel...”

And it says in vs 38, / / Immediately the fire of the Lord flashed down from heaven and burned up the young bull, the wood, the stones AND the dust. It even licked up all the water in the trench...

So, when Paul says, You should really desire to have the spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy, I wonder how many people thought, “Like Elijah????”

That’s a lot of pressure. I don’t want that kind of pressure.

But at the heart of prophecy is always the same thing, whether it comes through action or word, written or spoken, it is essentially all the same, / / Prophecy is a message from God. You could define prophecy as: / / a supernatural ability, given by the Spirit of God, to hear God’s voice and then deliver that message of what you have heard.

One of the things we read last week was that it is the Spirit who decides which gift to give each believer, but one thing I find interesting is that in 1 Corinthians 14 Paul says very specifically, and I like how the ESV says it, / / to earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

So, 3 questions we’re going to aks this morning.

/ / WHAT is Prophecy?

WHO can Prophesy?

WHY, like Paul says, should we especially pursue this gift of Prophecy

/ / 1. WHAT is Prophecy?

OK, like I said, at it’s core, prophecy is simply the enabling of the Holy Spirit in our lives to hear the voice of God, be that through actually hearing, through inspiration, through dreams and visions, through pictures or however God chooses to speak to us, but with a specific purpose, to share it with someone else.

See, prayer, and hearing the voice of God for our own life isn’t considered prophecy, that’s what should be happening on a daily basis in our lives. If you aren’t taking time on a daily basis, or at least on a consistent basis, can I challenge you today, to begin to pray and ask God to speak to you and give him the time to do so.

Prophecy is that, BUT with the intention of sharing it with someone else. And there’s a specific purpose behind it. Now, there are some people who I would consider have a very powerful gift of prophecy. This is why Paul starts 1 Corinthians 13 in vs 2 with, / / Even if I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge...

That’s a big deal, understood ALL the secret plans of God. Call down fire from heaven to consume water soaked wood.... whoa!

Kelley and I have a few friends who I consider to be real, genuine Prophets of God. Maybe not the calling down fire part, but definitely the secrets of God part.

One is Isabel Skulason, who, when I was only 18 years old, hadn’t ever led worship before, I hadn’t preached, had ZERO desire to be a pastor, said to me, You have a gift of worship on your life, but that’s not your end game, you will be a pastor.

This is more than 20 years ago and at that point she had no idea who I was, and I had no idea who she was. She was at the Bible College Kelley and I went to teaching us about prophecy. But she saw that on my life because God showed it to her. And over the years she has become a close friend, and she’s shared with us most of what we’ve gone through in our lives both before they happened, or without having known what we had been through, being able to speak INTO some of the difficult things we went through.

And as impressive as someone hearing from God, “This is what you’ll do with your life…” or, “I see you’ve been really going through this…” and God shares with them what you’ve done, or what you’re going through, or something personal, the reason is not because it’s impressive.

And it gets even more so. Kelley and I have one friend who literally has called out someone’s phone number from the stage in a church service of a person in the room, and proceeded to tell them all about their life and are 100% right on. That might seem kind of freaky, it might seem kind of cool...

But, the PURPOSE, or to answer the question, WHAT IS Prophecy, we can simply look at what Paul continues to say in 1 Corinthians 14 after saying we should really ask for it as a gift.

Paul says in vs 3 of 1 Corinthians 14, / / But one who prophecies strengthens others, encourages them, and comforts them. Or as the ESV says it, / / …the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.

So, the purpose of prophecy is not to impress us with knowledge we shouldn’t know, not to tell us what we’re going to do next, or what’s going to happen to us next, it’s not to tell us all the things we’ve done, although it may include some of or all of those things, / / but the PURPOSE is that we would be strengthened, encouraged and comforted.

This is WHY Paul says so clearly, listen, if you have this gift, but don’t have love, it’s no bueno. You’ll just hurt people. Bad people with secret information is no good, right? So if we want to hear what God says about a person, we have to want to use that information to encourage them.

And remember the intention of the Gifts of the Spirit, we talked about this last week. God gives the gifts of the Spirit because we are the body and when one of us is hurting, we’re all hurting, and we are meant to encourage and equip and build each other up.

I know in my life that I’ve been given, by God as a gift, the ability to teach. I’ve seen it in my life over and over again. Doesn’t matter what job I’m in, eventually they want me to be training people, teaching them, doing something. I worked for a loyalty rewards program, they wanted to promote me to trainer. I worked for an AT&T wireless call center, they wanted me to be a trainer. Why? Because God gave me the ability to look at something, break it apart and deliver it in a way that hopefully makes sense.

I finally got to the point in my life when I realized the best use of that gift was going to be teaching people about God and what the Bible says. Because that’s what matters most.

These gifts are for the benefit of the body of Christ!

To Strengthen

or “for their upbuilding”…

This is the act of building up, edifying someone. The word is defined as, the ability to promote someone’s growth in Christian wisdom, piety, happiness and holiness.

The Gift of Prophecy is meant to add to your life, never take away. If God shares something with me about you, it should be used in a way that leaves you feeling stronger, better, more who God created you to be!

To Encourage

The definition of the word used in the original Greek writing means a calling near, or a summons, especially for help. This is God’s heart for you at all times, that you feel encouraged, again, very up building, very edifying, but in a heartfelt way. When you need help, to know that God is close, to know that God cares, to know that God is with you.

These are the things that prophecy can be for someone. It can simply be relaying the truth of the word of God to someone. Do you know that God is with you? That the Bible says he never leaves you, never turns his back on you. This is the heart of God, and when we are relaying the heart of God, HIS truth, HIS word, you are prophesying and that has power to encourage someone.

To Comfort

or the ESV uses the word “consolation”, which means the comfort received BY A PERSON after a loss or disappointment.

We all have loss and disappointment, don’t we? So Paul is saying, listen, the purpose of hearing what God has to say to someone is so that if they’re going through it, you can say something that actually brings them comfort.

We can be the voice, the shoulder, the arm that someone needs to get through the difficult things they are going through and that is God’s heart for His people.

That when we are sad we don’t feel alone.

That when we are broken, we find a place of healing.

That when we are tired and worn out, we find a place of rest.

To be comforted by God and by the people he’s put in our life!

/ / 2. WHO can Prophesy?

Personally, I think everyone can. First of all, I believe this because Paul tells us to earnestly seek the gift, to ASK God for it. He also says a few verses later, vs 31, / / For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged! And in vs 39 he says again, / / So, my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy!

But the second reason I believe everyone can prophecy is because I know that everyone can hear God’s voice for themselves, and the only difference between that and what we call prophecy is that we’re hearing God’s voice for someone else.

I want to encourage you, go back on our YouTube page, or you can go to our website, cutlerbayworship.org and watch 2 of our services from our / / CONNECTED series, February 28th, which was titled God Still Speaks and March 7th, which was simply Hearing God’s Voice. Those two messages will give you an introduction to hearing God’s voice for yourself, while at the same time giving you a baseline for what it means to hear God’s voice for others. In those messages I don’t necessarily talk about hearing God’s voice for other people, what we call Prophecy, but the concept is exactly the same. If you can hear God for yourself, you can hear God for someone else!

Now, like I said, Kelley and I have friends that have done things I have never come close to doing. Knowing someone’s social security number, for instance. God has not shared that level of information with me about anyone. So, I do absolutely believe that everyone can prophecy, which is to hear the heart of God and relay that to someone for the purpose of their strengthening, encouragement and comfort, but I also know that some are given this gift with a greater ability.

But here’s the thing. Regardless of the level of the gift, the intention, the purpose is EXACTLY the same. Why would God tell someone else your phone number? Well, in those scenarios the person is in a meeting with a large group of people, and it starts like this, “ok, I felt like God gave me this number....” The person raises their hand, “um…that’s my phone number.” And the person begins to speak INTO their life what they felt God was saying, which also happens to be right on!

Did the phone number have a purpose? Absolutely, it got their attention, said, “Listen up, God’s got your number!”

It was a PART of the strengthening, encouraging and comforting. The intention, the purpose is always the same. At what level we hear God’s voice for someone else may be different, but I believe all people can hear God, which means all people can share what he says with someone else. Just make sure love is at the center of it, and what you’re saying is going to strengthen, encourage and comfort the person.

/ / 3. WHY pursue Prophecy?

OK, Paul says ...pursue the spiritual gifts, especially the ability to prophesy.

Why? And I think this one at this point is pretty self explanatory, but let’s piece it together.

I think the first and greatest reason we should desire to prophesy is because / / we all need to hear God in our lives. We all need to hear what He has to say to us. We all need to hear his voice. We all need to be strengthened, encouraged, comforted.

I also believe that the personal responsibility to develop a relationship with God where we are pursuing Him to hear His voice for our own lives, will lead more and more to hearing His voice for someone else. And I bet you that in some small way that is already happening, and we just don’t even recognize it.

I have said before, when talking about hearing the voice of God for ourselves, that / / God is speaking to us, but we might need to ask the question, / / “Am I listening?” And the more we recognize in our own lives that God IS speaking to us, the more we might begin to recognize that those things we feel in our hearts to share with someone, are actually God prompting us to share it with them.

Have you ever just suddenly had the urge to share something with someone? Or suddenly had the thought, “Oh, I should pray for _______.” Or maybe suddenly had the thought to call someone, check in on them? Or you know someone’s going through it, and oddly you feel like you need to say something specific to them, or you just know what to do in the moment. Sure, we can call that coincidence, but remember what Albert Einstein said, / / Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.

God speaks through us in those moments, to encourage, strengthen, and comfort those in need. And my guess is that it’s already happening. In fact, I know it is, because many of you at some point or another have said something to ME that has strengthened me, encouraged me and comforted me. It was the right thing at the right time, and like I said, I can try to convince myself that it’s just a coincidence, or maybe just because you’re a super nice person, and that second one is probably true, but I choose to see this through the lens of faith, that God is actively involved in our lives, leading us to help each other.

Ephesians 2:10 says, / / For we are God’s masterpiece. [turn to someone and tell them, You know I’m a masterpiece, right?] He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

God’s got all kinds of awesome, good, wonderful things for you and I to do, and the more we allow His leading in our lives, the more we will step into those things. The more we allow him the space and influence to speak to us, for our own lives, AND for the lives of others, the more we will begin to experience it.

And it’s not like these things have a big sign, “HEY, this is God wanting to prophecy through you!!!”. But by being led by Him, and being willing to share our hearts, we end up doing that very thing.

So, why should we pursue prophecy? / / Because Through prophecy we get to be a part of God's plan for our lives, and someone else's life: to encourage them, strengthen them and comfort them!

And that is a gift in of itself.