The gift of a Word of Knowledge

Rainbow

I wonder when you first saw a rainbow?

Perhaps as a kid, or maybe as an adult.

Here’s one which Josh took on my phone when we were driving home through Parr. For me, I felt God say he was blessing Parr and Haydock, which both fell within my view of this miracle of physics.

The rainbow, the sign of God’s faithfulness through his covenant with Noah.

When we were at school we were taught, Richard Of York Gained Battle In Vain to learn the distinct colours of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.

But I wonder when you first noticed that the different colours fade between each other. Each section of the rainbow is distinct, and yet it fades into another colour, such is the physics of prisms. Moving from one to another.

Spectrum of gifts

Just like the edges of the rainbow blur together, often the edges of the gifts of the Spirit merge together.

The Holy Spirit gives His people all the gifts we need, although most of us don’t recognise the wealth of gifts we are given to work with.

The power of the Spirit is not limited to narrow definitions, including our human understanding and interpretation of these gifts. God is the gift giver, and so as we learn about the gifts, our focus must be on the giver of the gifts, not on the gifts themselves. God’s range is so much broader, bigger, brighter and more beautiful than any “spectrum analyser” can reveal? [paraphrase of James Goll.]

I spoke to you a few weeks ago about Words of Wisdom. Specific direction which the Lord gives you. A prompt to move here or there, to lay down your work and speak to that colleague. And wisdom beyond your own understanding on situation and circumstances you face, or particularly Words to share with others.

The gifts of a Word of Wisdom and of a Word of Knowledge often come together. While there is a distinct message of Wisdom or Knowledge being shared, they overlap just like the distinct colours of the rainbow.

Sometimes a Word of Knowledge brings healing, overlapping with the gift of healing and similarly a faith beyond your natural ability to Trust in God, is often given to enable you to share the gift.

As we explore tongues, sometimes a Word of Knowledge is shared in a gathering through a tongue and an interpretation of the tongue.

I could continue, but I wanted to start to day showing that these gifts are given to equip us, the Church, with the gifts God wants us to have for His work.

And each of us is invited to hold out our hands and receive whatever supernatural gift God is giving us.

And let me just unpack that word, supernatural. Leave the weird and wacky to one side for now, and focus on this. You believe in a God who created everything out of nothing. You believe in Jesus who turned water into wine, walked on water and brought healing to many.

In our own journey with Jesus we have experienced insight, love, forgiveness, the ability to forgive and so much more which was beyond our original natural state of being.

We can overplay the supernatural, but as I use it today, I mean a work of God, a gift from God, which is beyond our natural human ability and gifting.

As we explore the gifts we also discover more about the gift giver.

Our God is Omniscient - which means that God is all knowing.

Our God chooses to reveal His knowledge to us, His children.

Our God equips us, He loves us and He invites us to join Him in exercising these gifts.

Defining a Word of Knowledge

Today we’re talking about a supernatural gift from God to be able to know something. We might say that a scholar, or someone gifted with being able to retain and sift through a lot of information to gain knowledge.

In our tradition, the evangelical charismatic tradition, we often understand the spiritual gift of a word of knowledge as information that God gives by revelation for a certain situation [including details about a person’s life].

Releasing Spiritual Gifts Today 6.The Gift of a Word of Knowledge

It “does not come by natural reasoning, education, or training but directly by the Holy Spirit.”

A Word of Knowledge publically

Perhaps it looks like

a gift that is used to “call out” someone for further ministry in a meeting in which the spiritual gifts are active. The revelation of details about a person that could not otherwise be known by the speaker, such as the person’s name, physical circumstances, and hidden needs, provides convincing proof that God wants to bless that person beyond his or her limited expectations. Such a word is “an utterance inspired by God and spoken by an individual. It is an insight into the things freely given us by God.

Example - Jodi

I had a friend who came to New Wine with our Church a number of years ago. We’ll call her Jodi.

jodi had had a really difficult life, with abuse as a child and introduced to drugs young. She’d got in with the wrong crowd, and by the time we met her she was 29 years old, an infamous name on the estate she lived on, having turned up to church because she was about to have her 5 year old daughter taken away from her.

She’d accepted the ticket to New Wine, which someone paid for her, so she could get away from everything.

I can remember the first night in one of the venues, when a Word of Knowledge was spoken. Very clearly, from the front, one of the leaders said “I feel like the Lord is calling a 29 year old for healing of the heart. Her names Jodi and she has a 5 year old daughter. Jodi, the Lord wants to bring you healing so come to the prayer team and they’re ready to pray for you.”

I love New Wine, because they’re not about getting people up the front to show off these gifts, but they just speak what they hear God saying and then let the prayer team pray for the people called out.

I remember that night, hearing Jodi sharing about the healing she received, how she knew that God had forgiven her for her past life decisions, that He had a plan and a purpose for her life. And I had the privilege of being one of many, walking with her as she turned her life around. In fact, 2 years after being called out of the crowd to hear the love of God spoken over her, she was baptised by the Archbishop of Canterbury no less in an open air event, where she shared her testimony and a number in that crowd, and in crowds since, have given their lives to Christ through her witness.

Paul writes;

Colossians 2:2–5 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

2 My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. 5 For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.

Word of Knowledge given individually

Words of knowledge are sometimes given from the front of church, but are more often given to us when we’re praying for someone and something comes to mind. This happened with Jesus at the woman the well.

John 4:16–18 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

16 He told her, ‘Go, call your husband and come back.’ 17 ‘I have no husband,’ she replied. Jesus said to her, ‘You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.’

John 4:39–40 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I’ve ever done.’ 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.

Actually Jesus revealed part of her life story, a Knowledge given to Him by His Father. A supernatural knowledge, which transformed the woman’s life. She felt He had revealed everything about Her. That is the gift of God at work in her. The gift of knowledge, or revelation.

Word of Knowledge given for preparation

Sometimes a word of knowledge is given for preparation as we see when Paul says farewell to the church of Ephesus

Acts 20:22–23 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

22 ‘And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. 23 I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.

The Holy Spirit called Paul to continue his journey, and giving Paul enough insight to know that persecution in the form of imprisonment and hardship were ahead. Paul wasn’t worried, he just followed the Spirit.

We’re living under a word of knowledge as a church. It was one I received in March 2019.

I took the staff team to the New Wine leadership conference.

On the first night, and in a time of silence, I heard God whisper ‘are you ready’

And I said, “ready for what Lord?”

I felt him say “for a new wave of my spirit bringing new believers. People who need much love, people who need me in their lives. People who are hurting, who are lost, who need much love and much grace”

I felt him saying that he would restore the years lost by the church, but that he had no place for pride, the pride of an organisation. That we are called to be his children, and follow where he was leading.

That night, I shared what I felt I’d heard from God with the team, and said that with anything this big, we needed to test it, to pray into it, and if it was from God it would grow in us, and if it wasn’t, it would fall away.

Well on the final morning, New Wine ditched their programme and instead opened the whole morning up to hear God speak.

And the speaker, a guy called Steve Uppal, confirmed my picture of the new wave of people coming, and asked the question were we ready. Now he was speaking to all the gathered church leaders, he had no idea he’d directly confirmed this word from God to us. And you should have seen the faces of the staff team, who were looking from me to him and whispering - that was your picture Dan. Steve, the speaker, was saying that God had laid on his heart an impression that a new wave of God’s Spirit was coming on Britain starting in the north, and were we ready.

We trusted God, we had no idea what that word looked like, but we felt God reveal it to us, we tested whether it was from God, and once we were certain we started living under that word of knowledge.

Roll on January of 2022, 3 years later, after a global pandemic, are preparations were ready, and we launched a Food Pantry now meeting the needs of 70-80 local people on a weekly basis, a Pioneering Youth ministry reaching 30-40 un-churched young people every week, and a new congregation which launched last week, for those who are exploring faith, those on the fringes. The wave is breaking, we have picked up our surf boards, and we are riding this wave of God’s Spirit.

On that note, of living under God’s word for this church, I want to invite Linda Holland up to share a couple of stories of words of knowledge which she has recieved.

Invite Linda Holland up to share for 5 mins

How to we receive the gift of a word of knowledge

Most of the time it’s a quiet impression or sense that you get

The Vicar who trained me used to say to me, “You just know it in your knower” others my say that “I had a gut feeling about it”

You don’t know how you know but you do

Now of course, feelings, emotions and intuition are prone to misunderstanding which is why testing a word is so important. More on that in a minute.

I find the moments the Lord gives me words of knowledge are either in big worship gatherings when I’ve laid aside time to just be with Him, or in times when I’m listening or supporting someone. As they’re speaking, I get a sense or an impression of what may be helpful to share.

What we do with the word is critical. As I’ve said, we’re all prone to self deception and this impression might not be from God. So a bit of discernment is important. If it feels like God speaking, then it it’s essential that we offer what we have heard. Offer do not tell.

I often say “I sense that maybe God is saying...” and often the Lord speaks to me through visions and pictures so I offer that picture... “as we were praying a picture came to mind which won’t go away. I saw..and then I share the picture…I don’t know if that means anything to you or resonates in anyway.” If the person I’m with looks puzzled or blank we leave it, maybe it wasn’t from God, maybe their not ready to hear it, but if their eyes light up and it has connected I then pray with them that if it is of God, that he will reveal it to them.

Spiritual abuse happens when we try to force the things of God. It’s abuse against the Spirit to try to force the gifts, and it’s abusive toward the individual by pushing on to them something not of God. It’s also harmful to you, because it seeds in us a dishonesty which leads us away from God.

But if we come in humility, asking God to use us, inviting Him to share his knowledge with us, then when he does, if we offer it, we’re allowing the person we’ve received the word for a chance to test it. We never want to live under the words that spoken over us that are not of God, but we seek to live under the words God is speaking over us. To live His Truth over our Truth.

How amazing it is to recieve a Word spoken by God through one of His followers.

As long as we test what is being shared with us, we will open ourselves up to the God who loves us.

God will never give you a word that is counter to scripture, nor that is outside of the fruit of the Spirit. This is where our second passage comes in.

2 Peter 1:5–8 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

While I don’t agree with every part of James Goll’s teaching on the supernatural gifts of the Spirit, I found his experiences and His chapter on words of Knowledge really insightful. He says

Releasing Spiritual Gifts Today 6.The Gift of a Word of Knowledge

Even if a word of knowledge never gets delivered, it can inform intercessory prayer. As always, humility matters. You may never have the honor of speaking out a word of knowledge or prophecy, but that is not the kind of honor you should desire, anyway. Honor lies in God trusting you. Believers’ spheres of influence and their effectiveness will never be identical. Your special sphere might be a particular congregation, your favorite coffee shop, your workplace, or your family. Just be faithful to the Lord and to whatever words He gives you, wherever He gives them, and God will reward your faithfulness with true spiritual riches.

I’d love us to start sharing words of knowledge in our gatherings together. If it’s in smaller meetings, then it’s easier. You can share it with the room and allow them to test the word with you. But if we’re gathered for a service celebration, then I’d ask you to come and speak with the leader of the service. Just share what you feel God has said, and if they agree that it’s for the church, it would be wonderful to hear these words after our set of sung worship. Every word that’s offered needs to be offered for testing in the Church. But the power of seeing God reveal His love and purposes for individuals is so amazing, this is something we don’t want to miss out on if God chooses to use us in this way.

A good way to share the word with the leader is to jot down what you feel God has given you and if it is still burning in your heart, then share it.

As a teenager I was arrogant and was desperate to share a word from God because it would make me look spiritual. I really struggled to hear God back then particularly due to my arrogance. One day the Lord convicted me and I prayed a dangerous prayer “Lord will you humble me” and I experienced many failures in areas where I thought I was strong. Since being humbled (and He still humbles me when the arrogance rears it’s ugly head) I’ve found hearing from God much easier, and I am not afraid to share what He says to me.

A tip with sharing a word from God is ‘don’t talk to much’. Allow God’s words to be the ones you use, and don’t add to what you’ve heard.

My friends, I want you to open yourselves to the God who loves you, to the Holy Spirit who is ready to equip you. Let us ask God for words of knowledge and if you feel the Lord sharing with you, then please come and speak to me and Alison and if we feel it is for the whole Church, then we will invite you to share it. Please don’t be offended if we discern that it’s perhaps for you or we invite you to pray more into it to test if it is from God. That’s all part of growing in this gift.

So come humbly before the Holy Spirit now and let’s be open to hearing from Him.