Healing and Miracles: Gifts of the Holy Spirit

To watch the sermon The Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Healing and Miracles

So, hey, it's good to be here with you guys today.

We're gonna jump right in because, you know, Chris is in charge of, has been in charge of assigning the preaching topics, all right?

So between him and the Holy Spirit, I am preaching basically what I've been assigned to preach, and that's not, I'm not complaining, I've very much appreciated this.

However, some of these topics are pretty heady, and the gifts of the Spirit, there's a lot to say, but I have to begin with a confession today as we begin, that I came across a couple things this week that were, that kind of disturbed my peace.

I'm currently preaching two different sermon series, one here on Saturday at HFF on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and another one tomorrow at the church I pastor, the Northside Christian Church on the kingdom of God.

And I came across two different articles or podcasts where I discovered that parts of what I've been teaching in each of these series, I have discovered other groups are teaching, and some of which, some of the stuff they're teaching is very highly disputed.

Now, I found some things in both of these camps that were indeed similar to some of the things that I'm trying to bring forth from the text here, and there were other parts that I was wholeheartedly not in agreement with in terms of what they're doing with it.

Now, these discoveries of these similar, similar but different approaches has led me to conclude there's a couple things I wanna share with you about this gifts, series on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, something that you need to know.

And the first thing is this, the motive is not of this series is not to make HFF a charismatic church, a Pentecostal church, an assembly of God church, a four square church, a Baptist church, a Church of Christ, a Bethel church.

There is no motive in this series of trying to take HFF and say, "Hey, here's this model we found, let's do this."

Does that make sense?

I want you to understand that my motive is singularly to parse out what we find in God's word on the subject of the gift of the Spirit, not to conform to what some other church group movement revival is doing.

In fact, I have to disconnect from that so that I can be as objective as I possibly can as I'm studying the scripture and allowing the Holy Spirit to show me what's there.

Secondly, the goal is not to make the gifts of the Spirit, the identity doctrine of HFF.

What do I mean by that?

I passionately believe that the gifts of the Spirit are one of the most neglected, misunderstood and abused topics in the Bible.

That being said, I also believe it is one of the most essential parts of God's amazing grace gifting of his church and these are intended to be a powerful instrument for our lives as kingdom disciples to equip us and to empower us to be the righteousness of God.

But repeated experience throughout my life in ministry has taught me this, that the thing that the church pats itself on the back the most, eventually becomes the thing that will divide, distract and damage that body the most.

Meaning the minute we latch on to something that's going to be our identity doctrine, this is the thing we're gonna be known by, pretty soon the very thing that we are so passionate about pursuing will begin to overwhelm and overshadow the thing that is supposed to be our identity, Jesus.

And I have seen this over and over again and the gifts of the Holy Spirit are just one of many things that God has given us that churches and movements glom on to, well-intentioned, but they err when they decide, well, this is gonna be, everybody's gonna know we're the whole Bible church.

You know, we're the church that goes from Genesis to Revelation.

We're a discipleship church.

I've seen churches and movements get started where they were gonna, you know what, the church just isn't discipling people the way they're supposed to and we're gonna be all about discipleship.

And in principle, I think that's absolutely great.

And yet over and over and over again, throughout time, throughout history, you see the churches that get lost in discipleship as their identity pretty soon devolve, discipleship becomes control.

And mentoring just really becomes messing with people's lives.

Now that's not what discipleship is and that's not what it has to become.

But when it becomes our identity, when the fact that we want everybody to know we're a discipleship church instead of being a disciple of Jesus, we've got trouble.

There are some churches that are worship churches.

It's all about worship.

Everything has to be poured into the perfect worship experience.

And pretty soon, worship becomes a product instead of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Now you know you're not gonna get away with me not stepping on some toes, right?

Oh, we're the Torah observant church.

We're the Torah passionate church.

We're the ones that understand that the Torah is the revelation of God and we would never ever make Moses more important than Messiah except that's exactly what we did.

Oops.

Why?

Because that became our identity doctrine and it began to overshadow the Messiah.

Well, we're a feast of the Lord congregation.

Good for you, but if you're so busy telling everybody else how your church keeps the feast of the Lord, do you ever get around telling them about the Lord?

We're a Sabbath church.

Folks, the day the Sabbath becomes our identity, we're in trouble.

Because pretty soon, when all we want people to know us by is that we meet on Saturday, that we meet on the Sabbath, pretty soon our effectiveness in introducing them to the Lord of the Sabbath ends.

Even grace churches.

Oh, we're all about grace.

Often the grace churches become churches where grace is actually abused.

In cheap grace, hyper grace, or a complete lack of grace when calling everyone who has the audacity to mention that faith requires faithfulness, a heretic.

The very churches that bang the drum the loudest about grace often are the ones that don't have a clue about how to show it.

Really thought I'd get a big amen right there, but all right.

Just kidding, I'm just kidding.

No, don't give it to me now.

I don't need your cheap amen.

I'm not that insecure.

Well, maybe I am.

And anyway, guys, the evidence for what I'm saying is that we become more passionate about everybody knowing our identity doctrine instead of knowing Jesus.

So I'm just starting off very passionately trying to tell you the goal of this study of the gifts of the Spirit is not to make us this kind of church or that kind of church.

It's just an effort to understand what the Bible says God was going to do for his church.

And if I say something that you may come across, and that, well, that sounds like this group, that doesn't mean that everything they're saying is true, and you have to take everything I'm saying and you have to weigh it against the Scripture.

And please, don't say it couldn't happen to us.

It was happening in the days of Jesus, and it's happened in our day.

We are no better than anybody else.

We can get distracted.

Our identity is in Christ, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit are the gifts given to those who are in Christ.

They are a gift from the one who is my identity, and please hear this, the gift is never more important than the giver.

Amen? - Amen. - So let's go to him in this moment.

Oh, Yeshua, we come to you because you have invited us to come to you, that we can come even to the Father through you, and that after you ascended to the right hand of the majesty, you poured forth everything they saw and heard on that Pentecost day so many generations ago, you poured out gifts of grace, and you've never stopped pouring out gifts of grace.

And so Father, in this time, I would plead with the gift of your grace simply to be your presence.

Father, I ask that the greatest grace that we experience today would just be the overwhelming sense of who you are and who we can be in you.

Lord, just grace us with your presence, and then do with us as you desire.

Take this time, Lord, and use it to your glory, not mine, not HFF's, yours.

In Yeshua's name I pray, amen.

That being said, as we noted last week when we looked at the first three gifts of the Spirit, wisdom, knowledge, and faith, these are the spiritual gifts, these are supernatural gifts because they are things given that we either do not have or we do not have enough of.

You know, let me illustrate this.

I love the fact that the Holy Spirit, one of the gifts he gives us is faith.

And I was thinking about this as I was driving down the road the other day, and it kinda, this illustration kind of hit me.

It's kind of like when daddy's having to deal with his daughter or son going off to college for the first time.

And there's all this fear and trepidation about, you know, are they gonna have everything they need?

And dad whips out at the last minute the emergency credit card.

And he says, "Now this is just for emergencies.

"My freshman year of Bible college "at Cincinnati Bible College, "I had a roommate," or I guess it was my sophomore year actually, "I had a roommate and he had a vastly different definition "of what an emergency was than his parents.

"And I tried to warn him his frequent trips "to the Gulf little quick store "was gonna catch up with him.

"And it did when one day I made the mistake "of answering the phone and it was his parents "asking me what he was doing."

Well, it wasn't an emergency.

But thank goodness that that is the heart of a father.

That sometimes he knows that circumstances may arise where you may not have enough of what you need.

That's the gift of faith.

The gift of faith is not I'm gonna give you a person who has no faith faith.

It's the gift that says, when you need more faith, when there's an emergency, a situation, a circumstance where I need to equip you, boom, here's the credit card.

You've got all of the father's resources at your hand.

Our heavenly father is fully aware of the challenges that we face in this world.

Constantly having to deal with evil while at the same time striving to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit over the definitely loud whining of our fallen flesh.

He knows sometimes we need a rescue inhaler that will give us the added faith for the moment.

Now today, the next two grace gifts we are given are truly amazing.

Why are they amazing?

Because God gives them to us so that he can manifest his righteousness in us and through us in the same way he ministered through his own son.

Turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 12, beginning verse seven.

We've read this before, but just to remind us each week, but to each one is given a manifestation of the spirit for the common good.

For to one is given the word of wisdom through the spirit and to another, a word of knowledge according to the same spirit.

To another, faith by the same spirit and to another, gifts of healing by the one spirit.

To another, workings or effectings of miracles and to another, prophecy and to another, distinguishing of spirits.

To another, various kinds of tongues and to another, the interpretation of tongues.

But one and the same spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually, just as he wills.

So this morning, we're gonna take a look at the next two.

Gifts of healings and workings of miracles.

And we're gonna answer the question, does the Holy Spirit still distribute gifts of healings and workings of miracles?

Are you ready for your notes?

Yes, thank you very much.

Appreciate you being here today.

I will not waste my time trying to convince the body of Christ that Satan is allowed to continue to operate in his power, but the Holy Spirit has a time limit, has an expiration date.

If that's really the world you wanna live in, knock yourself out, I'm not doing it.

Paul says the Holy Spirit gives gifts of healing and workings of miracles.

The bigger question is not does God still do these things?

The bigger question is that if that is true, why do we argue about it so much?

And why do we not see them more frequently than we do?

Allow me to offer a couple explanations or suggestions for that that we're going to explore.

The one is that we do not understand the doctrine of grace and works.

I mean, the truth of the matter is, even bringing up those two subjects in the same sentence is almost as troubling as saying, hey, let's talk about speaking in tongues.

Because the history of Christianity is we have not done a good job understanding grace and works.

Secondly, we do not understand the dougma, the example of how and why Jesus performed healings and worked miracles.

So before we go any further, let's just tackle these two.

The first one I wanna talk to you about is the struggle we have understanding grace and works.

And trust me, we're gonna loop back to the gifts that we mentioned today, but you need to see how they're connected.

When it comes to biblical discussions and debate, as I said, I doubt that any has been had more shelf life, has had a longer lasting influence in the church than the debate that is often framed as law versus grace, sometimes or grace versus works.

The real discussion in scripture is never law versus grace, never.

Because the law is a manifestation of God's grace.

Law versus grace is a man-made straw man argument that we have set up by misrepresenting what Paul has written so that we can attack it.

And like I said, sometimes in grace churches, the only thing you hear more talk about how you're, about you can't work your way to heaven, they spend so much time telling you what you cannot work yourself to do and spend very little time telling you what grace actually does.

You see the problem with that?

Oh, we're saved by grace, not by works.

I mean, sometimes that we get grace churches and I'm not putting them down because we're a grace congregation, but sometimes we think the most important thing for people to understand about grace is what you can't work to earn.

But then again, well, what about all the grace that we didn't earn, but we've been given, but we don't know how to operate in?

Tell me something about those graces.

Let me illustrate.

With an illustration I know that you will accept as true.

Does the Bible say money is the root of all evil?

No, it most certainly does not.

The Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil.

If you are lazy in your exegesis, meaning your attempt to understand what the text is saying, if you're lazy in that and you just skim it, you can walk away declaring a conclusion that is not true.

The reason I know you will accept that illustration is because you have heard that misrepresentation over and over again.

The same lazy approach often affects us when we're trying to see what God's word says and trying to understand what God is saying about grace and works.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

Romans chapter three, verses 19 and 20.

Now we all know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God.

Now, you know that I love pointing out the Jewish methodology of how the apostle Paul teaches.

It's really had a profound effect on changing my views on the gifts of the spirit.

Because once I understand how he's making his argument and I see him making that argument in that context, I have no wiggle room to say, well, he said this, but he means this.

And one of those methodologies, probably one of the most dominant ones that you will find in all of Paul's writing is juxtaposition.

And here's the thing, you cannot juxtapose two things if one of them doesn't exist.

This is a principle that we're gonna come to again when we come to the gifts of speaking in tongues.

You cannot, but in this case, you cannot juxtapose those who are under the law with those who are not under the law if there is actually no category of people not under the law.

Come on.

Paul isn't making up a group to discuss.

And when he's gonna talk to us about grace and works, he begins by telling us that the law, whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law.

Well, that's a juxtaposition to another group that isn't under the law.

Verse 20.

Now, why am I pointing that out?

Because I'm asking you to not be lazy in your exegesis.

I'm asking you to think through what Paul is saying, not just what you've always been told Paul is saying.

Because to be honest, that's how I grew up not understanding the gifts of the spirit.

I wasn't listening to what Paul said.

I was listening to what my church said and I wasn't looking at what the Bible said.

And I love my church, don't misunderstand.

Verse 20, "Because by the works of the law, "no flesh will be justified in his sight, "for through the law comes the knowledge of sin."

Now, there's a couple of things in this verse that are very important for us.

When we get back to the gifts of healing, there's a principle here we need to know.

The first thing I want you to notice is he clearly says that by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified.

What does that mean?

First of all, the word justified there means declared righteous.

There's nothing you can do.

There's no commandment in the Torah that if you keep it, you're gonna appear before God.

You don't need Jesus because you did this and now God says you're righteous.

It just doesn't happen that way.

And then he tells us something about the purpose of the law.

"For through the law comes the knowledge of sin."

Now, let me stop your heart for just a moment in your mind.

Before you get upset by this, remember what we discovered last Saturday, that one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is knowledge.

I was taught my whole life to read that verse as if Paul was saying something derogatory or undermining of the law because through the law, we have the knowledge of sin, but we get to the gifts of the Spirit and guess what?

One of the grace acts and gifts of God is knowledge.

Now, if knowledge is a gift of the Holy Spirit and the law is a means by which I gain the knowledge of sin, does that make the law bad?

No, it makes it a gift of grace.

It makes it a mechanism, a means, by which God taught me knowledge.

So don't be lazy in your understanding.

Don't read in demeaning when Paul is actually delineating or explaining.

John 1, verse 16 is one of my favorite verses.

"For of his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace "for the law was given," can I paraphrase, "gifted through Moses and grace and truth "were fully revealed through Jesus Christ."

Now, back to what Paul is saying, that the righteousness of God has been manifested, it has been shown, it has been revealed, and he's now showing us a righteousness that is apart from the law, meaning God used a different grace to reveal his righteousness to the world.

Why?

Because not everybody in the world was under the law.

They didn't have the instruction of righteousness.

That was a gift given to Israel.

It's a different grace.

It's a greater grace to everyone, those under the law and those who were never under the law.

It is a righteousness that all humanity has seen in Christ that fulfills, makes full the law and the prophets, meaning there is a righteousness apart from the law through which God has brought us all the knowledge of his righteousness, and that is through Jesus.

Does that mean the first grace was worthless?

No, it was knowledge.

And that's a gift of grace.

Paul goes on in verse 21, he says, "But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe, for there's no distinction, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."

May I just stop right here and just ask you to rethink that phrase with me?

John says that Jesus, and Jesus is gonna come and say that he came to fulfill, to make full.

What does it mean to fall short of the glory of God?

You didn't get it filled up.

And in spite of your best effort, you're never gonna get it filled up.

He had to do that for us.

"For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, being justified, declared righteous, as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly."

There are themes in here that we're gonna come back to that.

I hope you're listening.

"That God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith."

Notice why God does this, to demonstrate his righteousness.

Why did God give the gift of the knowledge of the Torah?

To demonstrate, to educate, to make them aware of what righteousness is.

Well, but Brent, that's not fair because the minute they became aware of what righteousness is, they also became aware of what sin is because the minute they heard, their flesh heard what righteousness is, it got more hungry for evil.

Why would God do that?

Why would God give a knowledge about righteousness that would perpetuate evil?

Because he said, "Where sin increases," come on church, "grace increases all the more."

Because the magnitude of the grace that he gives is so phenomenally superior even to our sin.

He could run the risk of giving us the knowledge of righteousness which would make us aware of sin, even inflame our flesh to it because he had a greater grace.

Now this actually matters when we come to healings and miracles.

He said, Paul says for verse 26, again, he says, "For the demonstration, "I say of his righteousness at the present time, "so that he would be just and the justifier "of the one who believes, has faith in Jesus."

Why do we need, why do we all need to see this public demonstration of grace?

Because we all, those under the law, those not under the law are sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God.

If you have to be full of righteousness to experience the glory of God, and you're trying to do it through a means that is constantly inflaming your flesh against righteousness, the tank is just never gonna get full.

That's not a demeaning of the Torah, that's a delineation and an explanation of its limits.

And he also says that the Torah and the prophets were pointing towards that coming greater grace.

Paul is making it clear that the works of the law, no matter how wonderful they might be, will never afford us a path to be declared to have fulfilled our righteousness.

In fact, he says no flesh will be justified through the works of the law.

In Galatians 5, Paul lists the works of the flesh, and then all the sins, and then he lists all the many categories of the sins, which are in contrast to what he's about to tell us about, which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

So what is the Holy Spirit showing us?

That the law, even though it brings the knowledge of righteousness, it provokes our fallen flesh to sin, that is why we need a grace revelation of righteousness that would not provoke us to sin, but would supply us with grace, which is the manifestation of which God publicly displays in us and through us, just like he did with Jesus.

How do I know that we still struggle with works and grace, or works and faith?

Because we still have people that think James contradicts Paul.

The battle lines are still drawn between Christians over grace and law and works and faith.

So you're saying, that's not what I thought you were gonna talk about today.

Well, it was not what I thought I was gonna talk about today either.

You can blame the Holy Spirit on that.

I hope you can blame the Holy Spirit on that.

So let's get back to gifts and workings of miracles.

In the Greek, the gifts of healings, and by the way, it's gifts plural of healings plural, is the word charismata.

It's where we get the word charismatic.

Again, I'm not trying to make you a charismatic church.

The truth is there's no such thing as non-charismatic.

You're not a church if you're not charismatic.

I don't mean by denomination, I mean by what the Bible says about what he's done in your life.

He has given you grace gifts.

No one wants to run around saying, well, we're the church that doesn't have grace.

Although we know some that we wanna say, yeah, that is you, you don't have any.

Gifts of healing, charismata.

But then he talks about workings plural of miracles plural, and that's in our gamata, charismata and energamata.

These are two gifts that once again, force us to try to understand the revelation of righteousness that is revealed in grace and works.

Now do you understand the bridge I'm trying to build?

We haven't done a very good job with grace and works, even in relationship to our own salvation.

Now do you understand why in Christianity, we also struggle with healings and miracles, grace gifts and miracle workings.

And now the battle royale begins.

So we have a choice.

We can be lazy in our exegesis, our attempt to understand what Paul has written, or we can focus on what he says and how he says it and why it matters.

First, there are some grammatical aspects that we need to pay attention to.

None of these gifts are verbs.

Why does that matter?

Charismata is a noun for grace gifts.

There is a verb for the act of giving, and there is a noun for what is received.

Gifts and healings are both nouns.

It is that which is received.

This will make sense in a minute.

Energamata, and I hope I'm pronouncing that right, is the noun for workings noun, miracles noun.

Both of these are nouns, not verbs.

Why is that important?

Because the bottom line is we all really want to see healings and miracles, amen?

Anybody not want that?

Oh, you wicked generation seeking after signs and wonders.

Come on.

Or you just wanna keep praying for someone to get healed and never have it happen.

Of course we want these things.

But we all have to admit that quite honestly, we don't seem to see healings and miracles nearly as much as we would like, and we have to ask ourselves, why is what Paul's telling us is important?

Because the gifts of healings are gifts that are given by the Holy Spirit, and the gift is not that you are a perpetual healer, but that you are a receiver of gifts of varieties of healings.

I think one of the reasons we don't see more healings in the body of Christ is because when people go praying for these things, they say they want to become the verb.

I want to become the healer.

I want to be able to do the action of working miracles.

And that's not what Paul is saying.

You are a recipient of a gift of healing to be used.

This isn't about making you something, it's about revealing he is something.

It's not about you're gonna get to be able to run around and say, oh yes, I can do this anytime I want.

I have yet to find anybody that can do those things anytime they want, even though a lot of them wanna tell me they can do it anytime they want.

Well, give me a call.

Got a little issue in the back I'd like to talk to you about. (pages rustling) Why is this important?

Because if we're going to pursue these gifts and Paul says, do it, we have to know what we're pursuing and we have to know why we're pursuing it.

We will get to those healings that Paul describes eventually as there is a category of workers of miracles.

And we're gonna get to that after this series.

But for now, Paul is saying that all believers in the body of Christ have the potential to be a person who could receive a gift of healing for somebody or for themselves and that the body of Christ, you don't have to occupy any special office for the Lord to possibly give you a working for a miracle that was needed when it was needed.

There are, and I've said this before, I'm gonna say it again.

There are ministries and callings where some of the operation of these gifts and these workings become more necessary because the person is more engaged in the battle.

The guy that's out, the gal that's out on the battlefield always needs to have access to lots of ammunition.

I don't.

The number of times that I might, you know, need to pull my little pistol.

Thankfully, it never happened.

Hope it never does.

But I'll tell you what, I want that person out there fighting the battles for me to have everything they can possibly have when they need it.

And there are some ministries, there are some callings that have people, men and women engaged in service where there's gonna be a more regular need for that.

We'll get to that.

But right now, what I want us to understand is the body of Christ is that these are gifts and workings that everybody could have the potential to receive if we pursue it, we pursue what he's actually giving and we pursue why we should have it.

Some people ask, well, oh my goodness.

Checking my page number.

Oy vey.

Some people ask, well, why doesn't God heal everyone?

This may irritate you.

Well, in truth, God doesn't need to heal anyone.

Ouch.

Why not be thankful for those who are?

You see, he's already promised all of us that in Jesus, we will get new, fully redeemed bodies with all of the impurities, all of the infirmities, all of the disease, everything will be removed.

He has promised all of us in Christ we'll get that newly redeemed body at the resurrection.

So the reality is that we forget sometimes is even if he healed none of us right now, he's still going to heal all of us then.

So he's not obligated to heal everyone now.

So why does he heal some?

Why does he still heal knowing full well that the most miraculously healed person still dies?

Have you pleaded with God for the healing for someone you love?

They may get that healing.

It's only for a season.

The body is still gonna wear out.

Now, does that mean don't ask?

Of course not.

We're told to ask.

So why does God do this?

The answer is in what Paul told us about what the father was doing through his son.

He was making a public display of his righteousness by showing his love and grace in Jesus' suffering for us.

Jesus performed both healings and miracles as a testimony to the work of God.

Remember, Jesus never abandoned his identity as God.

And by the way, this is one of the places where what Brent's saying and what some other groups are saying are gonna go a different direction.

Jesus never subjugated his identity as God, but he did decide to humble himself in such a way that he would only do what he saw the father doing and only say what he heard the father speaking.

And it wasn't because he couldn't do it himself.

It was because he wanted to make sure we all knew that everything that he was saying and everything that he was doing was the testimony of the father doing it through him.

So when you reject Yeshua, you're not rejecting just who Jesus is.

You're rejecting the testimony of God about his son to you.

This is my son, listen to him.

It's the father's testimony.

When God gives us grace gifts, whether they're healings or workings of miracles, these are things given to us by Christ, and they are never a testimony about anything that I have in my flesh, but it is a testimony to what God has accomplished in Jesus' flesh, which is testified through me now, through us, because we're the body of Christ.

Charismata and workings of miracles, these gifts of grace are things that happen in the life of somebody who do what Jesus did.

Take the time to see what God is doing.

Take the time to hear what God is saying.

And sometimes we're not very good at that, are we?

We need to remember that the Holy Spirit doesn't show up to validate selfishness.

And sometimes selfishly, I wanna rush to what I want, the miracle, the healing, but I don't wanna take time to listen and see what God is doing in the person's life.

Now listen to what Peter says in 1 Peter 4.

"Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, "arm yourselves also with the same purpose," with the same purpose, "because he who has suffered in the flesh "has ceased from sin, "so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh "no longer for the lust of men, but for the will of God."

Well, let me just clean that up a little bit, simplify it.

He says, man, once you've died to sin, once you're not living for you anymore, you're living for God, you're living for the will of God.

This is exactly what Jesus did when he left heaven for us and chose to submit his will for our benefit so that it would be God's testimony.

"For the time that has already passed "is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire "of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, "lust, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, "and abominable idolatries."

What he's saying there is, guys, really, you've had enough time to sow your oats.

That season is done.

When you come to Christ, you come into the grace gifts, it's time to do something different.

"In all this, they are surprised "that you do not run with them "into the same excesses of sin, and so they malign you."

Peter says, "You had your day pursuing "the lust of your flesh, it's time to stop that nonsense "and live in the gifting of the Spirit."

And notice that such a life is a public display of righteousness.

How do I know?

Because Peter says, "They look at you and they like, "how come you're not doing this with us?

"How come you're not running into this sin with us anymore?"

I love the sages teach that the Hebrew word for earth has an uncertain root.

It's either rats, which means something I want or I desire, or it's roots, which means to run.

And they teach that the earth basically was created to run to do the will of the Father.

And when they see you running to do the will of the Father and not running to do the sin and all the crud they're doing, that's a public display of righteousness.

And by the way, that's miraculous.

Because none of us would be doing that.

Without Jesus.

Well, now I gotta figure out how much of this does.

Let me jump onto this point.

A second reason we may not see more healings and miracles is this.

We want the result of healing more than the full impact of God's grace in the person's life we're praying for.

I'm gonna say that again.

Sometimes we don't see healing because we want the result of healing more than the full impact of God's grace in the person's life.

Let me give you a personal example.

In 1993, I attended a Messianic Jewish conference called Yeshua 93.

And while I was there, I went forward one night to be prayed for, and to be honest, I waited till almost everybody was gone because I was a preacher and I was embarrassed I was going forward for prayer.

And I was watching, there was probably maybe 10 Messianic Jewish rabbis, pastors up there, and I knew one of them, and I was trying to wait to get to him 'cause I knew him, but his line was really long.

And this was not a knock 'em down session, okay?

People weren't flailing in the spirit.

So when the one opened up for me, it was a young guy, good looking guy, young King David, but great, I get the youngest, I get the newbie.

And so I go walking up to him and I was telling him that I had just left a ministry and was starting a ministry and was just seeking God.

And he just looked at me and he said, well, he said, "Let's just start off by praising the Lord.

"Can you just," he said, "Can you just lift your hands "to praise the Lord?"

And I said, "Sure, I can do that."

And I just lifted my hands and I really wasn't paying attention to him, but in the lower periphery of my vision, as I'm praying, I see his hand come toward me.

I can't tell you if he actually ever touched me or not.

I don't know if he touched me, but I know who did touch me.

I got hit with a ball of lightning grace.

I don't, I have no definition for what happened to me, but it went in me like a ball of light and lightning.

It exploded into every extremity of my body and it knocked me back on my feet.

And the only reason I didn't just fall down and bathe in it was because I'm a good Christian church Christ boy.

And there's a line, it knocked me back.

And I was just, instant peace, instant overwhelming presence of the Lord.

And I'm like, "What was that?"

And let's do it again.

When I got started home from that conference, the Lord spoke to me on the road and said, "Brent, when you get home, "you're gonna be praying for somebody, for their healing."

And I'm like, "Oh, that's cool."

Scary, but cool.

I was returning to Oklahoma, having been out of here for a long time, went to the church that both Tanya and I grew up in, where my father had pastored for many, many years.

And I began to tell my parents some of the things that had happened on that road trip, but I did not tell them what God had said about praying for the healing of a person.

And so on Wednesday, after a conversation with my dad about some of the things that the Holy Spirit had done, he said, "Brent, in lieu of what you've said, "I think you need to join the elders tonight "to pray over this couple "that has asked for the elders to pray "because of a sickness that she's dealing with."

And again, I hadn't told him what the Lord had said.

I said, "Well, yeah, I think I'm supposed to be there."

So along, it's a very detailed story, but when I went in after the normal Wednesday night services, they went into a room just off the sanctuary, and there were the elders, and here's this couple sitting down, and my dad was sitting beside them.

And I walked in and I just sat down, kind of.

I mean, they knew me, they love me, but I'm still kind of a kid and an outsider.

And I sat down behind them and I was watching my dad talk.

And I said, "Okay, Lord, what's going on?

"Fill me in."

Because I'm telling you, when I walked in, this woman was as gray as one of these chairs.

She couldn't open her mouth to talk hardly because of TMJ.

She had an infection in her spleen, and there was a third thing, I don't remember what it was, but the visual of this woman who could barely open her mouth to talk and just skin that looked like a corpse.

And I sat down and I said, "Lord, what is going on?"

And he instantly said, "A spirit of bitterness and unforgiveness."

And so when we finally got ready to pray for them, the both of them knelt down in front of the elders on a little pray-do thing, they'll stand there kneeling bench, and we all kind of gathered around.

And before we started, I said, "Look, guys, I can't pray yet.

"I need to ask a question."

And I stepped to the middle and they're both kneeling down.

They're both, you know, at this point, they haven't been very emotional.

They're just ready to be prayed over.

And I looked at her and I said, "Listen, I've got to ask you a question.

"Are you holding a spirit of bitterness "and unforgiveness towards somebody?"

And they both about gave themselves whiplash looking at each other, and their heads snapped, looked at each other, they looked up at me, looked at, you know, and suddenly she starts weeping.

And I thought, "Oh, a little bit."

And she finally, he finally looked at her and said, "What are you gonna tell him, or am I gonna tell him?"

I'm like, "Ooh, we have touched a nerve."

And then she looked at him and said, "Well, which one are you talking about?"

When it came time to pray, I decided I was gonna go after the TMJ, 'cause that would be the most visible one.

And forgive me if I get emotional, because this was, this was a moment.

I put my hand up by her jaw and I began to pray.

And for the first time in my life, I felt the tangible presence of the Holy Spirit beginning to move through me and out of me.

I could feel it.

And I was so pumped because I thought, "I'm gonna see a miracle, yes!"

Until the door slammed.

It was just cut off, it just stopped.

I was so shaken by it, I just kind of stammered the rest of it in Jesus' name, amen.

Of course, immediately start feeling like a failure.

And they finished their praying and, you know, nothing happened.

We went out in the hallway.

There's several elders standing there, and I kind of felt like, "Oh man, maybe I've overstepped."

I walked up to these men.

This is a non-charismatic church.

And I walked up and I began to apologize, you know, for overstepping.

And they all turned and looked at me and put their finger in my face, said, "Don't you dare apologize.

"The minute you spoke it, "the Holy Spirit confirmed it in our hearts.

"You were spot on."

And my first thought was, "Who are you and what have you done "with the elders of this church?"

'Cause that is not what I grew up listening to.

So I went my way.

About an hour later, I got a call from my dad and said, "They want you at their house now."

It just happened to be the foggiest night in the history of foggy nights in Oklahoma City.

So bad that when I went to look for their house, I couldn't even see the street number.

I finally found their house, rang the doorbell.

I could hear them inside.

I knew they heard, but they didn't come to the door right away.

I could hear them speaking.

Eventually he comes and opens the door and ushers me in and tells me to sit down in the living room.

And I sat there going, "Lord, get down here now." (congregation laughing) They came in and sat down in the two recliners that were to my right.

He was closest to me.

And though I had been raised in Draper Park, they were later additions after I had kind of moved on to Bible college and ministering in Indiana.

And the husband looked at me and said, "Brent, you just don't understand."

He said, "We don't know you."

And that's all he got out.

And she came off the, kind of off the recliner that she was sitting in.

And remember she is gray as one of these chairs.

She cannot open her mouth.

And she just begins to snarl at me.

"Who are you?

"How do you know my pain?

"Nobody knows my pain.

"How do you know my pain?"

And I'm like, "Now, get down here now."

I'm like, "Okay, never let them see you sweat."

That gift of faith, sometimes you fake it till you make it.

And I just kind of bowed up and I said, "Well, I'll tell you how I know.

"I noted in my holy knower, "sometimes when I need to know something, God tells me, "and that's how I note it.

"And apparently he loves you a lot to tell me "so that I can tell you."

Conversation went on.

And, we prayed for him.

I wouldn't touch her.

I had her husband lay hands on her 'cause I didn't want the glory.

I didn't want nothing.

But I told her, I said, "He is still here to heal you tonight.

"He's gonna do it."

We prayed, I went home.

The next day, she had to go to the doctor.

They called, they're both on the phone and they're just giggling, screaming with delight.

The TMJ, gone.

Big, largest measurement she had had in years.

Infection in the spleen, gone.

Now, the point of this story is not, ooh, Brent, how cool are you?

Although it was a very cool moment.

But it taught me a lesson.

Do you remember what the first grace of God was with Israel?

Knowledge.

He could have just sent the Messiah immediately.

He didn't do it.

He gave them the gift of knowledge through Moses to teach them what they would need to know about righteousness and sin and sacrifice and all these things.

And going back to the point of this question is, why don't we sometimes see more people healed?

Because we don't stop and wait for knowledge.

We wanna rush to the healing without understanding that God is never just healing a body, he's healing people.

And we don't take time to say, Lord, cue me in on what's going on, because that's the first miracle that happened that night was when I sat down beside her and I said, Lord, something is not right here.

What is going on?

And he gave me that word of wisdom and knowledge.

And in giving me that word of wisdom and knowledge, guess what he also gave me?

The faith to know he was going to do it.

And the reason we don't see more healing sometimes is because we just run around praying for everybody to get healed.

And we really don't know what's going on in their life.

We don't really know if that's the best conclusion for them.

He may have them in that circumstance for a reason.

There may be a greater grace that they need.

When I was down for six or seven weeks with bulging disc, sure I prayed that God would heal me.

But there came a time when I said, God, you know what?

I'm not gonna ask you to heal me of this pain anymore.

I'm just gonna ask for you to be with me in the pain because your grace is sufficient.

And I don't want this grace to make me mad.

So just come be with me.

And I told the Lord this morning, oh, we're gonna preach on miracles and healings.

Wouldn't it be great if you did something?

You know what I told God?

I said, God, I don't care if you do anything, but just be with us.

Just give us the greater grace of your presence because nothing is ever gonna happen if he's not present.

And until we start pursuing the whole healing of a person, does God still heal?

Absolutely yes.

But sometimes there's other things going on that he wants to do before that.

There's things that, and I want you to, this is really dangerous territory.

And guys, wow, I know I'm going long. (crying) Well, let's talk about miracles.

How do we ask for workings of miracles in our midst without becoming a wicked generation that seeks after signs?

Well, this is where I clearly part company with the Bethel model.

The absence of the miraculous is not the absence of God's grace in a community because God grace miraculously manifest in the sealing of souls for the day of salvation.

And that's a miracle.

God's grace miraculously gives me wisdom and knowledge in ways sometimes I don't even realize till later that it came from him and not me, but it's just as miraculous as if he had spoken it to me.

God's grace manifest in me, not just through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but through the fruit of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, et cetera.

And sometimes God will show his righteousness in the grace of a miraculous moment orchestrated by God for our benefit, miracles of provision and protection and power and providence.

And sometimes there will be miracles that involve us in a moment, in the moment where we are aware of our need for an immediate miracle.

Guys, if you need to go, you can go.

I'm just gonna keep preaching.

And I mean that sincerely.

I don't wanna hold you back, but I wanna finish this.

I was in a church camp in Ohio and I was in a chapel one day and I was talking to a young man, weather was beautiful, we're just gabbing until I looked out the corner of my eye and saw a tornado coming across the cornfield across the road at the camp.

Our side of the road was sunny and nice.

And normally when a tornado shows up, you know, the storm comes in, moves over you and then there's something in the middle.

It was like this one was like right on the front end.

No, we had zero time.

I mean, I jumped up, I started screaming, run for cover.

While I'm thinking, do we even have any cover in this camp?

It's a church camp.

Kids are running, others are screaming to get into the concrete block shower building.

And I'm thinking, y'all aren't from Oklahoma, are you?

And then something just came over me.

Now, please don't make fun of me for this.

Oh, you can, I don't care.

'Cause this is crazy stupid.

There's a field, there's a road and there's the camp.

And that tornado was tearing through that cornfield coming right at us.

And I ran out in the middle of that road and threw my hands in the air.

And I said, no, not today.

And I started crying out in Jesus' name for that tornado to go away.

Now don't call me the next time David Payne is telling us to run to our shelters.

Don't call me, don't be dumb, go get in the shelter.

Hey, Brian, we got a little tornado problem over here.

You think you'd, no.

And don't go out there running, doing what I did.

It was the moment that it had to happen.

And he gave me the faith I needed.

I know it looks silly.

I know it's crazy.

I just wish we'd had cameras back then so someone could have captured this ridiculously ludicrous moment of this guy out there in shorts and a tank top going, no, Mr.

Tornado in Jesus' name, go somewhere else.

And you know what that tornado did?

It obeyed the name of Jesus.

Didn't obey me.

And it did what should not happen in nature.

It made a 90 degree turn to the right and went around the camp.

That's the closest thing to a miracle that I can testify to.

But I know, I know that God will give us what we need when we need it.

Now, folks, I wanna be real, answer this question.

How then should I pray?

Should I pray to be healed?

Yes.

But may I suggest not before you ask Jesus what his will is and what he would like to do in your life.

And not until you come to the moment where you say, you know what, Jesus, here's the reality.

Between being healed and having you in my life, I'll take you.

Because I'm telling you, when you have his presence, you, there's no infirmity, there's no disease.

And I know that's a big ask.

But I know that when we want him more than what we want done for us, we're probably more likely to get both.

God still heals, God still gifts people with charismata.

He still does miracles.

And I just wanna invite the worship team to come back as I share just one last thing.

Because Paul, as he's sharing this with us, constantly keeps coming back to something that the Holy Spirit has placed on his heart that he knows he has to emphasize.

And it's that there are varieties of gifts, but one spirit.

Varieties of ministries, but the same spirit.

And over and over and over again, he keeps bringing us back to this essential truth that is so connected.

If we're gonna walk and live in the gifts of the Holy Spirit that we have to be as passionate about the truth that he's telling us in these lines.

You understand that there are a multiplicity of fleshly ailments.

Some are from injury, some are diseases, some are from deformities.

The list can go on and on and on.

And yet the number of things that happen in our lives, number in the millions, but think about this.

The number of people's lives that it happens in is in the billions.

And yet he does all of these things through one spirit.

One Holy Spirit.

Millions of different forms of diseases, whatever, deformities, infirmities, injuries, yet he has one spirit and he can cover it all. (sighs) It speaks to the power of the Holy Spirit.

It speaks to the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Jesus encountered man fully possessed by not just a demonic spirit, but by legions of demonic spirits.

And when Jesus, these are fallen angels, yet when with one word from Jesus, the entire army of demons not only had to leave, but had to go where he commanded them to go.

Paul is writing to a people who have lived their lives believing in many false gods, in many spirits, who live in a culture that has fully opened the path for demonic spirits to exist.

Yet Christ has not placed in us multiple spirits of healings.

He hasn't given us multiple spirits of miracles.

He has placed within us his one Holy Spirit to which all the hounds of hell must obey.

One Holy Spirit that can heal every type of fleshly ailment, injury, in billions of people, one Holy Spirit by which we speak and declare that Jesus is Lord so that the wicked spirits know it is not by our authority, but by his that we cast them out.

One Holy Spirit can accomplish every kind of healing mankind needs.

Think about that.

The pagan world was, they'd chase this god for that thing and this god for that thing, yet we have the spirit of, see, they couldn't even imagine a creator who could be in charge of the universe, knowing the speed that every planet is moving, the distance between every heavenly body, where all the asteroids at, and making sure they didn't hit us before they're supposed to.

And at the same time, he had the power to orchestrate all of the mechanics of this world, the oxygen, the water, making sure every volcano doesn't erupt, every continental shelf stays where it needs to be.

He's doing all of that while he's also ministering to billions of people.

They couldn't imagine a god that big.

And I wanna tell you, church, until we start understanding a god that's that big, we're probably not gonna see a lot of miracles and healings.

Until we realize that we don't have, he's not gonna say, oh, I've got an extra spirit over here for that.

No, it's one spirit.

It's his, because it speaks to his majesty and his power.

One Holy Spirit that can heal every kind of disease, one Holy Spirit that can manifest every kind of miracle we need.

And one body of Christ in which he fills us with the gifts of his righteousness that we might become the righteousness of God.

We're always available to pray and believe for your healing.

We're always available to pray and believe for your miracle.

And know that the only reason we can do that is because we believe in the one Holy Spirit that can do all in all for his glory.

Won't you stand as we worship?

[Music]