Wisdom, Knowledge, and Faith: Gifts of the Holy Spirit

To watch the sermon The Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Wisdom, Knowledge, Faith

I know we have some more weather moving in today.

Surprise.

Life in Oklahoma.

So glad that you guys are here today and well, the day, it's finally here.

Brent is finally going to start teaching about the actual grace gifts of the Holy Spirit that Paul lists in 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

So it makes sense that we're going to do that, that before I say anything else, we need to pray and to earnestly and passionately seek the leading guidance and instruction and presence of the Holy Spirit, because this is all about what he does and not about what I do.

Will you pray with me?

Abba Father, we come to you, B'Shem Yeshua HaMashiach, in the name of Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One.

And Lord, we know that you are the one who ascended on that Pentecost Sunday so many thousands of years ago, and you received from the right hand of the Father the gift of the Holy Spirit and you poured him forth so that he might fill and equip and nourish the saints.

And so Father, today my prayer is that you would continue to pour him forth in our hearts and our minds, and that you would give us wisdom and knowledge and understanding and increase our faith to the glory of Jesus.

And all God's people said, "Amen."

Well today, we are going to be looking at the first three gifts that Paul lists, wisdom, knowledge, and faith.

Now I understand we could take a week, one week for each of these, and we still wouldn't exhaust the total topic, but as we begin our study of those three gifts today in chapter 12, of course I want to go somewhere else in the Bible.

I want to go to 1 Corinthians chapter 14 verse 1, where Paul says, "Pursue love and zealously or earnestly," a lot of the translations have, "desire the spiritual," and this is one of those places where most translations will include the word gifts, "desire the spiritual gifts, but especially that you might prophesy."

I want to start here for a simple reason.

Knowing about the gifts is not the same thing as zealously desiring them.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that most believers will do the first and never quite get to the second.

They will want to know about them, they'll want to study them, they'll want to understand them, but a passionate, zealous pursuit of them, that may be a bit lacking in our lives.

For many believers today, the issue is not whether or not they exist, but a complete lack of intentional pursuit of them.

What I'm trying to say is that when it comes to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, God's word tells us we have to be proactive, we have to be involved, it's not a matter of just sitting and waiting for him to dump something on me supernaturally, there is a process to this.

Now as I looked in this verse today, this Greek, there was a ...

As I looked in this verse in the Greek, which I do with every sermon I preach or teach, the first word of the sentence that we translate as earnestly pursue is a Greek word, dioko, and what was weird was I already knew that word.

I have a basic working vocabulary in Hebrew, I have a basic working vocabulary of some Biblical Greek words, don't be impressed, it's not exhaustive, but you know, they come up frequently, but to be honest, this is a word that hasn't been a part of my vocabulary, so I was a little taken aback when I read it in 1 Corinthians 14 today, because I couldn't really remember, "Why do I know this word?"

Then it hit me.

Thursday, I finished my sermon for the Northside Christian Church, which I will preach tomorrow, and I'm preaching ...

I've just started a series on the Sermon on the Mount, just started a series on a couple messages on the Beatitudes, and tomorrow, I'm going to be finishing with the final three Beatitudes, all of which are about persecution.

In fact, Jesus says, "Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Now the Greek word that he uses for persecution is the same word that Paul just used to tell the Corinthian believers to pursue love.

The idea of persecution, the word that the Bible uses is this idea that the world is coming after us.

Do you ever feel that way?

I mean, in this day and age, what is it about this side?

I just can't go right.

I'll go left.

Not politically, just kidding.

All right.

Where was I?

I was over here.

Pursuing us.

I was just kind of surprised by this, because you don't think of persecution in a positive sense, but when you really understand the word that is being used that we translate persecution, it's this idea of this passionate pursuit of something, to overtake it and to take hold of it.

And that's exactly what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14, 1, about how we begin first to pursue love and then zealously, actively, intentionally pursue the gifts of the Spirit.

We are called to pursue those things with the same intensity that the world pursues us.

Now, I've said this before, I don't have to convince you that evil is in hot pursuit of you.

Amen?

I don't have to convince you of that, do I?

But sadly, I have to convince the church that if you know that they're in hot pursuit of you, maybe it's time for you and I to be in hot pursuit of the things God has called us to pursue.

I don't know, maybe I'm crazy.

It just seems to make sense to me.

So let me ask you one of those come to Jesus questions, one of those hardcore moments.

Do I pursue the spiritual gifts that are manifestations of His righteousness the way Satan pursues me as a manifestation of His wickedness?

All God's people said, "Ow."

Am I intentionally engaged in seeking the kingdom of God, which is the manifestation of His presence and His righteousness, which is the manifestation of the grace gifts of the Holy Spirit?

How engaged am I in pursuing what God has invited me to receive?

I've already shared the ludicrous irony that exists with the topic of the gifts of the Spirit.

I have never had to convince a believer that Satan is still at work and the power of evil is in hot pursuit of me.

Yet when we come to the topic of the spiritual, the body of Christ wastes an enormous amount of time trying to decide whether or not the Holy Spirit is still an active power in our lives and we spend more time trying to figure out what He doesn't do than pursuing Him for what He's still doing and has always been doing.

Am I a little passionate about this?

Yes.

You know why?

He told me to.

This isn't a passive topic.

The gifts of the Spirit are not just another little nice biblical pond that we can go fish in and have a nice relaxing day.

There is something inherently essential in them for my life as a kingdom disciple.

And I never have to convince the church that evil's active.

But how many times have we been in discussions about whether or not the Holy Spirit is and what He does or what He does not do?

People call me crazy, but that seems ludicrous to me.

So let's now go to 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

And I'm going to go ahead and read the entire listing of the nine gifts, even though we're only going to talk about the first three.

But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

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

And to another, faith by the same Spirit and to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit.

And to another, the effecting or working of miracles and to another, prophecy, to another, distinguishing of spirits, to another, various kinds of tongues and to another, the interpretation of tongues.

So the one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing each of, each one, to each one individually just as He wills.

So Brent, where is the irony?

The first three gifts, wisdom, knowledge, and faith, kind of, they kind of seem familiar.

When you talk about these three subjects, it's kind of like a spiritual deja vu and that deja vu is going to take us to kind of an irony about them.

Let's go back to the Garden of Eden and remember their origin story.

You remember the original lie.

Satan comes and says, "You will surely not die, for God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

And he ate the fruit of the tree because of a lie that God was not the holy, righteous God, the giving God.

Remember the opposite of righteousness is what?

Selfishness.

The action of righteousness is always giving.

The action of selfishness is always taking or keeping and that is what Satan accused our Heavenly Father of being.

Not a righteous God who gives, but a selfish God who takes and keeps and the evidence of that was that tree that he had told them they were not to take from because as Satan said, he doesn't want you to do that because he knows you'll be like him, knowing good and evil.

Listen to what it says.

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from it and ate the fruit and she gave it to her husband and he ate.

Now are you beginning to sense a little bit of spiritual irony here for the modern believers who lack a zealous pursuit of the spiritual?

Remember the gifts of the Spirit.

They're gifts.

They're something that is given to us.

They're not something that are withheld from us.

Why do I stress this?

Because included in the spiritual is not just the grace gifts of the Holy Spirit, but also the fruit of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, et cetera.

That original lie was that God was withholding wisdom and knowledge.

Therefore you cannot trust him.

You should not put your faith in him.

So we ate and we partook of that tree.

Now as believers, we aren't just called to partake of the Holy Spirit.

We're called to passionately pursue the spiritual, the Spirit's greatest manifestation, which is love, and zealously desire the spiritual gifts that he gives us and does not withhold.

Do you see what's happened here?

The gifts of this, very giving of the gifts of the Spirit scream how bad that lie originally was.

We bought into a lie that God was withholding knowledge and wisdom from us.

Our journey into the carnal life, the fallen flesh, which Paul has been writing about in chapters one through 11, began with a pursuit of knowledge and wisdom we were not ready for, but we ate anyway.

And now preachers, here's the irony, now preachers have to plead with believers to partake of that which the Holy Spirit freely gives, wisdom and knowledge.

Now do you see the irony?

When we wanted it for ourselves in the flesh, what did we do?

We took it.

You say, "Oh Brent, I didn't do that.

Eve did that."

The apple don't fall far from that tree, you know.

I want it, I take it.

I want it.

We have no problem satisfying our carnal desire for knowledge and wisdom, yet when the Holy Spirit invites us, calls us, passionately pleads with us to pursue wisdom and knowledge, I'm okay.

Thank you.

I'm good.

You know, we're like that.

You ever gone to Olive Garden and you get the salad and the waiter comes and they're ready to put on the cheese and there's that one person who goes, "Mm-mm, I'm not."

I'm like, "Be quiet, bring it, bring it."

Too many times we're like, "I'm good."

And all the while we are rejecting or just being disinterested in wisdom and knowledge that the Holy Spirit gives, that which He gives restores that which we lost, faith.

Did you see the connection?

We pursued knowledge and wisdom in our flesh and what happened?

We stopped believing in God's righteousness.

Now we claim to believe in God's righteousness, but when He attempts to give us something, we're not interested.

It's no accident or coincidence that these three are the gifts that Paul begins his list with.

That we should be invited to partake of them is God's answer to the lie.

We were deceived at a living beautiful tree where we believed a lie about the holiness and righteousness of a God all because of a piece of fruit.

God's answer, a death tree hideous to the eyes, but upon which is the first fruit of His righteousness, that which He was willing to give.

Now most of us have been to the second tree, the cross of Jesus Christ, and believe that God has given the fruit of His holiness to save us.

But do we believe that He also brought us to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, wisdom and knowledge so that we can now partake of the tree, not in the flesh, but by the Spirit.

God was never intending to withhold.

No parent brings a child into the world intending to starve them of the very things they need.

They need for life and knowledge.

No one wants their child to grow up ignorant of basic truth and knowledge.

That's the origin story of our first three gifts.

But when you come to that gift of wisdom and you bring up that word, you can't help but go to the story of Solomon.

Second Chronicles chapter one, beginning in verse seven, "In the night," the night that Solomon was made king, "God appeared to Solomon and said, 'Ask, what shall I give you?'

And Solomon said to God, 'You have dealt with my father David with great lovingkindness and have made me king in his place.

Now, O Lord God, your promise to my father David is fulfilled, for you have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth.

Give me now wisdom and knowledge that I may go out and come in before this people, for who can rule this great people of yours?'

And God said to Shlomo, Solomon, 'Because you had this in mind and did not ask for riches, wealth or honor or the life of those who hate you, nor have you even asked for a long life, but you have asked for yourself wisdom and knowledge that you may rule my people over whom I've made you king.

Wisdom and knowledge have been granted to you, given to you.

And I will give you riches, wealth and honor such as none of the kings who were before you has possessed, nor those who will come after you.'

So Solomon went from the high place, which was in Gibeon, from the tent of meeting to Jerusalem and he reigned over Israel."

Wow, I love that story.

I mean that part of Solomon's story.

Great start, not so great ending.

But there's a couple of things, a few things I want you to notice about this.

First notice what Solomon asked for was what Eve was seeking in the garden that Satan said God withholds.

Well, apparently not.

Because when it's asked for in the right context, with the right motive, with the right heart, God says absolutely.

I love that.

Now Paul doesn't give an exhaustive explanation of what wisdom is or how it's given, he just says the Holy Spirit will give a gift of wisdom.

And I would just simply define wisdom as knowing what to do with knowledge.

Because a lot of times we know something, we're just not sure what to do with it.

We know the difficult circumstance, we know the challenge in front of us, it's not like "Well, I don't know what's happening."

I know what's happening, I just don't know how to respond to it, I don't know how to react to it.

Now here's another one of those hard truth moments.

We will never receive what we do not believe God has a heart to give.

It just won't happen.

Some do not pursue it because they're distracted by the world, but the sad reality is that there are many believers who do not pursue it because they still believe the original lie that God withholds and doesn't give.

And none of us want to admit that that's the truth about us.

None of us want to admit that we're stagnated, that we went to the cross, we went to that second tree, we saw the gift of God's righteousness, we received it for salvation, but when it comes to Him giving the Spirit for our sanctification, we're right back at the first tree wondering "Lord, are you really going to give me anything?

Are you really going to do this?"

Because it kind of feels like I'm just on my own.

So Brent, do tell, how do I get this gift?

It starts by searching our heart and confessing the lies that we still believe that we don't want to say out loud.

Listen to what James writes in James chapter one verses two through eight.

"Consider it all joy brethren when you encounter various trials, knowing that the test of your faith produces endurance.

And let endurance have its perfect result so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

Remember when we started this series, 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."

Remember how we talked about?

God says you won't lack.

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach and it will be given to him.

But he must ask in faith without any doubting for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.

For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double minded man and stable in all his ways.

Folks, if you don't believe that God rewards the righteous, if you don't believe that God gives good gifts, if you don't believe God is going to give wisdom, don't throw up some half-hearted prayer.

Hey, I mean, you're probably not going to do this, but I could kind of use some information.

James says, that's the kind of thinking you had back at the first tree.

But he's writing to people who have come to the second tree, who have already witnessed and experienced God's willingness to do righteousness and to give what we need when we need it.

James specifically tells us we can ask God for wisdom.

Now we know that wisdom is a gift of God's grace by the Holy Spirit.

The second thing I'd like for you to notice is this.

Notice the intention of Solomon's heart and request.

I love this too.

He asked for wisdom and knowledge in the context of the kingdom.

What did Jesus tell us we were to seek?

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Interesting.

It's almost like there's a consistent theme in the Bible.

Surprise, surprise.

Solomon asked for wisdom and he does it.

The thing that is so cool about this is that Solomon lives out, at least in that amount of time, what Jesus is calling us to in Matthew 6, 33.

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and what?

All these things shall be added unto you as well.

Hey Solomon, because you didn't ask for a long life, because you didn't ask for the life of your enemies, because you didn't ask for wealth and riches and all these other things and because you asked for wisdom and knowledge, not for your own benefit, but so that you could rule my people.

He asked on behalf of his kingdom.

That's righteousness.

Do you see it?

Well, how do I get it?

The first thing you do is you check your motive.

This is going to be true and we're going to be looping back on these the next few weeks as we're talking about all of these gifts.

Why do you want it?

Is it for you?

Or is it that you can somehow contribute to the kingdom of God, which is the body of Christ?

Why does the body of Christ make so many mistakes?

I don't want to sound judgmental, but maybe it's because we're too busy thinking about ourselves.

Solomon asked for wisdom and knowledge in order to serve others.

That's kingdom righteousness.

That is exactly what Jesus calls us to pursue.

Third thing I'd like for you to notice.

God invited Solomon to ask.

Do you remember what James wrote?

"But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously without reproach and it will be given."

Solomon asked for what Satan lied and said God would never give.

Solomon asked for wisdom and knowledge so that he could do righteousness in the way God wants righteousness done selflessly, not selfishly.

And Solomon asked because he was invited to do so.

And so are we.

But it has to be for the very same reason, so that we would pursue and seek the kingdom in order to do the righteousness of God for the sake of God's kingdom people, the church.

And that's why we took a couple weeks to look at how Paul frames these.

Because remember, all he does in this chapter is just kind of list them and remind us they're all coming from the same source.

Paul began his letter to the Corinthian believers by telling them they were rich in spiritual gifts and fruits of the Spirit and that they had been enriched in all speech.

So if they're enriched in all speech, we're going to see prophetic speech, encouraging speech, exhortation, edification, even faith declarations.

In fact, there's probably not a single one of the gifts of the Spirit that does not include some part of speaking.

And one of the things I've intentionally decided not to do is to categorize, left out a G, I want to categorize.

Because these are speaking gifts, these are thinking gifts, these are ...

I'm not doing that.

Because every one is a part of the rest.

Quite honestly, if we don't start with wisdom and knowledge and the enrichment of our faith, the rest of the ones probably aren't going to manifest.

This is where we start.

In all speech, in all knowledge, wisdom, understanding, revelation, insight, interpretation, in all confirming testimony of Christ that was confirmed in us.

Paul says that the gifts of the Spirit, all speech, all knowledge, are manifestations of the testimony of Christ being confirmed in us.

So when someone comes along and tells you, "Well, if you don't have this one Spirit, you don't have the confirmation of the presence of the Holy Spirit, excuse me," Paul says not everybody gets the same gift.

That all of these gifts are confirming evidence of Christ's presence and ministry within me.

So don't let someone come along and say, "Well, you don't speak in tongue, so you don't have the gift of the Holy Spirit."

No, I have the gift of the Holy Spirit.

I may not have that gift, but he's been gracious in these other areas.

So how do these three gifts operate?

Well, first I'd like you to ...

I'm going to give you three kind of categories that they ... the ways they kind of work in us.

The first one is that they work to help us know how to react.

And what I mean by react is like the gift of wisdom and knowledge and faith first adjusts something within us before they come forth from us.

All right, do you understand that?

Even if I'm praying for the benefit of somebody else, in order for me to be a healthy part of the body of Christ, to be able to help somebody else, I need to be a healthy part of the body of Christ too.

So sometimes the word of wisdom will come or word of knowledge, and it helps me know how to react to the circumstance or the reality that's in front of me.

The gifts are given for when we encounter situations that are difficult and confusing.

Satan's first hope is that those difficulties will throw us into doubt, that he can yank us back to the first tree as fast as he can.

So when God gives a word of wisdom, first of all, if it's a word of wisdom that's specifically about you, I mean, that's amazing, but a lot of times that word of wisdom is going to be shared because you're not the only one that needs it.

There's others that might need that.

The gifts operate in the realm of faith.

So the gifts of wisdom and knowledge first minister to us in our reaction to them intentionally to keep our emotions in check with whatever it is we're engaging in.

And it can be good or bad, because we can be in the midst of a good situation and Satan can jump on that and try to elevate pride within us, and we need wisdom to say, "Back it down, Bubba."

Or it may be that he gives us that wisdom so that we can keep control of our emotions when others are losing it.

He helps us keep our perspective.

Not over ...

I think there's some stories that I've told you before, but for the sake of this series and for the sake of the people watching, I'm going to tell them again.

Years ago, I took my Jeep in Indiana to a quick lube place, and they put the wrong filter on it, and I didn't know that, and I blew it off driving back home and ended up on the side of the road with a transmission completely locked up and seized up because there was no oil in it.

Called a friend, one of the elders of the church in that area, he came and got me.

We waited for one of the representatives from the quick lube to come down and look at it.

We took pictures.

I mean, I had them dead to rights.

They put on the wrong filter.

The elder looked at me and said, "You are unbelievably calm about this," which was kind of disturbing because I do get described as George Costanza from time to time.

I don't know what they're talking about, but it happens.

I'm known to being kind of intense in my reactions.

My friend was just looking at me like going, "What's happening right now?"

Even the gentleman from the quick lube was like, "Yeah, man, you are really a cool cat right now because I would be irate."

I just looked at him and said, "I don't know.

I just know that God's got this and He knows that my plate is already full enough, so I'm just not going to go there.

I'm just not going to ...

God's got this.

He knows what's going on."

Boy did he know what was going on.

I think that was like a Friday or something.

Got a rental car, went over to a nearby town in Ohio to preach that Sunday.

Was sitting in Sunday school class and the class asked me if I was going to drive home for Thanksgiving.

I said, "No, I can't do that because my Jeep and all that."

A guy at the other end of the table goes, "Oh, so you're the one."

Yeah, it was the manager of the quick lube that put the wrong filter on my Jeep.

Oh, it gets better.

He's the worship leader that day.

Can you imagine if the Holy Spirit ...

God said, "Get down there now.

The man's going to ...

Get a hold of that boy's mouth."

What would have happened if I had just allowed my emotions to take over?

If in that moment he hadn't given me wisdom and faith to trust him.

If I had gone off and played the fool and then had to stand on the same stage where the owner of that ...

The manager of that, he would have heard.

What a hypocrite I would have been.

God gives wisdom when we need it and when we ask.

It is a specific gift of the Spirit and when he gives it to you, you will know it because others will recognize that wisdom has worked in you.

Paul says that Christ's work is confirmed in us in words of knowledge.

You guys have heard me tell the story of going to the International House of Prayer in Kansas City.

For about an hour or so, I paced and sat and prayed and I prayed one thing over and over.

I was asking God, "Is Ephesians 118 for me?"

I was really focused a lot on Ephesians 117, Paul's prayer, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of him.

I began to just ask the Lord, "Lord, are you done with me?

Are you going to keep sharing with me?

Are you going to keep pouring into me?"

But the way I framed my prayer was simply, "Lord, is Ephesians 118 for me?"

Now in that environment, I didn't walk around going, "Lord, is Ephesians 118 for me?"

So that everybody could hear.

It was between me and him.

That's all I prayed for about an hour.

I finally went and sat down and a young lady came up that I did not know, put her hand on my shoulder and kind of slid in and said, "Excuse me.

I know I'm not supposed to do this in here, but I believe I have a word from the Lord for you."

I said, "Okay."

She said, "I believe the Lord wants me to tell you Ephesians 118 is for you."

Does that mean anything to you?

No.

I mean, does it mean anything to me?

Verbal answers, I dig it.

That's a word of knowledge.

If you want to live in a world where that doesn't happen, that's up to you.

I love living in the world where it does happen and it's promised to happen.

Now, he's not going to come down and I'm not going to get a verbal answer every time.

Sometimes I already do have the knowledge and the wisdom.

I'm just being a pickle head and not moving forward.

So what does Ephesians 118 say?

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of his glory of inheritance in the saints.

Let me ask you a question.

Does Paul pray for us to have something that he already knows God won't give?

No.

Paul says, "I pray that you will know, have knowledge of the richness of what God has given you and the power that exists within the saints."

If any of you relax, ask.

Sometimes I've been the one to receive the word of knowledge and sometimes I've been the one to give it.

I'm concerned about time, but I'm going to try to get through this as quick as possible.

Years ago, I went into a Brahms over on 89th near Pennsylvania and a good friend of mine from my growing up days was with me.

And there were a group of junior high age kids sitting in a booth and I was in a booth and my friend had his back to them and I could see them.

And I had just come back from one of my speaking tours and for some reason a lot of things had happened, always seemed to happen when I would go out and be ministering.

And I had started praying, "Lord, this is great, but people are going to think I'm nuts if you don't start doing it here."

You know, because I come back and people from my church, you know, I would get a call, "Come over, we're all going to gather over here so you can tell us what happened."

I said, "Lord, it'd be cool if you do some of that stuff here."

And so I was sitting there and suddenly there was a kid in this group of kids who were about two or three booths away from us and it's like he was on stage and I was the audience.

He was just, he was kind of standing up in front of the rest of the kids and he'd do something and then he'd turn around looking at me for approval or making sure I saw what he was doing.

And I looked at my friend Wes and I said, "Hey Wes, you know how I've talked about being in the zone?"

He said, "Yeah."

I said, "Well, buckle up, Bubba, we're in it."

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "I don't know, but it has something to do with those kids back there.

God wants me to speak to them or something, I don't know."

And so he turned in the booth so that he could kind of have them in the periphery of his vision and we were sitting there and I knew the Holy Spirit was all over me and I thought, "Well, why am I, you know, if this is the case, why am I waiting?"

So I start to slide out and before I can slide out, that kid comes up to the booth and he came up and he asked some question about, you know, what time is it or something.

And he had this black t-shirt on with a gold pyramid that said ministry.

And I said, "What is that?

Is that a Christian rock band?"

You obviously know.

You just confessed your sin, Ian.

I'd never heard of them.

Apparently they're not a Christian band.

And I asked him, "Is that a Christian?"

He goes, "Oh no, no, that's, that's..."

I said, "Oh, I don't mean to offend you."

About that time, one of his little buddies comes up and kind of sits in the booth right behind my friend Wes and he leans over and he says, "Well, if God is so tough," he said, you know, "Satan can walk on fire."

And I said, "Listen here, puppy chow, God created fire and he doesn't have to walk on it to prove himself to the likes of you."

And the kid went, "Oh, okay."

So pipe down, puppy chow.

Then the other kid looked at me, the one who'd been kind of focused, and he said, "Well, the one who has the real power is Satan."

And I looked at him and the Lord just told me what he was doing.

And I said, "Well, you better go reread your Bible because my Bible says that in the last days God's going to send your God to hell, the lake of fire."

And he looked at me and he said, "Well, why do you believe that Bible you're reading?"

I looked at him and I said, "Son, why are you believing that satanic Bible that you've been secretly reading?"

And this is what he did.

I think my poor friend Wes was about to have a heart attack.

After he was trying to tell some men at our church and he said, "I was there.

I saw it.

He couldn't have done it.

It was God."

Sometimes God will give you, you'll be the recipient of a word of wisdom or knowledge, and sometimes you'll be the one someone else needs to receive it from.

Again, please note that these gifts are most often circumstantial.

Why do I say that?

Because God gives them in moments of need.

He gives them in moments of ...

Because we walk by faith, not by sight.

But that doesn't mean God doesn't intervene in the moment when we need more than what we can see.

He will intervene.

But please understand this.

Just because you get a word of wisdom, you receive it or you give it, you give a word of knowledge or you receive a word of knowledge, that doesn't make you an apostle or a prophet.

The gifts are given to the body of Christ at large and are manifested most often in the context of ministering to someone or in meeting someone's needs.

But the Lord also appoints apostles and prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, Ephesians 411.

For those who are called to serve in these capacities, the gifts of the spirit may seem to be more operable, not because that person is better than you, but because that person finds themselves in those ministry circumstances more often than you do.

Now, if you want to change that equation, get involved in people's lives.

Get out of the booth.

Get out of the boat.

Start asking for divine appointments.

Ask the Lord to use you in this way.

Don't sit around complaining, "Well, God, he tells all these stories and I've got none."

God can't wait to give you a story.

Go do kingdom righteousness.

And I promise you, the spirit, all of heaven will be there for you.

Anyone can receive a gift of prophecy that doesn't make you a prophet.

And by the way, the fastest way to convince me you don't have what you think you have is to tell me what you are.

I mean, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

I'm like, "Okay."

Because the gifts are given for righteousness, not selfishness.

And they're not given so that we can categorize ourselves and create some kind of caste system in the body of Christ.

Well, I'll leave, I'll move on from that.

Part of our problem is that these gifts don't seem supernatural.

And you know what?

There's a good reason for that.

Because they're not supposed to be supernatural, they're supposed to be natural.

We'll come back to that.

But what about the gift of faith?

I thought that was all me.

Well, is wisdom all you?

That would have been your place to say, "No, Brent.

No Brent, preach.

Come on."

Is knowledge all you?

No.

If wisdom and knowledge are not all you, why would we assume faith is all you?

Does not Paul tell us in Romans that the Spirit prays for us and intercedes for us in ways we do not even understand?

So also then does the Spirit give us faith when God's people need someone to follow?

My faith that God was going to work out the Jeep situation was not my own.

I was overwhelmed, but I was fully convinced that I did not need to worry about it.

And that moment of faith that I can absolutely tell you was not my own.

How do I know?

The elder looking at me was going, "That ain't you."

It was that.

That just kind of breaks my heart about myself.

But he knew.

And that ended up ministering to him.

It ended up ministering to the gentleman who came out to the roadside.

And it ended up ministering to that whole church that I didn't even know was going to be related to that situation.

Once I was with two other youth groups en route to a summer conference in Adrian, Michigan.

We had a notorious reputation for breaking down.

And we hated going through what we called the Dayton Triangle.

Demons hate church buses in that place.

Sure enough, we were so excited.

We ...

Remember that song, the Christian song, Step by Step, written by a guy named Dave Strosser Beaker, used to run around with Rich Mullins?

Well, he was a local youth minister at the time, and we were with his church.

My church and another church was with his church.

It was his bus.

So, this other youth minister and I, we were so happy that, "Okay, it's not our vehicle this time."

We thought everything was going great.

And sure enough, we hit the Dayton Triangle, and Satan's minions attacked.

And I knew we were in trouble when the guys that were with David thought that they could fix it by taking the hood off the engine so that it could breathe.

Now, I know I'm a pastor, and I know nothing about mechanics, but I'm standing there going, "Uh-oh.

If this is the depth of our knowledge, we're in trouble."

We had already passed a bus lot where they sold school buses and used buses.

And I had told the other youth minister friend of mine, I said, "We need to go down there.

We need to get a bus."

He said, "No, no."

So they jury-rigged it.

We went a few more miles, had to get off the ...

Literally backed off, backed up and on ramp to get off.

Yeah, it was not good.

And lo and behold, there's another bus lot right down the street.

And I looked at my friend Jeff, and I said, "Jeff, let's go get a bus."

And he just, I don't know, he just shut down.

I don't know what the deal was.

And I was just kind of ticked off, because this was right about the time God had given Oral Roberts $8 million from a pagan dog track owner to build his building in Tulsa.

And I looked at Jeff, and I said, "If he can give Oral Roberts $8 million to build a building, he can give me one cotton-picking bus that runs."

Walk with the preacher.

I mean, I'm not leaving.

So we go down there, it's about five o'clock, we walk in, this guy's looking.

I said, "Sir, we need a bus.

We need to rent a bus."

He goes, "We don't rent buses."

Which point my friend starts to walk out.

And I thought, "Now Lord, we can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way.

The hard way is I probably get thrown in jail for stealing the bus."

And I leaned back in, I said, "Sir, you don't understand.

We have to have a bus."

And he suddenly leaned back in his chair and went, "Let's see what we can do."

Well, I'll tell you what we did.

We drove off in a new bus that the other church had to buy and then sell back to them a week later.

Faith.

Suddenly I just had what I needed and I had it.

It was given because someone needed to lead the moment.

And sometimes God gives faith to the most unexpected people because sometimes the circumstance just needs someone.

When everybody else is kind of coming unhinged, God needs someone to step up, a Caleb or a Joshua and say, "No, we can do it."

And sometimes that person is you, if we ask.

Did the effect of sin and partaking of that fruit cause doubt and disbelief to take root in us?

Of course it did.

And I don't need to convince you of that.

So why should I have to convince modern believers that the Holy Spirit living in us, of whom we partake, sanctifies us and reboots our original, natural inclination to trust?

I like what Chris says.

The gospel is not about taking us back to Sinai.

It's about taking us back to Eden.

It's about taking us back to that moment where we didn't have the Yetzirah, where we didn't have...

Our default wasn't to not trust.

Our default was to what was natural, having been created in the image of God, was to trust the heart of God.

So what does this gift of faith do?

It slowly starts rebooting the image of God within us.

It begins to give us a new appetite and we begin to hunger and thirst for righteousness.

And pretty soon, as we submit to the Lord, our default, our go-to isn't to panic in doubt.

It's just to stand up and move forward and keep believing.

Now, I can't always do that because I let my flesh get the best of me.

And sometimes I need the gift of faith in you so you can encourage me, "Come on, Brent.

We're not done yet."

And sometimes you need that gift of faith in me so I can say, "Hey, this game isn't over.

Let's keep moving forward."

So he teaches us how to reply or to react.

He also teaches us how to respond in faith.

And thirdly, he teaches us how to reply to our critics or our antagonist or whatever the situation is because he says, "In all speech and all knowledge."

This is why I don't want to categorize the gifts because at some point in time, when you're operating in the gifts of spirit, if that's all happening in here, it's going to come out here.

It may come out in prophecy, exhortation, encouragement, teaching, instruction, revelation, tongues, whatever it is, but it's coming out.

What does the Bible say?

Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks.

That's good or bad.

So let's sum all this up.

All of these gifts are given to those who ask when you need them according to the will of God.

And sometimes they won't be given to you.

They will be given to somebody else to strengthen you.

And that's just as the same as God doing it for you.

To those who seek and pursue righteousness, the way of the wicked that we're supposed to seek and pursue righteousness even greater than the way the wicked pursue wickedness.

All these gifts are given for those who seek them and for the kingdom use, for equipping and edifying the body of Christ.

The first three gifts, by the way, worship team, you can come back.

The first three gifts, when we pursued them in our flesh, wow did we lose.

When we sought wisdom and knowledge and we wanted to take it for ourselves, catastrophe.

But now, having come to the cross, believing in the righteousness of God expressed in Christ, we are invited to partake and receive of the very things He was always willing to give.

Guys, it's no surprise at all that these first three should be the first ones Paul addresses and invites us to ask for and pursue.

Because when we ask for wisdom and knowledge from the Holy Spirit, we not only receive them, but our internal drive is changed from carnal to spiritual.

That's ...

You see, this is why I keep saying, I understand the humility of saying you're just a sinner saved by grace, but the reality is that's what you were.

You are now a saint, sanctified and filled with the Spirit.

He is rebooting the image of God so that the sin nature is no longer natural.

The spiritual is.

Let me just say one more thing as the team comes about where should we start.

Jesus told His disciples and told the crowds to pray to the Lord of the harvest, to send out workers into the harvest.

How many of you have ever prayed for someone to get saved?

I'm not saying stop doing that.

Because when you pray that, God understands that you're asking God to use all available means to bring that person to salvation.

But the truth of the matter is, I cannot pray somebody into the kingdom.

We are free will agents and I cannot ask God to violate the sanctity of their self will and force them to do what they do not want to do.

That's why Jesus says, "Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send forth workers."

And so when we come to this topic of the gifts of the Spirit, you know, one of the first questions that is a natural thing that we want to pray is, "Well, Lord, how can I get them?"

And I want to suggest to you that maybe that's not the first prayer we need to pray to start encountering the spiritual gifts.

Maybe we need to take out a page out of Jesus' playbook and start praying for somebody else in the body to receive them.

What would happen in the church if we started praying more about God filling and using and raising up and equipping other people in the body of Christ than we spend talking to Him about all our hurts and pains and frustrations?

What — listen, if you want to experience the Word of Wisdom, it's probably going to come from somebody else.

You best start praying that God raises up that person and gives them that Word of Wisdom.

Why would He do it that way?

Because He confirms everything with two or three witnesses.

So when the Word of Wisdom is given to one person to be given to you, your spirit will confirm that's what I needed to hear.

Now it's not just me receiving it, "Oh, look how smart I am."

Now there's a dual witness.

And there's bonding and there's strength and there's fellowship because now I realize how much I need you working in the gifts of the Lord.

Jesus said, "Pray to send somebody out there.

Don't just pray that the people out there get saved.

How will they know unless someone is sent?"

Church, let me ask you a question.

How much time do you spend in prayer for Chris and April?

How much time do you spend in prayer for our worship team?

How much time do you spend in prayer asking, you know, not asking God, "Please make him preach shorter, but God just fill him with the Holy Spirit."

That was a joke, you were kind of, you know.

What if we started our search and quest for the gifts of the Holy Spirit with the humility of Solomon?

Knowing that we're seeking it for the sake of the kingdom and not ourselves.

Now I want to hasten to say, does that mean it's wrong for you to ask for these gifts?

No, absolutely not.

But you best check yourself.

Why do you want them?

Remember Simon the magician?

Yeah, that didn't go well.

But if we were to become a church that started praying earnestly, "God, raise up people in this church with the words of wisdom," whether they're on stage or off stage, irrelevant.

What would happen if rather than praying, "God, heal me, heal me, heal me," we started praying, "God, raise up somebody with the gift of healing for me."

I mean, getting healed would be awesome, right?

Wouldn't it flow through one of my, one of the members of the body of Christ that I'm con—how much greater would that testimony be that not only that person got healed, but God used that person, even that unexpected person, for that moment?

Are we going to pursue what Satan said we were not allowed to have?

Are we going to trust that what the Father says He's willing to give and do, He's willing to give and do?

Are we going to seek the Lord for the harvest by offering ourselves to be used for His glory and for His kingdom?

As we come into this time of response, may this be a season of surrender, a season of searching our hearts, a season of change.

We'll be coming back throughout these next couple weeks to talking about how we can receive these gifts and flow in them.

Right now, let's just make sure God knows our heart.

Let's worship.

Amen.