Message by P. Kevin Clancey
All right, dear ones, who knows what Thursday is? Anybody? Yeah. What’s Thursday? Yeah, it’s somebody’s birthday, right? It is. And it is such an important birthday that it’s actually a national holiday. So, everybody, it’s Jamie’s birthday, and we are filled with Thanksgiving that you’re a part of our lives. All right, all right. your daughter’s so filled with Thanksgiving, she’s three chairs away from her family. It’s like, oh, yeah, I don’t want to sit next to. My parents are like, oh, yeah. All right. Yep, yep. Wait till you have children.
And then you’ll be like sitting totally next to them, giving them the children. Take care of them. Then you’ll move back away. It’ll be like, you take care of them. We’re going Christmas shopping.
All right, dear ones, good to see you. We will be having, I just let you know, in Bremerton, like last year, we’ll be having a 6 p.m. Christmas Eve service. So that’ll be on Christmas Eve. That’ll be a Tuesday. The 24th is on a Tuesday this year. So just let you. We’re doing that with Discovery Fellowship again.
Will be a combined service with Discovery Fellowship, and we’ll have some Scripture readings and stuff. If anybody wants to be a Scripture reader, let me know.
All right. So, yeah. All right. We’re going through. We’re there, man. We’re almost on the last month of our Bible reading. I don’t want to embarrass you or anything. You guys keeping up? Anybody keeping up? Good. Stevan, you keeping up? Good? Anybody else close to keeping up? All right, you guys doing it? Good. Good. You didn’t like the new didn’t like the new living translation? I made it 75%.
All right, that’s fine. That’s fine. That’s good. That’s fine. I was borderline last year whether to buy half New Living and half New King James, because that’s the. They had the same one-year chronological track. And so. Yeah, so that’s fine.
All right, so we’re getting there to the end. We’re in Paul’s epistles tonight. We’re going to be in 1 Corinthians 12. 1 Corinthians 12. So open up your app or open up your Bible or just sit and listen. You know what I should do? Ach. I really should. Slick churches do this.
They just put the passage up there, then people can read it. Right? I should just do that every week, huh? I probably won’t, but I should. All right. I’m old school. It’s like, bring your Bibles, people. Bring your Bibles.
I remember we used to, man, back in the Jesus movement, we would all remember. Chuck Smith would hold up the Bible and all the hippies would hold up their Bibles. And we used to bring our Bibles, man, to church. New American Standard. And we even had names for.
Because you go to church, and you get these church bulletins, and you get these inserts and all that, and you just stuff them in your Bible. It’s like what I do with my car. I go to the mailbox, and I get mail. It’s mail that I don’t need. But, you know, it’s mail. It might be important, so I don’t throw it away. Then, you know, a month or two later, I’m just like, why did I just throw it all away?
And so we used to call all that stuff you get in your Bible and, you know, you’d pick up your Bible, you actually pick it up upside down, it’d all fall out. We used to call it Biblidoo. That was the name for it. It was Biblidoo. You got a lot of Biblidoo. Yeah. I need to clean out my Bible from Biblidoo.
All right, now, dear brothers and sisters, regarding your question about the special abilities the Spirit gives us. I don’t want you to misunderstand this.
1 Now, dear brothers and sisters, regarding your question about the special abilities the Spirit gives us. I don’t want you to misunderstand this. (1 Corinthians 12:1, NLT)
There you go, Karen. It doesn’t even say spiritual gifts. It just says the special abilities. But we know what he’s talking about.
You know that when you were still pagans, you were led astray and swept along and worshiping speechless idols. So I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus. And no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other and God.
2 You know that when you were still pagans, you were led astray and swept along in worshiping speechless idols. 3 So I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus, and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. 4 There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. 5 There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. 6 God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. 7 A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. (1 Corinthians 12:2-7, NLT)
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable. Lord, in your sight, you are a rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer.
So tonight I’m going to talk about spiritual gifts. I’m not going to list the gifts and talk about each one individually. Actually, there are four places, not just one place.
1 Corinthians 12 is the most famous place, but there are four places that list spiritual gifts: Romans, I believe it’s in 10, Ephesians 4, and then 1 Peter as well. I think 3 or 5. I’m sorry, I didn’t do my homework. But all four of those places list different spiritual gifts.
The lists are not identical. Some are repeated. Some are unique to each list, but they all list spiritual gifts.
Now, what are the Spirituals? I call them the Spirituals. What are the Spirituals? They’re not natural, but supernatural or spiritual in nature. We all have DNA. We all have genetics. We’ve gotten things passed on from our ancestors, and oftentimes. And everybody’s different.
Everybody’s a different soup. And those soups kind of create in us as natural human beings things we have an aptitude for. And there are other things that we don’t have an aptitude for. And we tend to call those, which I actually think is really great because it acknowledges God whether people realize it or not. We call them natural gifts. All right, you may be.
And another way of looking at it is there are seven different types of intelligences, isn’t there, Jamie? Seven. I figured you’d know that. I figured iko, you know, seven different kinds of intelligences.
All right, well, obviously knowing the types of intelligences is not one of you two ladies’ types of intelligence, but I think there’s seven. And, you know, mathematical, language, bodily intelligence, you know, athletic intelligence, musical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence. You know, really people, you know, politicians, you know, you really can connect with people anyway. Everybody’s got some of those.
And if you grew up in school and you didn’t have two in particular, if you grew up in school and you didn’t have mathematical or language intelligence, those are the two intelligences typically focused on in schools. And you were. You were probably considered stupid or slow or dumb. you’re not.
One of them is spatial intelligence. Right. Which mechanics and people and contractors, people who work with their hands as well as engineers, tend to have. They see how things fit together. I had great mathematical intelligence. I really did.
I was really a math whiz, but I had never met a good engineer, because I don’t have. Because that’s not married with spatial intelligence. I’m just, you know, when, you know, I’m trying to, you know, I.
I lefty loosey, you know, lefty loosey, righty tighty. I get that wrong. Is this left or right? What am I? You know, Jill’s go. My wife’s like, turn it the other way. Oh, okay, just. I’m dumb as a bag of hammers on that, but I’m pretty good with memory.
I’m pretty good with memorizing Bible verses, directions, and people’s names. And I was really good. Because I was good with memory, I was really good with math as a kid. But not spatial intelligence, not at all.
I wanted to be an athlete, and I wasn’t a complete dork, all right? I don’t like fall down putting my clothes on. I know people who do. I had a certain level of coordination, but I wasn’t an athlete. I wasn’t a gifted athlete at all.
And so those are natural gifts, spiritual gifts, dear ones, and you’ve all got them. There’s not a stupid person in this room. Actually, that’s not true. Everybody in this room is smart at something more than one thing, a couple of things. Two or three of those intelligences you’re pretty good at. And every one of you is really dumb as a bag of hammers at a couple of those things, all right? And that’s just the way it is. That’s just the way it is.
And so just realize that there’s no stupid people and there’s no smart people, all right? Spiritual gifts are not that. Spiritual gifts are manifestations of this presence of the Holy Spirit in the church where God, supernaturally, the God of miracles, supernaturally gifts us to do the ministry of Jesus.
And the ministry of Jesus is multifaceted, all right? And it can be something that we would look at as natural, let’s say, like cleaning the church. Well, how is that a supernatural gift? Well, what if you do it joyfully?
And what if you do it insightfully in ways that. And you just have ideas and concepts that wouldn’t usually come to you on how to really make that place the place for the people of God to worship. So it could be service. It could be something that’s obviously a spiritual gift, healing, spontaneous healing. It’s like none of us on our own without the miraculous gift of God can lay our hands on the sick and say, get better and they get better. But it happens gifts of healing.
So some of them look more miraculous, some of them look more natural. But in fact, they are all, when they’re given by the Spirit of God, are all manifestations of his nature. And they’re spiritual, not natural in the Spirit. You can actually be good at things that you’re not naturally good at. So God gives gifts to people in his church. They are given freely by God. They’re not earned or deserved. However, you can ask for them, you can pursue them, you can seek them. And in fact, we’re instructed to do so.
First Corinthians 14 says, earnestly desire spiritual gifts. The word there for earnestly desire, the Greek word, is xalato, which is the same word we get the word zealous. Zealously desire, passionately desire spiritual gifts.
1Let love be your highest goal! But you should also desire the special abilities the Spirit gives especially the ability to prophesy (1 Corinthians 14:1, NLT)
Why? Because it’s the ministry of Jesus. You signed up to do the ministry of Jesus. You need the Spirit to do the ministry of Jesus. You need his gifts to do the ministry of Jesus. You can’t do it. Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. You need God’s spirit to do the work of Jesus.
You can do impressive things with natural gifts, and they can look impressive to the world. But they, in fact, if you’re doing them naturally, have no spiritual impact. And remember, God always sees things differently than we do.
They’re given by the will of God and at the direction of God. He decides what gifts to give to the person or people he wants to give them to, what time to give them those gifts, what measure to give them those gifts. He is the gift giver. And so it’s at his will and his discretion. God, we’re your dime. Spend us how you want.
I don’t know if some of you young people know what a dime is, but it’s a small coin and it’s a means of exchanging goods and services. Though a dime won’t get you much nowadays. Used to get you a cup of coffee and a phone call, but not anymore.
It’s really. What is it? Where is it? Where is it? Oh, yeah, it’s an old fashioned one of these. All right, just let you know. All right. So service. The gifts are for service.
It’s interesting when people started talking a lot about spiritual gifts. I remember in the 70s, it became a real topic as the charismatic movement started and everybody started talking about spiritual gifts. I mean, it really got a lot of buzz and people would talk about, well, these are my gifts.
All right, I’m going to talk about that some more as one of the misconceptions of the gifts. But they’re God’s gifts given through us for somebody else.
In fact, if you operate in spiritual gifts of that trinity, the God, you, and the person who’s being ministered to, the person operating in the Spiritual gifts in some ways is the least important.
When you’re operating in the Spiritual gifts, you are a hose. you’re like a water hose. All right? God is the source, and the garden is the person that the water is to go on the garden.
The person you’re ministering to, you are simply the conduit through which the goodness of God comes to one of his people or his peoples, the church or the world. you’re the conduit through which the goodness of God comes to them.
And so really, spiritual gifts are God’s gifts to the church and the world. And glory be through us. How cool is that? You get to be used by God to bring heaven to earth. And that’s what spiritual gifts do, all right? You get to be used by God to bring heaven to earth.
You get to be the wire that brings the electricity, the hose that brings the water. All right? You are the vessel that God uses.
And by the way, this is entirely consistent throughout Scripture. We have this idea of God’s sovereignty, that God just does what he wants and it just happens and he waves his hand. But you know what? When God wanted to get a people from Egypt to the promised land, he didn’t just transport them there, he used Moses and Joshua. Right? God.
In fact, throughout the Bible, when God wanted to bring his goodness to the earth, he used Adam and Eve. And he said, be fruitful and multiply and spread over the earth and bring my goodness, bring my kingdom over all the earth.
God always, as best I know in the Scripture, he always uses people to accomplish his will. When God wanted to save the planet, he used a people. He used. First he used the Jews, and then he used a particular Jew, Jesus, fully human, to save the planet and fully God.
Because none of us, fully human without being fully God could do it. But neither could fully God. Listen, this might sound like heresy to you, but it’s true. Neither could fully God without being fully human do it. Because that’s the way God set it up when he gave Adam and Eve this world and said, you are my co regents over this world. Now what happens on this world, whether it’s spiritual or natural, happens through the agreement, participation and willingness of humans. God wants to lead people to Christ.
He doesn’t zap them into his kingdom; he sends an evangelist. Even in Islam, where people are having Muslim dreams. Or Muslim. I’m sorry, where Jesus is having Muslim dreams. No, Muslims are having Jesus dreams. All right?
You just gotta realize it’s Sunday night, it’s been a long day, I’m 65. It’s kinda like any of you old enough. Remember the movie? What was it? It’s a bad movie. I shouldn’t even admit that I watched this, but I did Animal House and John Belusi gives that speech. He says it’s like when the Germans attack Pearl Harbor.
And one of the guys, he’s all fired up in his speech. And when the Germans attack Pearl Harbor and guy turns to Germans, he goes, leave him alone. He’s on a roll.
All right, you take my meaning? I’m on a roll. Muslims having Jesus dreams. You think, well, that’s God sovereignly converting people. No, it’s not. Because when Muslims have Jesus dreams, the content of the dream is often, most of the time, Jesus appears to the Muslim in the dream and says, go talk to so and so.
And he directs them to a Christian who shares the gospel with him. When Paul got knocked off his horse and Jesus spoke to him, the process wasn’t complete. He sends Ananias to lay his hands on him, baptize him, and clarify the gospel for him. God uses people all the time. In fact, the Muslim dreams only started when God inspired the church in the west to make a concentrated effort on praying for the 1040 window.
And one of the fruits of that has been, over the last 30 years, Muslims having dreams about Jesus in the 10/40 window.
God uses people, and that’s what the gifts are. It’s bringing the ministry of the Lord to the church and to the world. And he uses little old us, ordinary people.
All right. I love what he tells the Corinthians. If Christians get proud and think, oh, I’m so clever and I’m so gifted. And Paul’s talking to the Corinthians. He says, isn’t it great that God didn’t choose the wise and the rich and the sophisticated?
He took the foolish things of the world. Ta da. Here we are. Here we are. We’re the foolish things in the world. God uses an ordinary garden hose and waters an extraordinary garden. That’s us. We’re both the garden and the hose in that situation. So spiritual gifts are how God brings the ministry of Jesus to the world. It is his power working through a believer to produce the fruit of God, to produce what God desires. It is, in fact, God’s tool belt of love. God gives us two things when he gives us the Holy Spirit.
Well, he gives us more than two things, but these two stand out to me. One is the fruit of the Spirit. That is the character of Jesus. Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control. Against such things, there is no law. I pray all the time. You guys know Kevinism 212. Whichever one it is, Lord, I pray we’d be more like Jesus when we walk out that door than when we come in. you’ve heard me Say that at least twice, right? All right. So you know, that’s. There it is.
That’s the fruit of the Spirit. I want to be more like Jesus in character. I want to be a better man. I want to be more loving. I want to be more kind. I want to be more faithful. I want to be more joyful, more peaceful. I want to be more gentle. I want to be more self-controlled. I want that fruit to grow in my life.
And we know that that fruit grows in our life not necessarily through moral effort, but through intimacy with Christ. And then the Spirit grows that fruit in us.
The other thing the Spirit does. So the fruit is for the character of Jesus. The gifts are for the ministry of Jesus. The gifts are for the ministry of Jesus, and they are the tool belt of love.
All four places where spiritual gifts are mentioned, look them up in your Bible. But Corinthians is obvious. All four places wherever spiritual gifts are mentioned, either right before they’re mentioned or right after is a discussion about love. Why is that? Because spiritual gifts are the gifts that God gives his people to love the church and the world.
See, when you pray for somebody to be healed, that’s loving, right? That’s a loving thing to do. When you evangelize, that’s loving. When you serve, that’s loving. When you offer helps, that’s loving.
When you administrate in such a way that the kingdom of God begins to flow more naturally and smoothly because there aren’t obstacles that details that people like me don’t think about, that’s loving. All these things are the tool belt of love. That’s what.
And First Corinthians, right? First Corinthians 12 talks about all the Spiritual gifts. First Corinthians 13.
Anyone know what First Corinthians 13 is? It’s the love chapter. It’s the love chapter of the Bible. Every wedding people go to, they read 1 Corinthians 13.
You know what? 1 Corinthians 14 is more discussion on spiritual gifts. So spiritual gifts are parentheses around the love chapter. What’s Paul telling us? That’s not an accident. That’s not like, oh, I’m going to talk about spiritual gifts. Oh, wait, now I’m thinking about love. Oh, I’m thinking about. He’s not ADHD. It is entirely consistent. Here are the gifts God gives you.
But use these gifts in love, or otherwise, they’re useless. And here’s how to operate these gifts in the Spirit of love. So it’s God’s way to love people using spiritual gifts, all right? Misconceptions about the Spiritual gifts: only pastors and super saints move in the miraculous. Not true. Not true. It’s not just televangelists, all right.
John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard, used to say this. I loved it. Everybody gets to play. I like to say you did not get the, you know, the value size version of the Holy Spirit. And I got the supersized version because I went to seminary and got ordained. Same Holy Spirit lives in me. Lives in you.
What does that mean? Any spiritual gift that potentially can operate through me can potentially operate through you at the same level, anointing, whatever. Right? Agree with me on this. Everybody gets to play. Everybody gets to play. The Holy Spirit lives in you. All right?
And if he doesn’t, you need to be converted, born again, and filled with the Holy Spirit. And then the Holy Spirit will live in you. Same spirit.
And it’s a lie. The church has operated for 2000 years almost or very soon after the church, with bishops and pastors and popes and councils, and all that is fine in terms of the administration.
All right? One of the things the church does is the elders of the church set aside a particular elder for the ministry, maybe of ordering the church and being the primary teacher and preacher.
And those ministries are so important to us that we don’t want that person to have another full-time job. And so we set aside tithes and offerings so that that person can devote themselves to that full time. And, you know, we usually find somebody who’s a pretty good speaker and also in their natural giftedness, has no aptitude for any other job.
And voila, you get me. There it is. It’s like you don’t want me working on your cars, you know, and sportscasting is too narrow of a niche for me to get into. And after that I just don’t know. But it doesn’t make me some higher class of Christian than you.
We’re just people doing church together, just followers of Jesus. That’s how it works. So you don’t have to be a super saint or a pastor to move in the miraculous. You have to be a follower of Jesus with the Holy Spirit when you’re converted. Here’s a misconception. When you’re converted, you got all the gifts or the one gift that you will ever have. This was so popular back in the day. What are your gifts or what’s your gift? People used to say all the time, what is your spiritual gift? your one singular spiritual gift.
Now, I agree that Paul says God gives a gift to everybody. But here’s the deal. In 1 Corinthians 12, I don’t think he’s talking about through life. I think he’s talking about. He says, when you come together, what? God distributes gifts.
So when you come together, God gives you a gift. And to one person, when you come together, he’s given this gift. And to another person, when you come together, he’s given this gift. When you come together, God distributes gifts.
And in that particular gathering, God may distribute to you a particular gift to exercise in that particular place, in that particular time, but you are not locked into one gift.
Oh, I got converted and I got the gift of service. Man, I really wish I could preach. I hate cleaning the church. But, you know, I got stuck with the gift of service. That’s what I got to do. It’s like, you know.
No, that’s why Paul says eagerly desire what? Spiritual gifts, plural. And then he even points one out. He says especially that you might prophesy because that edifies everybody.
Dear ones, I think, remember Batman? And he had. Batman had his belt. And everything Batman needed for any particular circumstance was on that belt. Spiritual gifts are the Batman belt of love. We all have the belt now.
It is true. I will say this. It is true partly because of what position we’re in the church and how we’ve been trained, and partly because of our natural disposition. There are particular tools in that spiritual gift belt that we use more comfortably and regularly.
And if you want to call those your gifts, go ahead. But you get to do it all. Oh, Kevin, I can’t evangelize. One day you’ll be called upon to do it. And guess what? The Holy Spirit will be there and he’ll gift you to do it. Service. I’ve talked about that a few times tonight. Anybody remember the old spiritual gift inventories they used to give you? And you would take these inventories and they would tell you what your gifts or gift or gifts are, and I would take them and they would always change.
I mean, there would be some that were similar, but it would change. I imagine if I took it today, it would be different than when I took it when I was in my 30s.
But one thing is, I remember, and they had more gifts than are listed in the Bible. And I think that’s okay. And one of the gifts, one of the gifts on there was service, which is kind of the gift of being willing to do the behind-the-scenes things that kind of grease the skids for other people.
You don’t like attention, but you love to help. And another gift they had on there was the gift of being a martyr. They believe that some people were actually gifted in martyrdom. I didn’t score real high in martyrdom. I was kind of middle range. I was kind of a mid-range martyr. But I thought, yeah, I’d take a bullet for Jesus. So, yeah, I got some points for martyrdom.
Service, I scored 0. I don’t want to push a vacuum. I don’t want to set up tables and take them down and do dishes. Are you kidding me? I hate that stuff. Zero. So I showed my wife, I said, look, I got eight in martyrdom and zero in service. And she said, I knew you would rather die than help.
But you know what? As a church planter, especially when I moved to Washington and, you know, church this size and stuff like that, especially when we started, everything Otts is doing that is so helpful, I had to do plus this, right? Everything Steven does when he comes and he sets up the communion, I had to do right in Bremerton.
I had to clean the church. I had to set up the table. I was always the first one there. I was always the last one to go home. And I had to do service. And guess what? God was with me. God was with me. And I could do it joyfully. And then I got even more joyful when people said, oh, we’ll do that, Pastor. Yes. Thank you. God bless you. God bless you. I love servants. They are the best. They are the engineers of the Spiritual gifting world. They’re just the best people. I love servants.
People go, I don’t know about miracles, Pastor, but I would love to do the behind the scenes. Yes. I don’t want to get paid or have notoriety. Great, we’ve got a spot for you. I want to teach Sunday school. Amen. Amen. Good. All right. But you’ve got all the gifts available to you. They might not manifest at all times, but when you need them, they’ll be there. Miraculous gifts were given primarily to authenticate the apostles. Well, it does say in the Bible that the apostles are authenticated by signs, wonders and miracles.
But it doesn’t say that those are the only use of those gifts. It just says that those gifts were used to authenticate the apostles. Those gifts were used to point to Jesus.
There are also instances in the New Testament where people who weren’t apostles, that is Stephen and Agabus. Agabus’s daughters operated in miraculous gifts. The church at Antioch operated in miraculous gifts.
Philip was a deacon. There was a Philip the Apostle. But in Acts, the Philip who went to Samaria was a deacon. He wasn’t an apostle. He operated in miraculous gifts.
So people say miraculous gifts were simply given for a short period of time to authenticate the ministry of the apostles because we’re the most biblical people on the planet. And that’s what it says.
They are not the most biblical people on the planet. They ignore other parts of the Bible that say differently. They ignore other parts of the Bible that say differently.
Miraculous gifts were given to authenticate the apostles. They’re also given to glorify Jesus and gain a hearing for the gospel.
In the west, many people are converted through the loving kindness of a neighbor, friend, or family member and the simple verbal witness, maybe some apologetics thrown in, of the Gospel. In Africa, that is true, but what else is true is last statistics said that at least, and this is the fastest growing continent in terms of Christianity on the planet right now, people said 80% of Africans came to faith and one of the elements of their conversion was a miracle. True of the house churches in China as well.
All right, it’s only in the west where people look askance at miracles. And I would say that has less to do with what the Bible historically teaches about miracles and their place in the church and more to do with a Western rationalistic worldview that is out of balance. It’s not that rationalism is bad. It’s not that the enlightenment is bad.
We’ve got great benefits because of scientific thinking and enlightenment reasoning. Reason is a gift from God. It’s a great gift from God, but it’s a bad God. And when it becomes God, we lose something.
And so, miracles do authenticate the apostles, but they also show up to say Jesus is here. Something amazing is here.
Seeking spiritual gifts, that just shows you don’t trust God and are not content with the Bible. No, seeking spiritual gifts means you do trust God. You read his Bible, and he said earnestly, desire to seek spiritual gifts. It’s in the Bible.
When you’re seeking spiritual gifts, you’re not saying you’re not content with God. you’re saying, I’m not content with the level of my effectiveness in thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
I want to be used more and more effectively by God to bring the goodness of the Lord into the land of the living. And that’s a good thing not to be content with. I don’t care how much God uses you. Always ask God to be used more. Always ask God to be used more.
I have no doubt Billy Graham went to his grave thinking, I just want to lead one more person to Jesus. I just want to lead one more person to Jesus. That’s what seeking spiritual gifts is. People will also say this, oh, you should seek his face, not his hands. In other words, you should seek intimacy with Jesus, not just the stuff Jesus does.
Okay, fair enough. And I think people can make the mistake of getting all wrapped up in the supernatural and the miraculous and forgetting who the supernatural and the miraculous is about. You can fall in love with the present more than the present giver. That is true. That’s a real risk.
But I want to tell you, if you find yourself seeking his hands, not his face, look up. They’re connected. It’s not like his hands are over here. It’s not like spiritual gifts are over here. And over on the other side of the room is intimacy with God.
They’re part of the same. It’s not a dichotomy. It’s not a dichotomy to seek God and to seek his gifts. Jill’s dad was Santa Claus. He was. If Jesus was the incarnation of the father, Jill’s dad was somewhat the incarnation of Santa Claus.
He made a nice living, loved his grandchildren, loved his family, loved Christmas, and he loved giving gifts to his grandchildren. He just loved it.
My youngest daughter, Caitlin, one time we got the family as a family gift for Christmas. This was back in the day where we had three channels on our TV and rabbit ears, and that was me growing up. But this was past the day where most, you know, cable was a real thing, and most kids had cable. Most households get cable. We didn’t. And basically, this was not a gift for them.
This was a gift. This is one of those Christmas gifts Dad buys for himself and says, oh, this is for the family. It’s like, I’m sick and tired of not watching games, all right? And I go to the kids and go, guess what, kids? This year we’re going to get cable.
My two oldest kids were excited. Yeah, great. My youngest was smart. And. Oh, and this is what I said. I said, and because of that, the Christmas tree will be a little sparser right underneath the Christmas tree. Because this is a family gift.
This is a big investment of money. It’s a monthly investment. You were on a budget. And, you know, we’re not gonna be able to afford as many, you know, sweaters and clothes and balls and whatever. And the old tool is. That’s fine. That’s fine.
My youngest, she asked the most important question. She said, will this affect Grandpa? He said, no, he has nothing to do with this. And she goes, oh, that’s fine. Because Christmas at our house was warm up, right? Real Christmas was Grandpa’s house. That was real Christmas. A few years ago, he passed away.
All his grandkids were at the. And we were all, of course, telling Christmas stories. September would come around and he would have a yellow piece of paper, you know, one of those legal pet right there, Karen. He would have a folded up legal pad piece of paper in his pocket. In September, the grandkids would come over. He’d pull it out and goes, I have the list. I’m making the list. And the kids would tell him stuff and he’d write it down on the list. Yeah. Oh, they were always nice to him.
They knew where their bread was buttered. So anyway, but at the funeral, this is. But he loved them. He wasn’t trying to buy love. It was an expression of his love and his joy that he could do it.
And he loved doing it. He had more joy in it. They enjoyed it. I’m not lying. I ain’t gonna lie. They enjoyed it. But he had. He had more, by far. He had more joy in doing it than they did.
And when he got older and they had less money, the gifts weren’t as, you know, he didn’t get as many. But the kids, that didn’t diminish their feelings for Grandpa or their joy and excitement around Christmas at Grandpa’s house one bit.
And when he died, I can tell you in complete honesty, his eight grandchildren would have given every gift back they ever got from him for one more Christmas with Grandpa. You know, they had no confusion between the face and the hands. They knew it was all the same person.
God gives good gifts because he’s a good God. All right? If all you’re looking at is hands, look up the face. Isn’t hard to find.
Another misconception on the gifts. When spiritual gifts are abused, they should be shut down. I watch these discernment ministries. I don’t know why I do this. It just aggravates me. But I watch these discernment ministries and they say, well, you know, these people, they got these prophecies wrong. That’s why we shouldn’t have prophecy in the church. All right? Where else in life do we say if something is abused, we should shut it down?
Americans abuse eating ever since sugar and all these products they put in our food became a thing. My generation was kind of the first generation that was exposed to that. And we got addicted to bad eating habits. And dear ones, those are not easy to change. I’ve tried my whole life. It is not easy.
You know, people say, well, you should lose weight. I have lost. I probably lost a ton in my life. I just, you know, and then I found it. It’s lost and found. It’s like I lost it. And six months later it’s like, oh, great, I found it. Yeah, it was hidden in the pantry.
There is so, all right, Americans abuse food. All right? We just thought eating is bad, we ought to quit eating bad. You know, there’s sexual immorality, there’s rape. We just thought. Everybody just cracked me up at the election.
You had all these women, you know, they’re, oh, Trump’s such a misogynist, and you know, the toxic masculinity, and you know, we’re not going to have sex with anybody anymore. It’s like, great, less 20-year-old women having promiscuous sex. I’ve been wanting abortion numbers to come down anyway. Good. It’s like finally.
See, I always knew there was a point of contact between liberals and conservatives. There it is. We agree you should abstain from sex. And looking at your shaved or blue head, I shouldn’t say this, but the line probably wasn’t that long.
Anyway, enough said. All right, dear ones, but that doesn’t mean that marital sex is a bad thing. It’s a good thing. Creates intimacy, makes babies. We’re not going to shut down just because. Just because the things abused throughout life. Wrong use is never the answer to wrong use or abuse is never non-use. It’s right use.
That’s exactly what Corinthians is written about. The Corinthians were using the Spiritual gifts wrong. They were using the Spiritual gifts to elevate their own spiritual pride, which is a deadly sin. It’s a horrible sin.
I speak in tongues more than you do. Neener neenerskebiners. See, I just did. That’s where neener neener scabiners got started. It was a tongue. I heal more than you do. I prophesy more than you do. This person, this apostle is more spiritual than this apostle. I follow this more spiritual apostle. You follow the less spiritual apostle.
And Paul writes Corinthians and says, stupid, knock it off. One Lord, one God, we all follow Jesus. His gifts are given to the church as a manifestation of love. Now here’s how you use them, not stop using them. Always.
The answer for any abuse in anything, spiritual gifts or anything else is not non use but right use. Be instructed, do it right. If you ever used a spiritual gift, you can always use it with the same effectiveness, intensity and anointing.
If you healed the sick once, you should be able to heal. You know, people say, well, if you’ve got the gift of healing, why don’t you walk in the hospital and empty out the hospital? Well, Jesus didn’t do that. Jesus healed everybody who came to him. He didn’t heal everybody.
He healed everybody who asked, but he didn’t heal everybody. People were dropping like flies around you. I don’t imagine there was like a three-year period in Galilee where nobody died, where Jesus is just raising them all. He only raised three. I bet more than three people died, in fact.
Listen, Jesus went to Nazareth and could perform very few miracles because of their unbelief. If Jesus’ giftedness in miracles was hampered by a region’s unbelief, how much more ours.
There are several factors why spiritual gifts arise and diminish in different settings, in different times, in different situations. And that’s a soup we can’t always figure out. And that’s all right. You don’t have to figure it out. Just operate in the gifts.
Ach and I were talking Thursday at Bible study, and I was sharing a season in my life where the anointing of the Holy Spirit, at least for people to be slain in the Spirit and fall down, was so powerful that I could look at a group of people standing 12 ft away at a wall talking, and I could wave my hand and say, Jesus come.
And those people, not knowing or seeing that I did that, would fall to the ground, often laughing hysterically. I’m not sure what good that did.
Now, it did have, at least for me, great entertainment value. But I’m not sure that was God’s intention that I just have fun knocking people over. So I kind of cooled it on that. But that doesn’t exist anymore.
Well, let me try. Jesus come. Jesus come. Otz is an easy target. Jesus come. Okay, there. I said, man, I’d love that again, that was fun. But for some reason, the Pacific Northwest, I mean, people still fall when I pray for them, but not in the same frequency, not in the same.
That kind of intensity that was on that church and on those people at that time is not present anymore. God, is that because I’ve sinned? Have I grieved your Holy Spirit and chased him away?
And when I pray that, it’s like, no, that’s not really the answer I get. I don’t get this big conviction that, yeah, you really blowing it or anything like that. It’s just what it is. It’s just what it is. Different place, different season.
And so, you know, I really don’t blame myself. You know, I blame you, but I don’t blame me. That was a joke. All right. Do you get that? All right. Good, good. All right.
I was with one person one time, and we were lamenting, and we both would do this, we’d both beat ourselves up. Oh, the church isn’t growing. We must be a failure. Finally, one time this person was doing it, and they said, oh, yeah, why doesn’t the church grow? I must be doing a bad job. I just looked at him and said, yeah, you are so. But it was a joke. All right.
Oh, one of the misconceptions. Spiritual gifts aren’t necessary now that we have the Bible. That’s ridiculous. That’s ridiculous. That creates a false trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Book. That’s a heresy.
Of course, spiritual gifts are necessary now. Why? Paul said eagerly desire spiritual gifts. They’re necessary. When you say spiritual gifts aren’t necessary now, what you’re saying is we can do it in our own power because we have the Bible. We have, but it’s not true. Biblical preaching doesn’t convert people.
Biblical preaching under the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon them and upon the preacher converts people. Biblical teaching doesn’t edify people. Biblical teaching under the anointing of the teacher and the Holy Spirit edifies people. Not by might, not by power, but by my book, no, but by my Spirit, says the Lord.
The Bible teaches us to operate in the gifts of the Spirit. The Bible is incredibly useful for teaching, rebuke, instruction, training in righteousness. I love the Bible. I talk about it every week to you people if you haven’t figured that out.
Last 40, 50 years of my life, I’ve read it every day, and it says earnestly desire spiritual gifts. It says it’s God’s power working through us that accomplishes his objective. It’s not us.
All right. The more spectacular the gift, the more spiritual the person. Now, there is some truth to the more intimacy you have with Jesus, the more ease the gifts will flow through you. I do believe that. But I also know there is not a direct one-on-one correlation between godly character and spiritual giftedness. It just isn’t there.
There have been some very flawed people who carry a very powerful anointing. And there have been some very godly good people who, at least on the outside don’t seem to operate in much spiritual power. Now, I wish God would do it the other way because it makes more sense to me. The best people get the biggest gifts. The best people get the most remarkable gifts because they can handle it the best. That’s just by my observation. That’s just not how it works. Now. You can’t tell a fruit. You can’t tell a tree by its fruit.
If somebody’s just a total rotten scoundrel, I wouldn’t trust them, even if they operated in great power. I would think, well, maybe they’re operating in a different kind of power, or maybe they’ve learned to traffic in God’s power, but they don’t have godliness.
I would much rather have a godly person operate in the church than an ungodly person with a lot of power. But again, I think we’re talking about a false dichotomy for the most part. It’s not, oh, you’ve got fruit but no gifts, or oh, you’ve got gifts but no fruit.
The whole point of the firehouse church is what? Not either or, but both and you have not received a spirit of timidity, but what? A spirit of power, a spirit of love, and a spirit of sound mind. All of the above. They come together finally.
7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. (2 Timothy 1:7, NLT)
The only gifts are the gifts that are listed in the Bible that, you know, I’ll give you. That could be true, but I don’t think it has to absolutely be true. Why? I mean, I’ve had people lead worship, and I don’t see who I felt like were incredibly anointed, leading worship, incredibly gifted to lead worship, and that’s not listed in the Bible.
Listen, I think the Bible reveals God to us, but it doesn’t contain him. He’s bigger than his book. In fact, here’s something that is in the Bible. Everything that Jesus did on earth is not recorded in the Bible, says John at the end of his gospel.
In fact, if I recorded everything he did, and I think he’s speaking hyperbolically here, he said all the books and all the libraries in the world couldn’t contain it. I think 2,000 years ago, when John said that, he was saying it hyperbolically.
I think now it’s closer to the truth than it ever was because he’s continued through spiritual gifts to operate in and through his people for 2,000 years. And Jesus, the Book of Acts. My dear Theopolis, I wrote to you before about everything that Jesus began to do and teach.
In other words, in the Book of Acts is about everything Jesus continues to do and teach. How is Jesus continuing to do and teach when he’s ascended at the right hand of the Father, the Holy Spirit, filling his church with spiritual gifts to do the ongoing ministry of Jesus. So we are Acts, ends with Acts, chapter 28. We are Acts, chapter 29. Jesus is continuing to operate through the foolish things of the world. Turn to somebody next to you and say, that’s a good description for you. you’re the foolish things of the world. All right.
You’re the foolish things of the world. That’s just great. That’s, you know, I just want to. I should put that up in my office. Kev, you’re one of the foolish things of the world. Which means what? I am qualified. Qualified to be filled by the Holy Spirit of God and become an incredible.
And to become an ordinary conduit bringing incredible goodness and power to the church and the world by the Holy Spirit. Jesus continues to touch the world through ordinary people. And that’s me. That’s what spiritual gifts are. Why wouldn’t you earnestly desire them?
We’re getting into the gift-giving season, so why don’t you be like one of my kids with their grandpa. Just picture Jesus coming to you with a yellow legal pad saying, I got my list, I got my. Oh, this year I’d like to prophesy. Oh, this year I’d like to heal.
Some of you. Some of you, I just want you to sign up and say, oh, this year I just want to serve the church. Good, good, good. Do that, do that. All right. Whatever it is. Listen, I used to preach at.
I used to preach at churches. My friends would have me preach, and they’d say, and they preach at these good. And I’m not picking up, but they preach at these good Bible churches. You know, they believe the Bible. My friends are good Bible teachers, but they wanted a little more. They wanted a little revival. They wanted a little dose of the ghost.
And they’d bring me in to preach, and I would preach on this passage. And here’s what I would. I preach on 1 Corinthians 14:1. And I’d say, and here was the.
Because I’m a provocateur, I like to stick people. Here was the title of my sermon: It’s a Sin to be open to the Holy Spirit. They’re like, what, Kevin? I thought you were here to preach to us about the Holy Spirit. I am.
Eagerly desire, be zealous for, be passionate for. Don’t be like, oh, well, if God wants to do this, it’s okay. No, be like my youngest daughter: I Want. Or my grandson Theo. For years, I just gave him a new nickname. His name was Theo. We called him Teddy.
We had all sorts of nicknames. I just called him I Want because he just walked into my house, go to the pantry, go. I Want, I want, I want. Wait for your mother to leave, dude. All right, then it’s on. Then Grandpa modes in. But you know, I Want, I Want, I Want. His name was I Want.
Now, that’s not an admirable trait in people to be selfish. But when it comes to wanting more of the goodness of the Lord, to operate through your life to love and bless other people, you can get all just.
I think God likes those prayers. I think that’s why Paul says earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you might prophesy. God likes those prayers.
So, God, this Christmas season, I know we can’t put up Christmas gifts or Christmas decorations until after the holiday of Jamie’s birthday. That’s the marker. Before that, nope, no decorations. I used to think it was Thanksgiving, but now I know it’s November 28th every year.
All right, I got him. Tell Jill we’re going to be good on Jamie’s birthday. But, Lord, this season of gifts, Lord, would you pour out spiritual gifts? I always pray that we’ll be more like Jesus in character when we leave this room. I pray that we’ll be more like Jesus in ministry when we leave this room.
We’ll be more fruitful evangelists. We’ll be humbler and more efficient servants. We’ll be better teachers. We’ll be better administrators, will be better miracle workers. Lord, if our prayer life is languishing, you can give us the gift of praying in tongues so our prayer life is enhanced.
You can give us the gift of interpreting tongues. That would be fun to have. They have all the tongue talkers speak up in church, and then one person go, oh, I know what they said. Here’s one that I’d like that’s not in the Bible. I have prophetic dreams all the time. I think I need somebody with the Spiritual gift of dream interpretation.
All right, I need somebody to pray for the Spiritual gift of dream interpretation to help me out. Because I pray for interpretations. They come, but not always and sometimes slowly. I need somebody say, oh, I know what God’s saying. All right, so pray for that one. All right, good.
All right, dear ones, we pray that you would pour out gifts. We pray that you would pour out gifts. And, Lord, we acknowledge we’re not seeking your hands without. you’re the gift. you’re the gift giver. you’re the gift. We love you. And because we love everything about you, we love the gifts. We love to be used by you in powerful and wonderful ways to bring the goodness of Jesus into our church and our world.
And so we ask that you pour out gifts. We thank you for the greatest gift of your Son. We thank you that on the night he was betrayed, he took bread and he broke it. And he clarified the Passover. What the Passover was always pointing to was him.
And he taught his disciples that Lamb, that was a picture of me. And my body is going to be broken and my blood is going to be shed. And in one night, in one day, I will wipe out the sins of the world.
The great gift of the forgiveness of sins. The great gift of the New Covenant where we have fellowship with God now and forever. Where we get a preview of the Messianic kingdom here on this broken earth. Because we know the Messiah, we know the King. And it fills us with great joy and hope in a painful and broken world.
For that gift, we give you thanks. And we would like more gifts operating through us so that that gift will become more evident in our own local church and in the world.
Lord, even as we take communion tonight, impart to us the life and the gifts of Christ. We pray it in Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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