SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone, I'm Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Steve Boltz.
SPEAKER_01: I want to welcome you to the Road Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Each week we go into God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: We teach chapter by chapter and verse by verse.
SPEAKER_01: We are here to build the Kingdom of God revolution through empowering people to change the world.
SPEAKER_01: So we pray this will minister to you at your heart level and change your life.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you have your Bibles, this is actually not the passage we're going to look at to study today, but I also want to quickly look at John 14.
SPEAKER_01: If you would look at John 14, and we're talking about the power and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And I thought last weekend what was so cool was there was a modeling going on of healing and faith.
SPEAKER_01: Those are the two gifts that we saw exhibited: healing and faith.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll talk about that today, how spiritual gifts shade each other.
SPEAKER_01: They shade each other.
SPEAKER_01: And what I mean by that is they tend to go together.
SPEAKER_01: And so hard and fast definitions, be careful with that.
SPEAKER_01: Be careful with definitions.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to give you some because we're going to be looking at a particular sort of like constellation.
SPEAKER_01: You'll hear me use that word a lot, constellations of spiritual gifts.
SPEAKER_01: But look at John 14, because in John 14, there's this promise given by Jesus starting in verse 12 that leads into the fact that this promise can't happen without the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in me, the works, and I've got that underlined in my Bible, the works that I do, he will do also, and greater works than these he will do, because I go to my Father.
SPEAKER_01: So here's this incredible promise that what you've seen me doing, that the healing, the casting out of demons, the proclamation of the kingdom, and the life that I've modeled, you'll do.
SPEAKER_01: Every one of my disciples will do.
SPEAKER_01: I'm reading a book right now called Dominion.
SPEAKER_01: And this book is talking about how Christianity has taken over the world, how the revolution of Christianity has taken over the world.
SPEAKER_01: And it's just Christian history, and I love that kind of stuff, but it's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: And what you see throughout history is this that greater works flowed through the church, and Christ needed to leave for those greater works to happen.
SPEAKER_01: Because with Jesus, men and women, he was one man at one place, at one time, filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Look what he says next, because this is key.
SPEAKER_01: He says, And whatever you ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
SPEAKER_01: If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we're doing ten days of prayer.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we're doing ten days of prayer because when we come in on that 7 a.m.
SPEAKER_01: time at the chapel, we're asking God for stuff.
SPEAKER_01: We're believing God for stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what he says.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to see the greater works, ask me for it.
SPEAKER_01: Cry out to me for it, and I'll give it to you.
SPEAKER_01: But look what he says next.
SPEAKER_01: And this relates to the power and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: If you love me, keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_01: And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another helper, that he may abide with you forever.
SPEAKER_01: The Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.
SPEAKER_01: But you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
SPEAKER_01: I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you.
SPEAKER_01: So he's directly talking about the Holy Spirit of truth is going to come.
SPEAKER_01: So with the ascension of Christ, and then according to how you look at it historically, either nine days or ten days later, at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down and empowered this cowardly, this scared, this fearful group of 120 and turned them into revolutionaries that changed the world.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's true for you.
SPEAKER_01: That the Holy Spirit wants to flow with such measure.
SPEAKER_01: You can have as much of the measure of the Spirit as you desire.
SPEAKER_01: If you just want a little bit, you can have a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: If you want a lot, you can have a lot.
SPEAKER_01: And so the Spirit is moving, and so the spiritual gifts that we're studying, men and women, is how the Spirit works.
SPEAKER_01: Do you hear what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01: So the way the Spirit works in our lives is through the giftings and the power of the Holy Spirit flowing through us.
SPEAKER_01: So can we open in prayer as we dive into this great series that we're doing together?
SPEAKER_01: So, Father, in the name of the blood of Jesus, I just thank you for the word and the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I thank you, Lord, that you're at work in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: I thank you, Lord, that you're empowering us and strengthening us.
SPEAKER_01: I want to thank you, Lord, for last weekend.
SPEAKER_01: Seeing the gift of faith and the gift of healing at work through Mark and his whole team, through many of us and through the ministry team, and how many were touched and healed is amazing.
SPEAKER_01: So we give you all the glory, Lord, and we praise you and we thank you.
SPEAKER_01: In your name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: I want you all to write something down here.
SPEAKER_01: If you're taking notes, write this down.
SPEAKER_01: We serve one God eternally existing in three distinct persons.
SPEAKER_01: I'm giving you a theological equipping time here at the beginning because I want you to understand that we have the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit at work.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm and I'm focusing right now on the Holy Spirit, but I want us to understand that it's called the Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: You've heard the term Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people get confused about Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: So look at this definition.
SPEAKER_01: It's really important.
SPEAKER_01: We serve one God, one God, eternally existing in three distinct persons.
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians 4, we read, there is one body and one spirit, just as you are called in, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all.
SPEAKER_01: So when we baptize here at the road, we baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Now, some people have humorously said that the Holy Spirit is the stepchild of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason they say that is because there's a lot of emphasis on Father God.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of emphasis on Jesus, but a lot of times the Holy Spirit gets kind of left in the dust.
SPEAKER_01: And so at the road, and in our teaching here, we want to give expression to the Holy Spirit, because this is, men and women, how Jesus and the Father manifest themselves in your life is through the power and the work of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen to what I'm going to say next, really important.
SPEAKER_01: That even though Jesus was divine, fully God, he was also, listen, he was fully man.
SPEAKER_01: So what was it that enabled him to not sin?
SPEAKER_01: What enabled him to do the miracles that he did do?
SPEAKER_01: It was the Holy Spirit living in him.
SPEAKER_01: So he was, he was the, we could say he was the perfect spirit-filled human.
SPEAKER_01: The perfect spirit-filled human who also was divine.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you can figure all that out, man, my hat's off to you because nobody's ever quite figured out how that works.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what I'm saying today.
SPEAKER_01: We serve one God.
SPEAKER_01: Say it with me.
SPEAKER_01: We serve one God, eternally existing, and three distinct persons.
SPEAKER_01: So that's important.
SPEAKER_01: So we're not neglecting the Father.
SPEAKER_01: We're not neglecting Jesus to talk about the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It's the same thing, one God.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when we look at what God's done in your life and in my life, it's because of the work of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So listen, one baptism, we just read that in Ephesians 4.
SPEAKER_01: One baptism.
SPEAKER_01: See, whoa, whoa, whoa, tell me the baptism of the Holy Spirit and filling of the Holy Spirit, and all this kind of confusion can happen.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, when you receive Christ, you're baptized into the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you have a baptism of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: But listen, this is really important.
SPEAKER_01: We have subsequent fillings.
SPEAKER_01: We have subsequent fillings of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Now, some, in certain parts of the body of Christ, especially more in the Pentecostal realm, call the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a manifestation when you speak in tongues.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I believe that can happen.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care about the vernacular that much, but I do care about theology.
SPEAKER_01: So what I believe is that there's subsequent fillings.
SPEAKER_01: And what happened up here last weekend is really important because in some cases you came forward and you didn't feel anything.
SPEAKER_01: Person prayed for you and you shared your heart and nothing happened.
SPEAKER_01: That's what you thought.
SPEAKER_01: And then you went home and suddenly felt this intimacy with God that hadn't been there, or you suddenly had a desire to read God's word, or you had a desire to know God in a deeper way.
SPEAKER_01: And maybe for some of us none of that happened.
SPEAKER_01: The reality is your willingness and your availability to be here and to be touched by God is your responsibility.
SPEAKER_01: What God does is his responsibility.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: So don't put, don't hang that stuff on you.
SPEAKER_01: That's that's not your deal.
SPEAKER_01: That's up to God what he does.
SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you so many times, I tell you that most of the time when I feel nothing, God's doing the most.
SPEAKER_01: You know why?
SPEAKER_01: Because I think what happens is we get hooked on a feeling.
SPEAKER_01: I think there was a song in the 70s called Hooked on a Feeling, okay?
SPEAKER_01: There's a that we get hooked on a feeling, and so what happens is we become emotional believers instead of faith believers.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to walk by faith, not by sight.
SPEAKER_01: Now it's great when sometimes God comes and you feel the heat or you feel the experience of the Lord and you go, man, I was healed dramatically, or I trembled, or whatever it was, because everybody responded in different ways.
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
SPEAKER_01: That's a subsequent filling of the Holy Spirit that was there.
SPEAKER_01: But you know what I'd rather see?
SPEAKER_01: What I'd rather see is that we come out of a weekend like that and we're more in love with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes we get healed and sometimes we don't, and I am not the manufacturer or gonna hype something that wasn't there.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna tell you right now that God does heal and then sometimes he doesn't, but guess what he's doing when he does it in the physical?
SPEAKER_01: He's doing something deep in the spiritual.
SPEAKER_01: Now I like it when it's both.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And for you that stood, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what we're about.
SPEAKER_01: And so when I tell you about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit, I want us to understand that this was the same workings that were happening in the life of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He had to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's interesting, and there's all kinds of legends out there historically about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And in the Apocrypha in the Roman Catholic Church, you have you have books that talk about Jesus turning mud pies and stuff like that into birds that could fly, and there's these legends about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what we know from the canon of Scripture is that Jesus had not done any miraculous works until after his baptism, where the Holy Spirit came upon him, likened unto a dove, came upon him.
SPEAKER_01: Guess what happened right after that, right?
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: He goes into the wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: So he has to be tempted by the devil.
SPEAKER_01: So he he gets a victory over the enemy, he comes back, and then signs and wonders follow.
SPEAKER_01: So he had to be filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So I believe at his baptism, Jesus was experienced a belovedness from his father of affirmation of his identity, and he was freshly filled with power from the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 12.
SPEAKER_01: In 1 Corinthians 12, we two weeks ago I did a message called Why Spiritual Gifts.
SPEAKER_01: And if you missed that, you can go back, go to sermons on our website and you can watch it because it kind of, I'm not gonna go through it again, but I went through all, every verse of 1 Corinthians 12 talking about why we have spiritual gifts.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna do that again, but I want to start at verse 1 again and look at something here.
SPEAKER_01: Kind of interesting.
SPEAKER_01: This diversity of gifts.
SPEAKER_01: Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant.
SPEAKER_01: So, first of all, we said last, you know, last time, God does not want us ignorant of that which you already possess.
SPEAKER_01: God does not want you ignorant of the things that you already possess.
SPEAKER_01: And so you have gifts of the Holy Spirit that have been given to you, and he's getting ready to name, according to how you read it, somewhere between eight and fourteen gifts here in 1 Corinthians 12.
SPEAKER_01: So let's look at what he says.
SPEAKER_01: You know that you were Gentiles carried away to these dumb idols.
SPEAKER_01: I love that term, dumb, dumb idols.
SPEAKER_01: Some translations say stupid idols.
SPEAKER_01: Did anybody ever tell your kids don't say stupid?
SPEAKER_01: But did you ever have a smart enough kid to say, Dad, it's in the Bible?
SPEAKER_01: However, you were led.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 3, therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God, that's that's operable word here, by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed.
SPEAKER_01: And no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: That's really important.
SPEAKER_01: And so I box that in in my Bible, in my study Bible, because I have a study Bible, I have a teaching Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm always changing it up.
SPEAKER_01: I've got a bunch of study Bibles that I've had over the years.
SPEAKER_01: The most recent one is the Spirit-filled study Bible that I'm using.
SPEAKER_01: Got a little dove on it.
SPEAKER_01: I don't like the way it is.
SPEAKER_01: The dove on the spirit-filled life Bible looks like it's flying away.
SPEAKER_01: I like it better when the dove looks like it's coming.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why, I just do.
SPEAKER_01: But it's spirit-filled life.
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, no one can say that Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And I circle that except by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So listen, why do I say that?
SPEAKER_01: Because spiritual gifts flowing through each of you in this room are there so that you will, that you will operably and experientially, by the life you live and by the way you minister, you're saying Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So for the evangelist who's got a gift of evangelism and they're evangelizing, for the prophetically gifted person, for the pastor, for the encourager, for the one who works in words of knowledge and words of wisdom, which we're going to talk about today, by the demonstration of those gifts, you're modeling Jesus' Lord.
SPEAKER_01: You're not modeling your Lord.
SPEAKER_01: See, that's where we get into trouble, right?
SPEAKER_01: The guy who's, you know, dancing across the floor and and has the white shoes and the white hair, and you know, just kind of knocking everybody over.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, it's all about him.
SPEAKER_01: But rather, in humility, as we demonstrate and minister in the power of the Holy Spirit, we're saying Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we want.
SPEAKER_01: We want to be a Jesus is Lord church.
SPEAKER_01: You want to be a Jesus is Lord, Jesus follower, right?
SPEAKER_01: And that was a weak response.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's that's how he expresses.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul writes here at the very beginning, before he says anything about gifts and giving a list of gifts.
SPEAKER_01: He says, no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So when you're filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_01: When you're not filled with the Holy Spirit, you're Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Simple as that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, is the road a spirit-filled church?
SPEAKER_01: You guys know my answer.
SPEAKER_01: Well, on Monday we were, on Tuesday we weren't.
SPEAKER_01: They're like, what?
SPEAKER_01: Because it's an operable word.
SPEAKER_01: It's in operation in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: It's up to who's on the throne of your heart, who's on the throne of your life.
SPEAKER_01: Not whether you've experienced something, it's rather have you surrendered to Christ every day.
SPEAKER_01: So it's a, you guys, it's it's an ongoing process.
SPEAKER_01: And some days I'm spirit-filled and sometimes I'm not.
SPEAKER_01: But that's uh that's part of what we call sanctification.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So then he says this, and this is what I want to just start off today with.
SPEAKER_01: There are diversities of gifts but the same spirit, verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: So there's these diversities, and I'm gonna call them categories.
SPEAKER_01: Categories of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to give you four categories, and these four categories of the Holy Spirit are kind of like constellations.
SPEAKER_01: They're sort of like constellations of the Holy Spirit, in which I'm just, it's just a man-made tool for um, what should I say, constellation of groupings, and I'm gonna call it shading, the shading of different gifts.
SPEAKER_01: So the first one is inspirational gifts.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to write these down, you can.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna cover these in the next few weeks.
SPEAKER_01: Inspirational gifts would be prophecy, speaking in tongues, and the interpretation of tongues.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, power gifts.
SPEAKER_01: That's the gifts of faith, the gift of healing, the workings of miracles, and exorcism.
SPEAKER_01: Now, exorcism, not a word in the Bible, but the casting out of demons.
SPEAKER_01: Number three, leadership gifts, leadership gifts.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm classifying them under the rubric of church governorship: pastor, apostle, evangelist, teacher, prophet.
SPEAKER_01: And let me just say this because of all the controversy of the last few years about do we have apostles today?
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about small A apostles.
SPEAKER_01: And apostolic gifting is never to be equated with capital A apostles like the Lamb's 12.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: Everybody go like this if you understand what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so there's controversy out there about um, it really came from one of my professors at Fuller, C.
SPEAKER_01: Peter Wagner, that started doing this back in the 90s, talking about apostles.
SPEAKER_01: And I worked for a guy named John Wimber.
SPEAKER_01: I was his assistant at the Anaheim Vineyard.
SPEAKER_01: One at that time, one of the most noted um charismatic pastors in the world.
SPEAKER_01: And he and I, he used me, thank you, but he used me to be kind of his apologetic with Wagner through letters that were written.
SPEAKER_01: But I don't believe that there's prophets and apostles today anywhere close, not even near, to what we saw in the early New Testament writings of Scripture time.
SPEAKER_01: But people can minister in the gift of the apostle.
SPEAKER_01: And what I mean by that is usually church planting, entrepreneurial.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you in this room are actually apostolic in business.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, I consider someone who's very entrepreneurial, who starts things, can build things from scratch as being apostolic.
SPEAKER_01: But that we'll get to that.
SPEAKER_01: That's coming up in a few weeks.
SPEAKER_01: But today I want to talk about number four, revelational gifts.
SPEAKER_01: Revelational gifts.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, and the discerning of spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So look, you're still in 1 Corinthians 12.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: So turn to look, look at verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: For to no one is given the word of wisdom, we're gonna talk about that, through the spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same spirit.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk about that.
SPEAKER_01: Now jump down to verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: And it talks about miracles, it talks about prophecy, and then it says discerning of spirits.
SPEAKER_01: See that?
SPEAKER_01: Discerning of spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm grouping these gifts together.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna call them gifts of revelation.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you a definition.
SPEAKER_01: Gifts of revelation are spiritual gifts where God gives information supernaturally.
SPEAKER_01: God gives information supernaturally.
SPEAKER_01: This is information that does not come from your own study of the Bible or study of theology.
SPEAKER_01: Um, that kind of knowledge is natural because you studied it.
SPEAKER_01: That's the skill of knowledge and wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: But this is where beyond something you could think of, God puts a word of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's really important.
SPEAKER_01: A word of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: So a word of wisdom, a definition for a word of wisdom is this the word of wisdom is referring to a specific insight from God that is applicable in a particular situation.
SPEAKER_01: The word of wisdom is referring to a specific insight from God that is applicable in a particular situation.
SPEAKER_01: This is not just wisdom, church, but it's the word, logos, the word of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: You say, Well, what's the difference, Steve?
SPEAKER_01: The difference is it's specific.
SPEAKER_01: It's a specific wisdom that you need about a situation that did not come from just your natural abilities.
SPEAKER_01: Now it could be using obviously your experience and your natural abilities and your study, but you know what to do, or you know the right thing to say, or you know uh whether you should buy that house or not, or whether you should marry that gal or not.
SPEAKER_01: It's a word of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: It comes, it's something that's applicable to a particular situation.
SPEAKER_01: To make a wise decision.
SPEAKER_01: So in China, I'm in China.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm supposed to be the leader of this group smuggling Bibles into China.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm really focused on smuggling Bibles in China.
SPEAKER_01: And then this blonde comes walking down the hallway.
SPEAKER_01: And she says, I'm on your team.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Liz.
SPEAKER_01: And suddenly I'm not so focused on smuggling Bibles in China.
SPEAKER_01: And something happens in my heart.
SPEAKER_01: That was 43 years ago, and it's never lost, never left me.
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, amen.
SPEAKER_01: She's the apple of my eye, and I know she's the apple of God's eye.
SPEAKER_01: And um, but um, I needed to know if it was from God or not because I feel like I had this unique calling to be a missionary and to go to Asia.
SPEAKER_01: And at that point I felt like it was now Japan.
SPEAKER_01: I was gonna go to Japan.
SPEAKER_01: So just meeting some good-looking gal who was at UCLA and still a student, tri-delt gal, um, seemed like it might actually be a distraction from the enemy.
SPEAKER_01: So over the next three years, church, I was asking God for wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: And so I can't tell you how many times I was in situations where I said, God, I need you to speak to me.
SPEAKER_01: Everything from whether I should write her or not, whether how I would get her address, I could go through about 30 different things.
SPEAKER_01: But I was constantly asking God that I would not get derailed from my mission because of an infatuation with a girl.
SPEAKER_01: And God began to confirm it.
SPEAKER_01: God was speaking to her about Japan.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know it at the time, but I would find out, you know, a few weeks later that she felt called to Japan, and so God was putting our lives together.
SPEAKER_01: That's a word of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: That's having a word of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: In Acts chapter 10, we have Peter, if you recall in Acts 10, he's in Caesarea, and a sheet, he's asleep, and he has a vision of a sheet coming down, four corners, with these unclean animals on it.
SPEAKER_01: Animals that a Jew, an Orthodox Jew, a religious Jew would never eat.
SPEAKER_01: Unclean animals.
SPEAKER_01: And God comes down to him and says, eat.
SPEAKER_01: And he doesn't understand what's going on, but God's saying, eat.
SPEAKER_01: And then the next day, there's a knock at his door from a bunch of Gentiles who come to him and say, There's a guy named Cornelius in Joppa that wants to see you.
SPEAKER_01: No, I think it was the other way around.
SPEAKER_01: I think Paul's in Joppa, and he comes from Caesarea, and he goes down and he knows, he has a word of wisdom, that God is doing something unique and different, that he was supposed to enter a Gentile's home, which would be, which would go against all of his religious tradition as a kind of a, he wasn't a Pharisee, but a Pharisaical law kind of perspective for Peter, and he knew that he was supposed to go because of the vision and because of what God had said to him.
SPEAKER_01: That would be a word of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: One time, one time I was coming out of the sanctuary, and this guy and gal came up to me, and I knew both of them, and they said, Can we talk to you?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Right now, and they said, Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: It was the end of the one of the services, so we were done.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Okay, so we went to my office and we sat down and they began to ask me about whether they should have a relationship with each other or not.
SPEAKER_01: And what was the, you know, what was God saying to them?
SPEAKER_01: And they they shared their perspective on that.
SPEAKER_01: And as they did, something in me, you guys, just rose up and I had a ton of questions.
SPEAKER_01: I hadn't even thinking about it, but I had about five questions for him, not her, and I began to ask him, well, what about, you know, what about this in your life?
SPEAKER_01: I don't I didn't know him that intimately, but I began to ask stuff, and in a matter of about one hour, this whole relationship was dismantled.
SPEAKER_01: So, all of you that are dating someone right now, that that doesn't always happen.
SPEAKER_01: I'd be happy to meet with your boyfriend or your girlfriend, but in this case, but in this case, it saved this gal a disaster, I felt like.
SPEAKER_01: And there was just stuff that I shouldn't have known and questions that were related to things that I felt in my spirit.
SPEAKER_01: That was a word of wisdom for them.
SPEAKER_01: And they quickly broke up.
SPEAKER_01: Once at uh Mountain Springs Church, we were building our fourth building.
SPEAKER_01: Our fourth building.
SPEAKER_01: If you've seen Mountain Springs Church on Woodman, and you may not know this, but I planted that church and pastored it for 20 years and built all those buildings that are on it.
SPEAKER_01: Um anyway, in the fourth building, we had issues with the builder, and we felt like we were kind of getting ripped off, some things began to happen.
SPEAKER_01: That was all in the natural.
SPEAKER_01: We could see the trail of tears, as it were.
SPEAKER_01: But one day I'm driving to work and the Holy Spirit says to me, Go to the president and CEO of that company.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, it was just almost like I could hear the voice of God and went, I don't want to go see him.
SPEAKER_01: And the Spirit just kept bombarding my heart with it.
SPEAKER_01: And as I drove, no appointment, I was just gonna drive there.
SPEAKER_01: So as I'm driving there, God told me what to say.
SPEAKER_01: And God was saying, you need to humble yourself, and you need to say you're sorry.
SPEAKER_01: You need to apologize and ask for forgiveness about this, this, and this.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh man, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: This is ridiculous.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna get in so much trouble financially if I do this.
SPEAKER_01: But I felt like God said to do it, so I did it anyway.
SPEAKER_01: And we were in this in this uh boardroom, and all of us are in tears.
SPEAKER_01: I had so many people.
SPEAKER_01: I had so many people on staff with me at Mountain Springs that heard I was headed in that direction.
SPEAKER_01: I told them what I was gonna do, and everybody counseled me not to do it.
SPEAKER_01: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_01: Um, even my lawyer.
SPEAKER_01: And I just felt like God was saying it.
SPEAKER_01: So we did it, and God showed up, it built bridges, and I think if you were to, I'm not gonna name the company, but if we were in a room with any of those guys from that company, they'd they'd speak highly of me, and I would speak highly of them because God did.
SPEAKER_01: That's a word of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: Uh so let's look at word of knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: Word of knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: So a word of knowledge refers to a supernatural knowledge of facts that does not come through study, research, or experience.
SPEAKER_01: A word of knowledge refers to a supernatural knowledge of facts that does not come through study, research, or experience.
SPEAKER_01: See what's the difference?
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about constellations here and how one can shade the other.
SPEAKER_01: So don't look at these as hard and fast definitions, whether it's a word of knowledge or a word of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: But this is more a word of knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, this is where this is how I would define it.
SPEAKER_01: A word of wisdom is oftentimes a decision that you need to make or something that someone else needs to make, and you're helping them make that decision.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of times it goes beyond your feelings.
SPEAKER_01: It's actually something you don't really want to do, but you know God's giving you wisdom about a situation.
SPEAKER_01: Now, a word of knowledge, I feel, in my experience, is more you're ministering to someone.
SPEAKER_01: You're you've got you've got knowledge for them to help them grow.
SPEAKER_01: So a good example in the Bible would be Ananias and Sapphira.
SPEAKER_01: So with Ananias and Sapphira, they held back money after the sale of land and they lied about it.
SPEAKER_01: God gave Peter a word of knowledge, called them out, and Ananias, he just drops over dead.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Some people have you ever had people say, Are you a New Testament church?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, No.
SPEAKER_01: You're not?
SPEAKER_01: Because you're supposed to say you are.
SPEAKER_01: No?
SPEAKER_01: They said, How do you, what do you mean you're not?
SPEAKER_01: I said, nobody, nobody's dropped over dead yet from a word of knowledge in our church.
SPEAKER_01: And they go, What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_01: And they get all mad and everything, but that's okay.
SPEAKER_01: And then the same thing happens to Sapphira, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's a word of knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: Another example might be Ananias in Damascus, when he's told by the Lord to go to Paul, who has had this vision of Christ and is blinded by that, and God tells Ananias what to do.
SPEAKER_01: That's a word of knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: He comes in, he speaks, he did not want to go, but God gives him the courage to go.
SPEAKER_01: In Acts 14, while evangelizing, pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01: This is really cool.
SPEAKER_01: So Paul is evangelizing in Listra, and he sees a crippled man, and it says that he knew in his spirit that this guy had faith to be healed.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever experienced that?
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't, you will.
SPEAKER_01: If you become a part of the ministry team, you will have people come forward, and you know in your spirit this person can get healed.
SPEAKER_01: There's something about them through the Holy Spirit speaking to you, and he knew, and they said, stand up and walk.
SPEAKER_01: He knew it.
SPEAKER_01: That was a that was a word of knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said this about the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I think this is a great passage as it relates to words of wisdom, words of knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: It's John 16, verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: I still have many things to say to you, Jesus said, but you cannot bear them now.
SPEAKER_01: However, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.
SPEAKER_01: For he will not speak of his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will tell you things to come.
SPEAKER_01: He will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you.
SPEAKER_01: You see what's happening here?
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit hears from the Father and speaks it to us, declares truth into you, and then you minister to others through that speaking of truth coming forth through you.
SPEAKER_01: And so we had a ministry time with Mark last weekend with the staff.
SPEAKER_01: So on Tuesdays, that's kind of our big staff meeting day.
SPEAKER_01: We had had a staff meeting, and then John and then Mark went into the chapel and ministered uh prophetically, or through really through words of knowledge to our staff team, and it was really, really powerful.
SPEAKER_01: And so God uses words of knowledge, things that you you don't naturally know, that God gives you knowledge about related to someone that can sometimes supersede and move into a healing, supernatural work of God.
SPEAKER_01: So on see it was on Sunday morning, we were in here ministering, Mark was getting ready to speak, and one of the ladies in the church came up to me and had a word about a rainbow and hope and broken dreams.
SPEAKER_01: And so I came and shared that, and then a line of people came forward for prayer because God was giving a word of knowledge to her that she gave to me that I gave to the church, and people got ministered to.
SPEAKER_01: So that's how words of knowledge work.
SPEAKER_01: So word of wisdom, word of knowledge, and then thirdly, discernment of spirits.
SPEAKER_01: Discernment of spirits.
SPEAKER_01: Discernment of spirits is a revelation from the Holy Spirit about the source of a particular thought, word, or action, whether it originates from the Holy Spirit, the demonic, or the human spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So the discerning of spirits is being able to discern the difference between something that's from God, something that's just from you, and something that actually might be demonic.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's connected to prophecy, it can be connected to tongues, interpretation of tongues, but it is a discernment of spirits.
SPEAKER_01: I would group discernment of spirits in the same constellation also with leadership.
SPEAKER_01: It's a part of leadership.
SPEAKER_01: You're always trying to discern stuff in leadership.
SPEAKER_01: A biblical example would be Paul in Philippi.
SPEAKER_01: I love this story.
SPEAKER_01: So remember, he's there, he's preaching the gospel, and this slave girl keeps following him around, and she says, and there's nothing wrong with what she said, she said, These men are servants of the Most High God who proclaimed to you the way of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: What's wrong with that?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's theologically accurate.
SPEAKER_01: But it just made Paul so mad.
SPEAKER_01: And so after three days, this lady's bugging him so much, he just turns on her and he casts out a demonic spirit out of her.
SPEAKER_01: It was a discerning of spirits.
SPEAKER_01: One time, this is many years ago, I have this dream.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just say this.
SPEAKER_01: Let me go back a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: So I noticed on one of the staff, and we're talking about high-level staff at our church, I just don't get a good feeling about something in that person's life.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't, I can't explain it.
SPEAKER_01: And then that night I had a dream that there was something going on in the shadows that I needed to know about.
SPEAKER_01: So the next day I call him into my office and said, Can we go get coffee?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: So we go to that Starbucks, it's right down here on Powers next to King Supers over there that's a little bit east of that.
SPEAKER_01: And we're sitting in there, and we and I remember it was warm, it was in the spring.
SPEAKER_01: We went outside, and I said, Is there anything you need to tell me?
SPEAKER_01: He goes, What?
SPEAKER_01: I know, is there anything you need to tell me that I don't know about, but you know that I need to know about?
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, color just drained out of his face, and he began to open up about some stuff in his life.
SPEAKER_01: That's a discernment of spirits.
SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes it's associated with leadership, where we start to sense something.
SPEAKER_01: It's a thing in there that was, in his case, demonic.
SPEAKER_01: And so God set him free.
SPEAKER_01: The good story, good story.
SPEAKER_01: He he got set free, and uh I think he's walking with God today.
SPEAKER_01: I haven't kept up with it, but um, isn't that exciting?
SPEAKER_01: So, word of knowledge, word of wisdom, discernment of spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So, how do we grow in these things?
SPEAKER_01: I want to conclude with this.
SPEAKER_01: How do we grow?
SPEAKER_01: And there's uh I want to just mention that Brian Finimore is a guy that comes here and teaches uh once a month, and he has a class.
SPEAKER_01: And so there's a class you can go to events on our webpage and see about his teaching.
SPEAKER_01: But Josh Floyd, right here, Josh is over our Kingdom Ministry team.
SPEAKER_01: He's going to start a class beginning on January 26th, and that's a Monday, and every Monday from 6 to 7:30 in the library room.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to be in training on kingdom ministry, how to minister in the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Let me close with this.
SPEAKER_01: There's three parts.
SPEAKER_01: I believe there's three parts to ministering in revelatory gifts.
SPEAKER_01: The first one is revelation, the second one is interpretation, and the third is application.
SPEAKER_01: Revelation, interpretation, and application.
SPEAKER_01: And we we can miss it at any one of those junctures.
SPEAKER_01: Anyways, in other words, you could get the right revelation, like I got a revelation for that individual on my team, but the way I interpret it could have been wrong.
SPEAKER_01: So I had to wait on God for the interpretation, and then even my application could have been wrong.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where things happen that can blow up a church or can blow up a relationship, is missing it.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's the kind of training that Josh is going to do and the team's gonna do.
SPEAKER_01: How do we get revelation?
SPEAKER_01: How do we biblically get interpretation?
SPEAKER_01: And then how do we apply that in the situations that God gives us?
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Road Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We pray today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Road Church and to find more content like this, go to theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: That's theroad.org.