Author: Pastor Tim

Acts 2: 2-9

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. 5 And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. 6 And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. 7 Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born?

A couple things about this passage – I believe that this is literally every person heard the Gospel message in their own language but I believe it can be taken another way

• we need to share the love of Christ in a way that everyone can understand it (hear it in their own language)
• we need to not be afraid to cross-cultural, economic, racial barriers and the Lord will show us how to reach them “Are not all these who speak Galileans?”

The result of people hearing the good news in a way they could understand it, by men and women moving in the power of the Holy Spirit, who was not afraid to be uncomfortable speaking to people of different cultures, races, economic strata

5000 people came to the knowledge of Christ

Do we need this today? Jesus said “yes” it should be who we are!

Allow me to explain what I mean….this is why I know we need to move in the gifts in our schools, neighborhood, places we work, shop, and live

Matthew 5: 13-16

You are like salt for everyone on earth. But if salt no longer tastes like salt, how can it make food salty? All it is good for is to be thrown out and walked on.14 You are like light for the whole world. A city built on top of a hill cannot be hidden, 15 and no one would light a lamp and put it under a clay pot. A lamp is placed on a lampstand, where it can give light to everyone in the house. 16 Make your light shine, so that others will see the good that you do and will praise your Father in heaven.

Jesus is saying that we are salt, light, and a city on a hill!

We are “a city on a hill”

What does it mean to be a “city on a hill” the best word to describe it is conspicuous. You can be seen at all angles all of the time.

The minute you proclaim that you are a Christian people begin watching you, they begin analyzing your life…they want to know

– is this real?

– is this religious?

– are you playing a game?

Jesus is saying all of us collectively become “a city on the hill”

Jesus also said we are the light

– There is no substitute for light, nothing can take its place. As Christians no one can take our place or do our jobs, there is no substitute for us

– Light is the only answer to darkness. When light comes there is no problem with darkness.

He called us salt

We are to give flavor to an otherwise bland world – take an egg for eggsample J totally bland but sprinkle on a little salt and it has flavor

We are to make the world flavorful but for whom? God! We need to think of ourselves as little salt granules spread throughout the earth spreading love, grace, prayers, and worship in a way that make the earth acceptable to God in a way that the earth would not be without us (as it will experience after the rapture)

Salt also prevents rotting or another word for that is corruption! In the time Jesus walked the earth there was no refrigeration. To preserve meat, it was salted to prevent it from rotting or holding back the forces of corruption. It is our responsibility to hold back the forces of corruption—moral corruption, social corruption, political corruption—until God’s purposes of mercy and grace have been worked out for this world of ours.

Not everyone is looking for hope, love, life, joy or freedom. Believe it or not, some are content in their misery, selfishness, and corruption. Still, many more have no concept that they can have joy, life, and freedom until they see that someone else has it.

As a “Spirit-filled” believer just simply being who we are, allowing the light, salt, the Spirit of the living God live through us (our identity is in Him) we are like the 120 from the upper room that day we begin to share the love of Christ in a way everyone can understand it.

We are no longer intimidated by social position, cultural, racial, or educational differences, but the power of the Gospel will naturally supernaturally flow through you. We have the tools in our toolbox!

As a Spirit-filled believer, you have at least three key tools that make being salt, light, and a city on the hill possible… I am assuming that you are doing things on a daily basis like reading your Bible and praying.

Remember

The gifts of the Spirit “What’s next part 2-4” 1 Corinthians 12 and 14

Moving in them in very practical ways at first (if you missed any of the teachings you can always go on the app or www.christiancenter.us to hear the whole story)

Prophetic – begin encouraging people

Healing – you will begin to have a heart for the sick and broken

Discerning of spirits – you begin to see people in the bondage, brokenness, hurting and are able to show them Jesus in a way that sets them free

Love – others and yourself “What’s next part 1” and “Love yourself”

– God values everyone, so should we

– be generous with your time, talent, and treasure

– Eliminate all forms of prejudice

– Always treat others as people Jesus died for

– Act like Jesus in word and deed

– You are the object of God’s great love Jeremiah 31:3, John 3:16

The rest of the fruit of the Spirit –

I have taught numerous times on the fruit of the Spirit but just as a reminder

Galatians 5:22,23

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, meekness, kindness, faithfulness, 23 self-control; against such things, there is no law.

Luke 6:43,44

A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. 44 A tree is identified by its fruit. Figs are never gathered from thornbushes, and grapes are not picked from bramble bushes.

John 15:5

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.

We will naturally supernaturally also flow in the fruit of the Spirit, we have to if we are tied into the vine, that is Jesus.

As a Spirit-filled believer it is against our very nature to not have the fruit of the Spirit flowing in us…remember last week 2 Corinthians 5:17

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

We become like the 120 who shared that day that 5000 came to Christ by living every day as salt, light and a city on the hill through flowing in the gifts, knowing we are loved and loving others. The fruit of the Spirit is a natural outgrowth of who we are

This causes us very naturally to be agents of change…we naturally change the world…we must change the world…if we love then we will change the world

Please take this challenge today…step out of your comfort zone and be the agents of change God has called you to be

What’s next? Part 4

We have talked about many of the gifts so far, are any of you starting to practice them yet?

Can someone share his or her experience?

Today I’m going to talk about prophecy, speaking in tongues, prayer language, and interpretation of tongues but I need to start with two other gifts that many of you may have and may use daily but don’t realize they can be amplified as you surrender them to the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:27,28

Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. 28 And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues.

Helps and Administration, these are two very practical and vital gifts of the Spirit that the church literally cannot survive without them

Helps

The spiritual gift of helping, service, or ministering, covers a wide range of activities in its application.

The word Antilepsis is translated “helping” and is found in 1 Corinthians 12:28.  It’s meaning: to help or aid in love within the community.

The Holy Spirit endows some believers with this gift to fill the many gaps of ministry and meet the needs of the church as it fulfills the Great Commission.

Everything about this gift is practical as Bill Wilson our friend from New York says wondering about your call? The need IS the call!

While it starts as a practical gift, empowered by the Holy Spirit it is never a drudgery mostly a joy, and leaves you with a feeling of accomplishment because it is not about any pat on the back from a person but about knowing the Holy Spirit is empowering you for something that He desires to have accomplished. This gift fills in the gaps that are so needful for the Kingdom and the Gospel to be advanced and the church to touch the most amount of lives

We see people with this gift in passages like Acts 6:1-7, 1 Corinthians 16:15-16, and many others.

Administration – 1 Cor. 12:28; Acts 6:2-3

This is a unique term that refers to a shipmaster or captain. The literal meaning is “to steer,” or “to rule or govern.”

With this gift the Holy Spirit enables certain Christians to organize, direct, and implement plans to lead others in the various ministries of the Church.

This gift is closely related to the gift of Leadership, but is more goal or task oriented and is also more concerned with details and organization

Again this gift is very practical some shine in this gift all of the time and if they really shine it is because the Holy Spirit is empowering them in their natural ability to go to a supernatural level able to anticipate needs and solves problems well before they arrive.

This gift can tie in with the practical side of the prophetic understanding what the needs are and how to organize the solution before a problem happens

Which brings us to prophecy

Prophecy

The spiritual gift of prophecy is an extraordinary and unique gift.  Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:1 to “Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.”

This gift is a blessing to the church and should not be quenched or despised (1 Thessalonians 5:20).  Those who have the gift of prophecy differ from the Old Testament Prophets who spoke the authoritative Word of God directly.  Their words were recorded as Scripture as they proclaimed, “Thus says The Lord,” whereas the messages from those with the spiritual gift of prophecy must be tested which means they can be wrong (1 Corinthians 14:29-33; 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21; 1 John 4:1-3).

These messages can take the form of exhortation, correction, disclosure of secret sins, prediction of future events, comfort, inspiration, or other revelations given to equip and edify the body of Christ

1 Corinthians 14:3-4, 24-25

But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men. 4 He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church

But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an uninformed person comes in, he is convinced by all, he is convicted by all. 25 And thus the secrets of his heart are revealed; and so, falling down on his face, he will worship God and report that God is truly among you

Practically speaking here is a way you can begin to flow in this gift. Being that it is, by Paul’s definition, an edification, exhortation, and comfort, you can begin encouraging people, helping them to see the best in themselves, asking the Lord to show you ways to encourage others and help to build them up

You see God sees the best in people, (1 Corinthians 13) He encourages them to be better, do better and as we do that, we begin to understand the Father’s heart for people, we begin to see them through His eyes and the Holy Spirit begins to work through us to enhance what we are seeing through God’s eyes

As we learn to see through the Lord’s eyes, we learn to hear His voice more clearly and are able to speak to people more of what is on His heart developing the prophetic gift within us

Share prophetic word about what will happen if we begin doing these things

Tongues, interpretation of tongues, praying in the Spirit

I don’t know of any way to practically start speaking in tongues or interpreting tongues

I know some will try to help others to receive their prayer language by saying repeat after me, or things like that. Sometimes that helps sometimes it hinders. Learning to speak/pray in tongues for most of us is a battle of mind versus spirit. It just doesn’t make sense to our minds to allow our spirits to communicate directly to God.

Which brings us to a Praying in the Spirit

1 Corinthians 14:14 “For if I pray in tongues, my spirit is praying, but I don’t understand what I am saying”

“Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.” Ephesians 6:18

There is a key difference here between praying in the Spirit and functioning in tongues for the benefit of the body…it would be like having a personal word of knowledge or word of wisdom for someone and having a public word…if you are praying in tongues it should be quiet and focused as if praying in English but if you are going to make a proclamation in tongues it needs to be loud enough for all to hear but also must be interpreted

Likewise, the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” Romans 8:26

Likewise, Jude (the half-brother of Jesus) encourages us to pray in the Spirit (Jesus’ brothers James and Jude were in the upper room when the Holy Spirit descended Acts 1:14)

“But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit” Jude 20

I have found praying in the Spirit to be critical to building me up so I can handle the daily-ness of life, which generally changes the environment and reveals areas that need work and areas that are being overcome

Please take the leap of faith…begin choosing to flow in a gift. If you have not yet been filled with the Holy Spirit I hope this has taken some of the fear or concern out of it for you and that you would be willing to come

What’s next Part 3

I want to continue this morning sharing about the gifts of the Spirit

Rick Warren author of the “Purpose Drive life,” and pastor of Saddleback church says this about the gifts of the Spirit

“God gave me a gift, not for me but for you, and God gave you a gift, not for you but for me. If you don’t use your gift, you’re depriving me; if I don’t use my gift, I’m robbing you.”

1 Peter 4:10,11

God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. 11 Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.

What are some of these gifts that Peter is talking about? Some are listed in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 before we go there again…

As I mentioned through the Rick Warren quote and through Jesus words in Acts 1:8

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The gifts are for us to touch the lives of others…salvation is for us but the world needs us to flow in the gifts of the Spirit so that they might know Jesus is real

1 Corinthians 12:4-11

There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. 6 And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. 7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: 8 for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills

Part of the reason the gifts generally start more gently is they are given to any Christian regardless of level of maturity…always be aware just because someone has a particular gift doesn’t mean they are mature, that was part of the problem in the early church but hopefully it encourages you to not be afraid to be open to the gifts of the Holy Spirit because you are “not mature enough”

Two weeks ago I talked about words of wisdom, healing and discerning of spirits and how they may practically be seen in your life in the beginning stages…let’s see how far we get today

Lets start with the “word of knowledge”

Word of knowledge

1 Cor. 12:8 – “for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit”

• Information that was not be obtained naturally
• An utterance of facts given by divine inspiration through, mind, vision, dream, or some other insight that would otherwise remain unknown
• teaching based on divine insight and revelation.

This gift may start in you in one of two ways very naturally.

– You could be working on a project, car, craft, your taxes even and not have clue what to do, you stop and pray and the Lord gives you the understanding of how to solve the problem. God will use this type of thing as you are working at your job, in your hobby it is not a guess it is a divine insight given to you in a very naturally supernatural way to show everyone that God really cares

Another way this gift may start in your life is you may be struggling with something and not knowing what to do, not having any insight into a solution and the Lord gives you a dream that gives insight into the problem.

Reinhard Bonnke dream story

Standing on the street corner in the Hill

The Lord has the solution to every problem. He sees everything from every perspective…he wants to give us the insight we need and to help others through knowledge they know we would not know naturally.

God can give you this gift and make it effective in raising your children, doing better at your job, having greater success in your business and of course using it in the church to share with people things that you would not know other than the Lord communicating it to you

Gift of faith – 1 Corinthians 12:9, Acts 4:19,20

9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit,

This is not to be confused with saving faith

The Holy Spirit distributes this gift to some in the church to encourage and build up the church in her confidence in God.  Those with the gift of faith trust that God is sovereign and He is good.  They take Him at His Word and put the full weight of their lives in His hands

Tegucigalpa – both the mortars and the flight

Kyrgyzstan – no connection

Sudan –

Flight into Pittsburgh

Meeting the president of Kyrgyzstan

A simple way this may develop in you is that you are no longer afraid. You hear the news, you see all that is happening around you

If we are afraid we will never do the things the Lord has called us to there is no reward without risk and faith is spelled R-I-S-K

We can not proclaim to trust the Lord and live in fear

You can have this gift easily but deciding to live this way and watch the Lord multiply your peace and joy…what an impact you will have on those around you

We need this gift more than ever in a world filled with nothing but division and fear…imagine what this will do for others

Working of miracles (1 Cor. 12:10; Acts 6:8)

The spiritual gift of miracles is described in Scripture much like the gift of healing.  It is found in 1 Corinthians 12:10 and the Greek phrase

10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

energemata dynameon – literally translates “workings of powers.”  The double plural most likely means that these gifts were diverse and were not permanently available at the will of the gifted believer, but instead were bestowed at various times and circumstances.  Thus, the gifts are subject to the divine will of God and His purposes and are not decided by the one who performs the miraculous works.

We know that Jesus performed many miracles in His earthly ministry, even more than those recorded in Scripture (John 20:30-31, Acts 2:22).

I am not sure there is a simple and easy way to move in this gift other than when you need one just believe and expect it

Too often we believe God to be the God of the Old and New Testament but not the same God today.

I am here today in so many ways because of a miracle…don’t tell me God can’t do the impossible…every day I believe for one miracle after another

Siberian gas

Dead baby raised

This gift and faith often go hand in hand…however one way we can see this happen on a regular basis from my point of view is leading someone to Christ…every person who surrenders their lives to Jesus is a miracle every Mom that walks through this door for our outreach, every child that comes for VBS all of them being drawn by the Holy Spirit is a miracle

To me the greatest working of a miracle I am looking for is for you to begin to believe and walk in the fullness of the Spirit in a way that touches everyone around you…that you begin to see the power of God in your life.

Can I ask you today…can you see the need for these gifts in our everyday lives

Can you imagine with me a world where Christians are solving problems by the power of the Holy Spirit, where they are walking in the full confidence of God’s protection and purpose, and where the impossible is made possible on a regular basis

Can you imagine the hope, peace and life we could bring to the world if we lived this way…if God awakened a Christian to know that a shooter was going to a school, or simply that a child will need extra lunch money to help another child. You were never afraid because you had a supernatural trust in God

Our brothers and sisters in persecuted countries around the world live this way…I have seen it first hand…will you?