How to Discover and Use Your Spiritual Gifts | Sunday Message

Struggling to answer someone's questions about your faith, Pastor Greg Laurie recommends a great book to help. You know, I remember the first time that I shared my faith; I was so young, and I was challenged by an atheist. I did not have a clue as to what I should say, and I wish I'd had a copy of this book by Frank Turek and Norman Geisler, and the title of it is "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist." And we want to send you this book for your gift of any size, available at. Harvest. dot org.

Hey there! Thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners. I'm Greg Laurie, encouraging you. If you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to Harvest. dot org.

Let's grab our Bibles and turn to two passages together: Romans 12 and Ephesians 4. And the title of the message is "Unwrap Your Gift: How to Discover and Use Your Spiritual Gifts." Hey, a couple of quick announcements before we dive in. Number one, a big election is coming, and I hope that you're all ready to vote. If you haven't voted already, how many of you are registered to vote? Raise your hand up.

It's so important.

So important that our voice is heard.

So many important issues at stake. People ask us, "Well, how do we vote?" Well, we're not going to tell you how to vote, but we're going to educate you on where the various candidates stand on issues that are of importance to us as Americans and certainly as Christians.

So we have something called a voter's guide. I'm holding the copy. I only have one, so we're going to have to share. I'll pass it around. No, we have we have one for you.

So after church is over, go back to our table back there, and we'll give you this at Harvest Orange County. You go to the connect table, and so. But make sure you know what's going on. Make sure that you vote.

Sometimes people say vote your conscience. I don't even know what that means. I say vote, vote biblically, and and know what the Bible says. This will help you figure that out.

Okay, so. Make sure you vote. Also, we've been talking about spiritual gifts. We have one more message in this series.

Next time, we're going to talk about the gift of tongues, the gift of miracles, the gift of healing. Is this still for today? We'll explore that later. But what are your spiritual gifts? We've identified some already.

We're going to talk about some more today because everyone has a gift or gifts. And so, if you would like to know about opportunities available for you to develop and use your gifts, as you leave out on the patio, there we have a bunch of tables set up representing our various ministries, and we can use your help.

So you're blessed to be a blessing. Develop that gift God has given you, and get out there and see what you can do.

Okay. Unwrap your gift. How to discover and use your spiritual gift.

So, when I was a little kid, my sole aspiration in life was I wanted to be a cartoonist. My backup plan was maybe open a pet shop because I liked animals. But really, what I wanted to do, I wanted to be a cartoonist. I I lived in my own little world of drawing. It was in a way a coping mechanism I developed as a young boy, growing up with my mother's chaotic life, sitting in smoke filled bars into the late hours of the night, waiting for her to stop drinking.

I had to do something. There were no iPads. There were Phones, but there was a tablet and there was a pen.

So I began to draw, and and I loved it so much. And I wanted to do this for a living, so I started writing letters to Charles M. Schultz. You know who that is? He created Peanuts.

And so I'd write him letters. I'd send him my artwork, ask him for his opinions. He was so kind. He would write me back. He would encourage me.

Then I started asking him for stuff. I said, "Could I get an actual piece of original art that you used for your comic strip?" And he sent one to me.

Now, when you see it in the paper, they're little tiny squares. But in real life, each square is like this big, hand drawn, like inked by Charles M. Schulz, signed and inscribed to Greg, and I lost it. And it would be worth thousands of dollars, but I lost it. But he was—it was such a nice thing for him to encourage me in that way.

But this was my goal. This is where I was headed. And then I heard the gospel, and I accepted Christ, and everything changed.

Okay, now what? Am I supposed to be a Christian cartoonist? And but I immediately discovered that I loved to share the gospel with people, and I think that it was pretty quickly in my life that I saw that I had the gift of evangelist. God had called me to be an evangelist, so I expressed this with a little cartoon booklet that I drew called Living Water. Pastor Chuck Smith had given a message at church on a Sunday at the woman on the woman at the well, and Jesus said to her, "If you drink of the water I give, you'll never thirst again." I thought that's the title from a little cartoon booklet, and that was the beginning of my ministry.

And then I also discovered God had called me to be a pastor and a teacher, and we took over a little Bible study in a city called Riverside that you may have heard of. And that is where our church began 52 years ago.

Sometimes we know what our gifts are immediately, and sometimes it takes time.

Sometimes we discover our spiritual gifts through process of elimination, as I pointed out before. We find out what we're not good at before we discover what we're actually gifted at.

Now, when I talk about spiritual gifts, I don't mean your natural talents. Everybody has natural abilities.

Some are more mechanical.

Some are more athletic.

Some are more artistic.

Some are more musical, etc. Those are given to you by God as well. I'm talking about supernatural, spiritual gifts that God places in the life of the Christian when they believe. The Bible says, Romans twelve: We being many are one body in Christ. Everyone members one of another.

Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, so let us use our gifts. You have spiritual gifts in your life, and we're discovering what they may be. But the problem is, some of us have a gift that we've never developed. See, gifts don't come to us fully formed. They develop through use, and the more you use them, the stronger you become in that gift from the Holy Spirit.

If you leave them dormant, they're not going to be effective. Obviously, so the other day I got a letter from a guy I used to go to high school with, and he. It was very nice letter. He thanked me, and then he sent me a gift certificate for a restaurant I'd never been to before, and it was a nice restaurant.

So I came home the other day, and Kathy hadn't started dinner yet, and I said, "Let's go to this restaurant. I've got the gift certificate, and it was for a hundred dollars. Come on, let's go." So we go to the restaurant. They rec someone recognized me when we walked in, and so they knew who I was.

So we had to behave ourselves, and we took our seat. And Kathy ordered fish, and I ordered hamburger. And our meal came. It was a very good meal. We enjoyed it, and I proudly presented my gift certificate.

The waiter kind of looked at it.

Okay, thanks, and and he disappeared for a while, for kind of a long period of time. And the manager comes to our table, and he. Says, "Sir, this gift certificate. Where did you get this?" I said, "Well, a friend from high school sent it to me." He said, "Sir, this gift certificate is 23 years old. Like for real, it was dated 2003." And I didn't check that.

I just saw the logo of the restaurant, and I said, "Well, is there a QR code on it?" He said, "There were no QR codes 23 years ago." Well, I felt embarrassed. I felt like I'm trying to scam this guy, right? And he probably knows I'm a Christian. And I said, "Sorry, sir, I did not know." Someone sent this to me. I said, "Here's, you know." And then I, I'll just pay for the meal.

I'll pay for my meal. And he goes, "Let me talk to the manager." Or he was the manager. He says, "Let me come back." So came back. He says, "We're going to go ahead and cover this for you." I said, "That's very nice of you." But I did leave a tip in the amount of what my bill would have cost because I didn't want them to say, "These stinking preachers." Stealing food, making up gift certificates on their printers at home. But I thought, how crazy is that?

Now I talked to you recently about regifting. This absolutely was regifting. But who keeps a gift certificate for 23 years? This guy did.

Okay. But spiritual gifts can be neglected as well, as I pointed out to you before. The gifts of the Spirit are not toys to play with; they're tools to build with, and they're weapons to fight with. God gives them to us for a reason.

So let's start with our first text, Romans twelve verse six. In His grace. God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well.

So, if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you're a teacher, teach well. We already talked about these.

Now we'll look at the next set of gifts. If your gift is to encourage others, in the King James, that might say the gift of exhortation. If you have the gift of exhortation or encouraging others, be encouraging. I love how practical it is. If you're called to teach, teach well.

If you're called to encourage people, be encouraging. If you're called to give, then give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.

So, the first gift I want to talk about is the gift of exhortation, or the gift of encouraging others. Again, verse eight: If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. What is this gift?

Okay, let me contrast it with another gift to explain it. Teaching, teaching, and exhortation—both very important gifts. A teacher tells you how to do it.

Someone with the gift of exhortation makes you want to do it. You know, there are some people, very gifted teachers, very thorough, go into the original languages, explain it in context. That's fantastic. What a great gift that is. But then there are other preachers, and it might even just be a person.

You know, you don't have to be a preacher. They're just encouraging. When they are done preaching, you want to go out and do what they were talking about. That's the gift of exhortation. One guy I think of with this gift is my friend Ricky Ryan.

He's the founding pastor of Harvest Kualani. That's our Maui campus. Ricky is the most encouraging person I've ever met. He's taught countless people how to surf who never thought they could surf, and in reality, they really can't. But he just made sure they surfed because a lot of surfing is it's wave judgment, knowing where to be in the wave.

People buy boards that are too small, and they don't know how to catch a wave, and they get frustrated.

So Ricky will literally take you out himself. He'll plant his feet on the ground, wait for the wave to come, and then he'll say, "Go." And he'll push you into the wave. All you have to do is stand up.

So technically, you're surfing. And he'll cheer you on, and you think you're a world champion surfer. He's an encouraging guy. I remember once I went to a place where they had a buffet of food. We were traveling, and he was saying, "Go, Greg, go, go, go." I mean, you're encouraging me to eat food.

He's just an encouraging guy. Maybe that person. What a blessed gift that is to have the gift of encouragement or exhortation. I think it's one of the greatest needs in the world today. Encouragement.

You know, if you're suffering, you don't necessarily need a sermon, but you certainly could use a word of encouragement. There's nothing as refreshing as an encouraging word or deed. It's like a fresh drink of water on a hot summer day. Proverbs twenty five twenty five says, "Good news from far away is like cold water to the thirsty." And I think the gift of encouragement is so needed today because there's so much negativity in our culture. And this is amplified by social media, and it's affecting the mental health of our nation, especially our young people.

Rates of depression among younger people, fourteen to seventeen year olds, has grown sixty percent in the last seventeen years. Suicide rates have more than doubled in a decade among the young, tripled in tripled among young girls. This is a particular concern to me. How young girls are now taking their lives at a higher rate than we've ever seen historically, and this is not just young people. Older people too.

Older people who get depressed, they feel forgotten, they feel unwanted, they feel unneeded. Many senior adults are seeking hope. And a word that their lives matter.

Some have lost physical strength. Maybe they've lost a mate. Maybe they're struggling with an illness. And suicide is up among elderly people as well. Seventy-five years and older, these folks have the highest suicide rate.

They just need to know. You are wanted. You are needed. You are loved, and the best place to show this is in the church. And we all have a part to play.

See, older people need younger people, and younger people need older people. The problem is, you know, older people want to hang out together with older people and talk about older people things, which usually involves your latest aching pain. I'll be talking to some older folks, and here we go. Your latest surgery, your whatever else it is, you know. And I often say these are conversations older people always have.

But then younger people they have their conversations as well. But listen, younger folks, you need the wisdom of older folks. They have something to say to you. Newsflash: one day you're going to be one of them. Believe it or not.

You will be.

So learn from them. You know, when I first became a Christian, I was seventeen years old, and I started attending church. And I immediately befriended adults old enough to be my parents because I needed role models. Because I wasn't raised with a father, I needed a godly older man to help me understand what it meant to be a Christian man. And eventually, a Christian husband and a father, etc.

I needed women, older women, because I didn't have a godly mother. These are important things that I needed in my life. You can supply that for someone you who are older.

So, you who are older, try to get a younger person in your life. You who are younger, get an older person in your life.

Now, you older folks, you need the younger folks too. They actually have some things to teach you. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Well, you're not a dog, and these aren't tricks, okay? Because older folks need younger people in their lives to energize them. Younger folks need older folks in their lives to stabilize them.

So this is we come together and we encourage one another, and everybody matters. This says. Why the church matters so much? Hebrews ten twenty four says, "Let's consider one another to provoke each other to love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another daily, and so much more as you see the day of the Lord approaching." That verse is simply saying you need to be a part of the church. That's why.

We don't want to just see you here on Sunday morning. We want to see you in a harvest small group where you can develop community and friendships. We want to see you developing your spiritual gift and serving the Lord with what the Lord has given you to serve with. And so, this all matters: encouraging one another. By the way, the word exhortation means to correct, motivate, encourage, and stimulate.

So it's not just encouraging. It's not just you go, girl, because maybe the girl's going the wrong way.

So we need to say, "I love you enough to tell you the truth," and I think you have a blind spot here spiritually. I see you making compromises here. I don't think this relationship with this dude you're hanging out with, or this girl you're hanging out with, is good for you. Or I see you doing another thing. Because I love you, I'm going to tell you the truth.

That's the correcting part. But then it's motivate, stimulate. Hey, man, I see fruit spiritually in your life. I see changes that are happening. I see this gift in you that you need to cultivate and you need to develop.

That's the gift of exhortation. There's one guy in the Bible who had this gift big time, and his name was Barnabas. Maybe I should say his nickname was Barnabas because his technical name was Joseph, but they gave him a nickname which was Barnabas, the son of consolation.

So, in other words, he was Mister Encouragement. Would someone ever say that of you? That person, they're like Mister Encouragement. They're like Miss Motivation. You know, if you were summed up like that way, you're Mister or Miss Someone.

What would it be? Would it be Mister Excitement?

Some people are excited about everything. Constant excitement, maybe even excited about too many things, but they're excited. Others are happy; they're just happy, happy people. Great temperament. Others are Bible quoting machines; they can quote a verse for everything and anything.

So, oh look, there's Mister Excitement. Oh, oh, there, there's Mister Bible. But then there are others that oh, here comes Miss Critical, or Mister Cranky. With their friends Bobby Buzzkill and Debbie Downer, some people only see the negative, never the positive, and they might say, "Well, I have the gift of criticism." No, you don't. There's no gift of criticism.

You're just a negative person, and you need to stop. Need to learn to be an encouraging person, and you may have the actual gift of encouragement as well. And Barnabas stepped into the life of a man that really could use some encouragement, and that man's name was Saul of Tarsus. Saul of Tarsus was a notorious hater of Christians. He was a Christian killer.

He literally hunted down followers of Jesus and tortured and executed them. And one day, Saul of Tarsus met Jesus on the road to Damascus and saw the Lord. And he was called by God.

Well, who's going to take this guy on? First of all, no one believed he was really a Christian. But thankfully, a guy named Ananias stepped into his life and prayed for him and gave him an initial word of encouragement. And he sort of exits the picture. Enter Mister Encouragement.

Barnabas takes Saul later to become the great apostle Paul under his wing. He takes him on a missionary journey and he helps him make that transition. And we need people to do that. Listen. If you ever see somebody walking around Harvest carrying one of these, it means one thing: they're too cheap to buy a Bible.

They're sticking with the freebie.

Now, as you know, I hold this up pretty much every time I speak. It's a new believer's Bible, and we give these out to folks who have prayed and accepted Christ into their life.

So, if they're walking around church with a new believer's Bible, Chances are very high that is a new believer, so they need you to say, "Hey, hi, how are you?" I see you have a new believer's Bible. Yeah, I do.

So, did you accept Christ recently? Yeah, last week. Wow, that's amazing. That's amazing. How you doing?

Well, I'm just kind of figuring it all out. You know, it's all new to me. And oh, wow. You know what? We're going to lunch after church.

Would you like to join us? They need a friend. They need a Barnabas. They need you. A guy named Mark did this for me.

So I was a brand new believer, accepted Christ, and I was in this little no man's land temporarily, where I didn't want to hang around with my low life friends. I knew that was a bad choice, but I didn't quite feel comfortable with the Christians yet. Too much praise the Lord, Hallelujah for me, you know. Too much Bible quoting. I don't know.

But the old guys, I don't want that.

So I said, I'm going to be a solo Christian. It's just me and Jesus. I don't need anybody else.

So that wasn't working.

So this guy comes out of nowhere and he says, "Hi, my name is Mark, and I saw that you accepted Christ at the high school Bible study at lunch the other day." And I'm kind of like, "Yeah." So he says, "Well, what's your name, Greg?" Yeah, well, Greg. Hi, Mark. Yeah, nice to meet you. Yeah, why don't you come to church with me? I have a church.

You're really like, I literally said, I don't want to go to church with you. No, no, Greg, you're gonna come. No, I don't really want to go. No, come on, Greg, come to church. No, I don't want to go.

Greg, where do you live? What's your address? No, I don't want to go. Next thing I know, I'm in his car on the way to church. He was persistent in the best way possible.

He would not take no for an answer. He helped me make that transition. I could have fallen to the cracks. I needed a Barnabas. I needed someone with a word of encouragement.

You can be that person, and maybe God has given you that gift as well. Over in Acts chapter. Eleven, we read this. They sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he arrived and saw the evidence of God's blessing, he was filled with joy, and he encouraged the believers to stay true to the Lord.

Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit, and strong in faith. And many people were brought to the Lord. I love that. You know, he encouraged the believers to stay true to the Lord. And I want to do that for you right now.

I want to say to you. Be true to the Lord. Hold your course. Maybe you've come here today, or you're watching online, or wherever you are, and you're feeling down. You're feeling discouraged.

I want you to know that God is bigger than whatever problem you're facing, and He's going to walk with you through whatever valley you're in right now. You're not going to be abandoned by God. When our son Christopher was called home to heaven, 33 years ago, or excuse me, 18 years ago, he was 33. We were devastated. I I literally didn't know if I could survive hearing such news, and and my home immediately filled with people, all wanting to say the right thing, help in some way.

But let me just tell you, if someone's lost a loved one, especially a child, less is more.

Sometimes just being there means more than anything. Just say I'm praying for you. I'm sorry, but you know people are seeing all these things, and and I collapsed to the ground, and my wife Kathy took my face in her hands and said, "Greg, it's going to be okay." I think she could see the panic on my face, the terror on my face, like how overwhelmed I was. She said, "Greg, it's going to be okay." There's only one person that could have said that to me on that day. That was Kathy, because she too had lost a son.

And when she said it's going to be okay, I mean, I knew that didn't mean Christopher's going to be alive again. But I knew what she was saying is God's going to get us through this, and He did, and He does, and that was a word that I needed to hear that made all the difference for me. And I want to say to you, whatever you are facing, whatever is before you, it's going to be okay. I know it seems insurmountable. I know it seems overwhelming.

I know it seems like you can't get through this. But if you put your faith in Christ, you are not alone, and He has promised, "I will never leave you or forsake you." It's going to be okay. Others have the gift of leadership. Verse eight. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously.

Sometimes people wonder, "Am I called to be a leader?" Well, my advice to you is: go ahead and lead, and see if anyone follows. Not everyone's called to be a leader.

Now, let me say, in a broad sense, we're all leaders in a way. I mean, you're a leader in your home. If you are a father, a mother, you are a leader to your family, and you influence other people. But there is a specific gift of leadership that God gives, and it's not easy. And the word that is used here by the Apostle Paul for leadership could be translated "someone who guides you through all kinds of seas," like the captain of a boat.

So think of yourself. You are out. In the ocean, the seas are rough, but you've got a good captain who has control of the situation. And a leader needs to be dependable. A leader needs to be stable.

A leader needs to be someone that you know is going to help you get through what it is you're facing. Paul said, "Follow me." And follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. One definition I heard of leadership is a leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but once they get there, they're glad they went. See, a leader, God gives them the ability to see down the road. They see what could be.

They see what you should pursue, but not everybody sees that. Right? I don't see that. I don't agree with that. And so the people may criticize the leader, undermine the leader, criticize the leader.

But you know the leader is given this insight from God. If you're called to be a leader, the Bible says you should be a good leader. And take that responsibility seriously. Then there is a spiritual gift of giving. First, Saint Romans twelve.

If your gift is giving, then give generously.

Now, let me say, every Christian should give of their finances to the Lord. And I don't know why many people do not do this. I I won't say many, but I don't know why some don't do this because you miss out on a blessing. Did you know that Jesus said it is more blessed to give than it is to receive, and that word "blessed" could be translated "happy making." It's more happy making to give than it is to receive. There's a joy, there's a happiness in giving, in serving, in doing something for someone else.

Haven't you ever done a good deed for someone and felt really good about it? Experts actually dub this the "helpers high." There is an actual condition one can experience with the release of certain endorphins that takes place when you do something for someone else, and so we miss out on the blessing when we don't give to the Lord. Not to mention the promises attached to it. In Malachi three, God says, "You've cheated me of tithes and offerings due to me.

So bring your tithes to the storehouse, and then the Lord makes this unique promise. And if you do, if you bring your tithes, which means ten percent, if you bring your financial gifts to the Lord, He says, 'I will open the windows of heaven for you and pour you out a blessing so great you will have room enough to take it in.'" Try me, put me to the test. Isn't that great?

So we all should give, and you shouldn't give under pressure. The Bible says in Second Corinthians nine seven, every one of you should give what you've decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver, or a better translation, a hilarious giver. You should be able to give hilariously. Oh, the opera!

I love it. Here we go. But if you are like, oh man, come on, what's wrong? You should ask God to change your heart. Heard the story of Billy Graham was in church one time, the offering was being received, so he reached in his pocket to pull out a five, and by accident pulled out a fifty and put it in the offering bag.

Didn't mean to get fifty. Afterwards, he went to his wife Ruth.

Well, Ruth. I gave fifty dollars to the Lord. I only meant to give five, but I put a fifty in by accident. She said, "That's all the credit God's going to give you credit for five dollars, not fifty, because you didn't want to give it." So you know, it comes it comes down to the heart, right? But then there's a gift of giving, a giving that is single minded, without ulterior motive, with no thought of repayment, just.

God's given you a gift, and some have this beautiful gift of the Spirit. Then there is the gift of showing kindness and mercy. Verse eight. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.

Again, these are supernatural gifts. I don't know that I have this gift, frankly, but I know others that do because I've seen it. I've seen the minister to people because you know maybe someone's in a hospital, and I come walking in, and what am I going to do for them?

Well, let's turn in our Bibles. They don't need a sermon. Maybe they don't even need me at all. But then someone comes in with a gift of mercy, and they just take the person by the hand, and they just sit there with them for a while. And they talk to them, and then they pray for them.

And I watch them, and I think this is such an amazing gift. I believe my wife Kathy has this gift. I've seen her use it. I mentioned, you know, the Lord called our son home to heaven, and Kathy noticed there were some folks in our church—widows and parents who had lost children, and people who had lost loved ones. She said, "We need a ministry just for these people." So we started a ministry called Grief Share.

It's not one of the high-profile ministries of Harvest. It's a small group that will gather on any given time that they meet. But these are people with specific needs that really need help. And the best person to give help to someone who has lost a loved one is someone else who has lost a loved one. Because we can comfort with the comfort we've been comforted with, Paul says.

And so it's a beautiful ministry. But that's the gift of showing. Mercy, maybe God has given you that gift as well. Just use that gift.

Now let's go over to Ephesians chapter four. Go over to Ephesians four. Did I tell you to turn to that in the beginning? Romans twelve, Ephesians four.

Okay, you can do it with a little more enthusiasm. We're just sitting there. Turn to Ephesians four. You're like, okay, Ephesians four, verse eleven. He himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastor teachers.

Their responsibility is to equip God's people to do His work and build up the church, a body of Christ. This will continue till we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's Son. Then we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full standard of Christ. Number one, apostles. Are there apostles today?

Some identify themselves as apostles. I am an apostle, they say.

Well, let's define apostle. In the first century, God called twelve apostles. One of them was Judas Iscariot. He betrayed the Lord, and he was replaced later in the Book of Acts by a guy named Matthias. Paul.

God also called Paul to be an apostle as well. These apostles were unique in that when they wrote a letter to someone that we call an epistle, it became holy scripture on the same level as the Old Testament, because all scripture is given by inspiration of God.

Sometimes people say, "I'm only into the red letters of Jesus." And that's because there's red letter editions of the Bible where the words of Christ are in red. I'm into the red letters. They say, "Listen, the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is filled with red letters, inspired by God. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." The gospel is not more inspired than the book of Exodus or the Psalms or any other passage or one of the epistles.

So these apostles wrote these amazing letters, breathed by God Himself.

Now, is there anybody walking around that can do that today? No, there are not. There are not, and unfortunately, the Bible warns us about false apostles and false prophets.

So, someone says, "I have a word from the Lord." I am going to be very careful to scrutinize that so-called word from the Lord. As a matter of fact, when Paul the apostle preached in Berea, Acts seventeen says. The people searched the scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was true. Whoa, you were fact checking Paul. Yes, they were.

Does this line up with scripture? Very smart. We should always do that. No man's word is infallible. No pastor's word is infallible.

The Pope's word is not infallible. Nobody else's word is infallible. Only the word of God is infallible. That's the standard we measure everything by.

So apostles. In the sense of the first century ones, that's a unique group. But having said that, the word apostle technically means someone that is sent on a mission, and there are people that go and plant churches and raise up leaders, and we might say they have an apostolic-like ministry, but not on the level of the first century apostles.

Now, evangelists. Is someone who bears good news. These are people that are uniquely gifted to articulate their faith and lead people to Christ. Philip is the only person in the Bible uniquely identified as an evangelist.

Now, others were evangelists. Peter certainly was an evangelist, preaching on the day of Pentecost, and three thousand believed. Paul certainly was an evangelist. Others were evangelists, but Philip. Is described as an evangelist, and this is a special gift from God.

Now, we're not off the hook. We're all called to evangelize. In fact, Paul even wrote to Timothy, "Do the work of an evangelist." But having said that, there are some people that have a supernatural ability. The man that I met, that I think had it more than anyone I've ever seen before, is Billy Graham.

Now there's other great evangelists from history, George Whitfield, T.L. Moody. Billy Sunday. The list goes on, but I got to actually know Billy Graham and hang out with him, and it was just amazing how Billy could stand on a stage and give that invitation, and thousands and thousands of people would come to Christ. That's a gift from God.

That's all there is to say about that. One time Billy said to me, "You know, Greg, I don't think I'm a very good preacher, but I think God has given me the gift of giving the invitation." For people to come to Christ, I really disagreed with Billy. In fact, I never did. But I said, Billy, I have to disagree with you on this point. You are a really good preacher.

I don't know if you know that. You're a really good preacher, but you do have the gift of giving the invitation as well. And you don't have to be a preacher to do this. Yeah, well, you have to have a pulpit and some big ministry.

Some of the best evangelists that I've ever met are just regular Christian folks that have a gifting for it. You'll be out with them somewhere, and they just have this nat—I don't want to say natural ability because it's supernatural—and they'll just start a conversation with someone. And next thing you know, they're sharing the gospel. And next thing you know, they're leading people to Christ. You can how do they do that?

It's a gift from God, but we can develop a gift to share our faith as well and learn from them. I am always looking for opportunities. To reach new people in new ways, not just do it in the way we've always done it. And recently, I had the opportunity to be in a podcast with a guy named Rick Rubin. You ever heard of him?

So, if you're into music, Rick Rubin is one of the great producers out there. He produced the Beastie Boys and Jay Z, and worked with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. He also did the last records recordings of Johnny Cash at the end of his career, which were, I think, the greatest records Johnny ever made. And Johnny had a real impact on his life spiritually as well. They would receive communion before they would go into the studio and record every time.

It's amazing to me.

So Rick has an audience. This is not my audience. These are. This is not what you'd call a Christian podcast. And I was able to be in his platform for over two hours and share the gospel because he asked me amazing questions.

And so it's a great opportunity. There I am with Rick. Rick walks around all the time in shorts, barefoot, so I took my shoes off as a concession. And hey, that's pretty good that I can sit like that at seventy-three. What do you say?

Now I would prove it to you, and I'd sit on this platform, but I'm afraid I couldn't get back up again.

So, but and then recently I had a friend. Who was invited to the birthday party of Ringo Starr?

Now, for you that are younger, he was in a band called the Beatles. They were pretty good. He was the drummer. He was the drummer in the Beatles.

Okay, so he said, "Would you like to go with me and meet Ringo?" Before he could finish his sentence, I said, "Yes." And so we went there, and he was in a little tent, and we were able to get a picture with him.

So here's our picture with Ringo Starr. And Ringo's flashing the peace sign, and Kathy and I are doing the one-way sign. He's very nice, very friendly guy, very nice guy. And and I stood there and at that.

Now, what can I say to Ringo? I have like not even a minute. I could tell him I love their music, and I said, "No, you know, has this guy ever heard any of the gospel?" I don't know.

So I put my hand on his shoulder briefly. I don't know if I should have done that, but I did. I said, Ringo, I'd like to say something to you. He looks at me. He goes, "Who are you?

I have hair, you don't." Ringo, I want to say something to you. I said, I wanted to tell you that Jesus Christ loves you. See, and I'm not saying it's not wonderful. I did that. That's what we're supposed to do.

When God opens up opportunities, we need to walk through those open doors. And I'm not; it's not just meeting well-known people. When I'm out and about all the time, I look for opportunities, and God will sort of give me a sense of. Talk to this person. I don't know what I'm supposed to say to them.

I don't know how the conversation is going to go, but I feel prompted by the Holy Spirit to initiate a conversation about Christ. Have you ever felt that before you yourself? Not if the answer is yes.

Okay. Maybe God's given you the gift of evangelist. It's a beautiful gift. Then there's pastor teachers. Verse eleven, He gave some to be pastor teachers.

This is one office, pastor teacher. The objective of a pastor teacher is to feed the flock of God and declare the whole counsel of God, and it is to teach from the Bible. And I think one of the biggest problems in the church today is we become biblically illiterate. We're not hearing the word of God from the pulpit, and we make no apology for our theology here at Harvest. We've been doing this for 52 years, giving you the word of God, and you know that pretty much every service is going to come to the point where we're going to say something along the lines of, "Let's turn in our Bibles, too." And we encourage you to bring your Bibles to church.

Sometimes I speak in other churches, not very often, but occasionally. And one of the first things I look for when I'm going into that church are people bringing their Bibles. I can tell in three minutes if it's a biblically literate congregation or not. You can just tell by the way they react and the way they connect to it. And we want you to be biblically literate.

Why does this matter? Second Timothy four says, "Preach the word. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, encourage your people with good teaching." Why should we do this? Paul goes on, because the time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching, and they'll follow their own desires and look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear.

Oh man, doesn't that make sense? We're living in that time right now. We want you to develop an appetite for the Word of God and learn to love the Bible. That's what we're here for—the gifts of the Spirit. We got to find out what our gifts are and develop them and use them and not let them lie dormant.

So, before you can receive the gifts of the Spirit, you need to receive the ultimate gift from the Spirit. And what is the ultimate gift? It's the gift of eternal life. Romans six twenty three says. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.

The Bible also says, "Thank God for this indescribable gift." The Bible says, "For as many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become sons of God." Jesus said, "You must be born again, where you ask Christ to come and be your Savior and Lord." And if you haven't done that yet, Why don't you do it now? We're going to have a prayer, and I'm going to lead a prayer for anyone who wants Christ to come into their life.

So you can know that when you die, you will go to heaven. Because the whole point of the cross was He died for your sin, because you're separated from God because of your Breaking of his commandments and falling short of his standards, but God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

So you can believe in him and be forgiven.

So we're going to pray in a moment, and if you need Christ into your life, respond to this opportunity. Let's all bow our heads for prayer. Father, thank you for your word to us. Thank you for your love for us in sending Jesus to die on the cross in our place. And now, Lord, we pray for any that have joined us who do not yet know you, wherever they are.

Help them to believe in you now.

Now, while our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed, and we're praying, if you would like Jesus Christ to come into your life, if you would like Him to forgive you of your sin. If you would like to know that when you die you will go to heaven, if you want to join God's family, I want you to pray this prayer out loud after me. In fact, I'm going to ask that all of us would pray this prayer out loud as a show of support for those that are praying it for the first time. Let's all pray this prayer. Pray after me, Lord Jesus.

I know that I am a sinner. But I know that you are the Savior who died on the cross for my sin and rose again from the dead. I turn from my sin now, and I choose to follow you from this moment forward as my Savior and Lord, as my God and my friend. Thank you for hearing this prayer and answering this prayer. In Jesus' name, I pray.

Amen. Hey, everybody! Thanks for listening to this podcast. To learn more about Harvest Ministries, follow this show and consider supporting it. Just go to harvest.

dot org. And to find out how to know God personally, go to harvest. dot org and click on Know God.