Fruits and Gifts [Part 3]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

We need these gifts. There may be somebody whose life will be transformed because you had the word of encouragement for them. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Word and Spirit, The Beauty of Ballots, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. Now, if you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you this resource, today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. It'd be a very important thing, really, in the body of Christ, wouldn't it, to know what is going on. So if there's the presence of evil that you know, and never ever, I wish I could spend a long time talking about this gift, because this gift is sort of like the sense of smell.

It's like, you know, it's like, it doesn't smell right, right? Well, this is what happens to people that got this gift. It happens in the Spirit.

You just know things. Listen, beloved, if you've got this gift, I just feel like I need to take you over and say, let me bless you. We need this gift. And let me also tell you about the dangers of this gift.

Because, man, if the Lord starts showing you some stuff about people, there's a fine line between then you starting to think that you can stand a judgment over those people or whatever. But no, this is just a wonderful, wonderful gift. One time, many, many years ago, an elder in this church came to me and he said, I had a dream in which the Lord, this is a bold elder, came to me and said, I had a dream in which the Lord came to you and offered you the gift of discernment of spirits and you said no. He says, the Lord ever offered that to you and you said no?

I said, are you kidding? I've never said no to the Lord about some gift that he wanted to give me. I got away from it and I said, well, maybe I have. Because I had in my mind a little bit like, you know, I got enough problems. I face enough demons all over the world.

I got enough stuff going on. I said, why do I want to see one more manifestation of some evil or something else going on? And I had a wrong assumption. The assumption was, if I see that there's a problem that I discerned, that I've got to do something about it. But see, I had to get enough healing from that bad boundary lifestyle and all of that that would say, oh, just because you see a need, you got to do something about it. No, perhaps what the Lord wants to do is give you more discernment so that you won't get tangled up with the wrong person or perhaps in your workplace, you won't promote the wrong person or you won't partner with the wrong. You need to have discernment.

All right, man, I wish I could talk some more about that. And then there's the listing of the gift of tongues. This is obviously the one that's caused so much controversy, especially over the last 50 years, over the last hundred years, really. But especially in these moves that we call the charismatic revival, tongues is something that becomes a big issue. And the reason it did is because there's one segment of the body of Christ who has said, oh, this is the gift. They base it on the fact that a lot of times when people were first empowered by the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, there was a speaking of tongues, but not in every instance was there. And there's no doctrine in the New Testament says, oh, you need to have the gift of tongues or else you hadn't been filled with the Spirit.

Now I know that some of you've come along in that kind of tradition. And I know that there's an argument to be made for that, but here's just what I want to say to that is that when Paul says to all speak in tongues, there's a rhetorical answer to that and it's no. And I've just known lots of people who really want to have this gift because they still want to feel like they're really in and they really have the Holy Spirit. And yet these people have other gifts and I've seen God use them powerfully. And so I just have to conclude from the scriptures, no, no, God does not elevate one gift over all the other gifts. So that's been one of the problems. The other problem is that people just think, well, to our logical minds and our intellects, the idea of speaking in an unknown language is something that just seems too far out and too too weird so people discount it.

So for either one of those things, it's been really controversial. Let me just tell you real quickly, the New Testament speaks of tongues in really three different ways. In the book of Acts, in chapter two, when the Holy Spirit falls at Pentecost, people are speaking in languages that they did not themselves know, but they were known languages. And other people from other cultures and ethnicities and nations heard their own language being spoken by someone who didn't know their language and it was a miracle.

And that was powerful. The second thing that can happen is that someone can have a prophetic utterance, can have a word of encouragement, a word from the Lord that is spoken forth in an unknown language. It's not any known language, it's just a spiritual language. But if it's in a corporate gathering, if it's happening in a group of people, then it's because God is using it like He would use a prophecy. And so either the one who gives it or somebody else in that room, if it's a real word, then they'll be receiving, not like a translation, like a word for word translation, but they'll be receiving in their heart, this is what God's saying through this and they'll share that.

So it's like a prophetic word of encouragement. And this is what is so often talked about when Paul talks about, when I pray in the Spirit or I pray in tongues rather, he says it's for my own edification. This is your own unique way that God gives you to pray in a kind of a spiritual language or prayer language. It's an intimate form of communication with God, wherein the Spirit helps you pray. I've taught on this subject before about what it means to pray in the Spirit. And praying in tongues is not the only way of praying in the Spirit. So when Paul says to all of us to pray in the Spirit, he also means if you're praying the Scripture, you're praying in the Spirit, because the Spirit has infused and breathes Himself into the Scriptures. So that's Spirit praying, right?

If you're praying with the help of the Holy Spirit because you've got a gift of mercy and the compassion of the Holy Spirit's flowing through you, you're praying in the Spirit. So, so, so much more could be said about that. There's a handout there.

Our community groups are going to talk more about this. I know that that's just an unbelievably too quick and too expansive and too general, but I just wanted to do that because I want you to know that today, and if somebody's listening by podcast or radio, you should earnestly desire that the Lord fan these gifts into flame in your life, or you may hear one of those gifts I just listed and you go, I really would love to move in that gift. And you ask the Lord for it. And maybe you think, I think maybe I have that gift, but I never even knew that was a gift.

I've talked to so many people like that before. They'll just say something like, I didn't even know that was a gift. And it's like, this is a gift of the Holy Spirit to you.

He's supernaturally using you. It's an incredibly exciting thing to be used supernaturally by God himself. Well, let me think if you kind of observation about the gifts of the Spirit before we talk about the fruit of the Spirit, just a moment.

And the first is that I would just want to make this point. I have no time today to do a defense of why I believe the scriptures make it clear that the gifts continue today. I know maybe some people listening right now that you've been taught that the gifts have ceased or you've taught that certain gifts continue and certain gifts have ceased. But I just want to just say this, this whole discussion, I hope that you can at least see this. I just read from three chapters in first Corinthians 12, 13, 14 and Romans 12. And I just want you to be aware, this is not some tangential conversation that's sort of non-essential.

They always shouldn't even like politics or something. You shouldn't even talk about it because this just gets division in the body of Christ. Are you kidding me? We're talking about the supernatural equipment of the body of Christ to do the things that Jesus did.

This is absolutely important. And so wherever you are on this, I'm just going to challenge you to say that if you're at a point and say, well, I've always believed the gifts cease, investigate this further because maybe you'll be like me where at one point in my life when I started hearing about these kinds of supernatural things that were happening, I said, if any of that is true, I'm missing something big in my spiritual life. And God wants to invite you into it. There are no inferior and superior Christians.

There are no ins and outs. You all been baptized into one body, into the Lord Jesus Christ, and you all have a spiritual inheritance with Him. And Colossians says, you have been qualified for your inheritance in the same.

There's no second class citizen in the kingdom of God. These gifts are for you. And we need them coming out of you. We need them. We need these gifts. There may be somebody whose life will be transformed because you had the word of encouragement for them. God, we need these gifts. That's why, that's why people say the gifts of their controversial and people get divided over prophecy or tongues or all these things and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I'm like, listen, I'm not all wrapped up. I'm going to be totally biblical about this. But my experience is that people need help. God loves people. He wants to help people.

The mission of the church is at stake. Also, I want to just point out, and this comes from a quite articulate writer and friend, Sam Storms. He's written a beginner's guide to the spiritual gifts. And he's written a book called Convergence, both of which, if you're exploring this and you're an intellectual, oh, he is one of the smartest guys I've ever been around. And he's written all about his experience.

And he's very articulate, but he makes this point. The manifestation of the Spirit is what Paul says at 1 Corinthians 12, 7. And what he's saying for this is that the gifts of the Spirit are not separated from the Spirit Himself. Please understand, these are not like magic tricks that the Lord gives you, and now you know how to do it. You've got this little magic trick. The gift, if there's a healing that takes place through your gift, it's the Spirit Himself who's doing that.

That's Alan Ryan. We'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. If you've ever thought that being filled with the Holy Spirit meant shutting off your mind, you're in for a wonderful surprise. When you make a gift of support this month, we'll send you Alan Wright's newest audio album on CD or digital download titled Word and Spirit.

It's about the beauty of balance. Embrace the fullness of God's Word and His Spirit and grow like never before. With Word and Spirit, you'll grow up and you'll be helping someone else grow as well. And remember, when you partner with Alan Wright Ministries, you'll be broadcasting the love of God to thousands every day. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. If there's a teaching that goes forth and it's anointed, it's the Spirit Himself. The Spirit of God is not separated from the gift of God. So to say that He gives you a gift, He's given you Himself. He's given Himself to you to work through you. I also want you to make this point, and I've just got to go really fast.

Listen fast. The word for gift, my favorite word in the New Testament, is charis, which is the word grace. Here's what happens. Bible teacher, Hebraic scholar Carl Koch is one who showed me this in a diagram. God, if you can imagine at the top of this little triangle, gives grace. That's charis.

It comes to me. Then when I share the grace that God has given to me through a gift, the word in the New Testament for that gift, a spiritual gift, is a charisma. So a charisma is a form of charis. I share the gift with you, and your life is touched by God.

And what do you do? You give thanks back to God, and the word for thanks is you, charistia. Charis is in the middle of thanksgiving. God gives charis. We share the charisma, and we give you charistia back to God. He gives grace. We share the gift. We give thanks to God. He gives grace. We share the gift. We give thanks to God. He gives grace. We share the gift. We give thanks to God.

That's beautiful. So is every Christian charismatic? Well, does every Christian have grace? Yes. Does every Christian have charis? Yes. Does every Christian have charisma?

Yes. Gifts are certainly given sovereignly by God, but we can and should, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14, verse 1, earnestly desire the gifts. So on the one hand, it's a beautiful thing to say, seek the giver, not the gifts, because what that's trying to say is, what we're looking for is we don't need fancy manifestations in our life.

We just want God. But it's not really accurate to say, don't seek the gifts. No, he wants us to earnestly desire the gifts. So today, if there's a gift in your life, you'd really like to have it, I have to ask God for it.

We'll pray for you today. If there's a gift in your life also, it means that you can have it stirred into flame. Paul said this to Timothy, to fan into flame the gift that was given to you and the laying on of hands. What does that mean? It means you can have a gift now and it can grow. It also means that because Paul says in Romans 12, we have different grace and use it in proportion to our faith, that we have people that have the same gift, but it's used at different levels. That's fine with God too.

All right. The fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Love is at the head.

These love are all together. It's a package. And the key about understanding fruit of the Spirit is that there's a reason that Paul says this is fruit. Because fruit is a product, or you might even call it a byproduct of a root that grew into a tree, a plant, a bush. And that root grew from a seed. A seed is planted, a root springs up, a plant grows into its maturity, and it bears fruit.

A seed, a root, and then the fruit. I read a little cute story this week that there was a boy who lived in a two-story house. His room was on the second floor, and anytime he'd get in trouble, or if he was trying to sneak out of the house, he could open the window and climb right onto a fruit tree that came right up next to his window and sneak out of the house. And that's the way he would come in and out, and he loved that tree. And one day he heard his dad say to his mother, you know, that tree that's over there is too close to the house. Besides, it doesn't bear any fruit at all. There's never been any fruit on that tree at all.

I'm going to cut it down. So the boy took his piggy bank, went down to the grocery store, and he bought a bunch of apples. He came back and he came back, and he snuck out there, and he touched some little string, and he tied all these apples onto the tree. And the next morning, the parents, of course, knew what had happened.

The mother, they knew the child was listening. The mother said to the father, said, isn't that amazing? Overnight, those beautiful red apples all sprung out on that tree.

And the dad said, yeah. And what's even more amazing is it's a pear tree. One thing's for sure, brothers and sisters, you'll never get pears from an apple seed, will you? This is why Paul says, do not be deceived. Listen to this. Do not be deceived. Whatever you sow, you reap. It's not like some mysterious truth or some big warning.

It's just an obvious, plain fact of life. Want apples? Plant apple seeds. Want oranges?

Plant orange seeds. It will produce a root, and that'll end up producing the fruit. So Paul says, with regard to the fruit of the Spirit, this is the fruit, but it's not fruit in the sense that you just lie around and hope that I'm going to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness in my life. He said, sow into this. Sow into the things of the Spirit. You can sow into the flesh. The NIV translates it the sinful nature, or you can sow into the Spirit. Every thought that you have, every activity of your life, every word that you speak, every conversation that you have, everything that you watch, everything that you read, everything that you listen to, everything that you fix your mind on, every bit of it in one way or another is sowing. It's a beautiful thing. It's a wonderful thing that God has made all of us farmers. I'll tell you, it's one of the most supernatural, glorious, wonderful truths you could ever discover in your life is sowing and reaping. What Paul is saying here is that there's a fruit of the Holy Spirit that is love and joy and peace and patience, but the way that you get there is not by saying, I'm going to become a more patient person today. He said, you don't get there by the law. He said, if you just try to fix yourself on law, you're just going to be living by the flesh, and you're going to wind up with the works of the flesh.

But what he's saying is that there's a fruit, and if you sow into the things of the Spirit, then you'll be amazed how from the Spirit, you'll also reap this wonderful fruit. I've got a baby in town now. I'm so excited. My niece, Courtney, some of you have met Courtney and her husband, Matt, who's done some worship leading for us, and they now have a four-month-old Wesley. Wesley.

First baby, grandchild in the family, and so they live here. Wesley, I've already strolled Wesley all around my neighborhood, and then we had lunch this past week with some of the family, and we were at the golf shop, and we had lunch, and I said, can I just walk Wesley around? I just want to show him around, and he loves the scenery. He was getting a little bit fussy, so I was doing the... Hadn't walked a baby around in a long time, and the first thing I realized, man, I'm not as strong as I was before. This guy's a chubby little guy, and the second thing was just how much fun it is going around just to show a baby to everybody.

If you got a baby with you, you can just do anything you want to, basically. Anyway, I go, and I'm taking him around. I'm showing Wesley.

I'm just talking to him, Wesley, and so I said, the first thing we're going to say, we're going to go in here. Let's go into the golf shop. You know, your Uncle Allen likes golf. I think you're going to like golf a lot, Wesley. You know, you're going to be a fine golfer. Come on here. Lookie here. Here's the golf pro. Everybody say hey to Wesley.

Yes. I said, and you see all these golf clubs here? Your Uncle Allen will get any of them for you. You can come out and play golf with me. I was just walking around.

I was laughing about it. I said, I've already got him going on golf. I said, what am I doing? I'm just sewing. He doesn't have a sport yet.

He doesn't know what he likes. Listen, we don't come in this world and just, you know, like a blob and just nothing happens to us, and then we just discover ourselves. That's not what happens, beloved. People sew into our lives, and we start taking these things in, and fruit comes out of it.

Right? A lot of you have been, you've had bad things sewn into your life, and man, that's why we pray for one another. We need healing from that, but what Paul's saying is you got the opportunity to sew into the Spirit. It's not an accident who's got love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

It's not an accident. God's given us a way and a means by His Spirit. Beloved, what I'm saying, I'm out of time, but we need the gifts of the Holy Spirit because we need the power of God let loose in this world.

My goodness, sometimes people say, well, we just need the gifts back in the first century because the church was being authenticated, and we don't really need them now. If you looked at this world, oh my, we need the gifts and the power of God most high. We need somebody to get healed so somebody will say, surely God's in this place.

We need somebody who's got a gift of wisdom who can speak to the divisions and the racism of this world and bring some sense to it. We need the gifts and the power of the most high God. And man, we need the fruit of the Spirit because if you get somebody who's all empowered by God and they don't have a character of Christ, then it's a stench in the nostrils of people who don't know the Lord, and it brings pain and hurt when people are puffed up.

Oh, if we could just have somebody who had the gifts and the fruit, someone who could come and demonstrate both. His name is Jesus. He had the Holy Spirit without measure. He moved in the gifts miraculously, and He never sinned because He had constant communion with His Father. He had perfect character, and He, Christians, is in you. It's by the presence of Jesus that you're going to have both His gifts and His fruit in your life, and that's the gospel. Alan Wright, and a final moment there with fruit and gifts as the teaching, and we're still in the middle of this series, The Beauty of Balance, More to Come.

In fact, here in just a moment with Alan in the studio, there's additional insight on what we've just heard for your life and today's final word. If you've ever thought that being filled with the Holy Spirit meant shutting off your mind, you're in for a wonderful surprise. God's Word and God's Spirit were never meant to be separated. Word and Spirit always belong together.

The key to abundant life in Christ isn't knowing your Bible. The secret isn't being filled with the Spirit. The answer is both Word and Spirit. Though some traditions emphasize studying Scripture and some traditions emphasize the Spirit, the path to real Christian growth is the fullness of both Word and Spirit. As someone once said, all Word, no Spirit, you dry up. All Spirit, no Word, you blow up. Both Word and Spirit, you grow up. When you make a gift of support this month, we'll send you Alan Wright's newest audio album on CD or digital download titled Word and Spirit.

It's about the beauty of balance. Embrace the fullness of God's Word and His Spirit and grow like never before. With Word and Spirit, you'll grow up and you'll be helping someone else grow as well. And remember, when you partner with Alan Wright Ministries, you'll be broadcasting the love of God to thousands every day. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Alan, this conclusion really just, I think, brings us here to this point to say, you know, I'm frustrated because I haven't displayed all the different fruits of the Spirit and I'm feeling inadequate because I'm not so sure I'm great with the spiritual gifts.

Or maybe I've not been giving the, given, you know, many, any, maybe. But the answer here is to rest in Jesus. He is the perfect example of balance here. And that's where we find our satisfaction.

Exactly. So I just want to say to the Christian listener, start with this. You have Jesus. His own Spirit resides in you. It's mystical. It is mysterious.

It's wonderful. But you truly have the Spirit of Christ Himself. Well, the Holy Spirit is actively at work, producing fruit in you.

Now, there are a lot of things that compete for that, right? And that's where we get kind of frustrated. We go, oh boy, and you might call that flesh or just old sin nature or whatever it might be competing. But I just, instead of focusing so much on trying to get rid of that old sin nature, let your focus be on this. I have the Spirit of Jesus in me. And I promise you, if you're a Christian, keep your focus. If you're a Christian, you have gifts of the Spirit. And let yourself be aware that God is using you. And if you feel like He's not using you that much, start with the evidence of where He has used you. That's what I would say, Daniel. You start with that. And like everything, God, who began a good work in you, will bring it to its completion. Today's good news message is brought to you by the partner supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.