Why Wouldn't Everyone Want the Gifts of the Spirit? [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. We're not really trained much spiritually, are we?

I mean, even if you're in a good church, the training up in the familiarity and the ways of God moving in our midst, and what it is like to be in the presence of God, and how one releases their spirit into true worship and communion with God, and how in the world we have an experience with an invisible creator that we can't see or touch. 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 Filled, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. 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 today. 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 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 that later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. Romans chapter 12 and then 1 Corinthians chapter 12. So both chapter 12s and books that are adjacent to each other in the New Testament. First one is Romans chapter 12.

And I'll read as we continue to hand out these little synopses. Romans chapter 12 and verse 4. Just as each of us has one body with many members and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body and each member belongs to all the others.

We have different gifts according to the grace that is given us. If a man's gift is prophesied, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it's serving, let him serve. If it's teaching, let him teach. If it's encouraging, let him encourage. If it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously.

If it's leadership, let him govern diligently. And if it's showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. So we're just learning right off the bat that everybody gets a gift, get a number of gifts and that they're different in the body and we all need each other and everybody should use their gifts because the strength of the body and the mission depends upon it. First Corinthians chapter 12.

Some of the gifts are repeated here and others are listed here as well. In First Corinthians chapter 12 verse 1, now about spiritual gifts brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant. Verse 4, there are different kinds of gifts but the same spirit. There are different kinds of service but the same Lord.

There are different kinds of working but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the spirit is given for the common good. To one there's given through the spirit the message of wisdom. To another the message of knowledge by means of the same spirit. To another faith by the same spirit. To another gifts of healing by that one spirit. To another miraculous powers.

To another prophecy. To another distinguishing between spirits. To another speaking of different kinds of tongues. And to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of the one and same spirit and he gives them to each one just as he determines. Verse 30. Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And then the first verse of chapter 14. Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts especially the gift of prophecy.

In C.S. Lewis' brilliant chronicles of Narnia once the children have been ushered into this new kingdom of Narnia through the wardrobe they step into an adventure that is going to be beyond what they could have ever expected. These children who are ordinary kids back in England now are princes and princesses and they will slowly discover that this is who they really are and that they have been authorized to rule in Narnia. And a fascinating adventure for any child to hear about because children see themselves as the one who don't have any authority or real power in the world and this turns it upside down and now the children are the ones in Narnia that are destined to reign and early in the adventure they hear the sound of the sleigh and they are concerned that it may be the white witch but instead they are enraptured in an encounter with Father Christmas who comes to give them gifts.

Gifts that they will need in their adventure in Narnia. Gifts that will protect, gifts that will heal and they don't even know how necessary the gifts are going to be but I just think it's so brilliant of C.S. Lewis that he sends Father Christmas to give the gifts because this picture of the spiritual gifts by which God equips the body of Christ and the great work of the kingdom it's like that, it's like Christmas. Christmas where you get something that you couldn't get for yourself, that you didn't deserve, you couldn't have bought and then the gift is just given and it's yours.

Free, unmerited. Christmas. And I think about the spiritual gifts like this, the gifts of God, the gifts of God for the upbuilding of the church, the healing of people, for miracles to be done, for people to be taught, for the whole watching world to be treated with kindness and mercy and hospitality by those who have gifts that by which they serve with joy and diligence, by the prophetic words that get shared and the revelations that strike people's heart to know that God is in the room and that God is with us and will never leave us or forsake us. It is like this, if God had done nothing more for us except for save us and send us Jesus so that we would not die in our sin and be separated from Him.

If God had never done anything except for send Jesus to the cross so that if we trust in Him we could live, it would be way more than enough but He hasn't just done that. God so loves the church and He so loves each individual and He so wants the mission to be accomplished that He's given the body of Christ gifts to enable us, to empower us, to equip us to get the job done. Why wouldn't everybody want the gifts of the Holy Spirit? That's the question I asked a couple weeks ago, I was thinking about why wouldn't everybody want to be filled with the Holy Spirit? And the more I think about it, why wouldn't everybody want the gifts of the Spirit? I've already started sketching out the next four or five minutes, why wouldn't everybody want to be convicted by the Spirit? Why wouldn't everybody want to be led by the Spirit?

Why wouldn't everybody? So I want to address that sense of maybe some people in the room have some reservations about this but probably more of us are just a little bit ignorant, we just haven't really experienced or learned much about the gifts of the Spirit and so I hope to give some little overview and I want to also just briefly address some of the concerns so that's an ambitious amount of sermon. Let me first say that there are a number of people who have grown up with a belief system that essentially says that the gifts like prophecy and healing and miracles and tongues all ceased in the apostolic age or the first century. Maybe some of you have been brought up with that. Interestingly, as I kind of take a poll of people and say were you taught this?

Generally what people tell me is no, they weren't really taught from the Scriptures this but it was just sort of believed maybe in the church they were in or amongst the people that they were with and so maybe not that many people have actually really studied it for themselves either from a theological system or from just exegesis and interpretation of the Scriptures. That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing. If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement get Alan Wright's daily blessing.

It's free and just a click away at PastorAlan.org. Someone once said doing your will by your power is humanism. Doing God's will by your power is religion but doing God's will by God's power that's Christianity. Can anyone love his enemy just by deciding to be nice? Can anyone produce peace that passes understanding by mental discipline?

Can anyone heal depression by just trying harder to be happy? Of course not. In fact almost everything about New Testament Christianity is impossible by human power alone. Thankfully God has never expected you to live the Christian life by your own strength. He has sent a helper and every single Christian is invited to live a supernaturally empowered life through the continual infilling of the Holy Spirit. In a special bundle alongside the audio teaching Pastor Alan has also written a booklet. Both the audio and the booklet not only explain the infilling of the Holy Spirit but will nourish inspire and draw you nearer to the God who longs to immerse you in his love and power. Discover how to be filled with the Spirit and get ready for your life to be filled with fresh love, joy and power. 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. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. There are some people that will point to a verse in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 that says where there are tongues they will cease where there are prophecies they will cease. And there are some people that will point and say well doesn't that say that the gifts have ceased. Well most scholars even those who don't believe in the gifts for today don't point to that verse because that verse is in the context of Paul teaching about spiritual gifts and it's in the chapter 13 about the preeminence of love. And what Paul is pretty clearly saying there is that now we see in part and we prophesy in part but one day we'll see him face to face and he's speaking about the return of Jesus and he's speaking about heaven and it's pretty clear what he's saying is that when we're in heaven we won't need prophecy and we won't need tongues and we won't need healing gifts anymore.

We won't need the gifts of the Spirit in heaven. And that's not actually the main argument that people who argue for the gifts having ceased the more articulate scholars about this matter who are referred to as cessationists from the word ceased point to a larger concern and I want to just address this briefly but if you want to learn more about this see me and I can point you to some resources. This is the deeper concern that the most articulate cessationist theologians have and that is that we believe that by the providence of God and the grace of God not only did he reveal himself to us in the scriptures through many different authors at many different times he inspired this word which orthodox Christians believe that it is an infallible word that it won't lead us into any error and that it's trustworthy and it's an astounding story of the compilation of the Bible the sheer number of manuscripts that we have that corroborate what's in this book.

But there was a time in which the Bible was closed right? At the end of the apostolic age when Paul and Peter were writing letters to the churches those letters had from God an apostolic authority to them such that they were compiled in the canon of scripture as part of the Bible and the canon of scripture the Bible is closed God's not writing any more Bible and this is very important of course because most cults end up taking the Bible and adding something to it there's some new revelation or some new prophecy that gets added to it so what most scholars are concerned about is that very thing that we need to guard against having extra biblical revelation that in any way could be viewed along side of the Bible and so this is part of the argument about cessationism is that therefore especially prophecy must have ceased in the apostolic age or else we've got prophecies that are in addition to the Bible. So that's the most articulate ones and most concerned about that now here is just a very very short response to that biblically and practically. Biblically in the study of how Paul instructs especially the Corinthians about the spiritual gifts everything about it reads as though he absolutely assumes that not just the apostles that are writing the Bible are speaking prophecies but there is the prophetic gift that's emerging all throughout the body of Christ thus he gives different instructions about how there needs to be some order and you don't let everybody just stand up and prophesy at one time. Well clearly he's not talking about the apostolic authority that is going to be inscripturated and we who embrace the gifts of the spirit have this important distinction about what the prophetic really is. We don't view the gift of prophecy in the body of Christ as it was in old covenant where there were a few anointed appointed prophets and if they missed it they were subject to being stoned to death.

We don't believe in an infallible gift in any of the gifts. All of the gifts Paul just finished saying we prophesy in part. We don't get it all and sometimes we don't get it right and so what we're speaking of is not at all the kind of apostolic revelation that becomes scripture we're talking about the body of Christ that receives by revelation of the Holy Spirit at work prophetic encouragement that we're not saying is infallible but in fact we say it should be weighed and tested and born witness to and I'll say a little bit more about that. The second thing to say to this just biblically by the most basic principle of interpreting scripture is that there's no real way that I've heard any scholar point this out how you can take these two passages in Romans chapter 12 and 1 Corinthians chapter 12 where there's a listing of all this diversity of gifts and somehow by an interpretive method read the ecstatic gifts like prophecy and healing and miracles and then draw a line and say these ceased but the other ones haven't ceased that's just not an interpretive step that I understand how we could make that and I don't know of people that believe that they're not still gifts of teaching or generosity or administration that go instead it's the more miraculous gifts that are singled out. Practically speaking my response to this is that in addition while I've had many conversations with many dear friends and others and scholars throughout who believe the gifts have ceased but I don't know personally and I haven't read of people who disagree with what Paul says that as many as are the children of God are led by the Spirit of God. I don't know of people that disagree with Jesus when he says my sheep hear my voice and they know how to follow me.

I don't know of people who disagree with James who says if you lack wisdom ask God and he'll share wisdom with you generously without finding fault. In other words it seems that all Christians believe that we are to be led by God like a shepherd leads his sheep. But here's the practical problem if you say that the only revelation that God has given us is the Bible and he leads us only by the Bible well that is in my understanding of what the scripture really is a misuse of what the scripture really is all about. Yes we're led through God's word but this is not an instruction manual like the instruction manual in the glove compartment of your car that is there to tell you each little step of each little thing you're supposed to do. This is a meta narrative one great incredible story of the saving and redeeming and delivering and empowering of God's people. And this story is so captivating that those who will open its pages and look will see that Christ is lifted up on every page. And so what really the Bible is is a revelation of God's grace and redemptive power for our lives.

Yes absolutely full of incredible principles by which we live our lives but generally what we do when we get our word in us is something that's life giving within us it's not a set of rules and it certainly doesn't have for us all of the things that are necessary for being led in daily life. God spoke to me I say this with confidence there are only maybe a few moments in my life where I would say I know that God spoke to me and one of the things he spoke to me about before I ever talked to a search committee here five months before I ever talked to a search committee was that I was going to come and be the pastor at Reynolda. He didn't say it's because you're the best he didn't say he just said that's what you're going to be doing that's what I want you to be doing.

And I just had a knowing that I knew that was going to come to pass. Now why did God let me know that? Well probably because on the days that you feel like quitting you can't quit because you know he told you you're supposed to be there. And isn't it good to be doing something that you know you're supposed to be doing?

And you have a good day great you have a bad day well you're still supposed to be doing it. And so I'm so thankful that he let me know that. Now I love my body I mean I love Jesus but I can say I love that I feel like eating this book up. I mean I just want to keep my nose in this book I get mad at all the other things I have to do that keeps me out of this book.

I love this book but this Bible did not tell me to come to Reynolda. How was I going to know that? How do you know who you're supposed to marry? How do you know which house to buy? How do you know if you're supposed to quit your job?

How do you know if you're supposed to take a job? How are you supposed to how are you supposed to to know whether you're supposed to pray for somebody or you're supposed to? I talked to a woman at Virgil last night she was telling me a great story she was at a co-worker she barely knew who was going to have to have a cancer surgery and and she just was overwhelmed didn't know if the person was a Christian or not or anything just just overwhelmed need to go pray for her. Pray for her the woman just began to weep just spent a week and then she just like she said God just wants you to know he didn't give you this cancer and we're just wept and wept and wept because that was the big thing she'd fear and now she's all healed of the cancer and she's coming back she said you don't know how much that meant to me. How do you know when you're you can't stop and pray for every person like that?

How are you going to know? See my point is that every Christian I know believes that we need to be led by God what we're talking about when we talk about all the revelation prophetic gifting is not in addition to the Bible we're talking about the Spirit of God leading us for the effective empowered life. Okay there's a lot more I can say about that but I want to give you a little overview of the spiritual gifts and I'm just going to say a few things about the gifts the first one I've listed here that comes in Romans of course also mentioned in first Corinthians is the gift of prophecy one of the most misunderstood of all the spiritual gifts it's not prophecy is not fortune telling and that's one of the biggest misconceptions that people have because they think of Old Testament prophets that we're just going to predict the doom of somebody you know and now I'm not saying that God can't predict somebody's doom in a prophecy it's just that that's not generally encouraging and Paul explicitly says that the purpose of prophecy is to encourage to edify and to strengthen two of those words are related to the very word parakletos that Jesus uses of the Holy Spirit to speak of how the Holy Spirit comes alongside us to encourage us what prophecy is not telling somebody about the judgment of God that's coming and it's not telling the future and it's not telling somebody what to do instead it is God revealing himself his love and his commitment to bless and empower his people so that they can do what he's called them to do. Alan Wright in today's teaching why wouldn't everyone want the gifts of the Spirit it's in our series on filled and Alan is back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life in today's takeaway our final word unlock the power of blessing your life discover God's grace filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing if you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement get Alan Wright's daily blessing it's free and just a click away at PastorAlan.org. Alan for the person that's listening right now and they're asking the same question it's probably not coming from a from a spirit of saying I just want my ticket to heaven and that's it you know it really is a legitimate question maybe there's been some some fear or just that fear of the unknown what to expect right? Well I think that when it comes to especially the more ecstatic or supernatural type of gifts people can become uncomfortable worried that something is going to be in excess or something's gonna be an error and I just want to say you know the gifts of God are or for the people of God in their edification and for the edification of others and I always looked on it this way Daniel you know despite the fact that once you are embracing of the gifts of the Spirit yes there could be some things that might make you uncomfortable or even some things that could be a little bit controversial in the body of Christ it's more than worth it because people need help right people need healing people need hope people need a word from the Lord and so it always made me want to press in and say Lord I eagerly desire every good gift that you have that's my encouragement for listeners today. Alan what do you say to the person who feels like they haven't served Jesus long enough or walked with Jesus long enough to be in a position to ask for the gifts maybe they feel like a rookie? Well I think that it's first and most important to realize that God doesn't put conditions of your own righteousness or honestly in many ways your own maturity before he does give gifts every Christian has gifts even baby Christians you have gifts now what happens is as you grow those gifts grow right so someone may have a gift of teaching and it might start out that it just feels like a seed they have some interest and some passion but that gift will get cultivated over the years it might start out that you're going to provide leadership in a small group of three or four people and it may be one day the Lord has you in a much bigger platform for teaching but if you would eagerly desire the gifts of the Lord even as a young Christian even if you say well I don't feel like I'm spiritual enough or I know the Bible well enough ask him for these gifts because you'll grow and the gifts will grow in you. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.