These gifts are not for us to have a little Christian huddle and see examples of them.
I've been in circles where that seemed to be the main thrust. And if somebody walked in the gifts, they were a first-class Christian, but they're for evangelism. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the Senior Pastor of the Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. If we ask and allow him to, God will supernaturally provide us with wisdom and knowledge that is beyond our experience or intelligence. Find out more about this important truth as Pastor David continues in the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 12. But before we join Pastor David, do you ever feel like God is cutting away parts of you, like a gardener pruning a tree? Well, I hope you said yes to this question because it means God is shaping you so that you can bear even more fruit in your life. We want to help you embrace God's pruning in your life by sending you Pastor David McGee's three-part audio series, Abiding in Christ, Keys to a Fruitful Life. It's our way of saying thank you for your gift to help share the truth of Scripture with more people around the world through Cross the Bridge.
So get your copy of Abiding in Christ when you give today at crossthebridge.com and discover how you can bear more fruit for God's kingdom. Now here's David McGee with his teaching, Naturally Supernatural. We're in a chapter that's talking about the supernatural giftings of God and let's recognize there's things in this book that are supernatural.
There's things in this book that cause us to get a little uncomfortable, if you will. This book talks about how God, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now there's opposing theories out there that, to be honest, lack scientific merit. But, you know, that right there, you know, obviously the world come, it's here through intelligent design. I don't know how you can look at the world and think something else.
I mean, the fact that there was nothing and then God created something sure beats the theory that there was nothing and then it exploded. But then it talks about dead people coming to life. It talks about blind people seeing, lame people walking. And the fact that the precious Son of God was willing to die for our sins. All these things make us a little uncomfortable. This is a supernatural book, gang.
What we have to realize is we want to live in the supernatural. Now Paul, in writing this chapter, whenever you're reading a chapter or book of the Bible, a couple of study tools that we want to keep in mind. Number one, ask yourself who wrote the book. Now in this case, we know that Paul wrote the book because he tells us in the beginning he wrote the book. Second thing is who did they write to? Another easy one because the name of the book is Corinthians and Paul talks about writing to the church at Corinth. The third thing is what problem were they trying to help or deal with?
Now this one is pretty easy to identify. What they were doing is they were getting into the spiritual gifts and treating them like, well like little Christmas toys for showing off. Instead of powerful tools to win people to the kingdom and to help each other. Each one of us have these spiritual supernatural gifts. First Corinthians 12, seven. We'll start there.
Pick up from there again. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the prophet of all. And notice that phrase, given to each one. Every person in here has at least one supernatural spiritual gift. In the living translation it says, a spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. See, spiritual gifts aren't for showing off. A lot of times there's way too much emphasis put on the gifts and not enough emphasis put on the giver. And the gifts are so that we might reach a lost world. You see them being used in evangelism a lot of times in the Bible. Not just when we get together and have a little huddle and want to show each other how spiritual we can be with different gifts.
No. First Peter 4, 10 says, as each one has received the gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Our first Peter in the New Living Translation said, God has given each of you a gift.
Again, confirmation. Each of us have a gift. From his great variety of spiritual gifts, use them well to show off.
That's not what it says. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? 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. So the Holy Spirit wants to empower us. Now again, let's examine a theology of the Holy Spirit. Before we know Jesus as our Savior, the Holy Spirit is alongside of us, convicting us or convincing of us of our need for Jesus Christ. That's our relationship with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit can't be in us as an unbeliever.
Why? He's the Holy Spirit. When we ask Jesus to forgive us of our sins, the Spirit now resides in us. But according to the Bible, we're also supposed to ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We looked at that in Luke 11.
We'll look at it again today. How much more the Heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. When we ask God to fill us with the Spirit, he fills us to overflowing.
What is this for? So we can have spiritual gifts and claim spiritual maturity? No, we're given spiritual gifts the same way we're given salvation. It's through grace and faith alone, not through merit or what we deserve. And what are we given these gifts for? Because there's a world out there that's dying, that's separated from God. And it's our role in our job to reach him.
And we need these supernatural spiritual gifts. Let me run through a couple of statistics for you. 80% of all churches are plateaued or declining in attendance.
80%. 50% of all churches, this is evangelical churches, 50% of all churches will not add one new convert to their church this year. Churches are losing 2.7 million members a year to nominalism or unbelief. Between 5,000 and 6,000 churches in America die every year. 95% of all Christians have never led someone to Christ.
So what's wrong? I think it's way too simple to say, well, the devil, the devil, it's the devil. Part of it, I think part of it is that the churches aren't proclaiming the Word of God and aren't proclaiming salvation. We've talked about that before. But another aspect of this is maybe we lack the power that we need, the power from on high to be filled with his Holy Spirit, to be filled with his power so that we can reach others. We have to look around and say, well, the church can do a better job. See, I'm not interested. Yeah, a lot of people, a lot of church people sit around, they talk about what's wrong with the world. You know what? I'm not even interested in that conversation. That's not even the discussion, is it? The question is what's wrong with the church that we're not reaching more people in the world? Are we willing to be honest and ask that question? I started asking that question.
You know what happened? I started home Bible study. I always had a heart for people who didn't know Jesus. And while I did not buy into the seeker-sensitive model and that you water it down and candy coat it so people will tolerate it, it was always in my heart to have a place where people couldn't come that did not know Jesus and they would know we love them. But again, this infilling of the Holy Spirit is about a power meant to be a witness. Acts chapter 1 verse 8 says, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria to the end of the earth.
So as we go through this list, as we look at this, let's understand, this is to be empowered to be witnesses. And we see how successful that was in the book of Acts in chapter 8 verse 4. It says, therefore, those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word.
Or in the New Living Translation, but the believers who were scattered preached the good news about Jesus wherever they went. Acts chapter 9 verse 17 is talking about Ananias when he went to pray for Saul and it says, Ananias went his way and entered the house and laying his hands on him said, brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road as you came has sent me that you might receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. What we see in verse 17 is Ananias prays for Paul to receive the Holy Spirit. Now it sounds well and good, but let's understand what was Paul doing before this moment in time, killing Christians, throwing them in jail. And God comes to Ananias and says, hey, I want you to go pray for this guy.
What guy? Paul. Paul who? Paul of Tarsus. Paul of Tarsus is a guy running around killing Christians in Daum in jail. But Ananias in active obedience prays for Paul, prays for him to receive the Holy Spirit. Paul receives the Holy Spirit.
What do we find? Three verses later. Acts chapter 9 verse 20 says, immediately he preached to Christ in the synagogues that he is the son of God. So the question is not, do you want the gifts? The question is, do you want the power? Do you want the power to be a witness for God? To your friends and family that maybe don't know Jesus.
It's tied to evangelism gang. We encourage you again, read 1st Corinthians 14. If you're wondering what we believe about the Holy Spirit, read 1st Corinthians 12, 13 and 14.
You'll get a great idea. In any position we take on the Holy Spirit, any position you take on the Holy Spirit, you should be able to back by scripture. Scripture alone. So the question is, do you and I need power for evangelism? Do you and I need power to accomplish the great commission?
The only honest answer we can give is yes. And let's understand these gifts are not for us to have a little Christian huddle and see examples of them. I've been in circles where that seemed to be the main thrust. And if somebody walked in the gifts, they were kind of a first-class Christian.
Everybody else was a second-class Christian. But they're for evangelism. We think that if we saw more miracles, it would cause our faith to grow. If we saw more signs and wonders, it would cause our faith to grow.
You know what? Scripture says no. Because see, there's one group of people in this book that saw more miracles of anybody. They saw the Red Sea part. They saw the earth open up and swallow the rebellious people. They saw bread flow down from heaven. They were led by a cloud, by day, a pillar of fire.
By night, they saw water come out of a rock. And that same group didn't go into the promised land. Why? Unbelief. But we think that if we saw more signs and wonders, we'd be more faithful, have more faith, be more spiritual.
I don't think so. I used to think early in ministry, I used to think, wouldn't it be so cool to pray for somebody that was dead and for them to come back alive? I still think that'd be cool. But now as a senior pastor, I got a little different take on it.
Why? Because if that happened one Sunday, what would happen the following Sunday when it didn't happen? Yeah, well, dead people used to come to life here. We don't do that anymore.
The whole thing's changed since we moved into the new building. This Bible doesn't say that faith comes by signs and wonders. It actually says Romans 10, 17, so then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. That's what builds your faith. Hearing the word of God, studying the word of God, reading the word of God. A lot of times believers will hear, oh, well, the Holy Spirit's moving in this town, in this city, in this country. Let's go there.
No, don't do that. Because it doesn't say that believers are supposed to follow signs and wonders. It says signs and wonders will follow believers.
So don't chase after the experience. But God does want to empower us. You're listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge. He'll be back with more powerful insight from God's Word in just a moment. But first, what does it mean when God prunes away at parts of your life? Is He angry at you? Have you done something wrong?
Far from it. Jesus teaches in John 15 that God lovingly removes things from your life so that you can grow into the person He created you to be and bear more fruit for Christ. We want to help you do that by sending you Abiding in Christ, Keys to a Fruitful Life, a three-part audio series from Pastor David McGee on what it means to be pruned by God and how you can embrace the process. This encouraging resource is our way of thanking you for your gift to help reach more people with the powerful truth of the gospel through Cross the Bridge. So go to crossthebridge.com today and request your copy of this series. This is Pastor David McGee with Cross the Bridge. I want to thank you for listening to Cross the Bridge.
I also want to tell you about an exciting website. The website is lostlovedones.org, and it works very simply like this. You go to the website and you put the first names of up to 10 people that we begin praying that they get saved. Now it takes two things to get saved, presentation and prayer. And what we're offering is prayer, and also there's different tools there to help you present the gospel to them. So we're there with you, helping you with the presentation, helping you with the prayer. There's over 920 people that belong to the prayer team on Lost Loved Ones, and you can join the prayer team as well and help us to pray for others who don't yet know Jesus. And together we can see a huge revival, starting with your lost loved ones.
Now back to today's message. Verse eight, for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit. Again, tying back to this concept of evangelism, let's understand something. The life lesson here is we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit to be witnesses, spread the word, and do the work of the ministry. We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit to be witnesses, spread the word, and do the work of the ministry. The Holy Spirit, the end filling, the empowerment is tied again to evangelism.
And don't be afraid to ask the Holy Spirit to fill you, please. The enemy wants to rip you off. He doesn't want you to be empowered as a witness.
And if he can scare you by something you saw on television, he will. Again, the Holy Spirit is God. We've mentioned this, but Acts chapter five verse one. It says, but a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession and he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? Why remain? Was it not your own?
After it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God. I could take you through a lot of scriptures that point out that the Holy Spirit is God, but that's one of the better ones.
As a matter of fact, that's the next life lesson. The Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit is God.
Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And back to this concept of evangelism. Now we're getting to the gifts of word of wisdom, word of knowledge. What is the word of wisdom? What is the word of knowledge? That is when you know something supernaturally that you don't know naturally. Well, that's uncomfortable.
Yeah, a little bit, isn't it? I have in my ministry life known things about people that I did not know in the natural. And I did not become aware of these things so I could post them on Facebook. And so I could pray for somebody. Sometimes, more often than not, just to pray for them. Occasionally to go to them and go, hey, I feel like you're struggling with this.
And is this an issue? And can I help you? And I've been actually, during teaching, just off the cuff, I don't stop and shake or anything. I'll just be talking and say things I don't. I remember one night I was talking about giving and tithing. And God said if you tithe, that He will rebuke the devourer. That means if you don't tithe, that God will not rebuke the devourer. And that God may allow certain things to happen if you're not faithful in giving, if you're not recognizing that everything comes from God.
My theory is God's going to get us 10%. Now maybe it comes through your transmission going out or your heat going out. And I mentioned heat. And I said, so you might have to pay $700 to get your heat fixed because you didn't honor God with your first fruits.
I got this arbitrary number, arbitrary situation. I got finished. Somebody came up to me and said, my wife talked to you? I said, no, why? She didn't talk to you. I said, no, she didn't talk to me. Didn't talk to you about our heat. And I said, no.
I filed it into that was a little weird. And day or two later, the brother came up to me and said, you know why I asked you that? I said, got no idea. He said, our heat went out last week. I hadn't been tithing and it was $700 to get it fixed. You sure my wife didn't talk to you?
I said, your wife did not talk to me. I still remember the example. We set up in a military town to do an outreach. There was another band that played and then I, you know, I shared and played and then we played together and then it started to rain. Had all this musical gear. We were set up in a Walmart parking lot. It was kind of cool. Had a flatbed trailer with a generator and a big PA and stuff.
And a lot of people were receptive. Some people would drive by and beep and say stuff and whatever, but it started raining. So we started to put the equipment up. So as I'm putting the equipment up, my wife calls to me, Nora. She says, she says, Hey, can you come over here? Now, before I turned around, I thought, you know, it's raining on all this gear.
I really need to put this gear in the trailer, you know? But then I turned around and I said, something about the look on her face. I thought, I need to go over here. So I walked over there and she was standing with a guy who was dressed in military attire, who there was a police tape around our area. And, and I noticed him because he wouldn't come under the tape. He wouldn't come into the area. He stood to the side. Wouldn't want to come in.
Still standing there. I walked up, said, what's going on? Guy looked at me and he said, I don't want to go to hell.
I thought, well, this is great. We've kind of jumped right to the central focus of the point. You know, skip that whole explaining about how we got to pay for our sins ourselves or have Jesus do it. So I said, we don't have to start sharing the plan of salvation. She said, you don't understand. I said, I don't need to understand. God understands.
Oh, and there was just a wall there. He wasn't getting it. And then out of the blue, a clear thought emerged. Talk to him about Paul. And I said to the guy, I said, you know who Paul is?
He says, yeah. Wrote part of the Bible, right? And I said, yeah, he wrote about two thirds of the New Testament. I said, do you think Paul was a Christian? He said, yeah. I said, you know what Paul was doing before he became a Christian? He said, no. I said, Paul was going around arresting people for being Christians, beating them, taking part.
We see in the book of Acts and killing a Christian. I said, friend, if God can forgive Paul for what he did, he can forgive you for whatever you've done. And he looked at me and that was it. He said, you're right. His face changed. I said, will you pray with me to ask God to forgive you?
He said, absolutely. We prayed. Some people, let's understand. Some people, when they ask Jesus to be their savior, their expression doesn't change. It's not emotional. That's why if ever you lead somebody to the Lord, don't ask them now, how do you feel? Because if they don't feel anything, they're going to go up. It didn't work, didn't take, did it? He said, no.
So you can't gauge it on that. But some people have a very emotional salvation experience. And this guy was one of those. He said, man, this is awesome. You know? And I said, okay, well, it's raining equipment. So we're going to start loading in again and loading out.
I started loading out, turned around. This guy was pouring alcohol out. I didn't say anything.
I didn't do a teaching on the demon alcohol. He just poured out. I looked around again, tearing the cigarettes up, throwing them on the man. He said, can I help you? I said, sure. Jump in. I said, Hey, look, we're going out to eat before we leave town. You want to join us?
I said, sure. So he comes around. We're sitting in the restaurant in the middle of the restaurant. He's like, man, I feel good.
You know, people are look, Martha, he feels good. He's not sure what's going on at table three. We got ready to leave. And I said, Hey, do you want us to, can we take you somewhere? He said, no, I have a, a driver that's assigned.
And I said, would you need to call her? And he said, no, I got a locator device. He pulled back his jacket. He had this device and on, and it said, Lieutenant commander, Navy seals. I didn't know until that moment why I had shared about Paul. And then I understood this guy had killed people and actually had trained other people how to kill people.
He'd probably seen things that you and I will never see. And God knew how to reach him. He knew exactly what this guy needed to hear. That's being empowered by the Holy spirit to reach people to evangelize because that guy wasn't getting it until that clear thought emerged.
Tell him about Paul. And when you have that clear thought emerge, sometimes God is nudging you about what to say, when to say it. And as you listen to the Holy spirit, you develop a habit of listening, but the opposite is true. That if you disregard the Holy spirit, you develop a habit of not listening. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?
You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life and I've done wrong things. I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days in Jesus name.
Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.
You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our first steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. Do you feel like you're bearing fruit for Christ, yet God keeps pruning away at your life and you're not sure why? If so, we'd love to send you Pastor David McGee's series, Abiding in Christ, Keys to Abiding in Christ, Keys to a Fruitful Life.
This encouraging resource shares from Jesus's own words as found in John 15, where he teaches that God's pruning is a sign that he is pleased with you and wants to prepare you to bear even more fruit for his kingdom. This series is our way of thanking you for your gift today to help share the gospel with thousands around the world who need to hear God's word in clear, straightforward language. So visit crossthebridge.com today to request your copy of Abiding in Christ when you give.
You know each day comes with its share of stresses. So what better way to wake up than with an encouraging word from the Lord? Visit crossthebridge.com and sign up now for David McGee's email devotionals. Each devotion includes scripture and a message from the heart of David McGee. It's easy and it's free. Sign up today at crossthebridge.com. And be sure to join us next time on Cross the Bridge with David McGee to hear more from the book of 1 Corinthians. We'll see you then.
