Allen Jackson - God's Provision, His Powerful Spirit (02/08/2026)
In this offertory prayer and message, pastor Allen calls the church to awaken through the power of the Holy Spirit, emphasizing training children in biblical truth from infancy and rejecting secular values that God detests. Drawing from Ecclesiastes, Ephesians, Timothy, and 1 Corinthians 12, he urges intentional spiritual formation in families and openness to the Spirit's manifestations for transformation amid cultural darkness.
Offertory Prayer: Awakening the Church
It's going to be our offertory prayer, that God's awakening the church, and He'll awaken us. We're not holding up our hands saying, we do all this right. We're holding up our head and say, God, let the change begin in our hearts. Thank you for that enthusiastic response. I know you wanted to. If you're at home, you've got to stand with us. Put down your egg McMuffin. Hallelujah.
Lord, thank you for your church. I thank you that you're the head of the church, and that you said you would build your church, establish your church. Lord, you cautioned us that we will either gather with you, or we will scatter. And we want to gather with you. We want to join you in what you're doing in the earth, Father.
We don't come here just to satisfy an expression of religion, or to meet a social standard. Father, we come because we have a desire to know a living God, and to join you in your purposes in our generation. We thank you for the great honor you've given us, for the tools you've given us, for the resources, for the friends you've given us.
Lord, we pray that through this simple conference, you will multiply a message that it will resonate with congregations and communities of faith from coast to coast, and border to border, and beyond. May the messages be repeated, Father. May they be picked up and celebrated. May people's hearts be opened. May they have a revelation of you. That Jesus will be welcomed back into the midst of communities where you have been marginalized. May the truth be told again. We praise you for it. We thank you for what you're doing. We thank you for the great honor of serving you. And may you be pleased. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Hallelujah.
Greeting and Sharing the Outline
Before you're seated, find somebody didn't come into campus on your car and say, God's moving in the earth. I want to be a part. If you're on campus with us, you should have received an outline when you came in. It'll help. If you're joining us from someplace else, actually, you can download those same outlines from the websites or the apps.
I began a new series in a previous session, really focused on the Spirit of God, and particularly the manifestations of the Spirit of God in the midst of his people. The premise is simple. I don't believe we can fulfill God's purposes for our lives without the demonstration of the power of God, which means the presence of the Spirit of God.
And while we have much language around it, we have very small intent around it. And at least in this place, we intend to change that. My expectation is that when we gather in any setting, at any time, in any way, that we count on or dependent upon the presence of the Spirit of God and his power.
We need outcomes we can't deliver with our own organization, our own thoughts, our own planning. I'm for all those things, but I won't settle for outcomes that can be defined as a sum total of our planning ability, our ability to execute a plan, or our thoughtful preparation. All those things, again, are necessary, but we need the presence of the Spirit of God and the power that comes with that.
Starting with the Greatest Opportunity: Training Children
So I'm going to start with where I think the greatest opportunity is, and perhaps the most necessary opportunity is in training the children. In Ecclesiastes chapter 11 and verse 10, it's an interesting verse. I looked at it in several translations and even some original language, which I won't take you through all of that. But the premise is valuable.
It says, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body. For youth, the words here have a couple of ways they can be translated. That's normal with translation. Youth perhaps most literally would be childhood. It's not teenagers. The implication is for a younger child. So your childhood and vigor, literally, it's the prime of life.
The childhood and the prime of life are meaningless. The old English word, if you think in King James English, as I still do sometimes, is vanity. But the current, contemporary meaning of vanity has to do with pride in your appearance, typically. And that's not the way it was used in the times when the scripture was translated. And the most literal meanings of vanity is to be meaningless, empty, insignificant.
The point of the phrase is to not be caught up in your physical condition and the changes that come with aging, because there are some of those. For a childhood and the prime of life are meaningless. Now that's a pretty sharp contrast to the world we live in. There's so much attention paid to the different generations and the characteristics and the thoughts and the patterns and the behaviors. I mean, it's a whole... it's an area of the social sciences. It dominates marketing. I mean, it's a deal.
But the biblical counsel to us is the distinctions between childhood and old age are for the most part meaningless. It happens really quickly. You're going to move through those seasons. And as much as we imagine each one of us are unique and different, human character is not truly that different from generation to generation.
Fashion keeps cycling, folks. I've been here long enough. They keep getting the things back out. And the really important things in our lives are equally real for children. Teenagers are the oldest amongst us. Now that's the truth.
Why Early Training Matters More Than Later
If we don't begin to teach our children and train our children in the most important things in life when they're young, you won't be able to train them when they're older. Children are very capable of responding to the Lord, of choosing spiritual things. In most respects, more capable than the adults. far more willing to be compliant.
We have to provide spiritual training with the same intensity that we make available all the other learning opportunities to our children. And this is a place where I think the church has been, and I say capital church, church with a big C, not a single congregation. But I think broadly the church has missed a window of opportunity.
We have surrendered training and learning and to schools and academia and universities and they don't bring a biblical worldview to bear. And so our children are growing up without that. And our families too often are co-opted by secular values.
Places like the kitchen table where we have a meal together as a family, a conversation which includes spiritual truth and realities, must be a part of the routine of our lives. Or we're forfeiting something. We're walking past something. We can't exchange another game, another match, another turn in the bleachers for the opportunity for our children to understand the validity and the meaning of our faith.
It doesn't have to be an either or proposition. I'm not suggesting that. But the pendulum isn't now at the current time swinging to the point where they spend all of their time in church learning about God. And we will forfeit something if we fail to do this.
This isn't some subtle thing in Scripture. I like the Ecclesiastes passage because it really eliminates all so much of these artificial things that they may be true about marketing. You may have more assets available to you if you're a baby boomer than you do if you're 10. No duh. But the human nature and human character is remarkably consistent across all the age barriers in our lives and all the seasons of our lives.
If you're a dirty young man, you'll be a dirty old man unless God intervenes in your life. If you're a liar and a thief when you're young, you're going to be an old liar and thief unless you're transformed by the power of God. Amen.
Parental Responsibility: The Core Command
And we've created these things as a set of tools that I don't know are helpful. Look at Ephesians 6-4. Fathers, don't exasperate your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and the instruction of the Lord. Very plain language. Bring your children up in the training and the instruction of the Lord.
It's not the church's responsibility. We can join you. We can partner with you. We can be a resource, a help, a support, all those things. But the desire for that, the intent for that begins in your home. Well, we're not united in our marriage. Okay, you can still carry that intent. Well, it would be easier if my husband or my wife... Okay, I got that. But you can do what you can do from the place you're in.
It would have been easier for me to drive to church this morning if there weren't fog, but there was fog. I didn't decide to stay home. Well, you know, it was foggy. You know, I'll play a video. Fog's frightening to me. Train your children. It's a biblical direction.
Timothy's Example: Scriptures from Infancy
2 Timothy 3, Paul's writing to a young man. He's a young adult at this point, but it's a helpful instruction. He said, evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. If you practice deception, if you are a deceiver, you will fall into deception.
I've observed something. People that are deceptive think they're so smart they're fooling everybody else. And the longer-term outcome of that is they themselves become deceived. They can no longer really navigate true and false. They fall into their deceptions and everything becomes murky and unclear. It's not some great observation. It's biblical principle.
But as for you, Timothy, continuing what you learned have become convinced of because you know those from whom you learned it. And how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. You've known the scriptures from the time you were a small child.
We've got an assignment, church. We're going to have to recapture it. You know, there were times when we... there was a time when we got tremendous reinforcement from the broader culture, from broadcast television, from public schools, from even universities. And there was a much greater uniformity amongst churches and orthodoxy and the place we gave the scripture and biblical values.
Well, the world has changed. We're not in that world anymore. We don't get that kind of support, typically, from media sources and media outlets. And tragically, we don't even get that support as uniformly from churches any longer. And very seldom does it come from academia, unfortunately, even from schools that wear Christian labels. They are deeply immersed in secular ungodly values.
All of those having been said, it hasn't changed our assignment one little bit. We're going to teach the children. We're going to help them grow in godliness and righteousness and understand what those boundaries are. It will make them distinctive, but distinctive in a way that will bring the blessings of God to their lives. Not weird, but it starts in the hearts of the adults.
Realigning Values: What God Detests
We have to have the desire and the intent for our children to be godly more than we want them to be celebrated by a secular culture. Not easy. It's not easy, because there's a lot of pressures on them, and there's a lot of voices speaking into their lives, and they're going to look at you, and it's easier just to go with the flow. It's easier to act like you don't notice and privately teach them a little prayer to pray and think, well, I've done my job.
Well, you have done a part of your job, and I would commend you for that. I didn't come to hand out shame or add another layer of guilt. I came to tell you there is a way that will bring the blessing of God to your life, to your family's life, to your home. It's doable. We don't take our cues from a secular, godless culture.
And I'm not going to fully unpack that with you today, but in Luke 16 and verse 15, Jesus is speaking. He said, you're the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. He's talking to a very religious group of people. The covenant people of God. In a current setting, he'd be talking to religious leaders, church leaders.
And his comment to them is not affirming. In fact, it's very unkind. It's harsh. He said, you are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. But then he gives us, he said, what is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight.
Now, I'm a pretty simple person. I like things. I like to be able to explain the things that I believe to a third grader. If I can't explain them to a third grader, I don't understand them. In fact, I'll give you a little clue. If I'm using big words, I don't know what I'm talking about. So if you catch me with a lot of hermeneutical, homiletical, exegetical, something or other, you'll know I'm in the weeds looking for an off ramp.
But here's the challenge to what Jesus said. He said, God holds as detestable what the present age esteems highly. Now, again, I'm a simple enough person. If God said something is detestable, I don't want it. I don't want to treasure it. I don't want to store it. I don't want to chase it. I don't want to paint it up and say it looks pretty good to me. If God says it's detestable, I want to go the other direction.
Now, again, we'll come back to that and have a broader discussion. But I don't want you to accept the values for your life, for your future, for your home, for your family and for your children that come to you from a secular culture. Everything in the culture may not be wicked or ungodly, but you've got to look at the totality of what they're handing you, how to behave, how to establish priorities, how to use your time, where to spend your money, what should be first, and ask, is this really lining up? Does this correspond with the invitations of scripture? Or am I just blending in?
Inner Beauty vs. Outward Adornment
Look at first Peter chapter three, similar idea, different author. Peter's writing this time, the fisherman Jesus recruited, your beauty shouldn't come from outward adornment such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Well, that's a little uncomfortable, because we typically think all those things contribute to our appearance. And we work pretty hard on it.
I don't think it's a condemnation. You know, that verse has been used by some segments of the church, particularly in Western culture in the past, to say that, you know, there were groups of Christians who wouldn't wear makeup or jewelry, or even would have some prohibitions about cutting their hair. And that was kind of a proof text for that viewpoint.
Your beauty shouldn't come from outward adornment, such as braided hair or the wearing of gold jewelry. But they always left out that last verse. You know, they said, you know, we're really godly people, so we don't wear makeup or jewelry. Well, if you're going to follow Peter completely, you've got to lose the clothes too. I'm not suggesting.
What Peter's doing is drawing a contrast with a secular culture that said, your beauty, your self-worth, your value as a person is inextricable from your appearance. And your appearance can be enhanced by the value of the things that you can attach to yourself, the expense you can afford, that whatever is necessary to outwardly adorn yourself.
And Peter said, at the end of the day, that isn't what makes you beautiful. I don't think it's a condemnation of those things, but don't get your self-worth there. And don't lose your mind because you don't have the one you want. Don't spend your life coveting and envying and being jealous of.
What was the verse we read just before this? The things that are highly valued among men are detestable in God's sight. You see, if you're using people who are leading ungodly lives, openly ungodly lives, transgressing the boundaries that most of you would know about, most of us would know about biblical morality and lifestyle. If you're heroes, if you're champions, if you're templates for how you want to appear and how you want to dress and how you want to behave, if they're taken from those places, it's highly improbable. We're chasing things that are detestable in God's sight.
And Peter is saying, that's not where your beauty comes from. Well, now he has my attention. He said, instead, it should be that of your inner self, an unfading beauty of a gentle and a quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.
So some things in God's sight are detestable, and some things are of great worth. Now, I think I will give some thought and effort and attention to accumulating things that God says are of great worth. How about you?
Prioritizing What Pleases God
Now, here's where the challenge comes. If we really don't have a high priority on spiritual things, if we don't really care that much about them, if we're not even sure they're that meaningful, you know, we've just got kind of a spiritual discussion going in our life because there might be some afterlife and we would rather not go to the worst option.
So we're looking for enough compliance that we would qualify for whatever the best option might be. You know, it's a little bit like we treat our health. It's not like we really want to be healthy. We just want to be able to do what we want to do. I mean, I want to eat all the dessert I want and still be able to do the things I want to do.
I mean, what are the questions we ask? Well, how much is too much? Well, how far do I have to walk? How long do I have to exercise? How often do I have to go to the gym? Well, I don't know. How healthy you want to be? And we bring that same attitude to the Lord. How often do I have to read? How much do I have to read? Do I have to give? How much?
And we get lost in the objective. What we want to engage in is the things that are pleasing to God. What does God value? And I didn't bring you a list today, but because we haven't considered spiritual things particularly significant, we've had really very little intent. And corresponding to that, we've had very little awareness, because we thought the most valuable things were the same thing that everybody else was chasing.
Our asset accumulation. Our ability to accumulate resources, to display those resources. To do the things that our ungodly friends are doing, but we want to do them even better and with more vigor and more gusto and more enthusiasm. And I'm not saying they're all wrong, but I'm saying if that's your only template, if that's the only ladder you're leaning, the only wall you're leaning your ladder against you're highly probable you're climbing the wrong thing.
I want to know what's of great value in God's sight.
Darkness Covering the Earth: Isaiah's Diagnosis
I'm going to read you a passage and it's a bad news, good news scenario. The bad news is I believe it's a very accurate description of the world we're watching. The good news is we're not condemned to that as an end. And it's connected to our valuations.
Isaiah chapter 60 in verse 1 says, Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth, and thick darkness is over the peoples. But the Lord rises upon you, and His glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
Ultimately, Isaiah is writing a promise of restoration. But he starts with a pretty unsettling description. It's a diagnostic sentence in verse 2. He says, darkness covers the earth, and thick darkness is over the people. And it's plural. It's really suggesting the peoples of the world.
But I think if you looked at contemporary American life, contemporary American culture, I'd have to say there's some pretty thick darkness that's settled over us. We've been mutilating minors, physically. We had 400,000 children come over our border in the last few years, and they're gone. We're just lost. Unaccompanied. No parents with them. We don't know where they are.
And we have the audacity, the brazen audacity to say an open border was an expression of compassion. What world do you live in? And we're still grappling with this notion of illegal immigrants and citizenship and rights. We had a city in Carolina last week voted that they would protect everybody that was there illegally because it was a Fourth Amendment issue. The Fourth Amendment is about search and seizure for citizens.
You know, we are addled, folks, and it's darkness. We're reluctant to find marriage between a man and a woman. We have people on the Supreme Court that won't tell us what they think a woman is. Not because they're incapable intellectually. They're more than capable. They understand the great cultural divide, and they don't want to give anyone reason to be agitated with them. So they're looking for some way to dodge it, and they think they're clever, and we accept it. And we go, oh, that's a clever response. We don't know your opinion. It's not clever to be deceptive.
There is a darkness amongst us, and we're reluctant to look at it. But until we look at it, we can't walk out of the darkness. We're doomed to live in the gloom. The promise of Isaiah is that God will cause His glory to appear and to bring clarity, and that nations will come into the light. That would be our desire. Can we agree upon that?
Colossians Prayer: Living Worthy and Pleasing God
Well, in Colossians, it's not just an Old Testament idea. In Colossians chapter 1, Paul's writing to a church, and he said, We pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.
That's an interesting statement. He didn't just pray they'd be saved, that they would come to conversion. He said his prayer for them is they would live a life worthy of the Lord, that they could please Him in every way. How many of you hold that as an objective? Don't raise your hand. But how many of you say, my life objective, when I get up in the morning, I want to please the Lord in every way I can today.
I understand we're butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers. We've got day jobs and responsibilities and family commitments and assignments. I'm not suggesting we stop all of that and read our Bible and hum all day. But in the midst of all of those places where God has dispersed us like salt in the world, our objective is to go forward and to please Him in every way possible.
Bearing fruit in every good work. Is that really our ambition? We want our lives to bear fruit, but I'm not sure we want them to bear fruit in every good work. We want them to bear fruit for what we want.
You see, there's a realignment that's going to begin in the church, in us. Let's stop thinking about who needs to hear this, and let's give the Spirit of God permission to say to us, how could I hear this more effectively? See, if we can do that, God will do what God's going to do. It's our heart. That's the place we've got the influence. That's the place we have the influence.
But watch what he says. Growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and Patience, and joyfully give thanks to the Father. You see, we wouldn't be instructed to joyfully give thanks to the Father if everything around us would make us happy.
I don't need coaching. When they hand you the winning lottery ticket, they don't have to say, now be joyful. Right? When they call you to tell you your child just got voted the most outstanding, remarkable, incredible, unbelievable, incomparable child that's ever graced a classroom. But I want you to be happy about it. We don't need coaching in those places. It's automatic. It's intuitive. It's an expression of our emotions.
But when we're told to give thanks and be joyful, the implication is, circumstances might be less than exhilarating. Joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness, and He brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
That last sentence is the punchline in case you missed it. He rescued us from the dominion of darkness. So if deep darkness is covering the peoples of the earth, what are we to do? We're to yield our lives to the one who can rescue us from the dominion of darkness.
Dominion is a word of authority. It connotes something of citizenship. You have citizenship in the kingdom of darkness. It has a claim to you. It has authority over you. It has influence over you. Why would we not value things that God says are detestable? Because it gives influence over our lives from the dominion of darkness.
Why would we not try to blend in to the shadowy spaces where the gross darkness has covered the people of the earth? Because we don't want citizenship in the kingdom of darkness. We want citizenship in the kingdom of the son he loves. In whom we have redemption.
You know the technical meaning and definition of redemption is to be bought back. We can't redeem ourselves. It's similar to a pawn ticket. You know if you pawn so you have something that you consider valuable and you take it to a pawn shop. They will take the object and give you cash. Less than the value of that object. It's kind of a temporary arrangement. And you get the pawn ticket and at the point you're ready you take the ticket back and you can redeem what you pawned. You can get your objective. You have the cash.
Well you see we can't redeem ourselves. And Jesus walked in... The New Testament language is clear. It's described this way that he walked into the slave market because slavery was very much a part of the first century world. And he saw us standing on the block being sold at auction. It's one of the most humiliating experiences a human being could have. Typically slaves were sold naked so they could be inspected by all the gawkers and possible purchasers. And they could decide your value or your worth based on your strength or your attractiveness or whatever it might be.
And Jesus walked into the slave market and said I will pay the price. I will redeem them from slavery to the kingdom of darkness. Folks it's worth teaching our children about. It's worth teaching them why we encourage them to make godly decisions. To form godly character. To be different from those amongst them who don't have that set of values. That it's okay to be different. It's not fun to be different but it can be okay.
It's a part of our assignment. And the best way to teach them is not with words but to live it in front of them. That they see you be different from your peer group who don't choose godliness. That they don't see you endorse and bless and affirm and partner with and encourage and all the things for people who are leading ungodly lives. Because when you do that your words become very empty.
God is moving in the earth. God is redeeming and restoring. And the provision he's given us it was hinted at it was in Colossians the passage. But I want to take the balance of our time and look at the tools we've been given. There is power available for our transformation. It's not a matter of a force of our will or the strength of our character or our learning ability or our IQ. God's power is available to help us be transformed.
Understanding Spiritual Manifestations (1 Corinthians 12)
In first Corinthians chapter 12 Paul's writing to a church. And he says now about spiritual gifts brothers I don't want you to be ignorant. One more language study for just a minute in the Greek language the word gift is not there. If you read one of the older translations gifts will be in italics like the King James for instance. What that tells you is it was added by the editor.
There's a Greek noun spirituals. But we don't have the equivalent of that in English. So when they were translating from Greek into English they needed a way for the sentence to make make more sense to be understandable. So they inserted the word gift. It's a normal pattern in translation.
But I don't think it adequately describes what we're about to read because the gift is something that I give you. If I decided that I was going to gift my Bible to somebody. Then I said to coach here you can have my Bible. You can't but just for the illustration. Then it's his Bible. It's not my Bible anymore. If he wants to use it to start a fire this afternoon. I don't care. It's his Bible. If he wants to commemorate it because it's pastor's Bible. It's just not... I gave it to him. It's a gift. He can do whatever he wants to with it. Thank you. Illustration's over.
And I don't believe that's the intent of this passage because we... What Paul's getting ready to talk to the church about is the presence of the Spirit of God in their midst. And I don't believe we control the Spirit of God. We don't manipulate him. In fact, if you see someone and the implication is or the appearance is they're manipulating the Holy Spirit, just smile, turn around, and sprint the other direction.
But he says about spiritual gifts, I don't want you to be ignorant. Now again, that's very plain language. If you're ignorant about the Spirit of God and the gifts of the Spirit, you are ignoring the counsel of Scripture. You can't afford to be ignorant.
Let's read on. 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 and all men. And the focus is on what God is doing, not what we do.
Now, to each one, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. If I had to choose a key word for this passage, and I did since I put the outline together, I think the key word is manifestation. I think it's the best meaning of what's being discussed.
For something to be manifest, it's to be made apparent, to be made visible, to be brought into your awareness. So what's being discussed is how does the presence of the Spirit of God made manifest in the midst of the people of God? How do you become aware of the Spirit of God?
Again, we have lots of language, but very little intent. Lots of high language, flowery language, and it gets worse the more theology you study. Lots of language, but very little intent. Well, I intend to cooperate with the Spirit of God. If it makes me look silly in some settings, I'm just good with being silly. If it means a certain group of people think I'm a fanatic, so be it. I've been called worse.
If I am set aside, mocked, or ridiculed because I want to align myself with what God is doing in the earth, I'm willing to go walk that path. Now, I've told you all many times, you know, don't be silly and call it spiritual. Don't be weird and call it spiritual. You're just silly and weird. You're not spiritual.
But you understand this principle. If you're a UT fan, you don't care if it makes Alabama fans mad or not. In fact, you kind of hope it does. Because they've already lost the game. And you'll applaud it in church. You just outed yourselves.
So I'm not asking you for something that's not already a part of your response to life. I'm asking you to elevate the things of God to a place where you let them become identifying characteristics.
About spiritual gifts, I don't want you to be ignorant. And then it's going to give us a list. Now, to each one, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. Why is the Spirit made evident amongst us? For the common good. There's a benefit to all of us in community.
And then he's going to list nine specific manifestations of the Spirit. I'm not going to unpack them in a lot of detail. We'll do it in some of the later sessions. But to one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom. To another, the message of knowledge.
There's a difference in wisdom and knowledge. Knowledge is a bit of insight that you wouldn't have if God didn't make it real to you. We read a passage in the previous session about Ananias and Sapphira. They came to make an offering before the church. And Peter was the one they presented it to. And Peter said to Ananias, You're not telling the truth.
Well, I don't think Peter had done forensic accounting on Ananias' personal business deals. I think he had a word of knowledge from the Lord. And God responded to that message being delivered in the midst of the church. It changed the attitude of the church. It opened the church up more fully to what God could do in their midst.
To another, faith by the same Spirit. We're all given a measure of faith. The Bible says all of us have a measure of faith. But there's a manifestation of faith that God gives to people in times and places that they'll believe God can do something that most people wouldn't believe He could do. David, when he saw Goliath, he said, Oh, no, I can do that. I don't believe that came just from David being a good slinger of stones. God put something in his heart.
To another, gifts of healing by that one Spirit. So far, the only things that have been repeated with each manifestation is the word Spirit. The emphasis is upon the presence of the Spirit. Gifts of healing is plural. God heals in many ways. Don't get weird. I'm an advocate for science. I believe in doctors. I'm grateful for all they can do. But God is ultimately our healer.
To another, miraculous powers. To another, prophecy. To another, distinguishing between spirits. The old English is the discerning of spirits. Folks, we need to be able to determine between a Holy Spirit and an unholy spirit. You know, Christians, they get tense. There's often some intrigue in having conversations about demons and demonic activity. I think it's far more important to be able to recognize what the Holy Spirit is doing.
To another, speaking in different kinds of tongues. Until still another, the interpretation of tongues. Again, we'll come back to this in more detail. But speaking in a language that you didn't learn is not a product of your intellect. And having an interpretation of that. It's clearly a part of Scripture. I'll come back to that. I believe it's biblical. I believe God's still doing it today. It's shaped my life.
All of these are the work of one and the same Spirit. And He gives them to each one just as He determines. Again, the emphasis is on the work and the person of the Holy Spirit. He determines which of the gifts are made manifest. He determines the timing. He determines the outcome. We don't do them. They're not something we control. It's not something we possess. It's not mine. But we do have to make ourselves available.
One of the clear teachings, principles of Scripture, is that God doesn't force His will upon you. He gave Abraham and Abram an invitation to leave his home and to go to a country that he would show him. But Abram had to choose. He gave Peter an invitation, follow me and I'll make you a Fisher of men. But Peter had to choose to follow. Not everybody said okay. The rich young ruler, when he was given a very similar invitation, said, no, that's uncomfortable. I don't think I can do that.
You see, we have to choose to cooperate with God. And again, I think the place we've had a deficit is we've lacked the intent. Maybe we lack the awareness. I'm not trying to establish order. I'm just telling you, we haven't imagined it was necessary. We thought we could study our way through and work our way through and appropriate. And I'm grateful. I believe in all of those things. But they're not complete. They won't deliver us from gross darkness.
There's a pretty significant initiative right now in our nation for the truth to be told. The things that have been hidden in the shadows to be pulled into the light. And try to get to clarity on things that have been desperately a part of a very significant, deceptive effort across all political boundaries. But whatever progress is made, it won't be held unless there's a fundamental change in the hearts of God's people. We've got to lead. We've got to lead.
The Healing at the Beautiful Gate: A Case Study
Now, I want to take the balance of our time. I've got a couple of minutes. And take those manifestations of the Spirit. The book of Acts is the one historical book in the New Testament. We've been reading the historical books in the Old Testament. Samuel and Kings and Chronicles. There's some others. But Acts is the historical book of the New Testament.
And we get to follow. The Gospels tell us about Jesus' life through His crucifixion and His resurrection. The book of Acts tells us that Jesus went back to heaven in the first chapter. And the balance of the 28 chapters is to show us how Jesus' friends behaved after the outpouring of the Spirit of God.
I believe it's a pattern for you and me. And in Acts chapter 3, we're just going to look at one event. It's a bit of a case study. We'll do it quickly.
One day, Peter and John were going to the temple at the time of prayer. Good religious people. We call them Christians at this point. They believe Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. They've accepted Him as Lord. They're going to the temple. It's time to pray. We'd all sign off on that behavior.
At three in the afternoon, now, a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple. And when Peter and John, he asked them for money.
And Peter looked straight at the man, as did John, and said, look at us. And the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from him. And Peter said, silver and gold I don't have, but what I have I give you in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Walk.
Is there anything in that list of nine we just read that would correspond with that? Maybe gifts of healing? And they took him by the right hand and helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong. And he jumped to his feet, and he began to walk. And he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping and praising God.
And we're going to read a little further, but I want to pause there just a moment. Gift of healing, working of miracles. Honestly, I don't know. I don't think we have enough information.
When I think of a gift of healing, I think it's when God accelerates something that our bodies created to do naturally. Our bodies are made to heal. If you break a bone, your body is designed to heal. If your systems are all working okay. So if you break a bone and it heals more quickly than normal, I think it's a gift of healing.
Something happened. A miracle is when God does something that's beyond the normal healing process. Maybe the man's hip joints were not normal at birth. Maybe he didn't have a hip joint. I know more about animals, but I've seen animals that didn't have everything they needed to function in a normal way. And when that's restored, that's a miracle.
I don't know exactly what happened to that man. We don't have all the details. We don't have his x-rays. We know one thing. He couldn't walk, and then he could walk. And the difference was an invitation in the name of Jesus. Is that fair?
And I think the other thing that we have to look at is Peter and John, for some reason, are prompted by the Spirit to respond to someone begging. This is not the only beggar in Jerusalem. And they didn't gather all the beggars in Jerusalem. They didn't start the day and send out a text blast. They said, go find all the immobile beggars. We're going to do something today.
In the normal pattern of their life, they passed a person with a need and seemed to have been prompted by the Spirit of God to respond in a way that was not their typical response. We're used to driving... It's a pretty close equivalent to the homeless people we would see. And on this particular day, they respond differently. And they get a different outcome.
And this is not unlike Jesus' behavior. See, we want to control it. We want to be in charge. Well, I'm not praying for anybody that's sick unless everybody I pray for gets well. Well, I'm sorry. The God position is already occupied.
Imagine if a doctor said he'd never treat another patient unless everybody he treated got the exact same outcome. We would have no medicine. Or a teacher said, I'm not going to teach a single student unless every student I teach gets the exact same outcome. We'd have no more teachers.
And you see, because we've lacked the intent to invite God into the midst of our lives, we have this false thing we put out there. Well, I'm not doing that because I'm not sure what will happen. Well, you don't know what will happen when you do a lot of things.
Jesus. Remember the story where he came to the pool of Bethesda? It was a pool that by Jewish tradition said the angels troubled the waters. And when the waters were stirred, if you weren't well and you were the first one into the water, you would be healed.
So what do you think imagined at the pool of Bethesda? There's a crowd of sick people. And Jesus visits that pool. And he meets a man who's ill. And he said, you know, why are you here? And he said, well, I have a problem, but I'm not particularly mobile or agile. And when the water is stirred, I don't get in the water first. And so I don't get any help.
And Jesus said to the man, pick up your bed and walk. And the man was healed. But, you know, there was other people around that pool. Other desperate people. And Jesus didn't minister to them. I don't know why.
Remember the story of the blind man in John's gospel? Born blind, the disciples point him out to Jesus and said, why is he blind? His sin or his parents? And Jesus said, oh, that's not the right question. And he put mud on the man's eyes. Remember the story? He told him to go wash. And the man went and washed. And he came home saying, do you think he's the only blind man in Jerusalem? I promise not.
You see, we're not in control. We don't direct it. But we have to be willing to participate. We have to have the intent that the presence of God be available. Can we teach our children that? Kids are far more willing to pray. They're far more willing to believe in miracles.
I was at those pools of Bethesda. We typically visit there if we're in Jerusalem with a group. They've been excavated now. There was actually multiple pools there. Water is a very precious resource in the Middle East. So they capture all the rainwater and put it into these pools. These particular pools weren't particularly pretty. The reason the sick people were there is they used them to wash the sheep to take them up to the temple mount.
But we were at this site. It's a beautiful place now. There's an old crusader church there that has the most fabulous acoustics. We always go sing in that church. It was a Muslim school for a while. But the pools of Bethesda, the actual biblical pools have been excavated.
We were there with a group. And I wandered down into the lowest level where there was one of the pools with a handful of people. I was kind of telling them a story. And we were turning to leave because our group was leaving. I could see them headed out the gate.
And there was a woman standing there that I hadn't seen. And the woman said to me, excuse us, excuse me. I said, yes. And she said, would you happen to know anything about the baptism in the Holy Spirit?
And I said, well, a little. And she said, well, my husband and I have been in Israel for several days and I'm leaving in two hours. And I told God I didn't want to leave until I experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit. And I didn't know where to go and I didn't know what to do. So I came to these pools and you showed up.
I'm not proud of it. But I said, well, my group is walking through that gate over there. And I have to go. I've got about two minutes. And I can give you an overview. So there's a handful of us there. We had about a two-minute little Bible study. And I said, you know, if you'd like to receive, I can pray for you.
And we prayed. We gave her the explanation. We prayed for that woman. And she received the baptism in the Spirit with a prayer language. And her whole... There was a woman in the group with me. She gave her a hug. I thought she was going to choke the life out of her, to be honest.
You know, I tell you that. I wasn't there on the day when the beggar had a transformation. But I was at the Pool of Bethesda when God arranged an appointment with somebody that I'd never met. I don't remember her name. If I see her again, it'll probably be eternity. But God answered a prayer for her in that moment with a hillbilly preacher from Middle Tennessee.
This stuff is not... You say, well, you know, you're attributing something spiritual to an experience you had. Yeah, that's how that works. You're either going to attribute it to your own wisdom and your own strength and your own power, or you're going to be willing to acknowledge that God is moving in our midst.
You know, the Bible says that we entertain angels, many times unaware of that. I've told the story, but it wasn't too long ago. It's this year. I typically, at the end of a service, will pray for people at the altar. That's my normal behavior. And there was a line of people, which is not too unusual. And I don't go into a lot of depth. I try to hear the story and move because there's people waiting.
And a man came up, and he just introduced himself by his first name. I'd never seen him before. I don't remember everybody's names, and I'm pretty good with faces. And he said, Pastor, we have to pray that the war in Ukraine will end. They're killing so many people. We have to pray.
And I said, well, I'll be happy to say that prayer with you. Now, I've done that. I've had that interview hundreds of times. And it never stops there. There's always a follow-up. And I have a ministry in Ukraine. Or I have a family member in Ukraine. Or I have a child in Ukraine. Or I'm a reporter from Ukraine. I mean, it never... I've never had it stop like that.
And we prayed, and he was perfectly content. He said, thank you. I came today so that we could both know we need to pray that the conflict in Ukraine will stop. And he left. And the line was there, and I cycled through the line.
It was a day or two later when I was playing that back to my head, and I thought, that wasn't a normal prayer request. And he didn't hand me a card that said, I'm an angel. And you can disagree with me. It's okay. But as far as I'm concerned, God sent me a prompt to pray that that conflict would end, because there are hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their lives and a far greater number who are suffering greatly.
You see, I believe the Spirit of God is moving in the earth if we're willing to imagine that and to cooperate with him. It doesn't mean I get the outcomes I want and the time frame I always want them. That battle's still unfolding over there. But I'm still praying.
From Individual Miracle to Citywide Impact
Look at verse 11. Look at 9. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who sat begging. They were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
At this point in the narrative, the focus changes completely. It's no longer about the beggar. It says, all the people came running to Peter and John. What started about his story as a man with few resources and physical challenges becomes a transformational event in the city of Jerusalem.
See, the reason we have to care about spiritual things and we have to open our lives to the person of the Holy Spirit and allow those manifestations to become a part of our journey, we want our schools to be different. We want our churches to be different. We want our workplaces to be different.
And we have to be willing to participate with the Spirit of God because if we will, He knows how to orchestrate the circumstances. It's better than my plan. It's bigger than my plan. I'm a servant of the King. I serve at His pleasure. I'm not just trying to get my business done so I can go to heaven. I'm on assignment.
And every day I serve. I have meetings. I have assignments. I have responsibilities. I have to-do lists. I'm asked to look at, review, consider, pray about, all kinds of things. But in the midst of all of that, I want to please the Lord today. And I don't want my day to... I don't want to come to the end of my day and think, oh, I worked hard and I did my best. No, I want an outcome bigger than that. I want something more than that.
I want that for your family. I want it in the hearts of your children. But you've got to welcome the Lord into your home. I've been telling you for months and months and years now. It starts at the kitchen table.
Say, well, our family is a person. None are. Maybe all you could accomplish is, you get your family together for a meal and you say a blessing. Maybe that's all your circumstance will tolerate. Start there. Maybe you're blessed and you've got a greater opportunity than that. And you can take that meal and make it a time to connect with everybody in the family.
Where did you see God in your life today? Well, that's a weird question. You're the only person that ever asked me that question. I'm going to ask it to you every time I see you. Don't come to dinner. There's no dessert until we can talk about how you saw God move today. Don't bribe your kids. It's not good.
We lost our intent. We're going to keep pushing on this. We're going to see if we can't become a bit more comfortable with the manifestations of the Spirit. God's moving in the earth, folks. I've never seen anything like it. But I want to be a part. I don't want to just write a history.
Closing Invitation Prayer
I brought you a prayer. Why don't you stand with me? We're going to pick this up in the next session. When's that? Wednesday. It's really an invitation to God. I believe it's as personal as if you were standing alone in the presence of the Lord. I think there's a much higher degree of engagement if we do it in a community. I think praying together is one of the great privileges we have.
Let's read it. Almighty God, pour out your Spirit upon us. Let the darkness be dispelled. Awaken your people to walk uprightly before you. Grant the children and young people understanding hearts that they may know you. Give to them a revelation of yourself which will change the trajectory of their lives. Forgive us for our indifference. And now open our eyes to your purposes. In Jesus' name, amen.