Michael Todd - Where's the Evidence - Part 1
Hey, what's going on friends? I am so grateful that you're tuning in today and we are talking about the evidence of a transformed life. And I can't wait to share from my own experiences of what it means to live a life empowered by the Holy Spirit. See the Holy Spirit is much more than just speaking in tongues. The Holy Spirit enables us to live a fruitful transformed life. Yeah, it's about to get juicy in here. I need you all to buckle up and get ready for this message where we're going to figure out where's the evidence.
Are you all ready for the word today. I think I got one. We're in week four of a series we're calling help me The Upgrade. And we're talking about the power, the person and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Let me say it again. The power, the person and the presence of the Holy Spirit. And this has been one of the things that has been kept out of so many people's Christian walk. And it really is the thing that empowers them to live a life that looks like Christ. You cannot live like Christ without God on the inside of you. It's not going to be a good plan or a good idea or wanting to do better. You need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Somebody say "I need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit".
Now the crazy thing about it is the Holy Spirit has had very bad pr because there's some crazy people out here. There are some people who have never explained it properly. So over this next, this whole six weeks or seven weeks that we're doing this series, my job is to represent the Holy Spirit to you and let you see that he is alive. He is active. He is a person. He's got power and he wants to change your situation. And so today I feel like I got to be a teacher. On this day I feel like I got to teach you some stuff that you were never taught before. And let me be very clear. I was never taught before. Raised in church, grown up this is why it's so important to discover God for yourself and to go to the scriptures, what they say ain't all of it. Do you know that there is things that God wants to reveal God, the Holy Spirit to you in your everyday life.
So I'm going to walk you through this and I need you to go with me so that you can understand this process. We got to go back to higher dimensions when I was about nine years old. It's the church that I grew up in pastor Carlton Pearson is actually three miles down the street where I grew up and I would walk into the services and there would be this feeling that you got. I mean, you come in the music, it was just Angelican. People were singing and you saw white people and black people and all different ethnicities and they were worshiping and you could feel something that was in the atmosphere. And then there would be just somebody that blurred out in these unknowns tongues. And I was sitting there like, okay, is that Spanish? Can I be very honest with you? Is that Spanish? Okay. And then I hear somebody over here and they'd be going, and I'm like, is that French?
And then somebody's going and everybody they would start speaking in his language and I was nine years old. I remember I was like, I think my children's church worker knows a bunch of languages. And I went home and I would hear my mom speaking in this unknown tongue. And I was like, what in the world is this? Did I miss a class? Do I not have something that somebody else has? And then I heard this one preacher say this thing and this was the definition I thought of the Holy Spirit. They said this phrase that today I'm coming to correct, today I'm coming to change the attitude and the idea, it wasn't said wrong, but it left the wrong mark on me. And it may have left the wrong mark on you. The person said, today you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And he said, have you been filled with the Holy Spirit, with the evidence of speaking in tongues? How many people have heard that before? Have you been filled with the Holy Spirit, with the evidence of speaking in tongues?
So in my nine year old mind, I equated that the only way you know, that you've been filled with the Holy Spirit is that you can prove it by speaking in tongues. So my entire Christian walk, and right now I'm messing with some people's theology some of you all tight bodied right now, just sitting there like, oh my God, go to somebody else, TD Jakes. You're trying to get there, but I'm going to teach you today. That I thought all the year up into my 30s, I only been 30 for five years in the last five years I have undone this fallacy that has had me, can I be honest? Judging people. I thought, if you did not speak in tongues, you were not filled with the Holy Spirit, which made me better than you and now I can judge you. I'm going to be real today. Because there's some religious spirits that are in this place right now. And some traditional Christians that have been sitting from they're not real. They ain't filled with the spirit, they don't got the evidence.
Now let me help you. The Bible never says that the proof of being filled with the spirit is that you speak in tongues. Speaking in tongues is very real. And I'm going to talk about that. And I pray that everybody speaks in tongues. I want you to know I would not be standing here today if I did not have a heavenly language, but what I need to do before I introduce you to the heavenly language is break down the walls that have made there be separation over this idea of the Holy Spirit. It's not evidence that you have the Holy Spirit. It's a benefit of the Holy Spirit. Speaking in tongues is a benefit of the Holy Spirit. And this is why we all need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And when you're baptized in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit comes with gifts. And the only gift the church talks about is the gift of speaking in tongues.
Did you know that the gifts of speaking in tongues is one of nine gifts that the Holy Spirit brings. Oh, I'm about to teach this thing in a whole. It is one of the nine gifts that the Holy Spirit brings. And it's the one that we've used to judge other people. Can I be very clear with you? If you speak in tongues, it is a benefit. If you have received Jesus and you have allowed him to come into your life, the Holy Spirit lives on the inside of you. Some of you have not released the Holy Spirit yet to work in your life. So when you get baptized in the Holy Spirit, then you release him to bring these gifts to you. And there are nine gifts of the Holy Spirit that every believer has access to at all times. I just said access to at all time. And I got to teach you today okay? Acts 19. I feel this thing, my teacher is in here today.
Acts 19:1 this is Paul, while Apollos was in Corinth. Paul traveled through the interior regions until he reached Ephesus, on the coast where he found several believers. So he walked up, there was a bunch of believers there. And look at the question he asked them, which is a valid question. "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed"? So it goes back to last week's message that tells you there's a baptism into salvation. That's when we believe, then there's a baptism in water and can I just stop real quick and let you know that the 23rd of this month is flood Sunday at Transformation Church. And people have said welcome to the Holy Spirit. Can I tell you all how many people have signed up as of about an hour ago to get baptized 15.709 people from 25 you all better help me. 25 different countries are getting baptized.
Paul comes to these believers and said, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed"? And look what they said? No. And this is like, most of you all before The Upgrade, we haven't even heard of the Holy Spirit. Do you know how many believers serve on the worship team? Go through everything and have never even heard of the Holy Spirit. So then look what Paul says like I'm saying to you, "Then what baptism did you experience"? But what were you baptized in if you haven't heard of the Holy Spirit and they replied, are you now what the baptism of John, what he was doing down there. Paul said, "John's baptism called for repentance from sin, that's salvation but John himself told the people to believe in the one who would come later, meaning Jesus".
And as soon as they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus watch verse 6. Then Paul laid hands on them. The Holy Spirit came on them and they spoke in other tongues and prophesied. The Holy Spirit gives gifts right after he prayed for these disciples two of them showed up and most of us only found one. He said they spoke in tongues and they, I'm just trying to show you that we're not going to maximize on one and leave out everything that the Holy Spirit has for us. Okay? Speaking in tongues is real. I speak in tongues everyday. I spoke in spoke tongues with our executive team and our pastors right before we came out here. Every meeting that we have at this church, no matter if you're a camera man to everybody, we pray and many of us are speaking in tongues. Monday night prayer if you want to come and hear a whirlwind of people praying out in their heavenly language, come tomorrow night at 6:00 P.M. on YouTube, we pray, but can I make a very strong statement? Tongues is not evidence of the Holy Spirit. It's a benefit of the Holy Spirit.
Don't judge another believer based on if they can speak in a heavenly language or not. That is a spirit of criticism and is the spirit of judgment. And I'm show you little bit later that that person's prayer has more chance to reaching heaven than yours even if you do speak in tongues. Okay I just got to say. You all feel the tightness in the room right now. I'm going to try to help you because I need us to be able to have a biblical view on what the scripture say about the gifts of the Holy Spirit so then we can display it to people in a way that they can receive it. 1 Corinthians 12:1 it says, now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, watch this. I do not want you to be ignorant. The whole reason I'm preaching this is because I don't want the church another day to be ignorant of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I didn't say stupid. I didn't say that you are dumb. You're just void of understanding.
And there's a lot of things in this Christian walk because of leaders, because of maybe the denomination because of other people we are void of teaching that the word is very clear on, well, that's not sexy enough. Like I don't even care if the numbers are going down on YouTube right now, because people aren't checked in the 25.000 people that are checked into this, they're going to get an upgrade in the ability to understand the Holy Spirit. And they will no longer be ignorant void of understanding because you need the Holy Spirit to live this life. And so I want to talk about the benefits of the Holy Spirit. So we're not ignorant of it. Is that okay?
Now I don't know if I should make this a Bible study class. There's so much to teach right now and so little time. So let me just help you. Because I want to develop an appetite for people to study the Word of God. If you're only listening to Pastor Mike, you have missed the point. I give you all these scriptures and all these points so that you would go home. And in your quiet time daily, you will look up those scriptures and God can give you, watch this a better revelation than I got. When you study and ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom. So I'm going to give you categories four categories of gifts in the Bible and write this down and go study it on your own time. There are motivational gifts, according to Romans 12, there's motivational gifts according to Romans 12, I cannot go through them all right now, but I want you to go through them. The one that I'm going to talk about today is that there's manifestation gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. And we're going to walk through all of those today. Then there are ministry gifts found in 1 Corinthian 14.
So you need to walk through that whole thing. And then there's ministerial gifts found in Ephesians 4. And these are the gifts of Jesus this is the pastor, prophet, teacher, evangelists, apostle. And I don't have time to go through all of that today, but there are gifts that we get as a benefit of believing in Jesus. My question to you is how many gifts have you left unwrapped or excuse me how many gifts have you left unopened? They're still wrapped up. You got them and you have access to them, but they are still unopened because you're scared of what somebody else will think about it because somebody was weird who taught about it. No, no, no, no. I'm going to dispel all that today. And I want you to get these gifts so you can actually benefit. Everybody say, "Benefit". This is the thing I need you to understand. You don't have the gifts, the Holy Spirit possesses these gifts, and you have the Holy Spirit. Let me back up. Because some of you all was like, hold on, I thought you said I got access to the gifts. You do because the Holy Spirit, the person of the Holy Spirit, possesses all nine of these gifts. And because you accept the Holy Spirit.
Now you have access to all these gifts. People like I have the gift of prophecy. No you don't. The Holy Spirit has the gift of prophecy and because you listen to the Holy Spirit, you can prophesy, I'm going to help you. So many people have walked around claiming something that they can't do on demand. They've walked around holding these titles and going to another place and call me prophetess and prophet and this and all I'm good, I'm good with your titles. As long as you know, you are not the gift holder and that's why it's so backwards that a prophetess or pastor or somebody will make somebody feel smaller because they're not on a platform and the same Holy Spirit that's speaking to you up there is the same Holy Spirit speaking to me on the floor of my daughter's room, telling me to write down that this building would be ours. This is what, I got to calm down . This is what I'm trying to tell you right now. Is you don't have the gifts. The Holy Spirit has the gifts. And because you have the Holy Spirit, you have access. Everybody say "Access". To nine gifts.
How can I make it plain? Okay, there we go. Bella, my daughter, thinks she has an iPad. She don't have no iPad. She ain't bought an iPad. She don't pay the payments for the iPad she does not have an iPad, but she has a daddy. And because she has a daddy, she has access to the iPad. And if you ask her, this is my iPad, but when it comes down to it, the only reason she's able to benefit is because of her relationship. All I'm trying to say with you, your relationship with the Holy Spirit is more important than anything that you've ever manifested or may know because he's the one that is an endless source of understanding, an endless source of creativity, an endless source of wisdom. And you somehow thought you made that up. And you thought that was your idea. And what I'm telling you, accept the Holy Spirit is the one that gives the gifts.
So let me run through all nine of these, because it's going to take a minute okay? Golly, I don't know how I'm going to do this. Because I could preach a whole message on each one of these things. You all ready can I go rapid through them so I can show you what it is? There's three categories of these nine gifts. The first are the discerning gifts, okay? And these are all found in scripture in 1 Corinthians. The first one is a word of knowledge. Write this definition down. A word of knowledge is to know something specific without having learned it by natural means. The Holy Spirit Carries a gift that you can have access to as he wills of a word of knowledge. You see it in Jesus's life. When he's with the woman at the well, and some of you all would say, "Well, now Jesus is God". No, remember that he laid down all of his divinity to be able to rely on the Holy Spirit, to be an example for us.
So he's with the woman at the well and Jesus says, tell your husband to come here. And she says, well, I don't have a husband. He said, that's right because you have five husbands and the one that you're with, he's not your husband right now. She said, I think he's a prophet. That was a word of knowledge. And what you can walk into when you go into that boardroom and you don't know what to say, is you can say, Holy Spirit, give me a word of knowledge. Tell me what I need to say that I don't know the physics of how all of this works and the science behind all of this, but I know you know everything.
So give me a word of knowledge. I can't tell you how many rooms I've walked in. Had no earthly understanding of what they were saying. And they said three words and the Holy Spirit illuminated what I was supposed to say in that meeting. And they looking at me like, how long have you studied this? And I'm looking at them like, please don't find me out. But it was the Holy Spirit giving a word of knowledge. That is a gift that is available to you through the Holy Spirit. The next one, a word of wisdom, a word of wisdom is a divine answer or solution for a particular event. You can have an answer for something that you don't know, but he knows and it allows to come through you. I use this every day, pastoring this church, I get words of wisdom.
Do you remember Bree when we were in a very, very, very tough situation as a staff and we were trying to figure out who to hire in a specific situation and Bree and me leave a meeting praying. She goes to sleep wakes up in the morning, she said, I got it, mike. I know who it is. And I'm calling them right now. And I say, God didn't speak to me about it. God, God didn't, he didn't tell me the pastor. He didn't give me insight. That's not what I said. I said, what is the word of wisdom? What did he tell you? See because when you realize that you're around people that have the Holy Spirit in them, the answer comes from him, but it can come through anybody.