Michael Todd - Where's the Evidence - Part 2
What's going on, friends? You made it here, and I am so excited. And today I need you to know this message is important. I tell you that all the time. I tell you the messages are important, but this one we are talking about the incredible advantage that we have as believers in Jesus Christ. And this is the advantage of your life. His name is the Holy Spirit. See, the Holy Spirit is God's upgrade for living a powerful transformed life, so how do we know if we have the Holy Spirit? Stay tuned today because I'm going to show you the evidence.
The last one in this category of the discerning of gifts, this is called the discerning of spirits. To be made aware of presence of a demonic spirit. This one the church has to up your game. Because of y'all be taking pictures with devils. Birthday, and I can see the spirit. But you're not discerning of spirits. You thought they were coming to just connect with you, but they are gonna connect with you, and they're gonna keep you in a cycle for the next five months, and if you don't have people around you that can discern spirits, this is not spooky. This is a benefit. Like if you're marriage is jacking up and there's a demonic attack against the unity of your household, wouldn't you like to be able to see that spirit coming and be able to attack it and bind it and loose it because you can see it? You never fight an enemy you don't think is there.
And so many of us are getting wore out because we can't see the enemy. I'm gonna have to do a whole series on this, y'all. But the spiritual gift that the Holy Spirit brings is the discerning of spirits. Since we're on the topic of correcting things, can I correct something else real quick? There's no gift of discernment. People get it from this scripture and people should discern, but there's no gift of discernment. What I've found is when people say I have the gift of discernment, really they have the spirit of being critical. And what they end up doing is they start reading people that tears them down, and they say I have the spirit of discernment. Biblically there's no spirit of discernment so you just sound a little left when you say that. There is the discerning of spirits which is so that you can edify each other. Help me, Holy Spirit.
When I see somebody hanging with somebody that has an evil spirit and I discern that, I don't go to the person and start reading that person. I go to the person that needs to be safe and I say hey, listen, the relationship that you have with them seems amazing, but there's such a call of God on your life and it's very crucial who you have being able to speak into your life at this season. I want to encourage you to make sure the people around you are lifting you up, are praying for you, are leading you towards this. This person seems good, but I just discern, I have a spiritual discernment, a gift that the Holy Spirit has given me. Not something that I'm claiming that I'm the only one that has, but it's something that the Holy Spirit showed me and I want to let you know if you do nothing with this, I'm praying for you and I'm praying for that relationship. Oh, excuse me, and actually do it.
Can we normalize not saying I'm gonna pray for you if you not actually gonna pray for them? Like if you gonna actually pray for them, some you y'all need to just stop and do it then because you know you lying if you gonna walk away from that conversation and start praying for them. I'm on one today. Pray for your pastor. So the discerning gifts are a word of knowledge, word of wisdom, and the discerning of spirits. And that is the first 3. Let me give you the second three. They're the declarative gifts. These are gifts that the Holy Spirit brings. Who brings them? Who brings them? Who gets to benefit from them? Who gets to benefit? Me. I want you to understand this, that we have gifts that we get to benefit from and the next 3 are declarative gifts, ones that use your mouth. And all three of threes gifts are for edification, encouragement, and watch this, not correction. I got to help you because this first one a lot of people use for correction.
The first gift is prophecy. And prophecy is a message of encouragement from God through a person. And I've heard so many people stand people up and read them up and down and say you just gonna have to deal with it thus says the Lord. A message of encouragement from God through a person. Be careful of putting your opinions out there and saying thus says the Lord. Jeremiah tells us very clearly be careful. There are consequences for God said, and he didn't. Like I am very normalized with my team and staff of being like y'all, I don't know if this is God or not but I feel like, they respect me more for not throwing the God card out there. In prayer last night at 4 AM. Why is it always at 4 AM? You not asleep at 4 AM? I'm asleep most of the time by 4 AM, but you can say on my way to work today I felt like, and if it's God, say it's God. But if it's not God, keep your mouth shut because prophecy is a word of encouragement from God through regular people.
Okay. 1 Corinthians 14: 31 because people looking at me. They tight right now. Watch this. For you can all prophesy. Can we go back and read that one more time? For you can, say it, all prophesy. I don't care what your past has been and I don't care how many mistakes you've made, once you release the Holy Spirit in your life you have the ability and the availability to prophesy, to speak something that is to come for the encouragement of people that are listening. It says for you can all prophecy one by one that that all may learn and all may be encouraged. It's Bible, so be weary of somebody that tells you to pay them $99, I'm messing up somebody's whole 2022 right now. But be leery of somebody that tells you to pay $99 to get a prophetic word and then all they do is tear you down and tell you how, prophecy is for encouragement. Let me just move on because I'm about to get in trouble right there. The declarative gifts, the next one is tongues. What happened? Everybody got quiet on that one, huh? Tongues.
Watch. A message from God in a language unknown to the person through whom the message comes. Tongues is not scary. Tongues is not weird. All it is is a message from God in a language unknown to the person. I don't know if language through whom the message comes. Next week I'm spending the entire service talking about speaking in tongues. You do not want to miss the revelation that is coming next week and about your heavenly language, but there's a couple of things I want to make clear in this sermon. There is a difference as you study the word between the gift of tongues and the grace of tongues. Okay. The gift of tongues is when you start speaking in the heavenly language and you're speaking to another man or woman. It needs interpretation. This is the scriptural reference for it, so when I start going in my tongues but I'm talking or speaking to somebody, the Bible tells me it needs interpretation.
Then there is the grace of tongues which is to God and it is our prayer language. They sound the same but who you are directing them to delineates how, where, and when you're supposed to do this. Nobody ever taught me this, but I'm speaking in tongues over a person or to a person, the Bible says interpret that. Let them know what that actually says which we're going to get to in a minute because that's another gift of the Holy Spirit. It's not just tongues. It's tongues and the interpretation of tongues, but when you start praying in your heavenly language, it sounds the same but it's directed to God. And the Bible tells us when we pray in the spirit, we begin to pray, the groanings, the mind and the will of the Father.
We don't know how to pray as we ought and we begin to speak things into existence that we couldn't form with regular language. It is better for us to pray in our tongues when we're talking to God but it is not better when we're talking to somebody else. I know nobody's told you this but you gotta be able to interpret. Let me help you. 1 Corinthians 14:27, if anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be 2 or at the most 3 each in turn and let one of them people interpret. I didn't hear what you and God just said. Help me be edified so interpret. But we leave this out because we have not understood it so I'm gonna help you, but if there's no interpreter, let him keep silent in church. It's the Bible. I know this is a part you don't like. And let him speak to himself, so you can still do it to yourself, and to God.
So when I'm in church and I again to speak in tongues, I'm not doing it as a filler because I forgot what I was gonna say. I feel God. Because you forgot the scripture you were supposed to go to. I just gotta be honest with you. It has become habit more than holy. It's a habit that you have of hey like you just felt something and instead of saying that felt God, you. It's a habit that you picked up from somebody else that was ignorant of the truth. And you're not a bad person if this is your habit. I just want you to know what scripture says about it so you can govern yourself accordingly. I come into services and worship is going and I speak in tongues to myself. It says you can still speak in tongues to yourself and to God. So when I'm in a situation and I'm sitting over here before every service on my knees, you better believe I'm not speaking out of my understanding. I don't have that but I'm not getting up here to you and speaking in tongues. Why? I'm gonna show it right here.
Go to 1 Corinthians 14: 23. Therefore, if the whole church comes together in one place like we are today and all speak with tongues and their come in those who are uninformed or unbelievers, will they not say these people lost their mind? But if all prophecy or speak in English, make it clear, and an unbeliever and an uninformed person comes into that service, he will be convinced by all, he will be convicted by all, and thus the secrets of his heart will be revealed and so falling down on his face because I didn't speak in tongues out of habit. I made it plain what God was saying. He will worship God and report that God is truly among you. That's nasty Bible that at some point you're gonna have to grapple with. I'm not coming to tell you that you're wrong or you're right. I'm just gonna put the Bible out here and I'm gonna let you have to wrestle with what you have done for many years, how you have felt about people that don't speak in tongues and maybe there is a difference in what we do in church and what we do in our quiet time.
The problem is most of you don't have a devotion life outside of this time. So if you can't get your full expression off within 90 minutes of this service, you feel like somebody is quenching you. Baby, you should be praying every day. You should be going to God. I don't not have that I'm not praying. I'm in my car, in my shower, at the bank, I am praying and seeking God's will. But if you leave your whole relationship with God relegated to an hour on Sunday mornings, you will be depleted and unhealthy. And so what God is saying is yeah, yeah, yeah. You should pray in tongues all the time but when we come into this because somebody wants to ask me, why don't you be praying in tongues, Pastor Mike, on Sunday mornings? It's because I have the uninformed and the unbeliever at thousands, at the number of thousands watching. The same Holy Spirit is here though. And he's given me words of wisdom.
How many of y'all have said, how did he know that? It seems like Pastor Mike is talking directly to me. That's the same power of the Holy Spirit at work in the individual situation, and we have how many people have gotten saved this year at TC? How many? Almost 30.000 people have gotten saved. Now, listen. The Bible is telling us if I would have just sat here for two hours and spoken in tongues, they wouldn't have got it. All I'm telling you is that tongues is so powerful but it's now in a place for us to have the understanding to be able to know when, where and how. When we come together in a staff meeting with our team, you better believe if you turn the camera on in there you're gonna hear, bought a Honda and couldn't tie my beau tie. You gonna hear all of it.
But when I come here on Sunday mornings I'm gonna make sure for everything I have an interpretation for so it can be profitable for the hearer. So the third one in that category is the interpretation of tongues and write this definition down, it's understanding and expressing the thought or intent or the message in tongues. So I need to clarify this. There's a difference between translation and interpretation. So somebody can speak in tongues and what the Bible said is there needs to be an interpretation, not a translation. So that's why you can hear somebody speak in tongues and then somebody will say I have an interpretation of that. God says have peace. And it's like that baby he spoke in tongues for like 20 minutes. And then he just said God said, that doesn't match up. It does because it's not a translation. A translation is word for word, everything that's happening.
What God is calling for an interpretation so you can have a long time of speaking in tongues and a short interpretation of that or you can have a short time of speaking in tongues and a long interpretation of that. Why is that important? Because if you don't understand this, God will speak to somebody, I've been in tons of prayer circles where somebody begins to pray in the spirit and then somebody else on the other side of the room says, God says that everybody needs to rest. This is the season of rest. And it was like God was speaking through that person and picked up in the other person. And it gave all of us the ability whether you are a believer or an unbeliever.
Now, we can do that in front of anybody. The scripture is very clear, if you are going to do tongues in front of the uninformed and the unbeliever, there must be interpretation. Because then even if they get the when somebody says, and God says there needs to be peace. Got it. Peace. Okay. Got that one. Peace. I got that. Y'all get, I'm trying to take something that's really big and disarm it, but this is the truth of God's word. 1 Corinthians 14: 5. I need everybody to take this down because you're gonna have to wrestle with this. 1 Corinthians 14: 5. I wish you all spoke with tongues. Who wrote this? Somebody said Paul wrote it. Paul penned it, but the Holy Spirit wrote that. And even if you like I don't believe that, okay, this is the greatest apostle that ever walked the face of the earth, wrote one-third of the New Testament.
That's one-third more than you so I just want us to be very clear that this is his language and theology. I wish you all spoke with tongues. For every person that came from a denominations that spoke against this, for every person that had a weird auntie that just through anointing oil on you instead of feeding you, you know, it's like I gotta eat. The Holy Spirit will fill you up. No, I'm hungry. Y'all don't know there's some weird stuff out here. All I'm saying is forget all of that. The greatest apostle that ever lived said I wish you all spoke with tongues. And it says but even more than that that you prophesy. For he who, so he's bringing value to the other gifts. He's saying for he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks in tongues unless there is an interpretation, that the church would receive what? Edification. It's about building each other up. It's about helping people see what they can't see. It's about using these gifts of the spirit to build up your children and build up your husband and your mother and your wife and build up the people in your department. Everybody say "build them up!"
Why is it in the church that we think for us to get ahead we gotta tear somebody down? Maybe we're not working in the Holy Spirit. Let me give you the last 3, the dynamic gifts. And this is the gifts, I like these, that word dynamic comes from the word dunamas and that word means power. These are the power gifts. It actually means explosive power like the dunamas. These are explosive gifts that will be unlocked and released and whose gifts are they? The Holy Spirit. But who gets the benefit? Me. I can walk in the explosive power of these gifts every day of my life. The first one is faith. Woo! It's a supernatural impartation of belief and confidence for a specific situation. When Pastor Mike got that word that the spirit bank event center would be Transformation Church, the Holy Spirit imparted me the dunamas explosion power of faith into my life.