Well hey, today if you are joining us for the first time, my name is Aaron. I am one of the pastors here, and we are continuing in a series on the Holy Spirit. I have a lot of content to cover, so we need to jump right in.

I want to give us a little bit of a recap from last week. Last week we determined that the primary role of the Holy Spirit is to make Jesus known to us, and then to make Jesus known through us. We discovered that by looking at John chapter 16.

I would tell you that this statement is a foundational statement. It is important for our conversation today because I would tell you that if we get this wrong, we will likely err when it comes to the spiritual gifts, which is what we are going to be discussing today as a church. I would say that this statement almost becomes the guardrails for us as we look more deeply into the spiritual gifts and we determine what these gifts need to look like in our lives, in the life of this church, and how we need to embrace them.

Now, it is impossible for me to cover everything that I want to cover in one sermon on the subject of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So my main motivation today is going to be to talk about what it looks like for us to potentially err in two different extremes.

On one hand, there could be the extreme where there is an overemphasis on the gifts of the Spirit, or maybe exercising them or using them in a way that is not biblical. That would be this chair. On the other hand, there could be those that are underutilizing the gifts of the Holy Spirit, maybe dismissing them altogether. Maybe, potentially, based on some experiences that you have had in life and in other churches, you have decided to kind of stay away from this subject because for you, things got kind of hurtful and even strange. So what you have decided to do is say, you know what, I am not going to mess with that area of my faith. To which I would say, you would also be in error.

So what I want to talk about today is a healthy approach to the gifts of the Holy Spirit. To do that, I want to begin by building a foundation. To build that foundation, I want you to see the 21 gifts that we see throughout the New Testament. These are the 21 gifts that are extended to believers when it comes to the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

If you have a phone I would tell you to take your phone out and snap a quick shot of that. I am not going to leave it up too long. The ones that are highlighted are the ones that are considered the sign gifts. We are going to spend the majority of our time today talking about the sign gifts.

Now, if you have ever gone through Rooted, which is something we ask everybody to go through here at Trace, you know that there is a test that we have you take. An assessment where you can discover what some of your spiritual gifts are. I love those tests. I love those assessments. You can go home today and you can Google “spiritual gifts assessment” and you can take those tests and it is going to give you some information.

But I have found that it is a better approach to just continue to pursue Jesus and discover where it is that God may have specifically gifted you in those 21 different areas.

For instance, when I first started working for a church, I was in my 30s. As I was working for this church they pulled me aside and said, Aaron, we think that God has given you a gift of leadership. Now I am in my 30s and I had never heard anybody say anything like that to me. And so they gave me more opportunities. They challenged me in different ways and it showed me how to develop this gift of leadership. I would tell you today that one of my primary gifts is probably the gift of leadership.

But I would not have known that until I invited people to challenge me in my faith, and until I asked them to point things out in me. A great question to ask people that are very close to you is this. Out of these 21 things, what would you say I am gifted in. What would you say that you have noticed in me. Allow somebody else’s input to speak into your life.

For instance, when I asked Emily, out of these things, hey babe what gift do you think I am gifted in. She says, the gift of tongues. And I said sweetheart this is not about French kissing. That is not what we are talking about. I love you sweetheart. Sorry. Moving on.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 12 Paul says something incredibly important when he is referencing the gifts of the Holy Spirit. He says, all these, referring to the gifts, are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions each one individually as he wills.

I would tell you that some of these gifts can be exercised at any time and at our will. For instance, gifts like mercy, hospitality, teaching, evangelism. You do not necessarily need a supernatural moment to do those things, even though some people are definitely more gifted in those areas. I often joke that God did not give me much of a mercy gift. So truly I look to my wife Emily to be my mercy gift because I just do not have a lot of that. I want to grow in that. But these are some of the areas we can exercise at will, at any time. Mercy, hospitality, teaching, evangelism.

But some people are going to be more gifted than others. And some people might try to step into some of those giftings when that really is not the area they should be stepping into. They should probably be embracing things that they have more strength in.

For instance. Has anybody ever heard really bad preaching. Just raise your hand. Anybody. Really bad teaching or preaching. Hopefully it was not in this church. But I have been there with you. It is like, brother, great try. Appreciate the effort. But maybe your gift is hospitality. Let us introduce you to the greeting team.

So some of these gifts of the Holy Spirit can be exercised at will at any time. You do not need a miracle in the moment to show up to be merciful. But some gifts were only intended to be exercised as God wills.

In Philippians chapter 2 Paul is writing to the church in Philippi. He says this. For it is God who works in you, through his Holy Spirit, to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

One of the gifts that I would point out, and again I cannot cover everything today, but one of the gifts that I would point out that we cannot just exercise whenever we want is the gift of healing.

Now there is something I learned this week in my study and in my research. When we are reading through the New Testament and the gift of healing comes up a couple different times, we actually do not see the most accurate translation in English. The more accurate translation that the ESV and the NIV miss is that it is supposed to say gifts of healings.

You may be wondering, why does that even make a difference. Let me show you something that John Piper said on this subject. He said, if God gives you gifts of healings, it does not mean that you can heal at will, or that everyone you pray for will be healed. Is it not interesting that the literal phrase in 1 Corinthians 12:9 and in 1 Corinthians 12 is not gift of healing, but gifts of healings. It is two plurals.

Then John says this. I think this probably means that different kinds of gifts for different kinds of healings are given to various people according to God’s sovereign will. This alone would suggest that one person will not have a monopoly on every sort of healing that is necessary. And it suggests that there will be many times when a person with some gifts to heal will not be able to heal in every circumstance.

For what it is worth, we see this throughout the New Testament. We do not see one person in the New Testament, other than Jesus, that can heal people at will whenever they want. But we see many of the apostles heal people. They just do not heal every person every time. For instance, the Apostle Paul healed many people throughout the New Testament. But there are some people that he was not able to heal.

And so once again some gifts are given to us and we can use them at will, where other gifts are only supposed to be used at God’s will.

Now, I would tell you, when it comes to healing, I think there is the potential for every single one of us to at times operate in that gift if God wills it in that particular moment or circumstance.

As you can imagine I have been invited into a lot of hospitals. I have been invited into a lot of tragic circumstances. And I have prayed over people on their deathbed. I pray in those moments, God would you impart the gift of healing to me right now. God would you do what I know you can do. And I pray with all authority and faith because I know what God is capable of. I do not want to limit God’s capabilities because of my capacity. So I pray that God would give me that gift.

I would tell you there have been some times where I have prayed and then I have heard later that people have experienced a healing. Maybe that is through miracles. Maybe that is through modern medicine. Maybe it is a little bit of both.

Emily and I got invited into a very tragic circumstance here recently where a young lady, 17 years old, not a part of this church, was in a horrific car accident. They did not think she was going to make it. We went into her hospital room and we prayed. And again, whether it was God using those prayers, or modern medicine, or a little of both, that young lady came out of her coma and she is doing really well today.

So I want to encourage you. Whatever circumstance is in front of you, do not think, well I do not have the gift of healing. I would encourage you to pray that God would impart the gift of healing to you when you pray. And you pray with the full authority of the power of the Holy Spirit. It is not you. It is God’s authority and power through you. Pray through faith in what we know God can do.

Now. Out of these 21 gifts there are a few of these that are considered what we call the sign gifts. This is where we get into a little bit more debate in the church about whether or not these gifts are still available to the church today.

On one hand you have got what are called cessationists. On the other hand you have continuationists. Cessationists believe that the sign gifts, which would be prophecy, healing, and speaking in tongues, were temporary. And for those of you new to the church, speaking in tongues was just a gift imparted to some believers to be able to speak in a language that was unknown to them.

I could preach an entire sermon just on tongues and I am not even going to approach that today because it is too much.

But cessationists believe that God imparted these gifts, specifically the miraculous ones like healing and tongues and signs and wonders, to the early apostles because they needed more signs and wonders to elevate the message that they were carrying. Keep in mind, there were no Gideons in the early church. There was nobody going around handing out Bibles. They did not even have the written New Testament yet.

So some people, cessationists, would say that God gave them these miraculous gifts so that as they are preaching the gospel, they can also say, and here is proof. Here is evidence that the message we are proclaiming is true. And cessationists would say those gifts ceased when the apostles died off. Those particular gifts stopped.

The other side is continuationism. Continuationism believes that those gifts continued, and continue, to be available to New Testament believers today. That all of those gifts are still a part of the New Testament church, and that we can all use them for the sake of the body. Again, you may not be gifted with all of them, but they are still used to build up the New Testament church.

I want to let you know that we are a continuationist church. We believe that all the gifts are still available to the church today. And when exercised biblically, and that is a very important statement, when exercised biblically, we believe they are needed and used to build up the body of Christ.

Now another term that often comes up, and I even used this last week, is charismatic. We get the word charismatic from the Greek word charisma, or charismata. That Greek word means gifts, or gifts of grace.

Last week I referred to myself as charismatic sometimes. That is definitely not the best way to explain my whole theological position. If charismatic simply means that we believe all the gifts are still available to the New Testament church, I would tell you that I am charismatic with a seat belt on.

And the reason I say charismatic with a seat belt on is because unfortunately I have seen these gifts abused and misused so many times within the church. I have had personal experiences with that, and I have had many counseling sessions with people coming into my office, coming out of hyper charismatic environments where they just needed to process through things because of how unhealthy that experience was. I am going to talk about that here in just a moment.

Let me pause here for a moment.

I find it hard at times to use any one word to label my beliefs or what it means specifically for me to follow Jesus, because there is a continuum in between these phrases and there are people all over the map. If I were to just get up here and explain my theological position by saying I am charismatic, that would fall really short of where I feel like I am in my faith.

I would tell you that I have got so many different experiences that have helped shape my theology. For those of you that do not know this, I grew up in the Baptist church. Where are my Baptists at. Anybody Baptist. They are usually not very loud.

I grew up in the Baptist church. I was saved in the Baptist church. A little bit later in life, because I was a wayward son, I was a prodigal, I rededicated my life in a Pentecostal conference. The Pentecostals or charismatics. That is not. Guys, you are not representing yourself well. That illustration did not go the way I thought it was going to go.

But I did. I rededicated my life at a charismatic conference. I bet many of you do not know this. I was married in the Catholic church. And now I am the pastor of a non denominational church.

You know what they call people like me. Theological mutts. That is what I am. I am a theological mutt.

At times I really do not want to be described by one tribe of Christianity. I do not want to be described by one particular label. I have learned, and I hope many of you share this sentiment with me, I have learned that we can learn a lot of things from all these different tribes.

I would tell you the Baptist church helps us stay committed to the word of God. I would tell you that our charismatic and Pentecostal friends help us to be reminded of the power of the Holy Spirit. I would tell you that the Catholic church reminds us of the importance of reverence and confession and kneeling in the presence of our almighty God.

I think we can learn a lot of different things from different tribes of Christianity. So I want us to be careful not to just throw labels like we are not this, we are that, or this label completely defines me. I would tell you there are a lot of different ways we can be defined in the Christian faith, but the most important thing is this. I follow Jesus and I am learning what it looks like to die to myself every single day. That is the hardest thing I have ever learned to do in my life. And I am asking for his Holy Spirit to work in and through my life, to reveal Jesus to me, and then reveal Jesus through me.

Now I do want to talk to a specific audience this morning. Because there are some of you in here that came from what I am going to call charismania. Charismania is churches that overemphasized the gifts of the Holy Spirit and did not exercise them in a biblical way.

For those of you that do not know this, one of the number one reasons why the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth is because they were getting so many things wrong, including how they were exercising the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and even more specifically the gift of tongues. Paul is reprimanding them because they are overemphasizing these things.

Church, I would tell you that I have sat across the table from many people who have come out of hyper charismatic environments. They would tell me, Aaron it just felt forced. It felt fake. But I felt like I needed to follow along because if I did not they were going to challenge my faith. So I found myself just kind of going through the motions because I was afraid of what it was going to do to me. Because I saw other people that challenged those things and they were told, well you do not have enough faith.

And maybe at times certain things, like being baptized in the Spirit, were pushed on them. And it sounded like this. If you have not been baptized in the Holy Spirit and shown an outward sign that you have received the Holy Spirit, like speaking in tongues or some prophetic language, if you do not show those things, you are not even saved.

I want to talk in a moment about what I am going to call the false doctrine of being baptized in the Holy Spirit. So stay with me. It is going to get interesting.

But I would tell you, if you found yourself in this particular seat and you are still trying to process through some of that, my office door is open. I have counseled many people through that because some of you are still like, I do not even know how to process the things that I went through. I would tell you that in those hyper charismatic environments is where I have seen the majority of spiritual manipulation happen. It is just true.

So if that happens to be you, I want to let you know that my office door is open. I would be more than happy to sit down and process with you some of the experiences that you had and what is biblical and what is not.

Now where we have to be careful is that maybe this was your experience, and because of this experience it sent you to the other chair. I would personally confess to you today and be transparent that because of some of the experiences that I have had in hyper charismatic environments, that is what caused me to put that seat belt on. Where I believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but I keep that seat belt on because I have found myself being skeptical. Skeptical because I have seen them used in an unbiblical way. I have seen these gifts exercised in a way that could not be backed up with Scripture, which causes me to hesitate. Anybody else feel like this at times. It causes me to hesitate.

Can I just be transparent with you today. I do not want to hesitate when it comes to how the Holy Spirit could work in and through my life. I have been processing this a lot.

But again, what we have to be careful of is that it does not send us all the way over here where we say, you know what. I did not like those experiences. I think that was fake. I do not see that in the Bible. And now all of a sudden I am completely shutting down what the Holy Spirit could do.

Or maybe you are sitting in this chair because you are simply uneducated. You have never been taught what it means to have the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Specifically with the sign gifts. You have never had it explained how these need to be used in a biblical way, and how some of them do have parameters around them, which we have already covered. Sometimes you can only use these gifts as God wills, not at your will.

And so over here we have to be very careful that we do not shut down the full potential and the full measure of the Holy Spirit and how he wants to use your life.

Now I want to dig down on this subject of being baptized in the Holy Spirit. The reason I want to do this, and the reason why I call it a false doctrine, and the reason I am going to spend time to even talk about this, is because we are talking about the subject of salvation here. I want everybody that calls Trace Church home to know that you can be assured of your salvation. That you do not need some hyper spiritual experience to display in order to know that you have been filled with the Spirit.

So I want to unfold this for you really quick.

In Acts chapter 8 and in Acts chapter 19, we see something happen that has led to this false doctrine of being baptized in the Holy Spirit and how that needs to be a separate experience from your original conversion.

In Acts chapter 8 and in Acts chapter 19 it says that there were some believers that had been baptized in the name of Jesus, but they had not received the Holy Spirit. So what happens is the apostles come. One time it is in Samaria, another time it is in Ephesus. The apostles come and find these believers and they are like, hey have you received the Holy Spirit. And they are like, no. We were just baptized in the name of Jesus. And so now it feels like these two experiences need to be completely separate. What happens is they lay their hands on these particular believers and then they receive the Holy Spirit.

Now stay with me because this is incredibly important. Those are two anomalies that we do not ever see again in the text. I would tell you the reason we see it then is because they were baptized before Jesus ascended.

Stay with me. This is a big deal.

They were baptized when John the Baptist was going around and preaching the message of repentance. But nobody could receive the Holy Spirit until Jesus ascended into heaven. In Acts chapter 1 it says that Jesus ascended into heaven. In Acts chapter 2 the Holy Spirit comes down.

So what happens to the people that were baptized before Jesus ascended into heaven. What happens to the people that were baptized when John the Baptist was going around before Jesus was even resurrected, and he was teaching them to repent and prepare the way for the Lord.

Well, they had not received the Holy Spirit because Jesus had not ascended. So they had been baptized, but the apostles came by later and said, okay, you were baptized under John the Baptist as just recognizing that Jesus was the Messiah. But now you need to receive the Holy Spirit because Jesus has ascended.

Does that make sense.

This is definitely going to feel more like a classroom today, but it is essential that you understand this. There is no second baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Let me build this biblical foundation for us quickly.

In Ephesians chapter 1 Paul says this. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit. You received the Holy Spirit when you believed and confessed and gave your life over to Christ. The Spirit who is a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession, to the praise of his glory.

You need the Holy Spirit to come in you so that your heavenly Father sees the righteousness of Christ in you. That is the only way that you can be saved.

So any doctrine that teaches that after your confession and baptism, after you have invited Jesus to be the leader and Lord of your life, any doctrine that says that you have not received the Holy Spirit yet until you have these experiences is false.

Let me keep building this point.

First Corinthians chapter 12. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free. And we were all given the one Spirit to drink. It was one experience. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

And then Romans 8. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. As clear as you can make it. If they do not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

It is absolutely essential that you understand that when you believe and trust Jesus with your life, you are given the full measure of the Holy Spirit.

Now. What that does not mean is that at times we are not filled with the Spirit.

This is where confusion sometimes comes in. Some people mistake the filling of the Spirit for the baptism of the Spirit. Throughout the book of Acts we see several different references. We see that the apostles, after already being full of the Holy Spirit and having received the gift of the Holy Spirit, at times were filled with the Spirit. In other words, they were doing something in such a way that they felt filled with the Holy Spirit.

For some of you this happens in worship. You have already been given the gift of the Holy Spirit, but if you are like me, because worship is one of my spiritual angles where I experience the fullness of God more deeply, sometimes when we are in worship. I mean think about it. How many other areas of your life do you open yourself up this much. You are praising God through song and surrender. Sometimes you raise your hands as a sign of surrender. You are singing out to God. How many other places do you give God that much access to you. That is why so many of us, when we are singing in worship, we have this moment where we feel like God is filling us with his Spirit in new ways.

Sometimes you have heard me say this. I am not a big crier, but often it leads me to tears. Because I feel helpless but full of hope all in the same moment. There is a unique spiritual reassurance that happens.

For others it could be serving. Many of you yesterday, when you were helping us pack meals, maybe you felt a sense of being more full of the Holy Spirit. The reason I would tell you that you felt that is because you are doing the very thing that Jesus would be doing if he were walking here on this earth. Maybe not the exact logistics, but serving the least of these.

I see this happen all the time on mission trips. People go to a foreign country and they are in the slums. I experienced this. I was in the slums of Haiti once. I was serving people. I was seeing things. I felt full. I felt heartache because of what I was observing, but I also felt full of the Holy Spirit. The best way I can describe that is this. That is what Jesus wants to do through you. And when you are allowing Jesus to work in and through you through his Holy Spirit, you are going to feel that fullness.

I would tell you at times I experience this when I am preaching. I would even say that preaching is a form of prophecy. Think about it. You do not get to see this, but probably somewhere between 10 and 15 hours throughout the week I am praying and processing. God would you give me a word. Would you show me what text to teach from. God would you give me the right tone. Would you give me the right amount of encouragement and the right amount of challenge to present to our church. I am partnering with the Holy Spirit. So often when I am up here declaring the word of God I feel full of the Spirit. I feel full of him right now because I am proclaiming his word and I am asking the Holy Spirit to partner with me and help me articulate things in a way that is beyond me and beyond my capabilities.

It is funny. There was a time when I was preaching a sermon, and it might have been Christmas, and I remember I was feeling it. Sometimes you just feel it as a pastor. I was preaching and I made this statement. I was ready to make it because I thought it was such a great statement. I said, Jesus is a better Savior than you are a sinner. Anybody want to say amen to that.

I think it was a Christmas sermon, and I am preaching that, and one of my very charismatic friends was sitting over here in this area. He does not come to this church anymore. He was sitting in this section and he just, out loud, as if we were having a one on one conversation, said, oh Aaron that is good. And I am up here like, I did not know what to do. I am like, I think I am supposed to say thank you.

I like being around people more charismatic than me. As long as they are exercising those gifts in a biblical way. I like being stretched in that area. Has anybody else ever had somebody who leans more charismatic pray in a situation or pray over you, and in that moment you feel like the heavens opened up. You are like please just keep talking. Keep praying. Because you feel like they are in the presence of almighty God. We should all feel that way and know that.

Let me ask you this. If your kid was on their deathbed. We were talking about this as a staff this week. If your kid was on their deathbed, do you want somebody coming in and praying over them who thinks, I do not know if God will do anything. Or do you want somebody coming in and praying over your child who believes in the power of the Holy Spirit and the power to heal. Whether or not he does is his will and his choice to make. But I want somebody that believes in the full authority and the full measure of the power of the Holy Spirit praying over my child. Hopefully you do too.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 14 Paul says something that we all need to take more time thinking about. He says, follow the way of love and eagerly desire the gifts of the Spirit. So if you are sitting over here today and you are not even sure what to think about some of the things I have said, then just listen to the Apostle Paul. Do not listen to me. Paul says, eagerly desire the spiritual gifts, especially prophecy.

We are going to talk about that a little bit.

For anyone who speaks in a tongue, and again this is one of the areas where Paul is minimizing the role of tongues within the church, and I am just not going to dive deeply into that subject today. For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed no one understands them. They utter mysteries by the Spirit. But the one who prophesies, and so prophecy is strongly encouraged when it comes to the spiritual gifts, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging, and comfort.

Now I want to be clear about this. Prophecy is not fortune telling. Prophecy is not predicting the future. If you go back and look at all of the Old Testament prophecy, around 5 percent of it is telling of future events. The rest of it is actually communicating an indictment on Israel and a call for them to repent.

I want to be clear about this. The sufficiency of Scripture to guide and grow and galvanize what the Christian walk is supposed to look like is without need for additional revelation.

So when we talk about prophecy it is not God giving us some prophetic word that challenges what the Bible is already very clear about. Listen to me. The canon is closed. The canon is closed.

I would tell you, this is even where the Catholic Church got into some trouble and this is why Martin Luther wrote his 95 Theses. Because they were abusing some of the spiritual gifts and giving room for the pope and papal authority to speak new revelation into place. Anytime we try to speak new revelation that is not backed up by the canon, which is closed, then we have overstepped what the spiritual gifts are supposed to be.

So what is prophecy.

In short I would tell you prophecy, as Paul described it in 1 Corinthians 14, is a supernatural word that God may give you to strengthen, encourage, or comfort someone else.

When Emily and I first moved here, we were up in Frisco and we had not even started Trace Church yet. We went to a little breakfast spot and had a really nice breakfast. We were hanging out in Silverthorne that day and we ended up going to the movie theater later that evening. While we were in the movie theater a gentleman comes up to us. You remember this babe. A gentleman comes up to us and he says, hey, I was in the same breakfast joint as you guys earlier and I felt like God was leading me to say something to you, but I did not. I kind of fought that. But now that you are sitting in the same movie theater as I am, he said, I feel like I am really supposed to tell you this.

He did not know us from Adam.

He said, God is about to do something incredible through your lives. We had not started Trace Church yet. God is about to do something incredible through your lives that neither of you could ever think or imagine or expect.

Now six years into Trace Church and seeing how God has used my wife and I and this little church and all the life change that has come about, we think back to that moment when this gentleman spoke into our lives. That was a prophetic word that God had given that man.

I would tell you that I have received this from time to time. But here is what we do not get to do. We do not get to receive something and then go to somebody and say, God told me to tell you. Listen. You do not get to canonize your words. When you say, God told me to tell you, as if there is no error in what you are about to say, that is canonizing your words. The canon is closed.

You do not get to canonize your words.

Brothers and sisters, when you receive a prophetic word from God, you receive that with a great level of humility. When you deliver it, you deliver it with a great level of humility.

If I have ever received that before and I give that to somebody it sounds something like this. Hey, I felt like God was leading me to say this to you. I felt like God was leading me to ask you this question. I do not know. I am just going to put this right here. I do not even know if I got that right or wrong.

Because listen to me. If we are not careful, if God gives you a prophetic word to speak to somebody else, our ego can get in the way. And when our ego gets in the way, then what we may have a tendency to do is come and say, hey let me show you this prophetic word that God gave to me.

We talked about this last week. The Spirit’s role is to never magnify you. If you are ever exercising a gift of the Holy Spirit in a way that is magnifying you instead of Jesus, it is not a gift of the Holy Spirit.

We need to be incredibly cautious and aware when we are trying to figure this out.

I would tell you I am still leaning into this. This is something I am cautious about sometimes because I do not want to do it in an unbiblical way. But I also do not want to shut down the full measure of what the Spirit is bringing to the table. So I am inviting God to continue to teach me on this.

Let me close with this.

In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 Paul says this. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt. But test them all. How do we test them. By making sure they can be backed up with the word of God. We test them all. Hold on to what is good, and reject every kind of evil.

Which means, some of you might need to write this down, no experience gets to replace good exegesis. Exegesis is just being able to interpret what the text is actually saying and what it is not saying. The Bible can never mean what it never meant. Meaning, you do not get to bring meaning to the table. There is only one meaning the Bible can have in every single text.

No experience gets to replace sound biblical teaching.

So here is what I believe we need to do as a church when it comes to the spiritual gifts.

We need to pray more, and pray often, to be filled with the Holy Spirit. God would you fill us with your Holy Spirit.

We need to eagerly desire the gifts. That is a command that Paul has given us.

We need to be careful that we do not get sideways on the sign gifts, and we need to make sure whatever we are experiencing or exercising can be backed up clearly with the word of God. And if it is bringing more attention to you than it is bringing attention to Jesus, it is not a spiritual gift.

Some of you, listen to me, some of you that sit in this chair or have sat in this chair before. Some of you may need to test what you have been taught. Some of you may need to test what you have been taught and make sure that it can be backed up with the written word of God.

At Trace, if I were to give you an all encompassing couple of statements of who we are as a church, I want us to be biblically sound and spiritually alive. I want us to be biblically sound and spiritually alive.

In other words, we should crave God’s word, but we should also be filled with wonder at what he could do and what he can do. We want to be full of the Spirit, and we want to be full of truth.

Let me close with this last text.

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. For they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is Spirit and his worshipers must worship in Spirit and in truth.

So if you find yourself, and I challenged some of us last week on this, if you find yourself at times coming in here and that little mechanism inside of you, whatever that is, you kind of close that off. You might start to feel something and you are like, I do not want to feel that. That is scary. And we start to close that off.

Let me just remind us. Do not quench the Holy Spirit. But seek eagerly his gifts.

Father, right now we come to you. Father, I pray that I have delivered the words that you have led me to say in a way that allows us to be challenged in the right way, encouraged in the right way. That we would take the necessary time to grow in this area. And regardless of the experiences that we have had, that we would understand that this is something you intended for your church to have and experience and exercise.

Father, I pray for those that maybe came out of hyper charismatic environments, that they are still just uncertain. There are a lot of wounds there. God I pray that you would give them healing that only you can. And if my voice can make a difference in any of that, God that you would just show me how to use my voice well to offer wisdom and guidance.

Father, for others that maybe have been completely closed off to any of this, that we would see clearly what your text says. This is not about what we want or do not want. We should always come to the table with what you want. What you desire for us to have.

So God I pray that you would grow all of us as a church in what it looks like to experience the full measure of what you intended for us to experience when it comes to the Holy Spirit. And if we are unsure at times, that we would take the necessary time to dig deeper into your word and to uncover things that you were completely clear about.

So God right now we want to open ourselves up to you. Right now we want to open that mechanism that allows us to be a little bit more vulnerable when it comes to the Holy Spirit at work. Right now God. Right now.

And so as we sing this song, maybe it is a different posture we need to take. Maybe we need to put our arms up in the air. Maybe we need to sit down and pray. Maybe we need to sing these lyrics as if they are our declaration today.

Help us Father.

In Christ’s name we pray.

Amen.