This morning, we’re continuing our ministry training series called “Equipped.”
All ministry and all of the gifts of the Spirit should ultimately have the end goal of pouring out God’s love toward people and pointing them to Jesus and His salvation (1 Corinthians 13).
1 Peter 4:10
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
All of the gifts of the Spirit are manifestations of God’s grace given by the Holy Spirit as He wills. Although Holy Spirit chooses which gifts to give us, He’ll only give them to us if we want them. Remember, all ministry is a cooperation between us and God.
1 Corinthians 12:31; 1 Corinthians 14:1
Eagerly desire the gifts of the Spirit.
Once we have the desire for them, how do we receive them?
Well, like everything else with God, we ask for them!
Jesus said:
Matthew 7:7-11 (NLT)
7 “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
9 “You parents – if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? 10 Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! 11 So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.
God will give us good gifts if we desire them and ask for them!
We start this morning with the words gifts; words of knowledge, words of wisdom, and prophecy.
A word or message of knowledge is when Holy Spirit reveals something to us that we did not learn by natural means. In my opinion, this is a great gift for all of us to seek because I believe that it is a gift that all of us receive and operate in as Christians. It’s an easy one to test and grow and mature in as well.
This is also an easy one for us to miss when it comes to hearing God’s voice. When we receive a word of knowledge, we just know something, but with no other explanation for knowing it other than the fact that God revealed it to us.
Here’s a powerful example of this gift in action.
2 Kings 6:8-23
8 Now the king of Aram was at war with Israel. After conferring with his officers, he said, “I will set up my camp in such and such a place.”
9 The man of God sent word to the king of Israel: “Beware of passing that place, because the Arameans are going down there.” 10 So the king of Israel checked on the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again Elisha warned the king, so that he was on his guard in such places.
11 This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, “Tell me! Which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?”
12 “None of us, my lord the king,” said one of his officers, “but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom.”
You have the read the rest of this historical account because it gets way better!
There wasn’t a spy or a mole or a leak in the king of Aram’s service. Well, not a person at least! God chose to give a word of knowledge to Elisha about the king’s plans. How can you possibly win when you try to secretly plan and scheme against God and His people?
There are lots of other examples of this as well such as how Jesus knew about the husbands of the Samaritan woman at the well or how Peter knew that Ananias and Sapphira lied about how much they sold their property for or how he knew that there were three men looking for him from Cornelius’ house.
How do we receive a word of knowledge? Ask for it and believe that He will reveal the knowledge to you that you need, then actively seek and listen/look for it.
The next gift is a word or message of wisdom. What wisdom does is takes knowledge and then applies or takes action using that knowledge in a beneficial way.
Here’s a well-known example of wisdom from a time when king Solomon served as judge in a custody dispute.
1 Kings 3:16-28
16 Now two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. 17 One of them said, “Pardon me, my lord. This woman and I live in the same house, and I had a baby while she was there with me. 18 The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.
19 “During the night this woman’s son died because she lay on him. 20 So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. 21 The next morning, I got up to nurse my son – and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn’t the son I had borne.”
22 The other woman said, “No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours.”
But the first one insisted, “No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine.” And so they argued before the king.
23 The king said, “This one says, ‘My son is alive and your son is dead,’ while that one says, ‘No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.’”
24 Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword for the king. 25 He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”
26 The woman whose son was alive was deeply moved out of love for her son and said to the king, “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!”
But the other said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!”
27 Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.”
28 When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice.
We live in a culture where knowledge is valued far greater than wisdom. We have nearly unlimited access to all of the world’s knowledge, but not to wisdom.
A word or message of wisdom isn’t one that someone shares with us or that we learn from past experiences. This is something that the Holy Spirit reveals to us. Essentially, we have an idea and it wasn’t one that we came up with on our own.
Words of wisdom typically come to us when we are faced with an issue and need a solution for it just like this custody battle.
A good example would be Noah building the ark. In fact, he didn’t even know that he had a problem. God had to give him a word of knowledge or he would have no idea!
Think about it, though. Noah had no nautical experience nor was he a zookeeper nor had he ever experienced a world-wide flood. He just did what God instructed Him to do. It was a mix of both words of knowledge and wisdom spoken to him by God.
What are the gifts of the Spirit?
1 Peter 4:10
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
What was it that equipped Noah?
Genesis 6:8 (KJV)
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
It was the grace of God that gifted Noah with everything that he would need to accomplish the unbelievable task that was before him.
What makes who are saved any different from all of those around us who are still lost? Like the apostle Paul said:
1 Corinthians 15:10
But by the grace of God I am what I am
God gave Noah the knowledge of what He was going to do and why. God also gave Noah plans for the building the ark and wisdom for how to collect the materials, build the ark, care for the animals that boarded, and how to know when it was safe to leave the ark.
If God’s wisdom can give one guy what he needs to navigate surviving a world-wide flood that destroyed all of mankind along with every critter that lived on the ground and birds in the air, surely God’s wisdom is sufficient to get us through whatever we’re going through, right?
God will graciously give us wisdom for ourselves and for those around us!
How do we receive this wisdom?
Ask for it and believe that He will give you the word of wisdom that you are asking for!
James 1:5-8
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
The closer that we get to the end times, the more and more we will need to rely on God’s wisdom and not the wisdom of this world.
As the world around us darkens and increasingly calls evil good and good evil, the light of Christ in us will shine all the brighter. It will take more trust and faith on our part to stay the course, though!
1 Corinthians 3:18-21
18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” 21 So then, no more boasting about human leaders!
1 Corinthians 1:25
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
1 Corinthians 2:14
The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
If the right thing for us to do requires a word of wisdom from God, there is a good chance that it make sense for us to do. If I have mud on my hands, I don’t need Holy Spirit to give me a word of wisdom to wash my hands. That’s just common sense.
However, if I’m supposed to go stand near someone’s car so that I can overhear them reading out loud from the book of Isaiah so that I can tell them the good news about Jesus and invite them to be saved, I might need a word of wisdom.
By the way, that’s what happened to Philip in Acts 8. An angel told him to take a walk along the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. We don’t hear anything about that place in the news today, right? Nothing about the Gaza strip or freeing Palestine? Anyways… Once he was there, the Spirit told him to go stand near a chariot.
We desperately need words of wisdom to know how to live our lives to their fullest and to reach people for Jesus! The closer that we get to the end times, the more that we need God’s wisdom!
In fact, Jesus even warned us:
Luke 21:12-19
12 “But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. 13 And so you will bear testimony to me. 14 But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. 15 For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. 17 Everyone will hate you because of me. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 Stand firm, and you will win life.
We often saw this happen with Jesus. His adversaries tried time and time again to trip Him up by asking Him what they thought would be impossible questions to answer.
His Heavenly Father gave Him wisdom through the Holy Spirit in how to respond every time. Usually be returning the favor and asking them a question that they couldn’t answer. 🙂 It reminds me of how Haman ended up dying in the very trap that he set up for Mordecai in Esther.
That same Spirit dwells in you and I and wants to give us such wisdom as well!
We saw this happen not long after Jesus spoke it in the early church.
Acts 6:8-10
8 Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people. 9 Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called) – Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia – who began to argue with Stephen. 10 But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke.
How do we test and know that the word of wisdom that we believe that we received was from God? Jesus said:
Matthew 11:19 (NLT)
The Son of Man, on the other hand, feasts and drinks, and you say, ‘He’s a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and other sinners!’ But wisdom is shown to be right by its results.
It’s not by the opinions of others or even if we think that it is right or wrong that we can judge a word of wisdom, but by walking it out in faith and seeing what the results are. It is the fruit of the deeds that are the evidence of what the source of wisdom was derived from.
James 3:13-17
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15 Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. 17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
This week, let’s continue to be intentional to seek after God remaining in constant prayer. Let’s believe what Jesus said; that we are His sheep and we hear His voice! Let’s pay attention and write down what we believe to be words of knowledge or words of wisdom. When we are faithful with little, we’ll be trusted with even more!
Next week, we’ll learn about the third word gift of the Spirit; prophecy!