adrianwarnock.com

Together And A Bunch Of New Websites

2009-07-04T07:17:00.005+01:00

I am now back blogging. I thought I'd let you know about a new feature I am testing out here, and a bunch of websites that have been set up connected to the church where I am part of the leadership team.

Firstly, if you look to your left of the screen you should see a tab that when clicked will open out a draw which forms a tweetboard. This is kind of a replacement for comments. It allows you to discuss posts you see here, or perhaps even connect with other readers of the blog. All posts will also appear at http://twitter.com where you can get an account.

If you have facebook, you can use twitter to update your facebook status line. Some people seem to love twitter and others facebook so having a presence in both places seems like a good idea.

Next week I will be live blogging the Together On A Mission conference once again. If you tweet, and will be there, it would be great if you use the tweetboard on this site during the event. If you are tweeting on a phone and so can't use the tweetboard, please do add #TOAM to your tweets so they are easy to track

Also, new over the last week or two are also the following.

1. A news section on the Jubilee website which is kind of like a blog. http://jubilee-church.org/news

2. A revamped video section where you can stream and download old videos http://jubilee-church.org/video

3. A vimeo channel where you can watch sermon excerpts and other videos about us and Newfrontiers http://vimeo.com/channels/jubilee

4. Twitter sites for some of our leaders:
http://twitter.com/topekoleoso
http://twitter.com/stuartemsley
http://twitter.com/davepask

And, finally, though this is not new, I am at http://twitter.com/adrianwarnock

Hope you enjoy all these new sites!

Do say hello at the conference, tho sadly I cannot make the informal bloggers meet up Dave Bish is organising. Email him for details.

Why I Shout When I Preach - Tope Koleoso

2009-06-26T18:30:00.006+01:00

My pastor Tope Koleoso now has a Twitter page which has some fantastic things on it, including some quotes about preaching from my Liam Goligher interview.

During the rest of my blog break keep an eye on Tope's Twitter page. You may also want to follow the new Jubilee Church news/blog page and the Jubilee Church Vimeo Channel, or if you prefer the Youtube Jubilee Church page.

I just couldn't resist another interuption to my break to share with you the following article Tope recently wrote:

“Do it from the heart, or don’t do it at all”
Tope Koleoso
As I preached on Easter Sunday, about the resurrection, a 10 year old boy (Jake Bennett) who was in the congregation, whispered to his grandfather – “why does Tope have to shout when he is preaching”. It is a good question.

I don’t ever shout for effect, for preaching is not acting. I shout because I mount the pulpit to preach with three overriding emotions bubbling up in my soul – Anger, Joy and Love. These three however, have an effect on how I preach.

When I have prepared well, I know the text and the structure of my sermon, but it doesn’t mean that I am ready to preach. It just means that I have a mental understanding of what the text says. Good preaching however, is not just about the science of exegesis. That is too easy and cheap and even a non Christian can probably do a good job of that.

No. Good preaching happens when the Holy Spirit moves the heart of the preacher by the text, the preachers experience, and the “now” Word of God to his soul. All of these move me at an emotional and spiritual level. Emotional because my heart is involved. Spiritual because the Holy Spirit is involved.

This means that during the sermon, any one of the mentioned emotions, (Anger, Joy or Love), spill out without warning or apology. This is because when I am preaching, I am angry at satan and sin, I am joyful about salvation and hope, and I am eager to show the Love of God to the lost.

Therefore, I shout, I laugh, I cry, and I dance. Therefore, I use my voice, my hands, my legs and my eyes. Therefore, I will do it with utter conviction and passion for if I will not do it from the heart, I will not do it at all. Therefore, I engage the crowd, the best I can for I will not be ignored seeing that I carry the greatest message the world has ever heard . . .

READ MORE from Why I Shout When I Preach

Elijah Prays For Rain - A Sermon By Terry Virgo

2009-06-24T08:28:00.005+01:00

Elijah Prays For Rain from Adrian Warnock on Vimeo. Note that at the end of the video you will need to click on part two within the video player to watch the rest. You can also download the video in high definition from vimeo, or lower definition as well as audio from the CCK website.

In a couple of weeks time I will be at the Together On A Mission conference hosted by a man who I have been looking up to spiritually for three decades. I wanted to interrupt my blog break to share this sermon here to help those of you who will be joining us there prepare for the event.

This year's event feels like it will be more intimate. It will be a family gathering unusually with no outside speakers. Terry and the other speakers will no doubt be wanting to deliver messages that will shape Newfrontiers at this vital stage in our development. Can I strongly urge anyone who will be there, and also our friends from many different movements who cannot, to please pray for us. So, sit back, get yourself a cup of tea and watch this sermon, then put what you learn into practice.

Terry is a leader of leaders and through his ministry God has accomplished an incredible amount, including a movement of more than 600 churches in 50 nations. One thing that is perhaps less well known about Terry is that he is a real man of prayer. This comes across in the many prayer meetings he leads, and there is a long history of personal wrestling with God in prayer that has birthed this movement.

In this video Terry Virgo preaches on the subject of prayer using the prayer of Elijah. Be inspired to put into practice lessons from this prophet who James described as "a man just like us"

Please consider sharing this message on your own blog as I believe that in it God has a message for the church as a whole. If we will wake up, and begin to be more passionate in our prayers for God to act, who can imagine what God can do. Lets urge him "your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven"

The Full Series On Elijah By Terry Virgo

#1 - The Voice Of God
1 Kings 17:1 Download
#2 - A Man Who Stood Before God
1 Kings 17:1 Download
#3 - A Man of Personal Obedience
1 Kings 17:1-17 Download
#4 - I Have Commanded a Widow to Provide For You
1 Kings 17:7-16 Download
#5 - Trusting Through a Trial
1 Kings 17:8-24 Download - Download video
#6 - If the Lord is God follow Him
1 Kings 18 Download - Download video
#7 - Mount Carmel - Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
1 Kings 18 Download - Download video
#8 - Elijah Prays for Rain
1 Kings 18:41-46 Download - Download video

Adrian's Story Part Five - Learning to Value Being, Not Doing

2009-06-17T00:12:00.000+01:00

It’s funny how God often uses odd little coincidences to hammer home something he wants to say to you. I realized, thanks to the posts from my recent sermon, that I hadn’t shared the next installment of my story with you. So I dug out the old version of this post, set about beginning to edit it, and considered if it needed any expansion.

The first few paragraphs were all about how I had decided to take a blog break and how that break had reminded me of something that God had taught me many years ago. I nearly deleted those paragraphs altogether as, at first, they didn’t seem very relevant to my situation at the moment. I wasn’t just finishing a blogging break, nor surely was I about to start one.

Then, it suddenly dawned on me. I have three messages to give in the next three weeks. The last of these is one of the seminars at Together On A Mission. So I have plenty of prayer and preparation to do alongside my normal work. I suddenly concluded that it is indeed a good time, therefore, for me to put my blog into hibernation mode, probably until the beginning of the conference, at which I will once again be live-blogging. It is possible that I may sneak a post or two in before then, but if not, I will definitely be back at the latest on the 7th of July. I have edited the following post less than I thought I would, and am grateful for the reminder. I hope to be able to spend some of the time I save walking in the woods, praying

Just before Christmas 2006, someone I know asked me what I was going to do on my blog to “follow” my interview with Wayne Grudum. In that moment I knew exactly how I was going to follow it—with silence. Sometimes the best way to try and follow something is quite simply not to! To be honest, I felt like I needed a break anyway. During that time not one of my readers wrote to me asking me to write something on my blog. Either that means they didn’t miss me—perhaps because they had all been busy—or they simply took me at my word that I was taking a “prolonged break.”

Or, perhaps more likely, it shows the place of a blog in the average reader’s day—it's a piece of light entertainment that we can live with or without—in a snatched moment in-between everything else we do that is much more important. So my little “sabbatical” back then, and the times I did the same thing since, didn’t cost you guys anything—there is always another blog to read. And, in any case, if for some strange reason someone was desperate for a dose of “Warnie,” then this blog has been around long enough that simply looking in the archives would uncover something you hadn’t read yet. In fact, especially when I have had breaks that involved recycling old material, I found that sometimes my readership actually increased!

Putting ourselves to one side for awhile to reflect is no bad thing; indeed it has biblical precedent, as does the thought that God tends to do things in “waves” or “seasons.” I really felt at Christmas 2006 it was right for me to just stop blogging for a few weeks. It also coincided with a needed pause in my preaching commitments, and although I still worked at my day job, it almost felt like a holiday. I then started 2007 blogging with a personal post reflecting on a period of my life when it was God who put me on the substitute bench, and for a period that lasted several years and not just a few weeks.

By the age of 18, I had a lot of the over-confidence of youth, but that was tinged with the realization that I had a lot to learn. As I left the safety of my parental home and launched out into London to study medicine, God had a plan to teach me one of the most important lessons of my life—one which every now and then I am reminded that I still do not fully live in the light of.

My youthful enthusiasm for God was, at least in part, because I felt I could hold my own socially in a church environment much better than I could out in the world. It's funny, because like many outwardly confident gregarious people, I was far from confident on the inside. Although all my evangelistic activities at school made me feel like public enemy number one, I would console myself that surely God was pleased with me despite the views of my school colleagues. In church, I had a different role and I took a lot of solace from feeling that people there valued my contribution. As I already described, I had been given leadership and preaching experience and received a lot of encouragement. I was convinced that some sort of ministry awaited me, having had a sense of “call” since early childhood. I foolishly persuaded myself that if life at school was hard, at least my work for God’s church showed that I had something to offer. God was about to go to work to begin to destroy the pride that I didn’t even realize I had.

God has a way of taking a dream and killing it—stone dead. Sure, he will often resurrect it years later, but you don’t tend to think much about that at the time—all you can see is (to paraphrase Monty Python) your dream is “stone dead, demised, passed on, no more, has ceased to be, a stiff, bereft of life, snuffed out, up the creek and kicked the bucket, extinct in its entirety, an ex-dream.” I remember well once during those years, when someone suggested that I might preach, the thought that went through my mind was simply, “No way!”

All this happened to me over the course of a few years, and much as you might think that process couldn’t have been from God, as I look back, I am more and more convinced he was, in fact, orchestrating the whole thing.

I am glad of two things, both of which suggest that perhaps the dream wasn’t in truth totally dead. Firstly, although during this time I found myself worshipping in different kinds of churches, I kept my links going with Newfrontiers by attending the Bible Weeks, and also through a friendship with a pastor, a dear man named Henry Tyler (who was my mentor for many years and who comes back into the story later on). Secondly, I did not lose my relationship with God, nor my love of reading theology and the biographies of preachers of the past. But I'm rushing ahead of myself. I haven’t told you how my dream came to die.

When I arrived at university I was suddenly a small fish in the big pond of London. The successful University Christian Union didn’t seem to need me to exercise the gifts of which I'd sadly become proud, nor did the charismatic church I attended in the morning or the evangelical Anglican church I attended in the evening. Suddenly I was not “doing things” for God anymore; no preaching, no leadership, not even leading Bible studies. This carried on for several years, and I didn’t press for things to happen, but instead slowly, and initially reluctantly, began to refocus my relationship with God from “doing” things to “being” his child.

Terry Virgo describes receiving a prophetic word early-on in his Christian walk that told him he was called primarily to be a worshipper of Jesus, and that anything else was a bonus. That was the lesson God wanted to engrave in me in those “fallow” years as a medical student. I only wish that I could honestly say that my teenage years were the last time I busied myself with too much activity and not enough falling in love with Jesus. The truth is, sadly, that like so many of us, there have been many times in my life where I have been so caught up with what I was doing for God that I forgot that the most important thing he wants from me is for me to simply be his son and worship him. In fact, when re-reading these words it made me realize that right now I need to I need once again to be reminded of exactly this point.

How foolish we are to believe that we can give anything to God with our hard work. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 4:7: “For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?”

God has given us everything we have, and even our serving him is just another expression of our dependence on him. He is the one who gives us every breath that we take as a gift of grace, not as our right. How often do we Christians get frustrated because our so-called “rights” are violated, or because we didn’t get what we wanted, or because our hard work wasn’t appreciated, or even because our “ministry” isn’t recognized by others? The true servant of God is immune to such thoughts for he realizes that even the strength he uses to serve is given him by God, and that it is God who decides what paths he wants us all to take.

I wish I could learn this once and for all, but I guess we are put on earth to struggle with this issue all our lives. There is something within us that longs for self-sufficiency, self-fulfillment, and self-worth. God, instead, wants us to be God-dependent, God-fulfilled, and worthy only because of what Jesus has done for us.

In the second half of 2009, I want to refocus my life once more on Jesus and knowing him better. Everything else must flow out from that. There is a sense of dissatisfaction within me once more with filling my life with activity and not leaving enough time to reflect and grow as a worshipper of Jesus. I am brought back to a passage I am often reminded of:

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead . . .

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.” (Philippians 3:7-16)

Those quiet years were, for me, a time of pruning. There were, however, a couple of things going on in addition to my education. Firstly, God arranged for a family to mentor me during those years in understanding other cultures, which would prove very helpful later on. And secondly, my reading was slowly turning me into someone who thought he understood theology. As the years went on, sadly, I became more and more focused on having theological arguments with other Christians. I am ashamed to say that it got to the point where pretty much every time I met someone, I would sniff out the areas of theology with which I disagreed with them and aggressively engage them in debate. I became someone who wasn’t always very pleasant to be around. Fortunately, God had a plan to help me to learn better social skills, and also to revive my dream of serving him in some way. But you will have to wait for the next post in this long-running series to hear about that.

Chris Moyles On Church

2009-06-16T22:16:00.004+01:00

Radio One chat shows in the UK are not exactly known for being pro Christian. But this video has commentary from Chris Moyles for six minutes with his team talking about his very positive reaction to watching a televised service that was a bit different to your average church (HT Peter O):

T4G Statement - Article 8 - The Gospel of Grace

2009-06-16T19:00:00.002+01:00

A long while ago I began a journey blogging through the Together for the Gospel Statement. I am sure that anyone who remotely remembers that I once did this would have been convinced that I would never get back to it. Today I surprised even myself by deciding that I really am determined to finish this. Perhaps ironically, their third conference—T4G 2010—has recently begun accepting bookings. What has happened to the last three and a bit years since this statement was penned? One thing is for sure—the statement is definitely as timely as it was when it was first published back in April 2006.

On my last attempt I got as far as Article Seven, which launched me into an entire series on the atonement, which you can review here. I do feel passionately about that subject. I also posted a number of times on Articles 1-3, and also Article 4, which also led to a long series on expository preaching, as well as a number of posts on Articles 5 and 6.

I need to pick up the pace considerably if I am going to complete my blogging through all these articles before the next conference begins! So my aim is to do this fairly quickly and ensure that by the time I finish it hasn't taken me four years! Still, when blogging about the Bible there is never a shortage of things to say.

So, let’s take a look at the next article in their list.

Article 8

We affirm that salvation is all of grace, and that the Gospel is revealed to us in doctrines that most faithfully exalt God’s sovereign purpose to save sinners and in His determination to save his redeemed people by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to His glory alone.

We deny that any teaching, theological system, or means of presenting the Gospel that denies the centrality of God’s grace as His gift of unmerited favor to sinners in Christ can be considered true doctrine.

These glorious couple of paragraphs are a great litmus test for all doctrine. While the statement does not go so far as to insist that all readers uphold the five points of Calvinism, instead, they do urge us to test all doctrine by its ability to bring praise to the grace of God.

God chooses to save us because he wants to, and because of his great grace. Do we really believe that we have NOTHING to offer to God except our sin and our utter dependence on him? Or do we think, even just a little bit, we have something to contribute to our own salvation? Ephesians 2 tells us that we were dead in our sins. They must depend upon a Savior to resurrect them!

Whenever we succeed in life, do we truly recognize that it is only because of what Jesus has done in us? I love the way Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 4:7, “For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?”

Whatever you hear in preaching, ask yourself—“Does this make me praise God more, and be more thankful to him that he should save me despite my sin? Or does it make me feel good— as if I have contributed something worthwhile to my own salvation?”

It is because of the implications of these two paragraphs that many of us find ourselves wholly unable to joyfully welcome some of the so-called new perspectives on justification. If we make justification dependent on our effort, then we rob Christ of his glory and deny the wonder of his grace that “saved a wretch like me.”

I need this wonderful sovereign, unmovable, unfailing, irresistible grace. If I was depending on my own will power to get me to heaven and a future glorified body then I would have no hope at all! My will is weak. My God is strong. My sin is horrible. His unmerited grace becomes mine, even as my sin becomes Christ’s! I just have to stop striving to make it to heaven under my own steam. Wonderful, wonderful news! Call it old fashioned and schismatic if you want, but I am not interested in any other gospel that fails to emphasize this wonderful glorious truth.

May God receive all the praise for our salvation!

Sexless Marriages Are Less Happy

2009-06-15T18:34:00.000+01:00

In news that will be no surprise to more than half the population (ie every men, plus many women) a recent study has identified that having more sex leads to happier marriages. Here is an extract from an article on the subject

Q. Are couples in sexless marriages less happy than couples having sex?

A. Generally, yes. There is a feedback relationship in most couples between happiness and having sex. Happy couples have more sex, and the more sex a couple has, the happier they report being. But keep in mind that sex is only one form of intimacy, and that some couples are fairly happy (and intimate) even without sex. In my 1993 study, I did find that people in sexless marriages were more likely to have considered divorce than those in sexually active marriages. There is no ideal level of sexual activity — the ideal level is what both partners are happy with — and when one (or both) are unhappy, then you can have marital problems. READ MORE

Introducing a Blog By Ami

2009-06-14T14:44:00.000+01:00

Ami Loizides is a 19 year old young woman who attends Church of Christ the King in Brighton. Her blog is nothing short of outstanding. She has an engaging style and is honest in reporting her musings. I would urge you to go and read it. Here are some extracts to whet your appetite:

"How important it is to be able to take real joy from serving God in the unseen as well as in what is out in the open."

"Who’s approval are you seeking? If it’s the approval of others then yeah, it’s flippin’ hard to stay humble! If it’s wholeheartedly God’s approval, then surely it should be easy to remain humble; when you see what you’ve done compared to what Jesus has done. "

"It’s so easy to feel lonely in a crowd of people!"

"It is sometimes so so so easy to go through the motions as a Christian. It comes so naturally to raise your hands at certain points of the song in worship (note to self, it’s usually at the loudest part of the song when everyone’s nice and pumped up). And when a friend comes to you for advice, when someone needs a strong shoulder to cry on, the right words just come automatically as if memorised. Without realising it we can lose what it means to really worship and we can forego the challenge of tapping deep into the gift of wisdom that God has for us, and start saying what we’ve had said to us and what’s been repeated time and again."

Faith To Wait

2009-06-13T18:42:00.000+01:00

Terry Virgo blogged about how faith can lead to sudden healing, or sustain us in years of waiting:

A lady in Oregon, with a . . . mixture of tears and laughter, told me that, having been prayed for the previous evening, she was able to put her own socks on that morning for the first time for 23 years. Intense spinal pain had prevented her from touching her toes for nearly a quarter of a century. Now the pain had gone. She was completely free. Surely this is the kind of faith we are interested in – faith that gets the problem solved now, immediately.

To our surprise, the book of Hebrews tells us to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises (Heb. 6:12). Faith, it seems, does not operate only in the realm of the immediate, the here and now. In fact the faith that the Bible often highlights and celebrates is the faith that has to wait, yet keep believing.

Hebrews 11 tells us that by faith the walls of Jericho fell down! Amen! Bring it on! That’s the faith I am looking for! Let’s have some shouting followed by immediate wall demolition.

The fact is that the Israelites first had to patiently encircle the city for seven days in silence, and Caleb was one of the marching army. He and Joshua had waited 40 years for the fulfilment of the promises that God made them about inheriting the land. Still want to join the ‘Joshua generation?’ READ MORE

Spiritual Gifts – That’s It From Me, But More From Others

2009-06-12T18:38:00.003+01:00

If my series on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which is now finished, has left you wanting to know more, then I encourage you to listen to three talks from my friend, Joel Virgo. Joel leads the Brighton Newfrontiers church, CCK. His first talk speaks about something I have blogged about previously, apostles today. The second goes through some of the gifts, and in the third he speaks about how the gifts can operate in meetings.

Joel argues for a different approach, depending on the size of the congregation, saying "the bigger the number of people in the room, the more important the leadership gift becomes in that meeting." He believes that the ideal size of meeting for the gifts to freely operate is around 100, although that does not mean they can't be used at all in larger or smaller meetings.

Also, there is one talk that I recommend more than any other if you are now eager to receive more of the Holy Spirit. Terry Virgo spoke at a Newfrontiers USA event on "How to Receive the Holy Spirit." You can download the audio, or read a testimony of how that talk led to a breakthrough for a man who had been seeking the Spirit for many years. Terry also has many other useful talks online

John Piper has a number of talks on the Holy Spirit available over at Desiring God. For example, "How to Receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

If you want to read more about this, I also recommend the following books. You will find you don’t agree with everything you read, not least because they don’t agree with each other! But, each of these books has something very useful to contribute to our understanding of this vital subject.

The section in Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology is probably the best place to start (as is the case with so many biblical subjects!) He has also written probably the standard work explaining the view of prophecy I hold to entitled The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today Grudem edited a four views book to which Sam Storms contributed called Are Miraculous Gifts For Today?

Daniel Wallace and James Sawyer wrote Who’s Afraid of the Holy Spirit. Read how two professors’ theological training had left them ill-prepared to deal with traumatic events, and their resulting journey away from what they called a spiritually sterile tradition to an experience of God’s Holy Spirit. Can cessationists experience the Holy Spirit without becoming out and out charismatics?

Don Carson’s book, Show the Spirit succeeds in steering such a middle course that I doubt anyone will agree with everything he says! But, it is very good to have your assumptions and beliefs examined in light of the exposition of this well-respected teacher. This book will leave both charismatics and cessationists a little uncomfortable, but definitely urges us to be open to the Spirit’s work.

A recent book from Crossway, He Who Gives Life is a very helpful and comprehensive theology of the Holy Spirit.

Gordon Fee's God's Empowering Presence examines every mention in Paul's letters of the role of the Holy Spirit.

Last, but by no means least, my friend Greg Haslam has recently written a fantastic book on the practicalities of pursuing the gift of prophecy today, called Moving in the Prophetic.

And there, for now, I will leave this subject of the gifts and this blog will move on to other things.

Seeking the Giver and His Gifts

2009-06-11T13:25:00.000+01:00

As we draw to the end of this series on the gifts of the Spirit, I want to conclude by thinking a bit more about what is the purpose of these gifts. The gifts are a foretaste of heaven, of our restored relationship with God. They are one way to draw us into the presence of God. Through the gifts we encounter the reality of a living Jesus who is active in his church today. They are not the only way for us to experience God since for example prayer, worship music, sermons, and reading God’s Word all lead us to Jesus.

We are encouraged to be in a living relationship with a God who wants to direct our lives specifically, and who wants to do that, not just in the moral or ethical sphere, but also in terms of which of several good alternatives we should follow. He wants to guide our lives. He wants to have a relationship with us and to know us. He wants to set us free. He wants power and healing to come to us. He wants to speak with us. He wants us to know him. That’s what we have been talking about. Isn’t it a wonderful thing? Is it any wonder, then, that when Paul is speaking about this he tells us to pursue love and earnestly desire spiritual gifts?

I hope this series has challenged us to passionately seek these gifts, to stir them up, and pursue them. Many who theoretically believe in the Holy Spirit and his gifts fall at this hurdle. They simply passively wait for God to give them a gift rather than pressing in and persistently asking him to bless them with these gifts. We do have a part to play in receiving the Spirit and his gifts.

Gifts need to be exercised in our meetings. The Bible says this, “Well, then, brothers, when you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or interpretation, that all things be done for the building up.” Now, a large church can’t do that on a Sunday morning—everyone of the congregation, one after the other—or the meeting will last all day! So if you want to obey that Bible verse, you need to get yourself into a small group, into a cluster or zone meeting, or perhaps into the church prayer meeting. Those are the contexts where each of us can do that, and it’s a safe environment where we neither foolishly embrace prophecy in a unwise way without thinking about it, nor do we reject it. So I want to encourage you. In a large church, don’t just come on a Sunday morning, because you cannot obey that verse if that is all you do.

Why are we so eager to use these gifts? It’s because their purpose is for the good of others. 1 Corinthians 14:12 says this: “Since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.”

The Christian faith is a supernatural spiritual faith. It’s not man-made. There is a power at work—maybe you have felt him in a church meeting—he’s there. He is present in his church wanting to give gifts to us.

Imagine if I was to go to my wife and say, “Darling, I’d like to spend time with you. I’d like to get to know you a bit more and chat with you, but please don’t buy me any presents. I don’t want your presents, I don’t want your gifts. I don’t want anything from you.” She’d be pretty offended, wouldn’t she? Similarly, we are foolish to think we can pursue God without pursuing the gifts.

But imagine this: if I were to say to my wife, “Give me everything you’ve got, but I haven’t got any time to talk with you. I’m not interested in that. I don’t want a relationship with you, I just want your gifts.” I don’t think my marriage would be very pleasant!

We come to a Jesus who wants to give us gifts, but more than that, he wants to give us himself. He wants us to know him. He wants us to know sins forgiven. He wants us to know that he came and died for us, he rose again for us that we might be forgiven, that we might know our way to heaven.

Never allow gifts to distract us from our loving relationship with our Savior. The whole purpose of the gifts is to enhance that relationship, not serve as an end in themselves. But do not allow yourself to despise the gifts just because you have seen counterfeits at work. We seek the giver and his gifts, because through these gifts we meet God.

A Prophecy Told Me I Should Marry – Spiritual Gifts Q and A 3

2009-06-10T18:46:00.001+01:00

The details of the following situation have been changed to protect the anonymity of those involved.

Q. A friend of mine has come to me for advice. His girlfriend has told him that one of her close friends told her that God wanted them to hurry up and get married. He is not so sure as they have only been going out for three weeks.

A. The first thing to say is that your friend needs to be reminded that modern prophecy is not authoritative. When it comes to affairs of the heart, in my opinion, wisdom and common sense trump so-called prophecy every day. There is massive potential for major damage and destruction on this. Even genuine prophecy can often be misinterpreted. It is a good idea to find out exactly what this person shared (preferably first-hand) and try to establish exactly what it was they felt God said, and how much of what they said to the girlfriend was actually their interpretation of what they thought they heard or saw.

It is just possible that the “word” itself may have been right, but the interpretation wrong. Is it possible, for example, that your friend was being too casual about the relationship? This word may have actually been intended as a wake-up call to him to be more intentional—that he should decide in his mind whether he could ever see himself marrying this girl. If the answer is a definite “no,” he should finish it, but if it is a distinct possibility, he should commit himself to intentionally pursuing a relationship with her in such a way that the goal of that relationship is to determine whether or not they will be married (even if that takes a few months or even years to decide), rather than to merely be in it for fun.

This kind of prophecy, however, is a “match” prophecy and one that I strongly discourage in almost every case. In this instance, the word was shared by someone very close to the girl, which would immediately further add to my suspicion that this might be wishful thinking rather than a true word. There are dangers in people who know each other too well prophesying for each other. The heart is very deceitful, and too often we hear what we would want God to say to our friend rather than what he is actually saying. You may want to think about having a conversation with the person who shared this “word.”

So, starting from a position of caution, let’s go through the checklist I shared in my sermon:

I wonder how this prophecy has left the girlfriend and your friend feeling? If they are feeling anxious, stressed, and not encouraged, then I would immediately tell them this word can’t be from God as it is not fulfilling the purposes of New Testament prophecy listed in the Bible.
How does this word make them feel about Jesus? Is the Jesus we see in the Bible impatient? I don’t think so! Jesus says that to him one day is like a thousand years. So the way this prophecy portrays Jesus is not glorifying to him at all!
I have already said that this prophecy is not really consistent with the Bible. The only possible link to biblical commands would be when Paul said we should marry rather than burn with lust. But, Paul was speaking about people who were already engaged, and surely your friends can exercise some self-control for a bit longer. I would take this opportunity to speak with them about keeping pure, however.
What about other ways God speaks to people? Firstly, would YOU, as their spiritual counselor, advise these people to marry just yet? I think not. The fact they have come to you is a good opportunity for you to show them that wise advice from a spiritual leader is far more valuable to us than any prophetic direction. What about their circumstances? Are they in a position financially to marry?
Wisdom speaks to us very clearly about marriage. It is not for nothing that the old words of the marriage service said that it should not be entered into hastily or carelessly. The string of divorces, even among Christians, warn us to be slow to jump into this life-long serious commitment. To vow to marry when you haven’t already at least gone through all four seasons together is usually very unwise.
The fact that this word has not left your friend with a clear sense of direction and desire to act in a certain way again makes me feel this is unlikely to have come from God.
Even if your friend’s girlfriend is full of faith for this, your friend is fully within his rights to simply tell her he is not ready to make that step. He should do that gently and kindly, and this whole process, which is perhaps difficult, can be used to help strengthen their still young relationship, and certainly teach them to trust in God and the fullness of all the different the ways in which he can speak to us today.

The Gift of Prophecy – How To Test It

2009-06-09T19:11:00.001+01:00

In today’s post I continue to share an edited transcript of my sermon on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The following is a list of questions to ask yourself as you test a prophecy:

Is it upbuilding and encouraging? Does it leave you feeling positive? Even if there is an element of rebuke in it (sometimes that does happen), there should be a positive feel to it.

Does it lift Jesus up? Is it honoring and glorifying to Jesus?

Is it consistent with the Bible? Is it in line with biblical teaching? Does it contradict the Bible, or does it resonate with the Bible? The Bible is the main way we hear from God, and the only authoritative way.

Is it consistent with the other ways in which we hear from God? We don’t just hear from God through prophecy. We hear from:
- The counsel of others.
  You need a wise, mature, spiritual Christian who is going on with God, who is growing, who knows God, who believes in the gifts, and yet is also wise so he can help you to weigh it. This is so important sometimes. If a prophetic word has been given to you, before you allow that to dominate your life and become a weight on your back, find someone like that you can speak to about this.
- Our circumstances
  Now that sounds very unspiritual, doesn’t it? Let me give you an example. If someone feels that God wants them to move, but then they can’t buy or sell a house, it just doesn’t work, does it? It’s not wrong sometimes to use circumstance as a kind of “fleece,” although we must be careful not to test God. Another example of how God uses circumstances is in our own gifting and abilities. If anyone came up to me and said , “Adrian, I really feel God is saying to you that you’re supposed to be a craftsman and you’ve got to build houses for Jesus, I would laugh at them. I can’t even put shelves up, okay? You can ask my wife about that. So I would know that was wrong because the circumstances told me so. This might sound very unspiritual. But it’s actually a vital way in which God directs us. Proverbs 3 gives us some conditions to fulfill, which promise us that God will make our paths straight or direct us. Interestingly, our ability to hear God in prophecy is not one of those conditions.

Is it wise? Is it consistent with wisdom? Sometimes what sounds like a great prophecy will come, and then we realize that there’s no wisdom in following it. It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t feel right in our hearts. The consequences of a particular course of action may be very obviously such that it would be foolish to follow that word.

Does it give you a sense of direction, or does it leave you in no man’s land? Does it leave you feeling free and inspired and uplifted and driven on, or does it leave you feeling bound and condemned and fearful?

Do you have faith for it? If you have no inward witness that it’s right, then it is very unlikely that the word is correct. Go, pray about it, talk to others, and then if you still feel the same way, release yourself from any sense of obligation.

Some people reading this may need to be set free from previous words that have become a chain around their necks. If you are one such person, what God wants to do for you right now is to set you free from wrong prophecy that has come to you. Maybe it’s something you think God spoke to you, or maybe it’s something a well-meaning brother or sister came and shared with you, but actually the fruit in your life has been that you have been bound up by it. And maybe you’ve even made wrong decisions as a result of it. This general principle applies to many people, but one specific example that seems to repeat itself all too often is that a prophecy, whether or not the prophecy has actually said this, is interpreted as saying that God wanted you to be a so-called “number one” leader of a church. If that word is not a correct one, and you have tried to pursue that, you might have had very troubling consequences. Maybe you even were a leader for awhile, or perhaps you tried to pursue that and it’s just gone horribly wrong. Sometimes we need to realize that the word we thought was from God was not, and we need to be set free from living under false expectations. In that case, God would want to take that pressure off you and would actually want to say, “Not everybody is called to be the number one guy.” Speaking personally, I’m very grateful that I don’t believe God wants me to be a "number one" guy. It doesn’t mean I can’t serve God. It doesn’t mean I can’t have a ministry. It doesn’t mean I can’t do all kinds of things for God, but it does mean I know what my role really is. Prophecy is intended to help us find the role in which we are most suitable, not tie us up in knots pursuing something for which we are unsuited!

There are true prophesies that can take years to be fulfilled, and that’s okay. We believe in promises that are yet to come. We don’t want to lose the hope real prophecies, but we need wisdom to distinguish true words that we should cling to from words that have bound people up and condemned themand made them define their lives in the wrong way.

In the next post I will conclude this series, but I am aware that this post has focused a bit on the “negative” side of prophecy. I want to end, therefore, by saying that the capacity of prophecy to bring real hope, direction, faith, and strengthening is so huge that we must not let the dangers of prophecy stop us from eagerly pursuing this wonderful gift.

Mars Hill Church Meets CCK Brighton

2009-06-09T08:43:00.003+01:00

Pastor Jamie Munson is the elder who runs Mars Hill Church where Mark Driscoll is the preaching elder. He filmed Joel Virgo, lead elder of CCK Brighton and others from that church greeting Mars Hill on his recent visit to Brighton. HT: Mars Hill Blog

Brighton CCK from Mars Hill Church on Vimeo.

A message to Mars Hill Church from Pastor Joel Virgo and other folks at Church of Christ the King in Brighton, England.

The Gift of Prophecy — Dangers to Avoid

2009-06-08T07:45:00.001+01:00

This post is a continuation of an edited transcript of my sermon on the gifts of the Spirit.

There are many dangers of prophecy. One example of this is foolish prophecy, which is really nothing more than wishful thinking. It might surprise you to hear me say this, but sometimes it can be a bad idea for a small group of friends to gather and try to hear God for each other. Unfortunately, what often happens is what you wish God would say to that person is then what you think you hear God saying to that person. So we need to be careful about this.

Prophecy is particularly dangerous in the key areas of life. There is so much risk in and so much damage has been done in God’s name by unwise, unsafe prophecy. We should avoid, in almost every case, what I call “hatch, match, or dispatch” prophesies. What’s a “hatch” prophesy? A “hatch” prophesy is when you go up to a lady and say, “I really believe God is going to give you a baby.” Not wise. A “match” prophesy is, “I think you two should get married,” or worse still, when a guy goes to a girl and says, “God has told me that we’re going to get married.” Not wise. The girl might well reply, “Well, he hasn’t told me!” “Dispatch” prophesies are about predicting death—not good. But just as dangerous also are those prophecies where someone has a fatal illness and a foolish person says, “I really feel God has said you’re going to be healed.” Not helpful—it can be very dangerous. Avoid sharing these kinds of prophecy like the plague.

Prophecy can be misleading, and very damaging in foolish hands. Lives can be destroyed by the response of someone to a careless word. In fact, because of this risk, I can understand why at various points throughout history the cry has gone up, “Ban it!” But the Bible does not allow us to do that.

Because of the dangers of prophecy, I would encourage you, if you do have a prophetic word for someone, have a witness present to confirm or correct what is being said, and to relieve any pressure that the person might feel. It’s very wise to say things like, “Well, I need you to weight this.” “Please check this with your pastor.” “Does this make any sense to you?” Sometimes people deliver a prophetic word and they say, “Does that make any sense?” And the answer is “No.” “What do you mean, it doesn’t make any sense? It was God, wasn’t it?” Well, not necessarily.

How do we recognize true prophecy then? 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21 says this: “Do not despise prophesying.” Unfortunately, many of us, having seen some of the excesses and some of the craziness that has gone on in the name of a so-called prophet, despise prophesying. Don’t despise prophesying, “but test everything, holding fast to the good.” I like that, because, to me, one of the things he seems to be saying is, “Don’t get too worried about the bad.” Obviously we reject the bad, but maybe the issue here is not necessarily pointing out everything that’s wrong in a prophecy, but just letting some of that just pass us by and honing in on and holding fast to the good. It is not the prophet who we test; rather it is the prophetic words. A powerful word can sometimes come from a new Christian. Equally, however, no word is true simply because it came from someone who has a good track record of hearing from God.

We are not told to test the Bible! The Bible, we know, is true. But we have to test prophetic words by what the Bible says. We don’t ask God to speak to us about something he’s already spoken about in the Bible. If you ever go up to a pastor and tell him, “God has told me that I should divorce my wife and marry another woman,” don’t expect a particularly sympathetic hearing, okay? You probably won’t get a very sympathetic response. You’ll be told in no uncertain terms that that’s a false prophecy. But actually, sometimes it’s not as clear-cut as that. In tomorrow’s post I will share a checklist we can use to help us as we test a prophecy that has been given to us.

New Word Alive - Looking Back And Looking Forward

2009-06-06T20:59:00.001+01:00

The last two April's I have attended New Word Alive 09 and New Word Alive 08, I have enjoyed both weeks, and there is much you can read about on my blog from those times.

The New Word Alive Media has now made the audio available online. Hugh Palmer's interview of Don Carson is particularly worthy of a listen, but you can get a whole lot of other talks.

Information is also available already about next year (bookings open later this month) and there is a professionally done promotional video on that site you can watch. If you want to get a flavor of New Word Alive some of my less professional video much of which is taken at the event is available below:

THE GIFT OF PROPHECY – What It Is NOT

2009-06-05T18:15:00.003+01:00

Today, I continue my edited transcript of a sermon on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. There are three key things that prophecy is not. You see examples of all of these in Acts 21, which makes that a crucial chapter for understanding New Testament prophecy.

Prophecy is NOT infallible

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul says, “We know in part and we prophesy in part.” So by definition, prophecy is not without error. If you study Agabus’ prophecy in Acts 21, you’ll see that the general gist of his prophecy is correct, but the specifics of it are wrong. He says that the Jews will bind Paul and give him over to the Romans. It doesn’t happen like that. The Jews do not bind Paul. Paul is bound, but by the Romans. We can only assume that perhaps Agabus saw a picture of Paul being bound and chained, and perhaps he saw Jews there and he saw Romans there. So what does Agabus say? That the Jews are going to bind you and give you to the Romans. So he gets the details wrong, but he gets the general point right. Prophecy is like that in the New Testament.

Prophecy is not equivalent to Scripture
Some people think that prophecy is exactly the same as Scripture. That’s not true. Even in the Old Testament, Jonah had lots of prophecies. He was a prophet. Almost all of those were not recorded in the Bible. There is really only one prophecy from Jonah, and it’s very, very short and very, very unimpressive in one sense. In fact, that prophecy doesn’t even come to pass since it announces a judgment and the hearers repent. Yet he’s called a prophet. So he must have gone around prophesying, but they just never wrote those words down.

Also, we see that Philip’s daughters in Acts 21 prophesied, but their words are also not recorded. So some people say, “Well, all prophecy should be recorded in the Bible.” That’s not true. It didn’t happen in the Bible and it obviously shouldn’t happen now. Advocates of this view fail to take into account the passage from Joel that is quoted in Acts 2. If all God’s people are to prophesy, it is obvious that not all God’s people’s words can have equal weight with the Bible or there would be anarchy and a very large Bible! Joel must be envisaging something very different from OT prophecy which involved only select individuals.

Prophecy is not authoritative
Also in Acts 21, there was a group of believers, and through the Spirit (they obviously received some kind of prophecy), they told Paul not to go to Jerusalem. Interesting. They clearly had a sense of danger, a sense of what was going to happen to Paul in Jerusalem, and understandably, they made the jump and said, “You mustn’t go. The Spirit is warning us, so therefore, you mustn’t go.” And yet Paul ignores them. He heard it, he weighed it, he listened to it, but he wasn’t locked in by it, and he didn’t let it define his life. Actually, he said, “No, I must go to Jerusalem despite what you said.” Prophecy is not authoritative in our lives.

In Jesus - New Phatfish CD that Rocks - Special Offer

2009-06-04T18:47:00.004+01:00

Leading Christian band, Phatfish, have just released In Jesus on CD and MP3 download.

I am not very good at writing a review of CDs, but in my mind this an even better sound than their previous CDs. There is a great rocky feel to the whole CD and the songs are biblically robust, as well as being great to listen to. No wonder this is one of the most popular Christian bands in the UK.

I urge you to consider getting this, and they have been kind enough to offer a special price for blog readers.

Make sure you follow this link to buy the CD at the discounted price. Their previous compilation CD is still also available on the same page.

The Gift Of Prophecy - What Is It For?

2009-06-03T23:28:00.006+01:00

For the remainder of the sermon I preached on spiritual gifts, I focused on this gift of prophecy. We will be several days in sharing an edited version of a transcript of this section.

What is prophecy?
I believe that prophecy is an impression that God may have something to say specifically to specific people at a specific time. It can be a word for an individual. It can be a word to a group of people, for a church, maybe even for a whole country. But it’s a word from God that’s for the here and now. What is the purpose of this?

Well, he who prophesies, the Bible says, speaks to men and women for their upbuilding . . .” (1 Corinthians 14:3); this means edification or strengthening. We need that sometimes, don’t we? Being built up. The Bible does say, incidentally, that tongues builds us up if we do it ourselves on our own, but for us as a body to be built up, we need prophesy. Prophesy builds us up. It encourages us. The verse carries on—“and encouragement and consolation.”

These two words—encouragement and consolation—are actually quite rich words. They are difficult words to translate properly, and they have a broader sense than the English words that are used there. The word “encourage.” really means there is to comfort, to appeal, to exhort, to earnestly request or entreat somebody, to offer assistance or help or counsel. The word actually is paraklesin. You can hear the link to the word paraklete, which Jesus uses when he speaks about the comforter, the helper, the counselor that’s coming—the Holy Spirit. So, there’s a strengthening that happens. That second word, “consolation,” actually means to “speak direct to.” It means “to lift up, to give hope to.” There’s a sense of correction there, perhaps, and that’s why the word “consolation” is there, where there’s sorrow, bringing hope and trust. Where there’s weakness, bringing strength. It’s very positive, very warm, very upbuilding. People have said, and rightly so, I think, prophets go around building people’s hopes up. The prophetic in the New Testament does not bring condemnation.
There is a positive, warm bias to New Testament prophecy, because God is favorably disposed to the Christian because of Christ.

God's Compassionate Heart - A Sermon On Jonah

2009-06-03T08:26:00.004+01:00

Tope Koleoso preached an outstanding sermon last Sunday on the subject of God's compassion. The challenge he gave us to share this compassion of God made the book of Jonah come to life in a fresh way. You can download the audio or video or watch it right here:

Isn't Tongues Elitist? - Spiritual Gifts Q and A 2

2009-06-02T18:43:00.003+01:00

I continue to receive some questions arising from my sermon on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I thought I would try and answer a couple more today.

Q - I have been told that if I don't pray in tongues there is something wrong with me and I am a second class Christian. I don't know whether to give up or keep asking God for tongues.

Nowhere does the Bible say that people who speak in tongues are better than those who don't. It is listed as one of the gifts, and Paul says clearly that prophecy is more valuable to the church. One of the things that can put people off from receiving this gift is bad teaching that leads to self-consciousness. If you have become anxious about it, and told that you are somehow inferior because you don't speak in tongues it is no wonder that you would find it hard to receive. In my experience tongues is something that requires you to be God-focused. If your focus instead is on whether you are reaching the expectations of another Christian who has told you that you are a bad Christian, you are unlikely to be able to receive it. Tongues is not a sign of how much God loves us. Our security comes from knowing that Jesus died for us and loves us with an everlasting love.

As far as whether you should ever give up asking for tongues, we should remember that Paul said he wanted everyone to be able to speak in tongues. Thus, it is not wrong to ask God for this gift. But, having said that , our focus should not be so much on the gifts as on the giver. If you seek the fullness of the Spirit and then start to praise God in prayer for who he is, and what he has done, and you become aware of the Spirit welling up within you, then maybe you will find that your words just no longer feel "full" enough to describe the wonders of our glorious savior. As your passion and excitement for God rises, if you find yourself no longer mouthing English words, don't focus on what you are saying focus on the glory of Jesus and speak out of the overflow of your love for him.

I have been told that my loved one wasn't healed and died because I didn't have enough faith, and that if I just speak in tongues for a while I will start dancing rather than grieving for him. What would your response to that be?

Nowhere does the Bible say that if a loved one dies then you had insufficient faith. Every one of the apostles died. Every Christian throughout thousands of years of church history died. Every believer alive today will also die, unless Jesus returns before that happens. Hebrews 9:27 says "it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment". We believe in a God who is sovereign over all things.

When it comes to grieving, even Paul said that if his friend had died he would have experienced "sorrow upon sorrow" Philippians 2:27. Jesus wept when his friend Lazarus died, even though he know he would raise him from the dead! Its not wrong to grieve, though of course the nature of our grief should be different from unbelievers since we do have hope. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 says that we can grieve, just with a grief tinged with the knowledge that Jesus has conquered death.

Gifts of The Spirit —Discerning Spirits, Tongues, and Interpretation

2009-06-01T18:28:00.002+01:00

So far I have shared a transciption from my recent sermon of my general thoughts on the gifts, on the word of wisdom and word of knowledge, and on miracles, faith, and healing. Today we move to discerning of spirits, tongues and interpretation.

DISCERNING OF SPIRITS
This is a gift of recognizing the work of the enemy, but also recognizing the work of God. Sometimes I think we panic. Could it be the devil? Could it be God? Actually, God gives us this gift so that we can tell where the spirits come from. Of course, one of the key ways to tell is (as we see in 1 Corinthians 12), that no one can declare Jesus is Lord by a demon and mean it. It doesn’t happen. That’s one of the ways to tell.

But there’s also that sense that something is not quite right. Sometimes you will meet somebody and you have a God-given concern. Actually, it can work the other way, too. You’ll meet somebody and you’ll think, “I think you’re a Christian, aren’t you?” Have you ever had that experience? I’ve had that experience. That’s discernment of spirits. We need to be careful not to quench that experience as it is a vital gift from the Spirit.

TONGUES AND INTERPRETATION
Paul talks about different kinds of tongues. The Bible is quite clear about this. There are various places where tongues can happen. Tongues occur in a private setting, in an evangelistic setting (in Acts 2), and here in 1 Corinthians 12 in the context of a public church meeting, a time where there are visitors present—people who are not Christians. Paul has some things to say about how tongues should be used in a more public context.

It seems that tongues can sometimes be real languages that people understand, and that’s what happens in Acts 2. But here in 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about tongues and he expects that no one will be able to understand. He doesn’t say in 1 Corinthians 14 “when you speak in a tongue, maybe there will be Frenchman in the audience and he will understand what you’re saying.” He doesn’t say that. What he says is, “When you speak in a tongue, nobody will be able to understand”—unless what is listed as the ninth gift of the Holy Spirit happens, which is the interpretation of tongues. This is a supernatural gift of being able to understand what someone is saying in a tongue, and that’s very important, particularly when tongues are spoken out loud in a context like this, for you all to hear.

It’s a bit different when it’s just you speaking to God, maybe even sometimes when we’re together, because we sometimes all speak out to God individually, praying with one voice as they did in Acts 4:24. This verse when seen in the context of other “crowd speaking” verses in Acts does not mean that they all chanted a single prayer, but that they all prayed different prayers together and those words summarize the intent. You don’t really know what language the person next to you is using, especially in a church like this. We probably have French, Swahili, and goodness knows what, and maybe some tongues are going on as well. And that’s fine. But if someone was to come to the front here and start speaking in tongues for everyone to hear, none of us would understand, so then it needs to be interpreted.

We need to be careful about the gift of tongues. I do think it’s possible to over-emphasize it, but it’s also possible to under-emphasize it. Paul does say that he thanks God that he speaks in tongues more than all of them. And he also says in 1 Corinthians 14:5, “I want you all to speak in tongues.” There you go! Some people wonder about that. Should all Christians be able to speak in tongues? Well, obviously not every Christian speaks in a tongue, but should all Christians want to be able to speak in tongues? It seems that that’s okay. Paul says, “I want you all to be able to speak in tongues.” So it’s not wrong to ask God for that gift. But he does carry on and says something else—“but even more, to prophesy.” So Paul focuses in on that gift of prophecy which we will cover in the next section.

And The Final Score Was 4 Games To 3

2009-05-31T21:01:00.003+01:00

Well, my friend and chess opponent has been posting photos on facebook of me looking distressed or hyper-concentrated whilst we were playing chess this afternoon. So, I couldn't help myself but sharing the final score of our epic battle: Four games to me, three to him!

The chess bug has returned. Any of you my readers think you could beat me online? Right now I feel invincible! I am not that good really, just a reasonable amateur. Never played in a chess club or league or anything like that.

The thing about chess is you need a reasonably equally matched person to play against. If they are too good you just get whipped and there is no fun in that. If they are too bad to put up a fight, OK so the first game is fun as you are the one dishing out the punishment. But it gets pretty boring pretty quick. Today my friend Ant and I had to concentrate for every move! I haven't relaxed as much in ages.

The Gifts Of The Spirit — Faith, Healings, and Miracles

2009-05-31T07:00:00.001+01:00

This is the third part of a transcript of my recent sermon on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. You can see the video or download the audio on the introduction page or read about the word of wisdom and word of knowledge.

FAITH
The presence of Faith in this list underlines a point, which is probably true about all of these gifts. In the context of this passage Paul is talking about gifts that are given for the good of the whole church, and that will be exercised, probably in a church meeting, but certainly in the life of the church, in the context of a body of people. So, probably for most of these gifts, or maybe even for all of them, the expectation is that each believer may well have them to some extent for themselves, for their own blessing. Certainly you have to have faith to be a Christian, so it’s definitely true of this one. So what he’s talking about here can’t be the faith that we all have, our trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins and an eternal future, and that he rose from the dead.

This is instead that supernatural spiritual gift of faith that comes on people for specific things. It’s something that often happens to leaders. It’s when God gives you an extraordinary confidence that something is going to happen. You can’t see that thing happening except with the eye of faith, and yet somehow, by the Spirit, you have a boldness that drives you, that energizes you, that compels you to act. And if anyone says to you, “But have you thought about the risks?” You say, “What risks? God has spoken. I know this is the way we’re meant to go. I know that he’ll provide.” It happens often, for example, when it comes to choosing a new building for a church to meet in. Someone will say, “Well, what about the cost? What about the permissions you need to get?” But somehow the leader can see through that and see it happening.

Of course, it can also happen in our own lives. I sometimes think you need a miracle every time you want to buy a house in this country! And, sure enough, often God will give us a gift of faith that sees something happening that we haven’t yet experienced. And that is a vital, vital gift. If you’re looking for a church, one of the main things that you want to look for in a leadership team if you’re thinking of joining yourself is, “Have they got faith, real faith? Have they got a vision for the church? Have they got a clear sense of direction from God and are they running after that?” Do they inspire faith in me? Obviously, one needs to be sure of some other things as well when joining a church, but that is certainly one of the things that would be on my checklist.

GIFTS OF HEALING
Healings can be physical or emotional; there are various kinds—there are gifts plural of healings plural. Some individuals have a specific gift of healing. I know of people, for example, who almost every time they pray for somebody who has a bad back, that bad back is healed. We may not realize who’s got this gift unless we pray for the sick. I want to encourage us at this time to push into God to really cry and that we might see more healing. We’ve seen them here at Jubilee. We don’t have to talk about healings from other parts of the world. We don’t have to talk about healings from decades ago. Many of us have stories to tell that we’ve seen as children, or as younger Christians. Actually, right here in this cinema last week, we had some healings.

We need to remember that Jesus is willing, he is able. He died that we might be healed, that we might be made whole. He didn’t die that we would be half made whole, but that we would be fully made whole. There is a day coming when there will be no more sickness. There will be no more sorrow. There will be no more suffering. We will be made completely well in every way.

So, actually, all we’re asking is for Jesus to do what we know he will already do then, but a little bit sooner. It’s like, “God, I know you promised to do this, so why not do it now? Why not do it today?” And I think God loves that—when we cry out to him like that. And, of course, none of us can heal anybody. But as the powers of the age to come breaking through into this world, I believe we can expect to see more and more healings right here.

MIRACLES
Miracles are works of power. They induce wonder. God is not a watchmaker who just winds up the universe like a watch and leaves it ticking according to his own rules. No, God intervenes in history. He does it all the time. He does it in ways that we often don’t notice, but he also does it in big ways as well. I think we would do well to have an eye to watch for the miracles that are happening in our lives. Let’s give a couple of examples. He parted the waters of the Jordan and of the Red Sea—that’s a miracle. That’s a work of wonder. But he does miracles at other times as well, and we’ve seen it in more recent times.

One example that is cited very often, and is worthy of citing often, is what happened in World War II. Hundreds of thousands of Allied troops were holed up and were expecting to be massacred or captured by our enemy, and our government (the king and the prime minister) called for a day of national prayer. I was reading about it again during the week, and it says the mood in the country was sober because the truth was that most of our army was on the continent and likely to be killed or possibly taken prisoner. If that happened, well, it was obvious what was going to happen next, wasn’t it? We would be invaded too. So there was this day of prayer. But then, they said, “We’re going to try and rescue them.” And they thought maybe at a push, they might get to rescue, let’s say, 20,000 people was what the admirals thought.

But after prayer, something dramatic and remarkable happened. There was an unnatural calm in the English Channel. It became almost like a pond, so flat, that even small boats could sail across the channel, and yet there was also cloud cover, and rain and fog in some places, so it meant that it was harder for the German Air Force to attack these boats. It was declared a national miracle when after a couple of days or so, more than 338,000 troops were saved. It is considered the turning point of the war. As I say, you can read the newspapers where national leaders say, “That was a miracle!” Often the miracles in our own lives are smaller, and we need to have eyes to see them.

Be The 200th Prayer Partner For Newfrontiers Chicago Churchplant

2009-05-30T00:01:00.002+01:00

My new friend Matt Sweetman is leading the Newfrontiers Chicago Church plant. He has 197 prayer partners for this exciting venture. Will you be 200th? Or, as he is new to Chicago, if you live there or have friends who do, he wants to meet with as many residents one on one for coffee as possible to talk about what its like to live in the city. He is eager to learn everything he can. Whatever your church background (or lack thereof) he wants to understand as much about how to impact this strategic place. Visit his site, and tell him I sent you!