Catch The Fire Church Raleigh

The Gift of Holy Spirit | Aaron Ninaber

Check out this week’s message from our Lead Pastor, Aaron Ninaber: "The Gift of Holy Spirit.” The ministry of the Holy Spirit moving through our lives is to glorify Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins! Through repentance and walking in the Spirit, we recognize that the nine gifts laid out in 1 Corinthians 12 are not distant goals but integral to our identity in Christ (Romans 8:14). Joel 2 says these gifts are for all believers, each playing a unique role in the body of Christ. It is time to embrace our spiritual gifts and grow together in unity and love, as we carry the nature and heart of Christ.

Duration:: 10m
Broadcast on:: 14 May 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Catch the Fire Church podcast. We're so glad you're joining us and we hope you're encouraged by this message. - All right, all right, good morning. We still love each other after 10 years, that's good news. I'll testify about that today. It's only by Jesus and the beauty of forgiveness. And I don't mean that 'cause things are like tragic or anything, I'm saying all of us need Jesus in our marriage. Come on, Mary people, help me out here, all right? I don't know, non-believers do it. So, well, it's good to be with you. I am thrilled. I'm looking forward to this morning. Who's looking forward to this morning? What a treat, thank you worship team for leading us, for just diving into Holy Spirit. I mean, we're on a series with Holy Spirit. He can't be, we've said this before, he can't be limited to a series. Man, he is just, he makes church so much better. Like our plans, our programs, they're all right, but when Holy Spirit shows up, it's so much better. So, come on, just thank the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, thank you for being here. Holy Spirit, thank you for being here. If this is your first time in a little while, I wanna let you know we're in the middle of this series, as I said, the series on the Holy Spirit called Numa. Numa, which in the New Testament is used, is the Greek word used for spirit, for the Holy Spirit. And in the first week, we discussed the absolute necessity that the presence of God is in our daily lives as believers. That to pick up our cross and follow Jesus, that to do that hard thing, to do that scriptural challenge, it is necessary to have the spirit at work in our lives. Amen? And last week, Jess brought a beautiful message on who he is, on his attributes, on his character, and on his very essence of who the Holy Spirit is. And today, we're gonna be talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Can somebody say the gifts? Tell your neighbor the gifts. If you have your Bibles turned to 1 Corinthians 12, verse one, as you're turning there, Holy Spirit, I thank you for this morning. Lord, I ask that you open our hearts, our minds, our spirits, to what you wanna say. Lord, that we'd leave behind any preconceptions, any wrong preconceptions of your spirit. And Lord, that we would truly encounter you, your spirit today. Lord, that these would be more than just words, we'd be more than hearers of the words. We would be participators of the word of God this morning. Lord, I thank you that you're already here, you're in our midst, and you are moving powerfully. We love you in the church that amen. Amen, amen, amen. All right, first Corinthians 12, are y'all there? Okay, this is Paul writing to the church at Corinth, verse one, he says this, he says, "Now concerning spiritual gifts, say spiritual gifts. Brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols. However, you were led. Therefore, I want you to understand that no one, say no one, speaking in the spirit of God ever says, Jesus is a cursed, and no one can say, Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit." Paul starts off this topic of the spiritual gifts by explaining, listen guys, I don't want you to be uninformed. Or some translations say, I don't want you to be ignorant, of this, like this is of such great importance. I don't want you to miss this. I don't want you to misunderstand this, and to be ignorantly led like you were to those mute idols when you were pagans. It's too important, it's too important. And then he lays this sort of spiritual groundwork, if you will, for these spiritual gifts by saying, listen, no one speaking in the spirit of God can ever say, Jesus is a cursed, and no one can say, Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. And this really is for us a sort of guiding principle in discerning the spiritual gifts. The question is, does that gift truly glorify Jesus? Does it truly glorify the pure and holy and righteous Son of God? Is that gift seeking? Is that person using that supposed gift to exalt themselves, or to exalt some version, culture's version or definition of Jesus? Or is it the true and beautiful Jesus? And this is in alignment with the words of Jesus in John 1614 that we read a few weeks ago when Jesus said, "He, speaking of the Holy Spirit, "will glorify me, for he will take what is mine "and declare it to you." The ministry of the Holy Spirit is not to promote us. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to promote the Son, the Lamb of God who gave his life as a sacrifice, as an offering on the cross. And as Jess was explaining last week, that moment in John 1416, when Jesus is explaining to his disciples of his departure from this earth, how he's going to ascend into the heavens to go before the throne, take his rightful place. And he says this, he says, "I will ask the Father, "and he will give you another helper "to be with you forever, somebody say forever." That word another, the most accurate translation, you could garner from that, would be another of the same kind. He is the Spirit of Jesus, everybody. It's this beautiful picture that I'm like, one day will fully understand in heaven of the unity between the Trinity, that they are individual and yet they are in complete unison and harmony with one another. It's this powerful image. And Bill Johnson, he talks of that reality of if we have the dove with us everywhere we went, representing the Holy Spirit, how would we behave? How would we act? We wouldn't want to scare the dove away, right? We'd be careful. And I would propose to you, take it a step further, what would it be like if Jesus was, if you saw Jesus literally with you in the room? If he went with you to work and there he is, there's the Son of God and he was sitting with you at home, how would we behave? How would we act? How would we respond? This is the picture here for us, the spirit of Jesus. In the same way that Adam walked with God in the garden and now Jesus walked with the disciples on earth, now the Holy Spirit has been sent to dwell with man and to walk with man. What a beautiful invitation, right? That he would send the spirit to be with us, to dwell with us in all things, through all things, in every moment, in every high, in every low, in all the good, bad, ugly, all of it. And what can so often happen, I'm trying, I'm trying. What can so often happen is we get distracted, does anybody ever get distracted? I got any honest people in the room. We get distracted, we get sidetracked. All of a sudden our minds are focused on carnal things. We're forgetful and we're like, Lord help me remember your spirit, help me remember you, help me remember what it is to walk with you, to know you intimately. And we become almost insensitive to his voice, to his leading, to his guiding. The truth of that is that he has never far, he never leaves, I still, that's the thing that perplexes me probably the most, is that he is still faithful to the end. That the promise of the Holy Spirit is that he would be with us till the end. So he hasn't gone anywhere. It's that sometimes we kind of tune out. We're distracted, we're insensitive. And the beautiful thing for us everybody is all it takes is a moment of repentance. And he restores us to that place of perfect unity with him. It's not like he starts us at ground zero and says now you gotta work your way back up, to right standing with me, get that out of your head. The gospel message is that he has returned you to Christ's righteousness, perfect righteousness every time. And he's like, we can start here again, we don't have to start here. Thank God he's not like us. When we're like, you gotta earn my respect, you gotta earn my trust, you gotta earn my love again. Thank God he's not like us. And so we are invited to walk with him. And he also has empowered us. Say he's empowered us for living this godly life. Verse four, Paul says, now there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit, and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. There are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone to each is given the manifestation of this spirit for the common good. I wanna stop here again momentarily. Paul is once again preambling these gifts, knowing the human condition, where we would take these gifts and try to use them to hold ourself over people. To- (upbeat music) - Thank you so much for joining us. There are so many opportunities to grow, connect, and be encouraged. To learn more, visit CTFRolly.com, and follow us on social media. Thank you so much for being part of the family. We are so thankful for you. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)