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Is Spiritual Power Earned or Given? Jon Thompson of Sanctus Church · The Remnant Radio's Podcast

• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody, welcome back to the wonderful world of Remnant Radio.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: I've got John Thompson with us today, and we're talking about, well, quite a bit of his work.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: So stay tuned.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be an interesting episode.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Guys, we have so much content coming out here on Remnant Radio.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: Make sure to subscribe to the newsletter and all the stuff that we've got going on so that you get updates on all that stuff.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: But without further ado, I want to talk about our guest today, John Thompson.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: He has written quite a few books, and it's it looks like uh are all of them re-releases?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: John, you're gonna have to help me here because I know that the deliverance book and the convergence book are re-releases, but you also have this book on presence that's gonna be releasing, I don't know, just a week after this airs, or maybe the very week that this airs, because it's uh we're taping in advance a little bit.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: So you've got your book on convergence that came out in April.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: You've got the book on presence that comes out right around the release of this video, and then you have a book on deliverance that releases in February.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Are all of them re-releases with extra content?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh help me with my memory on this.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no problem.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to be with your audience again.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Great to see you again.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: So uh Convergence, Deliverance, and Perseverance were all written as self-published uh sort of books.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Then Zonervan picked them up, they're being globally re-released.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, like you said, Convergence, which is based on spiritual gifts, disciplines, and revival, came out in April.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: The deliverance book that we talked about last time I was here is going to be re-released globally in February.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: My new book on witnessing well between retreat and revival uh comes out well a week today, at least when we're recording today.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then Perseverance, which is specifically for pastors and survivability long-term in ministry, is still available, self-published, but will be re-released globally through Zondervin and I think in February 2027 or 28.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's a year away.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, and then there's another book being written on Suffering Now, but that's a different podcast for a different day.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Man, uh well, I'm thankful for your work.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: I know I was bragging on you just a moment ago before we we started taping.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, lots of really good theologians out there, lots of really good pastors out there who are practitioners.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: But to see both of those two things blended together, I'm super thankful for your work because I see a lot of that there.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we used to talk about Jonathan Edwards as like the scholar from times past who is a theologian, but also a pastor with practical ministry experience.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it feels like the more and more academia uh becomes academia, the less and less we have academically suited pastors to be doing all of this stuff.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's cool to talk to a guy who uh knows his stuff on deliverance on the theological end, but also has practical experience.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: So that's super cool.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: But then you also have this book on convergence.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna be talking about both of those, both the convergence book today and a little bit on the deliverance book.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: We've already interviewed you on some of that, but uh the convergence I think is really interesting.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: We run with a guy named Sam Storms, and for years he had a conference called Convergence, the Convergence of Word and Spirit, and that was kind of his thing.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he loves that.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: And then he he started the Convergence Church uh network with pastors who are like really going after the Word and Spirit.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're a one-issue network where we just try to train pastors in spiritual gifts and how to do things decently and orderly, that kind of thing.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: And uh anyway, uh when we saw this book, Convergence, we're like, hey, that looks interesting.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, dang, this guy, this is he's banging the same drum we are.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: This is pretty great.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: So it's fun to talk with somebody with kindred spirits.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh how did how did you uh come up with convergence?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: What was the motivation behind that book?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so basically I've been leading in my community.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've been on staff for 29 years, been senior pastor since 2005, led basically five or six major iterations of the church, and um realized very early on that in where I live, like I shared last time I was on the uh on on your gat uh on this podcast, like I I live in Toronto, uh fourth largest city in North America, most multicultural city on earth.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I live in an environment that's pre-Christian, re-paganizing, post-Christian, and yet still nominally Christian at the same time.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Modern, postmodern, uh uh huge banking industry here, huge fashion industry here, the heart of the sexual revolution.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I just started looking around uh, you know, in the early 2000s, and I just said, we're not we're not gonna win this.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um we it doesn't matter how much HR strategy we've got, the right leader, good strategic planning, which are all good.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm for all of those things.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I was literally in meetings earlier about that today.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I just realized that um we needed guaranteed power to change the dynamic.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just started this huge study trying to understand through multiple denominational experiences over 2,000 years, in times of significant decline and/or and also renewal, what was a common theme that was found?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And what shocked me was the emphasis on spiritual disciplines and spiritual gifts.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, our church doesn't do either of these.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: So so that began a huge conversation for us about gifts and disciplines, and then the real hard theological work about Christology, pneumatology, that is, what was the interplay between Jesus and the spirit?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: How do we imitate him?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because he invites us to imitate him.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that whole conversation, which then led to a 12-week series in our church where we did spiritual gifts for the first time, renewal broke out for three years.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: We've never been the same since.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then we've embedded spiritual gifts at the epicenter of what we do and spiritual disciplines in what we do.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then we started going, well, we need to build theology around this, we need to build systems around this, how do we do this?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: So this has been basically a 20-plus year journey theologically, pragmatically, multiculturally, and experientially.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: Man, you don't look old enough to have how old were you 20 years ago when this all broke out?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so I've been on staff for 29 years.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: It um and I was leading the youth ministry, and interestingly, again, we were a basically uh to use uh for your American audience, we we're evangelical free.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's the best equivalence, and historically sort of dispensational, and then really heavily influenced by the Willow movement.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so, while we that was sort of our ether, we started experiencing a bunch of stuff in the youth ministry that we had no category for.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so um we started researching in real time, and then I became the senior pastor in 2005 at 30 years old, and then started leading the whole church uh through this systematically over a decade.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's cool.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: No, I like that.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's uh uh promote within.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's a fun, that's a fun experience to to go from uh youth pastoring into leading the church.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's a super cool thing.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: I want to uh chat a little bit about because there's a lot when it comes to spiritual gifts.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: We cover that kind of stuff on the show all the time.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I've intentionally looked at sections of your book that I thought pulled out these kind of unique ideas that we need to talk about more on the program.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: And one of those ideas was that of like the regulative principle and the normative principle.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll let you explain that to our audience.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, essentially, one category saying uh if it's in the Bible, we do it, if it's not in the Bible, we don't do it.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: The other says, yeah, if it doesn't violate the scripture and keeps to kind of be in step with the spirit of the law, and I'm using law as a more you know generic sort of sense, not like mosaic law, um, then you know it's it's probably permissible.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: So Sunday schools, not in the Bible, you know, uh uh wearing blue jeans on stage, not in the Bible, right?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: But does is it kind of in in step with what the scriptures are saying?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: Does it violate the scripture to have a prayer of thanksgiving at the end of the service?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: Probably not.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um so walk me through regulative principle and normative principle.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think when it comes to life and practice and organization and leadership, people make that um that jump very quickly, but but get us to spiritual gifts.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: So um, okay, so first explain normative principle, regulative principle, and then also how does that work with spiritual gifts?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so in our conversations around um all of this, so spiritual disciplines, spiritual gifts, even we experienced a three-year renewal here and leading through what would be during the 17th century be called a revival.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we realized very quickly that we had to be honest about this.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, like you rightly explained, the regulative principle says if I find it in the Bible and commanded to do it, I must do it.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if I'm told not to do something in the Bible, I don't do it.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if it's not in the Bible, good or bad, I'm still not allowed to do it.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this explains almost every church fight you've probably been in and you didn't know this.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Not you, but many of your audience.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the normative principle says the regulative principle is all true.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: We say yes and amen to it, except if it doesn't, like you said, violate the text.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: The reason why this is so important around spiritual disciplines and spiritual gifts and revival and spiritual experiences is because the scriptures, which again are the ultimate source for faith, life, and practice, Supreme Court have the final say, all that is true.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: But the scriptures, much of the time, don't actually tell us what happens next.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: They say this happened, or they say you should do this, and then silence.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the regulative person goes, Well, then we're silent.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, no, no.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: The the command or principle is there.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, incarnationally, we have to work out how that would function here.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not there.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, like you said, there aren't youth pastors in the New Testament.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's no actual worship service in the New Testament that we can pull out.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: There are principles that are found in all of these things, and so we are profoundly normative in all sorts of things, including, you know, smoke machines, which I call low, low Protestant incense.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like all this stuff is fine.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think I think the the real thing is, for example, Jesus says, dealing with the demonic in one case, you know, this kind does not come out in l without prayer or prayer and fasting.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's silence.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're like, well, well, what type of prayer?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and how long is the prayer?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And is it the Daniel fast?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what fast am I supposed to be doing?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where you move from regulative, we must pray and fast, to normative.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're going to explore what prayer and fasting looks like in real time.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't violate the text, but we're not told exactly what to do.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: See, the Bible is not an insurance manual that gives us every single scenario.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have to incarnationally work out scenarios on the ground that take the commander principle and build out an incarnational experience of that.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why this is so difficult because uh conservative evangelicals, which I am one in one variation, are have been taught their whole lives that experience is profoundly dangerous and should be distrusted because it's going to violate the thing that we've all defended, which is the scripture.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: The hilarious thing is that the Bible is full of experience.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Our job as leaders is not to dismiss experience, it's to interpret it.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Conservatives tend to dismiss experience quickly and makes it easy and cut and dry.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: But life is a series of experiences.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, literally everything with this is an experience right now.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so experience cannot be deemed as dangerous.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, some of them are, but we have to interpret them.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we just started saying, okay, how are we going to build out frameworks for spiritual gifts?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're a church of 4,000 people, five locations, now 55 nations.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: So if we're going to use tongues, for example, biblically and have interpretation, how do I do that in a small group versus in a morning gathering?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I know there are principles I must follow.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now the question is, how could I build that out well so there's order?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, while we're building out order, we're not grieving the spirit, we're being not safe, but we're being wise.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: All that stuff is the conversation.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: So this, okay, so on on I want to confess on the front end, it's clear that I'm more of a normative principle guy when I think about my church structure and order, um, you know, having home groups, uh, that's pretty biblical.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but the way we do it necessarily, right?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: We we project our words up on a screen, we we play music in the sanctuary.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: To your point, there is no record of that kind of thing happening in the first century church.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: You if we if we want to go really regulative principle, we're gonna go church of Christ and only sing to each other in hymns, right?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because there's no New Testament expression of musical, instrumental sort of worship that I can recall.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: So at least that's the reason for the argument, right?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I I look at that and go, okay, cool, I'm a normative principle guy.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then, and and obviously this isn't directed at you, I'm I've just got in the back of my head some of the charismatics on the internet that I feel like are on a different planet.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like that that are like, hey, they're teach they're writing books on sneaky squid spirits, and they're like, they're talking about story portals that you've got to go into, and you gotta find secret books in heaven written about you, and talk to dead martyrs and like talk to angels, so that you can give God the right to answer your prayers, and it's like, okay.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: Now, uh the latter, I think you can make some theological arguments for that is explicitly unbiblical, right?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: That that was an easy one.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: But there are some spookier practices where you go, okay, the Bible doesn't say there's not a sneaky squid spirit, and like you're writing a whole book on how to take care of a sneaky squid spirit.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: Is that a normative principle?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like that it feels like it might sneak in, but like help me make sense of that.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: No, of course that's not a normative principle because again, the other thing is there's nothing new under the sun, right?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, I'm sitting behind a bunch of books, you're sitting behind a bunch of books.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing new under the sun.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so the church has dealt with all of this for 2,000 years.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so the normative principle basically says is we understand that when we look at what is commanded in the scriptures, we have to work out incarnational expressions around this.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: So again, we'll just we'll talk about this, I think, later today, how we deal with prophecy.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: We use QR codes and we have ways we evaluate it in real time.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and of course, it's a 2026 expression that we used to use cell phones.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: When when you're inventing types of spirits and building huge books or podcasts on something, you sound profoundly Gnostic to me.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime there's secret knowledge, you're flirting with one of our ancient enemies.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: 100% agree.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Irenaeus literally wrote a book against Valentinus.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, not in the whole book wasn't against it, but and against the heresies, he describes Robert Henderson's courts of heaven.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, pretty close.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I I I hear this, you know, the courts of heaven thing where you go into heaven and read these books, and I go, yeah, that's Gnosticism, 100% heresy.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, in its origins, in the way that it is it anti-Christ, probably not.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I gotta be careful how I use the language of heresy, but it it's very destructive.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I've seen people demonized doing this.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: I've had to I've had to pray for people and cast out Gnostic demons out of people who've who've given themselves over to this kind of thing, which has been wild.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I can't.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I just and it comes from that place.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and I do too.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if if um your your audience has time, you know, to do some of the reading that I've done, uh deeply theologically and expo uh expositionally rooted.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is all everything we're talking about is presuming order, presuming guardrails, presuming good theological teaching on Sunday.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is not something that's just out there in the ether in our church.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's embedded with um with uh accountability.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's just the best way to say it.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like in our church, we do we'll do prophecy up, but we don't typically do it.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: We used to do it from the stage, and it worked fine.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but our folks were like, hey, we don't get to enjoy worship because we've got the thought in the back of our head we've got to get a word, like God give us something, and they're like distracted during worship, they can't engage.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so you know, they get a little anxiety having to think they're gonna give this word from the stage.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: So instead, what we've done is we each have a prophetic team up front, and if you want direction, you just come up to the team that's been vetted that has gifts, that has doctrine.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they record that message, they share it over you, you get sent that recording, our prophetic team leader gets sent that recording.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's just a way that we test and weigh prophecy on that local level and have those accountability uh pieces there, uh similar but different from what you are submitting.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um but but we're trying to practice it with those core values of what the scripture is instructing.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm interested, and I think we'll we'll probably circle back around to this point when it comes to deliverance because that's where I go.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man, I feel so uncomfortable at times when it comes to what is regulative, what is normative, um, in in those sorts of practices that make me, I don't know, um uncomfortable is probably the word, but you shared the same uncomfort earlier.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you you mentioned in your book uh about like anointing, calling, power.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm gonna I'm gonna read kind of the way that I've written it here.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: You teach that God sits the river banks for each gift and that that anointing has an affixed ceiling, uh, and that uh that no one can uh contend for more.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I think that that means like more of the anointing, but that God has kind of measured that.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I I wanted to know explain that in context, because that's kind of like a little a little sentence that I've I've chopped out and asked a question of, but explain that in context what you mean, because my follow-up question that I've already sent you is more on the ends of, okay, but what about ban into flame the gift?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: And what about um, you know, uh uh show yourself approved when it comes to the teaching of God's word?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's a spiritual gift, right?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: There's there's something to be said about the growing of these things to pursue, love, and earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you prophesy.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I think of uh Matthew 7, Luke 11, ask, knock, seek.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: And you, you know, God who's in heaven doesn't give bad gifts, gives the Holy Spirit or gives gifts to those who asks.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm thinking of those passages in context.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe maybe frame that conversation around the meeting for those who are listening.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: So um one of my favorite sayings for people exploring spiritual gifts and leaders really starting them through and also thinking about calling, is this phrase, God's no is your best friend, not God's yes.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so Romans 12, a lot of people love preaching Romans 12 and they like the first two verses and don't keep going.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh because Romans 12, of course, is a major spiritual gifts um passage.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what Paul says is that we need to uh measure ourselves based, uh we need to view ourselves through the measure of faith given.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you when you read very carefully Romans 12, there's a lot going on.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, it's saying gifts are sovereignly assigned.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, number two, there there is this phraseology of measure.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: So the the way I articulate this is um God sovereignly gives me the gift of mercy or give you the gift of administration or give me the gift of teaching or prophecy, great.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: So the the triune God has decided I get this gift for the service in Christ's body.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: But then I'm supposed to measure myself, um, I'm supposed to view myself based on a measurement, which means of course, if there's a measurement, there's not a measurement, on the other hand.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so the image I've used for years is thinking about riverbanks.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you have a river and you have river banks.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so basically what Paul is saying is you've got um the gift which is given by Christ.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then you have this idea that there is there is sovereign limitation around it.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say three of us have the gift of teaching.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: So one might have a creek of anointing.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't like charismatic language, you can be more baptistic, influence, or whatever you want to call it, uh, the power behind.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so you've got one as a creek, one as a river, one as an ocean.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And what I'm begging leaders to do and and uh Christians to do is first of all ask the Lord what gifts you've got and what gifts you don't got, and just and and just pray about that.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm gonna get to all the verses you just quoted in a minute because I I can I can feel them coming through the screen.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: So just give me a sec.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: So one uh God's it's not a buffet.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: You don't wake up with an empty tray, and in my season today, I need to be a prophet, and tomorrow I'm an administrator, because that violates mutual independence and mentorship and also accountability.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not an eye one day, a foot.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're not an eye and then a foot and then a hand.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have a sovereign assignment.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: God before the beginning of time had decided this.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, question one, Spirit of God, what has the father and son decided uh I should get?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Question one.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Question two, would you start telling me now um uh how much power, and I mean anointing, you can say influence, I'll have behind this.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why I talk a lot about this is because so many long-term Christians begin to crack.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it used to be in their 40s and 50s, it's now it's getting earlier.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the main reasons why we're having so many Christian leaders fall is because they have ministry dreams and ambitions that are not rooted in the gifts they've been given, and they've also never asked God what level of influence, platform, anointing uh they will be given.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: So they presume the North American lie that if I work hard enough, pray hard enough, fast hard enough, learn more, I can exponentially grow the influence of this gift.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: But Paul uses um tight language, restrictive language, not uh exponential language in Romans 12.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: So my encouragement to people is with full joy, with full joy, not fear, because this exposes fear real quick, just to say, hey Lord, I want to know what gift or gifts I've been given, because maybe I only get one gift.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, would you tell me how much influence I get or I don't get so I do not spend my life trying to be something or do something you have not asked me or commended me to be, which will then start undoing coveting, envying, uh uh going beyond God's boundaries, etc.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: See, in charismatic circles, what makes me really nervous is this idea that if we pray enough or we're holy enough, we get more access to his power.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and and I really struggle with this.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I really struggle with this.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I I'm not saying you don't have more awareness of his presence, 100% intimacy, closeness, I have no issue with that.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: But to say that just because I am not grieving the spirit, that suddenly I get more exponential power is a huge jump.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about Ephesians 4 30, right?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Do not grieve the spirit of God who whom with whom you've been sealed to the day of redemption.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: So think about a gas stove and your spiritual gifts, right?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: A gift or gifts is like the gas stove.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not grieving the spirit, right, you will be at the flame level God has decided you can have.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll go right up to that level, and it will be amazing.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you grieve the spirit by sin or worldliness or demonization, etc., right, the the gift doesn't disappear.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: But the gas level goes down.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've had so many people say, Well, can I lose my gifts?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, the Spirit is in you.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: He brought the gifts when you were converted.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: You have them for your run.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: The gas level can go way down based on those things or lack of use, but you don't lose them.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't grieve them, it goes up.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, proximity to the Lord, access to the Lord is always accessible because of Christ.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Deeper intimacy with him without sin, yes.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: But just because I'm more intimate does not mean that I get more exponential power.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: I just will work to the limit he's given me.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I have seen so many leaders and sincere leaders say to their people, you know, I had a young adult leader once do this with some young adult girls, and they asked her, why don't we hear God's voice like you do?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And her response was, well, you know, like um uh if if you if you would live a more holy life, she wasn't being arrogant, but if you live a more holy life, you will you will be closer to the Lord.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you're close to the Lord, you'll hear like I do.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I immediately heard this and went, I said, you need to go repent and tell them that's not true, because you've set up an expectation for them that if it doesn't happen, they're gonna deconstruct.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: You you've set them up for disaster because what you didn't admit is you have words of knowledge and they don't.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so A, your experience with hearing is based on gift.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's not common to all of us, it's because you have that gift.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And B, you've connected intimacy with extreme power versus intimacy is intimacy.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Grieving means I get to do what God has sovereignly done.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's part one.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: Give me give me two seconds to praise break because uh I've got no problem with this idea uh that you've described about earning more power, because then the the power is actually a result of something I've worked for and I've purchased when the spirit being poured out has already been purchased by Christ's work, right?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: So like I'm actually putting confidence in me and my ability to work, and then when revival or God's power or some tremendous thing shows up, then people can look to me as the source of that because our theology all says that Josh has just lived really holy and it places confidence in my piety rather than in what Christ has accomplished.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I I have I have zero problem with that kind of framing.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: I've got another question that is spurred on my mind about um kind of ambition.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: We'll circle back around to that.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'll let you answer part two about praying for spiritual gifts and things like that.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: So so I I just want to plead with every Christian, but especially if you're a Christian leader, when's the last time you asked Jesus what you don't get?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like really asked him.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: What ministry uh like when's the last time you you know you said to to the Lord, here's all the dreams I've got, here's all the things I want to do for you, here's all the stuff at 3 a.m.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: when I fantasize about like the amazing things for the kingdom, this is what I have me doing in the kingdom.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And why don't you ask him if that's even his will?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because if it's not, and you keep going down that path, it's it's brutal destruction.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen so many pastors and leaders being taken out, taken out by this.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing, too, is if I can tell a personal story before I get to the verses, this got very clear to me when I had an encounter with Christ.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was praying uh at our church, and I jokingly said we don't have an altar, right?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I say at the holy subwoofers at the front of our of our place.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a prayer rail at least around the subwoofers?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, there's nothing's just they were just you know, it was what it was.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I was in front of the holy subwoofers.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: My Anglican friends are dying inside.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, much love to you, and my Methodist friends too.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: But um, so I was there and I was praying, and it was like Jesus, uh I was kneeling, and I was sort of like, uh, if our stage curves and the subwoofers are here, and I was sort of parallel to the subwoofers, and it's like Jesus sort of knelt almost beside me.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: I I of course he was not physically there, heresy, but I just I knew he was present.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget the moment.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: It it like marked me, sort of like um uh like Jacob was marked and limped the rest of his life.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Lord said to me, Hey, I just need to inform you you're not gonna be as famous as you think you should be.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like so struck by the moment.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he and he just said, Listen, I made you, I I know you, I know you're smart, I know you're educated, I know I mean I I know all this about you.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm the Lord.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah, and he said, But I've decided not to give you um the platform or anointing that you probably could have, but I've decided you're not gonna have it.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you this now so actually you don't crash later.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm showing you your my divine sovereign limitation around your ministry.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, so then I was like, I knew that can't be from me, because I I would never invent that.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I definitely knew it wasn't the demonic promoting humility.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I was actually quite upset and perturbed and and also quite saddened.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and then as I was praying in my mind's eye, it was like beside me I saw someone else praying, and I could tell it wasn't one person, it was multiple people.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Do you see these people?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Yes, I do.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Your responsibility in my kingdom is to sit behind those with much greater anointing and authority, and you're to pray for them and help them so when they speak, they will actually do well and more will be influenced for my kingdom.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, he was telling me, Don't cross the holy boundary I've set.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you do, it will lead to your destruction.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Romans 12 became very real for me.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: And every time I've envied and every time I've been frustrated that I didn't get to that place or on that stage, or wasn't acknowledged by that person, the Lord always says to me, What did I tell you?
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been a profound lifesaver for me.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's one.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Two, you bring up all these questions about um, you know, eagerly desire the greater gifts, fan into flame, um, the the conversation between Paul and Timothy.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, a good father gives good gifts.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I'll take this in two directions.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: When we do spiritual gifts conversations in our church, so we've done spiritual gifts publicly three times.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: The last time we did it was in 2025, 2026, did 14 weeks publicly.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and one thing that we do at the end of every service is we uh um we'll do this.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll just say, okay, uh, do you think that you might have this spiritual gift?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you do, we'd love you to come forward.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Our elders and pastors and some others are gonna pray over that.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna pray for character around it, and we're gonna pray the spirit affirms that.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because just because you think you have it doesn't mean you do.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's that's another conversation.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then, yeah, a whole other conversation because we have five ways we we help people discover gifts.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if we'll talk about that later organically.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but then in the middle of that, we'll we'll also say, you of course can ask the Lord for any gift.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh God is sovereign, he he is in charge of his church.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not in charge, he is.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if you don't have this gift and you would like this gift, you're most welcome to come forward and ask the Lord.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: But then we'll say these words.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it drives, you know, Pentecostal sort of kills their the their faith because not their salvific faith, but just the the the wanting more, because I'll say, but expect a no.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: But if you get a yes, we'll celebrate with you.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: But don't make the exception the norm.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because Paul says, I I wish you would all prophesy.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: I wish you'd get the greater gifts.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say you're going to get them.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says it would be better, I guess, especially in his context, what he's dealing with, it'd sure be better if that was given, but he's not promising it's going to happen.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: He says, This is my desire.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is not sovereignly guaranteed.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we say to our people, because we are sovereignists and we know that there's joy uh in following after him, because he's a better master and a good friend and a good shepherd and the bishop of our souls.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we're just like, hey, you're gonna ask for any gift if he says no, you have joy.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if he says yes, we have joy.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: But the the principle out of all the gift passages, Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, 1 Peter 4, and then all the sundry verses, is that they're sovereignly given.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes one or two are given.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: If that is, that's the exception.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: We celebrate it, but we do not make that normative.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: So does God give good gifts?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Of course he is.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't think that the Luke account is just talking about gifts, I think it's all sorts of things.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and then about the other passage, you know, fan into flame, I'm like, oh, all day long, because there are multiple times where we as followers of Jesus need to, again, be because of sin, because of life, because of pain, because of trauma, because of boredom, because of distraction, need to ask the Spirit to fan into flame what we've been given and bring it up to the level he's ordained.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't want to interpret fan into flame as I get extra, it's not, it's not like I pray lots and then the steroids show up and my prophecy triples.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it is what it is.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I, my prayer all these years has been uh in and this is how I prayed it in the early days, Lord, may I be intoxicated with your no so I can worship you well.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's good.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: I love the way that you framed it.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think we've we've essentially landed in the same place, articulating it in different ways because we would argue to the same degree that God is sovereign over salvations, right?
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like he's sovereign in people coming to faith.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: But we'd also say that we participate with his sovereignty in doing evangelism.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: So, in the same way that we would talk about spiritual gifts, like, yeah, he's sovereign.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: He can say no, right?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like we we would pray for someone's salvation, and God, the answer could be no, in the same way we'd pray for spiritual gifts, but that's just one of the ways that we participate with God in those giving of those gifts, uh as as it seems.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: But but I think that you're essentially saying the same thing.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: Not that we shouldn't pursue them, not that we shouldn't desire them, um, but that in the midst of that, that we have to be comfortable with the fact that God's sovereign and the focus of those spiritual gifts, at least in part, I don't want to say exclusively, in part, is for that interdependence piece.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: And if we can do it all, there's no point.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I want to maybe circle back around to that piece on ambition.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um I have detected the same thing you have detected, and I think my response, and you can pastor me now if I've gotten it, uh if I've gotten it backwards.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just inviting your counsel into my life.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, is uh I've I've just gone with no ambition.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, I we were in a we were doing uh like a contem contemplative practice, uh prayer uh practice.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we were doing uh I think it was following following the way John Mark Coper, he was doing spiritual disciplines, and we were as a church were going through John Mark Comer's work on this, and you know, he was just talking about different forms of prayer, and I mean at first it also really elementary, and then something just kind of hit me as we were talking about it.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because he was talking about prayers of petition, like rest, and like fellowship like prayer, and then like uh listening prayer.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I'm I'm do that, I do that, I do that.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then when he got to petition, I was just like, yeah, I don't do that.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I I've been so comfortable with sitting with the Lord and fellowshipping with him, but I'm I'm afraid of asking for something and getting my hopes up.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I was in the Pentecostal church for so long, and and I'm not anti-Pentecostal.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: For those of you out there who are like, Josh has got a bone to pick with Pentecostals, I don't.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: I love you guys.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: I encountered God in those churches.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so so thankful for you.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm just saying my version, the ecosystem I was swimming in was uh if you pray hard enough, fast hard enough, these will be the outcomes.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: And it left me in a rough place.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was not on the verge of like walking away, uh, but I can tell you, there were times were close, and it wasn't until I got some law gospel distinctions and had a more robust view of God's sovereignty that I got rooted in that.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: But but but I feel now that I almost have a lack of godly ambition, I have a lack of uh drive.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I still faithfully teach the Bible, really study well before I get up and preach.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: I still, you know, working on my podcast and you know trying to reach more people with truth, but like I'm also in this very content place of like if the podcast blew up tomorrow, like I'd be okay.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like I'm not trying to innovate or grow or blow up.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, how how do you is there a place for godly ambition?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: Do you need an answer from the Lord?
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I'm also inclined to think that God might not tell me his plan for my life and might just be like hanging out.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I mean, I'd love to find a holy subwoofer where the Lord would sit next to me and tell me what's going on uh in his hopes and plans for me.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_03: But like, where where's the line there?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, number one, I'm not selling holy subwoofers, and so we're not gonna start for the low price.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: The crazy stuff where this goes, see, that's that's exactly the point.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's the danger.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I'm so glad you brought this up because number one, thanks for your vulnerability uh this afternoon, even talking about that.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and here's why because your pain and trauma have informed your spirituality a hundred percent.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so you grew up in an environment that was like the Marines, right?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like ask, fast, pray, expect, demand.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: And when it didn't happen, I I say this all the time in spiritual theology.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um we have to be profoundly careful about the expectations we build for our people.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are things that are guaranteed, there are things that are not guaranteed, and we have to be profoundly honest about what's guaranteed, what's not guaranteed, and when.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, like when I talk about revival, for example, there's a whole set of criteria we talk about publicly during that that is not guaranteed during normal periods.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's not even the same thing.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so when it comes to godly ambition, here's here's my take.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh can ambition, of course, be sanctified?
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Are there many people with gifts of leadership?
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, I can't get by Jesus' model.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, um in in the book of John, Jesus says, I do nothing except what the Father tells me to do.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we see in Jesus' life is this consistent pattern of permission, where Jesus, who is the second person of the Trinity, who is forever, has been, will be, existent, who is in perfect relationship with the Father and the Spirit, who is fully God and fully human, hypostatic union, all of it in, by choice decides uh to model normalcy for us, and so uses disciplines to listen and gifts to serve from um, which is which is fundamentally critical because Jesus says in John 14, I think John 14, we will do the same things in greater than him.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if he did it in his own power and not in the spirit's power, we're screwed because we can't imitate the second person the Trinity.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus, by choice, without violating the hypostatic union, without violating his relationship with the Father and the Spirit, uh, chooses not to access fully who he is.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: He never loses.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, lack of access is not loss of essence.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Very important for this conversation.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: Philippians 2 works this out really well.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's a bunch of theology that people go weird with.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going there.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: Here's all I'm saying uh Jesus says to his dad regularly, What do you want me to do next?
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because he didn't know.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't know.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: So he, by the spirit, through disciplines, would ask his dad the next assignment.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then when the father would say, Do this thing next, he would go and do it by the power of the spirit.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Why does that matter?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: So godly ambition shows up when you get a yes from the Lord.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: So there's common faithfulness, which is we're all called to preach or serve communion and serve the poor.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: There are common faithful things we're all called to do as Christians, 1 Corinthians 13.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Love, like this is just what we do.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to ask God's permission for that.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the Baptist Church, the Anglican Church, the Methodist Church, we're all called to that.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but then there are moments where God, I would say, in an inception point, gives assignment, uh, the difference between mission and vision to use corporate language.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: And when a leader or an individual is given assignment or task, in that moment that becomes godly ambition.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because you have a request from the Lord to do a certain task, and because that's true, now you should move on and do that thing.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be tested, and again, there's I mean, that's why I wrote convergence and deliverance, all that stuff's in there.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm trying to point out is I have found so many times in my you know almost 30 years of being a pastor, there are huge seasons of common faithfulness where there's nothing unique from the Lord.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: And there are moments where the Lord says, go do this.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's tested in community, making sure, again, it's not ego, the demonic tacos from last night, like this is from the Lord.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then I go with great confidence and do that because the Lord has asked me to do that.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where I think ambition gets refined.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you might again say, Well, I don't hear like that.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have the holy subwoofer, like, bro, come on.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yes.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why a community needs to be using all the spiritual gifts and disciplines, because if you're using all the spiritual disciplines, then you can fast together and you can meditate together in the biblical sense, right?
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can celebrate together, but also when people have prophecy or words of knowledge, right?
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or or or teaching, in those ecosystems, the Lord will confirm stuff.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the whole point.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: Not everyone's supposed to speak in tongues, not everyone's supposed to have visions and dreams, not everyone's supposed to hear God's sort of audible voice in my head, because lots of people will never have that.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: And what I've loved in our community is everyone breathes.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, wow, you you have the gift of administration and it's not a natural or required gift, it's actually a spiritual gift.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's incredible.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: I have zero expectation you're gonna speak in tongues or cast in demons.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's not your role.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if if you find out, fantastic.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: But then someone with an administration gift, we've seen this in real time, will literally get with those who hear prophetically from the Lord, if you want to use that language, maybe in your community.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the way we always say around here is we we we prompting before planning.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: We inquire of the Lord, if the Lord speaks and it's from him, then we reorient our plans.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: If he doesn't speak, we use common wisdom and we build a plan, but always in that order.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think godly ambition, I think uh church ministry, I think vision casting should be rooted in sovereign assignment, not observational wisdom.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: No, and I I think that's really good.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: I I think there are two things that I would want to say there, because uh it may be the case that I'm exactly where I need to be then, as far as this conversation goes, because that has been the case in that we planted a church because God told us to.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know, like when I hear you say, I think what got me in my head was like when I hear you say, like, know the the banks of your anointing, like that seems so specific.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how far am I supposed to go?
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm kind of just going, I I think God's got this plan for my church right now.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're supposed to go this direction.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm praying about it, you know.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, I I've got one yes and two no's, and I'm like, okay, we'll we'll see.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: And we're just kind of like trying to figure it out and just being faithful with what he told us to do the last time.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: Great commandment, great commission.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm just gonna do the the normative things as faithfully as I can, and then just like wait, but like I don't have a yeah.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: I I used to have this thing in me, which was like, I've got to reach more people, I've got to do more things.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's weird for a guy who reaches a lot of people on a podcast to talk this way, but like that used to be in me in a like a really alive visceral sort of way because it was all about souls, you know.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but like now I'm in this like, oh, I I was in that space and I was treated like a cog in a machine, and I was I was just tossed away when I wasn't useful to the mechanism of reaching more people.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: So now like I've made this core value of my life that the person sitting in front of me is the most important person in the room.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like they have all my attention, and I'm just gonna care for that person.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it it's caused that maybe it's ungodly ambition, I don't know.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like, but like it does feel like it's a weird thing that's almost missing in life because it was so integral, you know what I mean?
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I I don't know.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: And when it comes to prophecy too, I I can I can hear God for others.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: I have a very hard time like hearing for yourself, speaking to unless unless I'm getting a dream, in which I do get dreams.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: But like I would yeah, just a few things uh to say.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, when I talk about um Romans 12, God's know, um, I'm not I'm not ti um we should never confuse calling, gifts, and assignments.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this this gets really foggy really quick and also makes me nervous.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: So um vocational calling, pastoral calling, different podcasts, is is a lifetime thing.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: It transcends all the assignments.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: The gifts also uh transcend all the assignments because the the gifts are the only guaranteed place of power to do ministry from because it's you and the spirit working together.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you just use natural gifts or acquired gifts, though those are good things, the access, the well you're accessing is you, and there's no eternal power behind it.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, so the calling vocational question is I mean, yes, we're all priesthood of all believers.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we all have access to the Father, 100%.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, uh we we all serve together, but some of us are vocationally called.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: You would use elders and deacons, maybe in your context, however you talk about, there's a vocational calling.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that transcends um the run.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: So do the gifts.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are certain seasons.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I hate that Christian word, but there are certain seasons where we have assignments in certain Seasons.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why I get really um I don't tend to use language like uh calling uh to this church.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I've been assigned to this church.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm called to this church, but my calling transcends this church, and so do my gifts.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so then when you say, well, I'm just, you know, how do I measure out the the divine yes or no?
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually talking about the divine yes or no through your run, your your whole life.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like basically, the Lord is just going to do this with you in this capacity, in this way, in multiple places, and praise the Lord.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing that I think you've discovered, you haven't articulated it maybe like this, is when you suddenly realize that God's sovereignty is the place where you rest, uh you were able to do ministry properly again because you were like, oh, I I'm not not um serious about the kingdom.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: I just now realize that um sovereignty allows me to sleep.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: I I you know I tell this story, I was in a room with Dallas Willard uh before he died.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's 400 of us, and he got up and he walked up into the lecture and as he did.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: And in his, I never could understand his accent.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever that was, some he had a draw to him.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he his first question to 400 of us is why are none of you sleeping?
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What are you talking about, bro?
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he pulled out, you know, the parable of the sower, and I don't know which of the synoptics um it's in, but it says that the that the farmer sowed his seed, and then he said, and he went to sleep.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: And he asked us again, why are none of you sleeping?
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: And what his point was is it's our responsibility to do the task the Lord has given us and then go to bed.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: Just go to bed.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the devil's gonna show up and the world's gonna choke things, and the Lord's gonna make 30, 600, but he said, if you cannot sleep, you do not trust.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this whole thing about gifts and renewal and spiritual disciplines, uh spiritual disciplines are don't God doesn't get lower to the ground when I fast.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't announce to heaven attention, all patriarchs and prophets, all archangels, John Thompson and Toronto's fasting.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: His ear isn't like this.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: Is the illustration I've used for years.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: God's ear is not drawn to the ground when I do these things.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: When I do spiritual disciplines, it removes the noise so I can hear him.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: And this is critical, if he chooses to speak.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: See, this is the other problem in cares about communities.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so tired of pastors saying God is always speaking.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: He's not.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in nature, yes, he's always speaking.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, sure, sure.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is he always speaking through scripture?
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_03: I love I love that as a theologian will say something that's generally true, and you're like, okay, but in the back of your head, you could hear John MacArthur going, uh, technically, and you're like, okay, okay, let me back up, let me back up.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: So but but this idea that if uh if I listen, he is always uniquely speaking to me.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: He's not.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's not.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so spiritual disciplines expose my sin.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you want to know where you're you know, where you sin, just don't eat for three days.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know exactly where you're sinnedful.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: It will it will bring everything up.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, fasting, prayer, solitude, silence will clear out the clutter in your mind so you can listen and hear and be in his presence.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh to me, spiritual disciplines are transformative.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's how we hear like Jesus.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: Spiritual gifts is how we serve in the power that Jesus walked in.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: I I've got no problem uh you know with this at all.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is profoundly helpful.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: But in the middle of all this, there has to be this relational rest.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I just, as I continue to mentor so many young leaders, as this you know, Gen Z thing is happening, and I'm really encouraged and discouraged at the same time because the re the re-emergence of fundamentalism, which you know, we fought for so long against, seems to be rearing again.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: I just keep saying to them, I'm all for your passion, but your passion is not sustainable.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: I said, when you have a belly like me and you don't have hair like me, are you still gonna love Jesus?
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, can you can you is the intensity that you're running at sustainable?
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is always no.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, it's because you don't trust him.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: You you think you better do something or the thing's not gonna be done.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, who are you serving?
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: He's just fine.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, that that's that's good.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think it it when I come, uh we'll move off of it because we've spent so much of the podcast on this one thing.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_02: I just think it's important, and I think it's important for people to think through.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, someone asked me, hey, if we we as a church transition into this, you know, what what's your plan for the future?
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, uh, I'm not a visionary leader.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like I used to be, and I just hurt people.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, now I just ask Jesus and we we take one step at a time.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like we just one step.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's been extremely fruitful because there is a trust and a rest in that, and I don't have to figure it out.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, let's let's you mentioned a moment ago spiritual disciplines as uh you know a way of kind of grounding yourself, exposing sin that's in your life, really, really understanding who you are on a deeper level.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I I think all that is true.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: You you mentioned of spiritual gifts that spiritual gifts, or maybe you call them calling gifts, are guaranteed places of power.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I say that as one knowing how liturgical you are.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the only guaranteed place of power, I go, uh the second when I read this, I I think to myself, I got the John MacArthur voice in my background.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh technically, I go, well, what about communion?
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_02: And what about what about prayer?
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: And what about, you know, and I I'm not saying that prayer is this thing that like guarantees that power is going to show up in the way I want it to show up, but but I think that God responds.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think that God, you know, when we take communion, he's he's attached himself mystically to that.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation unto all who believe.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that like on a sacramental level, if you if you hold to the means of grace idea of the Methodist folks, which I I do in a lot of ways, I go, there's there's other help help flesh that out for me.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_02: What do you mean when you say spiritual gifts are the talking about?
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: I I think so.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: Let's see.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so number one, in convergence, the very last chapter, I have this thing called Guardi Places of Encounter.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where we root all of our discipleship.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: We do not root our discipleship in classes, we root it in counter.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so as I read the scriptures, I realized that there are five or six places where God says that he is uniquely close.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, God is omnipresent, he's everywhere.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: But you just said it.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: So the giving of the gospel, it is the power of God unto salvation.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: So when the life, death, and resurrection of Christ is proclaimed for the forgiveness of sins, God is uniquely close.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: That is literally dudemus.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: The power is being released in that moment.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter if people respond, it's unique.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that's one.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_00: Two, God inhabits the praises of people, draw near to him, he'll draw near to you.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: I have no issue with that at all.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: Three, communion.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_00: You and I are theologically agreed.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think that Jesus is the one literally at the table serving us.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think he's in the elements.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not Roman Catholic that way, but I think he is spiritually present.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: Four, I would say baptism is the same thing.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: I just literally recorded a sermon three hours ago.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: We use in in our congregation when we talk about baptism, I use this illustration of a wedding ring.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is my wedding ring.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like the Lord of the Rings ring, it's but this is my wedding ring, right?
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I would say that when someone is baptized, they and they are proclaiming things in the tank.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: They are taking vows to the groom, and though and the baptism is literally the putting on of the public declaration you're off the market.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've said to our church for years, it would be really weird if the groom was not uniquely present when the ring was being put on and the vows were being said.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: If the groom's not present, it's weird.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: So of course he's uniquely present at baptism.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: Of course he is.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: So communion, baptism, the giving of the gospel, right?
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh gathered worship, and then of course, spiritual gifts.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: The reason why I talk about this is because when I, I'm not using the discipline of mercy, but I have the gift of mercy.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, I don't have that.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: But if I had the spiritual gift of mercy, then I am working with the spirit and accessing a power source that is not based in personality, not based in upbringing, not based on educational level, not based in gender, not based on ethnicity.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm accessing an eternal well of power.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: So when a gift is used, it's a guaranteed place of encounter because me and the spirit are partnering together for us.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: Then I would say spiritual disciplines for those who are Christians also is a guaranteed place of encounter because we are following these practices.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: These practices are ways that we commune with the spirit.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: Again, though, very important.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you're using all the spiritual practices but you're habitually sitting and grieving the spirit, it's like walking into a room saying, I want to talk to you, and then yelling, shut up to the person you're trying to talk to.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's not going to work.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: He's not going to leave, but it's not, it's not going to have the same encounterist experience.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_00: So disciplines, gifts, the gospel, like all of these places are guaranteed places of what we will call encounter.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also say suffering, not suffering in general, not like I suddenly got cancer or a drive-by shooting, nor uh when I am dumb in sin and I suffer of the results.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: But when I suffer for the things of Christ, you know, Peter says in 1 Peter uh that Christ has left us an example that we all must follow in.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: The word example Paul and Peter uses is really quite scary.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a little child learning to trace letters.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: He said, All Christians are to trace the letters of the suffering of Christ.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: There are five biblical Pauline passages where he says, you know, I'm filling up the sufferings or afflictions of Christ, or I want to participate in his sufferings.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just past tense, it's present tense.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: So when we suffer for the things of the kingdom, like when I deny my flesh, when I mock for the faith, that is a guaranteed place of encounter.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the way we talk about this here is we would say they are all places we know the Lord is uniquely present.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now I might not always feel them.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean the Gabriel shows up, doesn't mean there's fire and you know, shofars are blowing.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: I just know he's coming.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to be uniquely there when that happens.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: The reason why that's important is because it changed how we come with expectation.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: See, back to expectation.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: Biblical expectation in our church has changed because when I'm driving to church and I'm tired and I don't want to go to church and I'm the pastor and I don't like who's leading worship, I will remind myself that I'm walking into a guaranteed place of encounter because communion is going to be served, I'm about to witness the baptism.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to habit the praises of his people.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so it doesn't matter what I'm feeling like, the triune God is about to be encountered.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we built expectations on guaranteed places, not everything, just those things.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm agreeing with you that those are places of guaranteed encounter.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: What I said in the book about gifts is not only are spiritual gifts a guaranteed place of encounter, they're also a guaranteed place of empowerment.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: Communion is not a service act in the same way.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: Baptism is not a service act.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: So when I'm using a gift, I'm furthering the kingdom of God by partnering with the Spirit in the task I've been given for a lifetime.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why, because what I was trying to do in the book is most evangelical churches don't distinguish between natural gifts, acquired gifts, and spiritual gifts.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_00: Bobby Clinton talked about this years ago.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_00: Natural gifts is what you're born with, acquired gifts is what you learn, spiritual gifts is what's an endowment of the spirit.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when we first went through spiritual gifts in my church, what was fascinating is I think eight people in my small group were all teachers, like primary teachers, high school teachers.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_00: Not one of them had the spiritual gift of teaching.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_02: No, I feel you, man.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: I bring up this, I bring up that a lot.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: So so then we were like, okay, so we're gonna start using guaranteed language around the thing that's actually guaranteed when it's related to the spirit.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then in our church, what happened is people started like going, well, um, well, then I'm gonna try to use my gifts in the nursery.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, yes.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because the other thing, leaders know, listening to this, they know the problem, right?
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_00: People idolize programs, and when you have uh have to kill a program, then they get really angry and leave.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have a gift-centric starting point versus a program start program-oriented starting point, then people will not leave necessarily as quick if they're mature, because they'll realize that the thing that is transferable to all things is the gifts, and the programs are situational and I have shelf life like bread.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and I am by the way a visionary leader, just so you know.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just released a you know five-year strategic plan and and and all the stuff, like you know, and all so I I still function in that world, but our strategic planning happens after a prompting, never before, and it's rooted in gift evaluation.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_02: No, that's fantastic, man.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm I I like this.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm gonna have to chew because there's a lot of categories there.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I I think that's interesting because when you you do insider baseball a lot, you've got insider vocabulary.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_02: Because I heard you say essentially the same thing we've been saying for years.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think I think we released our course in uh 2020 on spiritual gifts, I think it was.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_02: And we have an entire video section teaching on encountering God and places he's promised to be when we talk about friendship with God, and we list those exact you know things when it comes to encountering God.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_02: He's promised to inhabit the praise of his people, he's prom the power of God is under salvation.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's there in the proclaimed word when it's rightly proclaimed, communion, baptism.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and I I've said this on our podcast quite a bit.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_02: I I hope that the church begins to um begins to like long for the ordinary means of grace.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: So when those I what I would call extraordinary means of grace are put on display, we treat it with the awe and reverence it deserves, right?
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like I just I think that sometimes we come to church looking for the ooh and the wow and the woe, and we're sorely disappointed when we can gather to church expecting, knowing that we're encountering the living God.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like that, you know, I had a Lutheran pastor, uh 1776.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_02: I was listening to him, I think it's the name of the podcast.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_02: Was it no 1517 podcast?
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was it, the Lutheran podcast.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, wrong revolution, bro.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, my bad, my bad.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so uh 1517, and uh he goes, uh I used to go to evangelical church, and evangelical church says, you you don't come to church to be served, you come to church to serve.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_02: And he goes, That is precisely wrong.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_02: He goes, you go to church to receive the good gifts of Christ.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: Christ is the one serving you, Christ is the one who who you know is clothed in a towel and comes down and washes your feet.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like he's he's condescending to meet you in communion and in the word and in the praise of the people.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like you come to church to receive the good gifts from Christ.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_02: Now, certainly it includes building one another up with our own gift.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_02: Certainly that is the case, but like it changes the whole paradigm in a way that you know to rest in Christ is to receive his good gifts.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um Yeah, I would say what what we're recovering is uh guaranteed places of encounter the language we use, which is sacramental, non-sacramental language over sacramentalism, quite Anglican probably, or Methodist, is these are guaranteed places of these are common ordinary, like you say, common ordinary grace.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say to our Lutheran friend, um, you're wrong and we're wrong, and that's why you need both at the same time.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_00: We come to receive and we come to give.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, mutually at the same time.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I don't disagree.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing, too, you know, because you mentioned the ooh and the on the spectacular, uh, the other thing we've worked really hard around here is just making the weird normal.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_00: We don't like love gifts, word gifts, and power gifts to us are equalized.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_00: So someone with the gift of mercy, the gift of administration, the gift of helps, the gift of teaching, or the gift of miracles for us are like, yeah, you're just doing your job.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: So around here, um, you know, being in a strategic planning meeting and then walking into a discernment session, uh, you know, and then a demon being cast out, and then children curriculum being built in the same building same day is like normal here.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's just sort of like, yeah, of course.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_00: The thing that I think is interesting is a lot of people who are praying, for example, for revival don't understand that the vast majority of people who are praying for revival are not praying for revival, they're praying for what a normal church should be on Monday morning.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because most people's view of revival is like all the gifts functioning.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, no, no, that's that's not revival.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's Thursday, buddy.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's just Monday.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and most churches haven't done the hard exegetical, theological, and I would say environmental work to do this.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, we say all the time when we're helping people with gifts, right, there's the theology of the thing.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what what does prophecy mean in the scriptures?
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what is that what does that mean?
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_00: Then what I found fascinating, now, speaking all around the world in all sorts of different parts of the church, is what has blown my mind is that I have found that almost in every culture on earth a gift functions identically.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is wild.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a series of what I would call experiential markers with each gift.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_00: That whether I'm sitting with a Kenyan or a German, whether I'm in a charismatic Anglican church or a brethren church or a Presbyterian church in Belfast, when that thing happens, usually the experiences can be found in this group.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's the house rules.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_00: How are we gonna use that thing in our own church?
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_00: And people collapse those three things into one, and it's so damaging.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got to do the theology of what is that?
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then you've got to say, what are the experiential categories that each gift tends to have so that when people are identifying their gifts, someone can say, you know, if you have the gift of mercy, here's seven to twelve things that tend to pop up all the time to help you consider.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then where all the character issues show up is when you say, now in our church, because we're a church of 30 people or 4,000 people, we're gonna use tongues like this.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_00: And someone says, Oh, no, no, no, no.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: In my last church, we used it like that.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, oh, so you have a submission problem because the house rules are how we keep together, and we're not saying your house rules in your old house were wrong.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's like when I go to the states, I don't know uh where you, you know, how you do this in your part of America, but like lots of times when I go to the states, people keep their shoes on in your house.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like you just walk in.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_00: Up here, I'm like, take your shoes off.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't want your crap in my house.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_00: And people are like, oh my goodness.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's a cultural house decision.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a moral thing, right?
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's keep your head.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's all this is.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_00: So people listening, what is the theology?
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_00: What is the global experience of this so you can help people identify it?
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then the house rule is the real hard work for leaders.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_00: How are we gonna function and do this here?
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I just painted a really bad picture of like if we hey, this is this is gonna awry over here.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_02: This is why this is a house rule.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so uh, yeah, we we we're real comfortable with that one.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_02: Let me let me talk about hey, I've got you at an hour and three already.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have time for another question?
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, uh, because I'm thinking in terms of like you mentioned a couple of categories that I think my audience will be unfamiliar with.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_02: We don't typically put them in categories like this, but you you talk about like service gifts and love gifts and power gifts.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think I got those categories right as you see them.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, can you explain those categories?
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_00: So uh want to be very clear.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_00: I did not come up with these categories.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_00: These uh came from Bobby Clinton at Fuller years ago when he was trying to understand gift orientation, and he's the one who started doing the diagnostic work of like um acquired gifts, uh natural gifts, spiritual gifts.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_00: But his his categorization of gifts, in my opinion, is the best one I've seen anywhere out of all my reading.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if you look at the 21 or 22 spiritual gifts that are listed in the New Testament, he says the way to access them as love gifts, word gifts, and power gifts.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_00: So love gifts demonstrated demonstrate the love of God.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_00: Word gifts clarify who God is, who he's not, what he likes, what he likes, what he doesn't.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_00: Power gifts evidence God in the room in the moment.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_00: So love gifts evidence love of God, word gifts clarify who God is, who he's not, what he likes, what he doesn't.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_00: Power gifts evidence God's presence in the real moment.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so we find that really helpful because immediately those larger categories, so like mercy, for example, is a love gift, a giving.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're all called to the discipline of giving, but the spiritual gift of giving is a love gift because it's supportive.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_00: Interestingly, the spiritual gift of administration is a love gift.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you look at Paul's language of administration, the word he uses in the New Testament is a nautical term meaning helmsman.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if you know anything about both, again, uh there's an owner of the ship, there's a captain that decides where they're going, and then the helmsman builds the plan to get to the place the captain has said and the owner wants.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_00: So again, like the gift of administration is a love gift because it's a subservient, not by not by essence, but a subservient gift to the gift of leadership.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because leaders say God wants us to go here, and usually leaders are not good planners, not usually.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_00: So administrators need to submit themselves to the leader's vision and build the best plan possible.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a that's a love gift.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: A word gift would be the gift of teaching, for example.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_00: Exhortation and encouragement are a word gift.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the power gifts, of course, the gift of healing, uh, the gift of miracles, which are two different gifts, right?
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_00: Words of knowledge, words of wisdom, discernment of spirits, etc.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the sort of top like categories.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, there are people that have um uh a gift only in one of the categories.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_00: Some people have one or two or three gifts uh between two categories.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_00: Very rarely have I found someone have gift in all three, some do.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, it's it's it's a really helpful way.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: And And then what we did originally, which you probably read in um in Convergence, and we've done it differently since, is when we were a smaller church, one service, one site, once we did all the work, the theology of what it was, and then the experiences to help identify it organically, and then the house rules, we had gatherings.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_00: We literally had the love gift gathering.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it was hilarious because it was awesome.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone loved each other.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_00: The food was like amazing.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone is hospitable, everyone's helping each other, right?
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then we talked in that gathering about what love gifts are, how they're going to be used in our church, and the dark side, because there's dark sides to each gift, right?
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_00: Then we had the word people all get together, and actually the food sucked.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't as hospitable.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um it wasn't, and they're all this stuff, right?
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and it was hilarious.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_02: But it was the appropriate amount of calories, it was the exact amount of nutritional value, right?
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like the granola of meals.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's just hilarious.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and then talking about like the dark side, like talking to teachers about just because you have the gift of teaching, doesn't the ego, but also like dark sides of teaching, like teachers think they have arrived when they explained the idea, not they've told people how to live.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, if you don't tell people to live, you've lost teaching.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we had all the power people come.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it was the first time in our very functionally cessationistic church where all the power people, you know, showed up and we were like, Oh, you you think you're one of those people?
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_00: And someone's like, Yeah, I've spoken in for 30 years quietly in tongues.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what to do with it.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_00: And when you describe discernment, oh, I definitely have that.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so we started talking about how we're going to use that.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_00: All I'm trying to demonstrate, that's a very 2011 experience for us.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're in very different places now because all our hiring practices and HR practices have connection to spiritual gifts, and our volunteer or our service recruitment has spiritual gift.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have five ways to help people identify spiritual gifts before you ever use a spiritual gift test, because they're terrible.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they're not helpful at the beginning, they should be done at the very end, like never at the beginning, like all that stuff.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_00: But just this is the work to move a church, because if you think Jesus used spiritual gifts, here it is.
• 1:09:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you really believe he did, and read convergence to see if I'm right or not.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_00: But if if you do, and if you think spiritual gifts is the only guaranteed place of empowerment to bring the kingdom forward, then how can spiritual gifts not be the epicenter of everything you do?
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_01: How?
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, yeah.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_00: But to move there takes a lot of work.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_02: No, and and that's that's right.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think you know, when we when we think about everything, because I I really do put pushback on me here, because I, you know, I'm I I'm I'm I'm working on my own theology here.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm more convinced that spiritual gifts are more and more occasional than they are residential.
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_02: And and I don't think that I I don't think from here listening to you that you necessarily agree with me, and I'm okay with that.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_02: But like there are times where I'm I'm teaching, right?
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_02: I know no, I know there's times that I'm teaching, and there's other moments where like the spirit comes upon me and I'm teaching, and it's just something else is happening.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that it at times I'm using what would be considered a natural gift, um, you know, that that I either was born with or acquired over time, and I got I got good at doing the thing, but there's other moments where, man, I've really I'm leaning into the spirit leading me and guiding me, and something else starts taking over.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_02: And you you get that.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_02: Preachers are like, oh man, you're really good, you're anointed in that sermon.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, no, I just I think I think teaching turned on, you know, and it's like I can't make God speak to me.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_02: He's sovereign.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_02: So like I can't everyone prophesied, they prophesied of their own.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think that when I talk about residential and occasional, I do think if someone has the gift of prophecy, they are going to more frequent the gift of prophecy.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_02: If someone has the gift of healing, they're going to more frequent the gift of healing.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't think they can do that on command.
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think they can prophesy on command.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_02: And in that way, that same similar sense, I almost suspect that like teaching and leadership, like there are just moments where the spirit, you know.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, the only reason I bring that up is because I it it requires a like dependency on the Lord.
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_02: Even though I have the gift of teaching, I'm I'm still dependent on God showing up.
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_02: So hopefully you hear me say like what I'm trying to say in that.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I do.
• 1:11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the way I would articulate it differently is I think they are residential and not occasional.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, the the critical identification for me is the rule of dots.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll just use discernment.
• 1:11:37
  SPEAKER_00: All Christians I any Christian I've ever met, doesn't matter the background, has had a discerning moment where they go, I don't feel comfortable here.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's more than intuition, but they're like, I gotta get out of this bookstore, I gotta get out of this place.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I and you when you diagnostically interview them, they're like, it just I knew it was not it was not holy.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean you have the gift of discernment.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_00: That means in that moment the Holy Spirit just helped you.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_00: But if that happens to you again and again and again and again, and I do a bunch of interviews with your friends and it doesn't happen to them, that's when it becomes a gift for me.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because, like you say, you know, oh, I might have a natural gift of teaching.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, you might have a natural gift of teaching and a spiritual gift of teaching.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_00: I have no problem with that conversation at all.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm just saying though is if I sat with your congregation and asked them the question when he gets up and preaches on a regular basis, do you understand the scriptures more and does the spirit speak to the congregation and you uniquely?
• 1:12:33
  SPEAKER_00: I guarantee they're gonna say yes.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_00: I guarantee it, even at your worst moments where you don't feel anointed.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if I brought someone else into the pulpit regularly who did not have the gift, they would go, thanks for trying.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Please stop that.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like I mean, I make the joke here all the time.
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been greeted at a church by someone and you're like, you should not be a greeter?
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like you should it, it doesn't.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_00: I could get you a year of hospitality training, like for hotel management, and it you would still be bad at this, right?
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:13:10
  SPEAKER_00: But if I put someone with helps or service there, fundamental difference.
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_00: So to me, the residential thing is not some weird ownership thing or me feeling it all the time.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_00: What it is, is it's the pattern that matters to me.
• 1:13:24
  SPEAKER_00: If it happens to me once, interesting, twice, I'm paying attention three times and more.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's like evangelists.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Every time I hang out with evangelists, most of them are like, oh, I don't have the gift of evangelism.
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm bro, you so and they're like, no, no.
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you can't shut up about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about the results.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_00: You just I have to prepare myself to do this.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's a discipline for me, it is a gift for you.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_02: No, and I I think that's right.
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_02: And you you circled back to feeling because I I want to agree with you.
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um it is not, it should not be based on feeling.
• 1:13:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I do think that there are times where I think my sermon was and people come up to me going, hey, this really spoke to me.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's always encouraging.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm thankful for that.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's a good, it recenters me on on that piece of truth.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_02: I use that as an example just to say that I think we all, to some degree or another, experience where something substantively changes.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I think what you're still describing is a frequency, which is what I'm trying to describe.
• 1:14:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's uh what makes a gift residential is frequency, not its on-command necessary nature.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_02: And that's that's what I'm trying to strike at when I'm talking about that.
• 1:14:26
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think that is what I want believers to walk away going, I have to continue to depend on the spirit.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I can't think that just because I have a gift of you know, I'll do I'll do prophecy in my church, you know, get a couple words, great, go to another church, get a whole bunch of words.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody invited me out to a church to come and speak and teach on the gift of prophecy, and they're like, We want you to share words.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_02: I got nothing.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't say anything.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_02: It was the worst.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_02: They flew me out to their small church in the middle of nowhere.
• 1:14:53
  SPEAKER_02: I got nothing.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_03: It was it was it was a bummer, but it was also like, I'm not faking this.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I've seen I've seen this is not the moment uh to to but I would actually say that's actually such a gift.
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that moment that see that that's what I mean about God is not always speaking.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_00: We set up the environment for him to to we set up the environment to listen.
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if he doesn't speak, we don't panic.
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because he's not we work for him.
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_00: So like I don't disagree, yeah.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I talked about Jesus as model, because you know, um Jesus wasn't told every day to go to a Zacchaeus.
• 1:15:33
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say in every passage he knew what was in their hearts, it was sometimes so I'm like great.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_00: So like with healing, we have this rule where like Lord, also at the resurrection, all will be healed.
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 1:15:47
  SPEAKER_00: We believe in universal healing, we believe in personal healing, but then we'll say, Lord, you want us to pray like elders?
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_00: James 5, office healing, or do you want us to command healing, gift healing?
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Give us yes or no, and then we put the ball back in his court, not our desires, but his will.
• 1:16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Changes everything, it's uncomfortable, but man, it makes a difference.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like that opened a huge can of worms.
• 1:16:13
  SPEAKER_03: I'm trying to let you go because I've got you for a certain amount of time.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_03: Do you have time for one more question?
• 1:16:17
  SPEAKER_03: I know I've already asked that question.
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
• 1:16:20
  SPEAKER_02: Gifts office, okay?
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're you're talking about office of elders.
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_02: It comes up in your deliverance book, it comes up, you can't go just now on spiritual gifts.
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 1:16:29
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 1:16:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what are we talking about here?
• 1:16:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, unpack this for me because like you you mentioned in deliverance just kind of authority and it comes to like elders, and frame some of that for me because uh uh that is more on the liturgical side of uh you know of the aisle.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_02: I I do all the liturgy, but but when it comes to the kind of hierarchical authority that I I kind of hear, I go, I don't know, evangelical runs deep with me, man.
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh explaining this.
• 1:17:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm fifth generation evangelical.
• 1:17:02
  SPEAKER_02: My grandmother's when I say that, I just mean like like when people hear what they think in terms of yeah.
• 1:17:08
  SPEAKER_00: So here's here's what I uh so number one, in deliverance, I talk about um if we're gonna if we're gonna um do spiritual conflict, we're all called the spiritual conflict, but if we're gonna do a ministry to help people, specifically with the demonic, we have to be very aware of sustainability issues.
• 1:17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so there are five places where authority is endowed in the scriptures.
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_00: That is, to use, I mean this crassly.
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't mean this like again, technically, where has God allowed me to use his credit card and when am I not allowed to use the credit card, right?
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_00: So there are five places.
• 1:17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, there's common author, so common authority.
• 1:17:43
  SPEAKER_00: One, so it says in Ephesians chapter two that we're all seated with Christ in the heavenly realms.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Every Christian.
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter age, stage, ethnicity, background, skin color, all true.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh James verse 7, submit yourself therefore to God, resist the devil, he must flee.
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_00: That is just true.
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 6, uh, when the day, not if, but when the day of evil stands, put on the armor of God.
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so every single one of those instances is common authority, shared authority we've all been given.
• 1:18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_00: My great concern is that, you know, when I evaluated John MacArthur, when I evaluated um Neil Anderson, when I evaluated their Catholic Rite of Exorcism, when I looked at uh the shoot em up sort of kick down the door of Pentecostal, let's go for it, uh Derek Prince stuff, when I looked at the inner healing stuff of Chuck Kraft, even though they all disagree with each other, the one thing that they all base their whole ministry on was one thing, common authority.
• 1:18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, this is not sustainable.
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_00: We don't do this in other ministries.
• 1:18:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, if the demonics show up and we're under attack, we can stand our ground and tell them to leave and time they'll leave.
• 1:18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's true.
• 1:18:49
  SPEAKER_00: But but that is not the only place.
• 1:18:51
  SPEAKER_00: So then, second of all, the scriptures are clear, though we are all priests, that that means we can all worship God and have access to the throne room of God.
• 1:18:59
  SPEAKER_00: God has very clearly ordained certain people to be leaders, elders, deacons.
• 1:19:05
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 4, Paul says, You must, you must view us as servants of Christ.
• 1:19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And servants of Christ, he changes the word servant from earlier in 1 Corinthians to household slave.
• 1:19:18
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 4 is I'm a household slave.
• 1:19:21
  SPEAKER_00: A household slave has full authority over the house, though he does not own the house.
• 1:19:25
  SPEAKER_00: So he is the chief slave in charge.
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Joseph and Potiphar's house is an example of that.
• 1:19:31
  SPEAKER_00: So there is an authority that God gives, and it's not just like a leadership authority, there's a supernatural authority that is given to leaders that most leaders don't even know they have.
• 1:19:42
  SPEAKER_00: So years ago when we were starting to deal with the demonic, we had a very, uh, very vicious case, one of the most extreme cases and we've ever dealt with.
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember saying to my senior pastor, uh, I need you to come.
• 1:19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like a topical preacher, saved later in life, willow guy.
• 1:19:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he's like, You deal with the weird stuff.
• 1:20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I just said, I need you to come.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget it.
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was praying, I was the youth pastor, I had some elders there, some intercessors.
• 1:20:08
  SPEAKER_00: He was in the corner praying.
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the demon looked at me and said, I'm not dealing with you, I'm dealing with the guy in charge, looked right at my senior pastor and said, He's in charge.
• 1:20:16
  SPEAKER_00: So for you who are elders, it doesn't matter your personality, how boisterous you are.
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is not about domination, it's about power.
• 1:20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And God is ordained, elders and deacons, however, priest, pastor, bishop, there is just an office authority.
• 1:20:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's why in James chapter 5 with healing, he says, as any one of you sick, call the elders of the church, notice, confess your sins to each other and pray for healing.
• 1:20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not a spiritual gift passage.
• 1:20:43
  SPEAKER_00: It has nothing to do with spiritual gifts, it's an office thing, not a gift thing.
• 1:20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And what we found fascinating here is, I mean, our elders are not forever elders.
• 1:20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we have documented multiple healings that have happened because we do elders' prayer every six weeks across our sites.
• 1:21:01
  SPEAKER_00: The elders are available.
• 1:21:02
  SPEAKER_00: We read James 5.
• 1:21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Is anyone sick here today?
• 1:21:05
  SPEAKER_00: The elders are here, and we've had multiple healings take place when elders have prayed over people, but when they stopped being elders, the healing stopped with that person.
• 1:21:15
  SPEAKER_00: So common authority, office authority, and then gift authority.
• 1:21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Where you're spiritually gifted, you'll have greater influence, anointing, ump than I will.
• 1:21:25
  SPEAKER_00: So again, like if you have the spiritual gift of teaching and I don't have the spiritual gift of teaching, then when you teach, there will be an authority, a power from the spirit I don't have.
• 1:21:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's that's critical.
• 1:21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's assignment authority.
• 1:21:39
  SPEAKER_00: I referred to this earlier.
• 1:21:41
  SPEAKER_00: If the Lord gives a leader or a community a specific task or command to do something, there will be a grace behind that that he's not given the church down the street.
• 1:21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where so much of the online like stupidness drives me crazy.
• 1:21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we should all be small churches, we should be house churches, all big churches are bad, all small churches are bad.
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, has anyone asked the Lord's opinion?
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just asking.
• 1:22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because maybe the Lord has sovereignly assigned certain churches to do certain things, and thus there's a grace on you.
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_00: So don't think you're better than the church down the street, but also don't be pissy about the church down the street because they're doing something you can't do because he hasn't given you that grace.
• 1:22:18
  SPEAKER_00: So there's an authority there.
• 1:22:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then I would also say, too, in marriage, uh, again, I know egalitarian, complimentary, the whole conversation, but I would just say again, I just think there's something that, again, not domination, not hierarchical in the ultimate sense at all, but I think there's a spiritual authority if a husband's a Christian.
• 1:22:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when we talk about uh spiritual conflict, for example, we we have all of those in our mind.
• 1:22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Five golf clubs, not one.
• 1:22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, all the leaders I talked about about you know, evaluating spiritual conflict, not one of them talks about spiritual gifts.
• 1:22:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's devastating because spiritual gifts are the ongoing guaranteed place of power.
• 1:22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and office authority is not based on personality, it's based on a credit card.
• 1:23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we want to say is okay, who has what credit card and when do we get to use that?
• 1:23:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so to us, it's not about weird hierarchy or domination, it's just like this is how the world works, this is how the spiritual world works, and so and the diagnostic works really important.
• 1:23:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, like I became the bottleneck early on uh in when we were dealing with the demonic in the very early days, because I would walk in, I didn't know this.
• 1:23:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I have words of knowledge, I have discernment, miracles, and I happen to be a pastor.
• 1:23:38
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, and uh I would like go, well, I prayed about it and I got these three words, so I think you did this and this happened to you, and that did this happen to you.
• 1:23:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, Yeah, I said that's I suppose other doors got opened, and then like I think there's this thing and this thing and this thing in you, and then I'd call them forward and they'd come quite verbosely because of miracles, and then they'd leave.
• 1:23:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then when other people would try doing it, they'd try imitating it, it wouldn't work, and then I'd become prideful.
• 1:24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I suppose I'm so amazing, I'm you know, the oracle or you know, Morpheus in the in the matrix or something stupid, and had to repent of a lot of that.
• 1:24:13
  SPEAKER_00: But what I what then when I realized I had office authority, some of them didn't have, and I had three gifts.
• 1:24:19
  SPEAKER_00: When we put three gifts in the same room and three people, the same thing happened.
• 1:24:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we're just like, let's be honest about where scripture says the power is, and let me end with this it's dad's credit card, it's not my credit card, we're not witches, we don't we don't use power when we want.
• 1:24:39
  SPEAKER_00: We ask.
• 1:24:40
  SPEAKER_00: So when it comes to healing, when it comes to deliverance, we ask.
• 1:24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Even I mean, I speak in tongues, I never wanted to, I was totally against it, then it happened, it's hilarious.
• 1:24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, very rarely do I use it in public, but regularly as a spiritual discipline, I'll say to the Lord, Would you like me to speak in tongues?
• 1:24:57
  SPEAKER_00: To remind me that it's actually not my gift.
• 1:25:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's like discerning people.
• 1:25:02
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't discern anything, He showed you something.
• 1:25:06
  SPEAKER_00: So ask him why he showed you versus I discerned.
• 1:25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that gets weird so quick.
• 1:25:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:25:14
  SPEAKER_02: Man, I'm gonna let you go, but uh man, I wanna I wanna pick at that so much because it it's interesting to me, and and maybe this is just the part two when we we come on, because we'll we'll just we'll work through all of your books a couple months at a time.
• 1:25:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh joking.
• 1:25:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh because I I go okay, if I tell my daughter, hey, I'm leaving, you're in charge while I'm gone, I'm not giving her authority to drive the car, I'm giving her authority to like you know keep her brothers in line, you know?
• 1:25:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like um, so I go, well, if Jesus says, hey, these elders have authority, like authority to what?
• 1:25:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like, does that mean power to cast out demons?
• 1:25:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I go, ah, that feels like a that feels like a leap that I can't make textually.
• 1:25:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I can see that you have like experiential experience with that, but I go, I don't know.
• 1:26:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, they're the here's the way I would say it.
• 1:26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:26:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're the head, they are the headship of the church.
• 1:26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things we talk about in all multiple times in multiple communities is this.
• 1:26:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're not saying that elders, by the way, need to be in every deliverance.
• 1:26:13
  SPEAKER_00: They rarely are here.
• 1:26:15
  SPEAKER_00: But elders are the spiritual umbrella for the church.
• 1:26:19
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're the ones who put up the umbrella of protection or not.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and the truth is, many, many churches have no umbrella up at all.
• 1:26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or if the umbrella is up, it's holes.
• 1:26:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's lots of holes in the umbrella.
• 1:26:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like regularly, we'll submit to the elders and say, you know, we're gonna launch this ministry.
• 1:26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Do we have your blessing?
• 1:26:39
  SPEAKER_00: We all know this is true.
• 1:26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if if a pastor doesn't give their blessing behind something, it it tends to die or goes subversive and gets weird.
• 1:26:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying eldership, um, headship, authority, there's just there's endowed leadership.
• 1:26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in my in again, every church, depending on its size and scope, changes this.
• 1:27:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, for example, uh, we have 42 staff.
• 1:27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, currently, I'm the only staff member who sits on the elders' board, right?
• 1:27:09
  SPEAKER_00: That may be fundamentally different in your church, how it's expressed.
• 1:27:12
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm just trying to say in this moment of its spiritual conflict is this a simple thing.
• 1:27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's much larger than spiritual conflict, but it's a simple thing.
• 1:27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Trust me, the demonic know who has office authority.
• 1:27:24
  SPEAKER_00: They know.
• 1:27:26
  SPEAKER_02: No, it it's it's interesting that you say it because I'm I would I would imagine you and your elders, you're at a conference, someone there who is demonized, you would not expect to see the same kind of authority that you're describing here in that setting outside of what would be common and related to their gifting.
• 1:27:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because they're right person that's not and that's the reason in part why you guys don't take people from other churches typically, I would imagine, in your deliveries.
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm in another environment and this begins to break out, uh whether it is a renewal moment or dealing with the demotic multiple different things, and many leaders around the world will attest to this, um, I will immediately go to the priest in charge, the pastor in charge, the elders, and say, Do I have your permission to act?
• 1:28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do I have your permission to speak?
• 1:28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not my house.
• 1:28:18
  SPEAKER_02: No, and I it's funny because there was a guy who's doing a deliverance that I know that I have massive respect for, and he was doing ministry with this lady for multiple sessions, and this thing wasn't coming out.
• 1:28:29
  SPEAKER_02: And he just felt the Lord tell her, You need to go to a local church, you need to be a member of a church, because she wasn't a member of a church, and and and she just wouldn't do it.
• 1:28:38
  SPEAKER_02: So he wouldn't pray for her again.
• 1:28:40
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 1:28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um mutual submission and and and again, like when I've been in the UK in the last four years and it on the ground, like genuine moves, like sovereign, revivalistic, like documented, like Wesleyan things in the room, I immediately, even if I'm discerning stuff, the Lord's showing me stuff, if I have words of knowledge, I will always submit to the leader in the room because he or they are responsible before Christ for that parish or community.
• 1:29:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not.
• 1:29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, I might have apostolic influence that, and I mean that not in the capital A, like um, you know, that's done.
• 1:29:22
  SPEAKER_00: I just mean in the sense of like transcultural authority.
• 1:29:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's something that happens to me all the time.
• 1:29:27
  SPEAKER_00: But even with that, I regularly submit because I understand how God has set this up.
• 1:29:33
  SPEAKER_02: Man, I'm gonna have to invite you back on to like talk about the NAR because I can see how this gets into some weird territory in some spaces because they've built entire ecosystems around the idea that if you submit to apostles and prophets, you get the overflow and blessing of their life, and you've got to be submitted to these people.
• 1:29:48
  SPEAKER_02: So much trouble.
• 1:29:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it creates weirdness, but like I could hear someone weird listening to what you're saying and go, Well, isn't that kind of the same thing?
• 1:29:55
  SPEAKER_02: But you're saying not at all.
• 1:29:56
  SPEAKER_00: No, I would actually say if if someone would consider me an apostle, which I would never use that language, but I'm saying I'm submitting to the local pastor.
• 1:30:05
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 1:30:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:30:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm it's the reverse of what they're saying.
• 1:30:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm literally saying it's your house, it's your church, it doesn't matter who I am.
• 1:30:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think the Lord would like to do this.
• 1:30:17
  SPEAKER_00: What would you like to do with this?
• 1:30:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's the total reverse of them.
• 1:30:22
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:30:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't matter I'm John Thompson.
• 1:30:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's relevant.
• 1:30:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's I see that I see the thumbnail.
• 1:30:27
  SPEAKER_02: Podcast on authority.
• 1:30:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's coming.
• 1:30:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's got to, you know, we'll figure out when we can do something.
• 1:30:31
  SPEAKER_02: But hey, thank you so much, John.
• 1:30:33
  SPEAKER_02: I I like these conversations because they're very conversational.
• 1:30:36
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote three, I wrote, I have 30 questions in this document, and I think I asked three of them that we read, and we just kind of tangented to one thing to another because that I think that's more interesting for people to follow along with anyway.
• 1:30:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, thank you so much for for joining us.
• 1:30:47
  SPEAKER_02: I always enjoy uh having you on the podcast.
• 1:30:50
  SPEAKER_02: Three books you want people looking out for.
• 1:30:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um tell them where they are, where they can find them.
• 1:30:54
  SPEAKER_02: I know that they're all releasing there with Zondra Van.
• 1:30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:30:57
  SPEAKER_00: So Convergence came out in April.
• 1:30:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's again the that's the journey our church took theologically, experientially, and gifts, disciplines, and then talks about how we live through our revival.
• 1:31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh Presence comes out uh a week today.
• 1:31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're recording, I think, on September, I don't know, 13th right now, whatever it is.
• 1:31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that is taking love, word, and power and applying it to evangelism.
• 1:31:17
  SPEAKER_00: Completely different conversation.
• 1:31:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's called Presence.
• 1:31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Deliverance, which my friends on this podcast read the original variation of, is re-released in February.
• 1:31:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're all available through Amazon and local Christian bookstores and Barnes and Noble or Waterstones if you live in can't uh in uh the UK or um chapters in Canada, wherever you live, and then um other books later.
• 1:31:39
  SPEAKER_00: But those, those, those are the books.
• 1:31:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, this is what I want you guys to do.
• 1:31:42
  SPEAKER_02: I want you to go pick up one of those books and then leave an Amazon comment when you've read it uh there on Amazon so that he can he can know it and say, I watched John on the Rimnit episode, and that's how I got this book, so that he will feel like he can come back on the program because I kept him 30 minutes longer than I told him I would.
• 1:31:59
  SPEAKER_02: And and we need to give the guy a little kickback.
• 1:32:01
  SPEAKER_02: So you guys help out John so that he'll come back on the podcast.
• 1:32:04
  SPEAKER_02: John, thank you so much for coming on, man.
• 1:32:06
  SPEAKER_02: I always enjoy our talks.
• 1:32:07
  SPEAKER_02: You always make me think because you come from a different stream, and it's it's a lot of fun.
• 1:32:10
  SPEAKER_02: So uh thanks for jumping on, man.
• 1:32:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's an honor.
• 1:32:13
  SPEAKER_00: God bless you, and say out to your friends.
• 1:32:15
  SPEAKER_02: We'll do, we'll do.