Alright. Well, welcome. Thanks for coming to our second TalkBack of the summer. It's good to see so many people come out to, discuss theology or maybe just to have beer. But glad you're here.
Joel Brooks:Some people are like, discuss theology? You have this panic look. Let me explain to you the format for tonight. I'm gonna talk for about, I don't know, maybe 50 minutes or so. I'll I'll I'll try to end it up by 8.
Joel Brooks:We'll take a little break. You can get another drink if you want to make the q and a lively, I guess. And then we'll have a time of q and a until, till 9 o'clock. The topic tonight is going to be the person of the Holy Spirit. Obviously, this is a really large topic, so we cannot get to everything.
Joel Brooks:I'm not gonna be able to address every issue. But I hope to give a good overview of things. And then if you want to ask questions about a very particular issue, you'll have time to do that in the second half. Let me give you a summary at the start of things that, we all believe, every Christian believes concerning the spirit. Because I know a lot of you come from different denominational backgrounds.
Joel Brooks:Some of you are Catholics. Some of you came from Protestant backgrounds. And, charismatic, not charismatic in the slightest. So I think a lot of us come from very different backgrounds. I just want to start with this unifying statement of what all Christians believe.
Joel Brooks:All Christians believe that the Holy Spirit unites us. He convicts us of sin. He leads us to repentance. He seals the promises of God in our hearts. He pours the love of God into our hearts.
Joel Brooks:He testifies that we are sons of God and cries Abba Father. He guides us, leads us into truth, gives us understanding, intercedes for us, brings fruit into our lives. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self control. He gives us to serve the church. So these are just some of the things that all Christians believe.
Joel Brooks:And so no matter what, persuasion you are, just realize that you have a lot more in common than probably you disagree with with some of the people here in this room. Now, I like to start off by talking exactly who the spirit is. When I came up with the title for this talk, I wanted to be sure to put the word person in there. I'm going to talk about the person of the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit is a person.
Joel Brooks:The Holy Spirit is not a thing, not a what. And and I feel that this needs to be addressed at the start because I think some of us might, come from a place where the holy spirit was talked about that way, seemed more like a impersonal force than a personality. Often, I have heard the spirit referred to even in prayer as an it. Thankfully, I keep that every time I hear that, I cringe, and I think God's a lot more patient than I am because if you call me an it, I'd get really angry. And and God is very patient when we do that.
Joel Brooks:Usually, that's said by somebody who just has a misunderstanding of who God is. But but calling God in it and thinking of him as great consequences. Over the years, I've had after worship services, some people come up to me and they'll be like, gosh, that service was so good. Can can you feel it? Can you feel it?
Joel Brooks:I mean, the Holy Spirit is so present. And I always just cringe, you know, just, well, I I I sensed him working. I sensed him. He's not an it. Let me give you just a few places in scripture that support this idea of personhood.
Joel Brooks:Acts 13:2 says this, while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. So it's the Holy Spirit, and he says, set apart for me. He uses a personal pronoun here. For the work to which I have called them. John 15 through 16, those chapters, the language that Jesus uses to describe the Holy Spirit is language you could only use to describe a person.
Joel Brooks:Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit speaks. He hears. He guides. He takes. He convicts.
Joel Brooks:He testifies. And over and over again, Jesus refers to the spirit of God as a hymn. He will do these things. In Romans 8, we have the spirit of God groaning. He's described as having a mind.
Joel Brooks:In Ephesians 4, the holy spirit is grieved. You can't grieve a force. In Hebrews 2, we see the Holy Spirit has a will. And so, we we could go on, but hopefully, you get the point here that the Holy Spirit throughout scripture is presented as a person. I once had a a professor.
Joel Brooks:It was a visiting professor who came in, and he actually taught on the Holy Spirit. And, his summary statement was, well, the Holy Spirit is a lot like the Force in Star Wars. And he's a or it's a mystery, and it is what it is. And I thought, I'm paying money for this. Well, if he is a person, the question is, what kind of person is he?
Joel Brooks:Is he like you? Is he like me? Is he like an angel? You know, that's what Islam believes. Islam believes that the Holy Spirit is the angel Gabriel.
Joel Brooks:And that's how they would interpret our scriptures. Well, scripture, if you look at the Bible, teaches us that the Holy Spirit is nothing short of God himself. And this is, of course, probably everybody in here has heard of the trinity, that God exists as 3 persons. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Three persons, one God.
Joel Brooks:One of the places that you're going to best see this is one of the most familiar verses in the Bible. It's the Great Commission. It's when you come to Matthew chapter 28. It's Jesus's parting words, and he says, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. And he he says, baptizing them in the singular name, the one name with these three different people of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Joel Brooks:I I would take time to unpack a little bit more the Trinity, but that would take a long, long time. But let me give you just a few more texts that support the deity of the Holy Spirit. You have Acts 8. If you remember that unusual bizarre story, Ananias, he lies to Peter. He's struck down dead later, but when he lies to Peter, Peter says, why have you lied to the Holy Spirit?
Joel Brooks:You have lied to God, not to me. And so he associates the Holy Spirit as God. Throughout scripture, you're gonna find the phrases born of God, born of the spirit, used interchangeably. And so the spirit is clearly God. We could go on.
Joel Brooks:I think that's enough. What I wanna look at is really and spend most of our time is not just on the personhood of God or the deity or a personhood of the spirit, the deity of the spirit, but really, how does that affect us? What is his role in our lives? What what is his role, period? How does he relate to the world?
Joel Brooks:How does he relate to our salvation? And when you look at scripture, you're gonna see that each person of the trinity relates to the world, relates our salvation in different ways. Each of them have what I would call primary functions. And they're not exclusive functions because the roles of the father, the spirit, they overlap a whole lot. But when you look at scripture, it seems like these three persons have primary functions.
Joel Brooks:So let's, let's look at creation. We know god the father spoke the world into being. He spoke creation. But it was god the son who actually carried out this creative word. And so we have verses like John 13 that says, all things were made through Him.
Joel Brooks:That's the son. And without him, not anything was made that was made. And then we see the Holy Spirit active in creation from the very first pages or verse in in Genesis, you see the Holy Spirit. He's he's moving, and he's hovering over those chaotic waters. And so you have each one, each person in the Trinity having a different role in creation.
Joel Brooks:Now you see this in salvation. God, the Father planned our salvation. God, the Son executed our salvation. God, the spirit is the one who applies our salvation. And so you see each one of these roles.
Joel Brooks:Now, understanding how the Spirit applies this, how He he gives us a new heart, how He convicts us of our sins, how He fills us, how He empowers us, how He makes us holy. Understanding how he does this, can be seen in a number of different ways. And and let me just paint real quick 2 completely different camps. And just know that how you understand this is gonna greatly affect your Christian life, how you see the Holy Spirit influencing your life, how he is working out salvation in your life. So here's 2 camps, 2 extreme camps.
Joel Brooks:On one extreme, there is the belief that the Holy Spirit functions primarily in what we would call the the institutional church. The holy spirit works functions primarily through the structures of the church. This is how I like to think of it. Just as, we looked at the last, talk back. Jesus is the incarnation of God.
Joel Brooks:So when you saw Jesus, you saw God in the flesh. The church is the incarnation of the Holy Spirit. So when you look at the church, you are seeing the spirit now come and being among us. And so this is how the Holy Spirit is present in the world. How he works.
Joel Brooks:And if you believe this, you're going to see the institution of the church and the ministers of the church having great importance because you're gonna see the ministers of the church as being specially gifted by the Holy Spirit. That they're the ones who give out the Holy Spirit. And you're gonna see them in a sense as infallible. This is, of course, what the Catholic church holds to. The Catholic church holds to this position.
Joel Brooks:They believe that it's through the the bishop of Rome, the pope, that he is infallible. And this kind of trickles down into the priest because they're gonna teach what the pope says. And so the priesthood is how the Holy Spirit is ministered out through the institutions of the church. And so if, if you want to be filled with the spirit, if you want to have the Holy Spirit in you and to live a holy life and you are a Catholic, what you will need to do is you'll need to go to church where you can receive the Holy Spirit from the priest. This is how you're filled.
Joel Brooks:I mean, if the church is the embodiment of the Holy Spirit, then the only way you can receive the spirit is then to go to church and to get him. And the way that the Holy Spirit is given out is what's, is technically technically called just the ministry of the altar. The Holy Spirit is given out through baptism, given out through the sacraments. So when you receive baptism, when you receive the sacraments, you are being filled with the spirit. That's what the Catholics would believe.
Joel Brooks:And you'll be filled with the Spirit no matter what. Belief does not matter. Because the priest is just giving you the spirit. Belief does not matter. So if you're baptized or if you partake in holy communion, you're gonna receive the spirit of God whether whether you believe it or not.
Joel Brooks:And this is why the sacraments are a huge deal. I know a number of you grew up Catholic, and you know this. Sacraments are a huge deal in the Catholic church. This is why there is mass every single day because this is how you are receiving the spirit. This is how you live a holy life.
Joel Brooks:It's how one becomes saved. I mean, in a good way to kind of think of what's happening here is, you know, let's say you're in the Catholic church, you're baptized as a child, you're given the sacraments, you know, early. It's kinda like becoming a citizen of a country. When when you're born into a country, you're a citizen of the country. It doesn't you got see once they have given you these sacraments and once the Holy Spirit has been given you given to you that you are part of the church no matter where you go, no matter what you do, no matter what you believe.
Joel Brooks:This is just given to you. On the other end of the spectrum is the belief that the Holy Spirit works primarily, not through the church, but through individuals, in a what we will call a spiritual way. So the Holy Spirit is not given through the institution of the church. It's really a a spiritual matter, in which belief is the only thing that matters. You have to believe this in order to receive the Holy Spirit.
Joel Brooks:So, you you don't have to go to church. You don't have to take holy communion. You don't have to be baptized. You don't have to do any of those things in order to be filled with the spirit. What you do have to do is believe.
Joel Brooks:Believe the gospel. Even regular prayer time, even, reading your Bible, even devotional life is not required. Simply belief. This group of people has a really hard time usually, going through books like the book of James and when you come across works and things that you must do, and they're like, I don't understand how works has anything to do with my salvation because all I have to do is believe, believe, believe. This is the group that uses the word freedom a whole lot.
Joel Brooks:I'm free, And freedom is an excuse to do whatever you want. You can, you can be, gluttonous. You can use all the profanity you want. You can, you can drink all the alcohol you want. You can do what pretty much ever you want to do because being filled with the spirit has nothing to do with your actions.
Joel Brooks:It's simply what you believe. We're actually gonna look some of this at, at church at Redeemer for the next 2 weeks. This coming week, we're gonna look at, the holiness of god. And then the following week, we're gonna look at at what it means or looks like for us to live a holy life, because I think it's something that has really just fallen by the wayside in the contemporary church. Well, these are the 2 ends of the spectrum.
Joel Brooks:These are 2 very different ways that we we think that the Holy Spirit can come into our lives. 1, through the institution of the church, through the priesthood. The other is simply through the individual, through a spiritual experience that comes simply from belief. So how do we know if the Holy Spirit is working in our life? How do we know?
Joel Brooks:I mean, we just saw these two extremes, but so for us in here now, how do we know? How does one know if if you're filled with the spirit? Well, if you're filled with the spirit of God, the holy spirit of God, the church has always understood that your life will be marked by holiness. Makes sense. The Holy Spirit comes inside you.
Joel Brooks:Therefore, you will live a holy life. That's the sign of the Holy Spirit working in your life is a life of holiness. The problem is, we all define holiness differently. Everybody has their own view of holiness. You know, holiness for, maybe for that one extreme, the Catholics might simply be, well, you just have to take mass.
Joel Brooks:You just have to be baptized. For the other extreme, it's simply, I just have to believe. What is holiness? And and I'm just gonna kinda walk through the last few centuries of how the church has viewed holiness, what it looks like in our lives because it's changed a whole lot. And it's important for you to understand where you are in church history because church history, you're you're always placed in a current.
Joel Brooks:You're always placed where in a reaction against something. What what you believed growing up is always a reaction against something, and you just kinda need to know where you are in that. How did you get here to believe what you believe now about holiness and what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit? Well, in the late 18th century, we'll start there. You had what was called the holiness movement.
Joel Brooks:This is where people like John Wesley, who was the father of the Methodist Church, he thought that if you were filled with the Holy Spirit or if you were baptized with the Spirit, then you could actually live such a holy life that you would achieve a sinless state. That's what being holy was was was being able to achieve a sinless state. You you would be so filled with the spirit that you would no longer sin. And just just so you know, Wesley never claimed that that happened to him. He just claimed that it was possible.
Joel Brooks:And really, the only reason that he could ever claim that that was even possible because the way they define sin was outward, not inward. And so, sin for the most part was limited to external things like drinking or fornicating. So so to live a sinless life was to simply abstain from these things or to give them up. And so certainly, that's not beyond the realm of possibility if you think of that. So to be filled with the Holy Spirit meant you didn't do certain things.
Joel Brooks:That's what it meant to be a holy life, to live a holy life. And this tradition stayed really strong for over a 100 years to the early 1900. If you were to ask anybody from the 19 twenties, so 90 years ago, what does it mean to live a holy life? What does it mean to be filled with the holy spirit? They're gonna say, well, holy living is you don't play cards.
Joel Brooks:You don't go to the movies. You don't drink. They're gonna give you all these don'ts. That's what you don't do. And, actually, I mean, we laugh at this, but it was absolutely true at this time.
Joel Brooks:On Sundays, they would close the blinds so kids wouldn't look outside and be tempted to play. If you went into a park as a child, the swings on Sundays would actually be locked up. I don't know if you if you've ever seen Chariots of Fire. It's my favorite movie, and it takes place during the twenties. And there's this great scene of Eric Liddell.
Joel Brooks:He's the main runner in the movie. He ran in the Olympics. He's a Christian. He's coming outside of a church in Scotland, and some boys who'd already been to church were out there, and they were kicking a soccer ball, and he gets it. He's like, boys, what is today?
Joel Brooks:It's the Lord's day. Right? And I'm like, yes. He says, you you you know better. You can't kick a ball on a Sunday.
Joel Brooks:That's that's not being holy. There's there's no room for play. And so this is what holiness looked like. Now obviously, people began to see flaws in this and react against it. People came to see, well, that's that's not really holiness.
Joel Brooks:That kind of feels like legalism to me. But if that's not holiness, then what is? What's gonna replace that? What is it what does it now mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit? And so the pendulum swung over here, and the, the answer was, well, now you need to have a, really a an incredible spiritual experience.
Joel Brooks:That's what it means to be holy. That's what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You you're gonna have this super incredible experience past after your conversion. You're gonna have this encounter with the Lord. And so, this is an additional work.
Joel Brooks:It's not conversion. It comes after conversion, and this is called the second blessing. You will have the second blessing. And when you receive the second blessing, you are now holy. And you didn't experience this in the quietness of your heart.
Joel Brooks:There was usually something very visible about it. Often it, it came with the experience of tongues. Tongues became the sign that one was filled with the spirit. And so the pendulum swings this way. There's an immediate backlash against that, led by a person maybe you perhaps read, BB Warfield.
Joel Brooks:He was, the president of Princeton Theological Seminary at the time, and he wrote a book called Counterfeit Miracles. And it was a total condemnation of this second blessing, and these gifts of the spirit, and that this is how you're filled with the Holy Spirit. He said, this is nothing more than emotionalism. This is heresy. And by the way, that book is still in print.
Joel Brooks:It's it's been in print for about a 100 years. And Warfield argued in his book that these manifestations of the spirit, they are false because these gifts of the spirit that everybody's having, gifts like tongues and prophecy and miracles and healings and things like that, they no longer exist. So they're all counterfeited. He said that those were given just in the 1st century as a way of validating the apostles authority. That the apostles could speak the word of God, that their word was scripture.
Joel Brooks:And then after scripture was recorded, after the apostles died, those gifts ceased. They died out. Just to be clear, Warfield still acknowledged miracles happened. He still acknowledged the supernatural. Some charismatic wrongly accused him of saying he didn't believe that God did the supernatural.
Joel Brooks:He believed those things, just that God didn't gift people for that. And that there weren't these second blessings that these giftings came out. The position that he came up with came to be known as cessationism, which is the word cease. Cessationism. That the gifts of the spirit have ceased.
Joel Brooks:And this was held by almost all mainstream Protestant churches up into the early seventies. So we're starting to get a lot closer to where we are now. I mean, all the main denominations pretty much held to this. And I know it's hard to believe because, I mean, now you have Presbyterians who, heal people or speak in tongues. And I mean, now that that just doesn't seem to be the case, but 40 years ago, it certainly was.
Joel Brooks:You would be kicked out of a church if you spoke in tongues. I mean, I I grew up I'm Southern Baptist. And in the church I grew up in, tongues was still referred to as demon talk. And so it it was from absolutely from the devil. So you just wouldn't go there.
Joel Brooks:Just so you know, I'm I would call myself a reformed charismatic, which means charismatic hate me and so do the reform people. So if if you're not offended by the end of this, then I probably didn't get my point across. Alright? So I'm I'm in this unusual position. But I believe BB Warfield's argument is actually very weak, very weak.
Joel Brooks:He would make statements like, you know, the gift of tongues hasn't been around for 1900 years. So why are we supposed to believe it's around now? Well, that that's just a gross misunderstanding of history. It was all around during the great awakening. It had been around for many times.
Joel Brooks:The medieval mystics' tongues have made an appearance, and so he was just wrong. And then, he his scriptural arguments were really just based on not much. His main argument was just historical silence. He just thought you look at the church and these gifts really weren't there that much, or he would say none at all afterwards. Now I think his argument's weak because it is not really I don't believe it is a scriptural argument.
Joel Brooks:I've got a, a lot of friends who hold to this position that the gifts of the spirit have ceased. And when I push them on it, it's more of a reaction to seeing the gifts abused than a scriptural argument. I'm convinced by scripture that they are no longer around. Normally, they just see these gifts as really inconvenient, and the people who have them are really annoying. You know?
Joel Brooks:You know? Like, so, so they they can't they can't be for the church, and you just kinda throw that out. And have the gifts been abused? Absolutely. These gifts have been abused, but, you know, teaching's been abused, and we don't throw out teaching.
Joel Brooks:Evangelism, you know, look at Benny Hinn. It's been abused. We don't we don't throw that out. And so you don't just throw out the baby with the bathwater. You need to be convinced by scripture that the gifts have ceased.
Joel Brooks:And the scripture, I don't believe is there. If you want to ask me more about this during our q and a time, please ask me, and that's fine. I can walk you through exactly the scriptural arguments for why I think that's a very weak position. But let me just move on kind of in the history. Because I'm the the cessationist argument really was anchored in scripture, it never fully got rid of that second blessing movement.
Joel Brooks:And so there became a revival of that movement called Pentecostalism. I mean, it just well, it was already there, but then it just started coming full blown in the late sixties, early seventies. This is what we would know as the modern charismatic movement. Late sixties, early seventies. And I I would just say that there's a lot of things to greatly appreciate about this movement.
Joel Brooks:I'll start with those. You know, one of the things I love is about this movement is holiness and being filled with the spirit is no longer achieved by not doing things. Like, we're not gonna play on Sunday. We're not gonna drink. You know, we're not gonna smoke.
Joel Brooks:And so the Holy Spirit, they no longer saw it as coming that way. And I think that was very good. And they would see holiness comes from being proactive in the Christian life. Proactive in seeking the spirit. I think that was a a major step forward.
Joel Brooks:Along with this, being holy now became seen as a very joyful thing. The Spirit filled life is a life filled with joy. The older views seem to be much more legalistic and more defined by a sense of duty. You did these things, not out of joy. And another really good outcome of this modern charismatic movement is now the spirit of God is being talked about in the modern church more than any other time in history.
Joel Brooks:So the holy spirit, if you if you look at church history, he was often the neglected member of the trinity, but not anymore. I mean, now there's there's the the focus. He's received his due focus, getting his deserved attention. Now the negatives to this modern charismatic movement, well, let me just mention 4. 4 4 4 negatives, 4 common errors, I think, that they tend to.
Joel Brooks:And if you want to ask me about any of these more, during the q and a time, feel free to. But one of the main problems I see of this charismatic movement is the focus on spiritual experience. This is something necessary for one to have God in their life. They have to have this remarkable emotional experience. And what happens is, they could start seeking an experience instead of seeking God.
Joel Brooks:And it comes from a misunderstanding thinking that everybody is supposed to have their own little Pentecost. You know, it's Pentecost week, and, everybody thinks, well, what happened to the to the apostles? That's supposed to happen to us. And they see that as normative. I would say, well, actually, if you want to look, it's it's funny.
Joel Brooks:A lot of Pentecostals, they read Acts this way, and we we could talk more about this later. But they always identify with the apostles. So they don't identify like the, you know, the apostles' tongues of fire come, you know, down in the room. They burst out, you know, just proclaiming, speaking in tongues. And that is who Pentecostals identify with, where probably you should identify with the Genta or with the, the pagans to which they preached.
Joel Brooks:To which it says that, what shall we do? Well, you should repent, you should be baptized, and you will receive the Holy Spirit. A much more normative, what we would say is a Christian experience. And usually we, the, Pentecostals don't see a, a distinction between the Spirit's role in the apostles life and the Spirit's role in our lives. And I think that's there.
Joel Brooks:I think it's helpful to think of your own conversion experience. Some of you have spectacular conversions. I mean, it's like amazing. You know? Others, you're like, well, I'm not really even sure when I came to know the Lord, and it just seems really boring.
Joel Brooks:There was no huge experience. That's okay. We we share testimonies all the time at Redeemer. Sometimes we share these incredible encounters and spiritual experiences with God, And sometimes it's people like, well, you know, I grew up in church. Not really sure when I came to know the Lord, but I but I know him.
Joel Brooks:It's kinda like an old married couple, and they can't remember the first time they met. You know what? They're still married. Alright? This is you you don't have to have that remember that experience.
Joel Brooks:Okay? The question is now. Now do you know God? Now is there fruit in your life? Now are you growing in sanctification?
Joel Brooks:2nd error. It's along the same lines, and that's a tendency for charismatic to see everything through a subjective lens. They interpret everything through their own experience rather than through scripture. Now let me tell you, this is a mistake that all of us are prone to. Okay?
Joel Brooks:It's not just charismatic. All of us are prone to. I mean, almost every single Sunday, somebody comes up to me after the service and says, man, you know what? I loved it when you said blank. That really spoke to me.
Joel Brooks:The problem is I didn't say blank. Alright? If it was really good, I was like, yeah. Yeah. I mean, just be sure to cite me on that.
Joel Brooks:But but we all We we hear what we want to hear. We're we're all coming in with our own experiences, and we all hear what we want to hear. We do that all the time. We we interpret things through our own experiences. And so I, you know, I've seen that over and over.
Joel Brooks:Now the charismatic movement as a whole has especially been guilty of this, reading their experiences into the Bible. So they're not necessarily looking at what the Bible says, but they're reading their own experience into it. For instance, if they have had a certain experience with tongues, they're gonna find that in the bible to validate the experience they just had. And they're gonna read all of scripture in light of that. Let me tell you what.
Joel Brooks:You could go to the Bible to pretty much just justify any experience you you have, especially if you go to, like, the book of Acts, which I mean, maybe I should talk about this here. You know, axe describes a lot of things, but it doesn't prescribe. So there's a lot of description in axe, but there's very little prescription. And so if you, well, for instance, you know, you can look at times where the Holy Spirit came down. Acts chapter 2, Acts chapter 4, Acts chapter 8, Acts chapter 10, Acts chapter 19.
Joel Brooks:Alright. You can you can look at all of those instances. You're gonna find the Holy Spirit coming down after people believed, when they believed, and before they believed. So which is it? But whatever experience you had, you're gonna read that now into all the different areas of the spirit.
Joel Brooks:So acts, it's just describing God could work these ways. He's he's not saying this is how he works every time because how is he gonna work every time? It's all over the place in acts. 3rd error. The charismatic movement is, something I touched on earlier.
Joel Brooks:They treat the Holy Spirit often like a impersonal power and not a person. It's a tragic error. When you think of the spirit of God, you should think of the presence of God, not the power of God. The presence of God, not the power of God. And so our relationship with the Holy Spirit is not a relationship with the power.
Joel Brooks:It's a relationship with a person, which means he's gonna point things out in our life that we might not want somebody to point out, just like a really good friend does that to us. He's not a person we control. You know, you you don't have friends that you just command to do things. And often that's our relationship with the spirit. We just ask him to do things.
Joel Brooks:Instead of really listening to him, we just tell him what he want we want him to do. And that's not a relationship with a person. We make the mistake of Simeon the magician. You know, in acts 8, he sees this the Holy Spirit power. He's like, I want I want that.
Joel Brooks:I I want that power. He doesn't care about the person. He just wants the power. It's kinda like what people pursue political office for at times. They they think, well, if I just got the office, I could do so much good.
Joel Brooks:But really, they just want the power. And some of us relate that way to the Holy Spirit. We're not even thinking, I would like to serve other people. I would like to serve the church. We just we just want the power.
Joel Brooks:Final error. The holy or the final error is that the cross often loses its central focus. Now charismatic would never say this because, of course, you know, I I call myself charismatic just simply meaning I believe in the gifts of the spirit. So charismatic wouldn't say this. However, you're gonna see often a neglect of the cross in their teaching.
Joel Brooks:What you're gonna get often in charismatic teaching is Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit. Alter call for to receive Holy Spirit. Everything is gonna be about the Holy Spirit, and there's gonna be a neglect of the cross. Thinking that in order for the church to receive the power of the Holy Spirit, you have to preach the Holy Spirit. Where historically, if you wanna receive the power of the Holy Spirit, you preach Christ.
Joel Brooks:You preach the cross. Romans 1 says, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of god. First Corinthians 118 for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Listen, I've I've gone to so many events where, I call them events. They were actually church services.
Joel Brooks:I've gone to so many events where it's, you know, be filled with the spirit, come forward, and everything was about the spirit, spirit, spirit. Come. Let us fill you with the spirit. And it's just so interesting because you only have one command in scripture. Ephesians 5 that talks about being filled with the spirit.
Joel Brooks:That's the only command, be filled with the spirit, Ephesians 5. The problem is Paul doesn't tell you how to be filled with the spirit. He commands you be filled with the spirit, but then he doesn't tell you how. You don't see that. But but so people start filling in the blanks.
Joel Brooks:But the way that we do know that people have been filled in the spirit is when you look at places like Colossians, when it says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. That's synonymous with being filled in the spirit, letting Christ's words dwell in you. Or my favorite is when you come to Acts 4, and it's right after Peter has been re released from prison. The church is just starting to suffer, and they pray for boldness. They pray that Jesus would be lifted up, and when they pray that, it says they are filled with the spirit.
Joel Brooks:There's nothing in their prayer that talks about the Holy Spirit. But there's everything about God. Let us proclaim Don't let us back down in proclaiming the gospel. We want to declare you Jesus and then fill. And so I really think one of the ways that we are filled with the spirit, I might even say the primary way we are filled with the spirit, is if we just go about living out our calling to proclaim the gospel.
Joel Brooks:Because the holy spirit longs to see Jesus lifted up, and if he sees the opportunity to make that happen, he will jump on it. And so the Holy Spirit fills us. Let me quickly because I want to end so I'm gonna end by 8. Try to end even before that. So before we get to the q and a, let me just tell you some primary evidences of being filled with the Holy Spirit of living a holy life.
Joel Brooks:One, we read from John 16 that there will be conviction of sin. The Holy Spirit is present in you. It doesn't always feel great. There could be a terrible conviction. And that's one of the things if you look at genuine revivals throughout history, the one thing that really marks a genuine revival is not all these manifestations of the spirit, not tongues, not healings, but it's there's always been a deep conviction of sin.
Joel Brooks:People have wept over their sins. That's what the Spirit is said to do by Jesus. What He said to do in John 16. There's a hunger for the word. I just alluded to that in John 3 or Colossians 3, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
Joel Brooks:It's the same as being filled with the spirit. Whenever you look through the book of Acts and you have people standing up full of the spirit, listen to what follows. It is like scripture, scripture, scripture, scripture. They just flow out scripture from them. Being filled with scripture is a way we are filled with the spirit.
Joel Brooks:There's unity with believers. We find that in John 17. And I think one of the most important is there is fruit. Not gifting necessarily as we would think of it, but fruit. There is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self control.
Joel Brooks:Those mark a Christian who is filled with the Holy Spirit. Alright. I'm in there. Y'all take a break and, think of some questions, and we'll, we'll convene in 10 minutes. Let me, let me kind of talk through, how we're gonna do the, q and a time.
Joel Brooks:One, we're gonna be very gracious with one another because I know we all do come from different, backgrounds. And, our goal is worship as always. We wanna know the Lord more. And if I don't know the answer to a question, I have no problem saying I don't know. That might actually come out a good bit.
Joel Brooks:I'm not a, doctor Cole or doctor Gindilette or the people who have memorized the Bible in Greek and Hebrew. And so, if I don't know, I promise you, I will just say that's a great question. And give me a week to look that up. And so so hopefully, you you will be able to trust what I say when I when I do answer. Also, I didn't have dinner and I just had a high gravity beer.
Joel Brooks:So the the the answers are probably gonna be awesome. I'm sure the questions will as well. So if you wanna ask questions, more maybe about a particular gift or baptism of the spirit or why I'm not a cessationist or something about the I don't know. What whatever you wanna talk about or ask a question about concerning the Holy Spirit, now's your chance. And I'll repeat the question so everybody can hear.
Joel Brooks:Go ahead.
Collin Hansen:Do you speak in tongues? Do you encourage us to do so? That's not a natural language.
Joel Brooks:No. No. It's not. No. I do not speak in tongues.
Collin Hansen:You wish
Joel Brooks:you did. I I I'll tell you my history in that. I wished for so long I had. I I grew up let me just tell you my theological journey. Grew up Southern Baptist.
Joel Brooks:When I was in college, I went to a Methodist. I was involved in a Methodist ministry because the Baptist were super liberal and the Methodists were the conservative ones. And at the Methodist ministry, I became reformed. And through my reformed friends, they exposed me to the charismatic, my charismatic theology. So it's all messed up.
Joel Brooks:But, when I was there, I was the only one of my friends. I actually made a guy named Andy Byers, who you know. We were we were the only ones who actually did not have that gift And prayed for it repeatedly, of my friends, because it was it it was a very charismatic circle. And God just said no to me in that and, and maybe gave me teaching. I'll let y'all decide if that was the gift or not.
Joel Brooks:And so I think that, yes, you're to earnestly desire spiritual gifts, but also know that the spirit of God is the one who gives. You know, Paul says, not all speak in tongues. He gives the gifts whom he decides what they should have. Good question. Go ahead, Elaine.
Joel Brooks:This kind
Speaker 3:of follows that a little bit.
Joel Brooks:Yeah. The question is, if the gifts haven't ceased, should they be present in a healthy church? I guess the question would be, should they be present in every local church? So so whatever the local body is, not just in the church at large, but in a local body. I don't believe the gifts have ceased.
Joel Brooks:And let me first just start with the argument of that. When you look at first Corinthians if you all wanna turn to first Corinthians 13, that's, you know, that's, the love chapter, but it's also the gift chapter. Alright? Every wedding. Let me just read to you, 1st Corinthians 138.
Joel Brooks:Says love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
Joel Brooks:When I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
Joel Brooks:Now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I have been known. So here we see some gifts ceasing. Prophecies will pass away. Tongues will cease. Knowledge will pass away.
Joel Brooks:Even my most cessationist friends say knowledge has not passed away though. It's tied in this text here. It says, when the perfect comes, these things pass away. And so you have to know what is the perfect. And so a cessationist would say the perfect is scripture.
Joel Brooks:When scripture was finally finished, there was no longer a need for these gifts except for knowledge. For some reason, that one got it exempt. The problem is the context. It's clearly clearly not scripture. It's talking about when Christ comes.
Joel Brooks:Now we've seen a mirror dimly, but then face to face. And if you look at chapter 1 in 1st Corinthians, I think it's verse 7. Paul says the the same thing. Says, so you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so he ties up right there.
Joel Brooks:You're gonna have, like, all these gifts until Christ comes. And so, there is nowhere in scripture that talks about spiritual gifts ceasing. And and I guess people make a distinction between the supernatural gifts and think like the the normal gifts, like teaching, like I have. You you know, the the unspectacular ones, and most say it's like those more supernatural ones have ceased, because scripture came. But really, I mean, you just look at 1st Corinthians there, and it ties it to when the Lord returns.
Joel Brooks:You have every spiritual gift. Nowhere in scripture does it say that these gifts have ceased. And actually, if you take 1st Corinthians 13 to really be when scripture comes, the imperfect passages away, that means all of us here know more than Paul, because now we have all the Bible, and we we he saw dimly, but we see clearly. And so to me, that argument falls away. So the second part of your question was, should all these gifts be present in every church?
Joel Brooks:And I would have a open but cautious view. I honestly don't see the need for a lot of these gifts in certain churches. I do think as a whole, the supernatural gifts had a authenticating nature to them. They validated the apostle's authority, validated the word of God going into unreached places. You see that.
Joel Brooks:That's also one of the reasons where if you look at church history, you see those gifts usually working on the frontier. Where missionaries are going in its frontier work, It has this authentic authenticating nature to it, primarily, I see. But you can't throw it out. And so but when I look in a church, and I and I think, okay, so where would you, you know, where would we have these things? Where would they fit?
Joel Brooks:A lot of times, I honestly, I don't see the purpose in them, but I can't rule them out. I can't. And so what we do in Net Redeemer is, like, if somebody got up, like, you know, I used to do college ministry, And, always some college student would come up and say, hey, I have a word of prophecy I'd like to share with, you know, the 1,000 students. I'd be like, it's not gonna happen. And they're like, no.
Joel Brooks:I really think the Lord wants me to share this now. And I would say, well, you know, the spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet, and so you can control this. You don't have to say this now. Let's talk about this. And then, you know, if it's from the Lord, I'll let you say this next week.
Joel Brooks:Because as a shepherd, I had to guard that. And usually, when I met with them, it was some whacked out interpretation from Ezekiel, and I am so glad they never got behind the mic. Sorry. So so at Redeemer, like, we we want to encourage, you know, like, hey, in it, our home groups or small groups is a safe place. We always want those to be a safe place.
Joel Brooks:But when it comes to, like, if somebody got up, you know, in a service and, and started prophesying or something, I'd ask them to stop. As the shepherd, I would ask them to say, listen, you know, maybe let's talk through this, and then see if that's from the Lord first. Anybody else? Right there. Okay.
Joel Brooks:Yes. Yes. Okay. Let me see if I understand your question or maybe what you want me to just talk more on is I as Christians, is every Christian filled with the spirit? And what was the difference between Old Testament saints and, I guess, New Testament saints?
Joel Brooks:Well, I'd say all Christians are baptized in the spirit. We we we find that in in first Corinthians. Is it 12 or 13? It just kinda left me. But that we've all been baptized into 1 spirit.
Joel Brooks:So all Christians are baptized in the spirit, but are all Christians filled with the spirit? And when you get that command in Ephesians 5, be filled with the spirit, it's a present active imperative. It's be continually filled and never stop being filled, which means it's this continuous process. So it's not like an event that happens, like salvation, in which you receive the spirit. This is a continual intaking of the spirit.
Joel Brooks:And so I think the reason you're commanded to be filled with the spirit is that well, he's commanding Christians who weren't. They're supposed to be. And, actually, if you look at it in context of Ephesians 5, they were actually very selfishly. They were just thinking about themselves, and he he's talking about that be filled with the spirit is a community aspect to it, actually. I probably shouldn't open that door.
Joel Brooks:But so I I see those as different. Being filled with the spirit, being baptized with the spirit are different things. I do I think being baptized with the spirit comes at salvation. And some of y'all will come from a denominational persuasion that's different than that. If you're Pentecostal and some Charismatics would disagree with that, You're you're welcome to ask me questions about that if you want.
Joel Brooks:As far as the Old Testament saints and the New Testament saints, you do do see, you know, people like Moses or David or things the Holy Spirit coming upon for a period, you know, came upon certain people. Other times, it would come on other people for a task and then leave. And the difference is in the New Testament, now that we have been baptized in the spirit and we receive him. It is how we are connected with Christ is we have the spirit inside of us. It's really hard though when you're trying to make direct comparisons.
Joel Brooks:We're like, okay. Moses had the spirit of God. So we're saying like, I have the I'm just like Moses. Well, like, scripture just doesn't go there. You just you just don't really know.
Joel Brooks:Or the apostles. Did the apostles just receive the spirit at Pentecost, or did they have the spirit before? Well, they you can't believe apart from the spirit of God. You know, Matthew 16, when Peter does his confession, blessed are you, Peter, for this didn't come from you. This came from God is the one who revealed this to you.
Joel Brooks:Well, how did God reveal this to him? It's probably through the spirit. And so I I think that even with the apostles, there was degrees of the spirit working in their life and in their life, but then you have Pentecostal baptism. They're immersed in the spirit. So there's a marked change.
Joel Brooks:That's what the new covenant believers now all experience. I hope that made sense. It's a it's a large question. Go ahead. Kind of all in the same lines.
Joel Brooks:What about how will
Speaker 3:Jesus, after the
Joel Brooks:resurrection, breathe, the sight has ever seen my spirit? Yeah. Absolutely. You have John chapter 20 is when Jesus, he breathes on the disciples. One of the most confusing passages in scripture.
Joel Brooks:Some people say that's John's version of Pentecost. When you look at it and and you read it, it's saying, just as the father sent me, so I send you. And he breathes the spirit on them. So it's in the context of sending the disciples out that they receive the spirit. I'm not fully convinced by that.
Joel Brooks:I think that might be partially there. John does right things in a bizarre way. What what I think you're seeing there, and because John has so many Genesis illusions, you know, the the very first part of John starts off in the beginning. John 1 starts off that. There was the word and the word was guys.
Joel Brooks:So it starts back. Here, you're getting another Genesis illusion. Just as God breathed on Adam and gave him life, here Jesus is breathing on the disciples, giving them this new life. And he's making that connection. He is, when you read Colossians 3, it talks about that we are being renewed into the image of god.
Joel Brooks:Renewed. That's a big word there. It means that we once had it, then we lost it. And now we're being brought back to that again. And so you would see Adam had that.
Joel Brooks:He fell. Jesus is restoring that. He's breathing into us, and he's renewing. Then you're getting well, okay. So are they filled with the spirit or are they not when it comes to Pentecost as being, what's happening there?
Joel Brooks:Well, I see Pentecost as being baptized in the spirit. Something different. I'm not exactly sure what's going on there in John 20. You read 5 commentaries, you're gonna get 5 different answers about what's going on there. Somehow, there is some impartation of the spirit, but it's not the baptism of the spirit.
Joel Brooks:Good question. Go ahead.
Speaker 4:You talked a little bit about, God. His spirit being present in the Old Testament as well. Yeah. How do you see that in connection with his residing presence in the temple? And even later, some people would see his presence residing within the Yeah.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, the the Shekinah of God.
Joel Brooks:Yeah. We have that that whole temple theology is really laying the foundation for the new covenant. So that when you you come and we're gonna look at this actually and as we're going through 1st Peter as a church, when it's like you're being built up as living stones. It's like we're being built up into what? This building that houses God.
Joel Brooks:You have two times in 1st Corinthians that we are called the temple of the Holy Spirit. 1 is individual. You You are temple of the Holy Spirit. The second time the you is plural. You collectively, as we all gather together, are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Joel Brooks:The only reason Paul can use that language is because of the old covenant. He sees that. That was a picture of what we now have. We have it individually in us, which the Holy Spirit comes to dwell. And then in a unique way, as we gather together as God's people, God's spirit is present in our midst.
Joel Brooks:And so, I mean, I'd let me just I'm now stepping on a soapbox. Okay. I'm stepping on here. I would just say like, for those of you who, who who maybe, if there's some of you out here who casually miss church, just casually leave because maybe you don't get anything out of it or whatever, just know from the church's standpoint, like, we're missing a stone. Like, you're part of the building of God.
Joel Brooks:Like, when we're all gathered together and collectively moving in in our midst, we miss you. It's not about few. Like, I can just think, I'll just have church in my car. I can always catch a podcast. You know, come.
Joel Brooks:Alright. And now, I'm off the soapbox now. That was just that was just me getting on for a second and me getting off.
Speaker 5:I have another question as well. Okay.
Speaker 4:You talked about, right at the end, you were saying the things that this is evident of the spirit being present in your life.
Joel Brooks:You're talking about
Speaker 4:the fruit of the spirit. Yes. So much language is focused not on the fruit of the spirit, being present in somebody's life, but we focus so much on the gifts of the spirit, and these things that are necessitated that they spontaneously arise without any work, like speaking in tongues Mhmm. Things like that. So it seems to me, like, we expect the Spirit of God present in our life to just spontaneously cause something to happen.
Joel Brooks:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Do you see that working in the same way with the fruit of the spirit?
Joel Brooks:Yeah. I would say one's giftedness is no evidence really whatsoever of one's walk with the Lord. Some of the people who are the most gifted people that I know are some of the most sinful. And so let me just, like I'll throw out a, we already mentioned them. We're a Benny Hinn.
Joel Brooks:Okay. Benny Hinn very well might at one time. The Lord might have used him to actually, like, have a gift and heal somebody, but then long ago, corruption and things just set in. But he very well might have had that, or he might have been corrupt the entire time. One of one of the best preachers I ever knew, some of you might I'll name him.
Joel Brooks:His name was Darrell Gilliard. He he was spoken about about possibly being the president of the Southern Baptist Convention at some point. He was just skyrocketing up. Man, that guy was gifted. I learned so much through his teaching.
Joel Brooks:Well, he was having an affair the entire time. He lied about his entire testimony. He was embezzling all of the church's money the entire time. Yet, I learned so much from that. He was incredibly gifted, but he didn't have the fruit of the spirit.
Joel Brooks:Alright? And so you you you can't make that connection of, like, you got the gifts, you know, therefore, I'm really walking with the Lord. No. That's that's not how giftedness works, but the fruit of the spirit is what we're asked to have. And fruit of the spirit is a slow going fruit.
Joel Brooks:You can't manufacture or you can't counterfeit those things. They just grow in time. Yeah. Good good question. Go ahead.
Speaker 3:So as a part of this body, we share a lot of the duties of teaching our children. How do we go about beginning to introduce the Holy Spirit in a way that's accurate while we're all wrestling with ourselves and, like, age appropriate for
Joel Brooks:Okay. The question is, as we're teaching our children, how do we introduce the Holy Spirit? Like, is there a certain age we introduce Holy Spirit? I'd say from the time that they are the teeniest little babies. Because, like Doctor.
Joel Brooks:Cole talked about, you know, last month, if you're always talking about God in a general sense, then what they're hearing is not much different than Islam. You know, it's not much different than Judaism. You know, it's it fit in with many different religions. You need to always be using Trinitarian language, especially when you pray. Every time you pray, it's an opportunity to share the gospel Because we're praying, Father.
Joel Brooks:So we start off with, Father, you know. We pray this, you know, in the name of Jesus. Okay? So, we're praying to the Father by Jesus, and then we, you know, you pray through the whole with your Holy Spirit, will he lead me to do this? Will he change my hearts?
Joel Brooks:They're getting the entire gospel in a prayer. And so we we should always be praying those ways. So from from the very beginning, this is the analogy I'll use. When you read Revelation well, for one, good luck. But there there are parts of Revelation you cannot tell who is speaking.
Joel Brooks:You cannot tell if it is the son, if it is the spirit, if it is the father. I mean, it just changes like crazy. And you're like, who? Well, I thought the father was speaking, but now it just said the spirit's saying this. And it's just kind of crazy.
Joel Brooks:And I think that's how you should talk to your children. Like, I I just you know, like, I they are they are hearing me all the time. Like, I I am switching from Jesus to the spirit to the father, and I am trying to to teach them the primary roles. But I'm talking about God using all three persons. It it don't, you know, I it's a shame.
Joel Brooks:I have come this conversation with adults all the time. They're like, is the trinity really necessary for the Christian faith? I'm like, the trinity is the Christian faith. It is. So good question.
Joel Brooks:Anybody else? Eric. Yeah. Well, I guess we're we need to also bring it down to how do you prescribe being baptized in the spirit versus maybe being continually filled with the spirit. If the person believes, I think they are baptized in the spirit.
Joel Brooks:I think their regeneration has happened, and that is what causes you to believe. That's that's my reformed roots coming in there. It's like the the the Spirit of God is wakening up our hearts, and we respond. And so these things are happening simultaneously. You're being baptized in the spirit there.
Joel Brooks:So I don't think you really have to teach about that. There's a lot of things that Paul's gonna teach after the fact. Like, you you believe the gospel, then he teaches you the gospel. When you see this in baptism, well, he's talking to Christians, and then he explains that. Well, everybody's been baptized.
Joel Brooks:And now he's explaining baptism to us. Well, shouldn't he have explained that to me before? But he he he often he teaches you after the fact what's happening. And and you'll find that in places where baptized in spirit are filled with the spirit. Baptism of the spirit is only mentioned 7 times in scripture.
Joel Brooks:That's it. 4 in the gospels, in which it just says that behold the spirit is gonna come. And later after John, you know, John the Baptist, Jesus is coming and he will baptize you with the spirit. Doesn't really help you in understanding what it means. You have Acts chapter 1.
Joel Brooks:You have Acts chapter 11. Both, it's the exact same phrase. They're quoting the gospels, so it doesn't really help you. The only teaching part we have of baptism in the spirit first Corinthians 12, which just says that we've all have been baptized in the spirit as believers. We all share in that baptism.
Joel Brooks:So I don't know if you have to teach that to somebody. They just have to believe the gospel. And I think as they're going about living their calling, they're filled with God's presence. I think that's what you see in scripture. Yeah.
Joel Brooks:If you're seeking an opportunity to live out your calling, proclaim the gospel, you're being filled. Good question. Go.
Speaker 5:As a charismatic, what do you think is the best way to address the excess within the charismatic movement?
Joel Brooks:Okay. Question is, as a charismatic, what's the best way to address maybe the excesses in the charismatic movement? Well, unfortunately, I think a lot of the excesses or a lot of the abuses are the fault of a lot of cessationist churches. Because let's say, if you have a gift, we'll just use a supernatural gift of tongues. And you're in a church that doesn't believe in that, what do you do?
Joel Brooks:You're not welcome there. Where do you go? Where are you gonna go where you're accepted? And what you have is you start getting all of these people with, these, what we call supernatural gifts gathering together, but nobody's got a gift to teaching. There's they they just have all these other supernatural gifts, and it becomes like Lord of the Flies.
Joel Brooks:I mean, really, they just, you know, they're just doing whatever they want. It becomes the church of Corinth. And really, they need the teachers to stay with them. And so I think a lot of it is is the fault of some churches not providing an avenue, not providing a place for these people and just just casting them out. So what do you do if there is these abuses?
Joel Brooks:Well, I think you just have to start teaching scripture. If you're speaking in tongues, teach them how do you do this? What is the biblical way to do this? And just you you you see the guidelines there. I think we have this expectation, the supernatural gifts.
Joel Brooks:Let's say, somebody is, has a word of prophecy or something, and it's just it's just wrong. Or somebody thinks they have a gift of healing and they pray for somebody and they're not healed. We're like, you're wrong. Get out of here. Like, you just there's just such a condemnation, of that.
Joel Brooks:Yet, how many times have you shared your faith and the person didn't get saved? How many times have you tried to teach and it bombed? Like, but we would never say, don't you ever share your faith again when you ever teach it. We we give grace to these other gifts. We're thinking, well, it's something you grow in.
Joel Brooks:And as a whole, you give no grace to those more cares what we call charismatic gifts. We banish them. So there's gotta be somewhere in the church a safe place for teaching those things.
Speaker 5:A macro level I mean, on a micro level, I think that's the right
Joel Brooks:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Just to teach them the gospel, what the gospel actually says about that. But on a macro level, obviously, you would say that the the right way to go about it is not having a a strange fire conference.
Joel Brooks:Like Yeah. Where you just get all the charismatic together, light a match, and hope it comes out okay. You know, like, usually that's those things are just total chaotic. You know, I'll share one somewhat sensational story. I remember I was I was driving home, and I was almost at home, and I get a call from I used to run a ministry called UCF.
Joel Brooks:Our building was called the UCF House. And somebody who was running it that night called me up and said, hey, Joel, you need to get back here. There's well, there's just strange. 22 women are here. They're they're just kinda yelling in tongues.
Joel Brooks:It's like, great. It's like, you know, alright. So I turn it always happens right at dinner time. You know, so you have to turn around and you go back. And sure enough, I go in there and there's just these these 2 college student ladies and just one of them is just like speaking in tongues like crazy.
Joel Brooks:And everybody else is lined up against the wall just like, you know, like like, who are these people? And so I go to this this lady and she grabs me. And she's like, she's just talking like crazy. And I say, Hey, I I don't have a gift of interpretation. Can't understand a word you're saying.
Joel Brooks:And she's just still going, going, going. It's like, still haven't got the gift yet. And I was like, the spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophets. If this is from the Lord, you can control this. One of the fruits of the spirit is self control.
Joel Brooks:So you can show me this is from God by stopping. She she, you know, they kind of unpacked the story and they said, you know, they come from traditional Southern Baptist backgrounds. None of them had ever come across anything charismatic before in their life, and they're just praying together in their dorm, and one of them starts speaking tongues, one of them starts interpreting. God occasionally does crazy things like that. And they didn't want to stop for 2 days.
Joel Brooks:They had been going around doing this. They're like, everybody thinks we're crazy. I'm like, yeah.
Speaker 3:You know
Joel Brooks:what I mean? You know, actually, those are Paul's words that when you go and you start speaking in tongues, people will think you're out of your mind. And I got to walk through with them 1st Corinthians 12, 13, and 14. I mean, as as like, you know, Paul says if you if you're gonna speak this out loud, there needs to be an interpretation. Said it needs to be done in an orderly way.
Joel Brooks:I said that an unbeliever is gonna look at you and be like, you're mad. I said, do you see all the people lined up against the wall? Yeah. Yeah. That's right.
Joel Brooks:You're mad. And she received it. They both received that. And they're like, can we talk more about this? Like, they wanted to be taught.
Joel Brooks:And I just wonder how how many, crazy charismatic stories can be prevented when they go, you know, if somebody would just take the time and just say, can we look at scripture? Good question. Anybody else? Go ahead, Kristen.
Speaker 3:Okay. So you talked about how scripture says we should earnestly desire see the Lord work miraculously, and yet we're not supposed to focus on the experience rather than the Lord. Yeah. So how do we, like, pray for revival, pray to see the Lord work more accurately or even, you know, see more uses of supernatural care if that's what he chooses without and yet still long to see more of the Lord's power Yeah. In your inner and in
Joel Brooks:your The the question is how how should we pray, like, for things like revival if we're not supposed to be focusing on experience, but we really we just you know, our focus is supposed to be on the gospel. And I say your focus is still on the gospel. You're praying for those things. You know, this that Acts 4 models, like, you you are praying for boldness. You're praying that people are changed, praying for that thing.
Joel Brooks:God's going to do that how he wants to do that. And if there needs to be the gifting to enable that to happen, he's going to do that. What you don't do I'll I'll be really direct. A lot of people pray just like Satan tried to tempt Jesus. If you're God, do this.
Joel Brooks:If you're God, do this miracle. Turn this into this. And and we're we're treating God like like Satan did. And we just want a sign. You know, some of us, we pray for our spiritual gifts that way, God, just give me the sign so I know you're real.
Joel Brooks:That's exactly one of the temptations, you know, in the wilderness. Instead, we need to say like, God, we want you to be known. We want Jesus to be known. Convict the world of its sin. Spirit comes.
Joel Brooks:And he he will do that however he seems appropriate to do that. Gift us in whatever we need for that. And so instead of you telling the spirit what your gift should be, let him give to each as he wills. Good question. Right there.
Joel Brooks:Okay. So the question basically are is are some of the gifts, like, maybe tongues or something like that, are they short term gifts, or they're all supposed to be long term like it seems like teaching? I would say that scripture is not it doesn't, like, spell that out for us. So let me just give some inferences. Alright?
Joel Brooks:You have when Paul is saying, hey. If there's not an interpreter there, then don't speak in tongues. Meaning, the interpreters are known. It's not just a spontaneous thing that comes up, or they know who the prophets are. It's like so so these people are known.
Joel Brooks:But then you get to, like, gifts of healing, and the word is actually plurals, gifts of healings. And it seems like God might uniquely give somebody at a unique time to pray for that person. Maybe they get healed. And that could be a one time thing. And I would say that that's probably pretty common with the way there would be healings just so there's not like the, hey, y'all line up.
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna heal you all right here, you know, and I'll do that for the next 20 years. You you see, that seems to be a more particular spontaneous time like that. But those are just inferences. You you you don't really scripture doesn't spell that out, for me where I can say that clear cut. But it certainly seems like the interpreters are known.
Joel Brooks:The prophets are known. So they've had these for a while. Gifts of healings might be more spontaneous. Good question. Were y'all really into the gifts?
Joel Brooks:I mean, that's like if all all the thing we're we're digging into that. Alright. Go ahead, Keith. Yeah. Well, we all make assumptions about God's will.
Joel Brooks:Some of the most cessationist people I know, when they get a headache, they take an Advil. And I'm like, what did he ask God if he wanted you to get rid of that? Because you're acting like he does by taking medicine. It's like, we just assume, okay. God wants me better, so I'm gonna take the actions appropriate to get better.
Joel Brooks:And I think that's fine. We we take whatever actions are necessary to get better, to get out of a place of sickness into a place of health. And I think it's fine to pray towards that end, not knowing if it's God's hidden will to keep a person sick. You pray his revealed will, which someday we have new bodies. There's no more sickness.
Joel Brooks:There's no more tears. There's no more pain. You pray towards that end until maybe like Paul, who's prayed a number of times, God says no. Or he clearly reveals no. And so I I would pray for healing, you know, in doing those things.
Joel Brooks:So I've never healed anybody. I'd you know, I always call myself charismatic. Never spoke in tongues, never healed anybody. I've never I had none of those gifts. I've I've I've this boring gift right here.
Joel Brooks:Okay? I I teach. Maybe hospitality. I don't know. Anybody else?
Joel Brooks:Go ahead. Yeah. Well, it's obvious when the question is when looking at 1st Corinthians 13, what are some of the childish things that should be put away? It's obvious when you read 1st Corinthians. They are acting like children.
Joel Brooks:I mean, they're they're they're acting I mean, they're getting drunk. There's like a parent coming back and finding the house, you know, they've had a big party at. You know, they're getting drunk at communion. I mean, who gets drunk at communion? Who sleeps with, with their stepmom?
Joel Brooks:But this was all happening in in the 1st Corinthian church. And so in some ways, you can interpret that as grow up. Okay? You you do away with these things, and you're supposed to be maturing in the faith. It's very similar to later in Hebrews when, the author of Hebrews says, you know, like, you should be you should be eating some solid food, but you still need milk.
Joel Brooks:You're still acting like a child in your knowledge and in how you act. But you should be so much more advanced than this. You should be, you should know your Bible. You should know your scripture, and you should not be doing those silly things that the pagans do. So I think it's more in those general lines of what he's talking about there growing up.
Joel Brooks:Good question. Anybody else back? Yeah. The the roles of the spirit, well, it's they're were they're way too numerous. I mean, there's just so many.
Joel Brooks:And, you know, I started off by reading what we all believe about the spirit, and a lot of those were the roles. How he seals us, how he sanctifies us. He unites us with Christ, which is one of the big things, which means the way God treats Christ, God the Father treats Christ, is now how he relates to us because we are united with him. And so there's there's all those different roles. He empowers us.
Joel Brooks:He, sanctifies us. He cleanses us. Basically, everything that Jesus bought in redemption, the Holy Spirit applies to us. So so that's his role. You know, one of the one of the things that is is still neglected, there there is, you know, renewal interest of the Holy Spirit, but only as the Holy Spirit relates to us.
Joel Brooks:There's still as little written about how the Holy Spirit relates in the Trinity. And so there's there's a lot, you know, about how, God the Son relates to God the Father, but how does the Holy Spirit work in that? That was something that was largely left after about the 3rd or 4th century, and we haven't gotten back to it. In a great way, trying to think if I can do this quickly. A great way to think, I I think, to think of the Holy Spirit is well, Augustine said if you had to put a label, Saint Augustine, he said if you had to put a word or a name on the Holy Spirit, it would be love.
Joel Brooks:It's how Jesus loves or the son loves the father and it's how the father loves the son. The love between them is the Holy Spirit. And he would say that the the son breathes out the spirit towards the father, and the father breathes out the spirit towards the son. CS Lewis would explain it this way. You know how when, like when all your families gathered around at Christmas and it's just people are like so hap happy.
Joel Brooks:If if your family wasn't like mine, your family is like, you know, the movies. And it's just like, they're everybody's so happy. And there's the spirit of Christmas. There's there's the spirit of family there. Meaning, like, we're all we really love one another.
Joel Brooks:We love being in one another's presence. We we call that a spirit. And we're just describing an emotion, but but but in the tr- the trinity, that's a person. That's how strong the connection and the love is between the father and the son. It's not just an emotion.
Joel Brooks:It's a person there who who, you know, the son breathes out and the father breathes out, and that is the love between them, an actual person and the trinity. And so things like that have, well, I mean, you would talk about that in a church right now, and they'd be like, are you crazy? You know? We don't understand it, or we don't even want to talk about how the spirit relates within the trinity just as the spirit relates to us. So hopefully, that'll be the next step that the church will go back to looking at those things.
Joel Brooks:Anybody else? You got maybe one more question. Make it a good one. Alright. Andrea.
Joel Brooks:Yeah. If you want to exhaust a huge book, there's God's Empowering Presence by Gordon Fee. It's this thick. I mean, you might it may be a reference, but it goes through every single reference of the spirit by Paul, And it's a commentary on it. And he's actually one of the very few scholarly Pentecostals, yet he he goes against the Pentecostal position a lot.
Joel Brooks:Outstanding book. A much more readable, like you guys should read through it is Doctor. Cole who spoke last month. He has 2 books out on the Holy Spirit. 1 is called He Who Gives Life, and it simply and maybe about 200 pages, goes through pretty much everything about the spirit.
Joel Brooks:It is it is like a book that covers it all. How the spirit relates to the Messiah, how the spirit relates in the Old Testament, the spirit in creation, the spirit in the believer, the spirit within the Godhead. Like it's it's really good about spelling all of that out. And then he also has a smaller book that's just I think it's called 6 Practical Questions About the Holy Spirit, and it's maybe 70 pages. Engaging with the Holy Spirit.
Joel Brooks:So you you have the smartphone just that is just amazing. Yeah. So I I would recommend those. Those are good. There's a lot out there.
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna sound so terrible when I say this. But I mean, a lot of the stuff that's written from more of a by Pentecostal or a really overtly charismatic persuasion, persuasion, usually it's really bad. It I I not I long to, like, hear a really good one, but it's weak on their scriptural arguments. And it's just a lot of heavy on the stories, heavy on just talking about the experiences. Alright.
Joel Brooks:Well, hey. Thanks. Good questions, man. Sorry. Will, actually, we're ending on time.
Joel Brooks:Let me pray for us, and then we could go. Father, Son, Spirit, we love you. We adore you, and we want to know you more. And so I ask right now that, for your saints here, for your children, that spirit of God, you would fill them, that you would use them to boldly proclaim the name of Jesus throughout this city. Thank you for this time.
Joel Brooks:We love you. Amen.