We Are Lions Ministry: The Lions Den
We Are Lions Ministry: The Lions Den
Fivefold Ministry: Teachers, Prophets, & Evangelists
What if the roles of teachers, prophets, and evangelists in the church are more than just titles? Join us as we unravel the spiritual gifts behind these roles, delving into their true purposes and debunking common misconceptions. We'll explore how these gifts aim to foster unity and maturity within the body of Christ, referencing powerful scriptures like Ephesians 4 and 1 Corinthians 12.
Throughout our discussion, we shine a spotlight on the often underappreciated role of teachers in ministry. Teachers help simplify complex spiritual concepts, driving profound growth and understanding within their communities. Reflecting on Jesus' unparalleled teaching through parables, we emphasize how His methods made deep spiritual truths accessible to everyone, illustrating the critical function of teaching in faith development.
Balancing evangelism with discipleship is another key theme we tackle, using biblical references to highlight the importance of each role in holistic spiritual growth. We also address the contemporary challenges of recognizing and using prophetic gifts effectively, stressing the necessity of humility, discernment, and alignment with the fruits of the Spirit. This episode promises to equip you with a deeper understanding of these spiritual gifts and how they can be gracefully integrated into the life of the church.
Hey everyone, welcome to the we Are Lions podcast presented by Corey, Adam and John, the Lion Crew. We are so thankful that you have decided to join us today, or if you've joined us in the past, thank you, thank you, thank you. Your continued support and prayers mean a lot to us. We also want you to engage with us. Please email us at wearelionsministry at gmailcom. We'd love to discuss topics or ways you can get involved with us in our ministry. We love putting this podcast out to help people grow their faith and understand how truly they are loved by a good, good father. So again, thank you, guys, for joining us. This is the start of season two, so we're so excited to get rolling with this, but I do encourage you go check out the several episodes that we have already put out. Hey guys, again thank you. Let's get into the episode.
Speaker 2:What's up y'all? Welcome back to another episode of the Lion's Den podcast presented by the we Are Lions ministry. Y'all, we are on part two of a two-part episode. Part one we talked about apostles and pastors inside the five-fold ministry of the church. Today we are going to close out talking about the other three, which are the teachers, the prophets and the evangelists. I'm glad I remembered that and didn't mess it up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2:That'd have been awkward if I would have messed it up. So we're not going to waste a whole lot of time. The first episode we talked for like an hour, so hopefully we won't keep you guys for hour number two, so we'll just jump right in. I think Johnny was looking at his phone before we started recording. I think Johnny was looking at his phone before we started recording, so I think he has. As he called me out in the last episode, he has a big ball of revelation he's about to release no, not really no, I'm just kidding Prophets, evangelists and teachers.
Speaker 3:The last three that Paul kind of laid out for the ministry leadership in the New Testament. Well, let me start by saying this is a key component that I think we kind of ended on in the last. I was saying this is a key component that I think we kind of ended on in the last. The part one was we do not have the time to go into depth to each gift, and and there's people out there that can talk about it a heck of a lot better than I can, or maybe you guys can. So our goal is not necessarily to go in crazy depth because we just don't. It's not the platform, but we do want to touch on things and I think ultimately too, it's. I think my heart's desire is to see things that we know are biblical. We, just to recap, you find this in Ephesians 4, where Paul's talking to the church about that that these giftings are needed for the body of Christ to walk in unity so they can mature and walk in the kingdom can just expand, and so these giftings are not offices to hold esteem, and it's actually giftings to become better servants, so we can raise up men and women to do incredible things. And so the apostle was really good. I believe we did a really good job just kind of bringing some things out about the apostle.
Speaker 3:One element I do want to talk about is I've heard this from my mentor before of how much difference is the pastor and the teacher.
Speaker 3:And Adam, you brought up something in the last episode about how you could be if you have a gift but try to be something you're not, it doesn't really work. So can we tie that with a pastor and a teacher? Because it goes back to the American church that we see today that oftentimes that the pastor what we claim as the pastor right is the CEO of a church is oftentimes the teacher too, right. So we say that the one that stands up on every Sunday morning at your church really is evangelizing, he's pastoring and he's teaching. Now that's what people's misconception is that these are not titles necessarily, that they're giftings. So that's an actually incorrect way to present the five-fold ministry. So I'm kind of doing some recapping, if you haven't noticed here, but and you guys can take this and roll with it any way you want to- Well, I was going to say I think we did a pretty good job also kind of clearing up what a pastor is right.
Speaker 2:A pastor doesn't always teach. A pastor may not ever speak on the stage at your church on a Sunday. A pastor really is a shepherd of people. Yes, I mean, that's what a pastor is. I think that and again I said this in the last episode I don't know at what point in the modern church we started calling the head of the church the pastor, but that's kind of a misuse of the term, because the term pastor is just a shepherd of people. There are probably more pastors inside the four walls you guys both at Revolution Church. There are probably more pastors inside the four walls of Revolution Church than will ever be titled as a pastor at Revolution.
Speaker 2:Church. There will probably be people at Encounter Church, which is a church that my wife and I planted, who serve as pastors outside the four walls of the church, that never get titled as a pastor inside the church. Yeah, because pastors are just shepherds of people, they may never set foot on the stage in any way, and so I think that we've just kind of misused the term and so therefore, pastor, prophet, evangelist and teacher kind of just get intermingled as all being the same gifting and they're just not.
Speaker 4:Yeah, can I read a passage? Just because we're going to go through three of the titles today? Or I should say today, this episode giftings. Yeah, this is first. I would highly. I'm not going to read the whole chapter, but I would highly encourage anybody to go through and read 1 Corinthians 12. But it says Now concerning spiritual gifts.
Speaker 4:Brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. The King James says ignorant. It says you know that when you were pagans you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says Let Jesus be cursed, and no one can say Jesus is of gifts, but the same spirit. There are varieties of services, but the same Lord. There are varieties of activities, but it's the same God who activates all of them.
Speaker 4:To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given, through the Spirit, the utterance of wisdom and to another the utterance of knowledge, according to the same Spirit To another. Faith by the same Spirit To another. Gifts of healing by the one Spirit To another. The working of miracles To another. Prophecy To another. Discernment of spirits To another, various kinds of tongues, to an interpretation of tongues. All these were activated by one, in the same spirit, to give to each one individually, just as the spirit chooses. Now you can go on further and it talks about apostles and prophets and this, that and the other, but we see that regardless of the gifting or regardless of the office, whatever you want to call it, it's all from the same God, it's all the same spirit.
Speaker 4:I know in the last episode we talked about the different parts of the body. First, corinthians 12 actually goes into parts of the body and it says how the foot can't say to the hand, because I'm not a hand, I don't matter. Or the eye can't say to the ear because you don't see, you don't matter. Johnny said you know, you might have a good heart and good lungs, but if you don't have working body parts you're not whole. And I would say the same thing. Everything might be good in the core, but if your elbows aren't working you're not able to do everything you need to be able to do Right.
Speaker 2:And your elbows might work, but if your fingers won't move, then you can't do everything you need to do, right? So yeah, so which one do we want to start with? Because this one is, now that I think about it, this one is not necessarily going to be difficult, but we're basically breaking apart three different things giftings that, for a lot, my whole life has been considered the exact same thing. Yeah, I mean, if we're being honest, evangelists, teachers and prophets are all the same thing. It's just the delivery technique that they have in the message that they're giving, and so I think we actually have to spend a little bit of time and let people know like you may be an evangelist, but not a teacher.
Speaker 3:Well, maybe that's what we're doing too. You know, it's not necessarily. You can ask 90% of people, hey, what's a teacher? And they can obviously tie it back to what we all had to go through. We were mandatory to go through right, somebody that taught you a subject. I don't think it's hard to say what necessarily some of these giftings are. I think prophet and apostle are probably the hardest to explain, just because of the misconceptions around them. But I think when we're talking, like if we want to start with teacher, I just want to talk. I think, maybe, maybe I'm going to talk about the encouragement of the importance of being having really strong teachers, not only around you but in your churches, cause I've I know people like I would consider Adam a really good teacher. I don't know if you feel that way, maybe I'm off, but I don't see Adam as a. I don't know if you feel that way, maybe I'm off, but I don't see Adam as a. I don't know, I don't know. Are you an evangelist? I don't know.
Speaker 4:I think, you can.
Speaker 3:I definitely can evangelize, but no, I would not say it's the strongest part of my gifting. And I see that You're very and I'm not sitting here just trying to kiss your butt, I guess you would say but Adam's got a really good ability to break down things and it teaches, like even me. It teaches sitting here. I learned a lot from Adam and that's a gift. That's his ability, but it's also surrounded by his habits, his habits of you're reading books all the time and you're doing things. So your ability to break down knowledge is such a gift, because then you're able to take it, bring it into what we call layman terms for so many people. And I think that because of what you just said, corey, we've positioned it where the pastor is the only thing that matters, as the gift that we downplay.
Speaker 3:There might be people out there like, well, I have really good. Maybe I'm not very charismatic in my speech, because that's what I see evangelists do and I'm being. You know what I'm saying, but what I've learned is I've seen some of the biggest movements of God by someone that's just a good teacher, because that knowledge from the teacher and that gift brings such not only beautiful revelation to the individuals, but what we're doing is retraining our minds that these giftings will make us better, not the performance or the excitement in someone's speech that we often tie to man. That pastor really can get at it. You know what I'm saying? That's great, you can really get at it in the pulpit. But if you're a pastor, like we just said in the last one, how are you shepherding?
Speaker 1:How are you?
Speaker 3:loving. Maybe evangelists need to be more charismatic, I don't know, but go ahead. I feel like someone's going to say something.
Speaker 2:I think that teacher if I'm being honest, the teacher may be the most underappreciated of the five giftings. Oh, absolutely, Because I think that a good teacher and I agree with you. I think that Adam is an amazing teacher and the reason I say that is because his depth of knowledge is super deep, but he has the ability to break that down and bring people to his level through how he teaches it. Another perfect example my wife doesn't have any sisters by blood, but she has two sisters that we've just grown up in ministry with and one of them is like her best friend on the planet and she is. She serves as one of the worship leaders at High Praises Church and she is probably the best teacher that I've ever met. What I mean by that is she very rarely gets charismatic, she very rarely gets fired up and she will never be that hack and spit. Yeah, she's never going to be that type, but the way that she teaches and the depth of her wisdom and her knowledge and her ability to bring you into understanding of a very deep subject is freaking amazing to me. I think that teachers again just kind of like a misuse of the term. Too many people just want to relate it immediately to school teachers, right, who teach you the basics of what they have to teach you to get you to move on to the next grade. They try, but they only have a limited amount of time. A true teacher is someone who has the ability to take you to the depth of knowledge that is so much further down than just surface level understanding of having fire insurance.
Speaker 2:Jess's sister and I and this is not a topic for today, but just for fun one day I presented something to her because I know that she'll go beyond surface level conversations with me and I said Farrah, is it possible that the earth is flat? Oh, and I'm not saying that I believe that the earth is flat. Oh, and I'm not saying that I believe that the earth is flat. But her understanding of scripture because I presented the whole flat earth side right, the Bible says that God created a firmament and he placed the earth on its foundations, that it shall not be moved and all these things that flat earthers present, whatever.
Speaker 2:And her understanding of Scripture and her knowledge of Scripture, the way that she was able to talk about it, was so empowering to, because sometimes we read the Scripture and we just take it at face value, but she does what we like to talk about, where she will try to understand the context. Who was it written to? Why was it written? How is it still applicable today? Again, I could keep going, I think, cause she's one of the most anointed people that I've ever met, so I could keep patting her on the back.
Speaker 3:That's what I want.
Speaker 2:But I won't, but I won't do that. But I think that a teacher is just someone who has a well of knowledge and is able to bring that and bring other people to the understanding of that knowledge and pull them into a deeper understanding and deeper wisdom in the scripture.
Speaker 3:I mean, look at it. I mean, the greatest example of a teacher is Jesus, right? I mean he spoke in parables that made people think, but there was reasoning and purpose behind them. We would often look at that and go, oh man, that wasn't. He didn't have a three-point cool sermon with one-liners. Jesus spoke in parables that were relatable and I think that's what Jesus, with all the revelation and all the knowledge and that deep, was able to relate with the common man.
Speaker 2:Dude, I found my second favorite chapter in all of Scripture. I preached on it last week. What's your first favorite? Mark chapter 5. Mark chapter 5 is my favorite chapter in all of the Gospels. Probably all of the Scripture about the man who had the legion of demons in him had the legion of demons in him. Anyway, come on, now that I say it, I believe it's Luke 15, where it starts out with the parable of the lost sheep, then the parable of the lost coin, then the prodigal son. Yeah, I think that's Luke chapter 15. And the reason that that is such a powerful and a great example of Jesus being a teacher is because when he talked about the parable of the lost sheep, what he was doing, he was talking. If you read in Luke chapter 15, in verse number one and two, it says that the religious leaders gave him a hard time because of the people that he basically allowed to be in his presence. Yeah, and it said so. Jesus told them this parable, right? Who is them then at that point? The religious leaders.
Speaker 2:Jesus has now pointed his attention to the religious leaders and he goes immediately into something that they would understand If you had a flock of a hundred sheep and you lost one of them. Would you not leave the 99 with the other shepherds and go searching for the one until you found it? Yeah, why does he tell them that story? Because all of them either grew up a shepherd, had a shepherd in their family, probably, but they understood shepherding and so he made a story relatable to them. And he said, because they would all have to agree Well, yeah, of course I would. Of course I would leave the 99 to go find the one.
Speaker 2:Then he goes to the lost coin, which we can all get down with. This. If I got a hundred bucks and I lose 50 of it, I'll flip my house upside down to try to find that 50 bucks, right? So he brings in the two coins and then he goes to the prodigal son and, as a father, would you not celebrate the day that your son came home? Of course you would. You would throw a party.
Speaker 2:So, jesus, what he did there is he told these stories, these parables, because he made something that could be a deep subject that they didn't really understand, because they didn't understand why he would eat with prostitutes or why he would eat with tax collectors, didn't understand why he would eat with prostitutes or why he would eat with tax collectors. And Jesus is telling them a story to make it relatable to them, so that they understood. If you were in my position beyond sheep dealing with humans, you also would celebrate the fact that you found your one lost sheep. All I'm doing is celebrating the fact that I have found my one lost son, or my one lost daughter. He's making this easy for them to understand. There's a depth and a well of knowledge there and he's making it relatable to them.
Speaker 2:And I think that's what a good teacher does. Yeah, absolutely Is they take something that could be so deep and they explain it in a way that you're just like, huh, I get it now. Yeah, I totally get it now.
Speaker 2:And I think that's one of the reasons that I love having conversations with Jess's sister, because and I feel like I'm a pretty smart guy, I've studied a lot, but there are some things that she says that I'm just like, yeah, I missed that, completely missed that, and I think that's just to me, that's what a good teacher does. Yeah, yeah that's really good.
Speaker 3:I guess we can kind of transition maybe talking into like probably need to save profit for last. I think I got a lot of questions not questions, or maybe topic points in that. But, like the evangelist, I think you can tie. That person has a different level of deep, and I mean that by just their ability. It's like you don't want to explain one by discounting the other. Does that make sense? Sure, maybe you have something to say, adam, on this. But the evangelist is unique in their own way just their ability to. How do we relate to that? Get people in the door? Right, they just have the ability. But really it's not that right. It's not even the guy in Market Square standing on the soapbox screaming at people.
Speaker 4:I saw one of those guys get escorted out at Weigel's by the cops.
Speaker 2:He must be doing the right work. Of all the places you could choose, you'd choose Weigel's. Come on bro.
Speaker 1:Coffee's good their coffee is good, donuts are good.
Speaker 2:If you're going to get arrested be fed, and they've got donuts too.
Speaker 3:But I don't know. I'm honest with you. Evangelism that title finds its ways in our ministries and our brands, and all that kind of stuff. So it's like anything else right.
Speaker 2:I think Adam has something to say.
Speaker 3:I feel it. That's why I'm just trying to get for him to.
Speaker 2:And I'm only going to say this, and I don't mean this to sound bad, but I think that evangelism because it's not a bad thing I think that evangelism is the width perspective. Right, we've talked about being wide versus being deep. A teacher has the ability to help you get deep. An evangelist's goal is to reach wide and bring them all in right.
Speaker 2:So the reason I said I don't want it to sound bad is because I'm going to say it this way Evangelism is more of a surface level ministry, meaning let's just catch as many fish as we can possibly catch and let's get them into here and then let's let our pastors and let's let our teachers take them to a depth of knowledge. But I'm going to cast my net as wide as I can possibly cast it and bring in as many people as I can possibly bring in.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that was the analogy I was going to go with was when Jesus said follow me and I'll make you fishers of men. That was about evangelism, and one of the problems is a lot of times we stop there, we evangelize and then we stop is a lot of times we stop there, we evangelize and then we stop. Or we try to force the prophet to be the evangelist, we try to force the apostle to evangelize.
Speaker 3:One of the things not only Well, say it like this, while you're getting your thing Because of what you just said, Corey. Could we say it like this Evangelism produces converts. Teachers and pastors produce disciples.
Speaker 4:I like that the thing about this. What are you aiming at? If an evangelist is going to have a broader target, the evangelist is the shotgun blast. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I think that God set it up that way. They're trying to get a larger like their reach and their grasp is larger. The teacher is like you cannot teach the same amount. I'm trying to think of a good way of putting this. You can take the amount that one evangelist can and should reach. You'll need, let's say, two to three teachers to teach that same amount, because the teacher can't go in depth with the group that you're trying to evangelize. Not that they don't want to or not that they can't reach that many in the long run.
Speaker 4:But when Jesus was evangelizing, did he take everybody that he taught on the Sermon on the Mount to the small group setting when he was after the fact with his 12 followers? No, so when he's teaching, he's teaching. Yeah, like he pulled the when he met Peter. He gets in his boat and cast off so he can teach a larger crowd, but even at that he pulls them aside and teaches the smaller group. So when he's operating as the teacher, he's not talking to thousands Now. He did teach the crowd, but he's not going through the in-depth. This is what that actually means, because the different functions and different roles, like target size, matters in that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, there's different, like the woman at the well she, you know we call her one of the very first evangelists, right? She goes and says, hey, why don't you come? Pretty much get taught by the guy that told everything about me and they listened.
Speaker 2:I think so far you two have talked on three different operations that Jesus has. I think in that moment Jesus was operating as a prophet. What I mean by that is he read her mail, yeah, and then he told her basically, you will change things.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right and we'll get into that in a minute. But he taught his disciples. The Sermon on the Mount was evangelism. Let's cast a wide net, let's bring them in. Then he took his disciples aside and he took them to the depth of what he actually taught. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:No, no, that's a great point. Great point. I think I interrupted, adam, no worries. Great point Great point I think I interrupted Adam. But that's a perfect example of Jesus being able to operate in the five gifts in real examples. That's good.
Speaker 2:I mean, obviously we are not Jesus, right, so none of us will be able to do it at the level that he did it at. But he's a perfect example. Depending on the size of his audience or what he was trying to accomplish in the moment determines which gifting he operated in, and if you look at how he operated in those different giftings, they were totally different, right. Like when he was talking to the woman at the well, it was different than when he's preaching at the Sermon on the Mount. Yeah, you know, like his approach was different, his language was different, right.
Speaker 2:And so I think evangelism is very needed because, again, the work of the ministry is done outside the four walls of the church cast a wide net and then bring people in so that we can have a teacher, take them to the depth of understanding and wisdom that God desires us to have. You know, like a good friend of mine, I've told him I think he is an evangelist, and what I mean by that is he is so good at captivating people's attention who are in church and out of church, and getting them interested. That is a role of an evangelist, so that he can get them inside the four walls of the church and then they can be equipped and taught so that then they can go out and operate inside their giftings.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Think about this. What we try to do a lot of times is we try to fit evangelists. We critique evangelists because they're not deep. Are they trying to be Like? That's one of the problems when we force all of these giftings into one person is people will critique and even accuse evangelistic preachers of being shallow, and it's like that's their heart. Is evangelism Like Billy Graham?
Speaker 2:Yeah, billy Graham is one of the greatest evangelists probably that I've ever heard of. Now, I'm sure there were some good ones out there, but Billy Graham's goal was to get people into the kingdom of God, yeah, and then hopefully they had other people in their life that could take them into the depths of the guys he had given me, like his notes, what he wanted to preach about when he felt like God laid on his heart, thought it was awesome, right.
Speaker 4:Well, last minute he shifts and he's a big Billy Graham fan, no doubt, like Billy Graham is awesome, no problem with the man, but he like day of, he's like this is what I feel like I should teach and anyway it was a he'd done. You can go and buy Billy Graham outlines and obviously make it whatever, but it was how he would structure a sermon and he gives this highly evangelistic message to this group of youth students. And then, after the fact it wasn't a critique thing, he's like Adam, what are some pointers you can give me on it? And I was like buddy great delivery. I said the problem is I feel like you had something from God that you felt he laid on your heart, and the problem is not that I have a problem with the Billy Graham message. There are millions of people saved, that I'm going to high five in heaven someday thanks to Billy Graham's obedience.
Speaker 4:But what's the target audience? But what's the target audience? You're talking to a group in church of people that you've known for a while, that you had a word from God for them, and instead you go and try to get as many of them saved. It's like what's the target audience? That's what we have to understand in that gifting is one of them. You're aiming at people who are lost and confusing. No doubt they're lost and confused people in churches, but what is the point of the message that God gave you? Are you trying to cast the net? Who's going to cast the net into the live well of the boat that you already have the fish in?
Speaker 2:I mean, you're guaranteed to catch fish that way.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but think about it. Think about it. You're going to throw a huge cast net whatever into the lake or the ocean and try to catch fish as many as you can. But if they're already in the boat, why are you still throwing the net at them? Right, you know? So it's like we critique people because their style is different and you're like, well, you're evangelizing people who have already been evangelized. Okay, cool, let that person go evangelize people who need evangelism. Let the teacher teach those who have already been evangelized, so to speak. But it's operating outside of their gifting or outside of their skill set. Like if you send a teacher to go on a crusade, they don't have the adequate time they need to teach, or they're giving a message that should be to a smaller group. Or you're trying to force somebody to take a sermon that really should take a month to break down, but you want to fit it into a cookie cutter 30-minute sermon.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it just doesn't work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so one of the only people that you ever see operate or to be called, I think, an evangelist, in the New Testament is Philip, I believe. Right, philip. Let me see if I can find where it says it. I think it talks about it in Acts, but it says that Philip was a deacon in his own church, but then we read about him preaching in Samaria with tremendous miracles and many people getting saved.
Speaker 2:So the evangelist and this is not necessarily always going to be the case, but I've heard it said this way, the evangelist has a home base, but their operation is outside of the walls of that church.
Speaker 2:If I have someone who is gifted as an evangelist, who is serving under me at Encounter Church, the majority of the time that they get to preach will not be on the stage on a Sunday morning. It'll be at a youth conference at the ramp, where there's been 200 kids come because someone invited them and they've never met Jesus before. Something like that. The majority of an evangelist ministry is not going to take place from a pulpit on a Sunday morning because, again, that's casting a net into the live well of your boat, where you know the fish are already there. The evangelist is trying to cast his net into the openness of the sea and bring in as many more fish as they can bring in, so that then the additional fish can be added to. Let's call it the proverbial live well, and then be taught, equipped and empowered to then operate inside their ministry gifts, outside the four walls of the church?
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 3:See, on the flip side of that, what I'm seeing in a lot of churches, man is it's looking like evangelism is the only gift that matters. Well, because evangelism fires people up, fires people up, it gets numbers, it does all those things.
Speaker 1:Fills altars.
Speaker 3:It's such a beautiful gift, but look how we've tied it in our culture as the win. The win is man. We are bringing them in. But then my fear is and I'm going to speak boldly about this, and we were just talking about this offsite is the unintended consequences of things. And we were just talking about this. Offsite is the unintended consequences of things. The fear is, yeah, you can get the struggling marriage inside the house, right, but why are we still seeing divorces at such a high rate? Is it because they're not getting the fullness of the other gifts the teaching, the deepness? Are we creating programs and structures that really just get them in there and we can share with everybody how big our church is? Or is it legitimately we're getting them in there because we see the bigger picture of, hey, discipleship is key for you, you know, and set up our stuff that way?
Speaker 4:But even if we take discipleship with an evangelistic attitude, not attitude approach yes, here's the book, here we go, you're done in a year Now you're a disciple. And so it's like we're still trying to evangelize with discipleship when it like the passage Corey read, the whole process is to make you full and mature, right, not just say, hey, we've had 4000 people go through discipleship, like we have to teach, yeah, we have to pastor, we have to.
Speaker 3:You know, we have to teach, we have to pastor, we have to equip. We can't just say here you go, you're in the door now Best of luck. Well, the gray area is the methodology. What's the methods that you're…?
Speaker 2:What's the purpose?
Speaker 3:really it shouldn't matter. Well, here's the deal though.
Speaker 2:Because your purpose will drive your method Exactly.
Speaker 4:That's exactly what I'm saying Is the purpose of discipleship to grow your church, or is the purpose of discipleship to disciple one into wholeness?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and that's what Jesus did, right. The purpose of his discipleship with his disciples was to he caught them, first with his net, and then he took them deep into the knowledge of who he was, yeah, and then he sent them out to do likewise let me say this I probably should use this as a recap, but I read something the other day and this is going to shift gears a little bit, but it'll make sense. I was gonna say don't forget, we still have to cover.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, and that's why I said like I want to just throw this little snippet before we get into the next one. Is you know? Someone said you know, be careful. I'm going to say it my way because I can't remember exactly how you said it, but Give us the JK 2024 version. There's a gypsy spirit happening in the church as well, and I mean the church, not the buildings. I'm talking about the people.
Speaker 3:We get a lot of people who are like well see, because it's easy to throw off on why the churches are very evangelistic and we're questioning their methods not just church but that also equally gets people to a place of being offended, to see see exactly why I struggled going to church, and a guy that I follow was talking about that Like there's a gypsy spirit happening in our atmospheres now of people going. Well, that's why I don't go to church. You are still called to a church. You are still called to be under that authority and that accountability. Absolutely. Yeah, you know we can't because, all in all, I think I was just having this conversation with somebody like if you go to a place you have to be willing to forgive where leadership may struggle.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, because God's still going to use people. God's still going to use people. God's still going to use a church that's operating just under a pastoral mindset.
Speaker 2:Your church leadership is made up of human beings. Yes, they still have flaws, they still have mistakes. I think one of the issues that we face is that people think that the leader of their church has to be perfect, yeah, correct, and that's not fair, correct.
Speaker 3:Well, the problem is, though, is we're getting really I think we're getting really clever with saying that, like see, we don't expect our pastor to be perfect, but deep down we do. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, like no, we're just humans. Like I think we all know that. Now you know what I'm saying. I feel like the church knows that, but then, when it comes to time to handle our own offense, we still don't know the practical biblical.
Speaker 2:Can I tell you? I think part of the problem that people expect their leaders to be perfect, though, is because their leaders put on a perfect face.
Speaker 2:Yes, so it's self-inflicted 100%, and this is again. This is not to pat myself on the back by any stretch of the imagination, but one of the things that makes me relatable as a pastor is I will be the first one to point out my own flaws, and a lot of my sermons and a lot of my teachings come from my own experience, and they start with let me tell you where I missed the mark, and people relate to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, people relate to that, rather than somebody who stands on a stage and pretends to have it all together. And when you see them out in public, they you know life has never hit them hard and they've never had, they've never been struggling with depression or they've never had Right. But if you get down into the depth of who they are, then they really have done that. But they just put on this perfect face, and so when somebody sees the imperfect side of them, they're like how dare they? I'm never going back to that church.
Speaker 2:That pastor I heard the other day that he thought about killing himself. I can never go back to that church. I thought he was perfect. It's because he put on a face like he was perfect. Yeah, that's right. And so I do think that some of that is self-inflicted. But again, I also think that and we've talked about this before I think that the deconstruction movement started and was never tamed properly, because we've talked about it. Deconstruction can be a good thing if you reconstruct on biblical principles, but what people did is they started this deconstruction and they started finding everything that they could possibly find wrong with the church and they're like forget all of them. Then I'm never going back to church.
Speaker 4:What it's turned into, and not deconstruction, is labeled this. If we look at it like there's an excellent book by Brad Jerzak called Out of the Embers I think it was Out of the Embers or From the Embers Awesome, awesome book.
Speaker 2:There's our book plug for this episode For real.
Speaker 4:Check it out. It's an incredible book. It will step on your toes. But he's going through deconstructionists all throughout, because he's like I struggle to talk about deconstruction because of the pop term for it, like what people talk about it now, for lack of a better term, it's a sexy term, right. For lack of a better term, it's a sexy term, right. And he said by nature it can be incendiary, meaning that when you're deconstructing one of the most, it's almost like you almost just want to lie to match and walk away.
Speaker 4:But he talked about the deconstructive nature of what Jesus was doing, the deconstructive nature of what Paul was doing and how it's a fundamental element to following Jesus. He said I can't remember how he phrased it exactly, forgive me or he's like following Jesus is more like leaving what you're already doing. And there was somebody this is back a couple of years ago when it became really, really popular, so to speak, to deconstruct where there was a saying where it's like following Jesus is more like leaving established religion instead of joining established religion. Unfortunately, we've turned religion into that right. I love how we've gone from talking about the.
Speaker 3:I know We'll get back to it.
Speaker 2:Johnny did this. It's my fault, but I want to keep going down this route is like.
Speaker 3:That's why even Jesus talk about building on different foundations.
Speaker 2:I mean Jesus gave you a perfect example of how to deconstruct. Yeah, one of the examples is you've heard it said, you've heard it said that if you cheat on your wife or you, whatever it is, then you've committed adultery. There's the deconstruction and then he reconstructs it with. But I say to you, if you've even lusted after a woman in your heart, then you've already committed adultery. Yeah, right, so he deconstructs something that has been taught to them, reconstructs it on a biblical principle of who. He is Right Because he makes the mention of God, looks at the heart, right. And so this is actually.
Speaker 2:This is going to offend some people because I'm going to go somewhere, but Jesus talks about judging the heart and me and my mom have had this conversation before, where she you know, I have people in my family who follow the Lord and they think it's okay Listeners beware they think it's okay to say damn or shit every now and then. And my mom was like I just can't get behind that, corey, I just don't understand. And I said well, mom, god's judging your heart anyway.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So if you get angry and you drop a sugarplum fairy, mother of pearl, in an angry tone, then God recognized the tone that came out of your mouth and it might as well have been just as vulgar as what you think they are saying.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because the intention in your heart was not clear or was not pure. The intention of your heart was dirty. It's just that you didn't think that the terminology that you used was dirty, right. So that's again rabbit trail of all rabbit trails there.
Speaker 3:So let's just have to do the profit guys yeah Right, so that's again rabbit trail of all rabbit trails there. So let's just have to do the profit guys.
Speaker 2:Right. So we talked about, we got off on this tangent of deconstruction, but again, it was from a good place, right, because we were talking about people having unfair expectations of the leadership of their churches.
Speaker 3:Well, and I think too, again, it's easy to talk about giftings and make it pretty quick to, like we said, even go in full depths to. I think a lot of ours is misconceptions.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:What is the misconception of these gifts to what we believe? Because, again, we've got a lot of, we've got a lot of experience in here. I'm 35 years old but I've been doing ministry for a while now. Corey's been doing ministry, I've been doing ministry. We've both been on different staffs and you know it isn't just our churches. I'm saying like we've been exposed to a lot of ministries just because of what we've watched, what we've seen, all the conferences, everything we've ever been to. And it's not about going around and judging what church, because I've learned that that does not produce fruit either.
Speaker 3:Right, trying to sit there and, just, you know, criticize the other. Cause there's a deal. I can criticize my church right now. You could criticize your church Like that's never going to stop, but it's because we always associate it with a man's building, who pays his taxes, who has a nonprofit status in America, and we've really got to refrain from that. We really need to focus on hey, what's the vision of the church? Does it support a five-fold vision and are they operating? And I'm going to be honest with you there's a high percentage of churches that do not, and a lot of it's theologically based. A lot of people believe even the concept of prophet. Right, the challenge I would always tell people is you know, we know there was prophets in the Old Testament. So the question is are there prophets in the New Testament? Well, we know Paul talks about it in Ephesians being necessary.
Speaker 2:And he says that it will happen until we all come to the unity of the knowledge of God. Right, correct, yes, until we all. We all means we all Correct. And when we all come to the unity of the knowledge of Christ, again, we could start getting into some really deep subjects there, correct?
Speaker 3:Well, and I think we can't put off what we don't understand. Sure, you know, I just had a vision in my heart and my mind. I think this might be challenging to some Christians because we've all done this. You know, I've heard this before and I've used it myself. Well, if I step on your toes and you're offended, we'll just have to pray for your toes.
Speaker 3:The problem is is like even what we used in the part one, adam, of fleshing out, I think what we do in our Christian walks oftentimes is where we don't want to be offended or challenged. So we put steel toe boots on. I know that sounds very corny boots on, I know that sounds very corny, but the more I think about that is a man after God's own heart is willing to receive correction and willing to be exposed. You even said it. I'm willing to be vulnerable, I'm willing to be transparent for the building up of the king, because if I share my testimony of some dark areas, there might be someone that's in there in your churches, in your atmospheres, in your work, whatever that will relate to the dark areas of your life, knowing you've been redeemed from it. You know I'm on rabbit trail, number 10. I guess that's what I'm trying to say is I think we're really talking about a lot of misconceptions around the gifts more than we are trying to teach people what a teacher is per se. Absolutely Go ahead.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say because we do want to transition to the prophet, right, and we're talking about misconceptions. I think prophet is probably one of the ones that has the biggest misconception around it, right, because I think, prophet, in a lot of churches today, profit gets mistaken for a fortune teller. Yes, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We think that someone who is a prophet is someone who's going to tell me what's going to happen to me a week from today. Thus saith. God, yeah, I got a word from the Lord that two weeks from today should you sow a thousand dollar seed then God will deliver a $ million dollar check unto with thy bosom.
Speaker 3:That is that, that was King James.
Speaker 2:Fortune telling is not a prophet, they're just not Now. Can prophets sometimes operate in a sense where they they understand something that could come from what's happening in your life? Yeah, I do think that.
Speaker 3:But all gifts we've said this before on this podcast all gifts better be accompanied with the fruits of the Spirit.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Something that and let me say this the fortune telling mindset comes from. How do I look good?
Speaker 4:And it sells.
Speaker 3:It sells Exactly so it's a very it sells.
Speaker 4:It's a significant I can't remember who I heard say this, but prophets Time out. There is a difference between the Old Testament gifting, not that that has ceased, but the whole prophecy is the good and perfect will of God being spoken, bingo, yep. So when you speak a word that God has given you, you are prophesying. But we've taken prophecy to be future telling, foretelling, not trying to just be redundant in that we should think of it more as forth telling. And here's, most of the time, people who operate in the prophetic, or claim to operate in the prophetic, they are claiming to, this book says that a prophet is one who speaks forth.
Speaker 4:Yes, yes, we want to prophesy about current events, but if you look at let's look at the Old Testament for a second they were talking about some current events. I can't remember if this is the proper term or just what the book I read on it but the prophetic planes and that's not talking about the planes of Jordan, they were talking about the immediate, what was happening, the near future. So in your Old Testament prophecies it was talking about immediate and near, like within the next generation or two. Then they were prophesying to and I forget the actual name for it, but when Jesus came, things that would be fulfilled when Jesus came. That was the second plane. And then there were other things that will only be fully and finally realized when Jesus returns, in the fullness of new creation. And so they have these different prophetic planes, and so they were foretelling, they were forth telling, and then there were. I forget the last thing, but today, like if you go on YouTube and listen to, oh, I got a lot of them, but let's not start on them, dear God, yes.
Speaker 4:But everything's about the election and everything's about here's the one the end times prophecy. Dear God, can we please stop with the I call it hindsight prophecy, where they break down something that's just happened with a prophetic definition of what happened and really what it reminds me of is like a bad psychologist trying to unpack what just happened or trying to place significance on a current event or create fear, and we take prophecy and turn it into something that it's not. We try to make profit off of the prophetic gift. We're trying to. How can we sell books with this prophecy?
Speaker 4:I was given a I am going to name drop Go ahead. I was given a Perry Stone CD book about the Cherokee prophecies and how they would play a key role in the end time stuff, and this was all supposed to take place like 10 years ago. But anyway, it's like how can we sell tapes? How can we sell CDs? How can we sell books? Because people are hungry for the prophetic. They really are, but the prophetic is not designed to tell you who's going to win the election. It's not designed to tell you who's going to do this and who's going to be the Antichrist. Dear God, can we stop with that one Like we mishandle it, not just mishandle it. I mean talking about using the name of God in vain.
Speaker 2:So when Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 14, when Paul talks about even speaking in tongues, right, he says I wish that all of you could speak in tongues, but he says above all, I want you to all seek the gift of prophecy. Why does he say that? He says I say this because the gift of prophecy is upbuilding to the entire body of Christ, not to your bank account, not to your bank account, right. Look at Jesus. Again, we go back to it. Jesus, with the woman at the well. Jesus had a word for her with something that she was dealing with in the moment. Yes, right, and then told her how a shift in her understanding could change things.
Speaker 4:Moving forward, yes, right, but he spoke to the moment, and even that is more like a word of knowledge. See the First Corinthians 12,. It talks about words of knowledge and prophecy. Words of knowledge is like that's, that's what I equate to reading my mail or something like that, yeah, what I equate to reading my mail or something like that.
Speaker 4:And as compared to a prophetic utterance, so to speak and both of them are prophetic, no doubt, but one of them is more people would equate it to almost like a psychic type thing, and I know it's not. So please, listeners, don't think I'm saying that's what it is. But it could be like where she said hey, I know this man's a prophet because of what he said. Or he said I perceive that you're a prophet because he knew something about her life she hadn't broadcasted.
Speaker 4:Now, where this gets mishandled and I'm going to use a specific event where a Christian leader calls out like he had a prophetic dream that this political leader and doctor turned into a rat and was demonically influenced, and all this stuff, and like so we want to expose the enemies or expose the other side, but then we expect the same Holy Spirit to cover our areas, right? I feel like I might've been confusing in that we. 1 Corinthians 13 says you may speak in tongues of angels and we can apply that to everything. You can prophesy, you can speak in tongues, you can operate in these giftings, but if you're not doing it in love, you're just clanging brass.
Speaker 3:And that's why I said these giftings have to be accompanied with the fruit, yes, with the fruit. Your goal is to you know, as a prophet is to bring forth things that are the building the kingdom up, not so you can expose everybody, right? Because it's like you said. We're so ready, and I think that goes to the core of a lot of issues in our society and I'm going on a rabbit trail is we want to? I've heard it some way and I'm going to butcher it, but we judge people off of, we give ourself a lot more grace than how we judge others, and so we tie that in with our gifts. I'm ready to expose all the evil, but I won't let the spirit of prophecy expose mine, Because why that doesn't sell books?
Speaker 4:Right. Your vulnerability doesn't sell books. I'm not against people selling books, I'm not against that. Correct, correct, yeah, we need to preface that Right right. But the thing is is like we will filter what we say and what we don't say based on what's profitable.
Speaker 3:Well, the problem is, is the echo chamber of false prophecy? Yes, Right, it's the oh, finally somebody's standing up to the government yeah, dear God, you know what I'm saying Like we've finally got someone. That's prophetically. I mean, we're going to get in trouble on this podcast. I kind of like it.
Speaker 4:They wanted their ears tickled, but they're like oh, they speak the truth. They're bold enough to stand and speak the truth.
Speaker 3:They're saying what you want them to say the truth that you're looking for is exactly what you already believe. I just heard the wind through my Shadrach.
Speaker 4:The wind woke me up. That's not spiritual. Literally, the wind was shaking my window. Hold on.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you this. I was supposed to go run nine miles this morning and when my alarm went off at 430, it sounded like a tornado outside my house. I was like no, sir, not running in that.
Speaker 3:But the significance of Shadrach, meshach and Abednego wasn't their ability to stand up, the King Nebuchadnezzar to show us how powerful they are. Their significance is how they wouldn't bow in a culture like that. Yes, and I think we need to tie that with. I don't care how big your voice is or how prophetic you think you are, and we got an election year coming up.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's going to start.
Speaker 3:I cannot wait. But you know what, though, like you should be able, I remember hearing one guy, even when all the 2020 stuff was happening.
Speaker 4:Can I read something about that? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, absolutely. This is Jeremiah 23, 16. And Jeremiah was a prophet from the womb Like. This is 23, 16. It says thus saith the Lord of hosts, do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They are deluding you. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise the word of the Lord it shall be well with you. And to all who stubbornly follow their own stubborn hearts, they say no calamity shall fall upon you. One of them says they prophesy their own vanity.
Speaker 4:They're prophesying their own desires, and I fully believe in the prophetic move of God, absolutely. But that's where discernment is so important, that's where accountability is so important. What comes out of your mouth is word of God. Had better line up with the written word of God and the living word of God, jesus Christ himself. Amen, come on.
Speaker 4:And Jesus did prophesy. He told the people of Jerusalem and what's funny is this gets turned into a salvation message when it was actually really more politically motivated when he said unless you repent, you will also likewise perish. And everybody thinks that means unless you say the prayer, you will go to hell. What he's telling them is if you want to lead this violent revolution against Rome, you will end up just like the Valley of Gehenna or the Valley of Hinnom, which is a burning rubble where the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die. In essence, unless you repent of what you're doing, this is what will happen to you, and he was being prophetic in that. And then, when he approaches Jerusalem and he weeps and he cries over Jerusalem, he says how long together you as a mother hen under my wing, yeah, but you refuse.
Speaker 4:And he prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and within. I can't remember if it was 40 or 60 years later, jerusalem was utterly destroyed and became that burning heap that he prophesied. So that was political yeah, if you try to take on this government, overthrow you will be a burning heap. That he prophesied. So that was political. Yeah, if you try to take on this government, overthrow you will be a burning heap. It was also a harsh prophecy to his own people. Right, yeah, so that does happen. But when we come at, when we try to make, when we approach this with a I'm not trying to go down a political stretch, I'm just going to change like shift gears on that.
Speaker 4:When we try to prophesy. We'll cover politics later this year, right around the election time, when we try to prophesy this message and it sounds nothing like the person of Jesus.
Speaker 3:That's it.
Speaker 4:Then you can be sure that that was in vain and from vanity. And I don't mean in vain as in wasted I'm talking about for your own vain purposes, and it doesn't have to just be angry. Look, we talked about Billy Graham earlier. If you read what he said towards the end of his life about his biggest regrets, it was about becoming partisan in this politics and they would have Billy Graham on TV commercials and on radio commercials. This is the most important election in the history of America. This is the most important election in the history of the church and this Christian leader that everybody trusted, saying you better vote the way that I'm saying you should vote, otherwise it's going to affect. That is in vain. That is vanity. That's using God's name in vain Like that. That is vanity. That's using God's name in vain and it's using the influence you have to prophesy and to influence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for our own personal gain. That's called manipulation. Yes, that's what that's called.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll say this, though, and I agree a hundred percent behind you, and this is not this podcast. I think one day we need to, we need to sit down and tie with. Just because you think something is good doesn't make it God, and what I mean by that is we often, when we're talking politics, we often talk about how it's easy for that big name speaker to say, vote my way, to argue that this individual is voting for more of a Christian side.
Speaker 4:Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:And I'm not saying we need to tackle that now.
Speaker 1:That's not but I'll say though that is.
Speaker 3:That is a good topic we do need to talk about, because I think, on the surface, what do you mean? It's not one way or the other. We need to. We're not going to go there.
Speaker 2:We're not going to go there.
Speaker 3:We need to One of the things that I kind of, I guess, recap a little bit on the prophet side is I want to speak to our listeners of you know, here's some other misconception Be careful who you let speak into your life, but don't be afraid a wrong person's going to speak over you, and that's the say of the Lord. Yeah, but be careful, discern all things, because I'm one of those. I embrace words, but let's not become emotional, because this individual that could give you a word of knowledge or a prophetic word, they can miss it too. Yes, and does both deserve grace.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, there's a person in my life that I've known for a long, long time and she will sometimes give you a word. It's wild man. She has given me words in season where it's like that was straight from God. There's no way that she knew that was going on. There's other times when she I think it's because she feels the need to always have that word where she's come up and it's like that was out of left field yeah, where did that come from? That does not make sense and that was completely irresponsible to try to even say that Like. That's a lot of people who are like concerned, like who might have the prophetic, the word of knowledge, specifically in that realm of prophecy.
Speaker 2:They feel like they always have to have something.
Speaker 4:Yes, or people won't say something because they know that people like, if you give a word that you can mess up somebody's life if they trust you, yeah. And so it's almost like they won't say what's been laid on their heart to say. That's typically, I'll be honest, be real and raw. I have gotten words of knowledge and I've given them. I don't know if this person listened or not, so I'm not going to go into that, but I saw this person. Always, no matter what was going on, they had to say something, and there were some of them that were just completely idiotic, and because I saw how that person was, I have been disobedient and not said what God put on my heart to say. Not saying I'm always right, but it's like I've seen that mishandled and I didn't want to be that guy.
Speaker 2:Dude. Listen, I had one just not too long ago. I had a dream about a guy. It was odd, it's a dude that I hadn't talked to in a while and I was afraid to tell him what I had dreamed about him because he was on leadership at the church that I was on leadership on before Jess and I planted a church. I was like man I don't want to say this because I don't want it to feel like I'm causing division and telling him that God told me to tell him to leave the church, because that wasn't what happened. Yeah, but finally, for like two weeks I wrestled with it, man, and I finally woke up on a Sunday morning Nope, saturday morning, nope, tuesday morning, it was New Year's Day. Sorry, it was New Year's Day.
Speaker 4:You got four more to guess.
Speaker 2:I had 10 days off between Christmas and New Year's, so all the days ran together, but it was New Year's Day and I woke up and I text him and I was like, hey, man, I've been wrestling with this, but I had a dream the other day that you called me and told me that you had taken over the lead pastor at a church in Rockford of all places the fact that Rockford was in my spirit. He text me back 30 minutes later and he was like back in November I felt God pulling me toward this church in Rockford and just recently the pastor has been trying to hand over the leadership of that church to me. And he said I wasn't sure if I was supposed to leave high praises and take that job or not. He said but you telling me that you had that dream was confirmation that I needed. I mean, I was terrified to tell him because of the fact that what if I just missed it? What if I just had a weird?
Speaker 3:dream, but that's the posture of your heart and I tell people that all the time I've had visions, I've had prophetic things that have happened and I've been scared because I didn't want to miss it. And I tell people, like God honors you, like walking, and like God, I want to be so obedient. Keep it upon my heart and I'll even tell the people I'm going to be honest with you. I don't know if this is indigestion or if this is really a word, but I feel like it's a word.
Speaker 2:I think that's a reverent fear. Right, that's a reverent fear of the Lord, because I don't want to miss it, but at the same time, I don't want to miss an opportunity to build somebody up. Because what if I don't tell him that and he doesn't obey what God was telling him to do and he misses it because I refused to walk in the anointing that God placed on me.
Speaker 4:I very rarely like me personally. I very rarely have, like I say, I have lots of dreams and just in the last three months I've had two that I was like that's odd. And then it came like but it was for me, it was about me and for me. And then it like it came to pass and I was like, wow, the only people I'd told about it was Emily and another one of my friends. And then the follow-up was like this is exactly how it happened, yeah, and so like, but that was just for me.
Speaker 3:Let me say this there's a key and point, and I think we've talked about it on this podcast before and I'm about done. I don't know if you're like you guys, but it is key to understand your gifting. But it's also key to grow in your gifting. Yes, because it's like we're sitting here talking about that reverent fear. If you truly have a prophetic gift, embrace it but grow in it, study it, find people that also have the gift, because I think we can't stay ignorant to. We need to know the Father's voice, stay reverent in all you do, stay humble. But how are you becoming better in your prophetic gift? It's like giving a one-year-old a 30-06 to go hunting. Would you ever do that? No, no, no.
Speaker 2:So prophecy should be something that is building the kingdom right, Not building your own brand yes, and so I think that is important, right, I think, one of the things if you want to, if you want to be quick to recognize a false prophet, look at the level of arrogance that they carry. If they are calling themselves a prophet, because they have it A false prophet has a real sense of arrogance, as if they are God himself and what they say is facts.
Speaker 3:I struggle. This is my flesh. This is not right, but I think if you attach prophet to your name on any legal document or social media, I'm already going to think you're sus, as the kids would say. Is that?
Speaker 2:bad. I don't know that it's necessarily bad. I think that that's just you testing a spirit. Now, if you just write them off and refuse to at least hear what they have to say because they call themselves a prophet, I think you're on a little bit of a dangerous path. But I think that being able to test the spirit is important.
Speaker 3:I mean that's discernment. Well, I know, but my flesh is, I'm like, already writing you off if I see prophet on a business college.
Speaker 4:No, I understand what you're saying. That's a common fruit. I mean, that's a fruit of that.
Speaker 2:I mean, I heard a prophet not too long ago and again throwing I could, I have plenty of them. But I heard a prophet one time say just recently on a video and I may have showed it to you guys, but this prophetess she calls herself Papa. Yeah, you know where it's going. This prophetess told a person that I cannot take you to God empty-handed and the prophet cannot give a word unless you come with something in your hands of financial value. And it's like huh, where did you get that in scripture? Well, where'd you find that verse Right? There's an arrogance that that person carries that says you have to give this profit money because I can't take you to God empty handed. There's also scripture that, apart from me, I never knew you. Yeah, anyway, that's a rabbit trail.
Speaker 2:Prophecy and prophets, prophets are not fortune tellers. Let's get back to that right. Prophets are not fortune tellers. Sometimes do they foretell what could come, absolutely, but typically it is a foretelling of what could come based on what is happening right now, like the example you gave of Jesus If you continue on this path, trying to violently overthrow the Roman government, you're going to lose, you're going to die. Be careful, stop that. He's speaking to the moment saying this could be an outcome. Yes, right, yes, that he's speaking to the moment saying this could be an outcome. He's not just simply saying, hey brother, six months from now you're going to be a millionaire. I felt that in my spirit. What Where's my basis for that?
Speaker 3:Well, like the fortune telling thing, prophecy is not for you to stand in a pulpit to bring significance to self, to gain influence, because what? Okay? So how does prophecy look beautiful Like, how does it operate in a beautiful way, kind of what we just explained Somebody that has a prophetic word who desires to release it, so the betterment for somebody, so they can go forth that. What that does is actually produces intimacy between two individuals, which is unity in the church.
Speaker 2:So I talked about Jess's sisters. Yeah, jess's other sister. She would be a great example for me of a prophet I have. So, again, I have such a servant's heart. But throughout the years, we've been doing ministry together for 15 years. But throughout the years, anytime she preached doing ministry together for 15 years but throughout the years, anytime she preached, the altar was always full. So there was like an evangelistic side of this. Yeah, but she always considered me like her ministry partner when it came to the altar, because I always had her back, meaning I was always there for her.
Speaker 2:She needed anything if anybody needed anything and dude, I have watched this lady walk up to people that she's never met and literally read their mail about something that is happening in their life and tell them the positives that could come from it. Right, and just speak Honestly. Goodness, it felt like God's voice was coming out of her. Yeah, I watched her pray in tongues over a lady one time. This is, honest to God, the only time I've ever interpreted somebody speaking in tongues. I watched her pray in tongues over a young lady at our church one time and she was obviously speaking in a language that I did not understand, but in my spirit I was hearing it as these certain words. I don't remember what the words were, but it was something like power, faith, something that was upbuilding this person.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I said hey, I just want you to know. I don't know if you know what you were praying right there, but in my spirit this is what I heard. And she said you have no idea that young lady needs that more than anything right now in her life and I was like goodness gracious, but I have watched her operate in such a gift of being able to speak to somebody's now that she has no idea what's happening in there now, but speak to it and that person leave different.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's that's probably done, right and 100%. Because in no way she probably she may listen to this. She may not. 100% because in no way she probably she may listen to this. She may not. But if she listens to this, she would probably rather me not tell that story, because it's not about her. For her, it's about the fact that God was able to minister and touch the lives of people through her obedience right and her willingness to let God use her. So she, while she I'm telling you, dude, anytime she speaks, she speaks with power, she speaks with authority, and this is going to sound weird, but she's one of those people that when she speaks, you're like man demons tremble when this lady speaks.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's one of those, but she would never want me to talk about her like that because it's not about building up her name. That's why I'm not even going to mention her name. Yeah, because she wouldn't want me to, because it's not about her. Yeah, but she operates in such a way that God builds people up through the gifting that she operates in.
Speaker 4:Yes, that's what a prophet should do. Can I say one thing, and then I'll be done?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're over an hour we probably need to close.
Speaker 4:I said this one wouldn't be In all of these giftings, in all of these manifestations of the giftings of the Spirit, it should have the fruit of the Spirit. It should be in the nature and manner of Jesus, 100% and in the fruit of the Spirit. I'm saying the fruit of the Spirit. What are the characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit? Love, joy, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness.
Speaker 2:Faithfulness, Self-control and Peace. Patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control and I'm missing one.
Speaker 4:I don't know the last one, I can't remember, but here's the thing. What's in there? It's in there, there's a knife. It is called the fruit of the spirit. Jeff Cochran says this it is called the fruit of the spirit, not the fruits of the spirit, and if it ceases to have one of those, it has ceased to be the fruit of the Spirit. Sure that it takes all of those. You can't have it Like. You can't be of the Spirit and not have love. I would say you can't be of the Spirit and not have joy. That doesn't mean that we won't have down times, we won't have to deliver hard messages, but you can't leave out part of those because they don't fit what you want. It has to be in the nature of Jesus and it has to bear the fruit of the Spirit Hard messages can be delivered in love.
Speaker 2:Yes, when Jesus told that lady to go get her husband and she was like I don't have one, he's like.
Speaker 3:I know, I know.
Speaker 2:You've actually had five, yeah, and the one you're with right now. Ain't your husband.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, he's not coming at that as like a shame on you, correct. He's coming at that more of like a I see you where you're at, yeah.
Speaker 4:That's something like, especially in youth ministry, where I'm very intentional, like when a kid needs to talk to you about something. I'm very intentional not to be shocked. Not to be shocked or not to be like oh God, you know, because I don't want them to feel like I'm like not just judging, but that for six years I've been intentional, like when a kid comes in with a problem, that I'm always like okay, because I don't want them to feel like I'm like oh yeah, that's too bad, oh, boy, I don't know what to do here.
Speaker 3:Some things the Lord don't even want to hear. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 4:But that's the case because I want them to like. If I can reflect Jesus in that moment that he's not scared of their problems, that's right. Then I can properly do that. But if their issues shock me, not like because God's not shocked, he already knew. God's not judging them, he already knew.
Speaker 1:Thank you guys for joining us here at the we Are Lions podcast. We're so thankful that you have spent some time with us. Hopefully you have been encouraged. Hopefully you feel like your faith has grown a little bit more. That is our heart. That is our intent is to see you get closer to Jesus and become that reflected image Again. If you want to partner with us, we'd love your financial support. Check out the bio. There'll be a link for our PayPal, because we can't do this without your continued prayers and support, so please consider that. Hey, you have an incredible rest of your week and we hope to see you back here on the next episode. Thank you,