 So just as briefly as I can be I just want to talk about the gifts of the Holy Spirit I'm not going to go into each one and how they're manifested and what 34 I think we have a pretty good understanding that we go to 1st Corinthians chapter 12 What the early church was experiencing in terms of gifts and That's a great place to start because right there you see so much But in the great document Christopher Daelus Lacey This is what is written. It says the Holy Spirit while bestowing diverse ministries and church communion Enriches it still further with the particular gifts or promptings of grace called charisms They can take a great variety of forms both as manifestations of absolute freedom of the Spirit who abundantly supplies them And as a response to the very varied needs of church of the church in history This description and classification given these gifts in the New Testament are an indication of their rich variety And it goes on to quote 1st Corinthians 12 here where it says to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good to one Is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom 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 the ability to distinguish between spirits to another various kinds of tongues to another the interpretation of tongues This paragraph is concluded with these words whether they are exceptional or great and great or simple and ordinary The charisms are graces of the Holy Spirit that have directly or indirectly a usefulness for the ecclesial community Ordered as they are to the building up of the church to the well-being of humanity into the needs of the world Even in our own time there is no lack of a fruitful manifestation of various charisms among the faithful women and men And when we read this, you know, I think what we see is that the Holy Spirit is the giver of gifts The greatest gift as we know that he gives us is himself his presence in our lives that awakens faith But right now There is such a lack of faith in the world that I believe this is a time when the Holy Spirit is stepping up and saying I am going to give you the manifestations that you need to break the toughest nuts in your parish Those hards hearts that become so hardened against me those eyes that have become so blinded and distracted by the world are Going to be brought back to focus on Jesus Christ through the words and works that that you will do as priests and deacons in the church today I Think it's absolutely essential because right now there is such a great need for faith we see Absolutely a complete lack of faith when only 30% of our brothers and sisters who call themselves Catholic believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ We see a great lack of faith where in most diocese church attendances drop below 15% Maybe closer to 10% People are not drawn to the Lord They become so full of the world and it's goods and it offers an endless supply of distraction You can rent tons of video services get on tons of social media keep yourself distracted from anything meaningful or purposeful in your life and Just kind of like become this consuming Vegetable that's not tuned into who God is People are not tuned into one another Heck, they're not even aware of who they are anymore People have are walking through this life not knowing who they are without purpose and direction and in these charisms are to awaken faith To direct people's attention back to the Lord in In the in the letter on the laity in Vatican to it says the reception of these charisms even the most ordinary ones Arises for each of the faithful the right and duty to exercise them in the church and in the world So as a church every baptized Catholic has the right to receive and use the gifts of the Holy Spirit and a duty a Responsibility because the St. Paul alludes they're not given to you For your benefit they're giving to you for the benefit of others And I think a lot of times our hesitation with going after spiritual gifts is that we've come across people who wielded them very poorly Right. It's all about me. Watch me demonstrate how much God loves me or how strong I am in the spirit and You see people, you know, like sometimes become very spiritually proud when they have charisms and that's a great danger Because we lose the sense that we are being God's instruments and start claiming it for ourselves Where God would say the more docile and humble we are the more he's going to use us to do these great things But unfortunately a humanity gets mixed in there very quickly even in in the midst of spiritual renewal But the Holy Spirit wants to come Because we have a right and duty to take the gifts that we've been given and most of them have already been given to you in your baptism They have to be discovered discerned and awakened like everybody who comes through your parish door has a charism That's going to make your parish a better place And unfortunately, we're not even helping people discover for themselves Not just what they could receive by coming to the church But what they could bring the impact if they just discovered the fact that Inside their soul is a treasure chest of gifts that could help minister and bring the love of Jesus to other people How desperately God wants to grab a hold of them and awaken that in them and use them for his glory and use them and give them the Joy of knowing that they're walking with the Lord in power That there's so much more for them and there's so much more for each one of us here When the Holy Spirit comes to us, he is inseparable from the charisms Alvin Alvin tell people like don't ever come to the Holy Spirit with a Checklist of things you want and check list of things you don't want from him When we say the Holy Spirit and we say this in our creed This is a fundamental belief the Holy Spirit is the Lord and giver of life Which means we don't come to the Holy Spirit with terms. We don't negotiate We submit to everything that he would want to do Because anything that he's going to do is going to give us that full life that Christ desires for us The Holy Spirit will never take anything away from us Except those things those sins that keep us from experiencing the full life The Holy Spirit will never ask us to receive something Or to do anything that's going to be beyond our Capacity now it's they're definitely beyond our ability But with the Holy Spirit, they're never beyond our capacity This is why they call it a step of faith If we could do it without his help if we could do the work of God without completely having to surrender to him first Then it wouldn't be the work of God. It would just be our flesh and St. Paul is clear Crystal clear the works of the flesh amount to nothing the spirit is life And this is why as we come to the Lord this afternoon, we just want to say okay God, whatever you want and One of the things I just want to talk about because I had a great conversation yesterday about this is just One gift that is probably ninety nine point nine percent of the time just an application for you for your own personal spirituality And that is the gift of speaking in tongues to praying in the spirit And it's probably the one that people just like least understand and is probably not really sought after Because there are more exciting gifts out there Now my experience with speaking in tongues started when I was in high school not experiencing it directly, but when my dad was a funeral director My brother's a funeral director my grandfather and my great-grandfather were all funeral directors And so growing up I worked at funerals with my dad and put on my suit. I would help set everything up I would watch my dad serve and minister to people in their in some of their most Painful moments with just this love and grace. He really lived his vocation as a work of mercy He was the first person to teach me about ministry And I got to know every minister in town because of it personally because we'd be standing around before and after and They'd have receptions in the basement, you know those those potlucks that they always have where you know Do they still do the potlucks after funerals have you know receptions? I hope so that was such a beautiful We did one for my dad a couple weeks ago after his funeral. We had it done at our Elks Club. It was awesome anyway So we the Pentecostal assemblies of God minister he would tell me Speaking in tongues is the sign that you've been saved that you're filled with the life of God is when you speak in tongues I'd go to the Baptist church and the Baptist minister would say Speaking the tongues ended with a with the last Apostles death and anyone who manifests that gift is of the devil It's the devil's work in you So in both of these men with just the most sincere seer look on their face says We believe this because this is what the Holy Spirit has led to our church to believe And I used to be so confused like how could so many many people who are so sincere be so wrong and on Opposite ends of who they think the Holy Spirit is and how he wants to manifest himself in their lives And I think it's because both of them were formed with a preconceived idea of what the Holy Spirit This is what they were raised to believe But what we have been raised to believe in our church is that we come to the Lord He's the Lord and giver of life. He wants to bless the church with charisms. We need to receive them It's all great in St. Paul when it comes to the gift of Praying in tongues said some pretty impressive things and Most of it is found in 1st Corinthians chapter 14. So this is all for you to review He says those who speak in tongues speak to God not to other people Because nobody understands them. They are speaking in the spirit and the meaning is hidden All right, so it's a speaking out of words a Heavenly language angelic tongues however you want to describe it, but it's a language that's hidden from others from understanding He goes on to say I should like you all to speak in tongues He goes on to say what then I shall pray with the spirit, but I shall pray with the mind as well I shall sing praises with the spirit and I shall sing praises with the mind as well So he for him it wasn't you got to pray one way or the other mental praise Proclaiming God's goodness out of a contemplative thought of God like God you are so amazing your creation is wonderful Praising him with your voice with words is a beautiful gift But also the praying in the spirit and offering up this angelic praise this is also a good He goes on to say do not suppress the gift of speaking in tongues Because he who speaks in tongues builds himself up This is all included in it, but but then we still are confused. What is it? Well, I would say we need to have a couple of things number one. It's something that's not forced upon anyone This is the way I love about God is that God gives gifts and we receive the gifts that we are able to receive Like I know people have said I've never spoken in tongues. I've asked the God God 25 times the gift of tongues And I've never received it. What's wrong with me. I would say there's nothing wrong with you There's nothing wrong with God It could be so it could be simply God is asking you before he gives this gift to take one more step of faith They that to believe in his goodness, even if we don't get what we want Because what is the greatest gift that you could have? What is the greater gift that you could have faith that keeps you persevering in prayer and asking God for the good things or the gift of tongues For me it seems like there's three things that remain and tongues isn't one of them But the gift of faith to believe that I'm gonna keep going to God and asking him Trusting in his timing trusting in his goodness is a greater gift than speaking in tongues It is one of the three that lasts So it's not forced upon any but it really is a collaboration of your will with the spirits will and I was talking with Chris About this at dinner extensively and for me what God is kind of like I've wrestled with this because one of the things I've never done is I've never been prayed over and rested in the spirit And I've I've prayed over people and they've rested in the spirit I've seen other people pray over people and they've rest. I've never rested in the spirit and I don't feel like I'm Defective or God doesn't have his best for me. I think if I needed to rest in the spirit I would have rested in the spirit and for some of you right now You don't need the gift of tongues. There's other things that God might want to work on So if you ask for it and you don't receive it don't don't be upset But when you ask for it, what is it? What are you doing is saying? Okay, God? I need to submit every part of my life to your work. Let it start with my voice. How powerful is our voice? You know, we you know, St. James said the tongue has such great power So if we can submit our tongues Our voice to the spirit to the point where we were yielding in prayer and letting him pray through us You know because they St. James is those who can control their tongues can control just about any part of themselves. That's how hard it is I would also say those who can get to that yielding Also are going to be able to yield even greater things to God in their lives Second it's not imposed. It's in with God with everything. It's invitation come receive what God has It is not an infallible sign of being filled with the spirit Love is the infallible sign of being filled with the spirit. All right Let's just put it out there Because even St. Paul says you could speak in all the tongues you want, but if you don't have love, you're just a clanging symbol your noise Finally, it's our experience That would and the main purpose of tongues is to edify what I have found for me is when I'm at a conference like this And there's praise and worship. Yes, I find myself praising in tongues But 99.9 percent of the time when I'm using this gift It's when I'm entering into mental prayer and hitting a door or a wall And I had this very vivid image in prayer a Few years ago of me and on the outdoor outside of this cathedral banging on the front door saying God open up I want to come in I know you're in there just open up and and it was like I was trying so hard to get through this door And it wasn't opening to me and as I stood there I noticed as I looked off to the side around the corner came this bright light And it had no real form so I can't say it was an angel. I can't say it was the Holy Spirit It could have been the blessed mother for all I know But as I saw this vision this bright light beckoned me to come and follow it around the corner and I did It went about halfway down the side of this building this great massive cathedral and stopped And I and I slowly approached and looked and what that's what the light was illuminating was this tiny little door a hidden tiny little door and I reached down and I opened it up and I walked through it and I was in the presence of God and What the what the Lord said to me is I will lead you in prayer if You're docile to my spirit and I have found that using that gift of tongues is how I put my spell in that place of docility Like every time I pray now I just stop before I start with my list or you know even though I know there's things I want to pray about Even if I have disciplines, I know like I pray the litany of trust and humility. I Stop and I say Lord without your spirit leading me. This is not going to go where it needs to go You're the Lord and giver of life breathe life into my prayer. Lead me where I want to go And so I want to pray with you to receive the gift of tongues for your own edification So that you will have a prayer language You know like that that when we don't know how to pray St. Paul says the Spirit intercedes sometimes that's what it is Is I don't know how to pray but we can say come Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit was just started speaking and and it's okay At first if it feels weird, right if it feels like you're just babbling like baby talk You know one of the things that you do not do when you receive a spiritual gift is walk into maturity with it God needs to mature all these gifts in us and he does that over time But we need to take the step of faith to ask is if we ask we shall receive And we're gonna say come Holy Spirit right now And I'm just gonna lead you in a prayer of surrender to receive that gift Then we're gonna pray for some other gifts And then we're gonna you know, I don't know where the Spirit is gonna lead this all I know is this is what God has asked me to do I Hope you're with me. Amen Let's just go and pray and let the Spirit lead us and give us what he wants this afternoon. Amen Amen, and you can stand you can kneel you can sit whatever Posture helps you to pray right now. That's the posture. I want you to be in whatever is a yielding posture for you If it's standing with your hands in the air great that Receptivity let your body show up I may be sitting there with your hands open in front of you and just saying God have your way God have your way I surrender give me whatever gifts you want to give me, but just receive Just receive a man Come Holy Spirit Come Holy Spirit Lord God Come Holy Spirit Come Holy Spirit praise to you Lord Jesus Christ My own experience is the first time I and maybe even the third time People prayed over me to receive this gift. I did not receive it But it was at a time when I was unexpectedly in prayer with the Lord by myself that the gift began to manifest itself and As I was in a place where I was truly intimate and yielding with the Lord Do not believe you have to come to Francis University and be prayed over in Christ the King Chapel in order to receive gifts from God Okay, God will meet you where you are in his timing. I Wanted to start with this gift though because it edifies our prayer. It strengthens our ability to pray Some of you already have strong prayer lives This might add a new dimension to it for those who might be struggling in prayer. This could be a great aid But it's simply you know also not the only way to strengthen our prayer. So I want to be clear This is not about acquiring Exactly what we want in the moment or even the feeling that might accompany God moving This is an act of will an act of surrender and a step of faith To say Lord if you want to give me this gift, I'm open to it But trusting that whatever happens on the other side of that surrender is for our good and for God's reasons and Oftentimes when God doesn't show up and doesn't give us that gift in the moment. We want to assign our own reasons to it Well God doesn't love me I'm not special enough to receive that gift all the lies. We tell ourselves over and over again We've been telling all our we start to apply our own reasoning for to for God's actions Don't let Satan take you there because that Your mind is like a bad neighborhood. You don't want to go in there alone Let the Holy Spirit guide you, okay? I want to talk really briefly about the next thing I want to us to pray for which is the gift of prophecy Because if tongues is a gift of prayer that is for our edification There is no greater gift that God could give us for the edification of others than prophetic words How does this work? God speaks his truth through us prophecy is not trying to unlock the profound heart of God and make it easy to understand For others what it is is simply speaking in the power of the spirit God's word to us in the moment Which means as we proclaim as we walk it means that we have to walk in docility and surrender In my own life. I was getting on a plane to go from colorado to north carolina when I sat down I'm the kind of guy that when I get on the plane its headphones in eyes down Getting my little you know cone of silence if I'm you know like get smart, you know Just like I'm not going to be bothered by anybody. Thank you. You got yeah, but you get your cone of silence you just kind of hunker down and On this particular flight as soon as I sat down God started poking me in the ribs Spiritual ribs as it were saying go talk to the guy across the aisle And I was near the back of the plane So there was a lot of open seats, but he was a row ahead of me on the opposite side sitting next to the window There's probably nothing more awkward than somebody sitting down in your aisle with you in that same row with you Who's not supposed to be there? You're like, oh, I got my own row Isn't that the best feeling when you're like you're sitting in a row and they close the main door The plane that seat is still empty I know it's not always the best attitude of heart, but sometimes it's just a relief You know you just want some downtime on the plane And that's what I wanted, but that's not what God wanted. I got the nudge I went over I sat down and I just said this is weird. I just got to be completely honest I was praying as I was getting on the plane and the Lord wants me to talk to you My name is John. How are you doing? He goes, well, my name is bill and I'm not doing well at all. He's and I and in the long of short of it His sister had been murdered three days earlier and he was flying back to north carolina to bury her And he was a wreck He she had a boyfriend that was extremely abusive. He beat her up and then dumped a whole bucket of boiling water on her And she was scalded to death And as he thought about her, you know He described his nightmares of her writhing on the floor in pain and how he he wanted where she could be there And he couldn't he was like feeling guilty and feeling anger and just all this Unbridled emotion and pain and it was so raw and so real and all I could do is say Let's pray And you know, I mean I just started praying with him That peace I started proclaiming you're a love by God Your sister is loved by God and his grace is there his grace is here for you Just receive it receive God's love for you right now And it wasn't about you need to let go you need to you know, it wasn't about You need to forgive this guy. It was like in that moment Just receive what God wants to give you because you are loved and that's all I had And I just prayed that the Holy Spirit would make it real and the Holy Spirit showed up in power at 28,000 feet and started Massaging this guy's broken heart And cradling it and loving it and that was the image that I got I said God is holding your heart And he's he's very intimately speaking his love into your heart. Just receive it by the time we were done praying he was just In a different place emotionally He had peace and he had tears and he had gratitude Whatever God did in his heart Me being there to pray with him and to speak God's love into his heart Jesus used the prophetic words all the time The woman at the well He spoke prophetically, you know, you you've had five husbands and the man you're living with currently isn't and it wasn't condemnation It was freedom for her I was at a healing retreat and I've been blessed to learn about a lot of healing and prayer through wonderful people like dr. Bob shoots and and and and and in this retreat that I was on with him As soon as this man sat down for prayer the Lord had put it out of the heart that he was had a pornography addiction and then God was going to free him And as we began to pray I said what would you like prayer for knowing full well that eventually the Lord was going to take us there And he it was having a hard time expressing it I said say no more The Lord wants to do nothing more than to free you To free you from this addiction He and he's like what what do you like? The Lord is here. He's going to guide this prayer. He's already He's already starting to lead me to pray for you. Will you receive this word? He's like, yes. I want the freedom You know like he was seen by God known by God and loved by God in that moment because God spoke through me to him It was like I wasn't I wasn't alone God has sent somebody in my life has prepared this moment to bring freedom to my life and and and it energized his faith And I believe it was the key that unlocked his heart to bring healing into it and the freedom that God wanted Our words can restore restore people's dignity. It can inspire people to radical discipleship It can bring correction to people's lives. It can provide direction and enhance people's vision for their lives prophetic words can provide an agenda for prayer like I just shared about Prophecy and words of knowledge can open up the scriptures and bring anointing to your teaching and to your preaching Because God will be speaking to you A word that's directly from him I can still remember very young in my in my uh walk with the Lord I was in a group and we were praying and people were getting prophetic words and I wanted this word I wanted a word from God. I said God I speak a powerful word through my through my lips Lord, let me bless these people with your whatever you want to say And nothing was coming to me and one guy two day two People away from me in the circle just said you guys I get the sense It's overwhelming sense that God just wants to say I love you Now I had heard people preach. God loves me many many times But in that moment it wasn't spoken as a thought It was spoken in a response to the gift that was being placed in that person's heart and it hit me It was like it was like once again It caused a realignment of what I was searching for back in that moment to seeking God's love for me Because that's what God wanted to do and it was just a powerful encounter And it was a simple prophetic word St. Paul says we should earnestly desire desire the spiritual gifts Especially that you may prophesy because when we prophesy it is definitely for the benefit of another People need to hear God speak into their lives and they will do that as we accept and pass on prophetic words So here's what we're gonna do Let's get awkward Let's pray for this gift And here's how I'd like you to do it I'd like you to pair off with one other person and pray for this gift And how it works is like God I want to would you please give me a prophetic word for the other person And how do you do that? Hey, you just as an act of will Lord. I want to receive this gift Because I believe this is a gift that everyone has I believe that everyone has the ability to prophesy and it's not just uh me in 1st Corinthians chapter 14 verse 31 St. Paul says you can all prophesy We can all speak on behalf of God his love and truth into the world Just say you know just pair off with somebody take a few minutes together calling upon the holy spirit Just say come holy spirit sit Let the Lord speak into you when you get a word Pause and say God Is this what you want me to say pause? And then just deliver it I can tell you I've done this Nobody bats a thousand. I don't bat a thousand Because sometimes I've said these words to people and they go oh, thanks Okay Sometimes they say well, that's exactly what I needed to hear, but it's not about us Delivering a sucker punch to the soul It's about us being faithful and delivering the word that was given to us So find yourself a partner Maria is going to play and we're just going to call upon the holy spirit and just pray for one another Say lord give me a prophetic word and just yield say I receive Help me to receive We got it about another minute or so and We'll time it wrap up this prayer Thank you, Jesus Thank you, Jesus How good and beautiful and amazing would it be if You had this with a brother priest on a regular basis How necessary and good and how much good would it release in our lives if we made this not just Hey when we come to student bill, let's pray with one another But you would be able to seek out a brother in christ a brother priest a brother deacon And take time ministering to one another Putting one another in the hands of god and speaking god's truth into one another's hearts Let me ask you a question How many person people got a word from god that really touched their heart deeply was there was I needed to hear what the person had to say How many would say like on a scale of one to ten it was like a seven between a seven and a ten like way up there How many got a message that would say it moved you like a five to a six, but it moved you How many got a word it's like I wasn't really sure if that was for me I'm going to have to pray about it process it. I don't know what exactly Listen, once again this scale None of us even I love the fact that a professional baseball player can get up to the plate and seven out of ten times fail And make millions of dollars Our god is much more merciful and patient with us than managers are with their baseball teams and their players We don't have to get up and hit a home run every time But you have to get up and swing the bat That's what matters consistently taking a step of faith and swinging that bat with the lord The more you swing the more you exercise the gifts the more mature you will become with them The better you will be at hearing and responding to how the spirit leads I want to encourage you when you leave here to find a brother priest or deacon That you can serve as somebody who will minister god's grace to one another And I wish I had time, you know, we were already almost out of time to go into things like how do we pray for healing? How do we pray, you know for for inner healing? How do we go more deeper into these things that would you know what we need to be doing with our We need to experience and also That we need to be able to bring to people that we minister to I wish we had a lot more time to get into these things Um But what we'll do right now let's The silence to thank god Ask the spirit to put one word on your life about What does the lord want to do next in terms of charisms in your life? Is that word hunger formed does he want you to desire them? What does the spirit want? Just say thank you lord for how you're moving. What is it that you want? Holy spirit, we thank you We thank you that you are the ocean that we can never Get to the complete depths of We thank you that you're the ocean of love that we could Just continue to to to float in to rest and to dive deep into to receive from all the goodness Holy spirit continue to wash over us Continue to move our hearts to deeper receptivity Deeper joy deeper peace as we rest in your love Lord, we thank you for the energy and excitement that we feel in our hearts for the ministry that we have been given When your spirit is at the center Holy spirit, we take no confidence in our flesh We renounce ourselves Our egos our prides Pride our dreams our ambitions. We lay it all at your feet. Holy spirit pour the fire of love upon what we want Purify it strengthen it We want to receive back from you this purified vision for what you want for us Come holy spirit continue to lead and guide And thank you so much for how you've just worked in abundance Over these last few days in our hearts. Thank you, jesus. Keep us open Keep us open. Thank you jesus Amen remember, you know our faith When you hear the word faith you can think of faith as the creed you can think of faith as entrusting in god for our salvation We can think of faith as that fruit of the holy spirit that Allows us to be faithful to god But there's also that dimension of faith that jesus said is that's the stuff that moves mountains That's the faith that we need right now. Amen Because the mountains How you know the biggest mountains it seems like we got to overcome are the ones that the church puts in front of us They would have to climb over just to get to people to minister to them But all these mountains can be moved with god's grace Um So Yeah, we got to go to eat right now And I thought we'd be able to have time to have a discussion about how to do bring this back to your family But here's what I will offer to you as somebody who loves you guys like this is like These this this part of june is my favorite time of the year because there's the power and purpose conference Which is you know, it was over 800 people and on saturday night We had a thousand people in our field house praying and and praising god and it was powerful powerful stuff And then right just to go from sunday right into monday to be with you guys for the last few days It's like a joy And uh, if anyone wants to uh, you know Find out what you can do to bring more of the grace of the holy spirit to your parish You can email me if you want to come and ask me for my email afterwards I'll be glad to help a lot of you guys If you're already a pastor and you've got it going on and you you're like, hey, uh, you know You can come talk to me too. I'll help you You know, I can I can guide anyone who wants to bring this grace to your you know This is what's working for me. You know, so talk to one another Talk to me if you want to and uh, you know, let's just continue to to know that What happens here? and in you Is meant to go out from you We it's the gifts that you receive from the holy spirit are for the edification of others Let that happen amen