Who do You Say That I Am? Seizing Your Spiritual Gifts

SPEAKER 01 : 0:00

Good morning. Welcome to Victorious Faith. I am Cherry Campbell. This morning I want to begin sharing with you another message that I preached in one of our Victorious Faith services called, Who Do You Say That I Am? My Abundant Provider. So this is part one of this message. Join me now in our live service. The Lord has put in my heart a series called, Who Do You Say That I Am? And the emphasis should actually be on the word you. Who do you say that I am? And the Lord would ask you that. Last Sunday, we looked at Jesus, the healer, Jehovah-Rophe. Tonight, we’re going to look at our provider. He is our provider. Now, our text scripture for this series that we’re going to be doing for a few weeks, actually several weeks, is I have been studying the names of God and the character of God and focusing on… I want to focus on his attributes of his character and his names. And… So this is our text, scripture, Matthew 16, verses 13 through 16. And it says, Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others say, still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. but what about you? He asked, who do you say I am? Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Now that was a revelation to Peter. Jesus said so that this was given to you by revelation from my father. It was a revelation to Peter. of who Jesus is. But his revelation at this point was simply the Christ, the anointed one, or that’s actually the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah. So he was actually saying, you’re the Messiah. You’re the one we’ve been waiting for. You’re the one all of Israel has been looking for. So that was the revelation he had. You are the one. You’re the Messiah. You’re the son of God. You are the one we have been looking for. Hallelujah. But we can go on to that revelation and keep building on that revelation. God is more than… Just the Christ and Messiah, that’s huge in itself. But last week we saw he’s also Jehovah Rophe. And so we’re going to study more about who he is. And it needs to be a revelation to each one of you and to me individually. You will never get a victory on somebody else’s revelation. You’ll never get a victory… on somebody else’s revelation. Now, somebody else can pray for you, lay hands on you, and receive a miracle for you, although that’s operating in the gifts of the Spirit. And that’s not the way we’re called to live because we’re called to live by faith, not by the gifts of the Spirit, although the gifts of the Spirit are gifts and benefits. But especially for children of God, he expects us to live by faith. And when living by faith, you can never receive an answer to prayer for yourself with somebody else’s faith, somebody else’s revelation. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t bring answers. It doesn’t bring results. So it has to be your revelation. It has to be a revelation to your own heart. That means, the way I like to say it, it’s like a spark goes off on the inside, a light bulb goes off on the inside of you, and you see something that you didn’t see before. And you understand something you didn’t understand before. And it becomes a revelation to you, because when it’s revelation, it is activated in your life and becomes powerful and effective and fruitful. I’ve said this before, there’s a difference between the knowledge of facts of something and revelation. Because there are atheists who can quote the Bible. There are atheists who can quote scriptures. Even Satan quoted scriptures. Did he get healed? Did he get saved? Did he get delivered? No. So you see, you can have knowledge, mental, factual knowledge of a scripture that you put it in memory, just like Satan did. Just like an atheist can, an atheist who likes to argue with Christians, they can quote some scriptures. But they have no revelation, and you know why? You know that because they’re not free. And Jesus said in John 8, wasn’t it, that you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. I know that verse, it’s just slipping right now, the reference. But you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. And guess what the word know, K-N-O-W, it’s not just fact knowledge. It’s not the word you’ll have knowledge of the truth. It’s actually the Greek word gnosko, which means intimate knowledge. It is actually even related to intimacy between a man and a woman, knowing a person intimately, deeply, and personally. But it’s also the word I like to best describe it as revelation knowledge. It’s when something goes from factual to revelation, the light comes on and you see what you didn’t see before. And so you can have knowledge, factual knowledge, and Jesus said you will know the truth, K-N-O-W, but it’s not the knowledge just like a fact you can quote it as a scripture like Satan. That’s not truth, knowledge of truth that will make you free because Satan never got free. That’s not knowledge of an atheist who can quote a scripture. has a factual knowledge to quote the verse, but no revelation, because they did not get the revelation of the truth that makes them free. So you have to have revelation to be made free. You have to have revelation to be made free. Revelation is what will make you free. Revelation is what will change your life. Revelation is when something that you might have heard in church even 10, 20 times, and it just kind of went right over your head in one ear and out the other, and you went, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that. That’s simple. And then one day you hear it for the 30th time, and you see it like you never saw it before. And you go, really, is that what that means? Yes. I never saw it like that before. And you may have heard it for years. That’s revelation. And that’s when there’s that spark of light. The Holy Spirit just shows me that spark of light is also a spark of power that sets you free. Because with revelation comes power to deliver. Revelation in you, when that light goes off, it’s also an explosion of power going off in you that can change you, set you free. So revelation changes you. Praise the Lord. So you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Hallelujah. So God will be to you who you say he is. So you see, he is God, but he’s not everybody’s God. He is Lord, but he’s not everybody’s Lord. He is Savior, but he’s not everybody’s Savior, because not everybody has received him and believed in him. He is the healer, but he’s not everybody’s healer, and not even every Christian’s healer. Because you have to receive him as healer, not only as savior. Just like he’s not every Christian’s Lord. You know, Christians, you can be saved and go into heaven, but you haven’t surrendered your heart and life to obedience. So he’s not Lord, which means master, ruler, savior. So he could be your savior, but still not Lord until you surrender every area. And then he becomes Lord. And so he can be savior, but not healer until you recognize him and receive him as healer. And we talked about that last Sunday. So God will be to you who you say he is. You receive from him what you have faith in him to. to receive and we talked about receiving last week and I gave you the example which I will not repeat in detail but that in the New Testament the Greek word receive is actually it’s a bad translation to translate it receive because in our current modern English vernacular Receive is passive. I think I do need to illustrate this one more time. One of you, somebody come up here for a second. Okay, let me do this real quickly. You can take my Bible. Now, I am going to receive the Bible. What do I have? I have my hands open, palms up, upward, and down. dawn put the bible in my hands did i do anything active no i was inactive i was passive that is modern english vernacular for receiving i received the bible from her she put it in my hands who was the active person She was. Dawn was the active person. She reached out her hand, placed the Bible in my hand. I stood here and basically did nothing. She just laid it in my hands. Now, that is English for receiving, and that’s a lot of what Christians are doing today, and it’s ineffective and ineffectual. It doesn’t work. You stand there and you say, God, just pour it on. I’m waiting. When are you going to do it, God? Come on. I’m waiting. I’m waiting. God, when are you going to do it? And guess what? You’ll wait your whole life. You await your entire life, every breath until you go to heaven and say, God, why didn’t you do something? He said, I already did. Why didn’t you take it? And so let me illustrate. This is the Greek word. It’s the Greek word lambano, L-A-M-B-A-N-O, L-A-M-B-A-N-O, lambano. It’s the Greek word receive, and it literally means to take, to take with the hands, to grasp, to clasp, to take hold of, to seize, to take possession of, to bring and pull to oneself, right? I mean, can you get more explicit than that? To grasp, to seize, to take hold of, to take possession of, to pull to oneself. And so this is an active word. The Greek word receive is actually I reach out, I wrap my hands around the Bible, my fingers grasp it, and I pull it to me. I am now, in English, that’s the word take. Take is the best translation because taking is aggressive. Receiving is passive and inactive. What you just heard was the beginning of a message that I preached in one of our victorious faith services called, Who do you say that I am? My abundant provider. And we will continue this message again tomorrow. So join me again tomorrow. And remember, God loves you. You are blessed and highly favored by the Lord.