Hi, my name is Mary and I will be continuing a study on the redemptive spiritual gifts that are found in Romans 12, 6 through 8. We are going to be talking about the gift of the exhorter today, which is the fourth gift out of the seven, and we're just going to jump right in. I pray that if this is your gift that you... are able to recognize yourself in this gift and if it is not your specific gift that you still find just an appreciation for people that have this gift and that your eyes are open to a different way that other people interact with the world and seek out so the gift of the exhorter They have the principle of reality.
And all of this information that I'm going to be sharing with you is information that I have gathered from many, many places and from other people's hard work. So this is just me trying to make it as concise as possible. But there is so much information.
So I'm going to talk kind of fast. And hopefully you can... You could pause it and you can rewind it if I say something too quickly, but I'm just trying to speak quickly to get through as much of it as I can so that you might have a desire to go deeper and to go research all the other information that you could find and just dig into God's word and find it for yourself as well.
So this is really just like a tip of the iceberg of the information. So they have the principle of reality, and that is really interesting because the exhorters have... almost like a different reality than the rest of the gifts and that they see things from like uh spiritual eyes that are like the whole like we see like eternity like all of it all at once versus like where we are today so everything fits into like big picture versus what's happening here and that can be interesting to the people around us because i am an exhorter and um i can be almost like flighty and like seem like I'm in a different world and because a lot of times we are like we're thinking of things in a totally different perspective and so we can come across as being flighty or just in a different world but we just see everything from a viewpoint that is just God's eternity so like the things that are happening right now aren't as significant as what is going to be happening in eternity and these are people that are mature exhorters, there's plenty of exhorters in the world that don't have necessarily eyes to see that, but they may still operate in a way that they see things in a big picture versus being wrapped up in the details of today. So details are kind of minute to us, we gloss over details, we're not as concerned with the exact timing of things, we kind of just live in this ultra reality where like it doesn't really matter if you're there on time like you'll get there eventually and you know what is it what is what's the difference and in all of eternity this day versus tomorrow and so we kind of can um just see see things very differently um we enjoy being around people 100 um is extroverted this is the only gift that has to be extroverted like all the other gifts there's some that are introverted and some that I'm extrovert, like there might be one of both in that gifting. This gifting, there are no introverts that are exhorters because we are very outgoing, we love people, and we love to connect with people.
We are a party looking for some place to happen, which is really funny because I really just love to dance. I love to like be out on the dance floor and just have a party wherever I am. And so it's just funny that that is a description that somebody else came up with and is completely accurate.
were the people that are the first ones on the dance floor. Like, I was on a cruise in high school and there was nobody dancing at like hundreds of people. And so I just went out there all by myself and just started dancing, like just hanging out. And then eventually people started joining me. But for a while I literally was the only one on the dance floor.
I was totally fine. Like I just wanted to dance. I didn't care if nobody else was going to, but they all did eventually.
So that's the type of person that would be an exhorter. We just love to have a good time. And kind of have a party wherever we are, has the ability to cross every kind of barrier, social, racial, economic, religious, and relate to people wherever they are and build relationships. So this gift is very concerned with relationships. We are looking to build relationships everywhere that we go and do it easily.
It comes naturally and it's something that God just flows through us without really trying. We just love to make friends and to meet people. My family always laughs whenever I go to the store or I go to the store. The park or wherever I go, I'll come back and be like, you will not believe who I met. And they're like, my husband.
Oh, who'd you meet? Your best friend? And I'm like, yes, this person. And I have all these ways that I've connected with them.
We can always find a connection with people, like no matter how far or wide or different our lives are, exhorters are always looking for that point of connectivity wherever it is. And it could be through interest or where we've lived or things we like to do. Just whatever it is, we are always looking for that connection with other people. So we make friends quickly and we're always finding new friends everywhere that we go. Regards God's sovereignty as their favorite characteristic of God.
And that is so interesting to me. As I read this that somebody else discovered of the exoders, I'm like, yes, that is so true. I would have never wrote those words or ever thought that about myself.
But now that I have learned this. It is absolutely 100% true. The thing that I love the most about God is that everything, He's in everything and He's in control of everything.
And so no matter what's going on, I'm always finding the way that He's in control of it. And that gives me such security. So we see every detail, including the timing of every event, as part of God's good and loving plan.
And that's like when we get a flat tire. Or when we get pulled over and we get a ticket and it seems like it's a bad thing, we're always thinking, or at least I'm always thinking, and I'm guessing other exhorters as well, are always thinking of how is God using this? What is the reason that I'm meeting with this person at this time in this situation? And sometimes it's just for me to learn a lesson, to slow down. Other times it's to have a conversation with that person.
Or maybe it's protecting me from something that I didn't realize was happening further down the road. We just are always looking for... the God moments of our life. And so we don't see things as coincidence or as happen chance, like every detail of our lives.
We see it as God is doing something and he's going to use this. And this is the mature exhorters. Again, not every exhorter might not feel this way, but this is what their mindset is kind of driven towards, is horizontal in their focus and intensely people-oriented. I have been told many times how intense I am because we really are just super intensely people oriented. We love people and we love people hard and like we're kind of close and like want to grab you and touch you like we're very touchy-feely kind of people because we just want to connect and we want to have that relationship built.
So this mode of teaching people is like my least favorite option. Like I did not want to do this but this is just because we couldn't meet in person. So I agreed to do it this way, but I would rather be in class face to face with people so that I can see them.
I can get to know them. I can touch them. It's just the way that we're wired and designed. They are no strangers. We have no strangers.
We crack the code to people and gets into their heart. Passive leadership style does not lead with a heavy hand. This is true in that we're not like... Really super strict right off the bat I think that I have learned that I need to be strict because I am I used to be a teacher in a classroom and I Learned that I was just really like I mean, I'm just like a nice person And so I could easily be taken advantage of because I just was just happy to be with them and hanging out with them And they're like, oh well we can just walk all over this girl because she doesn't know what she's doing It as like a substitute teacher.
So I learned real quick to be like very strict and very stern and That was just something that I had to do in order to maintain control over a classroom of people that I barely knew for the one day that I was in their class. But with my actual classroom, when I had my own class, I was much more lenient with things and not as strict. And so expresses love through availability. This is similar to the servant gift that we talked about before.
Both of us just want to be there for people. So if they call us, if they want to meet up, like we drop everything. And yes, absolutely. Like I will be there for you.
We just love to be present for people and be available to them. Is concerned with presentation. and typically dress well, someone described them as like the car salesman of the world, like they just look nice and dress nice and are concerned with the way that they appear to other people because they're always meeting people and they're always around people, so we're aware of how we're being perceived by other people, is able to give thanks in all seasons and circumstances, including the darkest ones.
I had a crazy scenario where I thought that I was going blind. Like legitimately my vision was just slowly getting... cloudier and cloudier until I really couldn't read things that were right in front of me and it kind of was progressively getting worse and so I was getting CAT scans I was getting like spinal tap like serious things were happening and they couldn't figure out what it was like it was like dire situation and so in all of that I was obviously afraid and scared like oh my god what is happening like I'm gonna lose my vision but my like undercurrent of under all of it was like this is it.
Like, this is how God is going to use me because I haven't had that difficult of a life. Like he's just going to, I'm going to become blind. And then this will be my testimony.
And I'll be able to tell all these people about who Jesus is through this blindness. Like, obviously I didn't want to be blind, but like, I was kind of quick to accept that that was my fate and see how God might want to use it, which I don't know if that's how other people are, but that this is like a legitimate thing that I walked through and I'm like, oh, okay. I can see how, how this could benefit God or how this could be used by him. So. Not normal, but that's the way that exhorters can think.
We're always seeing the silver lining and what God might want to do through circumstances and situations. Even the really dark ones, even the ones that you wouldn't think there could be anything good coming out of it. Regard trials as opportunities for growth.
They recognize that whatever happens has potential to glorify God and conform believers. to the image of Christ. And so right now we're going through this coronavirus situation where a whole pandemic, the whole world shut down. And I can't stop thinking about how God is using it to grow us and to stretch us and to reveal things in us that we may not be aware of and to re-prioritize our own. I realign our priorities, like see what things we have in places that they shouldn't be, where we have idols lifted up that shouldn't be there.
Like, I just am seeing all of those aspects of this situation, and I would assume that other exhorters are also thinking the same ways. Capacity to form community quickly. in line, on an airplane, or at a party.
Whoever is near us, we just will start talking to them and start socializing and then we quickly feel like we're a group, like that we've made friends. So that's just something that God does through us. It's not like our own.
It's just what he does to connect people through us. Emphasize or sympathize with the suffering Christian, but sees the pain through the lens of God's sovereignty rather than through the lens of suffering. Again, we're always looking to what is it that God's trying to do through things, through cancer, through the death of somebody. Like, what is his sovereignty?
How is he in control of all of it? So we see how he is in control of everything. So death, life, hardships, everything he is using in some way to bring growth, to reposition people, to reveal himself in a new way. Like we're just always seeing the connections between things like that.
And it's so crazy hearing it read because I wouldn't have verbalized this. Like I wouldn't have known this about myself. But now I catch myself when someone's telling me something that's really hard in their life.
Like my mind immediately goes to how God's in control of it and how he's working it to do something that. It may not make sense to anybody, and I didn't realize that that was just the way God wired me. It's not that I practiced and studied these aspects of who God is. It's just the way that we see the world. It's just the way that we see life.
And he made us to be that way because he wants us to speak forth those things. So, conquest designed to lead a large group against the spiritual enemy. So, these are people that are leaders. Visionary sees the broadest picture, wants to affect large numbers of people. So some of the other gifts like a prophet will want to affect a group of people but their vision might not be quite as big as the exhorter.
Like they'll be like, yeah let's have like ten people come over and we'll do this study and then the exhorters mind like, and this is true of any event I ever plan whether it's a birthday party, a Bible study, like a potluck dinner i just cannot stop inviting people my list gets out of control so fast because i don't ever want to leave anybody out so i just keep inviting and inviting and it ends up being these massive groups of people that i'm trying to reach um because there's there's never a limit who should be included or who should hear this message or who should whatever like we just have a big vision of how many people should be included in things Um, prefers to offer spiritual help rather than meeting a physical need, like taking a meal or mowing their lawn. So true. I would much rather just pray with people, and that's like my first inclination.
Like when I hear of a need, I want to text a prayer. I want to speak a prayer. I want to go lay...
hands on them and pray like that's just what comes out first um again this may not be the case for someone that doesn't know the word that well they may not feel that inclination as quickly but they would probably want to give encouraging words first like we just would want to encourage before we would um want to make a meal or like do a task where um I have recognized that that actually is a good way to get your foot in the door to pray with somebody because if you don't know them that well but just praying with somebody can be maybe too like invasive and so I have learned that I need to just bring the meal because that is a blessing to me. I love it when I have babies and people bring me meals and bring me food like I such a sweet thing to do so I will do that and like have learned to like balance it but our first knee-jerk reaction is to pray or to encourage with words. Vise counsel flows from the heart of an exhorter who is able to skillfully identify precepts and principles in the word. So the person who initially recognized that there was a difference in all of the gifts, like that are all in scripture that I talked about in the first video, recognizing like these are all speaking to the same things.
These are three distinct types of gifts was an exhorter, like to recognize something. within scripture in a new way that will benefit the body given a choice of encouraging by empathy or exhortation they will exhort every time so true i will i have a hard time with empathy i have a hard time just sitting and weeping with somebody or just allowing the weight of what they're going through to sink in for them or me like our inclination is when we see anybody down or to pressed or going through something we just want to lift them out as quickly as we can so we just start encouraging with our words and um with with prayer and just wanting to pull them out of that pit and that's something that we um that exhorters have to learn how to give time and space for empathy to just allow someone to sit in whatever it is that they're going through and then pull them out because sometimes we want to do it too quickly. We don't want to give them a chance to just feel the weight of what they're feeling and we often don't allow ourselves to feel the weight of what we're feeling.
So we exhort ourselves very quickly out of depression or anxiety or fears. Like once we feel a little inclination of any of those things, we're so quick to like speak truth, see the opposite. not allow our minds or our hearts to go to that place.
And so there is a... time and a place where God wants us to feel the weight of whatever we're going through. He wants us just to sit and to feel sad and to feel lonely or to feel whatever those emotions are that we're feeling because then we're able to relate to people.
We can have empathy and sympathy for other people when we felt it. But so often we want to get ourselves out of it too quickly that we miss the gift that comes from forgiveness sometimes. From unparalleled anointing for evangelism.
master communicator ministers the word more eloquently than any of the other gifts there's a lot of ministers and pastors that are exhorters and um just have the gift of gab of speaking i guess um knows exactly how hard to push people or limits um recognizes the danger zone in people so that would be representative like when i was younger and I would know exactly how often or how many times I should ask my mom or my dad to whether or not they were going to let me spend the night at my friend's house. Like I was aware of their limit. Like if I asked them one more time, they are going to blow up in it. There's no chance I'd get to go.
But if I waited until the morning and I asked them again, then maybe they would. So they can be obviously manipulating like that could be used in a really wrong way, but it's also just a good way of knowing how to communicate and recognizing people's limits and what they would prefer and how they would prefer to hear information so it's meant to be a good thing but it's very often used in a bad way and is not intimidated by new ideas and new truth so this is where they're very similar to the prophets because they love new ideas things don't intimidate them they're willing to like grapple with things that are new and like study them and explore them to see if it would be a good option and um where the teacher gifting has a much harder time accepting new ideas and new truth can encounter significant disagreements and still maintain relationship so this is another difference between exhorter and prophet because they can be very similar a lot of these qualities that i'm describing will sound a lot like a more extroverted prophet like if you were an extroverted prophet you could probably i see yourself in a lot of these but this is one that It might be different for you because the exhorter values relationships so highly that we have a really hard time allowing a relationship to sever. So no matter what the disagreement is, we find a way to reconcile, to humble ourselves, to find a way to continue to be friends with each other. them and often don't allow the relationship to even get to that point. Like we will make amends before it even reaches a point where there's going to be a severing of the relationship.
We just really want to maintain those relationships. And even when things go really bad and you're really wounded and really hurt, we're still able to forgive and be friends with them. Like somebody that really wounded me when I was younger and everyone in my life was like, yeah.
I can't believe they did that. That was terrible. And I was still like willing to be friends with them. Like I was really upsetting and hurting, like hurt me, but we're able to kind of look past those things. And we want to have relationships more than we care about, you know, if they had wronged us or if they were, you know, treating us really poorly, we still would desire to have a relationship with them.
Inspires and mobilizes people. responds to problems by prescribing specific steps of action. So they are a lot of times like life coaches and they're really good at helping people to get motivated and to move forward and they're just the mobilizers of the world and of the church and of their community or of their business. They're always innovative thinking of new things and moving things forward and they do it in a way that is in incremental steps or Like they're always coming up with like the plans, like a five-step plan, three-step plan, like all those books that you probably see are probably written by some exhorters that are just like simple steps to get you out of whatever it is.
That's kind of just the way their brains work. Extremely flexible and can adjust their plans. So this could be another difference between prophets, teachers, and exhorters because a lot of times some of the prophets and definitely the teachers have... very strict plans and ideas of how things should go and exhorters are just not like that at all like we're super easy going go with the flow we're kind of like blown by the wind in a sense of like as a mature Exhort or we're like what is God doing today? Like what's the Holy Spirit calling me to do?
So if I'm doing something But then somebody calls me and they need me to pray with them or they need me to come to their home like I will Drop everything and go like it's very easy for us to just like be moved by the Spirit wherever we're going and To not be so held to whatever our plan was for the day. We're quick to adjust our plans but that can also be tricky because we can not have any plans and there not be a structure for a day. So there's always a balance. It's not one is better than the other.
That's just the way we're designed is to be kind of like, like, what are we going to do today and be used wherever we go. Willing and eager to come alongside a brother or sister in Christ during difficult circumstances. So we love that.
We love coming alongside someone and encouraging them and lifting them up and praying with them. It's a master of reconciliation because of their tactfulness and sensitivity to people's feelings. They are often ministers and like counselors.
A lot of exhorters would be counselors. Ability to bring new revelation, the missing piece of truth. So that would be like...
what I was talking about before within the redemptive gifts, but that's a lot of different things within scripture that they're able to help reveal that missing piece. Works hard and is intensely busy. This is so true of exhorters and of me. Diligent, like super hardworking.
We do not give up until the task is done. Functions on little sleep is so true and is involved in many projects. If you even knew all the things that I'm doing, so many projects. And yet I don't need that much sleep.
Like it's so random that God would design them to be this way because he does want us to be involved in a lot of things. And we're in a lot of groups of people and he allows us to do all these things and not need as much sleep. Like he literally like we are not as like, yeah, that's interesting that that's the way we're designed so that we can do all the things that he's calling us to.
But. That's also something where we have to be careful that our busyness is actually doing something that is God-oriented and that he's calling us to do because we could just fill our time with a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with the Lord. But he wants, we're going to be busy either way. He wants us to be busy doing his work because we have an insane amount of energy and like we don't even need that much sleep and we can just work and work and we are super diligent. So this is a gift that just works really hard and wants to accomplish God's will when they are mature.
So some of the words to describe our extroverted exhorters because they're all extroverted would be high energy. And if you know me, this is so true of me. I drink coffee, but I really don't need it.
I just like to hold the cup and go like this. I should drink decaf. But we have a ton of energy.
Risk-taking. Not easily rattled or stressed, which is like a marker of an exhorter. They just don't get stressed out by things. And it's not because we're any better. It's just the way we're wired.
Things don't rattle us. They don't stress us out. We're just kind of like, hmm.
because we see God's big picture. We're like, well, he must be using this for something. So we always see this, like, there's a reason for it. So I don't really need to be stressed about it, which isn't the norm, but the way that they operate.
Free spirited, ingenious, a natural leader and joyful. And they could also be charming. They could be excellent communicators, intense, inspirational, deep thinker. Passionate and independent. And so these are the potential weaknesses of exorcists, which, again, they can go in and out of on any given day.
This could be who they are all day, or just who they are occasionally, or when they're tired or hungry, or just not close to the Lord. So these are things that they could... Potentially have and this again is the thing that really helps you to identify your gift in a lot of ways because a lot of those positive things and even the words that describe people that describes like a Good amount of people like it's that when it only be what an exhorter is but this definitely These potential weaknesses are for sure then so people pleasing unwilling to confront because a fear of rejection and that is A marker for sure that we because we love people so much and we want to have a relationship with them We often won't make decisions that will hurt other people or have people be upset with us. So it can cause friction and that we Don't make the best decisions all the time because we're just trying to please the people around us rather than pleasing God who? Might be calling us to do something but we don't do it because we don't want the lash back from the people in our lives can use influence to achieve their personal agenda and goals there's some very bad exhorters in the world like Hitler who used his influence to achieve his personal agenda and goals that were super evil so even though this sounds like a great gift like when it's bad it's really bad like it is not good and that's for every one of the gifts they're like dark side is pure evil and it's just the way that it is exhibited so a Hitler would be like the worst version of the exhorter right um where like a Billy Graham would probably be the best version of an exhorter so or a uh Moses would be a great example of an exhorter they have a non-reality of time where the people needed and the effort needed to do things and this is so frustrating to me because I It's really true.
Like we don't recognize like what time it is during the day, how long things are going to take us. So we often take much longer than we think it's going to take. So we're often late to things and we're often like procrastinators.
Like we wait to the last minute to do it and then it takes way longer than we're thinking. So then we're behind on things like this has been like cycle of my life where I'm just always behind, but we want things to be excellent. So then we're late but it has to be really good so i'm like a perfectionist procrastinator which is the worst combination like most people that are procrastinators like they wait to the last minute like math who cares they just turn it in no i want it to be perfect but i went to the last minute so it's very difficult scenario um but we will have big ideas and big dreams not realizing how long it's going to take how many people are going to have to be involved to make this happen so If your boss were an exhorter, they might have unrealistic expectations of what you are capable of doing with the team of people that work there. And they can put a lot of unnecessary pressure and tension on other people, not realizing how long things take or how many people are needed to make it happen.
Moving boundaries, we can over-promise and under-perform. So we want to say yes. to everything, like, because we want to be available. So if somebody needs us, we want to say yes.
So we'll just say yes to everyone. But then we don't realize how long it takes to do all the things that we've said yes to. So then we end up underperforming because we don't have enough time in our day to do all the things we said we were going to do.
So that is a huge struggle for exhorters to really be cognizant of. How long does, how much time do I have in a day? Like really break it down so you know, and you can be more realistic with your time because it's very hard for us to recognize that. Overly sensitive to criticism.
I feel like as a little kid, if my coach, when I played soccer, if they would yell at me just for whatever, like they could yell at everybody and say the same things, but if they yelled at me, I would be devastated. Like I thought they hated me. And then...
I would never get to play again. I don't know why. I just would be, it'd be really sensitive to anyone being angry with me or upset, like a teacher.
They, like, thought that I had done something, or even if I had done it, and they yelled at me, I was, like, done. Like, they will never, like, make it. It just was devastating.
So my parents, even when I was a kid, like, they would just have to say that they're disappointed in me. They wouldn't have to spank me, ground me, or any of those things. All my dad had to say was that he was disappointed with me, and I was done. just broken. Like that was the worst thing you could say to me.
That's such a disappointment to me. So criticism is definitely something that's hard for exhorters to hear. Can avoid embracing pain and suffering that brings growth.
So because we're such positive, silver lining thinking people, it's really hard for us to just embrace really bad situations when it's ourselves. especially so like if we're going through something we will just want to avoid it and like Not take the time to grieve. So if somebody passed away we could just be thinking Like it's wonderful This is great and not actually take the time to grieve the fact that we don't get to see them here on earth anymore and hold Their hand and pray with them or talk to them And so that's something that exhorters have to really allow themselves to just feel broken to feel the weight of this world because then we're able to connect better with all the people that we want to connect with if we actually feel the pain that the rest of the world feels.
So often we remove ourselves out of it so quickly that we don't get to feel the weight of it and so many of the lessons that God wants to teach all of us are in the midst of the valleys, of the pit, of the darkness. That's where we kind of are matured and grown and that's where we gain grit and if we don't allow ourselves to be in there, we don't get the blessings that come from walking through that. So that's something that God's definitely been teaching me ever since I started learning about this when I am feeling really strong emotions to just allow myself to feel them and to be there and to experience it but not to stay there.
So that's what we're really good at getting ourselves and other people out of it so we don't stay there for too long but we are meant to feel it and we are meant to experience the the weight of our emotions and our feelings for a little bit. can compromise, may settle for doing what is good instead of God's best. This is, a lot of the gifts can do this.
Tend to need visible evidence of acceptance and affirmation. It's so true. My poor husband, when we first got married, I would be talking to him, and I am a very active listener, so if you all were talking to me, I'd be like, uh-huh. oh yeah and I would like say lots of things and give you lots of eye contact and so I appreciate that in return and my husband is not that guy at all like he just kind of date like gazes past you and just kind of looks with like a blank stare and so when we were first dating I'm like are you listening to like do you hear what I'm saying or do you are you here with me right now and like he's like yeah like he's like why would you think I'm not like it was like confusing to him that I didn't think he was listening And then he would respond with these like deep and like amazing responses to what I was talking about. So then I realized like even though he looks completely disengaged, he is really thinking and processing everything that I'm saying.
But I do appreciate when I have eye contact or like the body language looks like you're listening. And so it's funny, we give what we... want in return.
So I'm like a super active listener just because I appreciate it when people are really active listeners when I'm talking. Need can easily oversimplify solutions, which ultimately results in discouragement rather than encouragement. So those three steps to wellness or five steps to whatever it can be oversimplified in some cases. Some cases, it will work wonderfully, but not for me. Every situation, not everybody fits into like a real strict, if you just do this, this and this, then you'll have freedom.
Like there's always the outliers. There's always things that can happen that won't result in overcoming whatever it is or being effective. And so they have to be careful not to oversimplify things.
Often naive and easily manipulated. I definitely tried to give money to a Princess in Africa. When I was in college and somebody sent me one of those like spam emails when they had first come out, nobody knew about them. And I thought for real, there was some princess in Africa or person in Africa that needed money from me. Oh my word.
I sent it to my dad and like he was ready to do it too. He was ready to send them the money. It's so bad. So we can definitely be easily, um, we just see the best in people and we think the best of people so we can be manipulated by really corrupt like swindler type of people that are probably our same giftings that are the ones doing this that are like able to like convince you you know the the churches that are um that are able to like get a lot of money by bad means like they're being dishonest and they just are like you know swindling people's money We would be easily manipulated by that because we would think like there's no way this church would be trying to take our money like there's no way that this you know orphan or whatever would be needing like we could just be easily manipulated so I have to be very cautious in how I respond to certain people because I always assume the best and sadly that's not always the case.
to be careful as we mature we've learned not to be so naive and easily manipulated um can be quick-tempered and aggressive like moses and saul and this is something that i think a lot of people miss in scripture because we see saul as paul when he's like this eloquent speaker writer like movement maker within the gospels and he wrote most of the um the books in the new testament but we forget who he was before he was transformed and he was a very quick-tempered and zealous like he's zealous for whatever they believe in and so if someone doesn't have a relationship with the lord and they are an exhorter like hitler they can be zealous in whatever it is that they're doing and be very um aggressive and quick-tempered just not good. So we also see that with Moses. That was the reason he didn't get to go into the promised land was because he kind of lost his temper and he got, he was kind of impatient with the Israelites and couldn't believe that they weren't doing what he had told them over and over and over and over again. And so I definitely see this in myself as a mom now that I have kids when I can normally be like even keeled and like don't really require that much of them.
Like I can kind of be a relaxed mom in a lot of ways, but then once they've Not listen to me for such a long amount of time like they continue to disobey they continue to disobey we can like reach our limit and then just snap and be very aggressive and hot-tempered and all those things so this is definitely true of exhorters and just recognizing that that can be a downfall they can be impulsive and quick to act without always weighing all of the pros and cons which is similar to the prophet where we will just take our ideas and run with it and not spend as much time thinking through all the possible consequences or all the possible ways that it could take longer than we're thinking so that is why I'm thankful for my husband who's a teacher because he slows me down so that I'm not just jumping to conclusions and running with information before I really have a good grasp of what I'm looking at so the mature exhorter On their best day, the way that God designed them to be is to, they mobilize and influence and inspire people. to reach their full potential in God. Which is so funny because I became enamored and so into all of these gifts as soon as I learned about them. Before I knew what my gift was like I just wanted to know all the information and I saw how it would release people to be the best version of themselves.
So the fact that I love all of these things is totally evidence of this in myself. God-pleaser when they are mature instead of people-pleasing. Life-giving relationships.
earned authority and persevering and for embracing pain. And the carnal exhorter uses influence to achieve their personal agenda and goals, unwilling to embrace pain and has self-serving relationships, unwilling to address sin in the camp because of rejection, which we saw with Moses, allowing things to go on for too long and can be superficial. The battlefield of the exhorter would be denial, accepting responsibility for their own failures. So just having that mirror in front of them of recognizing like, how am I failing?
How am I the one that's contributing to whatever this mess is that is happening? And it's very true that we can be in denial of our own faults within a situation. Legitimacy lie is what we believe is true about us, but isn't. is that I am legitimate when people want and need to be around me because we love people so much so it can feel like, oh, if I have all these people around me, like then whatever I'm doing is good.
They want what I have. And it's not true. It's not based on whether or not people want to have us around or not. God wants to use us regardless of how people perceive us. The biblical examples of an exhorter would be Paul in 2 Corinthians.
Moses, Jeremiah, and Solomon. So it would be wise to go and look at those people's lives to see how God uses them and how he teaches them and what things they struggled with and what things they did really well for God's kingdom. The birthright of the exhorter is to reveal God to others. And it's interesting because the creation day would be the sun, the moon, the stars, the shiny stuff shows God's extravagance and his domain over time. Which is funny because we have such a lack of bad understanding of time.
But I feel like in some senses we actually have like a really good understanding of time, but just not in this world. Like, the timing that we see doesn't fit the timing that we live in, because our time frames are like, it'll be fine, like, God's in control, he can figure out all these things. We're like...
In the day-to-day, there's like times that everything has to be done and when they need to be done, and we're just going to be oblivious to those types of times. So it's interesting that the sun, the moon, the stars are all those things that help to dictate time and how long things take. So these are all things that God wants us to wrap our heads around, like how he uses time, what time is, and all of those things.
But then we're also, the sun, the moon, the stars are the things you see in the sky that are bright and shiny. and that kind of reveal god's nature and exhorters have that same ability to just show god's extravagance um to go oh the tabernacle tabernacle item because they list seven um and so the fourth one would be the candlestick sheds light again this brightness this light um and the oil needed to be pure so in order for the exhorter to actually Show God's extravagance to reveal God to others. They have to know God. They have to spend time with God.
They have to remove themselves from all the people and spend time with God so that when they're with people, that's what people are seeing, not their own sinful nature and not being manipulated by the things that they want to do, but actually have God's heart for people and for the world. So they need to be pure. in order to do that so that the light that's shining forth is uninhibited by our own sin. So that's something that he will continue to do in these orders throughout the life is to continue to purify them so that when they shine, they're shining his brightness without anything hindering or covering that brightness.
To go deeper, if you are an exhorter, would be to study the art of God's timing. How long it took to grow and prepare people. And these are from Arthur Berg.
Noah and the Israelites and King David. How long did it take them to get to where they were? It didn't happen overnight.
Each of them had a process that they had to go through. What does God use to shape and mold people from one point to another? And to learn the reality of how transformation comes about because we are agents for God to help to transform people but often our timelines are so different from God's like we think people can change and be brought to wholeness or brought to...
Like reconciliation much quicker than it actually is meant to happen. And that process is there for a purpose. And he wants things to take longer so that you appreciate them more. If everybody just got complete healing, complete restoration, everything happened just like this, we wouldn't cling and we wouldn't desire a relationship with God because we'd just get it and be done and we wouldn't need God. But when it takes longer and you have to walk through these seasons of Reconciliation, these seasons of healing and restoration, you have to rely on God through the whole thing.
And there's a lot of things that He wants to do within us through the process of all of those things. So these are all things that God is continuing to teach me, but that I need to learn better. And functions within the body of Christ would be to encourage believers to mature in Christ and to grow spiritually. They often seek to stimulate. That development by teaching, what I'm doing right now, counseling and discipling others, God's premier change agents, to give hope by sharing a biblical perspective of the situation and reminding people of God's power, his love, and faithfulness.
They create community, bringing together all the other gifts, which causes great life to flow in the body. So that's something. The reason I love the body of Christ and I love the gifts is because I love to tell people how amazing they are and how much we need you to be your gift so that you can bring the richness that the whole body has when we're missing one of them. It's just not the same. So then I'm going to share with you the mature and the carnal exordio and I encourage you to read the carnal first and then see what it looks like when it has been redeemed and it's mature and do that all the way through the chart.
I hope that you took the time to read through all of those things and to help you get a better understanding of what the exhorter is like and the ones that are in your life. really resonated with you, I pray that you would just really lean into that and really allow the Holy Spirit to reveal ways that you can grow to be mature. So let me just close in prayer. God, I thank you so much for this time we get to spend together, God, and I pray that whomever is watching that you would help them to know That the way that you designed them is exactly the way you wanted them to be. Then if they are the exhorter gift, God, that you want them to shine brightly for you, God, that you want them to use all of their gifts and all of their social circles and all of the ways that they want to connect with people, that they would use those times to connect people to you, that they would have time spent with you, that they would take the time out of their day to be alone with you, to read your word, to find those hidden revelations that they're able to find, God, and to share that with the people in their lives.
God, I pray that you'd help them to slow down their time, to reorganize their time, to make time for you. Just be aware of how you are already using them. God, and I pray that you would encourage them to be able to sit in whatever difficult things come their way.
God, I pray that they would learn to endure through hardships, that they would allow themselves to feel the depths of their emotions and to sit with them long enough for you to speak into it and then for them to move on. God, I pray that they would allow all of the trials of their lives to shape them and to grow them to be more like you, Jesus. And I pray this over each one of us, God.
In Jesus'name we pray. Amen. Alright, well, I will see you at our next class.