You are invited to stop waiting for perfection and start serving where you are today. Ask the Holy Spirit to empower you with the gifts you need, whether that's tongues or teaching, to build up others. Remember that maturity is found in love and service, not just spiritual experiences.
Welcome to The Real Church Podcast. Our mission is for you to know the love of Jesus and live out your God given purpose. Now, join us and listen in to the latest message from pastor David John Phillips.
Father, I thank you for who you are. Lord, I pray I pray that every word that comes from my mouth is not from me today. Lord, I pray it straight from you. And what an honor it is to be able to be used by you, that you would choose people to speak to people, to speak your word to people, that you would use the "foolishness of preaching", Lord, to impact people and bring salvation for those that believe. So, father, I pray that you use that today.
*Lord, teach us how to practically walk in what you've gifted us to walk in, God*. Let this sermon be dripping with your anointing. Lord, let it break chains and encourage people and help them to move forward in everything that you have for them. In Jesus name, amen and amen. Once again, my name is David John Phillips.
I have the honor of being the pastor right here at Real Church, and you are invited to plug in for this message. I guarantee if plug in and listen, you'll walk away, number 1, encouraged. And number 2, with a deeper understanding of how much God loves you. I'm excited about the message today. We're continuing the series titled Gifted.
Gifted. And just a quick recap of what we've learned so far. Number 1, the first message we talked about, gifted from the Father. And we learned that every good and perfect gift comes down from heaven, from the Father of heavenly lights. Every good and perfect gift in your life has come from our heavenly Father.
But also number 2, the heavenly Father gives the best gift of all, the *Holy Spirit*, which is amazing and empowers us to walk out everything He's called us to walk out. Number 2, the second part of this series, we learned about the gifts from Christ. So gifted the gifts from Christ. And we learned that Christ gives us *grace* as He apportions it. And He portions to us more than we can believe and more than we can receive.
It's not just a little bit. He lavishes His grace on us, His undeserved favor. So we can either sit in a lack of belief, or we can move forward in Him and receive that undeserved favor, and then walk in all that He has for us. Then also in the second message, we learned that Christ himself gave another gift to the church, the mentors of the church. Right?
He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, the teachers. Why? Not so that they can flout a title or something like that, but no, so that they can equip you, the saints, you for the work of *ministry*. And we saw that in Ephesians-4:11-12, but really 11 and 12 and 13, just as a side note here, in verse 11 you have the mentors of the church. Verse 12 you have ministry, equipping you for the works of ministry.
And in verse 13, you have maturity. So it's it's learning, it's ministry, and then it's maturity. If you have been stuck and you're wondering why you're not growing in Christ, Ministry comes before maturity. Maybe you need to give out, you need to share what God's been putting in to you, whether it's through these messages or through your personal time in scripture. Go share your testimony.
Go share with somebody what Jesus has done. Go serve somebody. Go minister to somebody that needs ministry. Maybe it's a friend or a family member. Go pray for them.
And in doing so, God's gonna pour more into you, but not only that, you're gonna see yourself begin to grow and mature and become less stagnant again. So there's a little, I guess, tidbit for you. Then in the third message from this series gifted, which was last Sunday, we talked about gifted, the gifts from the Holy Spirit. And this is the same Holy Spirit that anointed Jesus of Nazareth in in Acts-10:37-38, anointed Him to to go around and and heal the sick and and heal all those that were under the power of the enemy. And now He has filled you, the Holy Spirit has filled you with Himself.
Why? To equip you to minister as effectively as Jesus. You are not effective without the Holy Spirit at carrying out your calling, and we learned last week that your calling is ministry. To be a minister of reconciliation. You are called to be a minister of the gospel.
If any of this is like, wow, that's a lot. Go back to the messages from the last 3 weeks. Watch them. Take notes. Let let the the truth of God's word sink into your heart.
Last week, we also learned that your past experience in the gifts of the Spirit, or someone's past experience in the gifts of the spirit does not mean that they are mature. You can have people who've been walking in the gifts of the spirit, prophecy, and in in tongues, and all this stuff for 20 years, and they can still be infants. And the Bible is call some of them even worldly. *1 Corinthians-3:1* through like 4 and 5. The prerequisite for maturity is not your understanding and walking in the gifts.
The Bible's clear the prerequisite for maturity as we talked about last week is your understanding of righteousness. The marks of maturity are not the gifts either. The marks of maturity are the fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, meekness, and self control. Like that is that's the marks of maturity, and that's especially with your wife and your kids.
What do I mean there? Check this out. The ripeness of your fruit, maturity, the ripeness of your fruit is not determined necessarily by how you treat people at church, or how you treat people when everybody's watching you. The ripeness of your fruit is determined by how you treat people who are the closest to you, and that you're the most comfortable with. Like in your home behind closed doors, how you treat your wife, how you treat your kids, how you treat your brothers and sisters, how, you know, those feelings about your parents, and it bubbles up, and you how you speak to your parents and honor them.
Or when you're really frustrated with your kids, how do you let the fruit of the spirit come out? See, until we allow the Holy Spirit to fix those things, what you think may have been ripe fruit because of this that and the other is probably still a little bit bitter. So question then, how do you allow the Holy Spirit to fix that? Understand righteousness. Understand His grace, His underserved favor.
And when you fall, you fall forward into His arms, get back up and keep walking. Understand that when you're behind closed doors and with the people that you're the most comfortable with, and they're railing at you, or or frustrating you, and all this stuff's coming up, understand that because of righteousness, you're still in right standing with God. He's still standing right next to you. You can still see His face in the middle of that situation, and you can still be empowered by His grace. He wants to empower you.
We just have to believe it and receive it in that moment. God help me by your grace to respond, knowing that this is undeserved favor to me. So it's undeserved favor through me, giving kindness where kindness is not deserved. Giving love, giving compassion where compassion is not deserved. Having self control when it seems impossible to do so.
Why? Because of your understanding of righteousness and grace, and that's how we grow in maturity. So then, why are the gifts of the Spirit important? You may ask. Because they make you effective at planting the seed of His word in people's lives.
So you have you're bearing fruit, the results of of of who He is in your daily life. And when that fruit is fruit is ripe, people see the love, the joy, the peace, the patience, the kindness, the goodness, the gentleness, the meekness, self control, and it opens their heart to receive the seed of His Word through you. And the gifts of the Holy Spirit help you and equip you to be able to plant the seed through the grace of the Holy Spirit into their hearts and into their lives effectively. It helps you to carry out the commission. My wife told me a a an analogy that she got from 1 of the ladies in in her small group last night, Karen, a mighty woman of God.
But said, it's like a bicycle. You're riding a "bicycle in your relationship" with God. And the front wheel is is the gifts of the spirit, and the back wheel are are the fruit of the spirit. You need both to be effective at walking in your relationship with God and helping others to do it. Right?
But so without 1, you're kinda a little bit off balance and not able to carry out your commission. So very, very vital both are. And and so I I just thought that was a a great analogy. So then we also talked about the gifts of the spirit where the the word gift is literally translated as charismata. And once again, I know I'm going fast here.
So if some of this is like new to you, just go back and listen to the previous messages or research out. Go search out in His Word to make sure if what I'm saying is true because that's vital. Okay? Very vital. But the word gift is is translated as charismata.
And the word charismata means undeserved favor. His grace defined grace is defined as undeserved favor. So spiritual gifts are His grace to you, so it can be His grace through you to impact the world around you with His grace. Another way of saying that is His undeserved favor to you, His undeserved favor through you, to impact the world around you with His undeserved favor. A manifestation of His undeserved favor.
In 1 Corinthians-12:7, it says, now to each 1 the manifestation of the spirit is given for the common good. So it's a manifestation of his grace, of his spiritual reality in your life, physically manifesting in people's lives, in your life, and in those around you. Why? It's not so that you can feel good about like be selfish and and just feel good about yourself and boast in what you've done and what you've seen and all of that stuff. No.
It's for the common good, is what it says. The gifts are there to build up and to grow the body of Christ. So that we cannot boast in our self selfishly, but boast in Christ and what he's done in and through us. What he's doing in others. What he's doing in the world.
It's about him, not about us. Excuse me. So I want to talk about these gifts as we continue on or these manifestations of His *grace* over the next few weeks. I want to talk about them very practically, so that you can be equipped to be effective at *ministry* in your daily life, always encouraging you to view them with the eyes of righteousness, not looking at someone else as less than because they don't have something, or or greater than because they're walking in something, but always wanting to grow, fall forward, and understanding your identity that you're loved, and in His eyes, you're a 10 because Jesus' goodness has been credited to you. Amen?
Okay. So then with that, let's dive right into the first 1 I want to talk about. And I'm talking about this 1 first for a reason. We're gonna dive into tongues. Understanding the manifestation or the **gift of tongues**.
And I'm super excited about this. And you know, if you've if if you hear that and you're like, oh no. I mean, or you hear that and and you're jumping off the edge of your seat or you're you're intrigued. Let's just pray. God, would you show us truth?
*God, would you teach truth*? Would you give us discernment to understand and equip us to walk in what you want us to walk in? Father, let every preference I've ever had or every box I've put around things be broken by you, by your Holy Spirit, by your love today. In Jesus name, amen. Amen.
So in talking about tongues, it's it's definitely in scripture. We can't just pass over it because maybe you're past, or because of something that happened or was taught you're uncomfortable with it. It's in it's all throughout scripture. In 1 Corinthians-12:10, it says, you know, it's talking about the different manifestations of the spirit. And it says, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, to another *interpretation* of tongues.
So it's Paul talks about it all through 1 Corinthians-12, all through 1 Corinthians-13, all through 1 Corinthians-14. You see it all throughout Acts, so it's definitely there. So I just want to dive in and biblically like answer some common questions about tongues, and then talk to you about my own, like what it looks like in my daily life. And hopefully, can learn and grow together, and walking in and being equipped by this gift or manifestation of his spirit, of his presence. So some common questions about tongues, like what is this spiritual gift, or what is this manifestation of tongues?
Number 1, there are multiple types of this gift in scripture. I want to show you. First, we have in Acts-2:4. So in Acts-2, like, this is where Jesus poured out the Holy *Spirit* for the first time on people after Jesus died and rose again. And it's awesome.
You should read the book of Acts. But it says in verse 4, it says, all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other tongues as the spirit enabled them. The word tongue in the Greek is glossolia, which means language, like another language here. Right? And if you look down in *Acts-2:11*, it says, you know, it's it's talking like there were people from all over the world there in Jerusalem at this time for the Passover festival.
And so all these different people, it lists them out, the Medes, the Parthians, the Elamites, the residents of Pontus in Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Cyrene. They they all heard them in their own languages. Right? So they were literally, when they were speaking in tongues, they were speaking in multiple different languages. And what were they declaring?
They were speaking to them. Verse 11, we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues. So they were literally speaking in other languages, declaring the "wonders of God". So that's 1 type of tongues. But 1 Corinthians-14, and this is maybe something that you've heard before or experienced as well in your life, or in churches.
This is more common. It says in 1 Corinthians-14 verse 2, it says, for anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people, but to God. Now, if you're speaking to God, what is that? It's prayer. I'm speaking to God.
I'm listening. God's speaking to me. And I'm speaking it's communication with God. We saw in Acts-2:11, they were speaking the mysteries of God and to people. People were hearing the wonders of God.
But this is we're speaking to God. It's prayer. And *1 Corinthians-14:4* says, anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves, but the 1 who prophesies edifies the church. And what does that look like? Verse 14.
*1 Corinthians-14* verse 14. For if I pray, because we talked about speaking to God is praying in tongues. For if I pray in a tongue, my "spirit prays". So so maybe you don't understand what I'm talking about when speaking in tongues. Here you go.
For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. So have you have you ever heard someone speak in a language that you haven't learned yet? Like maybe you heard someone speaking in Arabic or in Chinese or Spanish, and you've never learned that you only know English or you only know a couple of other languages. When you hear them, it sounds like they are babbling. Your mind is unfruitful when you're listening to them speak.
Well, it's it's kind of the same way when you're praying in tongues, your *spirit* is praying through your mouth, but your mind it says in verse 14 is unfruitful. You're not even understanding the words coming out of your own mouth. That's praying. It's it's almost like babbling. Like if this wasn't in scripture, I would think it was absolutely crazy and insane.
However, it is in scripture, so you can't look it over. It's it's a practice and a gift and something absolutely beautiful. And the beautiful thing about praying in tongues, as it's talking about, the beautiful thing about it is there is no logic. It takes faith. It takes absolute, I'm trusting you, following your leading, and following your guiding, and trusting that you are what did it say in 1 Corinthians-14:4?
Edifying me. Edify it says, anyone who speaks in a tongue or prays in a tongue edifies themself. So I'm trusting that by doing this, somehow, someway you're edifying my spirit so that I can overflow. Which leads me to another question. Like, doesn't it say when it's talking about the the gifts of the spirit, that they're for the common good.
Like, well then, why would I want to pray in a tongue or pray in tongues in order to edify myself if this is for the common good? Isn't I mean, aren't I supposed to build up everyone else? Well, I love the fact that you asked this question. That's why I think tongues are important. Right?
It says it talks about Paul wanting, you know, you to desire the greater gift, to desire prophecy and other things, but yet tongues are still important. It's still an amazing gift. Why? Because it's edifying yourself. Remember, second Corinthian or not second Corinthians.
Sorry. The the second greatest commandment Jesus said, is we are to **love our neighbor** as we love our self. Meaning, I understand who God is. I understand his love for me. And because I understand his love for me, and I'm securing that, now I can let that love overflow and love others as I love me.
Right? And even to a greater extent. Well, in the same way, speaking in tongues, what that does, or praying in tongues, you're edifying your spirit, you're edifying yourself, so that you can let that overflow and begin to edify and lay yourself down and love others. So it's it's kind of important. Now the next question to be asked would be, well, does everyone **"speak in tongues"** when they're baptized in the Holy Spirit?
And that's a good question. A lot of people believe differently about this. You know, I grew up in a Baptist church until I was about 13. And up until just a few years ago, the Baptists, if a missionary in other parts of the world said that they spoke in tongues, they couldn't be a Baptist missionary. They're like, anti speaking in tongues.
For and praise God, they they shifted that in the last couple of years to where, you know, you could still be a missionary if you spoke in tongues. But there are whole sections of the church that, you know, believe that the gifts of the Spirit are are not for today. And because of that, they're not as effective in ministering the gospel because the gifts of the spirit help you to be effective at ministering the gospel. Then you have the definition of a global, like a Pentecostal. What is a Pentecostal?
By definition, a Pentecostal is 1 who believes that the evidence of the baptism of Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues. So if you've ever heard language like, do you have the baptism of Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in tongues? Like, if you ever heard that, they're probably a Pentecostal, which means they believe that if you haven't been baptized or if you haven't spoken in tongues yet, you're not yet baptized in the Holy Spirit. And then you have the charismatic side of the church, which believes in all of the gifts of the spirit, but doesn't necessarily believe you have to be baptized or you have to be or speak in tongues in order to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. So I guess the question is, and there's some different beliefs, but the question is, does everyone speak in tongues when you're baptized in the Holy Spirit?
And my answer to that, according to the study of scripture, what what I believe God has spoken to me, I'm gonna preach at this church, is many people do. Like, are various times in Acts. As a matter of fact, most times in Acts, when people are baptized in the Holy Spirit, they begin to speak in unknown tongues, in other tongues. And but but not all of them. If we look in Acts-4, and and before I get into that, I just want you to know, my heart is, I never want to put God in a box based on my experience, or based on what I've been taught by some person.
I want the Holy Spirit is a big boy, and he can move however he wants to. And he only moves in line with his principles, in line with the character of who he is. And so that's how you can test and know if it's him. But I want in my own life to allow the Holy Spirit to move however he wants. And in our church, in real church, Holy Spirit, you are invited to move in whatever way that you want to move.
And and and Lord, I pray that that goes in as an example for everyone who comes here, that they have that same mindset, allowing you to break all of the boxes that that we have put you in notoriously in our own lives and in the church. Amen? So in Acts-4:31, you had a bunch of believers grouped together, and it says, after they prayed, the place where they was was shaken. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God boldly. It doesn't say anything about tongues.
And so there's 1 instance, but then there's another when Saul. Saul who wrote most of the New Testament, he later was named Paul. When he was born again, and when he was baptized in the Holy Spirit, it says nothing about tongues. The manifestation of him being baptized in the Holy Spirit was scales falling off of his eyes. And so he had a not just physical scales, but I also it was also obviously spiritual scales too, fell off of his eyes.
Because now all of the training he had in the Old Testament, now he saw Jesus everywhere, and immediately he says, it says, he went to the synagogues and began to preach, and reason with the with the Jews, and he gained many people followed him at that time. Why? Because he was effective as empowered by the Holy Spirit through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, 1 being which 1 being a Holy Spirit revelation to see Jesus throughout his old training, and and he was able to effectively communicate and seed them with the gospel. Just pretty cool. So and and just really to drive that point home, in Acts-2, when they were filled with the Holy Spirit.
*Acts-2:4, it says, all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit* and began to speak in other tongues as the spirit enabled them. Right? So we see that. And this is going on. The people think that they're crazy.
Like, some of them are receiving the wonders of God. Others are saying they're drunk. They're out of their minds. So not everybody understood. And then Peter gets up, and he explains, and he quotes the prophet Joel.
And he says in Acts-2:16, no, this, what you're seeing here, these people speaking in tongues and and all of this amazing stuff happening, this is what was spoken of by the prophet Joel. In the last days, God God says, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heaven above, and signs on the earth below, blood and fire, and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord, and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So Peter, to explain what's going on, he quotes Joel. Notice in Joel, there's no mention of tongues.
There's prophecy, there's visions, there's dreams, there's signs, there's wonders, but there's no specific mention of tongues. But yet, obviously, the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in that moment when it was poured out was tongues. Interesting. He says in Acts-2:16, this is what was spoken of the prophet Joel. Meaning, this is of the same character, it's of the same order, it's of the same nature of what Joel was speaking.
Even though it wasn't explicitly said, the Holy Spirit's choosing to manifest in this way, and he's a big boy. He can manifest however he wants to. I'm just gonna trust him, and know that he's good, and it's gonna be in line with the principles of who he is. Amen? Okay.
So next, next question. Can every believer speak in tongues? That's a common question. And I just want to go to a couple of different scriptures, and it might seem what like I'm going 1 way. Just just stick with me here because I wanna get through the scriptures.
But in 1 Corinthians-12:9 through 11, it says, to 1 there is given to the spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same spirit, to another faith, to another gifts of healing, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, and still to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of the 1 in the same spirit. Okay? So it's it seems like he's he's saying, hey, he might have that, and they might have that, you know. And and he goes on to talk about 1 body.
We're all connected. Don't judge them by them being different, but know that we're all part of the body. That's that's awesome. In 1 Corinthians-12 verse 29, it says, are all apostles? Are all prophets?
Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?
Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. So it says, hey, you might not have these gifts, but it says desire them. Eagerly desire them. So even though you're not walking them, don't just say, well, that's just not my gift. No.
It says desire them. And he wouldn't tell you to desire something that you couldn't have. Did you catch that? He wouldn't tell you to desire something that you couldn't have. Just to drive that point home, 1 Corinthians-14:5 says, I would like every 1 of you, and this is talking about praying in tongues.
I would like every 1 of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy. So Paul wouldn't say through the Holy Spirit as he's writing this letter to the Corinthians, which was to be read in all the churches, so even here, hey, he would like for every 1 of you to pray in tongues. So it must be possible. So the question is then, why speak in tongues? What is the purpose of praying in tongues?
As we've already talked about. *1 Corinthians-14* verse 4, anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themself. Right? And yes, the gifts are for the common good, but at the same time, we love others as we love ourself, just to kind of recap. So we edify ourselves, so the overflow, we can lay it on our life and constantly edify others with the other spiritual gifts.
So it's amazing. So in prayer, I'm praying and edifying myself, but then also in public and others, I'm walking in things that they can understand so I can lay my life down and help to sow the seeds of the gospel in their lives. The undeserved favor of God for the common good. So the next question then is how? How do I pray?
Or how do I speak in tongues? Like, is there a time and a place to speak in tongues? Because we talked about it's you don't really know what you're saying. You're stepping out by faith. It's enabled by the Holy Spirit.
So just to go on the how part for a second, he's not going to make you, force you. He's a gentleman. The Holy Spirit is not going to force you to do anything. You have to give him permission. Like, I I I invite you Holy Spirit, and I ask you to baptize me in your presence, and I invite you, I give you my life, I give you every aspect of me.
Right? You're giving him permission. Is it possible that he makes you start speaking in tongues then because you gave him permission? Yes. But usually, that is not how it happens in my life.
Like, to when when the Holy Spirit moves on me to go and pray for someone to be healed, and I have this idea of thought to go pray for someone from the Holy Spirit, or to go and minister to someone, to go and purchase something for someone being generous. He doesn't make me He doesn't literally take control of my body, make me walk over there, open my mouth, and and tell and like, make my my my lips speak exactly what that person no. I partner with him by faith. He gives me the desire, or he gives me the thought, and I act on his thought by faith and carry it out in my daily life. So I care I actually walk over there, and he empowers me through him partnering with me to impact that person.
In in praying in tongues or speaking in tongues, it's the same thing. Like, many times, he doesn't literally make me do it. He gives me the thought or the desire to to pray, and I step out in faith and do it. And we'll talk about that more in a second. Bible says, is there or the question is, is there a time or a place to speak in tongues, or to pray in tongues?
Well, far as speaking to people, speaking to the body of Christ, like speaking out. *1 Corinthians-14:26* says, what shall we say then brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, a word of instruction, a revelation, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up. If anyone speaks in a tongue, meaning it does happen sometimes, 1, 2, or 3 or sorry.
It says 2 or 3 at the most should speak 1 at a time, then someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet and in the church and speak between himself and God, meaning pray in tongues. Right? Why is that? Because the gifts are for the body, for the the common good, and if it's not interpretate interpreted for others, or interpreted for others, then they can't be benefited from what's going on.
So it's only for for selfish edifying of the self, and you should keep quiet while we're in the body of Christ. But sometimes, somebody might the Holy Spirit might move on someone to speak out in tongues, and this has hasn't really happened much yet in real church, and it may happen in the future. But somebody may move on someone to speak out in tongues in faith, and then move on someone else to interpret in faith. It's all by faith, And there's a growing and a walking and a learning in the Holy Spirit, and there's grace there if you if you mess up, fall forward into his arms. So that's speaking in tongues.
It shouldn't happen constantly, you know, speaking out in the church to 1 another because because it's not edifying everyone. Does that make sense? That's straight from scripture. I'll give you an example of of this. We are our first Sunday at as a church, our first Sunday at real church.
Just 400 people came to come and dip their toe in, check it out, see what's going on. And we're during worship, and there's a a woman in the middle of our first service who's screaming out in tongues. Like, you know, I mean, just screaming out in this unintelligible unintelligible language. It's obviously tongues. And there was something not right.
Why? Because if a gift is not used in love, if it's only used to promote and "edify self", then it will cause confusion. It will be demonic, because confusion is demonic if it's just about selfishness. Right? And when you're in the church, in the body of Christ with others, and you're speaking out in that, and there's no interpreter, it's it's it will cause confusion, because there's unbelievers there and other things.
So and just I guess just to go there, it says in in *1 Corinthians-14* verse 22, tongues then are assigned not for believers, but for unbelievers. And verse 23, so if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and unbelievers are come in, will they not say you're out of their mind? Out of your mind? Like it shows unbelievers that they're separated. They're not apart.
They're they have no place there. And that's why you don't do it in public unless it's interpreted, because then it's like prophecy, and it's showing people the the amazing wonders of God and drawing them into relationship with Him. So anyway, we're in this first service, and this lady screaming out in tongues in the middle of of the service. And and instantly as the pastor, I I feel the Holy Spirit say, you know, I I realized that's not from him. It's causing confusion in our in in the body.
We have a lot of unbelievers, a lot of people that are here trying to seek out God for the first time in a long time. And I I just prayed, I said, God, what what do you want me to do? And I felt him say, I will take care of it. Okay. So I got a little nervous.
Right? Because it kept going for a little bit. So I go to the back, and I'm looking around, and I go to 1 of the ushers, and I say, hey, if this goes too long, you know, if it gets out of hand, go and and stop it. I was trying to take control. I wasn't really trusting God.
Praise the Lord. He took care of it despite my my lack of faith there. All of a sudden, it stopped. I found out a week and a half later, a leader in our church, a a woman, Heidi, you know Heidi, She was sitting behind this lady, and when it was happening, the Holy Spirit told her this is demonic. And Heidi, just under her breast, said in the name of Jesus, be silent.
In the name of Jesus, stop. And and the woman was silent instantly. Why? Because it was causing confusion and and and if if a gift draws doesn't draw people to Jesus, but it draws them to the self, then then it's it's selfish. It's it's not of God's origin.
Makes sense? Now, another example of of praying in tongues in a prayer meeting, for instance. What does it say in 1 Corinthians-14:13? It says, for this reason, the 1 who speaks in a tongue should pray that they may interpret what they say. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, my mind is unfruitful.
So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding. I will sing with my spirit, but I also will sing with my understanding. Otherwise, when you are praising God in the spirit, how can someone else, meaning someone else is there, someone else is listening, how can someone else who is now put in the position of an inquirer say amen to your thanksgiving, since they do not know what you're saying? You're you're giving thanks well enough, but no 1 else is edified.
Meaning, if if I'm like in a prayer meeting or a small group or something, we're praying, and I begin to I don't know what to say, and I don't know what to pray, I may begin to pray in tongues. That's okay. Right? That's okay. But as I'm praying in tongues, because of my love for everybody else, I'm like, God, would you interpret what this say what I'm saying, interpret what I'm praying.
And then I'll pray in English, because all of a sudden, I know what to pray. And that's what happens for me in my own prayer life when I'm alone. Like Paul says, I thank God, verse 18. Watch this. He's kind of bold.
He says, I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. But in the church, I would rather speak 5 intelligible words to instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue. Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regards to evil, be infants. But in regards to your thinking, be adults.
And as adults, we lay down our lives to serve 1 another. Right? So like Paul said, I I I speak in tongues more than you all. I'm not boasting there. I'm just making a point.
Like, personally, in my prayer, I speak in tongues all the time. And why do I do that? A lot of times, I don't know what to pray in English, so I'll just begin to to pray in tongues by faith. And as I'm praying in tongues, all of a sudden, I'll have ideas of what to pray in English, and and things I wouldn't have thought about before. And maybe, just maybe, I'm interpreting the Holy Spirit's giving me an interpretation for my own prayer, and it's *edifying* my spirit.
It's edifying me. I'm building up an overflowing into my personal prayer life, so that I can pray what the Holy Spirit is communicating to my spirit through my mouth, through tongues, which is amazing. It's not logical, but it is a walk by faith, and a gift, and and wonderful. And I encourage you to do so. And if you're in a group of believers, a prayer meeting, and you hear somebody speak in tongues, don't go get all freaked out.
Right? But but just pray, God, would you give me the interpretation? Or maybe if you're the 1 doing that, ask God to give you the interpretation, and only do it as led by the Holy Spirit out of love, because we don't want to push people away. We want to draw them into relationship with Himself, knowing that for the most part, tongues edify self unless it's interpreted. And when it's interpreted, it's amazing and beautiful and edifies everyone who's listening.
Is that is that clear? So if you're listening to this, you're like, man, that's cool. I've never saw tongues preached that way or or talked about this way. I know I went a little longer today. I just wanted to be really clear and communicate it clearly.
If you're like, man, I have never walked in tongues. I've I've never I've never done that before. See, you you might have my my wife was baptized in the in in the Holy Spirit as a young. I mean, was effective in ministering the gospel, spoke with boldness, all kinds of stuff. But never walked in tongues because she grew up in a Baptist church and was taught that, you know, it's just don't do that type deal.
And so because of ignorance, which is just not knowing, or fear, she wasn't able to walk in faith in that area. And maybe that's your upbringing, a denomination or church that that shaded away from this part of the Bible. And maybe by hearing this you want to begin to walk in this manifestation of his spirit, this gift that is good. He's not gonna make you, but he will empower you by by his spirit. And you have to walk it out by faith.
So maybe during the worship service, just ask the Holy Spirit, would you would you empower me with the gift of tongues? Would you would you teach me to pray in tongues? Now, the first time I I walked over and prayed for somebody to be healed, I felt really weird. Like, I felt like they're gonna think I'm crazy. It was uncomfortable, but I was walking by faith.
The same way, first time you step out and pray in tongues, you're probably going to feel really weird. Just because you feel weird doesn't mean it's wrong. Right? You you you walk in faith by the truth of his word, not by your feeling. And trust him, and and move forward, and practice as he leads you.
Whether it and I would encourage you just to to start, maybe be alone, or with some people that you trust, and and but it's not about them hearing you. It's not about, I'm I'm doing this to be a better it's about relationship. It's all about listening, and learning, and walking with him. And I promise this is an amazing thing that's gonna edify you spiritually, and help you to overflow the fruit of the spirit. His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, meekness, self control, and other gifts of the spirit in in your daily life, which is wonderful.
Let me pray for you, and then let's worship, and I encourage you to do some work with the Holy Spirit, and and and and ask him if you would like to to gift you with this or to to increase and strengthen this gift. Father, I thank you for those watching, and I pray that everyone understands your word. Lord, that they research and search this out for themselves. Lord, they they study Acts. They study 1 Corinthians-12:13 and 14.
*Lord God*, they they search out your word. Lord, and then as they see it clearly, they walk in what you have spoken. Father, I pray that some would even begin to speak in in their own homes right now as they're watching. We're gonna speak in tongues right now as you enable them stepping out in faith. Father, as they they worship, Lord, I pray they let the lies and the fear fall off and they just begin to walk in what you what you have for them, which is beautiful and amazing and wonderful.
*Father*, and I I pray some people, even gift with the the gift to to be able to to speak in tongues and other people understand in their own language, maybe 1 day on the missionary field, or or at a service or something like that, Father. We want you to work in the way that you wanna work. Break all of our boxes and let us move forward, not in fear and lies, but in truth and grace. In Jesus name. Amen.
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