Speaking in Tongues: Gifts of the Holy Spirit

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Shabbat shalom everybody. - Shabbat shalom. - Just to be clear, if you do not sit in the amphitheater, the Holy Spirit will not fall on you. (congregation laughing) Have we made ourselves clear?

Good morning, everybody.

Oh, this is the sermon the preacher just, oh yeah, pick me, I can't wait for this one.

So my last ministry, I had a gentleman, we were sitting at home on Thursday night and a gentleman called me who was asking for permission to come visit our church, which he really didn't need, but he was coming from another church of similar background as ours.

And he was kind of frustrated with where he was attending and didn't wanna cause any problems, so he called.

And I said, "Well, sure, go ahead, come on over.

"We'd love to have you.

"I understand some of the struggles you're having "and where you're at."

And then I hung up and I looked at my wife and said, "Oh no."

And she said, "What?"

I said, "I'm preaching on speaking in tongues this Sunday."

For his first time there.

Coming from a church background that does not participate or practice speaking in tongues.

And I know that my sermon is, I'm an equal opportunity offender.

And let me just tell you that right now.

If you are a passionate tongue speaker, I am going to offend you.

If you are a passionate non-tongue speaker, you'll get yours too.

All right, so just know that what I'm here to do is not to defend any particular church group's position, but to try to understand what the Lord's word says.

And I wanna tell you, and this may scare you, I've got two sermons up here and we may merge them.

We're just gonna let the Holy Spirit know or let Him decide what we're gonna do with this.

Because I realize as we come to this topic, as we've been studying the gifts of the Holy Spirit, one of the things that makes this particular gift unique among the spirit is that it is a manifestation that you experience.

Sometimes you can get a word of knowledge and not realize it was a word of knowledge till later looking back and then you realize that wasn't me.

There was no tongue of fire.

There was no mighty rushing wind.

Suddenly you had a word of wisdom.

Suddenly you were in the middle of a conversation with somebody and you use the exact right phrase that they needed to hear, a thought that had, a phrase or something that had been going through their spirit.

Maybe they'd even dreamed about it.

And then you use that thing, not because the Holy Spirit said, "Say this."

You just said it.

And the reaction of the person is that they're overwhelmed by that message.

But you didn't even know it was coming.

I told you the one and only time I was very aware that the Lord had taken a demon out of a person I was praying for, he didn't bother to tell me in advance he was gonna do it.

We had some speaking in tongues about that later.

He didn't think it was a need to know basis 'cause he knew if I knew I'd probably run the other way.

But sometimes these gifts don't necessarily function in a way that feels instantly supernatural.

But the speaking in tongues is one that we kind of look at and we see what happens at Pentecost.

And we realize this is next level involvement of direct involvement of the Holy Spirit and our bodies.

And so that's what makes it intimidating.

That's what makes it appealing.

And that's why the body of Christ fusses about it all over the place.

So knowing that I have a Herculean task in front of me because all of you as a church, we are definitely, well, what kind of church are they?

We are a mutt.

All right?

We are a hodgepodge of all types of different backgrounds.

And some of you have come from backgrounds that very much practiced privately and publicly the gift of speaking in tongues.

And some of you, like my wife and I, have come from a background where our churches very much did not do that.

And somehow I get to talk to all of you at the same time.

So because there is never a time, I don't know that I need the Lord to give me speaking in tongues right now, but I definitely need him to give me words of wisdom and knowledge as we dive into God's word.

Will you pray with me?

Abba Father, I come to you, B'Shem Yeshua HaMashiach, in the name of Jesus, the Messiah, the anointed one, the worthy lamb, who ascended to the right hand of the Father on that 40th day of the counting of the Omar.

And then on the 50th day, received the gift from the Father of the Holy Spirit and poured out all that they saw and heard in Jerusalem that day.

Father, I pray that your spirit would anoint this time, that you would guide my heart, my thoughts, that everything, anything that is of me would just fall to the wayside like chaff and only that which is of your word which is a spirit of truth would resonate in our hearts.

I pray, Father, that you would give us the courage to look at a subject outside the context of where we've been before.

Do something fresh, do something new in our lives today.

I pray this, I plead for this in Yeshua's holy name.

It comes down to us via a Jewish midrash that was believed to have been written between the 10th and 12th century.

So it's about a thousand years after Jesus.

Now it is what is called an agotic midrash or an agotic commentary, which simply means that it's a commentary that is told in the context of stories.

So it's anecdotal comments and sometimes additional information to the biblical story.

Now there's another kind of midrash which is called halakic, which is more like legal rulings and interpretations, but there is a agotic midrash called the Midrash Shemot Rabab.

It's about the book of Exodus and it is discussing Matan Torah, the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.

And it adds this following information to the story.

Now, what I mean by adding is what I'm about to read is not in the scripture.

It is in this commentary written a thousand years after the time of Jesus.

So if it's a thousand years after the time of Jesus, it's several thousand years after the time of the actual Exodus.

But listen to what they write.

On the occasion of the giving of the Torah, the children of Israel not only heard the Lord's voice, but actually saw the sound, the sound waves as they emerged from the Lord's mouth.

They visualized them as a fiery substance.

Each commandment that left the Lord's mouth traveled around the entire camp and then came back to every Jew individually.

God's voice as it was uttered, split into 70 voices in 70 languages so that all the nations should understand.

Now that's a translation of that midrash.

Some translations will actually use the terminology that the voice of God that came forth and was seen as a flame of fire was seen as tongues of fire.

Now, one of the things you have to remember about this thousand to 1200 year old midrash after the time of Christ is that the Jewish rabbis who sat down to pen this information and to add this story to the scriptural text did not do so in any attempt to validate Christianity.

Amen?

Simon says, amen.

Really?

Is that what it takes?

If that's the way you wanna play, we can go there.

They weren't writing something with the intent because if they knew they were gonna write something that Christians would say, aha, that's an exact parallel to what happened at the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem.

They would never have written it.

They simply wrote down a tradition that I assume was passed down.

I'm not trying to ask you to accept it as actual, but it is strikingly parallel.

If that story is true, then what happens at Pentecost in Acts chapter two is not the first time we've seen this.

On top of that, it makes me wonder if in fact that tradition was true, what did those people who heard John the Baptist, you remember John the Baptist, he's the one prophecy prophet.

Remember that?

John the Baptist had one prophecy.

He who comes after me will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

That was his one prophecy.

Now we could spend all day discussing and debating whether we should put any stock in that 10th century commentary, but think about those Jewish people who were hearing John preach that message.

If they had that as a belief in their system, what they were hearing when they said someone is coming who's going to baptize you with fire when their tradition says that's what God did at Sinai.

Suddenly John's prophecy takes on a whole new impact.

On that day at the giving of the Holy Spirit and the first proclamation of the full redemption in Jesus' name, the Holy Spirit was given so that the disciples and the apostles gathered there could proclaim in every dialect and language to those gathered the good news of the gospel of the kingdom of Jesus.

And as we begin our final message on the gift of the Holy Spirit and focus our attention on the gift of speaking in tongues, make no mistake, every single gift of the Holy Spirit was given for the purpose of prophecy and declaring the good news of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

That was the purpose of the gifts.

That is how we encourage one another within the context of the body so that every tribe, language, and people of nation could hear the good news.

Now, growing up, I loved that story and I believed it and had no problem with speaking in tongues in that context until the late '70s and the charismatic revival sweeping the nation.

And for the first time in my life, I was hearing people say that something that I had read as a past tense event was now a present day reality.

And that is not what I grew up hearing.

Speaking in tongues wasn't just something that happened back then, but it was something that was still being poured out.

But in their zeal to declare the relevance and the activity of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, what the word of God said about that subject often got trampled underfoot in two ways.

First, there was a very clear message that not all people received the gift, that not all people received that gift was cast aside.

That's what Paul taught, that not all people received that gift.

That was cast aside and replaced with a message that not only can all believers speak in tongues, they must speak in tongues to prove they have the Holy Spirit.

And that message was coming through the television of loud and clear.

The second thing that came through loud and clear was that the limitations and protocols for how and when and why the gift was to be used were cast aside and utterly ignored as the movement wanted tongues on full display in every assembly.

Now, from my standpoint, growing up in the context of the movement of churches that I grew up in, grew up, that made it very easy to be reactionary to those two things that were patently unbiblical.

Many people's reaction though, from my side of the equation, were as unbiblical as what we were accusing the other side of doing.

You see, we had our own unbiblical must.

Ours went like this.

To reject it, we had to reject it because it didn't look like what Luke described as occurring in Jerusalem.

And we demanded that all speaking in tongues must look like Acts chapter two.

And if it didn't look like Acts chapter two, which was clearly known languages, but unlearned languages by the apostles and the disciples, then it wasn't speaking in tongues.

And we accused our brethren of speaking Babel while we spoke Bologna.

I thought that was really clever.

I mean, thank you, I appreciate that.

I got one fan out there.

You know, in our zeal to say, you need to do it biblically, we started babbling enough as much Bologna as what we were accusing them of doing.

You see, if we're gonna look at this subject, we're gonna have to do it through the eyes of what the word of God says.

Amen?

First Corinthians chapter 12, seven through 11.

But to each one is given a manifestation of the spirit for the common good.

For to one is given the word of wisdom through the spirit of wisdom to another the word of knowledge to another, according to the same spirit, to another faith by the same spirit and to another gifts of healing by the one spirit and to another the workings or the effecting of miracles and to another prophecy and to another distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues and to another the interpretation of tongues.

But one in the same spirit works all these things distributing to each one individually, just as he wills.

Now there's two indicators in this listing that not everyone is going to get the same gift.

How do I know that?

The fact that he says one gets this and another gets that is kind of obvious, but how he points it out, points out the distribution also contains a clue.

If you read it in the English, it may sound like he gave it to another and then to another and then to another and then to another.

And you would think that all those anothers are the same word.

And they're not.

There is two words, etero, which means a separate and a distinguished one and then alo, which are most of them just he gave to another.

Why is that important?

Because it emphasizes that one is getting this gift, but a different one is getting another type of gift.

The point is that the listing emphasizes not only the diversity of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but the diversity in how and to whom they are given.

And that's a biblical fact that if we're going to walk in the gifts of the Spirit, we cannot ignore.

So why does Paul, and why am I emphasizing this?

Because Paul will later say that he wishes that everyone would speak in tongues, but he has an even greater wish that everyone would prophesy.

But he's already told us that's not the case.

Because it's the Holy Spirit who distributes.

As we dive in, what we can know from his writings about tongues, we must begin with something he stresses, and it's a biblical must.

Not everyone speaks in tongues, and it is not a must that they do so.

Today, many people reject speaking in tongues because it sounds like babble.

But sometimes people's rebuttal against it, as I've already said, sounds like baloney.

So let me just give you a word of caution.

The most important thing for us to know about the gifts of the Spirit is not that everyone gets the same Spirit.

This is not a license to ignore the gifts of the Spirit or to ignore Paul's instruction in 1 Corinthians 14.

Pursue love and desire earnestly the spiritual gifts.

The diversity of the gifts, the diversities of those who receive them is not a defense for the denial of the gifts or a justification for believers being disinterested in them.

Do you see how we do that?

We create a tug of war.

Paul uses a word that says that we are to earnestly pursue them.

It's the same word that Jesus uses to describe how they will persecute the believers for righteousness.

They will chase you down, they will hunt you down, they will pursue you.

This is not a casual, passive pursuit.

Well, you know, if he wants to give it to me, you know, okay, whenever.

That's not what we're being told.

Paul says it is a spiritual act of discipleship for people in the body of Christ to be intentional in their pursuit of the spiritual gifts.

Why?

So that they can be a force within the body of Christ for good.

You see, if we get passive about our pursuit of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, if we just sit around doing that, then I end up not getting what I need from you and you end up not getting what you need from me because we've both been too lazy to go what God has said I'm ready to give.

And how can we be the body of Christ if we don't want the spirit of Christ living, dwelling, gifting, and manifesting within us?

So as I see it in the scripture, and I'm gonna try to outline this for you quickly, I see four different types of speaking in tongues or tongue related gifts.

There are the unknown or unlearned language.

There is the unknown language that has to be interpreted.

There is a private prayer language that is between you and God.

And there is the language of the angels.

Now, the first one we're very familiar with, when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all together and suddenly a noise like a violent rushing wind came from heaven and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

And tongues like fire appeared to them distributing themselves and they rested on each one of them and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with different tongues as the spirit was giving them utterance.

A couple of quick things, just take note of.

Please take note that they were in a house when this happened, I love that.

And I'll tell you in a minute why I love that.

Second, please note that even on that day, there was a distribution going on as each tongue of fire representing a language and an anointing from heaven went to each disciple gathered there in that house.

So let's continue, verse five.

Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven.

And when this sound occurred, a crowd came together.

Notice the crowd came together because of the sound.

It doesn't say that they saw the tongues of fire, but those hundreds that were in there, they did.

And when they heard this, the crowd came together and they were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language.

We hear them in our own tongues, languages, speaking of the mighty deeds of God.

And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity saying to one another, what does this mean?

The point that Luke is making very clear here is that someone didn't come by and just do a slow roll past the house.

You know, like you do out on the highway when you see something and you wonder, why is traffic moving so slow?

And you get up there and you find out there's really nothing inhibiting the flow of traffic except that everybody's being a looky-loo, you know?

That's not what's happening here.

Paul says, or Luke says, they continued in amazement.

They were mesmerized by what's going on.

Now, if the tradition that the Midrash includes took place, then this is the second time this has happened.

And take note of a couple things.

Notice the way God pours out the gifts to the greater audience.

Notice how God pours out this gift, points to the greater audience of the gospel.

Why not just give the people who are there the ability to understand the language they were speaking?

Meaning, why not just give everybody that's there the ability to understand the language the disciples already spoke?

He could have done that, couldn't he?

He didn't.

Instead, he made sure the disciples were speaking their language.

Why?

Because there is a clue, there is a hint, there is an illusion, just like there was if that tradition was true about Mount Sinai, that this is a message that's gonna transcend just the people of Israel.

It is a message for the whole world from every people, tribe, and language, and nation.

We see that in the way he performed the miracle.

And may I just throw this out there, that while I love Hebrew, it is baloning to tell people that the only way they can really receive what God has done for them in Christ is to tell them they have to learn Hebrew.

Man, I love learning to speak Hebrew, and I love getting to use the little bit of Hebrew that I know.

But this very fact shows that God doesn't just speak Hebrew.

Speaking in tongues, regardless of its type or form, always serves the purpose of the gospel, that which God wants the world to know.

This is critical to seeing the correct use and intention of the gift of tongues.

It's always gospel advancing and others centered.

There's one exception to that, and I'll show that here in a minute.

Do we see this type of tongue active today?

Personally, I have not.

But by the testimony of those on the foreign mission field, I would have to answer yes, and I'll take them at their word.

I will tell you that there have been times when I've been in conversations, and the limited ability in Hebrew that I had, when I got back and started looking back at the conversation I just had, I was playing way above my level.

You know what I'm saying?

I was in the zone, and it wasn't me.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit just has to come along to remind you what you already know.

And so, do we see this?

No, we don't see this as much, because in most of our assemblies, there is not a diversity of language that is inhibiting the flow of the information.

But in a situation where that would be, then the Holy Spirit is free to do that.

The second type of speaking in tongues that we see is referenced in 1 Corinthians chapter 13.

And I wanna just throw out here again, the information that we get about speaking in tongues, really about all of these gifts, is not because Paul sat down and did a seminar on how to get the gifts, what they do, here's how it works.

No, he doesn't even deal with the issue of do they exist or don't exist, he just assumes they exist.

And so that's the way I think we should handle it.

In 13.1, he mentions another type of tongue without giving any kind of explanation about it.

He says, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, "but do not have love, I become a noisy gong "or a clanging cymbal."

Now here, Paul lists a kind of tongues.

Here, Paul lists the first kind of tongues we have just spoken about, and then adds a second type.

The tongues of men are languages that people know, and God might give you the knowledge to speak a language you haven't learned.

Here, he talks about speaking in the tongues of angels.

And again, no other explanation.

So we're forced to kind of draw from the rest of scripture.

Hebrews chapter one, and when he again brings the firstborn into the world, he says, "And let all the angels of God worship.

"And of the angels," he says, "who makes his angels winds "and his ministers a flame of fire."

Now, how can you read that and not see the day of Pentecost?

He makes his angels winds, ruach, spirits, and what caused them all to come together?

Well, there was a whole lot of angels in that room.

'Cause he makes his messengers winds and spirits and his ministers a flame of fire.

In verse 14, he continues his explanation of their ministry with a question he assumes his readers already know the answer to.

Verse 14, "Are they not all ministering spirits "sent out to render service for the sake of those "who will inherit salvation?"

The writer of Hebrews and the Old Testament prophets describe the angels as servants who are sent and made messengers of fire.

Paul is emphatic that all the gifts come from one Holy Spirit.

That does not mean that the angels are not involved in the distribution of the gifts of the Spirit and the revelations of God.

We've seen that from day one.

We know that from their role at Sinai and Covenants.

Some assume that that type of speaking in tongues that is unknown to, some assume that the type of speaking in tongues that is unknown to men, meaning we can't make sense of it, is a type of tongues that some describe as a static babble.

And I wanna be honest with you.

I don't know if that's the case.

I don't know if that language that comes forth from some people, and I have heard it.

I have heard, I just wanna tell you, I have heard people that claim to be speaking in tongues and my spirit inside said, "Nope."

And then I have had times where I have had men praying over me in tongues and I said, "Yep."

It was a language, it had cadence, it had structure, it was not just a perpetual stringing of sounds together.

It had every one of the telltale signs of language and I didn't understand a thing they were saying.

And you know what's kinda fun about that?

It didn't matter.

Because in those moments when I was being prayed for, I wanted God to hear what they were saying.

I wanted Him to understand more than me because they were praying on my behalf.

I do not need to experience it or understand it to accept that it exists.

Paul lists two types of gifts of the spirit related to speaking in tongues in 1 Corinthians 12 and then he expounds on them.

One is the gift of speaking in tongues, various types of tongues.

The second is there's a specific type of revelatory tongue that requires an interpretation.

Most of what we're told about tongues comes from Paul's juxtaposition or comparison that he does in 1 Corinthians 14.

So what we're gonna do is we're going to try to merge what I wrote down and just try to pull out some things that Paul says.

First of all, Paul says in verse one, "Pursue love, yet earnestly desire spiritual gifts, "but especially that you may prophesy.

"For one who speaks in a tongue "does not speak to men but to God, "for no one understands, "but in his spirit he speaks mysteries."

Now notice we're told two things here.

One is that there is a type of tongue that is in fact meant for communication with God and not for men.

Tongue speakers, listen up.

There is a type of tongues that is not about you communicating with me or with the assembly, it is about you communicating with God.

I didn't say that, Paul did.

Secondly, there is a type of tongues where the spirit speaks and not the mind.

And this is hard for us to understand because we are so in our flesh.

And I know that I speak and what I speak comes from my mind.

But are we, did God create us to be physical fleshly people?

Simon says, answer yes. (congregation laughing) Wow.

I mean, I'm standing up here talking about speaking in tongues, I'm just trying to get you to speak a little English.

Won't kill you, I promise.

I'm needy, come on, help me.

Just kidding.

No, I kind of am.

There is a type of tongues, if I understand that I am created as a physical being, do we not also believe that we are created as spiritual beings?

Yes.

If I can commune, and what separates us from the animal kingdom?

Communication.

Even though they communicate way more in different ways than, you know, that's another story.

But if I understand that I can communicate in the flesh, if I really, if I really, if I really, if I really, if I really, if I really, if I really, not today, friends. (congregation laughing) All right. (congregation mumbling) Trying to wake you up.

If I understand I can speak with my mind and my flesh, then I must understand that my spirit can speak whether or not I understand it or not.

Verse three, but one who prophesies speaks to men for edification, exhortation, and consolation.

One who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but one who prophesies edifies the church.

A couple things.

Please remember who Paul's writing to.

These are people that Paul has described as being enriched in every way with every spiritual gift.

You remember that in chapter one?

And yet they are struggling in the carnality of their flesh.

And so when Paul begins to juxtapose the difference between prophecy and speaking in tongues, while he is going to desire them to speak in, to prophesy for the edification of the body, he has to say this in the context, not to demean the value of speaking in tongues, but to make sure they understand speaking in tongues does not credential you.

It does not establish you as any wiser than anybody else.

It is not about you, unless it is a private tongue between you and the Lord.

And we'll get to that.

He says, one who prophesies does so to edify the body of Christ.

The word edification comes from two words, both of which mean house.

They literally means, edification means to build the house.

This is the body of Christ.

This is the house of God.

And these gifts are given to do that.

So why then do we have a gift of tongues that edifies ourselves?

Well, edification is not a bad thing.

It is a necessary and essential thing.

Remember, I've said this about, you know, any one of the gifts of the spirit.

You aren't given the gifts of the spirit to run around like a lone ranger, using your gift outside the accountability and responsibility to the body of Christ.

You don't get to go run amok and do whatever you want and just say, well, I've got this gift so I get to use it however I want.

No, you don't.

Paul says, it's in the body for the body.

So what about a gift of tongues where my spirit is speaking to God and Paul goes on and indicates, even the person doing it doesn't understand, probably because they're speaking either the language of the spirit or the language of the angels and it is the spirit communicating with God.

We say, well, how will that edify me?

Have you ever had one of those moments where you didn't need to hear anything from God, you just had that moment with that overwhelming sense of his presence and that was enough.

I didn't need a detailed conversation, I needed him.

And sometimes that's why we don't get our prayers answered because we're more interested in getting the thing we want but more than having time with him.

I think I told you about flying home from Israel and an Orthodox Jewish guy asked me the question, who was greater, David or Solomon?

I said, oh, David.

And he's kind of surprised that I knew that.

And he said, why is that?

I said, because Solomon asked for wisdom and David said, one thing I ask of the Lord, that I may see him in his glory and dwell in his presence.

Just to be, he asked for the greater thing.

And this Jewish guy, he looked at me totally stunned like, oh, you didn't see that coming?

'Cause that's the answer they would give.

Sometimes just being in his presence, anytime to be honest, is enough.

Paul goes on, now I wish that all of you spoke in tongues but even more that you would prophesy.

And greater is the one who prophesies than the one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets so the church may receive edifying.

So now we are, another type of tongues is referred to.

A type of tongues that isn't private, isn't personal, but comes forth in the context of the body that requires an interpretation.

When the day of Pentecost happened, interpretation was not needed, why?

Because the people who were receiving the message understood the message.

And yet Peter stands up and gives even the greater interpretation of all of the things they've been saying, he pulls it all together so they understand Jesus has ascended to the right hand of the majesty on heaven.

Paul wants them and he wants us to edify ourselves so that we can edify somebody else.

Because a disconnected part of the body is no more helpful than a diseased part of the body.

A part of the body that does nothing to edify itself.

The part of the body that comes to church with this expectation of what you're supposed to do for me, because I'm not willing to do it myself.

Now I'm not saying there's not times when someone can say, hey, we could be doing better in this or better.

I'm not saying we can't have those honest conversations.

But my experience as a pastor has been the voices who complain the loudest about what's not going on in the body of Christ are often the ones who are doing nothing to edify themselves in their personal walk with Jesus.

They expect that somehow in this 45 minute, who knows how long we've been here, that somehow I'm supposed to give you everything you need.

You're a dead branch.

You wanna take from the body, you don't wanna give to the body.

That, see I didn't believe in that personal, private prayer language.

I didn't understand it.

I thought Paul was saying it's selfish to want that.

That's not what he's saying.

Remember who he's talking to.

Verse six, "But now brethren, "if I come to you speaking in tongues, "what will I profit you unless I speak to you "either by way of revelation or of knowledge "or of prophecy or teaching?"

In our flesh, we must have understanding for the words that are spoken to edify us.

And he continues this illustration.

He says, "Yet even lifeless things like a flute or a harp "produce a sound.

"If they do not produce a distinction in tones, "how will it be known what is played "on the flute or the harp?

"For if the bugle produces a distinct sound, "who will prepare himself for battle?"

You know, I've told the story before growing up at Draper Park Christian Church where my mom was a piano player.

I could be a distracted teenager, just not being connected to what's going on, but there was a particular chord that my mom or the piano player would play.

And when I heard that chord, (imitates piano chord) I was on my feet.

♪ Praise God from whom ♪ Man, I knew.

That was get off your seat, get on your feet, we're singing the doxology.

That chord was so distinctive, it was so recognizable.

The minute I heard it, I knew what to do.

Paul says, "Even instruments have definition and meaning "to the sounds they make."

He says, "So also you, "unless you utter by the tongue speech that is clear, "how will it be known what is spoken?

"For you will be speaking into the air.

"There are perhaps a great many kinds of languages "in the world, and no kind is without meaning."

He's telling us that every language has meaning, including those that are spoken in tongues, even the private ones, the private prayer language, that you don't know what's being said.

Even it has purpose and meaning.

"If then I do not know the meaning of the language, "I will be to the one who speaks a barbarian, "and the one who speaks will be a barbarian to me.

"So also, since you are zealous of spiritual gifts, "seek to abound for the edification of the church."

Get yourself edified, and then get in the body of Christ, and edify the body of Christ.

Come to church ready to speak into people, to share with people what your journey with Jesus has taught you in the last week.

Now I know there's so many questions.

You said, "Brent, well, you talked about people "praying over you in tongues."

I said, "Yeah, because they ask."

And I gave 'em permission, absolutely.

And I know at least one of 'em really wanted me to break out in tongues, but I just really appreciated what I was hearing, and just knowing it wasn't him.

That time, there was no doubt in my mind.

Listen to what Paul says.

"Therefore, let one who speaks in a tongue "pray that he may interpret."

Now notice, we can ask for the gift of interpretation, for a tongue that we speak or someone else's.

And by the way, of all the nine gifts, and this is not meant to brag at all, but of all the nine gifts that have been listed, there's only one that I have not personally experienced.

It is a revelatory tongue spoken in an assembly which required an interpretation.

That's the only one I haven't experienced.

I'll tell you a little bit here in a minute what I have experienced.

"For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, "but my mind is unfruitful.

"What then is the outcome?

"I will pray with my spirit, "and I will pray with my mind also.

"I will sing with my spirit, "and I will sing with my mind also." (sighs) Well, there's a whole lot more we could talk about, but I'm just gonna kinda jump to wrapping it up.

My experience is irrelevant to this discussion.

What has happened to me does not prove or disprove whether or not speaking in tongues still exists.

I only offer my experience because I never saw it coming.

Early on when I left my first located ministry in Indiana, the Lord started doing things so outside of my box, and I wanna tell you, I love the church background that I have, a Restoration Movement Christian Church.

I minister on Sundays at a Restoration Christian Church in North Oklahoma City.

I deeply appreciate that because they taught me great hermeneutics, great rules of how to be true to the word of God.

One of the things we said, though, was where the Bible speaks, we speak, unless it's speaking in tongues.

Then suddenly we got real quiet.

And you have to understand that part of that resistance came because there were extreme unbiblical manifestations of it.

But my friends, I'm so thankful for my background because they taught me it doesn't matter if somebody is abusing it on that street corner or neglecting it on that street corner, that's not what makes it biblical or unbiblical.

Is it in the Bible?

And my word to you today is that I believe based on what Paul has said, and because I do not believe the power of God has an expiration date, that the gift of speaking in tongues, the gift of interpretation of tongues, is as relevant and available when it is needed for the context that it's needed as it was when Paul was talking about it to those believers in Corinth.

I have had one experience with what I guess would fall into the category of a tongue that I did not understand.

And I went to be prayed for by a person.

I did not expect, you have to remember, I'm not from a charismatic background, okay?

I'm not gonna just fall down 'cause you touched me.

But I went down like a brick.

Didn't even know it was gonna happen.

And he just said, he didn't say, say this after me.

He simply said, open your mouth and praise the Lord.

And I cannot replicate for you today what happened.

I can't replicate the sounds.

I can't impersonate what happened.

The closest I can to give you some kind of mental imagery of what happened to me that day, I would have to be the fastest auctioneer merged with the fastest rapper that you can imagine because I could not even, I get tongue tied talking English.

And what came out of me and the speed that it came out of me wasn't me while I laid there going, huh, listen to that.

And that was over 25 years ago.

And it hasn't happened since.

Many, many other gifts of the Holy Spirit have manifested in my life.

They've flown through me.

I've been the recipient of them coming to me as a blessing from somebody else's ministry.

I haven't spent the last 25 years feeling like I was ripped off or that God was mad at me because I wasn't doing that on a regular basis.

But I wanna tell you, there's been a shift in my thinking.

I've set this out as a paradigm.

And worship team, you can go ahead and start heading back.

I've set this out as a paradigm because Paul teaches it in Romans 5.

Where sin increases, grace increases all the more.

Now, and I've said that because of that and because of what we see in our culture and our society, we have the right to expect, we should expect not less from God, but more from God.

Now, that's not an expectation of you owe me.

It's a joyous hope, a joyous expectation that as sin increases, I can expect the goodness of God, the righteousness of my Father to pour out everything I need in the right moment, in the right context, for the right reason when I need it.

And because of some lifelong battles that I've had even in my own flesh, I've begun to wonder, well, man, did I rip myself off by not pressing in, asking for that prayer language?

Just so that I could have that moment with the Lord where I could just tell my flesh, shut up you.

That was Archie Bunker.

I just, am I the only one that ever gets frustrated with your flesh?

I mean, there's just times when I just want it to be quiet.

And I just want to hear God.

Now, that can come with a still, small voice.

That can come with a verse.

That can come through a lyric of a song that suddenly drifts through my mind and my heart.

Or maybe it can come in a private moment of prayer with the Lord.

All I'm saying is, don't sell short how much the Father wants to do in our lives to equip us to strengthen one another.

He doesn't want you disconnected from the gifts of the Spirit.

And he doesn't want you using the gifts of the Spirit for your own selfishness.

And if there's a struggle that we have in the body of Christ, if there is a limitation or an absence of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, I would suggest to you that it's probably the result of two things.

One, we are disinterested.

There is no, I doubt that there are very many of us in this room today who would admit that we have pursued the spiritual gifts and blessings of the Lord the way those who hate us pursue us.

I mean, that's an intentional, intensive thing.

But most of us are just very passive about the fruits of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, all that God has.

The other reason I think that there may be a lack is because the gifts of the Spirit are a manifestation of righteousness, not selfishness.

And the Holy Spirit isn't going to show up in your life privately or in our assembly corporately to validate selfishness.

See, I think we need to be passionately pursuing all that God has for us, but we have to be passionately pursuing it so that we can do His good works.

It's not about us.

Even that private, personal prayer language is just about strengthening me.

And by the way, if you have that gift, you know how I'm gonna know you have that gift?

It's not gonna be because I hear you speaking in tongues.

It's gonna be because I hear you speaking in love.

It's gonna be because I see you doing righteousness.

It's gonna be because I see you manifesting the countenance of the Holy Spirit.

It's not because I'm like, oh, wow, they speak in tongues.

I mean, good on you if you do.

I mean, honestly, Paul says, I wish you'd all do it.

Brent says, I wish you'd all do it.

But the real evidence of it isn't the language I hear you speaking privately.

It's the conversation of grace and mercy and love and exhortation and consultation and edification and instruction that strengthens the body of Christ.

You wanna tell me you speak in tongues?

Let me hear you speaking those things.

And I'll already know that you are pursuing God's gift, whether you speak in tongues or not, I'll know you are pursuing his righteousness.

And because of that, we will all see the spirit of grace on you.

Pursue love and earnestly desire the gifts of the Holy Spirit. (gentle music) [Music]