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We are in a series that we've been working through the book of 1 Corinthians, and today is a fun one to say the least. So you've come on a Sunday where we get to talk about a really interesting passage of Scripture, 1 Corinthians chapter 14. If you've got a Bible, you can pull it out, and we're going to be there. I'm going to read some of that text to you in just a minute. 1 Corinthians 14, the reason why I say it's an interesting, uh kind of fun passage, uh, is because it's talking about some spiritual gifts that for probably many of you in the room, I'm just guessing. I don't know every story. There's probably a number of you that either haven't really heard a lot of teaching on these gifts, or I haven't seen them practiced uh consistently, or uh in in maybe a local expression of the church. Or maybe you've uh even dealt with some of the fallout of the misuse or abuse of these gifts. Uh maybe you've been wounded by these gifts, and and someone addressed some of that today, but uh but we're gonna talk about this text because uh we believe God is leading us to to work through the scripture uh 1 Corinthians, and this is where we are today. And so we're gonna we're gonna embrace this and we're gonna ask God to teach us uh to help us to grow and to mature as followers of Jesus. Um there may be some of you who today, when we finish the sermon, I'm just gonna go ahead and be up front with you on the front end. Um you may you may finish the sermon, you have lots of questions, okay? Uh I don't think we're gonna be able to to answer all of your questions, address all of your questions through the teaching today. In fact, it may produce more questions than many of the previous sermons that uh we've taught here. And if that's the case, I would just simply say to you, we're available. We'd love to talk with you. We can talk to you after the service today, uh, or in coming days. We're more than happy to sit down and answer some of the questions you might have uh about this. But um I remember when I was a middle schooler, probably roughly middle school age, early middle school, uh my dad was a youth pastor uh of a of a Baptist church, and so that's a little bit of my my upbringing. I was in Baptist churches in my background, and uh I remember him uh coming home at one point, and I could tell his he seemed like a little bit down, a little discouraged, a little heavy-hearted. And uh, you know, I mean, it being a pastor's son and watching my dad in ministry, there were days that were just difficult spiritually. I could see that weight that he was carrying. And uh, we had a very thriving, you know, great student ministry that he led, and and uh I remember him coming home heavy-hearted, and uh, all I can recall is some things he was saying to my mom about this group of people in our church that were leaving our church because of these spiritual gifts and this desire to practice some supernatural spiritual gifts that our church wasn't practicing, wasn't involved in, and in fact, actually had a pretty strong stance against in almost in opposition to those gifts. And as I recall that story, uh I kind of remember hearing the words like speaking in tongues, uh, I remember the words prophecy, deliverance, uh healing, and hearing those words. And so I think from an early age, I kind of uh thought about all these gifts that we're gonna talk about today uh in very negative terms. Like, uh, okay, these are very divisive gifts, this is a very dangerous thing, and and so in essence, probably from that point in middle school on, uh, I was very reluctant to even have the discussion about these gifts uh because I think I had these negative connotations attached to it. And maybe that's your story. Maybe that's some of you in the room that you've been around uh some of the charismatic, what we call charismatic, which is which by the way, I don't really know that I even like that term because charisma, the word from the spirit, we we as Christians are all charismatic. We all had the spirit of God working in us. In fact, these gifts, we we get the word spiritual gift from the word charismata, uh, which is a gift of the spirit, a grace gift of the spirit. So we're all charismatic if you're a Christian, if you're a Christ follower. Uh, but we use that term in modern-day church to kind of differentiate between those who sort of are like, oh, we're we're word-driven. We really focus in on the word of God, and we're really focused on making sure we're we're following the word of God, and then there's those charismatic, crazy folks that kind of like they're just all about the spirit of God and all about these gifts and about kind of the signs and wonders and that stuff. Sometimes you hear that in circles. Maybe this is the more emotional bunch, and here's like the more stoic bunch, right? But again, the work of the Holy Spirit is for every believer, and there's gifts that come, and yes, some of them are more expressive kind of gifts, or they may uh may be uh used in different environments that maybe has drawn lines that shouldn't be there. But the end of the day, if you're a believer, a follower of Jesus, the Spirit of God is in you, and as we've been saying through this series, you are gifted by the Holy Spirit to accomplish the work that God has for you. So uh we read last week from 1 Corinthians 13 this love chapter and kind of burst your bubble that it's not a passage on marriage, it's a passage on uh or romance or those things, it's a passage on the body of Christ loving one another and and living in community together in love. Um, it kind of sets the table for Paul to continue his conversation and actually wrap up this section of his conversation about spiritual gifts. So, as I said, we're gonna read from 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verse 1. And whatever baggage you might bring or whatever uh previous teaching you may have on this, I mean, obviously, I'm not saying set all that aside, but let's look at the text, let's see what the text has to say, and let's ask God to teach us today, okay? And let's seek to grow and to honor his intention and his purpose for us uh through the teaching he gives us in his word. So, let me read a lengthy section. I'm gonna read the first 19 verses. You have to hang with me. It's on the screen above me, but there's also some Bibles under the chairs around you if you want to grab one of those and read it for yourself in your own personal copy. Here we go. 14 verse 1, 1 Corinthians. Pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, and above all, that you may prophesy. For the person who speaks in another language is not speaking to men, but to God, since no one understands him. However, he speaks mysteries in the Spirit. But the person who prophesies speaks to people for edification, encouragement, and consolation. The person who speaks in another language builds himself up, but he who prophesied builds up the church. I wish all of you spoke in other languages, but even more that you prophesied. The person who prophesies is greater than the person who speaks in languages, unless he interprets, so the church may build may be built up. But now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in other languages, how will I benefit you unless I speak to you with a revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching? Even inanimate things that produce sounds, whether flute or harp, if they don't make a distinction in the notes, how will will uh if they don't make a distinction in the notes, how will what they is what is played on the flute or harp be recognized? In fact, if the trumpet makes an unclear sound, who will prepare for battle? In the same way, unless you use your tongue for intelligible speech, how will what is spoken be known? For you will be speaking into the air. There are doubtless many different kinds of languages in the world, and all have meaning. Therefore, if I do not have the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker a foreigner to me. So also you, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, seek to excel in building up the church. Therefore, the person who speaks in another language should pray that he can interpret. For if I pray in another language, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. What then? I will pray in the spirit, and I will also pray in my understanding. I will sing in the spirit, and I will also sing with my understanding. Otherwise, if you praise with the spirit, how will the uninformed person say amen or agree at your giving of thanks, since he does not know what you are saying? For you may very well be giving thanks, but the other person is not being built up. I thank God that I speak in other languages more than all of you, yet in the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding in order to teach others also that ten thousand words, then ten thousand words in another language. Okay. You still with me? Lot there, a lot there. Um before we dive into the gifts and this passage, I want to give us some important reminders on the front end, okay? I want to make sure that we have a good foundation to springboard from into this discussion. And some of these are gonna feel basic, but that but I want to make sure that we're all on the same page here. First off, this is the case. God is good and his gifts are good. Okay? Now, as I said, that might sound kind of obvious, kind of like, okay, Nick, I get that. But remember that God is a good God. He is a good father. Some of you have even sang that song, good, good father. We get that from the text. The Bible teaches us that he is a good father. James says, every good and perfect gift comes from God, in whom there is no turning, there is no shifting. God is not this God who's trying to, you know, duck and hide and change up who he is on us and make us confused. God is a good God, he's a good father. In fact, Luke 11, verse 11 through 13 says this What father among you, if son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, we'll give him a scorpion. If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? God is good, his gifts are good, the Holy Spirit is good. Okay? And so we see those in the text. We want to make sure that when we think about gifts, we remember that they were God's idea. And the idea is from a God who is good and is for us. Secondly, I would say this: problems exist with gifts because people are using them. Okay? The reason we have confusion, the reason we have controversy, the reason we have division and strife with the use of these gifts that we're about to talk about today, and all these gifts we've been talking about over the last few weeks, is because people are involved and people are not sinless. People are sinners, and they're still working through their sinfulness and their selfishness and their pride. And we've said last week that if you don't operate in these gifts with love as this chief motivation, you will make it about yourself, and then you will become very dangerous, and you'll become uh destructive within the church. And rather than building up others, you will tear down others and you'll make it all about you, okay? And so we said, listen, these gifts are good, but when people use them in inappropriate ways, it causes problems. This is why some of you have been hurt by these gifts. This is why some of you feel a little bit nervous that we're even having this conversation today, because you've watched some of the destruction that comes when people misuse or abuse God's gifts. Thirdly, the gifts are designed to help people mature and be effective in God's mission, to do ministry. So it's important to remember what is the purpose of these gifts that God gave us? Well, he wants us to grow up in our faith, to believe increasingly that he is good and that he is worthy of worship, to honor him. We were created for his glory. We were created to bring him worship, and that's how he matures is by increasingly seeing him rightly and responding to him and to his goodness and worship. And so we want to grow up. These gifts are tools to help us do that. They are resources to help us build each other up in our faith, to do the ministry that God's called us to do, to reach people outside of the walls of the church and to go on mission together. Okay? We talked about that a couple of weeks ago. It's important to keep in mind what is the purpose of these gifts. Remember, remember, remember the purpose. Do not let this slip because you will think very quickly you would choose to take these gifts and make them about you. I'll choose to take these gifts and make them about me and about my own glory rather than the glory of the one who died on the cross for our sin, for our life. So we want to mature in this. Fourthly, Jesus, just because there are misuses doesn't mean that we should avoid these gifts or stop desiring them. Just because people misuse or abuse these gifts, just because there has conflict and controversy surrounding them, I told you a little bit of my story a while ago. That when I was growing up, I saw some negativity surrounding these gifts. I saw some pain, some heartache. And so there's part of me that has said, you know what? I think I can walk with Jesus. I don't really need these gifts in order to have a good, strong relationship with Jesus and accomplish his work, okay? Here's the problem with that way of thinking. We just read a passage of scripture where it started in verse 1 of chapter 14 with something that's very profound. Did you catch it? Let me read it to you again. Verse 1 of chapter 14, he says, Pursue love, right? We talked about that last week. Pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, and above all, that you may prophesy. Wait, Paul. So you're given a command, an instruction that we should actually desire spiritual gifts. And one of those is one of those controversial little nervous gifts we have, which is this issue of prophecy. It's prophesying, which we're gonna get to in a minute. So if we are Christ's followers and the Spirit of God is in us, we worship Jesus, but we do desire to use the gifts and the resources that He's given us. Which, by the way, this is a very important part of this conversation, and that is we never separate the Spirit of God from the spiritual gifts. In fact, D.A. Carson and some others have spoken about this and written about this. Uh I was reminded this week that, in essence, that what spiritual gifts are, in one sense, is God going public in the life of believers. Because it's the Spirit of God at work through the believer. It's not something completely different, separate from God. It is God at work in us. Are you with me? That's really key. Because we're not saying this is like something over here set aside from God. It's actually God at work in us, His Spirit alive in us, doing these miraculous things. And it's very important that I remember that, that you remember that today. So let's not give up on the gifts just because we've seen misuse or abuse. Let's say, God, help us learn how to use them rightly. Help us to learn how to use these gifts and desire them, but not for our glory, but for your glory, God, and for your ministry and for your purposes. And finally, I would just say to us before we really dive into this passage and these gifts, we must, must, must, must, I can't emphasize enough, we must filter our experiences through the Bible. We must always filter our experiences through the word of God. As I said, when people get involved, you're gonna get fallible teaching, you're gonna get fallible instruction, you're gonna get imperfect uses of gifts, or you're gonna get imperfect ministry. But we know that the word of God is true. It is right, it is good, it gives us the rails, it gives us a filter, it gives us, it is the guidelines for how we actually practice these gifts and how we live. And so we always want to say, what does the word of God say? Remember, we've already said in the beginning of 1 Corinthians chapter 12 that all spiritual gifts that Paul's been talking about and even this discussion today, that ultimately they are designed to help us again come up under the Lordship of Jesus. That the Spirit was given to remind us and point us back to Jesus and to be under his lordship. And so anything that's in the spiritual realm that is pointing people away from Jesus or distracting from Jesus, we need to be uh one, we need to reject that, we need to be very wary of that. Are you with me? This is very important. I know some of you are like, okay, um, I'm not sure where we're going yet, but but this is very key for us in this discussion because there are people who get into experiential Christianity, call it that, and all of a sudden it's more about the experience than it is Jesus. It's more about getting the warm fuzzies and feeling good and having these emotional highs than it is to actually coming up underneath the Lordship of Jesus and accomplishing the work he has for us. We are not seeking to be a church that is just in an emotional frenzy, and we like go week to week saying, what kind of experience can we produce today so that we go, wow, that was awesome. We want to walk away saying, Jesus is awesome. That's what we want to say. That's what I want to say in my heart. That's what we we want to grow in in maturity as Christians. So let's jump into the gifts, okay? We're taking a big bite today. I'm gonna have to move really quickly, and I said this already, I'll say it again. We're not gonna answer all the questions that you might have around these gifts nor this issue, but I would say to you that there are some great resources I could point you to that I highly recommend. I've personally been studying, uh, just seeking God's wisdom and his counsel and saying, God, we want to honor you. We want to really make sure the body stays biblical in how we approach these gifts. The first gift that we come to is this gift of prophecy. This gift of prophecy. And I would want to kind of demystify the gift a little bit by simply giving you a definition for prophecy that is this people reporting what God is saying. That doesn't sound near as cool and mysterious, does it? People reporting what God is saying. Um, the reason I give you that definition is because we have nothing to say of any worth or value apart from God. We don't. I mean, we can say stuff all day long. We can I can stand up here and wax eloquently and make people feel good and do some pop psychology, but you know, again, we need God to speak. We need God, and God's word has spoken. And so anytime we we speak from the Word of God, you know, we're we're speaking out what God is saying to us as a people. Um but prophecy is reporting what God has said. So there are some people who, when they talk about prophecy, uh they might be talking about this in a different term than what I believe the Bible wants us to understand here, in that um, some people think about prophecy is like fortune telling, basically Christianized fortune telling. A lot of people actually pursue prophecy or pursue to have people prophesy over them because they really want to know, like, where am I going in life? What's going to happen? I want to, you know, get tell me my prophecy. That's actually not what Paul's talking about here. He's not talking about getting your fortune told, okay? He's saying, he's not trying to try to get your future figured out. Now, there are times where prophecy, prophetic things may have uh ideas or understandings about the future. About things that could happen, things that are that are that are on the potential horizon for you. I've watched these things happen. I'll share a story in just a minute. And I should say here, because we're talking about these sign gifts, these miraculous sign gifts, that there is a camp of theologians and people who I know they genuinely love Jesus that have come to this understanding or belief, this position you might call it, that all of these sign gifts no longer are in practice in the modern church. That they ceased when the apostles died, these gifts died. Um I mentioned last week from 1 Corinthians 13 that when you get to the end of that passage, even that section of scripture, along with some others, clearly articulates to me that these gifts are alive and well until the perfect comes. That's when Jesus actually returns and makes all things new. I don't think these gifts are have ceased. I don't think you can make a biblical case, they have ceased. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding, misuse, abuse around these gifts, okay? So I just want to make sure you're clear. We believe these gifts are in practice. That's why I'm already kind of just assuming you're on board with that and we're moving forward. But I would be happily have that conversation with you if you feel like that this is something that you've been taught differently on, or feel like you're still struggling to understand. I would say to us that as we talk about this gift of prophecy, we remember that what it happens when people prophesy, and Paul even saying you should seek to prophesy, is that we are saying, God, we want to hear from you, and then we want to obediently speak that out. Now, that might be in a one-on-one conversation that you report what God is saying. God may say to you, in your time of prayer, in your time of personal reflection, time in scripture, you need to go tell somebody such and such. It might happen in that form. It might happen where we're to collectively gathering, which is actually, by the way, Paul in this text, he's talking about their corporate worship gatherings. In fact, he reprimands them pretty heavily because they are not only prophesying all at the same time, but they're speaking in tongues all at the same time, and it's just total chaos. And Paul's saying, grow up, guys. You gotta start using these gifts right because nobody's benefiting from this. This is a mess. You gotta figure this thing out. You've got to get in some order here. God is not a God of disorder, but a God of order. So his spirit will lead that. We'll talk about that in a minute. But here's what I would say. Um, sometimes it looks like a one-on-one conversation. Sometimes it looks like somebody has a word from God that they feel like he wants them to speak to the church, and there has to be a way for them to be able to do that. Sometimes it means even as someone who preaches the word, I preach the word or Harley preaches the word, or other people preach the word on Sunday mornings here. Um I've I can't tell you how many times somebody said to me, Hey, were you preaching like right to me? Did you know what happened this week in my life? And I'm like, Nope. Don't know. But the Holy Spirit uses that sometimes. And I would say even that's a part, an aspect of the way when we proclaim the word of God, God's Spirit uses it sometimes to speak very specifically to the issues in people's hearts. There's a couple other gifts that kind of get lumped in with this one, like word of knowledge, word of wisdom, where God might reveal something supernaturally. And so I hadn't really put that on here in the list, but there's this gift where sometimes somebody hasn't a literal like sense that there's something happening, and God gives them details and said, You need to go and to confront that or you need to address that. In fact, Charles Spurgeon, one of the great preachers, uh, he tells a story which he actually believed or at least talked a lot about how he thought these gifts weren't really in practice today. And yet he tells a story where he was preaching a sermon. One Sunday morning, and there was a man in the audience, and God prompted him by the Spirit to call this man out and to say to him, You have been uh, you've not been uh handling your business dealings well. In fact, you've been cheating people and you've been charging too much for these things, and he calls him out on the spot and it was spot on. I mean, the details, there is no way that Spurgeon would have known that, but as he was preaching, the Spirit revealed that to him. Can God do that? Absolutely he can. Absolutely he can. I sat in a room with a guy named John Carl. He was a guy who used to travel around as a traveling evangelist, and he had a gift of word of knowledge. I don't I don't understand this. Multiple times I saw him literally in a congregation stand up and call somebody out and say, You're having an affair, sir. And here's what's going on. And you're God's Spirit wants you to stop that. Now, what happened if what would happen if we did that every Sunday here? Who's coming back every week? I bet we would get some confession sooner. Right? We more a little more honest in this place. Now I've watched that guy, and I was like, okay, Lord, like what I do with that. It's mysterious. And God used that and brought confession and repentance and restoration and people back to Jesus. Now that's one of the ways I've seen that gift used well. Now there's some ways I've seen the gift used poorly. Okay? But the bottom line is that God can reveal supernaturally, He can reveal His will to us, He can reveal things to us, and He can speak through His body. He can speak to one another through His body, through His family. And I think we should, as a church family, be open. Now, one thing I should tell you, because some of you are a little nervous now, a little uncomfortable, and I guess that story probably makes all of us a little nervous, unnerved. But when we talk about prophecy, we're not talking about proclaiming truth that's at the same level of authority as Scripture. Okay? What I mean by that is we're not saying that there's new revelation that now is going to be a part of the scriptural text, that we should hold it at the same level as that, okay? Just like when we teach on a weekly basis, what we teach is not on the same level of scripture. Now, when we read scripture, that's scripture, that's good, okay? When we teach, guess what? Going back to what I said earlier, you've got to take, you've got to take teaching, you've got to take prophecy, and you've got to filter it through the Word of God. You've got to test it, you've got to evaluate it. And it's easier for some people to say, well, we can test teaching than it is to say, well, we can test prophecy. But the truth is, is the passage tells us that that should actually happen, that that should actually be tested. Um, because in verse 29 through 33, here's what Paul says in terms of instructions. We didn't get this far when we read it while ago, but I want to read it to you now. He says this: two or three prophets should speak and the others should evaluate. But if something has been revealed to another person sitting there, the first prophet should be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that everyone may learn and everyone may be encouraged. And the prophet's spirits are under the control of the prophets, meaning that you can have self-control in saying, keep your mouth shut and wait till God gives you the time, right? Don't just start spouting stuff off and saying, Well, I'm under the You're not a puppet.

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You don't become just a puppet who just can't stop spouting off stuff. You had there's there's there's a self-control element here. The prophet's spirits are under the control of the prophets, since God is not a God of disorder, but of peace. And I just talked about that a while ago. So what I'm saying to you is that God can reveal things to this body. If you're a child of God, if you're a follower of Jesus, those spirits in your life, He can reveal things to you. And there are times where God wants you to speak up. He wants you to share those things. Now, in a corporate setting like this on Sunday mornings, that's very difficult, right? Because it just, like, where do you do that? How do you do that? We're still learning as a church. I'll just be real honest. We're infants in this. We're learning how to practice, being open, that our elders can sort through is God saying something and filter that out and then to allow that person to speak. But here's what I do know. If you are in a life group, if you're in a smaller context, which is much of what the early church was, it's a great place for us to use the gift of sharing what God is saying to us and to one another. I think it's a great place to practice that. Again, testing it, evaluating it, and asking God what's going on with it. There's actually a story in Acts about a guy named Agabas, and he prophesies over Paul. And he says something very interesting. He says to Paul, he says, Hey, Paul, uh, don't go to Jerusalem. When you go there, uh, because he starts actually not only prophesying, making application to the prophecy. He's like, Don't go to Jerusalem because here's what's going to happen. They're going to bind you up and they're going to lead you away. Okay? And it's going to be the Jews. Well, actually, what he happens is he gets to Jerusalem and the Romans bind him up and take him away. So there was a little bit of error in the prophecy. Are you tracking? Why would God put that story in scripture? Because I think Agabus did hear from God, but I think he got it a little wrong. Okay? And maybe he took his own interpretation. He took his own little because when people were involved, there's going to be some incorrectness to that. There's the possibility of that. Um, I told you I would tell a story about something that happened to me in the last two months. I've been praying about these gifts and praying about how God wants us to use these gifts and praying God would just show us what this looks like practically. And uh once a month we host the pastors from our area here in this room, and we have a conversation about what's going on in ministry, different churches in our city. We pray together. And I was sitting back in the back corner back here praying, and we have a group of ladies that show up, and they're a group of ladies that are intercessors. They just passionately pray for the church. Like you guys, we have no idea how much we have benefited from the prayers of these godly women, uh saints that have prayed over our city. They've interceded for us. And they take a little white, we take a little white card, we write down our prayer requests, we give it to these ladies, and they go back in here in the lobby and they pray for us while the pastors are meeting. And we were leaving that conversation, and Harley was actually with me at that point, and these ladies said, Hey, can we tell you something real quick? Okay. And so they're sitting there, and they said, Um, we were praying over you and over Point Community Church, and I started to get this vision. And in my mind, as a human being, I'm sitting there and I'm just starting going, okay, here we go. What is this? A vision. All right, here we go. Um, and she says, I started getting this vision, and I saw this muddy river flowing through this property, and then I saw this dam. It dammed up this river, and and it was like there was it was being held back. And then I saw that dam start to break, and I saw the the muddy water start to flow through the dam, and I saw the water starting to clear up, and and and soon the water was crystal clear, and it was beautiful, and all the community around was coming and enjoying this beautiful river that was flowing through. And I'm like, oh, okay. You know, muddy river, clear river, dam. I got it. All right. And and I'm seriously, I'm trying to listen. And she says, I want you to know, I felt like God was saying to me that you guys are going through a season where God is trying to sort through. By this, by the way, this is right in the middle of our uh we were talking about sex and about immorality in the church and about how we need to grow and being uh open and honest and confessing sin and turning away from sexual immorality and working through some of the Corinthian stuff. And and she said, I feel like God's trying to help you as a church really work through some of the struggle and the difficulty and and um and of just getting clean and getting getting confessing sin and repenting. And but she said, I think that what I sense is that the Spirit wants to do a new thing here, and God wants to work by his spirit to bring life here in a new way. And he wants he wants to honor the fact that you guys are taking the time to really work through confessing and repenting and growing together. And she said, I just feel like God's gonna do some great things here, and I want to encourage you with that today. I was like, Awesome. That's really cool. And about that moment, I felt from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, my whole body just kind of went like this weird, just I don't know how to explain it, just this weird feeling over my body. And she said, Did you feel that? I'm like, what are you talking about? No, I didn't. Yes, I did. And she said, The Holy Spirit just wants to say that you should receive this message of this encouragement. And I remember at that moment, I mean, Harley was there, and we're just uh like, okay, God, like what are you, you know, what are you trying to do in that? Now I've had some moments where I've genuinely felt the Holy Spirit, and I've sensed the Holy Spirit's word. But I it was one of those moments where I just reminded, like, God speaks to us to other people in ways we don't always understand, don't we always expect. She didn't really know a whole lot about us, but she was praying for us, and as she did, God gave her a word to say to me. And I would consider that to be prophetic. In fact, one of our elders even said, remember, don't despise prophecy. That's what it says in 1 Thessalonians. And so I received that. I don't know what exactly well that all means and all that plays out, but it was an encouraging word to me personally as a pastor and for our church family to know that God's at work here and his spirit is moving here among us. So we believe that we can and should pursue to hear from God and to report what God says to one another. That's how we would say we want to be people who are prophetic in that way. And I believe that we will continue to find ways to even implement God speaking to his family, to his church family in our c our corporate gatherings, so that we can all benefit from that. We can be built up by that. I mean, he talks about it, he says again, if you're all prophesying over each other, which that's not a problem here. I mean, we can't even always get people to pray out loud here if we say we're all gonna pray out loud together, much less prophesy, right? But uh, but we would say we want it to be people who are listening to God's Spirit and obeying in that way. Now, the second gift, there's a lot more I could say on this, by the way, prophecy. Remember, not talking about level of scripture authority, talking about hearing from God and reporting. Um, second gift that's in this passage is this gift of speaking in tongues. Now, this used to be the most controversial gift and the most divisive one, but actually prophecy's probably taken that as of late. But tongues is still very divisive, and it's because there's a controversy that surrounds this where uh there are people who believe that if you don't speak in tongues, you don't really have the Holy Spirit. Okay. Biblically speaking, that is not true. It's not true. Okay? There are instances in the scripture where people did receive the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. There are people where they received the Holy Spirit and didn't speak in tongues. And and I would say, even that Paul says, you know, listen, I wish that all of you spoke in tongues. That means some people were not speaking in tongues, and they were Christians, they were believers. We do not believe that speaking in tongues is the evidence that you are filled with the Holy Spirit. We've already said this multiple times. We said that loving God and loving people, having the fruit of the Spirit is the evidence that the Holy Spirit's at work in your life. We do believe that speaking in tongues could be an evidence of the Holy Spirit at work because it's one of the spiritual gifts. It has to come from the Holy Spirit. But one of the questions is what is it? Well, again, to demystify this thing, praying and praising God in the Spirit. I have friends that speak in tongues and pray in tongues. I have friends that they love Jesus, and this is how they describe this gift to me. Maybe some of you in this room have this gift. In fact, I've heard people talk about it. That they're praying, they're pouring their hearts out to God, they're thanking God, and they feel like they have no more words to say. There's no words that can capture their gratitude, their thankfulness to God, and that out of their mouth just flows these words, these sounds, these utterances that just express their heart to God. Now that may sound really odd for many of you in the room. I think part of the reason why we avoid this gift is because we feel like it make us foolish, make us silly. But for some of you who've experienced this gift of tongues, you know that there is a sense in which this gift of tongues really helps you express your heart to God. And I believe that, again, if this is about Jesus and about growing closest intimacy to Jesus, then we should exercise this gift. Now, Paul does say this gift is a gift that is edifying yourself, it's building up yourself. In fact, that's why he says in a corporate gathering, for people to sit here and speak in tongues and everybody be praying out loud in tongues is not helpful. He even goes on to say that if people walk in who are unbelievers, they're gonna think you're crazy. Because they see they're like, what is going on here? What is this speaking in tongues mess? These people were, you know, insane. We're not talking about either, like in Paul's day and in that early church. I mean, they were in a culture where these Greek uh religions and these Greek gods that they worship, this the practice of worship, there were these ecstatic utterances going on in those settings that were pagan, demonic. We're talking about, again, something that's focused on prayer and praising God. But I would say to you that in the scripture, remember that the first time we see speaking in tongues in the scripture is in Acts chapter 2. But it's a little different than what Paul's talking about here. Paul, in chap in Acts chapter 2, we know that Luke records Pentecost. And when the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost, what happens? For those of you that know the Bible, know Acts, they get the Holy Spirit, descends on them like a flame, they walk out into the street, and they start speaking actual other languages, like real languages that other people know and understand. And they start to speak and praise God. By the way, it doesn't say there that they spoke the gospel there, it says that they did were just praising God in other languages, but then Peter came and proclaimed the gospel. That Peter stepped up and preached the message of salvation and the gospel. So, in that instance, it's the only instance, by the way, in Scripture where they actually spoke an actual language, a different language, than the one that they knew, and they were doing it supernaturally, and God used that to draw a crowd, and then those people heard the message of the gospel and came to faith in Jesus. Alright? But in this situation, Paul is talking about a personal language that is being used, and he says that if you're going to use this tongues language, this personal language, that you need to make sure there's somebody there to interpret. Somebody needs to be there to interpret. So there's a guy who some of you may know of or not may not know of, a guy named Jack Deere. He's done a lot of teaching on prophetic gifts and tongues gifts, and he's in a worship environment. I heard a story where he was there and somebody just starts calling out in tongues. And he stopped the whole meeting, turned the attention toward that person, and said, okay, who's got an interpretation before we go on? Because there's order to it, right? It's not we just let people start hollering in different ecstatic utterances and language, but it actually has to have a purpose, again, to build up the body. That's why we encourage people who have a spiritual gift of speaking in tongues, unless they know that there's a translation or somebody to interpret, they shouldn't be speaking in tongues in our corporate worship gatherings. It's to build up the body. Just keep it to yourself. Again, having self-control in that. Now, I I just would say to you that this gift, it creates confusion because some people who have it try to use it to one-up everybody else and say this is like the super gift. If you have this, you're like the legit Christian, you're like the varsity, and everybody else is on the JV. That's not what the Bible teaches, okay? The Bible doesn't teach that. If you had that gift, praise God you have it, and it helps you connect with the Father. And there's some of you in this room who maybe had that gift and have maybe even practiced that gift, but you've been shamed by the church in recent days and you don't practice it anymore because you're fearful. I I've talked to people who said, well, way back I used to feel like I had that gift, but I don't use it anymore because my church was like so down on it and not practicing it and not involved in it. And in fact, I feel embarrassed now that I even would say that I had that gift. And all I would simply say to you is if God's given you that gift, use it for his glory. Draw close to God. And if you don't have that gift, don't shun those who do. Don't speak down and arrogantly and condescending towards those who do, right? Remember, love is our goal. So Paul gives us some instructions again all through the passage. I already already read most of that to you in that section, but just know that God can use this gift of speaking in tongues. And Paul says, I wish that all of you could do it. He says he does it. He wishes everybody could do it, but um he also goes on to say that I would rather speak some intelligible language than 10,000 in tongues in the corporate gathering so that I can build up the body, not just myself. So that's a good balance and a good correction to this gift. So since we're already into the weeds, let me give us a third gift, okay? Third gift. Healing. Now, this one's not in the passage, but it is in 1 Corinthians 12, which we ran read a couple weeks ago. Why are we talking about healing and why is it such a big deal? Well, it is a controversial gift because God doesn't always heal. And you have people running around calling themselves faith healers, which isn't even a term in the Bible, and they're saying that every time that they pray for healing, that people get healed, unless that person doesn't have enough faith. You see where this goes awry? You see where this gets really, really messy and painful and divisive, destructive. I was in a small town. There was a family that took their son who was ill to a faith healer. The faith healer prayed over him, said he is healed. You can take him home. He doesn't need to take any more medications, he doesn't need to go to the doctor anymore, he is healed. Let me just tell you, that boy was not healed. In fact, he almost died because he took the word of that faith healer. They walked out the door and they applied that. Now, listen, um, maybe God can and has done it that way before. I mean, we know stories all through Old Testament, New Testament, where God's healed on the spot. People were instantly healed. You know, people getting up, taking up their mat, walking. Can God heal today? Absolutely, God can heal today. Because does God heal every single time we pray for healing? No. We all know stories, don't we? We all know situations, we all know circumstances where people prayed for healing. I had a professor in college, and he and one of his colleagues both got brain cancer at the same time. They both had people gather together and pray over them for healing. One died in six months, the other is still alive and teaching today. I don't know. Like, we don't know why God chose to save one and not the other. We don't know why this works. God is sovereign. I'm not going to play God. I can't speculate. Can God heal? Absolutely. Does he always heal? No. But I have to trust that what I said at the beginning, God is a good father. And I would say that people who have maybe the gift of healing or have prayed over someone and they've gotten healed, they have a maybe by God's grace, a natural inclination to have more faith that God can heal. To believe that God is a God who can heal. But I know that some of you in this room maybe have prayed for healing and God hasn't answered your prayer. I mean, Paul, for crying out loud, the one that's writing this, it says that he has a thorn in his flesh. We don't exactly know fully what Paul's thorn in his flesh is, but some actually believe that he had bad eyesight. That he struggled with eyesight. And God never never healed that for him. That's possible. We don't know. But what I'm saying to you is that we don't know when God is going to heal or when he's not going to heal, but we should pray for it. We should ask God for it. We should believe for it. We should be a church that prays over those who are sick. Where do we get that? Well, James 5. James 5 says it this way. Verse 13. He says, Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they should pray over him after anointing him with olive oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will restore him of health. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The urgent request of a righteous person is very powerful and effective. Now, again, way more than we can talk about this morning. That's a sermon in of itself. But did you notice we said, call people together, call the elders together, and let's pray. Let's pray for people to be healed. We should be praying for that regularly here at Point Community Church. When we have these times after our services and we let our pastors or elders or prayer team be here, if you're struggling with health issues, let us pray for you. We can't guarantee that God's going to heal you, but we can say we can pray about it, and we can believe in faith that God can heal. And he can choose to work in a powerful way, and that testimony of healing can help other people believe in the legitimacy of the gospel that we proclaim and that we preach. We want to see people healed in Jesus' name. It's interesting that in this passage, right after this, he says, he uses the illustration of Elijah, the prophet, and he says, you know, remember, Elijah was a man just like us. And that he prayed for rain, and that rain eventually came. It's interesting that in that passage, when he talks about Elijah, I'm reminded the fact he even uses that phrase, he's a man just like us. We all struggle with fear and doubt that God could actually heal. We all struggle with that. That God could actually heal someone who is diseased. But we believe that God miraculously can restore health. And I've watched that happen. In fact, I was a past youth pastor at a church right out of college called First Baptist Church in Brynham. Anybody been through Brynham, Bluebell Country? Yeah? We got lots of free bluebell when we were there. It was awesome. And uh and when we were there, there was a pastor before I had been there. His name was Dwayne Miller. Dwayne Miller was the pastor of this church and got the flu. And when he got the flu, uh the flu actually attacked his. Vocal cords. Some of you may even know this story, have heard this story. And it attacked his vocal cords so much that he couldn't talk. And in fact, all he could do is kind of growly whisper. And after a year of trying to, he sought like over 200 physicians, all these specialists trying to figure out how to get healing for his vocal cords. He's like, I'm a preacher for crying out loud. God, heal me so I can preach your word. No, no healing. So eventually he left the church because he felt like he couldn't stay in that role. He ended up at a church that we actually went to after Burnham, which is First Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. By the way, these are not charismatic churches. Not at all. And he was at First Baptist Church in Houston. He was just part of a Sunday school class and he was doing work, trying to make ends meet. No longer could pastor. He was doing some other things. And one of the Sunday school teachers for a week in the service, in the in the in the class, was going to be out and asked Duane, will you please fill in for me? Well, it just so happens that that week they were on Psalm 103. And in that section of scripture in Psalm 103, if you know Psalm 103, there's a section that says, And he heals all of our diseases. And Duane gets up, and I don't have time to show it to you today. There's a YouTube video. You can Dwayne Miller type it in, pull it up, four and a half minutes long. Dwayne is teaching about healing, and he is saying some of the things that we're saying today, which is we know that God can heal. We just know that he doesn't always heal. And he is preaching through that passage and he is going at it. And towards the end of his teaching, as he's talking about God healing, his voice comes back. And on the recording, it is unbelievable. Like you can hear it, and he's like, whoa, like I'm talking, like my voice comes as he's teaching on healing. Now, again, what I would say to you guys is that's just one story of many we could share. But God heals. He can. We do not serve a powerless, weak God. We serve a God who is full of power. And I think one of the greatest ways to see God heal is to be people of prayer. And to trust that God's Holy Spirit will lead us to pray for healing, and that when people need to be healed and God sovereignly meets us in that, I mean, there's all kinds of stories in the New Testament of people being healed, that God can do miraculous things. So where do we go from here? We've talked about three big gifts. They're kind of big, messy, can create problems, but they can also be incredibly impactful. Well, I would say to you that guys, listen, just like all of the gifts that God's given us, we should use them. We should use them and we should use them well. I like to build things. Anybody else like to build things? I like to build things, and part of what I like to do in building things is uh in order to build things is you have to have tools. And I don't have a lot of great tools, but I've I've over the last couple years I've accumulated a few things so that I can build some stuff. Now, what would it be like if I gathered all these great tools and never built anything with them? Like it's like I collect all these tools and I have my friends who like to build stuff come over and I'm like, hey, you want to come see my tool collection? And walk outside and say, look, we've got this saw over here. It's great, man. Cuts really cool stuff. And this over here, man, this is a menace sander. It makes it these things really, really smooth. It's awesome. And you like this planer, like I can get everything nice and level. It's awesome. And they're like, well, have you built anything? Well, no, but I mean these tools are like really, really cool. Listen, that's how the church is with spiritual gifts a lot. It's like we have these tools God's given us, but we don't even use them. We're not even practicing these gifts. We're not even desiring these gifts at times. And so what I would say to you is that to not use your gift is to misuse your gift. To not use your gift of mercy, to not use your gift of giving, to not use your gift of serving, to not use your gift of tongues or prophecy or yielding. Whatever it might be, to not use that is to misuse or to abuse the gift that God has given us. To not be a good steward of what God's given us. So we want to be people who are using these gifts. Romans 8.11 reminds us that the same spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the grave is alive in the hearts of believers. Do you believe that? Do you believe that the same spirit that raised Jesus out of the grave is in you? If the same spirit is in you, that means we have the capacity to do supernatural things by his power. I don't know that how many of us actually believe that. I think and I hope that more and more of us do believe that and embrace that. So why don't we actually see it happening? Well, I'm not sure that all of us are living lives that require God's Holy Spirit to work. Like we're living pretty normative lives, just kind of getting by, doing our thing. We're not asking for God's Spirit to work. We forget that we're in a battle. We think church is a resort. Where we get to, you know, come and we hang out and wait till Jesus gets back. And we sit back and soak some rays, and you know, the people bring us our drinks, and it's awesome. Actually, know that the church is a uh, we're in a battle. We're in an army. Bullets are flying, we're in a war. And we have some hills to charge, and God wants us to do that and participate in that. And so we need the spiritual gifts. We need every tool we can get to accomplish the work that God has for us. We need to pray for those so that we can be effective in it. We are not trying to be just a cool hip, relevant church that's just more, you know, uh adaptable for the culture. We are trying to be the church God's called us to be. To follow God's ways, to listen to his spirit, to use God's resources to help people come to know Jesus. So we need to pray for these gifts. We need to ask God to work in these gifts. Um if you're a believer, if you are following Jesus, I believe that as you trust Jesus, if you follow Jesus, he will show you the gifts that you have, but also that we can pray for these things in faith, and he will reveal what what gifts sovereignly he wants us to have. I think there's some gifts he doesn't give me because he knows I'd be too prideful with them. But I think there's some gifts that you have in this room that God wants to use in this body. And my hope and my prayer is that we would all participate in the work that he has for us. That we would not see the church as a place where we just come and we get served, but that we serve others, we build each other up, we edify the body. That's my prayer. So, where do we go from here? Well, I'm hopeful that even today, some of us will stop ignoring the fact that we've been gifted for the benefit of others, that we would embrace the gifts, we would start to use them, that we would ask God for the gifts that He wants us to have, and that we would ultimately walk away again saying we are following Jesus. We're honoring Jesus. This is all about Jesus. Okay? If you're not a Christ follower, if you're not a believer in Jesus Christ, this whole conversation might sound a little wacky. And maybe even if you are a Christ follower, it's maybe sound a little wacky. But let's not let our pride get in the way of receiving what God has for us. Let's receive by faith what God has for us and let's follow Him and His voice, His leadership. Again, filtering everything through the Word of God, okay? Let me pray for us today. God, thank you so much that you are good and that you are gracious and that you choose by your mercy to give us spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts are not the focus of our hearts. We do not idolize them, we do not worship them, but we receive them as your children, and we pray that you would help us to practice them in a way that honors you and builds up others. God, I pray that this church family here would grow in the use of spiritual gifts, and even that our worship gatherings like this would be less and less about a few people exercising their gifts, and more and more about multiple people using their spiritual gifts. I would pray that today, God, you would help people to be more courageous than they've ever been in exercising the gifts that you've given them. Maybe those gifts are gifts of administration, gifts of service. Maybe they're the assigned gifts. But God, we would not be the church that just sits around and talks about tools and doesn't actually build anything. Thank you, Jesus, that you're at work and that your word says that you will build your church and that we're to just join you in the work, to participate under your leadership. And I thank you, God, that you're at work at Point Community Church. And I sense your spirit even now in this time. Lead us, God. We love you. Praise your name. Amen.