Practicing His Presence | Holy Spirit Series

Well, this morning we are continuing our series on the Holy Spirit. We're gonna be talking today again about gifts of the Spirit. Today we're gonna be talking about practicing His presence. And one of the things that I love this time of year is that this is college basketball year and time of the year. And so I love basketball. Here's one of the reasons I love basketball. So basketball, and I know other sports have this, but this is something that I've come to know about this sport is so you have five guys on the court wearing the same uniform, playing for the same team, under the direction of the same coach, and they have different positions, different skillset, different gifting. And then within that system, those five players, you have referees who are there to make sure that the rules of the game are followed. And then you have different stripes that are boundaries showing you where the court of play is. And so what happens with basketball is when you have five players who know their role and know their gifting and are working within the operation of the offense and the defense, and they're playing for one another, and then you have the rules being kept, it can become a very beautiful thing. And I think sometimes watching basketball

is done really well. It's like watching art because there's all this structure that's there that shows the beauty of all this diversity working together for a common goal. That make sense? And what I wanna show you this morning is that this is what the church is supposed to look like in regards to the spiritual gifts that God has given us. I know that in a Baptist church, a lot of times when we talk about spiritual gifts, there's a lot of maybe confusion or fear. In fact, I would say on the other side of it, there are some of you that are really excited. And so I wanna address really two groups who are at the polar ends of this and the opposition of when it comes to spiritual gifts. There are some of you in the room that you are super nervous that we're even talking about the Holy Spirit, and more nervous that we're talking about the gifts of the Spirit. And some of your discomfort or concern is because of bad experiences either that you had or that you've witnessed, where there's been abuses of gifts and there's been chaos around the gifts of Spirit. And so it's left you because of your experiences with the disposition of, man, I want as far away from that kind of stuff as I can possibly get.

And then on the other side, there are some of you that I would call in the circle of charismania. And you're like, man, I'm looking and longing for the day that we could see a little disruption in our service and we have maybe a little more lively expression of worship and maybe the way that people use and engage their spiritual gifts. And so you're looking for, in some ways, maybe because of past experiences, a little bit more chaos in the midst of all the structure. And what I wanna do this morning is show you that the Bible shows us and teaches us that we've gotta land somewhere in the middle. Is that on the one hand, we can't run from spiritual gifts because of bad experiences, and we can't run to hyper expressions of spiritual gift because of some experiences. Because at the end of the day, watch this, we're not after experiences, we're after encounters with the Holy Spirit. And that's what spiritual gifts are supposed to give us is manifestation of the Spirit. So what we experience is not the gifts, but rather we have an encounter through the gifts with the Holy Spirit where we are encouraged and edified. And so this is where we're gonna land today. So grab your Bibles, go to 1 Corinthians 12. And so I wanna, again, say that if you're nervous about the gifts of the Spirit,

or you're excited about the gifts of the Spirit, understand we're not the first to have this feeling or have this polar extremes. When you look at the book of 1 Corinthians, what you find is is that this is a church that has a lot of spiritual giftings. They are very gifted spiritually, but they're also very immature in their operation of their spiritual gifts. And what Paul does is he devotes three chapters to addressing this issue. He's showing us we don't have to be afraid of the gifts of the Spirit, and we also, we need to understand that there is order and boundaries by which we are to follow when in corporate gatherings we operate in the gifts. So he's gonna bring us to that middle ground. So 1 Corinthians 12, we're gonna look at three chapters today, and I'm gonna show you three truths. Those truths are gonna be summaries of each chapter that will help us understand where we need to land in regards to spiritual gifting. So here's truth number one. Write this down if you're taking notes. We need to see, first of all, that all spiritual gifts are empowered by the Holy Spirit. All spiritual gifts are empowered by the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12, we're gonna start reading in verse four.

If you're there. say the Bible is true? He says, now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities, but the same God who empowers them all and everyone. Now notice what's happening here. Paul uses, we talked about this last week, three different phrases to describe spiritual gifts. He says, there are gifts, there are services, and there are activities. And all of this is pointing to the gifts of the Spirit. Now notice what he does here. He says that there are gifts that are empowered by the Spirit. There are services empowered by the same Lord. There are activities empowered by God. And so he's showing us that all of the spiritual gifts, the gifts, the services, the activities, or watch this, they're all empowered by the triune God. He mentions the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, showing us the unity of the Trinity that then should compel us toward unity within the body. So he's showing us the power that comes from the Spirit, Father, and Son. And now, I want you to skip down, if you would, in the next little section here, verses number seven, he's gonna jump in and show us again how the Holy Spirit works in the spiritual gifts.

Now, eyes right here just for a second. I'm gonna show you something about reading the Bible that's gonna help you, not just today, but when you read the Bible. One of the things, one of the principles that we use, or practices we use, when you wanna understand the Bible, is when you look at a particular section of Scripture and you see repetition, or you see phrases that are portraying a theme, that's gonna help you understand what's being said in the passage. So I'm gonna show you this, in this passage, I want you to pay attention to the verses and see if you can pick up on the theme here because of repetition. Look what he says in verse seven. He says, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given, through the Spirit, the utterance of wisdom, and to another, the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit. To another, faith by the same Spirit. To another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit. To another, workings of miracle. To another, prophecy. To another, the ability to distinguish spirits. To another, various kinds of tongues. To another, interpretation of tongues. To another, all these are empowered by one and the same Spirit.

Did you pick up on the theme here? He's showing us here that the gifts, the variety of gifts are empowered by the Holy Spirit, everyone. Say, why is this so important? One of the problems in the church at Corinth is that because they were so gifted and had a variety of gifts, that some of the gifts were more expressive and more visible than others. I don't know exactly where, the church had began to highlight the more visible gifts, the more expressive gifts, the more loud gifts, and had began to look down on those who have lesser visible gifts. And so, for instance, speaking in tongues primarily is one of the issues that was happening in the church of Corinth, where there were those who had that particular gift and they were elevating that gift above the others. And here is what Paul does in chapter 12. He wants to address this issue of the way that they were viewing the spiritual gifts by showing them, regardless of what spiritual gift you have, whether it's highly visible or whether it's very private and personal, that every spiritual gift has been given and empowered by the Holy Spirit. So you might have a gift of teaching that's very public and people are blessed by your teaching

and blessed by your ability to open God's word. You may have the gift of mercy where very few people, other than the person maybe that's receiving that gift, no one else sees it. And so you've got a very visible gift and a gift that's more quiet and more unseen. And here's what Paul wants you to know. Listen to this. Regardless of what gift you have, it is a blessing from God for the church and it is empowered by the Holy Spirit. That we need to recognize that just because my gift may be more visible than your gift or your gift may be more visible than my gift, that it's not with greater power because it's the same Holy Spirit empowering both. And this is huge for us to understand. See, what was happening in the church of Corinth is that there was jealousy that was being created within the body of Christ. There was envy, there was pride, there was arrogance. There were people that were boasting in their gifts. They had all of this relational controversy happening and Paul just says, look, you gotta stop trying to find the value of your gift by the volume of your gift. So hear me say this. Let me summarize it like this. The value of your spiritual gift has nothing to do, listen to this, with the volume of your gift.

but rather the origin of your gift, which is the Holy Spirit. Now, because of this controversy, I want you to notice the segue that Paul gives at the end of verse 31. He's gonna connect chapter 12 to chapter 13. Notice what he says, verse 31, but earnestly desire the higher gifts, listen to this, and I will show you a still more excellent way. Now, this is a segue, so what does he mean here, I'll show you a more excellent way? He's saying there's a better way of operating in your gifts than in jealousy and arrogance and pride and feeling like you are superior or feeling like you are inferior. There's a better way of operating within your spiritual gifts, and so here's statement number two that's a summary of chapter 13. Notice this, he says, love should be our motivation when using spiritual gifts. This is still the better way that Paul is saying should be the way that we use our spiritual gift, so be motivated by love. Now, chapter 13 is a chapter that most of us, many of us are familiar with. We know it as the love chapter. Anybody ever heard that before, the love chapter? Have you ever been to a wedding where this passage is read?

Anybody, raise your hand if that's you, yeah. So let me burst your bubble. This is not a wedding passage. Now, I'm not saying that what we find out about love is not something in this that can be applied to other relationships, but this is not primarily about love. This is primarily about spiritual gifts, and Paul is showing us the more excellent way that we use our spiritual gift, which is to be motivated by love. Look what he says here. Let's just walk through this. He says this in verse one. He says, if I speak in the tongues of men or of angels and have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. He says, look, even if I can speak in the most eloquent human language or if I have the spiritual gift in speaking of an angelic language or a heavenly language, but if I do so without being motivated by love, then I'm just making noise. He says, using that gift without love is like someone just beating on the drums with no music behind it. It's just a lot of noise. He says this. He says, verse two, if I have prophetic powers and I understand all mysteries and all knowledge and I have all faith so that I can remove mountains,

but if I have not love, I am nothing. Notice what he's saying. He says, you might have the gift of prophecy. You might have the gift of knowledge. You might have the gift of wisdom. You might have the gift of faith, but if you're exercising that spiritual gift without love, you're nothing. Love has to be the motivation. Notice what he goes on to say. He says, if I give all that I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but I have not love, I gain nothing. He says, listen, you might have the gift of generosity and that you are so generous that not only would you give all of your stuff away, you would give your very life away for someone else. And he says, but if you do that and your motivation is to look at what I'm giving and look at what I'm doing and it's not motivated by love, then you've gained absolutely nothing. Love has to be the motivation for all of our gifting. Look what he goes on to talk about when he describes the behavior of love. Look what he says in verse three. Sorry, verse four. He says, love is patient and it's kind. In other words, when we're learning how to use our spiritual gifts, we're gonna mess it up every now and then.

We're not gonna use our gifts properly, but you know what love does? When love is the motivation, love is gonna be patient with you and you're gonna be patient with me. And love is gonna be kind and gonna demonstrate kindness to someone as they're growing in the Lord. He goes on to say, love is not just patient and kind. He says, love doesn't envy and it doesn't boast. You see, when love is our motivation for spiritual gifts, I'm not gonna look at your gift and go, man, why did God give them that gift and he give me my gift? He should have given me that gift and not you that gift. And then love is also not gonna boast and say, hey, look at the gifts that I have. Don't you wish you had mine? Love doesn't do that. That's not how love operates. He says this, he says, love is not arrogant and it's not rude. It doesn't walk around and saying, look at me. It's not rude by dismissing somebody else's gifting. Love, listen to this, it doesn't insist on its own way. It's not irritable and resentful. In other words, love doesn't say, hey, you gotta do things my way and minister like I would minister and do it just like I wanna do it.

Love says, no, I'm gonna make sure that I'm not seeking my own ways and I'm not gonna be resentful towards you or irritated by you. I'm just gonna love. Listen to what love does. Listen to this. Verse seven, love bears all things. Love believes all things. Love hopes in all things. Love endures all things. Watch this, when love is our motivation and we're walking together as the body of Christ and we're walking in our gifting, love bears. You know what bears with one another means? Love puts up with each other. Love sees the immaturity in you and says, I'm gonna love you anyway. Love sees the immaturity in me and says, I'm gonna tolerate you because I love you. Love believes all things. It looks at people and say, man, I believe the best about you. I'm not gonna believe the worst about you. You're growing just like I'm growing. Love hopes all things. Love looks at what's happening in the body of Christ and says, man, I'm encouraged and I have hope because of how God is using you and your gifts. Love endures all things.

It means we're gonna go through hard stuff together, but as we walk in love using our gifts, we're gonna get through this thing together. That's what love does. So why is it then that love should be the motivator behind everything? Look what he says in verse number eight. He says, why? Love never ends. But guess what? He says, as for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, the gift of tongues, they will cease. As for the gift of knowledge, it'll pass away. Why? For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. Now, watch this right here. See, what is the perfect? The perfect is Jesus. Now, here is what he's saying here. He's saying, listen, love never fails. Why? Love is not going anywhere. The gift of prophecy, there's a coming a day, we won't need it anymore because we'll know fully when Jesus comes. The gift of knowledge is gonna pass away. The gift of tongues, they're gonna go away. All of the spiritual gifts, watch this, that are needed for us to build one another up in Christ

will no longer be needed when the perfect one, Christ, comes. Why? Because we're in the imperfect now, being perfected by the work of the Holy Spirit, using the gifts, but when the perfect one, Christ, comes, we will be perfected and now we will no longer need the gifts. And so, what does that mean for us? What will remain when all is said and done is not our spiritual giftings, but our love for one another and in the end, that's all that matters. Isn't that great? When Christ comes, love remains. And so, what do we do in the meantime? We walk in our spiritual giftings, but we do so motivated by the one thing that matters the most. The one thing that matters the most, which is love. Now, here's the third truth, third truth that I want us to see. So, we've made it through chapter 12, we've made it through chapter 13. Are you proud of me yet? We're gonna spend a little time in chapter 14, all right? Here's number three, write this down. Spiritual gifts in public gatherings must be practiced orderly. Be practiced orderly. Now, this is huge here, because I told you, these are summaries of each chapter.

Spiritual gifts in the public gathering must be practiced orderly. Now, think about it like this. We were talking this week and Craig mentioned something I thought was so good, I'm gonna pass it on. Watch this. Power without love leads to abuse. Would you agree with that? Power without love leads to abuse. Power and love without order leads to confusion. So, we've gotta have guardrails to show us how we walk in the power that we've been given and love one another well. And this is what he's gonna show us in chapter number 14. He says this, look at what he says in verse number, verse number one, we're gonna see a connection between the other two chapters in chapter 14. Now, notice this, he's connecting these two. So, when he ends chapter 12, he says, let me show you a more excellent way than the way that you're practicing. And he shows us that we use our gifts motivated by love. And then when he puts order into place, he's gonna tell us again, remind us now that you've seen what love is, pursue love. How do we pursue love? By earnestly desiring spiritual gifts. So, when we're desiring spiritual gifts, I'm not wanting gifts just so that I can use them for me. I'm wanting them to be a part of me.

I'm wanting spiritual gifts so I can use them to show love toward others. Now, notice the guardrails he's gonna put into place. Look what he says in verse two. He says, for the one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God. For no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the spirit. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to the people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. Now, I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets so that the church may be built up. Now, Paul highlights three specific spiritual gifts in order to show us why order is necessary in the public gatherings. Now, based on the context, now again, what is the exact context of what he's addressing here? Based on what we find in the passage, here's what we see. Somewhere along the way, there were some spiritual gifts, speaking in tongues specifically in this context,

that were taking over the entire worship services. And other gifts that might be more beneficial to the whole body were being pushed aside. And so what Paul is gonna do is he's gonna highlight, in these verses here, he highlights three spiritual gifts that he's gonna use as examples of why order is important, and he's gonna give us some order on the back end. But before we jump into that, let me just spend a couple of moments explaining these three spiritual gifts so that we can have some understanding, all right? Next week, we're actually gonna walk through what we call some of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, which is gonna include these three, but I feel like for our purposes today, we need to have a little bit of context. So let me talk about the gift of tongues. You say, what is the gift of tongues? I'm gonna give you a very simple definition of the gift of tongues. It's when the Holy Spirit empowers a person to pray or worship in an unintelligible language. I'm using language that Paul uses here. It's an unintelligible language. You say, what kind of language is it? We don't know. It could be a heavenly language, it could be a personal language that God has given you, but here's what we know,

that we don't know, the person who's speaking it doesn't know it, the person who's hearing it doesn't know it, only God himself knows it. It's when the Holy Spirit empowers a person to pray or to worship in an unintelligible language, and the primary purpose of this gift is to build up the individual who has the gift. Paul's gonna show us very clearly in the text on that. Now, notice what he says in verse number two. He says, the one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men, but to God, for no one understands him, not even the person speaking, but he utters mysteries in the spirit. So what he's saying is that this is not for talking to one another, this is for talking to God. What do we call talking to God? Prayer, right? Or worship. So it's when a person is speaking in an unintelligible language, they don't know it, people don't know it, Holy Spirit knows it, God knows it, and they're praying, it's just a supernatural work, and what's happening in this moment, the person who's speaking this is being built up by the spirit in this moment. I've been in settings, corporate gatherings,

I preached several years ago at an event where there was what I would consider an abuse of the gift of tongues. The service turned into chaos, there were people all over the room simultaneously just speaking in an unintelligible tongue, and you say, what was that from? Well, I'm not gonna be quick like some to say, well, that's demonic, because, but here's the thing, you can abuse every spiritual gift and to not be demonic, it can just be immature. Does that make sense? So there can be immature expressions of spiritual gifts, and I've witnessed abuses like this, where it was just chaos, and it was no order to it, and it just made everybody feel really uncomfortable and weird, or at least most of us. And then I've had other times where I've experienced that gift in friends of mine in a quiet setting where it was very edifying to that person, very quiet, they were, I could tell, being built up by this spiritual gift, and it was being used in a very biblical, orderly fashion. And what Paul is gonna show us in a little bit is that there is a primary purpose of this gift, and there's a secondary purpose, but in order for the secondary purpose to be used in a public setting,

there also has to be another gift, and that is the gift of interpretation. So what is the gift of interpretation? Now, think about what we said about what the gift of tongues is. It's when the Holy Spirit empowers a person to pray or to worship in an unintelligible language. Then, the interpretation of tongues is when the Holy Spirit empowers a person to understand and communicate the unintelligible language to a person or people. So it is when somehow, let's say somebody. speaks and prays in tongues, but because they're in a public setting, someone over here has, all of a sudden, by the Holy Spirit, a supernatural ability to understand the unintelligible language in a way that they can then communicate to persons or people for their edification. And I'm gonna be honest with you, I've been a lot of different settings. I've never seen this gift personally, but I have friends who have. But this is what the gift of interpretation of tongues is. It's the ability to understand supernaturally the unintelligible tongue for the purpose of building others up in Christ. So what about the gift of prophecy? The gift of prophecy, what is that? Here's the definition.

It's when the Holy Spirit supernaturally reveals something to an individual so that they would not otherwise know and they communicate it to a person or people for the purpose of edification. It's when there's a person who supernaturally, when the Holy Spirit reveals to them something that they would not otherwise know, factual information, that the Holy Spirit supernaturally reveals so that they can speak to a person or people for the purpose of building them up. Now, a couple of things about the gift of prophecy. We're not talking about the call of a prophet. We're not talking about Isaiah and Jeremiah, men who spoke words from God as authoritative to the people of God. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about God revealing certain things in certain moments to certain people for the purpose of building up. This is not thus says the Lord, but it is a message that at times God gives through people to people. Does that make sense? You say, is this supposed to be common? Well, yes. And we know that from the scriptures. I want you to look, if you will, you don't have to turn there, it'll be on the screen. Acts chapter two, the day of Pentecost has arrived.

The Holy Spirit falls and fills the people. They go in the power of the Holy Spirit and they're proclaiming the mighty works of God. And because of the supernatural gifting, the crowd sees what's happening and they go, these folks are drunk, they're out of their mind. What in the world is going on? And so notice Peter's response. How does Peter explain what was happening through the people as they were empowered by the Holy Spirit? Listen to what he says. He quotes the prophet Joel. Acts chapter two, verse 16. He says, but this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. And your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. So visions and dreams is one of the ways that God uses the gift of prophecy. He reveals things to people sometimes through visions and dreams. Now, notice what he says. As you're young and old, your daughters and sons, they will all prophesy or there will be prophecy. Notice he's not saying they're gonna become prophets like the Old Testament who write the Bible.

But they're gonna have visions and they're gonna have dreams. Notice what he says. Even your male servants and your female servants, in those days, I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy. Now, notice what he's saying. The prophet Joel is describing a time that we know as the end of times, say the last days. And people ask this question all the time. Are we in the last days? And a lot of times that question is asked because of certain cultural and things that are happening around the world, like this war that's going on in the Middle East. And people go, hey, are we in the last days? And here's my answer. We've been in the last days since Jesus ascended. Like we have been in the last days since Jesus ascended. That's the timeline that the Bible gives. If you read the book of Revelation, John acknowledges that they're in the last days. So the last days began at Jesus' ascension. So we've been in the last days for 2,000 years. Now, I do think that certain historic events and moments in history like we're in right now are showing us that we're nearer to the end than we've ever been. And that there's things that we can look at and look at Scripture and say,

okay, yeah, we see this thing going down. This is what Scripture told us would happen. But understand, we have been in the last days since the ascension. And here's what Joel says. In the last days, here's what is going to characterize or happen within God's people. They are gonna receive the power of the Holy Spirit and they will walk in spiritual giftings. And one of those spiritual giftings that will be predominant is the gift of prophecy. Not that they will write Scripture, but the Holy Spirit will reveal through images, through visions, through dreams, through phrases, not necessarily audibly, but maybe pictures in the mind. that are something that's revelatory in nature, that is to be given and shared with a person or people for the purpose of building them up and edifying them. Now, that's kind of weird. Yeah, it is. But listen, just because something is strange to us doesn't mean it's strange to God. And this is what the prophet Joel said was gonna happen. And this is what Paul is addressing. And he's saying, I actually want you to pray for this, pray for this gift. We have actually seen God begin to use this more frequently in our church in the last couple of years. And I'll just share a couple of instances

to give you kind of clarity of what I mean by this. There was, we had revival in February. Some of you have heard this story. We had revival in February. We came to a prayer meeting on a Wednesday night. God moved in a way that we weren't anticipating. We ended up meeting for a number of nights, almost seven or eight straight days, one day off. And God just moved like in a powerful way. For hours, we would gather. People would experience healing and reconciliation, salvation, baptism, confession of sin, freedom from addictions. It was just an unbelievable thing. We met from Wednesday all the way to Sunday morning, and we continued to meet. But on Sunday, God just moved, and we met from eight o'clock in the morning to like 1.30 in the afternoon. God was, we were baptizing people. It was a crazy day. Now, at the end of the last hour, about 1.30, most of you had left. There were still some pockets praying. Most people had left the campus, and I'm just kind of in here. And I started talking to Rusty Robinette, one of our elders, and I just said, Rusty, man, like he's one of our elders. We were gathering every time a service would end

and ask, okay, does the Lord want us to do this again? And I remember just looking at him and saying, do you think God's done? And I don't mean done like completely, but like he done with this special thing that he's doing. Did you think God is done? That was my phrase. I said it to him twice. Do you think God is done? We ended that conversation. I go to the foyer, and I'm about to leave, and a couple of people were in there and had a college student come to me. We had never met, although I've seen her around, and she's been a part of our church. She comes to me, and she's looking at me like, Pastor, can I just, I gotta say something to you. I was like, what? And she said, this is gonna sound really weird, and I don't even know what it means. She says, but I was leaving. I was getting in my car, and I was about to pull off. And a phrase came to my mind, and it was the phrase, tell him I'm not done. And the Holy Spirit told me to come in to look at you. She says, I don't know what it means that he's not done, but to the best of my understanding, I felt like he told me to tell you that. She had no idea what I just said to Rusty five minutes before, but the Holy Spirit told her,

came to her mind the phrase. She heard it, and she came and told me, and I just looked at her, and here's the thing. In that moment, I didn't look at her and go, man, what an incredible college student. She is awesome. I didn't think that. You know what happened in that moment? I bet I've told this story a dozen times, and I get emotional every time, because in that moment, I felt seen by God. There was an overwhelming sense that God loves me, and that he knows me. I can say to you, because she walked in the gift of prophecy that I was built up in the Lord. This happened in another setting. Sometimes this can happen in a public. God shows something for a public gathering, and during this time, one of our pastors had been praying. God had been doing a special work in his life, and the Lord woke him up at three in the morning, and this was months ago. This was four or five months ago. The Lord woke him up in the middle of the night, three o'clock in the morning, and said, go in the living room and pray. So he gets up, and he goes and gets on his knees, and as he's praying, he says, I am consciously aware that I'm in my living room praying, but as I'm praying, all of a sudden,

I wasn't in my living room. I knew I was in my living room, but all of a sudden, I was on the stage in the worship center, and I'm praying, and as I'm praying, all of a sudden, I start seeing our people come in, and as they sit down, I begin to feel the burden for them, and they were kind of fidgety, and it's like they couldn't move freely, and he says, as I was praying, he says, I felt myself come above the people, and as I looked down, our people were sitting in their seats, room was full. This specific room was full, and there were chains that were holding people in their seats. He said, I began to pray, and as I began to pray, he says, I began to notice that the chains were loose. but they didn't know it. They said, begin to pray even more. And as I began to pray, I started seeing the chains fall off of our people one by one. He came and he shared. He says, I don't know what to do with this. I said, I don't know, I don't either. I've never experienced that before personally. And I said, let's just sit on it and let's just pray and let's just discern. And we waited for about four months and then just a couple of weeks ago at prayer meeting,

I felt the Holy Spirit say, now is the time to share that. And he came and he just shared what I just shared with you. And I've had so many people say to me afterwards that that was what they needed to hear, that many have felt the chains that were holding them back fall off that night and they were set free. See what was happening in that moment is that God was showing one of our pastors a spiritual condition in our church that when the right time was to be shared, it was gonna edify and build them up in Christ. God, God is so gracious to us, isn't he? That he gives us spiritual gifts for building one another up. Now, what about the immediate context? What do we do? Why does he highlight these spiritual gifts specifically? I want you to notice what he's doing here. Look at verse four. He says, the one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. Now, I want you all to speak in tongues. And by the way, let me say this, that phrase there helps us understand a couple of misconceptions about speaking in tongues. First of all, I want you to understand that speaking in tongues is not the evidence that you've been filled with the Holy Spirit. There's a lot of false teaching out there

that just says, well, if you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you will speak in tongues. There's no evidence of that in the Scriptures. I'm gonna tell you the primary way you know you've been filled with the Holy Spirit, can I tell you this? You'll look like Jesus, that's how. Like, that's the number one way. And you're gonna tell people about Jesus if you're filled with the Holy Spirit. So God could give that gift to anyone he wants to, but he's not gonna give it to everyone. And what Paul is saying here, I wish you all could speak in tongues is the tone that he's using in the original language. I wish you all could. Why is he saying that? Because you're not all going to. Paul had this gift. He said we could pray for this spiritual gift, but not everybody's gonna have this spiritual gift. But notice this, he says this, that the primary reason for the gift of tongues is for the edifying of the person who has the gift. They're praying to God, and so there's this prayer and the communing with the Lord where God supernaturally builds them up by giving them an unintelligible language to pray. And I don't know how it works, but I know that the scripture shows us

that God has given this gift. But the primary, and I say primary, the primary purpose of the gift of tongues is for the building up of the person with the gift. Primary. And notice what he says here. He says, now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets so that the church may be built up. So what he's saying is that the gift of tongues is only helpful in a public setting if there's someone who also has the gift of interpretation. Why? Because in the public gathering, now this is the point that he's making here. In the public gathering, every spiritual gift is meant for the edification of other believers, not for the individual who has the gift. Every spiritual gift is meant for you, not for me. Does that make sense? If I have a gift, it's meant for your blessing in the public gathering, not for my own. This is why he's saying seek the higher gifts or seek the greater gifts. You say, I thought he says all gifts are empowered by the Holy Spirit, therefore all gifts have equal value.

Yes, they do, but in the public gathering, some spiritual gifts have greater benefit to the body than others. And that's why he says, I wish you would all prophesy. Why? Because prophecy is the spiritual gift that allows the body to be edified. The gift of tongues is a gift that's meant for the person to be edified, unless there's the gift of interpretation, because then if there's the gift of interpretation, there may be a message that God wants to give the body. Does it make sense what's being said here? Your spiritual gift in the public setting is not about you, it's about us. So this is where the order comes in. I want you to skip down in the text to verse 26. To verse 26. The gift of tongues was being immaturely used in the church in Corinth, and it's causing chaos, and Paul is trying to bring this back into order. And listen to what he says. We're gonna see both order for prophetic-type gifts and for speaking in tongues. Look what he says. He says, what then, brothers, when you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. So any time we're gathered together

and we're operating within the spiritual gifts, they all should be used for the building up of one another. Now, he doesn't say that every time you gather you're gonna do this, but there are gonna be gatherings when you come together for the purpose of walking in your spiritual gifts, but when you do, realize it's for building up of the body, not for yourself. So what should this look like then? Verse 27, if any speak in a tongue, let there be only one, only two, rather, or at the most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. Verse 28, but if there's no one to interpret, let each one of them keep silent in the church and speak to himself and to God. Notice what he's saying here. The Holy Spirit never intends for the gift of tongues to be used as the predominant gift in a worship gathering. If there are people that have the gift of tongues in a corporate gathering, it should be done in an orderly way, no more than three, everyone in turn, and it always, everybody say always, it always has to have also the gift of interpretation by someone else, and he says so if there is someone with the gift of tongues and the gift of interpretation in the public space, you are more than free to operate in that gift because it builds up the entire body, but where there is not the gift of interpretation, the person with the gift of tongues

should just speak to God quietly and privately on their own in their gifting. Does that make sense? And this is so important for us when we understand the function of what they're for, it's for the building up. That's why we have to have an interpreter. I use this illustration. If you have someone who blows in a trumpet, this is the illustration, by the way, that Paul gives earlier on, I didn't read it, but this is his illustration, and I'm gonna use trumpet. If you have someone blowing in a trumpet and they don't play according to music, you have sound, but you don't have understanding of the music that's being played. Does that make sense? So you're like, man, I can hear the trumpet, but I can't make sense of what tune the trumpet's playing because it's not playing to a tune, it's just playing at random. He says that's what it's like when someone is speaking in tongues without an interpreter. If someone speaks in tongues, here's what the sheep, the sheep music is the interpretation. So then when you play a trumpet to sheep music, people can hear it and go, oh, that's the song they're playing, so the gift of tongues without an interpreter is like blowing in a trumpet without music, no one can understand what's happening. This is why it's important.

Now what about the gift of prophecy or other public giftings? He's gonna talk specifically about the gift of prophecy, but I'm gonna make some conjecture that I think it's other gifts as well that are for the public edification. Look what he says in verse 29. He says, let two or three prophets speak, those with the gift of prophecy speak is the idea, and let others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. If you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and be encouraged, and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets for God is not the God of confusion, but of peace. Now again, notice what he's saying, orderly. So if you have people with a different, like let's say revelatory gifts of prophecy or knowledge or teaching or any other thing, like if I was to be preaching a sermon and somebody else with a gift of preaching was to be standing up preaching simultaneously, would you understand anything that's happening? What's the answer to that? No. But we would do it one at a time, why? Because then it benefits you because you can understand it. He says the same is true with the gift of prophecy. Now watch what he says, let there be a few,

don't hijack the whole service with it, and then one at a time, and give the opportunity for us to weigh. Why would we weigh it? Because it's not scripture. You weigh it. You hear what God is speaking to someone and because we're flawed and sinful, there are times we'll get it right, there are times we'll get it wrong and we gotta learn and grow in our gifting and so what do you do? Someone shares a word, we weigh it. When this pastor shared his vision, what do we do? We took five months and we weighed it and we listened and we waited for the moment where God said this is the time to share that. So what are we weighing? So first thing, when someone gives a prophetic word, we need to ask the question, does this align with scripture? If it doesn't align with God's word, it's not from God. We need to weigh, is it relevant? In other words, if someone speaks a prophetic word into my life, but like they've missed it by a mile. It might be that they've maybe misunderstood from the Lord and didn't discern well, and they're growing in their gifting, and there's room for that. Just like people can abuse the gift of mercy or the gift of teaching.

There can be a misuse of a gift, and so you weigh it to find, is this really for me? Or maybe it's something way down the line that God is speaking now that will come to fruition later. Or maybe what they're giving in a prophetic moment is application, and understand this, listen, when God speaks, what he speaks is true, our application is flawed often. This happened in the book of Acts. Paul, or Philip, one of the deacons in the church, he had four daughters who had the gift of prophecy. Could you imagine dinner at Thanksgiving with that family? Four daughters with the gift of prophecy. There were others with the gift of prophecy. God revealed through the Spirit to Paul that when he goes to Jerusalem, he is gonna be beaten and imprisoned. Several people had dreams and visions about that, and they came to Paul, and they said, hey, listen, we've been told by the Holy Spirit that when you go to Jerusalem, troubles await you. And then there were a couple that had that vision. You know what they said to him? They go to Paul and say, hey, listen, you can't go to Jerusalem. The Lord is forbidding you to go to Jerusalem. Why? Because he showed us that there, you're gonna go to prison, and you know what Paul says?

Paul says, listen, yeah, the Lord told me, but he's already told me to go. What happened in that moment? Those who received the prophetic word that trouble was waiting for Paul, they put their own application on it, and their application was flawed. What God showed them was gonna happen, but they interpreted it as he doesn't want you to go, and Paul says, no, no, no, he's already told me the same thing, but he says I gotta go anyway. Does that make sense? So we weigh it, and we listen, and we discern, and we pray, and then we walk in whatever the Spirit leads us to as long as it's in accordance to God's word. That make sense? Now, notice how he ties the bow around it at the end. Verse 37, he says, if anyone thinks that he is a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things that I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. The order that Paul is given is not Paul's conjecture. It is a command for the Lord. He wants us to use the gifts, but he wants us to use the gifts responsibly, empowered by the Spirit, motivated by love in the order that God has given in his word. Now, notice what he says here. He says, and if anyone does not recognize this,

he is not to be recognized. In other words, if there is someone who will not follow the order of using their gifts in public spaces, that person should not be recognized or allowed to operate in their gifting. They've gotta mature, and here's why. Notice what he says here. Listen to what he says. So, my brothers, this is beautiful, earnestly desire to prophesy. Why? One of the gifts that God uses to build the body up. And do not forbid speaking in tongues. Don't miss that. There's abuses of this gift, but don't forbid it. Learn how to use it according to the Scripture if you have that gift. Learn what gifts should look like in the public spaces, but don't forgive it. Now, notice this. He says, but all things should be done decently. And in order. Eyes right here for a second. For those of you who are like, man, I've seen abuses of this, and I wanna run as far away from this as possible. Or others of you are like, man, I have experienced the pep rally of all pep rallies, and I want every service to be chaos. Here's what he says.

There's a growth that we have to have. There's a maturity we have to have. So grow together, know that you've been empowered by the Spirit, motivated by love, but do it in order. Now, notice what Paul is saying. Paul's solution, or God's solution, to the disruption of the spiritual gifts in the local church was not cease and desist. Stop it altogether. That was not the solution. It wasn't cease and desist. It was surrender. Surrender your gift to the Holy Spirit. And depend, depend on God's Word, depend on the Spirit's guidance. Walk in the giftings, but do so with those gifts surrendered. You know what I love about this entire section of Scripture? It reminds me, we say, what has jumped out at me the most is this, and these are the two applications as you go home I want you to walk with. Application number one, you can trust the Holy Spirit. You can trust Him. Like, I know that there are things that you don't understand or things that you're like, man, that seems weird. It's okay. But the Holy Spirit isn't weird. He can be trusted. And here's the second thing that just has jumped out at me. He loves us more than we could ever imagine. And that's why he gives us spiritual gifts.

He's like, I love you. And because of the need of growth, I'm not just gonna give you a book to read, although this is the foundation. I'm gonna put my spirit inside of you. I'm gonna take what's in this book and I'm gonna apply it to your life. And I'm gonna use brothers and sisters in Christ that have gifts from him to do it. You realize he loves you this morning. And that then should be the channel by which we love one another. So let me ask this, broaden the application to this. How are you doing in love right now? Are there areas and relationships in your life outside the spiritual gifts, relationships where you're rude and boastful and arrogant and envious and jealous? Where you lack patience? You lack gentleness and kindness? Is that, are there any relationships like that? Listen, the Holy Spirit wants love to be what drives every relationship you have. So what we're gonna do is I want us to take a moment and just sit on this. And I want us to ask the Holy Spirit, show us what you have for us. And then I want you to ask the Holy Spirit to give you a heart of love. I'm gonna ask you to stand to your feet.

Stand to your feet and here's what we're gonna do. I want you to, we're just gonna sing a couple of phrases. And as we're singing, we're gonna pray two prayers. If you're a believer in this room, I want you to pray this, Holy Spirit, I want everything you have for me. I want every gift that you wanna give me. And the second prayer is Holy Spirit, help me to love the people around me. Help me to live a life of love. Father, I'm asking right now that you would give us the courage and the boldness to pray like this today. And that you would use us to encourage one another. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.