Immersed in the Language of Heaven

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly podcast.

Church of the Lookout is in Boulder, Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love.

Visit us online at thelookout.church.

Again, welcome to the lookout.

If this is your first time, if it's been a while since you've been here, so glad to have you.

We are going to uh jump into the scriptures together.

If you have your Bibles, we're gonna start in Acts chapter 2, which that should give you a clue that this is gonna be a dangerous sermon right here, all right?

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 2 in the New Testament.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

We'll have it on the screen so if you don't have your Bible.

Let me just catch you up.

The last couple weeks, last few weeks, what we've been talking about is this whole idea of being immersed in God.

On Easter Sunday, we talked about water baptism, being immersed in God.

And in the word baptism actually means to be immersed or to be cleansed or to be overwhelmed.

And when Jesus sent his disciples out, um, he invited them to invited them to go and make disciples, baptizing those disciples in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And his desire, Jesus' desire, that all of us would be immersed in his name, that we'd be completely immersed in him.

And so we're immersed in Christ and we're immersed in the Holy Spirit.

So last week we talked about this this other kind of baptism that we enter into uh in the kingdom of life, that we that we read about all through the New Testament, and we call it the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

And it's an immersion, a filling of the Holy Spirit, his desire for us that we would be full of his spirit, that we'd be full through and through of his very spirit, the power of God.

Let's do this before we jump in.

Just wherever you're at this morning, just put your hand on your chest.

Lay hands on yourself.

We're gonna pray.

We're gonna pray for ourselves this morning.

So, Jesus, as we open your word this morning, we invite you, we invite the Holy Spirit to come and meet us right now.

I thank you for my friends here this morning.

I thank you, God, for those who showed up today that weren't even expecting to go to church.

Maybe this is the first time to church, maybe it's your first time here in a long time.

I thank you, Lord God, that you have drawn us here today because you wanted to remind us that you have given us your Holy Spirit, and your desire is that we are full to overflowing of your very spirit, that you've closed us, clothed us with power from on high, that you have given us yourself, the Spirit of God, who is our helper, our comforter, the one who corrects us and leads us and guides us, the one who teaches us all truth and leads us to remembrance of everything that you do and said.

And this morning, Holy Spirit, we just pray, we invite you to meet us right where we are, in this place today.

And it's in the name of Jesus we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

So I want to pick up on this theme.

Um, in the first, the first telling of what happened when the believers were gathered, they were waiting for this promised Holy Spirit.

Jesus had just ascended, they were all scared out of their minds, as you would be, if the person that you had been giving your life to the last three years says, I'm out, and he seemed just float off into the sky, or however that worked.

And he said, Just wait in Jerusalem.

And so they're scared, they're waiting and they're praying, they're fasting.

There's about 120 of them, they're in the upper room.

Here's what it says in Acts 2.

It says, When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place, and suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven, and this sound and at this this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language, and they were amazed and astonished, saying, Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?

And how is it that we hear each of us are uh each of us in his own native language?

Parthians and Medes and Alamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rhone, both Jews and proselytides, Cretans and Arabians, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.

Do we have any Pentecostals in the room here this morning?

Maybe you're a closet Pentecostal.

I grew up, man.

This is my stomping ground.

It's right here.

Grew up in environments that were just saturated in God awareness of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit that's been given to us in this particular passage is beautiful for a lot of reasons.

But one of the first things that we see when the Spirit of God, when the power of God, when the Holy Spirit rested upon this unlikely group of people, the first thing we see, we get this image of tongues of fire resting upon their heads.

So so much so that when they left the place, they were speaking in such a way that men from other nations were in town.

They could hear the mighty works of God in their own language.

I remember several years ago I was preaching on this, on this stage, on this very this very passage, Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And for a reason I I still am trying to understand, uh when I read that very passage, something caught up to me in that moment.

And I remember breaking down and weeping for about three to five minutes and just an uncontrollable weeping on this stage right here.

And and and I think what was happening in that moment, the thought that the Spirit of God would come in such power that the heart of God would go out, and the first thing that would happen is that he would hand deliver the gospel and the good news in a language that each person was tuned to hear.

And the fact that the Spirit of God is still doing that today, He knows the language of your heart.

Do you know that?

Sometimes we can come into a church setting like this.

We can come in here and be like, I am not like these people.

I don't speak like that, I don't act like that, I don't, this some of this vernacular, it's kind of some weird language these guys are using.

I just want to hear, I just want to remind you that God knows the language of your heart and he is determined to hand deliver it to you.

God knows.

God knows what your heart needs to hear.

And if any, if you need proof of that, this is the passage.

What happened was he was reversing what had happened at Tower of Babel, and the nations were scattered and the languages confused, and this new day, this new dawn of the in-breaking of the kingdom of God, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and now the language was going out in a way that people could hear.

God wants to send you out in a language that people can hear, to hear the mighty works of God declared in the language of their heart.

Do you guys know that?

And I and I believe this, you know, that for me was special because the way I'm wired, my heart's desire is to speak and to teach in such a way that God can be seen and understood and known.

This is part of what I believe is part of the call in my life, but I believe it's a call for all of us to be filled with such a baptism of the Spirit of God that He knows us how to meet how He that we know how to meet people exactly where they are at.

Now that's a great message right there.

We could just park it right there and go home and have our have our lunch, right?

But we're gonna keep moving because there's so much more to be talking about here.

So it's the first time we see that when the Spirit of God comes upon people, they start speaking in languages they don't know.

It's a phenomenon.

In Greek, it's this word glossolalia, which is with the where you get the word glossary, it's this word language, and we see this all throughout the book of Acts in the New Testament, that oftentimes there's this pattern of what happens in many situations when the Spirit of God would come upon a group of people.

It says that they would begin to speak in tongues, they would speak in other tongues.

We read about that in Acts chapter 2 just a second ago, but we read about this again in Acts chapter 10.

Acts 2 · chapter mention Acts 10 · chapter mention

There's a Roman centurion named Cornelius, he had been given an open vision that there was a man named Peter that was supposed to come to him and had a message for him.

And so God met this Gentile who wasn't yet a part of the plan of God.

He met them right where he was at.

Meanwhile, he goes and meets Peter with an open vision, and uh, and somebody shows up to Peter's door and says, There's a man named Cornelius that's looking for you.

And so in this divinely orchestrated chapter, and we we read how Simon enters the house of a Gentile, which wasn't supposed to happen.

It wasn't necessarily part of the, uh that wasn't part of the instruction manual as they thought, but God was rewiring their understanding of his plan for all of time.

And so Peter shows up to Cornelius' house and said, Hey, I was told God told me I was supposed to come here.

And Cornelius says, Well, God told me that God told me that you were gonna come here.

And so they both had this kind of awkward stare-off for a moment of who was sent to who here.

And they're trying to, you know, just catch up with what God is doing.

And then so what how it becomes clear to Peter, I need to preach the gospel.

And so he starts announcing the good news of what had happened in Christ.

And upon hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ, is it Cornelius and his entire family that was there to watch?

They started, they were filled with the Spirit and they started speaking in tongues.

And then it was so powerful they decided to get water baptized.

So that's what's really interesting.

They were filled with the spirit first, and then they got water baptized.

We don't, we're not giving any indication that the tongues that they were speaking were tongues that needed to be understood by anybody else.

It wasn't about evangelism, it wasn't about declaring anything.

It was just they were they were overflowing the Spirit of God.

Now we read about this again, a similar story in Acts 19.

We read about this last week, if you were here, that when Paul was making his way through Ephesus, he comes across a band of disciples, and uh he said, you know, catch me up.

What were you guys baptized in?

They're like, Well, we were baptized in John's baptism, which is baptism water.

And and Paul said, Well, that was John's baptism is a baptism of repentance.

Like, when did you did you receive the Holy Spirit yet?

They're like, we didn't even know there was a Holy Spirit, right?

So they don't even know what's happening.

And it says that Paul says, All right, well, you need to be received the Holy Spirit.

He lays his hands on them, and immediately actually they're water baptized first.

They're water baptized, they're baptized into Christ, and as they're baptized into Christ, it says that Paul lays his hands on them and they immediately are filled with the Holy Spirit and start speaking in tongues.

And so it's this really interesting phenomenon that happens oftentimes with the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

Some would argue that happens every time.

I don't argue that because I know plenty of people who are filled with the Spirit of God who haven't yet received their uh the gift of speaking in tongues.

But we want to take just the rest of this message and put a spotlight on this kind of bizarre, wild expression of life with God called speaking in tongues.

And I can tell you're super excited about that.

Because I I I get it, I get it, I get it.

The thing is when it comes to baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, man, it divides a it divides a crowd pretty quickly.

And some of you are like, really?

The whole sermon?

That's it, that's what we're doing?

We're doing time out of everything we could be talking about.

I you you might be thinking about that right now.

Like, I'd rather talk about tithing than talk about like speaking in tongues.

Others of you, others of you are like secretly cheering, you're trying to hold it in on the inside, but you're shaking on the inside because, yes, finally.

I've never actually taken a whole message to talk about tongues, but I just believe that today there's something special, there's a gift for us here today for those who are willing to receive it.

And I want to ask you this morning if you're willing to enter into the scriptures with me for a moment here and let's explore what is it that God is doing.

Why is it that tongues oftentimes is uh is a manifestation, an expression of what happens when we're immersed in the Holy Spirit.

Now, first of all, Jesus said this was going to happen.

So it should be no surprise.

He said that there's coming a day that this kind of thing would happen.

In Mark chapter 16, verse 15, he said to them, Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation, and whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

Mark 16:15

And these signs will accompany those who believe in my name, they will cast out demons, and they will speak in new tongues.

And if Jesus isn't enough for you, here's Katie Perry.

She says that speaking in tongues is as normal to me as past assault.

It's a secret, direct prayer language to God.

Now, that's a little bit of a risk because that could either discredit this entire sermon or really enhance it, depending on if you like Katy Perry or not.

So we'll just move beyond that.

Let's go back to Jesus.

Yeah.

Um, so speaking in tongues, though, in church world, it can be one of the most misunderstood, written off, divisive, off-putting parts of the Bible.

Depending on your church background, it can be hurtful because there is out of people's zeal for you to experience God, they could say, you're not filled with the Holy Spirit until you're speaking in tongues.

And a lot of people carry that in the core of uh of their walk with God, that it's created this class system of those who are who are really filled with the Spirit over here.

They're in the upper echelon of life in the kingdom.

And then everybody here, we we make room for them, we tolerate them, but they're just gonna be over here doing lesser spiritual things.

Okay.

And I just want to name a few things that maybe you've experienced.

I had a conversation with somebody this week who who felt, you know, even since their youth camp, you know, 20, 30 years ago, they were told that they were supposed to be filled and start speaking in tongues that never came to them.

And so they've they they're they've always struggled with a sense of insufficiency, like they're not good enough.

And I just want to break that lie in the name of Jesus.

That is not God's heart for you, that is not the heart of the Father, that is not the heart of the Son or the Spirit.

Speaking in tongues is a gift to be received, but it is not a proof of your validity of whether you've been whether you've come to Christ or you've been filled with the Spirit of Christ.

It's a gift that catches up with us over time.

And yes, we should desire it, but do not let the enemy discredit you or accuse you from how much spiritual authority you walk on by whether, but by whether or not you have that gift or not, okay?

Because that you did not get baptized into Christ to find out later that you're still not good enough.

That is not the gospel of Jesus.

The gospel of Jesus that you are in, you are a beloved son and daughter of God, and he has entrusted his Holy Spirit to you.

He has sealed you with his Holy Spirit as a deposit of your inheritance of the his coming kingdom on this earth.

If you are given to Christ, the Holy Spirit is inside of you.

Okay.

Yes.

Thank you for that light clap.

That is worth, that is worth the cost of admission today, all right?

It's a good thing to make sure that this is a shame-free zone, and we can still be filled with the Spirit and continue to be filled with the Spirit.

You never get to the end of the Holy Spirit.

So it's we can hold that desire before God, whether you've experienced it or not.

It's a prayer that you can hold in front of the Lord.

This is why Paul says, I speak in tongues more than all of you.

I desire that all of you speak in tongues.

He was unashamed about that, and we'll get into that in a second.

He wants to, he, as Paul would teach about it in the scriptures, he wanted to make sure that speaking in tongues is held in the right place, in the right order within the community, the church community.

But he was very clear that speaking in tongues was part of our spiritual warfare, it was part of life in the kingdom.

And he made every effort to normalize it as something not on the fringe but at the center.

He said that speaking in tongues is a way that we speak to the Lord and we build ourselves up.

It's part of how we wage war in the spirit.

Now, pause there.

On December 7th, 1941, the United States was attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor.

And because of that, the devastating defeat at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese held the upper hand in the Pacific Rim.

And we entered this world war.

Everything the United States Army and Navy and Air Force and Marines tried to do, somehow the Japanese knew before they were going to do it.

Somehow they knew.

They intercepted all the radio.

They could not figure out how the enemy could intercept their messages and somehow know exactly what our art what the army was going to do to win the victory in battle.

So they finally realized that many of the Japanese soldiers had learned English.

Many of them had been educated in the United States schools and they knew how to speak our language.

And because they could speak our language, they were picking up and able to easily decode the messages that were being sent out by uh radio to the troops.

So they would listen, they knew the language, they could easily decode the military orders, and thereby they would know exactly what they were going to do, and they would wait there and set up ambushes until somebody in the army had this idea, this kind of wild idea.

The U.S.

Army was the first branch of the military that began recruiting Native Americans from places like Oklahoma in 1940.

And other branches, such as the U.S.

Marines and Navy, followed a few years later.

And the first class of 25 Navajo, quote, cold coat code talkers, were U.S.

Marine recruits.

They completed their training in 1942.

And apart from basic training, these men had to develop and memorize a unique military code using their mostly unwritten language and were placed in a guarded room until this task was complete.

So the United States military recruited a group of 29 Navajo men that were labeled as code talkers, or another name that were given were wind talkers.

And what would happen was because they were speaking a language that was not spoken anywhere else in the world, they they became a tremendous asset to the US Army because they could get on these radio transmissions and speak in this language that nobody else knew.

And they could send uh strategic instructions and directions to those on the other side of the world, and the enemy had no idea what they were saying.

They began to communicate over the radio, and the Japanese could not figure out what they were saying.

It was a language the enemy did not know.

And it gave the U.S.

an upper hand in the war because we could carry out the assignments without the enemy knowing what was going on.

Are you smelling what I'm cooking?

Carolyn, are you smelling it?

She's catching up.

Some of you are catching up.

So these wind talkers, these wind talkers came in and they had a language that nobody else knew.

They had a language that they could communicate and they could receive instructions and communicate it, and it could not be deciphered because it was not given to their enemy to know what they were talking about.

They had a code that was specific to them.

They had a language that nobody could intercept.

Listen, guys, if you hear nothing else, I believe this at the core of him.

The gift of tongues, this language of heaven is a gift that God gives to us that we may have a language with him that our enemy, the enemy of ourselves, cannot intercept, and he can't get to, because it's not given to him, it's given to us who have been filled with the Spirit of God.

See, in Ephesians 6, in Ephesians 6, Paul says that we are to stand in the face of the enemy.

He says to stand against the enemy.

He said to put on the full armor of God that you may withstand the schemes.

He says to pray in the spirit at all times.

Pray in the spirit of all times.

What is he talking about praying in the spirit?

Well, is he talking about tongues?

We don't know.

But he is talking about praying in the spirit.

And listen, I'll tell you this much.

Sometimes speaking in tongues, you can sit in your chair, you can laugh, you can mock that, you can giggle about that, you can think, oh, that's for the wild people.

You can think that you can write it off, you can be judgmental, you can say that's not for today.

You can do all those things, but what I'm saying, when the enemy of your soul is bearing down on you, you want to know that you have a language that gets to heaven.

You when you when when when you are being pressured down and pushed down by an enemy when when there are health things and health risks that are threatening your body, you do not need a smooth talker in that moment.

You need a wind talker on your side.

You do not need just a pep talk or a TED talk.

You need to know that there is a language that I know in my spirit has access to all the hosts of heaven.

When your child is running away from God, when they are running away from you, and you are in turn running out of words on what to say, you need to know that you have a language and an internal resource you can draw from.

That is not your own, it's not your own strength, it's not your own intellect.

You have run out of words, and now I'm gonna access what God has given to me by the Spirit, whether it's words I know or words I don't know.

I know that in the Spirit, God has given me a language to speak directly to Him.

Some of you mamas, some of you fathers, you need to get used to praying in tongues over your kids.

You need to pray in tongues over your bank account.

You need to pray in tongues over a lot of things.

Because it teaches you to not have to rely on your intellect and your rationale.

That's why a lot of us don't do it because we're so enlightened.

If I don't understand it, then it's not doing anything.

That is not true, because this is the mystery given to us by God.

And listen, when when life is bearing down on you, you want that, even if it's not you, you want that, you want that person in your life when you are being threatened for your life.

You want to make sure you have crazy Aunt Jane praying for you.

All right?

You want Aunt Jane with that little twitch in her eye.

All right, something's just not right.

Because she believes what she's praying.

And when she says, I am praying for you, you actually believe it.

And she says, I'm calling down the fire of heaven on your behalf.

You were laughing about her last week, but now that you need her, you want to know that you got wind talkers on your side.

And maybe you're like, man, that's not me.

That's that's that's not me.

I don't have that yet.

That's it's totally fine.

It doesn't have to be all of us.

In fact, in fact, it won't probably won't be all of us, but we don't need all of us.

The U.S.

Army only had 29 Navajo and they won the war.

We just need a few of us who actually believe that when we speak, we're not ashamed of what others are saying about us when we're in our prayer closet and our private times with God, and we're we're babbling in the spirit, and we and there's things overflowing out of us that we didn't know that we're overflowing.

We have a language that we never thought we had.

We just need a few of us who actually believe that our prayers are affecting things in heaven and on earth.

We don't need all of us, we need a few of us who is willing to go there today.

Come on.

This is something my parents taught me very early on.

And uh I remember them coming into my room with my brother and I, and they started talking about speaking in tongues.

They tried to normalize it as much as possible, and they weren't expecting us to get it right out of the bat.

But they said, hey, listen, let's just, we're just gonna invite the Holy Spirit, and if there's anything that comes to your mouth, even if you don't understand it, it's just completely natural.

And we started kind of fumbling our way through it.

Did we get it right away?

Not at all.

Not at all.

In fact, I thought I was making the whole thing up, and I think I I think I was at first.

I think I was trying to like trying to, you know, trying to go with the flow and do something with what I thought was happening, but it wasn't until later around people, and and I don't have a distinct time where I started speaking in tongues.

I'm just telling you, there's there were times where I was just befilled with the, you know, surrounded with the faith of other believers in environments where the name of Jesus was being lifted up and and the praise of God was going up.

And and what happened is uh just the intensity of the Spirit of God, it was overflowing in a way that just I just could not make sense of.

And I could control, you can you can decide to start and stop.

There is a sense of participation when it comes to any of the spiritual gifts.

But what I'm saying is it it's a journey of learning to let the life of God and the life of spirit bubble up from the inside out.

And so if you don't have it right away, it's totally good.

Nobody feels good at any of this stuff when they start out, but that doesn't mean that God's not at work in your life.

Okay?

Now, let's get into the scriptures again.

1 Corinthians 14.

1 Corinthians 14, so because Paul has a lot more to say about prophecy and speaking in tongues, okay.

1 Corinthians 14, he says this pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

For the one who speaks in tongues speaks not to men, but to God.

For no one understands him because he utters mysteries in the spirit.

On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their building up and encouragement and consolation.

The one who speaks in a tongue builds himself up, but the one who prophesies builds up the church.

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.

Okay?

Park that, just kind of flag that for a second.

We're gonna skip down to verse 18.

He says, I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.

Come on, Paul, don't get so braggy.

I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.

Nevertheless, in church, I'd rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue.

Okay.

Alright, so we got some we got some meat to dissect right here, okay?

So what is Paul saying?

He's this whole particular passage, he's instructing the Corinthian church in all kinds of things as it relates to spiritual gifts.

And the most important part of this entire passage has nothing to do with prophecy, has nothing to do with tongues.

It's the first, the first, very first part, he says, pursue love.

Can we just can we just make sure that when we talk about spiritual gifts and any of these types of things, that the first most important thing is that this is all out of a pursuit of love.

It's not a pursuit of giftedness, it's a pursuit of love.

But he says, earnestly desire the spiritual gifts.

Can I ask you, do you earnestly desire the spiritual gifts?

Do you earnestly desire them?

Some of us are so passive.

We're like, well, I'll get them if God gives them to me.

That's not earnest desiring.

That's passivity.

That's not gonna work either, okay?

Earnestly desire.

That means ask, ask God.

If you don't, if you don't have you discerned the gifts of God and given through the Holy Spirit in your life, I'm just saying, just ask, earnestly desire.

Paul Paul just told us to.

He wants this for all the Corinthians.

But then he starts to kind of talk about the difference between prophecy and speaking in tongues.

Now, prophecy is a lot like what you see happening very often up here, you know, you know, in a church like ours, where someone will come up and just have a word for somebody in the room, or have a word for something that's happening in the room.

And the idea of prophecy is it's it's speaking the heart, the heart of God, but in a language that everybody could can understand.

And what Paul is saying, he has a high value for that.

He has a high value for the mind.

And that's that's why, even in this teaching, I'm not teaching this whole sermon in tongues, all right?

That's for your benefit, because you need to understand, right?

I'm not doing this in tongues.

Now you better believe that before this sermon there were some tongues happening.

But for your sake, I'm not speaking in tongues right now.

And that's what Paul is saying.

It's like, listen, when you get up and you're sharing the space with other people, it's better that you prophesy.

It's better if you're gonna have a tongue that you interpret it because we want, you know, it needs to be edifying for everybody who's listening.

Because if the mind is unfruitful, then what benefit is that to anybody?

But he makes it very clear that speaking in tongues should be a normal, he's correcting something that had become so normal in the life of the Corinthian church.

And he's saying several things about tongues, and we're gonna get to some of those points here in a second.

But he says that the tongues in the body needs interpretation to build up the body.

But in saying all of this, he's also inferring that tongues is not just about evangelism out on the streets in a language that people know.

It's not just about what happens in a church gathering, it's a private prayer, it's often a private prayer language, it's a language given to you by the Spirit to speak to God, which is why he would say, I speak in tongues more than all of you.

Now, if he's not doing in that church, where is he doing it?

If he's speaking in tongues more than all of the Corinthians, where is he doing that?

He's doing that before God, because he says that the ones who speaks and uh speaks in tongues, they they they they don't speak to men, but they speak to God.

Nobody understands him, meaning that there's no natural translation for it because they're mysteries to God, they're mysteries in the spirit, okay.

So, what is the purpose of speaking in tongues?

I just want to talk of just a few a few things.

Why would you even want this?

All right, that's really a good question.

Why would you want this?

Because I'll just go for prophecy.

That prophecy is great.

I'll just start with what people can understand.

No, no, no, no.

Paul is saying, I want you to desire speaking in tongues too.

So why should we want that?

Well, a few things I want to point out.

Number one, when speaking in tongues, again, we are speaking directly to God.

And that's what that's the passage we just read.

And so why is that important?

Because some of you, when God feels distant, when you are in need of the nearness of God, the presence of God in your life, you want to know that you have a love language, you have an intimate language with God that you can speak directly to his heart.

It keeps us aware of the indwelling spirit of God.

And another place in Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 2, um, it says that the Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him?

Also, no so also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the spirit of God.

Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

Come on, do we need a praise break in this in this room?

Do we need to get up and do a little dance?

You have been given the Spirit of God that delivers to you the mind, the mind and the thoughts of God Himself.

It is not given to your natural being.

This is the Spirit of God hand delivering these to you.

This is this is why this is so awesome.

Because we can speak directly to God.

Another reason we speak in tongues, when we speak in tongues, we strengthen ourselves.

It's very clear in the scriptures that part of the benefit of tongues is that there is an edification.

1 Corinthians 14 4 says he who speaks in tongues edifies himself, which just means build up.

While prophecy is really good for the larger body in a room like this, tongues, uh speaking in tongues, according to the scriptures, is about building up and strengthening yourself.

Jude, um, in the new the small short New Testament letter, Jude, verse 20, it says, But you beloved, building yourself up in the most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourself in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

Building yourself up by praying in the spirit.

That's what happens.

You build yourself up.

Some of you need strength that goes beyond your own strength.

I'm just telling you, this is part of the gift of tongues.

Third thing, when we speak in tongues, we confuse the enemy.

Now we've already talked about that, but some of you need to you need to send some serious confusion to the enemy.

You might confuse a few other people too in the process, but guess what?

You'll confuse the enemy.

And again, I can't stress enough when it comes to spiritual warfare, when it comes to the things, the reality that there is an enemy dead set against you.

And you we have in a world that is trying to convince you that none of that exists.

Our world wants to convince us there is no such thing as heaven or hell, there is no spirituality, there's just you, and there's just now, and that's it.

I'm just telling you, you can believe that, but the enemy doesn't believe that.

And the enemy is working night and day to accuse you, to hold you down, to discourage you, that you would walk in despair, that you would walk in depression, that you would walk in defeat, that you would feel alone, that you would feel meaningless and purposeless, and he's totally okay if you don't believe in him.

Because he's gonna go about his thing anyways.

I'm just telling you, we need to amp up the weapons of our warfare, they are not carnal, they're not of this flesh.

They but they have power to demonish strongholds, demolish strongholds, the scripture says.

The Spirit of God has been given to you that you might know this is for this is for the battle that you wage.

And certainly you've been given victory in Christ Jesus, but that doesn't mean the enemy is not after your mind and your heart in the process.

When we speak in tongues, we confuse the enemy.

But when we pray in the spirit, he is held back and restrained.

Come on.

Jesus.

Jesus.

When we speak in tongues, we pray with the words of the spirit.

This is important because this is what God is doing on our behalf.

Romans 8 says, likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought.

Anybody?

But the Spirit Himself intercedes with us with groanings too deep with words.

Huh?

That sounds weird.

And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

When you do not know what to pray, you can rest assured that the Spirit is interceding for you.

He's not afraid of speaking in tongues.

He's groaning, he's interceding with groans too deep for words.

That sounds bizarre, that sounds weird, but we're talking about the mysteries of heaven.

You're not gonna get it all the time.

But to know that the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God, and that Jesus is that they're together, it's like a stereo effect.

They're praying for us even now.

Thank you, God.

Woo! I don't know what to pray most of the time.

I'll just confess to you.

There's sometimes I just don't know what to pray.

I come before God and say, God, I don't know.

You you need I need your words and your thoughts.

So when we are given a language, a heavenly language, he shows us how to pray.

Are you guys with me this morning?

Okay.

So all that said, a couple things, you know, just to just to make sure that we're on the same page here.

And the worship team is gonna come, and we're just gonna we're gonna end our time here in just a little bit.

But um here's a couple things I just want to re-emphasize for us in the room.

Because again, I know in a in a room like this, some of you are like, uh I don't know where I land with this, right?

You got some good points, but I'm not sure what this means for me.

It's okay.

It's a no-pressure zone or anything like that.

What I hope that you've heard so far is first of all, that tongues is a legitimate gift of the Holy Spirit.

It's not a fringe gift of the Holy Spirit, that it's powerful and it should be desired.

Okay.

And some of you, maybe that's where you're at.

Maybe you have desired it, and it, but you just feel like you haven't entered into expression where that's part of it.

Well, here's my encouragement for you: continue to desire it and trust that the Holy Spirit wants to fill you up to overflowing, and it will come when it comes.

Okay?

There's no pressure to make it up, there's no pressure to hype yourself up, but there is a participation in saying, God, I am not going to stop you if I feel like you're you're bubbling up from the inside out.

It's part of the humility of coming before God saying, God, I want to walk with you in a way that I cannot control, because you cannot control the Spirit of God.

You can try, but you cannot control the Spirit of God.

But so what I'm saying is to posture yourself in a non-judgmental place, say, God, I want it.

And I'm trusting you.

I'm gonna exalt your name, Jesus.

I'm gonna worship you, I'm gonna praise your name.

And if this crazy thing called tongues comes to me, I'm in.

I'm in.

All right.

That's what I'm asking you to do.

Some of you are like not quite even sure if you want it.

Well, listen, I'm praying for you too, man, because you're missing out.

Does that sound too harsh?

No, listen, if you don't want it, the question is, why don't you want it?

Like what that could be from hurt, it could be for something somebody said to you, but as I'm saying, I pray for you that you want all the gifts of the Spirit.

I'm praying for you, because that's what Paul told us.

I pray that you earnestly desire these things, okay?

It's part of the fun, it's part of the joy of following God, all right?

And if you do have a prayer language, the gift of speaking tongues, I just want to say don't be ashamed about it.

Don't hide that.

You throw down when you need to throw down, all right?

Sometimes you'll hear it in and out of prayer circles here, and you uh this hopefully this is all helpful because you just need to know like that's the kind of stuff you're gonna be hearing around here, and that's okay.

We're not gonna hide that thing.

We'll always try to explain what's going on and invite people to be a part.

But listen, if you have been given the gift of tongues, just recognize again that it's a gift.

This is a good thing, and it's powerful.

It is powerful to confuse the enemy, it's powerful to demolish strongholds.

You don't go hide it.

Yeah, amp it up in your prayer closet, but you don't hide it.

Don't hide the fact you don't have to apologize that you're filled with the Spirit of God.

You don't have to apologize for doing something a little outside the box sometime.

And listen, I got to hear that message too, right?

I like to be pretty buttoned up, all right?

I like messages I can understand.

That's why I'm a teacher.

I like communicating in a way that people say afterwards, I understood what you're saying, right?

I have a high value for that.

I think Paul does too.

But what I'm saying here is there's mysteries of God that require us to take risks together.

And that's the kind of church we're gonna be.

So if you have a prayer language, that means do it.

And listen, for all of us though, there's times that there's time and time where we have to be stirred up in the spirit.

I don't have a passage for this, okay?

I don't have a scripture for this.

This is just coming from experience.

But it's like if you uh, you know, I I every morning I uh I get to get my fill up my water bottle and then I get my electrolyte mix, right?

And I pour it in because you gotta get the electrolytes, all right?

But pour in my electrolyte mix, but that doesn't actually mean it's it's in there yet, right?

Like the just because you put the mix in the thing, it's not, it doesn't hasn't saturated, it hasn't permeated all the way through.

What I have what do I have to do?

I gotta take that bottle, I gotta shake it up.

Sometimes you just gotta get you gotta get stirred up.

You gotta get stirred up in the spirit.

And some of you, the spirit of God is in you, but you have to stir yourself up, you have to pray in the spirit to remind yourself that he's still there, he's still inside of you.

I know that some of you are thinking, well, it sounds like, gosh, it sounds like I gotta hype things up.

That's not what I'm saying.

I'm I do think, though, there is an act of participation that sometimes you gotta praise your way in, praise your way into remembering who you are and who God is.

You gotta praise your way, you gotta sing your way back into the glory of God.

You gotta sing your way into the presence of God.

And that means that you don't feel it.

You're not, it doesn't feel authentic.

Well, you gotta get over that from time to time and say, I'm going the most authentic thing about me is what he says about me.

And if he's filled me with the Spirit, I'm going to give him glory and give him praise until the rest of my being catches up.

You gotta shake it up.

I don't, I don't, some of you, I'm not so so sure, you think that.

But I'm telling you, this is the beautiful thing of following Jesus.

When in in any time that Jesus is glorified and he's exalted, the Spirit of God rushes in.

And I want to pray for us today.

What we're going to do, we're just going to end with a time of praise.

We want to praise Jesus because He's given us a language.

He's given us His Spirit.

He's giving us a language that He's tuned to hear.

He's given us His gifts.

And I just I don't want it to be lost in our day of intellectualism and rationalism.

Sometimes I fear that it's so bizarre that we just want to shelf it and put it off to the side.

May we not be that church.

May we not be that.

If anything you hear today, it's that God has given Himself to us in a great measure for those of us who are willing to receive it.

So let's stand to our feet this morning and listen, we're just gonna we're gonna lift our voice to God.

We're gonna lift our voice in praise.

And maybe I think this is probably the best way just to end our time.

We're gonna sing some songs to make much of Jesus.

And if nothing else, some of you just need to sing the words on the screen and just actually sing them out and praise and let your voice be heard.

Some of you, as you're praising, you might notice the Spirit of God is getting and just bubbling up from within, and there's some stuff coming out of your mouth that you didn't even know was there.

That's okay too.

Nobody is judging you, nobody is checking a box or saying who's done it or who's done it right.

The main thing is that we are praising God together because he's worthy of everything.

Amen.

Amen.

So again, put your hand on your heart this morning.

God, I thank you this morning that you have given us your spirit.

I thank you for my brothers and sisters here today, that we are recipients of a great gift, God.

And as we end our time here, God, in praise, we thank you, Father, to let a shout of praise rise up from your people, Lord God, trusting that heaven hears us.

Heaven hears us today.

You have given us voices and you have given us tongues and you have given us a language that you can hear.

And so together, God, we say thank you, thank you, thank you.

In Jesus' name.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Let's praise.

Thank you, Father.

Thank you, D.

Thank you, Father.

Praise you, God, praise you, God.

Come on.

That's what we're made for, right there.

That's what we're made for, guys.

Listen.

You are filled with the Spirit of God and the praises of God.

Do not let it be tampered with, do not let it be diminished or pushed down.

This is who you are.

He's put a sound of praise inside of you.

Amen.

Amen.

Here's what we're gonna do as we end our time here.

We're gonna have some of our ministry team, our prayer team up front.

If you are here today and you're like, I need a fresh touch from God, I need somebody to lay their hands on me and pray for me, and maybe even to receive the gift of tongues.

Maybe that's a desire that you have.

We want to pray for you for that.

We just want to partner with the work of God in your life.

If that's you, do not be afraid.

Come forward, be filled with the Spirit of God so you can leave with the Spirit of God.

Amen.

And for the rest of us, like we just sang earlier, may the Lord bless you and keep you, may He make his face to shine upon you, may He be gracious to you and give you rest.

Go in the Spirit of God and the strength of the kingdom of God.

Love you guys.

Love you.