Gifts of The Spirit - Joel Schrock

Good morning. Also, I want to greet everyone in the

name of Jesus and welcome you here today. Appreciated those

thoughts on on can God versus God can and God

can fits pretty well with what we're talking about this morning.

Going to look this morning further at a topic that

I've been looking at, but it's kind of stretched over

the better part of a year here, so with some interruptions,

and that is different aspects of the Holy Spirit and

what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit,

what it looks like, and does it look the same

for everybody. It's maybe a question we'd ask. So I

think it is August since the last time I had

anything on this topic, and maybe February was the first.

And so going to just review a few things because

I think it's good just for the context of what

I'll be sharing this morning. And so one of the things,

one of the things we looked at is who is

the Holy Spirit? And I believe according to the Bible,

he's the third part of the Trinity Holy or completely God,

alongside the Father and the Son. And a few examples,

a few examples that were given before I'll give him

briefly again, that is in Genesis one, when God created

in Verses one, two, and three, I think we see

God working as one. But the three parts of the Trinity,

I believe are mentioned there. We have the Father creating

the world, the Spirit of God moving across the face

of the waters, and the world was spoken into existence

by the word of God, which we see in the

book of John. Is Jesus. We see when Jesus was baptized.

We see the three at work. Jesus was there in

the river being baptized. The Holy Spirit descended as a dove,

and the Father said, this is my beloved son. And

when Jesus gave his final instructions in Matthew to his disciples,

he said, go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing

them in the name of the Father, the Son, and

the Holy Ghost. Wasn't Gabriel or Michael or some prophet.

It was God. And we see the three there together. Again.

I'm not going to say that I have this pronunciation correct,

but the Holy Spirit is pracltose, and that is intercessor advocate, comfort,

or helper some of the ways that's translated. An example

of that is John fourteen sixteen, which i'll refer to

again later another part of this verse. But Jesus said,

and I will pray the Father, and he shall give

you another comforter It's in the King James, that'swe It's

given that he may abide with you forever. And then

we also see that the Holy Spirit is the promise

of the Father. It's a promise given from the Father

to his followers, to the followers of Jesus. Jesus said

in Luke twenty four to forty nine, and behold, I

send the promise of my Father upon you, but terry

in the city of Jerusalem until you be in due

with power from on high. So that's as many more

words versus we could look at. But that's who the

Bible says the Holy Spirit is. And that transitions us

to how do we receive the Holy Spirit? And there's

verses for all this, but I'm just going to briefly

mention a few things, and I'm sure there's more but

here and believe, repent and be baptized, and ask find

all those in the New Testament, And then what does

it look like? What does it look like when we're

filled with the Holy Spirit. I believe we see that

in look at the fruit of the spirit. We will

exhibit the fruit of the spirit, not fruits individually like

Gerald gets love and Ernest gets patience, and kind of

spread out like that. It's the fruit that grows out

of a follower of Christ in order to bear good fruit.

Believe that we need to be tapped in. Our roots

need to be tapped into to the water of the

Word of God, and our branches, our leaves are reaching

up to the grace of the sunshine of God. I

believe we are abiding in the Father and the Holy

Spirit is abiding enough, and as a result of that,

our fruit as such that people can say that we've

been with Jesus. If we dwell in the Father and

the Holy Spirit dwells in us, the natural fruit of

that will look like love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.

And so today I would like to look further at

something a little different. I think there's some overlap, and

that is spiritual gifts. So the gifts of the spirit,

so you can turn to these are mentioned a few

places in the New Testament. We'll look at one Corinthians twelve.

And it struck me as we look at the gifts

of the spirit spiritual gifts that we have sort of

two competing and yet complementary thoughts, and that is diversity

and unity. So these gifts different than fruit. The gifts

do seem to be individually given. Not that you only

get one gift necessarily, but it's not that we all

have exactly the same gifts. But it's for the unity

of the body we see. Now, I don't claim to

have very many answers on this subject, and there's some

contentions around the subject. I believe that anything said in

thirty forty minutes is going to leave more unsaid than said.

But I do think that there's some simple, clarifying truths

around the gifts of the spiritual gifts that could be

beneficial to look at. So I did I don't know

that anybody remembers, but I did read a few verses

from this chapter on the evening of council meeting. So

for those of you that were here going to there'll

be a little bit of overlap. That was not a message.

So I just kind of hit a couple of things,

but a little different focus. So going to start reading

one Corinthians twelve, going to read verses one through eleven

to start with here, starting in verse one. Now concerning

spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. You

know that you were gentiles carried away unto these dumb

idols even as you were led. Wherefore I give you

to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God.

And just as we read through this, if you just

notice the amount of times that the Spirit of God,

the Holy Spirit, is listed here and what's going on,

no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus

a cursed and that no man can say that Jesus's Lord,

but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts,

but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations,

but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations,

but it is the same God which worketh all in all,

but the manifestation of the spirit. Can anybody give a

simple what's a simpler word for manifestation? Anybody have one?

You know what manifestation is? Outworking? That's what comes to

my mind, okay, So outworking, any any other words come

to mind? Making known? Yep? Okay, So the making known

or outworking, the manifestation of the spirit is given to

every man to profit with all. So notice that for

to one is given by the spirit, the word of

wisdom to another, the word of knowledge by the same

spirit to another, faith by the same spirit to another,

the gifts of healing by the same spirit to another,

the workings of miracles to another, prophecy to another, descerning

of spirits to another, diverse kinds of tongues to another,

the interpretation of tongues. But all these worketh that one

and the self same Spirit, dividing to every man severally

as he will. And then Paul goes on to talk

about the body and how and we're not going to

read those verses or read some of those the other night.

But you know, it's just foolish to think that, you know,

the hand would say to the foot, I don't need you,

or to think that the entire body would be one

part of the body, like an entire eye. Like if

you're just an eye, and you know, you couldn't hear anything,

you can't smell anything, you couldn't walk anywhere. You just

be an eye, and that's all your function. So he

talks about the importance of individual members, but the body,

and so I'm going to read sort of the bookends

around that, So I'm going to read verse twelve. I'll

read verse twelve here, for as the body is one

and half many members, and all the members of that

one body being many, are one body, so also is Christ.

So then it goes on and talks about about that

how that works. The members in the body going to

jump to verse twenty four, kind of jump jumping in

here a little bit. But for our comely parts have

no need. But God hath tempered the body together, having

given more abundant honor to that part which lacked. That

there should be no schism in the body, but that

the members should have the same care one for another.

And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it,

or whether or one member be honored, all the members

rejoice with it. So I did I did mention the

other night. I'll just that I've learned some things recently

about the uncomely or unnoticed parts of the body being

important to the whole, and I'll just expand on that

just a little bit. So just to sort of touch

on this on this body being one tempered together another place,

I believe it's Ephesians talks about it is it an

Epheesians anyway, one of the other places it talks about

fitly joined together, bodies fitly joined together. So I tore

my ACL and my meniscus here a few couple of

months ago. So I'm just curious that. Well, the I

just saw the orthopedic surgeon last week and he said,

you know, he said, I don't know of one other

thing besides in his world, besides the ACL that has

been studied to death, Like he said, we have a

ninety seven percent success rate, and they're still studying there anyway.

But so we hear about that some. But how many

of you know what the ACL is and what it does?

Just a handful, okay, not more than about a handful.

How many of you know what the meniscus is and

what it does? About the same not many. Okay, these

are be like uncomely parts right like in the background.

You just don't see him if he did, they're not

good looking out of side of mind. So, the ACL

is a ligament, that's it's a ligament that connects the

femur or your thigh bone to the tibia, your shinbone. Right,

So well, we know what a leg is, right, we

most of us know what a femur is, we know

the bone, we know what our knee is, we know

what our kneecap is. But the acl is not any

of those things. In fact, it's not even the only

ligament that attaches those two bones. It's like one out

of four, Okay, it's the one that makes so they

don't slide over the other front and back, just out

of sight and out of mind until it's not there.

And the meniscus really is not connecting anything like that.

It's not ligament. It's cartilage joint, which is kind of

interesting when you read about the body and I think

that is Ephesians. But it's a shock absorber on your knees. Bones. Again,

you just don't think about it till you don't have it.

There's a couple of people in here that have bone

on bone issues, right, and you know about it. So

I had surgery a little over six weeks ago and

just was able to boot the crutches. This last week.

Gerald mentioned and I was reminded again. I was reminded

around the time of injury and surgery, but I was

reminded again how the body all works together, and let's

say suffers with each member. So you would think, you know,

basically around the knee, that's where the action's happening, or

the lack of action. That's not the only part that

that that's suffering. Let's say, so when I couldn't be

weight bearing, just had to stand on one foot, well,

that foot wasn't used to that. It was used to

about half of that, so so so that was something

to get used to. And now my right foot is

just pulling out a hibernation and it's like, you know

what's going on here, and you know, calf muscles, the

muscles above the knee, everything, everything's everything trying trying to

wake up, and it's just unhappy, you know, and can't

walk without olymp yet, so the back starts feeling it.

And this is not a complaining session, by the way,

I'm just delighted to be standing and and walking without crutches.

I'll take that any over the crutches and brace. Okay,

I'm just pointing out it's interesting that something something so

small and insignificant and hidden just affect your entire life,

your entire body. Anyways, Verse twenty five. The members should

have the same care one for another, no matter what

your gift is. This is after the list of gifts.

No matter what your neighbor's gift is. We can't say

I don't need you right my hand. Can't say well,

I'm just gonna walk over and grab that without you know,

we'll just forget about all the ligaments and cartilage and

we're just gonna walk over and because I can grab it,

I'm good to go. That's not the way it works, right.

So going to read now twenty seven through thirty of

one Corinthians twelve, and again I noticed the unity in

the diversity here. Now ye are the body of Christ.

That's the unity. That's one thing, and members diversity there

in particularly you have different functions. And God has set

some in the church first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers,

and as far as I know, that's the only place

we get ranked gifts and the apostles were specific people

in a specific time. There After that miracles and gifts

of healing helps governments. Diversities of tongues are all apostles,

are all prophets, are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles?

Have all the gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues?

Do all interpret, but covet earnestly the best gifts and

yet show on to you a more excellent way. Then

we go into the love chapter. So notice here that

again I mentioned this before, but the gifts of the

spirit differ from the fruit of the Spirit, in that

someone filled with the Holy Spirit will have that fruit

growing out of their lives. Spiritual gifts do differ from

individual the individual, and that's why I believe Paul really

focuses on the importance of the body and functioning together

because we're different, we have different gifts, and they're all important.

Paul emphasizes that it is in the Spirit, Lord and God,

which I believe is another reference to the Trinity that

grants these spiritual gifts. These gifts are given for the

good of the body and not for the individual. Look

at that more or later, I think. Here so a

couple questions that come to mind surrounding spiritual gifts. Maybe

the most simple basic one is who gives the gifts

of the spirit. Well, we just kind of covered that

and a simple answer, a correct answer would be God,

God gives the gifts of the spirit. But verses four

or six say Spirit, which I would take to be

the Holy Spirit. Verse five says Lord, which I would

take to be Lord Jesus. And verse six says God,

which I would take to be the Father. That is

where these that is where spiritual gifts come from. And

so who receives the gifts of the spirit, you know,

is this like well, a few lucky people, a few

really devout people who receives the gifts of the spirit.

Verse seven says, But the manifestation, there's that manifestation, out working,

the making known of the spirit is given to every

man to profit with awe. And this is in the

context verse thirteen of this chapter. Before by one spirit

are we all baptized into one body, wherever you've come from,

Jew or Greek, whatever. So in the context of baptized

followers of Jesus, the manifestation of the outworking of the

Spirit will be a part of all of our lives.

And I think a mental trap, I guess, I guess

it'd be a mental trap we could fall into, is

thinking that the Spirit is especially present when there's like

some specific, vivid outworking of the spirit. And we do here,

we do read. You know that Paul was full of

the Holy Spirit and said or did something right but

Jesus said again read this verse towards the beginning in

John fourteen six that he will send the comforter to

abide with us forever, and so to abide live in us,

be with us, be present at abiding. Another question we

could ask is, how do we know if these gifts

are from the Holy Spirit? How do we know if

it's a spiritual gift? Verse three lays out kind of

an interesting framework here says you cannot have the spirit

of God and blasphem Jesus. Those two are incompatible. And

on the flip side, understanding and calling Jesus' Lord comes

from the Holy Spirit. So I don't think that it's

saying that you know somebody couldn't be living in sin

and know that Jesus's Lord have that knowledge. But I

believe that this is a test of the spirits and

spiritual gifts. Does the proclaimed gift glorify Jesus's Lord? Does

it line up with the care and teaching of Jesus.

If not, it's not a gift to the spirit. When

Jesus was on earth in John fifteen and sixteen, he

said that the Holy Spirit would testify of him when

it came when he came and that it would glorify him. Right,

So the working, the outworking, will be a testifying to

and glorifying of Jesus Christ. So what is the purpose?

We've touched on this a little bit, what is the

purpose of these gifts? Well again, verse seven says that

the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man

to profit withal. It's for the prophet of everyone of

the group. So while there are diversities of gifts, the

emphasis on one body and unity is clear here. The

end of the chapterhould there should be no schism. In

verse twenty five, we should have the same care one

for another. In verse twenty six, if one member suffers,

all members should suffer with it. And we can wrap

our minds around that and understand that, and that makes sense.

But the next one should maybe look at if one

member is honored, all members should rejoice with that member.

Sometimes I think pride could get in the way of that.

But I want to look now at Ephesians Ephesians four,

and I'm going to read so Ephesians is another place

that it lists off gifts of the spirit, and I'd

like to read from this. Verse twelve comes right after

that list in Ephesians there and so what are the

gifts for it says four verse twelve Ephesians four vers. Twelve,

For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of

the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

So there's some fors, Okay, I'm going to keep reading

till we all come in the unity of faith and

the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man,

unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Henceforth we be no more children tossed to and fro,

and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the

slight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in

weight to deceive. And I'll just point out here that

the subject of spiritual gifts, I believe has at times

been used in a way that has tossed people to

and fro. And that's not from the spirit of God

I believe, we see verse fifteen. But speaking the truth

and love may grow up into Him and all things

which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole

body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every

joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure

of every part maketh increase of the body into the

edifying of itself and love. So what is a purpose

purpose Verse twelve. It's the perfecting of the saints, It's

for the work of the ministry, It's for the edifying

of the Body of Christ. So one thing I think

we should notice is that no spiritual gift is given

for the advancement of the individual. When you see and

hear about people doing amazing things miracles, speaking in tongues, healing,

posting videos on YouTube and getting clicks and likes and

stuff of that sort of thing, I would say beware.

And I know evangelist sermons are sometimes posted to platforms

like that, and I think that can be done in

the right spirit, I think, But ask yourself, is it

for the perfecting of the saints? Is it for the

work of the ministry? Is it for the edifying of

the Body of Christ? Does it lift up Christ? Does

it lift up the individual? And Christ uses individuals no doubt.

You read through the New Testament, there's a lot about Paul,

there's a lot about Peter doing different things, but they

always pointed the way to to Christ. And so what

are the gifts of the spirit. What are the spiritual gifts?

I don't think there's any place that gives like an

exhaustive list, but we can get a good idea. There

are a few lists in the New Testament, but I

would just like to point out that, and I could

be I'm open to being challenged and corrected on this.

I believe that rather than some mysterious thing out in

the sky that possibly we can attain, the gifts of

the spirit are most often practical gifts that should be

used for the glory of God and not hidden or

for the glory of the individual. So from the first

part of Corinthians First Corinthians, there that we read twelve

we have the Word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith,

gifts of healing, working of miracles, prophecy, decerning of spirits,

diverse kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues. And from the

end of that chapter we have apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles,

gifts of healing, helps, government's diversity of tongues. There's some

repeats there. From Romans twelve we get prophecy, ministering, teaching, exhortation, giving, ruling,

and mercy. From Ephesians four we get apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors,

and teachers. So it's quite a list, and it's quite

a bit of overlap. But it's interesting, you know, if

you just listen to them all out, you know, helps

and mercier right in there with miracles and prophecy, maybe

not quite as glamorous. So another way, another way to

list them is maybe I did an imperfect categorization of

these gifts. So there's probably other and maybe better ways

to do this. But what do the gifts that have

to do with preaching and teaching prophesying we could say

be in there. And the list I came up with

for that from these three chapters was the Word of wisdom,

the Word of knowledge, prophecy, apostles, teachers, exhortation, evangelists and

pastors and so you know, like usual, when you try

to put things in boxes, they don't all quite fit.

But I think it can be helpful to look at

things this way sometimes. And so the teaching and preaching

of the Gospel is a large focus, there's no question

about that, and many followers of Jesus will have gifts

related to this in some way. Some are good evangelists,

good speakers, words come easily and naturally. Others are maybe

better at leading a group, being a pastor a shepherd.

Others are maybe better at just practical teaching. And still

others may or may not have a gift of speaking,

but they're blessed with a word of wisdom, a word

of knowledge. Decisions need to be made. The church comes

to some crossroad and have a word of wisdom. The apostles,

that's one mentioned before. I believe that was a specific

group of people in this specific time. Now, the gift

of prophecy, as to understand it, could be interpreted divinely

inspired speech. So we think of prophecy as predictions, which

it would include that. As someone said, I'm not sure

who it was. If one will either claim or receive

the title of prophet today, let them be held to

the standard of a prophet one hundred percent accuracy in

every word and their reference. Deuteronomy eighteen says that's how

you can tell a true prophet from a false one.

And there's been a lot of false prophets in the church,

and a lot of predictions that didn't happen. We'll read

about that. Agabus is one I don't know that we

hear much about him otherwise. But he prophesied about a

dearth and the land, and that was a prediction, which

we'll get to that in a little bit. But another way,

this could be looked at as an indication of the

will of God in a situation. One Corinthians fourteen to

three says, but he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification.

So there's the purpose and exhortation and comfort. So whatever

the case, we know that it is for the benefit

of the body. So then there's a group of gifts

that just look like practical things. Right. We have helps, governments, ministering, giving, ruling,

and this list is maybe easy to overlook when we

talk about spiritual gifts, you know, like as giving spiritual gifts, governments,

what does that mean? Think it helps? You know, you

look at helps seems to be along the lines of

ministry to the poor and needy. That would be one

way to look at it. I think we have the

apostles talking about, you know, they can't do the preaching

and attend the tables. Let's get some deacons here, some

help and governments, you know, organization for plans and programs

in spiritual important thing. Spurgeon on helps. He says, it

strikes me that they were not persons who had any

official standing, but that they were only moved by the

natural impulse and the divine life within them to do

anything in everything which would assist either teach your pastor

or deacon in the work of the Lord. They are

the sort of brethren who are useful anywhere, who can

always stop a gap, and who are only too glad

when they find that they can make themselves serviceable to

the Church of God in any capacity, whatever extremely extremely

beneficial gift to the body. And then there's ones we

could say and these are all spiritual gifts, but along

the lines of I have it labeled as spiritual, and

that is we have faith deserning of spirits mercy. I

suppose the divers tongues and interpretation of tongues could be

in here, but I have those listed somewhere else. And

I think there's a difference here, maybe a subtle difference

between the fruit and gifts and something like faith in mercy.

I think all Christians need faith, right, that is something

If we don't have faith, we can't really put our

trust in Jesus, right, So faith is something all Christians need.

How many of Jesus' disciples had some faith in him,

probably all of them, at least to some level. How

many of them walked on water? Now he also, you know,

started sinking, but he knew her to call out for

help too. We probably all know the story some level

of George Mueller. I have just a couple things from

some interesting things about George Mueller. He was born in

Germany what was Pressia then, and at the age of ten,

he began stealing from his father's I understand, and pretty

soon he was stealing from his friends other people. He

was a wicked young boy. Man was off gambling and

playing cards as his mother was dying. When he was fourteen.

As I understand, he is in jail by the time

he was sixteen. I believe he had a conversion experience

something around the age of fi twenty and by the

age of thirty one, I believe he moved to England

and he started an orphanage in England in a time

of great poverty in the eighteen hundreds. Here's some things

about him. He did not take a salary, he did

not get any government assistance. He never took out a

loan or went in debt. He did not ask anyone

for money. He just asked God for money and things.

And that did not change when he began running five

orphanages or when he opened one hundred schools. He stayed

the same. By current dollar estimations, he would have received

and distributed over one hundred and fifty million dollars from

unsolicited donations. Never asked for a penny. A pretty familiar story.

I'll just read it here short. Probably you've all heard it,

but it's a powerful story. One morning, the plates and

cups and bulls on the table were empty. There was

no food in the larder and no money to buy food.

The children were standing waiting for the morning meal when

Mueller said, children, you know that we must spend time

for school. Lifting his hand, he said, dear father, we

thank THEE for what thou art going to give us

to eat. I don't know where I had that, but

oh yeah, I don't know how many people he had

at one time, but over his lifetime he would have

helped something like ten thousand orphans. So there was a

knock at the door. The baker stood there and said,

mister Mueller, I couldn't sleep last night. Somehow I felt

you didn't have bread for breakfast, and the Lord wanted

me to send you some. So I got up at

two am and baked some fresh bread and have brought it.

Mueller said thank you. And no sooner had this transpired,

when there was a second knock at the door. It

was the milkman. He announced that his milk cart had

broken down right in front of the orphanage and he

would like to give the children his cans of fresh

milk so that he could empty his wagon and repair it.

So that was one story. He journaled a lot, and

there were they were just down to nothing, and he

happened to bump into somebody that gave him ten pounds,

you know, which is well, that was a significant amount

back then, and the one time even somebody had it

in their mind to give him ten pounds, he just

didn't have it until he just got enough to give

it to him. And that was right when they're out

of money. I'll not read anymore for the sake of

time here, but that's a gift of faith, and it's miraculous,

which leads me to, like I say, there's overlap with

all these the miraculous we have the gifts of healing,

the working of miracles, diverse kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues,

and I suppose, depending how you look at it, you

could put prophecy here. And here's probably where the most

contentions are in modern Christianity, the tantalizing possibility of the

Divine power in our grasp to assure us and others

that we have the Holy Spirit living in us. So

divine works. I don't, I don't, we don't have time,

and I don't plan to die very deep in here,

but I do believe that the Divine is still at

work today. And you know, probably none of us this

morning woke up with absolutely nothing and actually needed to

rely on the Lord for what we were going to eat.

Other than in a broad sense we rely on the Lord.

But I know of missionaries, and you would recognize the

names running into in third world countries, Satan worshipers. And

true power of the evil power and the power of

God was expressed through miraculous happenings and protection. But these

people were humble about these experiences. They were physically and

spiritually and mentally exhausted in the aftermath. They weren't posting

fantastical things to social media platforms or broadcasting. The only

time that I heard any of the family speak about

it was for the edification and increased faith of the

brothers in Christ. Now there are those that view speaking

in tongues as a test of the Holy Spirit living

in you, and there's others that assign evil spirits to it,

or at least label it as foolishness at a minimum.

So this sermon is not unspeaking in tongues, But I'll

make just a couple observations here. One, the miraculous speaking

in tongues happen collectively multiple times in the New Testament,

and those cases seem to be related to a new

group of people receiving the Holy Spirit. We have the

Disciples of Jesus who were Jews. We have Gentiles, Cornelius

the Centurion, Peter was there. We have the Samaritans, and

we have the Disciples of John in Ephesus, John the

Baptist probably also Jews, I presume. So you have different

people groups, and as far as I know, those are

the only recorded places where you have like the whole

group of people receiving the Holy Spirit speaking in tongues,

and it seems like, at least with the with the Gentiles,

with the Centurion and that group, the it was for

the benefit of the Jews to see that they received

it just like we did at the beginning. In general,

it seems that the edification of speaking in tongues was

in praising God and not edifying the group. One Corinthians

fourteen to two says, for he that speaketh in an

unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God. So

is it for today speaking in tongues for today? I'm

not going to give a definitive answer right now, but

if the first thing I know about you is that

you speak in tongues, I'll be pretty suspicious. My wife

got to know somebody pretty well that eventually, after a

lot of talking and weeks, told her that she speaks

in tongues when she prays. She was discreet about it,

said it was a gift that she feels she needs

to exercise, but doesn't believe it's everybody's gift, and it's

not part of public worship. Not going to cast a

judgment on that. It was an interesting, interesting conversation, but

it was not the first thing he knew about that person.

That's for sure. In the Early Church, we associate the

coming of the Holy Spirit of speaking in tongues, and

that's correct. But when it's interesting that as people are

introduced to the New Testament, Stephen, he's introduced and they

said he's full of the Holy Spirit. And I didn't

say miracles, even though some of the some of those

deacons ended up performing miracles, didn't say speaking in tong

said he was full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom.

That's what he was full of. Barnabas, same thing, He's

filled with the Holy Spirit and faith. That's the first

thing listed when it introduces Barnabas. And these men exhibited

these other gifts. But these are the things that were

mentioned first. I mentioned Agabus. He prophesied of a great

dearth in the land. But this was given for the

good of the body. Again, this is not to lift

himself up the brethren, where he was determined to send

relief to those in Judea who didn't have maybe as

much as they did. It's for the good of the body.

Paul had various gifts of the spirit, you could say

spiritual gifts. As you look at his ministry and you

notice Paul performed. Actually a lot of miracles there. They're

they're there by the power of God. They're not all

listed out. He spoke in tongues, he said, but his

ministry was to preach the Gospel. And so I think

we need to keep these things in perspective. Just in

closing here, in the hearing of the gospel, the believing

and repenting, that's what brings salvation or baptized into Jesus,

the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

And as we live the life of repentance, the fruit

of the Spirit will grow out of us from our lives,

I believe. And as we live a life following Christ,

we will individually manifest gifts of the Spirit for the

perfecting of the saints, the work of the ministry, and

the edifying of the body of Christ. God bless you.