Acts: Tongues and Money!

Well, good morning.

So you picked a great Sunday to be here because this morning we're going to talk about speaking in tongues and money on the same Sunday.

It was a horrible idea that I had earlier this week to try to do this both in the same Sunday, but I figured at some point we got both these issues, they're both really difficult.

Let's just make one Sunday really awkward for all of us and very difficult.

Now, so some of you have been in churches and you've had great experiences with churches teaching about money because it helped you free you from greed, uh helped you learn to save, uh helped you become a giver.

It's been incredible for you.

Now, others of you have been in churches and every time they talked about money, it just felt like a beatdown in some way, right?

And so you've had a range of experiences.

Now, as well on this other issue, the speaking in tongues, some of you aren't even sure what it is, so we'll talk about that.

Others of you have been in churches where that was practiced, and maybe you practice it.

And now the others of us, uh, you've been in churches where it was taught that it was a charade, it's not real, it has no uh no effect in today's life.

So we're gonna look at both these things in Acts chapter 2, sort of an overview of these two.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Um so if you remember where we've been, if you remember where we've been the past two weeks, Peter, this really wimpy kind of disciple, I mean, he was he was one of the wimpiest really.

And all of a sudden, in the beginning of Acts, as Christ ascends, the Spirit of God comes on Peter, and he's transformed, he becomes a different guy.

I mean, he just becomes emboldened in a way that he's never been before.

He preaches this great sermon.

This is the beginning of the church, right?

We said last week this is why your grandma's Baptist Church exists, this is why we exist, this is why the Catholic Church exists.

It exists all because this happened here at the beginning of Acts.

And so Peter preaches this great sermon to a bunch of religious folks.

I mean, people who are trying to be enough, be good enough, maintain their standing with God, with their kind of righteousness report and how good they are.

And these are tired people because anytime you get into that, you're a tired person.

So what a relief, what a relief this would have been for these people to hear that Jesus truly was enough.

Jesus, his work, his sacrifice truly was enough for their guilt, their shame, their sin.

Not only that, but also their righteousness.

So it wasn't just like you're forgiven and hey, hit the treadmill.

Like you gotta, you gotta be really, really, really, really good to maintain this thing with God.

It was like, no, Jesus is enough for your forgiveness and your righteousness.

So this was incredible.

So no wonder in Acts 2, verse 37, it says, now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart.

Acts 2:37

Of course.

Of course they were cut to the heart.

These are an exhausted people bound up in religiosity and in law.

So this is the beginning of the movement that we call the New Testament church, the Christian church.

So a few points to guide us this morning as we make our way through these two issues.

The first is this there is everything that surrounds something, and then there's the something.

Okay, so there's everything that surrounds something, and then there's the something.

So think about it this way: you see a picture of your friend Brenda on Instagram, and her boyfriend Brad is next to her, but she's holding up her left hand ring finger, and she has on a ring.

And you saw the picture one day and you go, Oh my gosh, I didn't know they got engaged.

That's incredible.

And she writes, look what happened.

And you don't know any of the details though, but you're excited for her.

You're really, you want to know.

You're her friend, a really, really good friend.

And so you're thinking, like, what did he say?

How did that moment play out?

What did you feel like?

What are your plans?

You want to know all the information.

And so you call Brenda right away.

You're like, hey, what happened?

What happened?

And she says, Oh, we went and ate at the Optimus down in Atlanta, and I had a great lobster roll.

And you're like, okay, yeah, I know about the lobster roll at the Optimus.

But what happened?

I saw a picture of you and Brad, and I saw the ring.

What, Brenda, what happened?

And she said, Oh, yeah, after the lobster roll, we went for a walk in Piedmont Park, and there's a little boy, and he was learning to ride his bike with his dad, and the little boy sort of got out over a hill and kind of went down a grassy hill and he fell over, but he fell over next to Brad, and Brad was so sweet and kind of picked the boy up until the dad came and oh, it was so great.

And he's like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, Brenda.

I don't care about the lobster roll.

I don't care about the boy riding the bike.

What happened?

I saw the picture of you and the ring.

What happened?

And at this point, you know, Brenda's just messing with you.

Right?

You know this.

She's just messing with you.

She's dodging you.

And you're frustrated, right?

Like the more she dodges, the more you get frustrated.

She's talking about everything around the thing.

So you're not liking this.

Because Brenda will give you all that surrounds something, but never give you the something.

Okay.

I think, just my thoughts, I think there's a lot of frustration when it comes to an issue like speaking in tongues and money, because they are the things that surround the something.

And when we sense that issues like this become dominant rather than in service to the gospel, then we feel like we're being manipulated in some way.

And we get repelled from that.

So because of point number one, there is stuff that surrounds something, meaning there's issues in Christian life like speaking in tongues and money.

There's these issues that surround something.

But then there's the something, and the something's the gospel.

So because of that, we have point number one.

That's our starting point.

There's the something, and then there's stuff that surrounds the something.

So we're united from the very beginning of this conversation.

Now, this sermon is going to be choppy, I'll admit it.

It's probably not a good sermon.

Let's just go ahead and admit that.

It's not going to flow, it's not going to be some beautiful masterpiece.

We got part one, speaking in tongues, part two, money.

We're going to accept it from the beginning, and I'm going to make a feeble attempt at the end to tie all this together.

So, Acts 2, 1 through 4.

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 as a fire appeared to them and rested on each of them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

So point number two is this the church began with signs to validate the gospel.

The church began with signs to validate the gospel.

My sophomore year of college was my first experience with speaking in tongues.

I remember I was 19 years old.

I was in a chapel of a student ministry on the campus of the school I went to, and we're in that chapel, and it was a worship and a prayer service, and we're worshiping, and then we moved into a time of prayer.

And sitting there, I can remember sitting there.

I was on the left side, about halfway up, and I can remember the back right corner.

I just started to hear like a gibberish, is what I heard.

Just that's what I heard was gibberish.

And it just went on for a while, and it went on loud enough for everybody to hear and kind of get quiet.

And then the pastor stopped and he got up and he said, Will anybody interpret what was just spoken?

And another person stood up and spoke what seemed to be to me sort of like a psalm, is what it sounded like to me.

And so for me, as an incredibly cynical person, I just go ahead and say, I am a skeptical, cynical person about pretty much everything.

And so for me, I'm sitting there, I'm going, we could have read a psalm.

We could have just opened it up and read a psalm.

It would have been the same thing.

That's what I was thinking.

But my cynicism doesn't ultimately matter here.

What ultimately matters is the text.

So this speaking in tongues here in Acts 2, it seems to be people speaking in different languages, but then hearing it in their own language.

But then there's also the speaking in tongues, which it seems to be sort of like a coded language or a heavenly language, an angelic language, which then is sort of like a non-language, and then people can interpret it, or it's like their prayer language.

Okay, so here's how it breaks down.

Like if you get into the study of it, and I'll break it down to like ultra, ultra simple because I like things to be simple.

Some people believe that this phenomenon existed during the time of the church starting to validate the church and then it ended.

Some people believe that.

Other people believe that this gift continues to keep going, and that's why you go into some churches and there's no speaking in tongues, and then you go into other churches, probably Pentecostal churches, and there are speaking in tongues occurring.

So what you basically have is you have people who say yes.

Let's just categorize yes.

They speaking in tongues, keep going.

Yes.

Speak it, go for it, yes.

It never stopped.

And then you have another group of people that say, no.

It stopped with early church, it's emotionalism, don't go for it.

So I don't know where you are on that issue.

You can study it, you can probably work that out, you can read a lot of books on it.

I would say personally, I, um you don't have to agree with me, I am a no, but you know, like I don't want to say like it could never happen.

I'm like, no, but I'm open.

I'm not gonna close the door.

Meaning I'm not gonna rule out the legitimacy of speaking in tongues for anybody or any church, but I also don't see a huge benefit for it.

Maybe you're here and you believe differently.

And you would go the other way.

You would say, yes.

We're glad you're here.

Or you would say, yes, but, right?

Like there's a range here to be in.

Where I think we can meet up, no matter what, where you are, we can meet up and say, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12.

1 Corinthians 12, he says, hey, we're all given different gifts.

They're all from the same spirit, so we can meet up there.

And then he says in chapter 13, usually we hear this read in weddings, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

So something superior to any gift.

And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned and have not love, I gain nothing.

So here's my pastoral advice.

Whether you go to church here, you go to church somewhere else.

Here's my pastoral advice.

If you walk into a church and the church has no interest in the spirit working, go somewhere else.

Okay?

Number one.

Number two, if you walk into a church and the church's idea of the spirit working is constantly on gifts and having enough faith to somehow warrant a gift, go somewhere else.

Okay, part two, money.

All right, there we go.

That was speaking in tongues.

Broad overview.

Part two, giving, money.

Uh, verse 44, Acts 2, 44.

And all who believed were together and had all things in common.

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

So point number three is the church began with giving as a fruit of the gospel.

So it's still not the something in the middle, it's it's something on the outside.

The something in the middle creates us.

The gospel creates the generous heart.

The church began with giving as a fruit of the gospel.

So this week I tried to pay attention to my thinking about money.

This is very easy for me to do because I think about money a lot.

It is very easy for me.

Here's what I learned this week.

Just trying to think about how when I think about money, what am I thinking about?

It is very easy for me to think about saving money.

I love to save money.

I love to buy a stock.

I love to buy a mutual fund.

I love it.

I love when, especially in the last year and a half, when my financial statement comes at the end of the month, and I get to open it up and I get to see how much it went up.

I love it.

It is easy for me to do this.

And yet it can be very painful.

And it has taken a marriage of 13 years for me to get over this issue to spend some money.

That has actually been very hard for me.

Now, why?

Why am I like this?

And maybe you're like that.

When I describe that, you're like, that's me.

Or maybe you're not like that, you're like something else.

But why am I like this?

Well, I love to feel like I'm in control.

And I think if I save enough money that no matter what happens, I'll be okay.

Because at least I have that to be there for me.

So I can control all things by just having enough.

Now maybe it's reverse for you, right?

Like you spend money easily on clothes, right?

Because you love to look good and you love people to see you, and you love when people say you look good, and you love to look important.

And so money, money being spent on clothes, very easy.

It's very easy for you.

It's just not that hard.

You can actually do that quite naturally.

Or maybe it's easy for you to spend money on toys, like you really needed the fourth four-wheeler.

You know, the first three, we need a fourth one, because whatever, right?

Like it because you love toys.

At the end of the day, you just want to have something to escape into.

So these are all tendencies.

We all have them, right?

In some way when it comes to money.

It's but then it's easy for a tendency to tip over, just to shift, and it tips over, and when it tips over, it becomes an idol.

When it becomes an idol, then you don't own it, it owns you, and you work for it.

And you can always tell the truth because our giving to the poor and to the church or to some cause which is unseen and unselfish will reveal how much other idols have us bound up in greed.

Tim Keller says this about greed.

You don't have to say to somebody, watch out, you might be committing adultery.

If you're committing adultery, you know you're committing adultery.

You don't say, Oh, you're not my wife.

But Jesus is his quote.

But Jesus has to say, watch out.

You might be greedy.

Because greed hides itself.

It blinds you.

About a year ago, we were with Christian and with some really great friends of ours, just beloved friends of ours, and we're spending a few days with them.

And I would guess they make 20 times our yearly income.

And we're hanging out with them and we're with them, and we're talking about something, and then they started to talk about some of their friends, who very clearly, those friends made about 20 times a year what they make.

And what was also clear was that they thought that those people were wealthy, but they didn't necessarily think they were wealthy, yet I think that they are wealthy.

Right?

And it hit me that then there's somebody in this world that thinks I am wealthy, but I don't think that I'm wealthy.

So nobody feels wealthy.

There's always somebody else to compare to.

And so then what happens is rarely do we walk in the spirit of freedom and discernment when it comes to money, and rarely do we ever ask questions like, should my money really be going toward that?

Do I need that many of that?

Rarely do we ask questions like, how can I give to that nonprofit whose cause has always interested me?

How can I give regularly to my faith community?

In Acts chapter 20, Paul's leaving some friends of his.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

He's leaving a church, a group of people, he went to hell.

This is his moment.

He's leaving them.

So it's a moment to speak final words, right?

A final word moment.

In verse 32, he says, I commend you to God.

So he's leaving them.

He says, I hand you over, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

So he says, Hey, the way that you're going to get built up is not by you just being enough and doing enough and doing more and more and more.

It's by the word of his grace, because that will transform your heart, it will free you, and the fruit of the gospel will come forth.

And then he says this remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.

So Paul's saying right here in Acts 20, love this.

Paul is saying, you're not saved, you're not a Christian, you're not a good Christian, a bad Christian.

I mean, you're not a Christian based on giving money away.

Or any other good word.

It's the word of grace toward you in Jesus the Christ who died on a cross, taking your sin, giving you his righteousness, and you are fully beloved in God's sight.

That is what makes you a Christian.

I commend you to God and to the word of grace.

I hand you over, that's where your life of freedom will be.

And by the way, remember the words of Jesus, it's more blessed to give than to receive.

Last point, which I think is Paul's point here in Acts 20, and I also think it's the point in 1 Corinthians 12 and 13, and I think this is where the speaking in tongues and the money can meet together.

Point number four.

You don't build your life on signs given for the gospel, and you don't build your life on fruit of the gospel.

You give your life over to the gospel.

Don't build your life on how much you give away or any other moral or righteousness record you keep for yourself to try to feel more and more important or more and more beloved by God based on your record.

The gospel is not you being enough or trying to maintain enough or having enough faith as to be right with God today or tomorrow.

The gospel is though you are not enough, that you don't give enough money away, that you are greedy, and I am greedy, and we don't have enough faith, and we're messed up, and we're not perfect, and we're really trying, but then we're still messed up, and then we have sin in our lives, and we need to repent, and even that's difficult for us.

The gospel is saying, because all that's true, and we're struggling with all of this, God perfectly loves you.

And we know this in the work of Christ, who took on our sin and gives us his righteousness, so we are his forever, secure and beloved.

So, my brothers and sisters, may the Spirit do great work in your hearts as you rest solely in Christ's work for you, for He is enough for you.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your great love for us.

That you are enough for us, that we are a people who don't we never have enough faith.

Thank you that we have the freedom that we can confess that over to you, but your love for us is enough.

While we don't have perfect faith, you have perfect love for us.

While our work is not enough, we will never have a moral record or spiritual record that is that's enough for you, that you came toward us, and the person and the work of Jesus is enough for us, and that you can even free us from our love of money.

Would you show us in our hearts the way that we are greedy?

That we might just be free, that you might create in us a freedom and may we walk in your spirit with greater discernment and greater freedom, that we might honor you in Christ's name.

Amen.