#The Holy Spirit brings...A new prayer language

A privilege this morning to open up God's Word together.

And so if you've got your Bible with you either in the original

book version or in some kind of digital device, now is your

moment to produce it. We're continuing a series that

we've been doing for, I don't know, several weeks called

Impact, which is really looking at how a group of really, really

ordinary people ended up changing the world.

And so we're working our way through the book of Acts, and

we're just pausing wherever the Holy Spirit is mentioned.

And we're looking at what was really going on for those people

in that place and therefore what it might mean for us in our time

in our place. And we've reached really the

ultimate mention of the Holy Spirit in the whole of the

Bible, the day of Pentecost. And so if you've got your Bible

with you, we're going to be first of all in Acts chapter 2

Acts 2 · chapter mention

and later on one Corinthians 14, if you want to be like super

eager and on it, but let's just read together.

Well, I say read together. I'm going to read.

You're going to listen. Acts chapter 2, verse one says

Acts 2 · chapter mention

this. When the day of Pentecost came,

they were all together in one place.

Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came

from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated

and came to rest on each of them.

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.

If if you're the kind of person who likes to like, circle

things, underline things in your Bible, all would be a good one.

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak

in other tongues or other languages as the Spirit enabled

them. Now they were staying in

Jerusalem, God fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.

When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in

bewilderment because each one heard their own language being

spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked on

all these Who are speaking Galileans?

Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native

language? And that's our scripture for

this morning. So now that we've got to know

each other a little bit over the last few weeks, I feel like it's

a kind of a safe and secure place to be able to share with

you that when I was 15 years old, I stayed the night.

I slept in a public toilet. And the reason like there is a

bit of a back story to that. I didn't just randomly one night

think I know what I'm going to do.

I, I was a scout. Do we have any scouts in the

room? You know, DIB, DIB, DOB, DOB.

I like I was in the scouts and, and it was a kind of a rite of

passage that basically we, we were driven me and some friends

to a car park at the bottom of a mountain.

And it was like, OK, you've got three days to get home and, and

it's like 50 miles away back to the youth hostel where we were

staying. You got, you got 3 days.

And so off we went. And, and I was like, right,

let's get the map. Let's have a look at where we're

going. And my friend David was like,

no, no, no, we don't need a map. What do we need the map for?

He said, I was here a few weeks ago with my family.

I know exactly which way we're going.

It's this way. And off he went.

And I was like, guys, could we just please look at the map?

And he was like, I don't need the map.

I know where I'm going. So off we went up the mountain

and maybe like two or three hours later, he's looking

slightly less certain of the then he knows the way and the,

the clouds were starting to come in and you could hardly see your

hand in front of your face and the wind was really getting up

and and then it started to get dark and we and I was like,

could we please just look at the map?

He was like, I think I know the way.

I was like, no, no, honestly, I really think we need to look at

the map. And eventually it was properly

dark. We had no idea where we were and

and we met this old man who's probably about the age I am now.

And, and he said, he said, listen, you guys, I can tell

you're lost and this is quite dangerous now.

And so he basically took us down the mountain.

He took us to his van. He put us in the van, He drove

us to civilization and he left us there and we started to put

up our tent, But to be honest, we were absolutely exhausted.

And then just as we looked up, we realized that he dropped us

just outside the public toilet and, and we were like, well, we

could put up the tent or we could just use this shelter

that's already been provided. And, and so, so we, so we went

into the gents and it absolutely stank.

And, and there was an inch of what we'll call water, but

wasn't really water on the ground, but we were like, it's

still better than being outside. And so we slept the night on the

floor of this public toilet. And then the worst part of the

whole experience was the next day we realised, do you know

what? Let's go and have a look at the

ladies. And we went to the ladies.

There were cut flowers. There was like, you know, it was

beautifully warm. It was just like, oh, I can't.

And that's basically the story of my life unfolding right

there. But you might be wondering what

my point is. And to be honest, I need to look

at my notes to remember what my point is.

Thank God he's given us the map. There you go, That was the

point. Thank God.

There you go. Very good, very good.

Thank God he's given us the map. You know, we, we don't have to

spend our lives wandering around in the dark wondering what a

Christian should be or, or how we're to live or, or what it

looks like to be a Christian in different environments.

Because God has given us the map.

He's given us this book. And I think what we're supposed

to do with this book is instead of being super self confident

and like, oh, I think I know the way.

I'm, I'm pretty sure I know the way.

I don't need to look at the map. Instead, day by day, we're

supposed to re examine the map and we're not supposed to come

to the map with all kinds of assumptions and preconceptions

and self-confidence. I think we're supposed to

approach the map with humility. Like, Lord, I, I'm not sure I do

know the the way and even if I think I do, I just want to

check. And so really what we're going

to find ourselves doing as Christians day by day is saying

what does the text actually say rather than what I think the

text says, What does the text actually say?

And how am I going to go about applying that to my life?

And today we're going to do that with this extraordinary

phenomenon that appears in this text that we just read.

The whole concept that when the Holy Spirit comes into our lives

and into our bodies and we're filled afresh with the Holy

Spirit, there is a chance that we might find ourselves speaking

a language that we haven't learnt before, that nobody's

taught us. The Bible calls that the gift of

tongues or praying in tongues or speaking in tongues.

And we're going to look at that this morning.

Now let me just say to you, if you're new into church and

you're thinking, I knew it, these guys are all nutters.

You know, I would understand why you might think that.

But what I want to say to you is you came here today and maybe

you came to Hatfield or Hemel. You came here today because

you're looking for a power that will change your life.

And so all I'm trying to do today is introduce you to the

kind of power that might really change how you live and why you

live. And so that's what we're going

to do today. And just to warn you, I'm going

to go a bit deep this morning. There will probably be less gags

than usual, but that's OK. There are more gags next week.

And so I just feel like it's important to just kind of

address this. Do you know what?

Just by way of a gag, you know, it was quite funny when I was

typing my talk into my laptop. You know, when you get the word,

the the spelling slightly wrong and it says did you mean?

And so I, I typed in badly the gift of tongues and it said, did

you mean the gift of fondue, which I thought was really

funny. So we're not going to despise

the gift of fondue this morning, but we are mainly speaking about

the gift of tongues. So what is actually happening in

this text? The Holy Spirit comes on, these

disciples, 120 of them in the upper room, and the next thing

that happens is that they find themselves speaking in other

tongues. And if you're the kind of person

who likes to make sure you understand everything really

well, you might find it helpful. If you've got the NIV version,

for example, that I'm using this morning, there's a little a next

to the word tongues, and you follow that down to the bottom

of the page and it says all languages.

So when we're speaking about the gift of tongues, we're speaking

about languages, we're speaking in languages.

And so the Holy Spirit comes on them and they start speaking a

language that they haven't learned.

It would be a bit like the Holy Spirit coming on my beautiful

wife Taran, and then her suddenly speaking in Mandarin

Chinese. You know, I can assure you she's

never learned and been taught a word of Mandarin Chinese.

But that's the kind of thing that's happening here, right?

They're suddenly speaking Japanese.

And even more amazingly than that, there are people in the

crowd who are like, wow, that's amazing.

That's like my language. And suddenly they find

themselves understanding what Taryn is saying, and she's

speaking about the good news of Jesus.

And they hear it and they repent and they're baptized, right?

So it's an amazing thing that's happening.

That's basically what's happening in this text.

There's actually only one other place really in the New

Testament where something like that is happening, where, where

people find themselves speaking a known human language that

other people understand. And I, I think that's in Acts

Acts 10 · chapter mention

chapter 10. So in Acts chapter 10, the

Acts 10 · chapter mention

apostle Peter is in Cornelius's house and the Holy Spirit comes

on, all the people in the house and they start, well, actually

what it actually says is let me try and find it.

Acts chapter 10, verse 47, it says they Peter says they've

Acts 10:47

received the Holy Spirit in the same way that we did.

In other words, in the same way as it happened in Acts chapter

Acts 2 · chapter mention

2. That seems to be the only other

place. And So what I want to suggest to

you this morning, and again, it's just my suggestion, it's

just my reading of the text, is that that idea that the Holy

Spirit might come on you and you might start speaking another

foreign language. That seems from the text of the

Scriptures to be a rare thing rather than a common thing that

enabled by the power of the Holy Spirit.

A Christian might just suddenly start speaking Japanese or

Chinese or whatever it is. That seems to be rare.

For example, it only seems to appear in the book of Acts.

It doesn't seem to appear in any other part of the New Testament.

It's never mentioned or taught about anywhere else in the New

Testament. And Christian history and

experience would also suggest that.

So, so most Christians you meet might have a story.

Like I've got one story. You know, my friend Paul Reed,

who led an amazing church in Belfast for many years, he, he

tells a story about how he was in a, a, a meeting and someone

stands up and they speak really loudly in tongues.

And then the whole back row suddenly starts talking to each

other. And, and he's like, how rude.

They're just like, you know, not paying attention to what's

happening at the front. And it turned out that that

person had begun to speak Mandarin, unbeknownst to them,

and the whole back row was Chinese.

And so they're like, I recognised that.

And that was an amazing thing. That seems to be super rare.

Does anyone else in this room have a, a, like, I'm not going

to ask you to share it, but like, just you, you're aware of

something like that happening. OK, so I can see a few hands.

So it's not like it never happens, but it seems like it's

kind of rare. It's not the only form of

speaking in tongues that appears in the New Testament.

There's actually two types of speaking in tongues.

The other one, which from the biblical text seems to be way

more common, is when a believer empowered by the Holy Spirit

starts to speak in a language that doesn't seem to be another

human language. It's not Japanese or Chinese or

German or anything like that. This person is praying in a in

in a language that doesn't seem to be another human language.

Perhaps it's the language of angels.

I'm getting that from 1 Corinthians 13.

You know, you've got this amazing passage that often gets

spoken at weddings, you know, all about love.

But it starts off, doesn't it, If I speak in the tongues of men

or of angels, but don't have love, I'm like a resounding gong

or a clanging cymbal. And so it may be, I don't know.

I, I, I read it recently and I was like, that would make sense

that Paul is giving two different types of this gift of

speaking in tongues, right? I'm speaking in the men in the

the language of men, IE German or Chinese or whatever, or I'm

speaking in the language of angels.

I'm speaking an unknown language and maybe that's the helpful way

to think of it, but don't worry if it isn't.

I vividly remember the first time I met anyone who's who's

prayed in tongues. It was my best friend and he

just said to me one day when I was a teenager, Oh by the way,

I've started praying in tongues. And if I'm honest, I thought you

poor chap, you know, but because my only experience of people

speaking in tongues was like episodes of Inspector Morse, you

know, where, where some people have no idea in this room what

Inspector Morse is, which is a very funny thing.

But, you know, people who are basically criminally insane

suddenly find themselves in a trance like state and they start

speaking in tongues on TV. That's, that's basically my own

experience. And so I said to my friend what

you would have said if you were there, you would have said, go

on then show me. And so he did.

And really in that moment, I, I knew two things.

I knew number one, my best friend is not criminally insane.

And #2 I think that's the Lord. And so I, I don't know, I don't,

I don't wanna assume where everyone in this room or in

Hemel or Hatfield or, or indeed online is, is at with this whole

thing. But it might surprise you to

know that this whole idea of praying in tongues is not

something that is extraordinarily rare or like

just for the lunatic fringe. This is something that literally

hundreds of millions of Christians around the world

would consider a beautiful and commonplace part of their

spiritual experience and spiritual life.

And So what I want to do is, is spend some time this morning

thinking about what that might look like for each one of us.

And it may be that for lots of us in this church already, you

already pray in tongues, but it may be that there's a whole

bunch of us for whom that's not been our experience.

And so I want to kind of really unpack it and look at that

today. And so that's what, as I said,

we're going to look at one Corinthians chapter 14 and say,

if you've got your Bible with you still, we're going to read

from verse one. It says this follow the way of

love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy.

For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people,

but to God. Indeed, no one understands them.

They utter mysteries by the Spirit.

But the one who prophesized speaks to people for their

strengthening, encouragement and comfort.

Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves by the one

who prophesized edifies the church.

I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would

rather have you prophecy the one who prophesizes greater than the

one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets it so

that the church may be edified. And then for the sake of time,

we'll just skip forward to verse 13.

For this reason, the one who speaks in a tongue should pray

that they may interpret what they say.

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is

unfruitful. So what shall I do?

I'll pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my

understanding. I'll sing with my spirit, but

I'll also sing with my understanding.

Otherwise, when you're praising God in the Spirit, how can

someone else who is now put in the position of an Enquirer say

Amen to your Thanksgiving since they don't know what you're

saying? You're giving thanks well

enough, but no one is edified. I thank God that I speak in

tongues more than all of you in the church.

I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct

others than 10,000 words in a tongue.

And that's a bit more scripture for us this morning.

So let's just try and lay some foundations first of all and ask

the question like, what can we say that the gift of tongues

isn't? What isn't the gift of tongues?

And first of all, I would want to say praying in tongues

doesn't make you a superior Christian, Karen and IA, while

ago we got new phones, we got the Google Pixel 7 phone and we

were so excited with it for about the first few weeks.

And it was like, wow, this is amazing.

The battery lasts forever and the cameras are really great and

all those kinds of things. And then a friend of mine walks

into the office and he's like, I've got a new phone.

I was like, what is it? He said it's a Google Pixel 8.

I'm like, oh, suddenly I'm feeling like what I've got isn't

quite as good as what you've got.

And some people I know worship Apple.

And if you do, you'll be saying, well, it's never going to be as

good as what I've got. And I, I totally get that.

But the, the point is, you know, so often in life we can feel

like we're kind of like second class.

What I got isn't as good as what you got, especially when it

comes to faith. For some reason, it's like, I

feel like, gosh, is everyone else finding this easier than I

am or, or did everyone else get more of a, an empowerment from

God in some particular area? Because this is like hard and I

don't feel like my gifts are quite as impressive as your

gifts. And it can so often feel like

that. And yet the Bible, especially

the Apostle Paul is so often wanted to say to us, hey,

listen, there is actually no such thing as a second class

Christian, right? So, so it doesn't matter, Paul

says, whether you're Jew or Greek, whether you're slave or

free, whether you're male or female, it doesn't matter.

You know, you're loved, you're accepted, you're approved of.

There's no such thing as a second class Christian.

In fact, Paul's always trying to fight against Gnosticism.

The idea that what I've got is like a secret key that you

haven't got, or I've got a secret knowledge or a secret

secret experience that is that you haven't got Paul's like

that's absolute nonsense. And especially when it comes to

the gift of tongues, if you start to think about it, you

know there are a number of different lists of gifts of the

Spirit throughout the Scriptures and, and for example, in

Ephesians chapter 4 or Romans 12, the gift of tongues isn't

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

even mentioned in the list. And then in One Corinthians

chapter 12, you have these two other lists of spiritual gifts,

and the gift of tongues comes right at the end.

So it comes after the gift of faith and the gift of healing

and the gift of helping people and all these kinds of things.

And then the gift of tongues comes right at the end.

So I think what Paul would want to say to us is do not get hung

up over the gift of tongues. Just just don't get stressed

because it's not going to make you superior if you have it, and

it's not going to make you inferior if you don't have it.

There are all kinds of gifts and we should be desiring them all.

That's the first thing. The second thing is praying in

tongues. And this is a bit controversial.

So I'm I'm I'm just gonna say what I see in the text and then

leave this to your discretion and, and how you read the

scriptures. I don't think the Bible would

say that the gift of tongues is for everyone.

At the end of 1 Corinthians, I had some there's an intake of

breath. Then I'm excited about that.

At the end of 1 Corinthians chapter 12, the apostle Paul is

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

asking a whole series of rhetorical questions.

And so, for example, he says, is everyone an apostle?

Now you tell me, what's the answer to that?

The answer's no. Clearly, not everyone is an is

an apostle. He says, is everyone a prophet?

The answer is no. Is everyone a teacher?

Do all work miracles? Do all have have gifts of

healing? And so he's expecting

rhetorically the answer to be no, no, no, no, no all the time.

And his last one is do all speak in tongues.

And so I think he would expect us to say, well, no, not

everyone. However, I think from the tone

of his teaching on the gift of tongues and, and the context, I

think we would expect the gift of praying in tongues to be an

extremely common gift. You know, it's not like he's

saying, well, if you go to the foothills of Kilimanjaro on a,

you know, the third Tuesday in September on a leap year and,

and you know, you, you look really carefully.

There's a hermit there who speaks in tongues once every

20-7 years or something. You know, I just don't think

that's the context. You're not expecting that.

Instead, he in the context of his teaching on the gift of

tongues, he's like, oh, you should be eagerly desiring the

spiritual gifts. He says that twice.

And then in one Corinthians 14, verse five, he says, I'd like it

if every single one of you was to speak in tongues.

So I think praying in tongues is something that that we would

expect would be super common. And I'm sure I'm not going to do

that. But if I was to ask for a show

of hands, I know that lots of people in the room today would

put their hands up. The last thing I want to say

about what praying in tongues isn't is it's not from the other

place, by which I mean, you know, the place where you can

smell sulfur really strongly and it's hot under foot.

I I, and, and for some of you are like, why would you even say

that? And the reason I'm saying that

is because some of you in this room will have been taught that

or you need to be super careful with the gift of tongues because

it comes from the devil or it's demonic or you're just not sure

if it is or it isn't. And so you just want to stay

clear of it just to be on the safe side, you know?

Do you? The things that the gift of

tongues isn't. What is the gift of praying in

tongues? Well, the first thing is it's

prayer that's directed towards God.

We're praying in tongues towards the Lord.

Verse 2 for anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to

people, but to God. And then later on in verses 13

to 17, he uses all these other little phrases that are

interchangeable with the idea of praying in tongues.

So he talks about praying with my spirit, singing with my

Spirit, praising God with your spirit.

So it's really, really clear that praying in tongues, the

gift of tongues is an upward is a vertical gift, right?

And it's going up the way. So the gift of prophecy is God

speaking to us, and the gift of tongues is US speaking to God

with the language that He's given to us.

OK, so it's prayer directed towards God.

Secondly, it's in a language not learned or understood by the

speaker. The average human being has

about 35,000 words in their vocabulary, apparently.

And so as I'm standing here, I'm just kind of selecting some from

my memory banks, right? I'm just like choosing words,

picking them off the shelf and out they come out of my mouth.

That's mostly how we speak in in human terms.

And if if I was speaking French now, then you would know a

couple of things. First of all, the modern

languages aren't my thing. And, and secondly, you'd know

that at some point in my life I've been to a French lesson and

I've learnt French. You, you know, like which

probably most of the people in this room have.

I know there's some people from the Congo in this church.

And so I, I'm not going to murder French in front of you

this morning, but that's generally speaking how language

works. But it's clear from this text

that that that's not how the gift of tongues works, right?

I'm not using words or sentences or phrases that I've already

been taught or I, I learnt. In fact, even the speaker, Paul

says should pray for an interpretation so that they

might know what it is that they're saying.

It says that in verse 13. For this reason, the one who

speaks in a tongue should pray that they may interpret what

they say. And so mostly I don't understand

what I'm praying or saying when I'm praying in tongues.

And that's because #3 it's prayer with your spirit and not

with your mind. It's prayer with your spirit and

not with your mind. Verse 14.

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is

unfruitful. So it's not the kind of prayer

that we might have prayed earlier on in the service where

where, you know, Taryn is choosing words and she's praying

and all those kinds of things and she's in control.

This is a different kind of thing.

I'm praying with my spirit, spirit to spirit.

It's, it's kind of an uncomfortable thing, isn't it?

We, we in particularly in the modern Western world, we like to

be in control. Dare I say, we may even be

control freaks. You know, we like to have

control. And so I want to understand and

I want to know. And I, but actually praying in

tongues is not like that. It's I'm praying with my spirit,

but my mind doesn't know what it is that I'm praying #4 it's

mostly not understood by the people around you either.

The whole of Paul's argument here is it's like if a visitor

was to come in when people are speaking in tongues, the visitor

has no idea what's been said. And that's why he says, I'd

rather that you speak five intelligible words than 10,000

in a tongue. And that's because what's

happening in this church is that they're just speaking in tongues

the whole service. And they like coming in morning,

everyone great to see you, you know?

And then off they go. I'm not going to do it now and

then. And then thanks very much for

coming at the end. And the visitors are like, now

I've got nothing. And Paul's like, please don't do

that because they didn't understand.

Nobody understands what's being said when they're speaking in

tongues #5 it's under our control.

Verse 27. If anyone speaks in a tongue 2

or at the most 3 should speak one at a time, and someone must

interpret. If there's no interpreter, the

speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and

to God. Do you, do you see?

It's like, this is under our control.

This is, there's an order to this.

I can choose to speak and I can choose to not speak.

You know, 2 or at the most three can choose to speak.

And then at the end of that, I'm like, no, OK, we're done.

I'm not going to speak. So this isn't like the Holy

Spirit comes on me. I'm, I'm like in a trance and

like episodes of Inspector Morse and suddenly I'm just like

babbling away and I can't stop myself.

That doesn't seem to be the thing.

It's under our control. It's actually quite an important

thing if you're thinking through as a, as a Christian who doesn't

yet speak in tongues and you're thinking, I think I was just

expecting it to happen to me. And it's like, no, no, you have

to actually use your lips and your tongue and your teeth.

You know, when Peter was walking on the water, he's standing in

the boat. He says to Jesus, tell me to

come and I'll come. And Jesus says come.

And so you can imagine Peter just standing in the boat

saying, no, I thought it was going to happen, but it turns

out it's not happened to me. So I'm not walking on waters

today. That's not what happens, is it?

He's like, he has to use his walking apparatus.

He has to use his ankles and his feet and his toes and his thighs

and stuff. He has to walk.

He has to make a choice to walk. And it's the same with speaking

in tongues, with praying in tongues.

I have to make a choice. It's under my control.

I'm using my talking apparatus and I'm choosing to do it.

And lastly, verse 18 is mostly for personal use.

Paul says that he speaks in tongues more than anybody.

But in the church, I'd rather we speak five intelligible words

than 10,000 in a tongue. In other words, it's like an

iceberg. You know, you can see he's, he's

opening up the window onto his own life and he's saying, well,

in my life, what I do is I speak in tongues more than anyone.

I speak in tongues all the time when I'm on my own, but when I'm

in the church, I'm going to do it less often.

And so this is like a devotional thing is for me is between me

and the Lord. And so actually, I think for

many of us, the Apostle Paul this morning is laying down a

challenge, which is if you speak in tongues, like is the bottom

part of the iceberg really big? You know, like, is the gift of

tongues something that you occasionally might do in church,

but at home it's like, not so much, is it, is it like the, the

pullover that your granny gave you 2 Christmases ago that kind

of stays in the back of the wardrobe and you keep forgetting

is there or, or is it a pullover that you wear all the time?

I think it's a real challenge for us as a devotional,

beautiful, strengthening, encouraging tool that the Lord

has given us to build us up from the inside out.

Are we making use of the tool that He's given us, if indeed He

has? And so finally, just coming into

land, let me ask this question. Why on earth would I want to

speak in tongues? Why would I want to pray in

tongues? Firstly, because speaking in

tongues builds you up, he says verse 4.

Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves.

We don't really use that word anymore, do we?

Anything edified this morning? Very edified, thank you very

much. We don't.

We don't really use that word. But the word edified, it's a

construction word. It means I'm being built up, I'm

being reconstructed. And the truth is, it's really

easy to feel low in life, isn't it?

Or to feel like life is gradually dismantling me or

deconstructing me. I feel less together as a person

over the course of a week. And so a beautiful gift that

might reconstruct me is a huge thing.

When I was 22, I was on a youth weekend not very far from here

and I received the news that my dad had died.

And I just have this incredibly precious memory of walking the

half an hour or so towards my parents home where I was knew I

was going to see my mum and just crying out to the Lord saying

Lord, you've got to strengthen me.

I need, I need strength for everything that's to come.

And I just remember praying for a while and then finding myself

praying in tongues to the Lord and feeling like this, almost

like liquid courage and liquid comfort was kind of being poured

into the core of who I am. And I'll never forget that.

Get that? The precious nature of what the

gift of tongues did for me in that moment to who like in in

this incredibly, this amazing moment of opportunity that we

have as believers in this country with God moving by his

Spirit in just the most remarkable way where we've never

known an opportunity for the gospel like we know right now.

If the gift of tongues is available to you, now would be a

really good time to use it. And finally, why would I want

it? Because it adds a new dimension

to my prayer life. I'm getting that from Romans 8.

But we don't. I encourage you to look at that

afterwards. Wayne Grudem, in his book

Systematic Theology, he summarises those verses like

this. The Holy Spirit assists our

prayers by taking our groans and making them into effective

prayer. And that would be the testimony

of so many people in this room that you've often been in a

situation where you're like, I don't know what to pray, right?

You hear about someone who's been in a car accident.

You're like, I don't know what to pray.

Or, or you, you hear about a situation that's happening in

the world and you're like, I just don't have the words to

express what I should be expressing to the Lord right

now. What an amazing thing that the

Holy Spirit would give you some words that even you don't

understand, but somehow God hears the groans of our hearts

and make them into effective prayer.

So what an amazing thing. And So what we're going to do

this morning, just obviously time's running short, but we do

want to pray for some people this morning.

And just so you know, we're not going to put you on the spot.

We're not going to say, right? We're going to pray for a few

minutes and then off you go. We're not we're not going to do

that. If if you want to do that,

that's great. But we, we do just want to pray

for you. Let me just say this, you know,

if if I had 10 people at the front of the church here and I

said, just give us your experience of beginning to speak

in tongues for the first time, we would get 10 different

experiences, right? So, so for some people, they'll

say, well, I just felt like my mouth was kind of pregnant and I

just kind of needed to speak. And when I did, I found myself

speaking in tongues. For other people, they might

say, no, it was just an act of faith.

I just, I just needed to start speaking and then see what would

happen for others of us. It might be in worship, you

might find yourself singing and, and praying out loud in worship

and suddenly you find yourself speaking in tongues.

For me personally, I've been so frustrated for years at not

having the gifted tongues. And you know, I was driving

myself crazy with it and I was asking the Lord over and over

again. And then one time I was walking

from the train station to my house and I was praying about a

particular thing and I just kind of slipped into it.

But I would strongly, you know, the Bible says eagerly desire

spiritual gifts. And so if you don't have the

gifted tongues or you're not sure if you do or you haven't

received it thus far, I would strongly, I think the Bible

would strongly encourage you to seek the Lord in that regard.

And so we're going to say goodbye to us, other sites and

the online community. God bless you.

Have an amazing week and the rest of us are going to stand.