Tongues : The Language of Heaven | Darren Rouanzoin

You're listening to the Garden Church podcast. We're in a series called Church on Fire, a journey through the book of Acts. This is a story of ordinary people filled with the spirit, carrying the presence of Jesus into every corner of the world. The same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is alive and in us today. Join us as we step into the call to be people set on fire for his mission.

Amen. Good morning, Eleven. How you doing? Can I Hey, can we see our overflow friends real quick? Can we put that up?

Sorry to change things. I just wanna say hi to all the Overflow. Is there anyone there? Alright. Overflow we love you.

Hey would you guys pull out your bibles? Let me see all the bibles in the room. Let's go. 11:00 we're a bible church. Yeah.

I've been talking a lot about reading the physical bible here and why we don't use our phones and I got a video kinda to help you understand why. Here's maybe this will make sense. Come on. I know you. You know you.

And I know you know that I know you. So some of you are like, what is this? This is how Gen z communicates to each other through memes. If you couldn't read it, it just says, I'm gonna look at Instagram real quick before I read my bible and then the holy spirit is responding. Some of you are like, I need an interpretation of that tongue.

We're gonna talk about tongues today. Acts chapter two. Let's go. Hey, so I've never preached on tongues until 09:00 and I grew up not believing that tongues were for today or any of the gifts of the spirit. So that's how far I've come.

And then I planted a church that I wanted to be spirit filled, charismatic, all the gifts and I believe all of the gifts are available for all of the church today. We've been teaching that theologically but with this topic more than most topics especially in Southern California, this there's lots of controversy involved in teaching on tongues. Some people think it's forbidden, some people, overemphasize that and many of us just don't have a clue. So today, I just wanna invite you to be curious. We will always anchor our teaching in the scriptures.

We are a biblical church, and we believe in the scriptures as authority for all things. So I'm gonna give you an overview of the entire New Testament and the view of tongues and what they are and what they're for. And if you're new to church, I'm so glad you're here. And we're just gonna hopefully empower you to have just a freedom with this particular topic. I wanna do something real quick before I jump in because I wanna pray.

I wanna just list out three things that I just completely reject in regards to tongues. The first thing is that if you do not speak in tongues, you are not, filled with the spirit. That's not biblical. Tongues may be a byproduct but they're but not the byproduct of the holy spirit. So I just wanna reject that false teaching.

The second false teaching is that if you do not speak in tongues, are not saved. That's also a false doctrine. Lastly, the false teaching that tongues are not for today. That perspective is not biblical and it's not historical and it requires a systematic theology. It requires a belief system that you put over the scripture to pull out your your understanding.

And we have, for all things, we start with biblical theology. What does it say? What does it mean? What did the author intend? And how do we go from there and construct a theology?

Now, know that's a lot of theology in the introduction but this is my point. We can be deeply theological and charismatic and on fire. That we can be intellectual and pray in tongues. I was taught you aren't. You can't.

And that's that's just a lie. And so I just wanna get, you know, all of the the the tense, the the the anxiety. I wanna get it out of the room. So I'm gonna pray. Alright?

Let me pray for a. Just kidding. Just kidding. Shit. I bought a Honda, but I bought a Kia.

I told you I've never heard a sermon on it so we're gonna we're gonna make this light hearted. Here's here's the belief system. I believe the lighter you carry something the deeper and further you can go. So just relax. I wanna relax into this because I'm feeling very distracted at the 11 week after week and I just wanna invite you to to stay seated while I preach if that's alright.

I know some of you you gotta go go for it. I'm not gonna judge you. I'll just think you're you're you're offended by what I say. Just kidding. We're not gonna be offended.

But I really do as I was praying into this week, I just felt like the spirit of God has has a beautiful invitation for you to kind of receive. There's no pressure, there's no there's no forcing that what's gonna happen today. There's not You'll see as I teach this but I really want you to receive this. So I'm gonna do my best to preach and let's let me just pray and then I'll I'll go to Acts two. So Lord Jesus, I wanna ask that you'd be Lord of the 11:00 right now.

I wanna pray right now against, spiritual dynamics that come into the room that keep us distracted or or or even confused. Draw us into chaos. I wanna ask Holy Spirit that you would you would be here and let let us receive what you have. Would you anoint this talk? Do what I can't do.

I can't do this and I I don't even begin to think I have this figured out. And I just wanna ask that you would do what I can't do because I'm weak and you're strong. But I wanna pray for this room in in the the overflow at the eleven. I and this sounds crazy but I pray against witchcraft in Jesus name. I pray and rebuke the enemy that comes in through spells and curses and misinformation that comes and and uses power to manipulate and control.

I bind that in Jesus name. And I wanna pray now against all those of you that are bringing in syncretism into Christian faith. There is no other Lord than Jesus Christ and we don't mix witchcraft and world power with Christ. He is ultimate power. And so those of you that have come in affected by by things of this evil world, I just ask God right now you cleanse those that are here and none of their power would work and you would show them you're the real power.

And I bless everyone here to receive your word in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. I snuck that in. It's the weirdest thing.

You're like, I I don't get this but in our pre service prayer for the 11, I keep getting witchcraft. So I just wanna say, anyone listening that's here that's a witch, you're not welcome. In Jesus name, may you just be blocked from whatever work you're trying to do against me and my family, against our elders, our staff, our leaders and this church. Amen. Okay.

That's weird. I don't know why I'm I'm doing it because I have to be obedient to the Lord. I text our staff, I text some intercessors and leaders and I'm like there's stuff going on and I want you to hear. So you guys good? Youth, you guys good?

Ez are you good? You ready to go? You got your bible? Ready to go? Acts two, let's go.

This is my older son right there, my oldest. Acts two, here we go. I'm gonna read this. Why don't we stand again? I like this.

Let's all stand. You may not like it, I like it. It's the word of God. Here we go. Acts chapter two standing, sitting, stand.

I can't take it anymore. We're going to have fun and we're going to baptize people. I don't You can't see what I see but there's like electrical equipment in the baptismal warming it up. Like that is so soft but anyways. Let's just get it to 40.

Right Zach? 40, do hard things. Pursuit. Verse one chapter two. Here we go.

Acts two. 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 way 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 and began to speak in tongues as the spirit enabled them.

Now, they were staying 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, aren't all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? The word of the lord.

Go ahead and grab a seat. Acts chapter two, we've already been over this now for the third week. First we talked about this is the story of the old testament being fulfilled that tongues in in the story of Babel were used, languages were used to divide the nations. Now on the day of Pentecost languages are used to unite humanity back to Jesus. And people from all over the world are hearing these Galilee Hicks.

That's what they are. That's what they're saying. These folks from I don't wanna offend anyone here. Barstow. Maybe you're from Barstow.

These these uneducated folks from wherever are speaking different languages and we hear them declaring praises to God. That's a miracle. And we know that it's the it's the new Sinai and that we we we talked about this a couple weeks ago that Pentecost represents a new Sinai where God brought the law to the people in Exodus. And it's, some rabbis, wrote about this outside of scripture saying that when the law came thousands of years before that tongues went out to the nations bringing the law. Here's a couple of summary statements from a couple of rabbis.

I just wanted to bring this to you so you can have it. Where there's various rabbis that talked about the 70 languages of known languages at the time that the Exodus nineteen happened. They believed languages were dispersed to bring the Torah to the nations. Isn't that amazing? And this is the fulfillment of that in Luke's account of what's happening on the day of Pentecost.

Now, we wanna talk about tongues. Let me just say, Luke is very specific about his language. Here's the here's his definition of tongue or this is the Greek phrase, other tongues meaning other languages. And we know it's known languages because he adds dialect in there at the end of this. And what you have to understand is there's only one word for tongue in the bible that's used as glossolalia but scholars will will kind of modify as a systematic approach to say, well, here is xenoelea, known languages and here's unknown languages.

So that's added on later for our understanding but there's only one Greek word for the word tongue and it can mean unknown languages and known languages. You with me? Luke uses tongues as a pattern for the spread of the gospel and the mission of the church throughout the entire book of Acts. So what I wanna do today is I'm gonna look at the book of Acts and what Luke does uniquely for tongues. I'm gonna define tongues, talk about it and then I'm gonna jump to first Corinthians and look at chapters twelve, thirteen and fourteen and look at Paul's theology.

Okay? And then we're gonna look at the similarities of the two and the differences and we're gonna stand up and I'm gonna invite the Holy Spirit to fill you. Is that right? Yes. And I promise you no one's gonna get hurt so far unless witches are here then you just We'll see what happens.

I'm just gonna say. They're gonna get rebuked. Okay. No one got hurt in the last service but I didn't call out the witches. So Acts chapter two verse four it says this.

Let's go. Acts chapter two verse four. Let's We're gonna look at all the stories of the tongues, coming. I'm I'm still debating this but next week I think I need to teach on prophecy because what you have is this theme of tongues and prophecy are represented as a theme of how the spirit of God comes upon people. They're verbal, audible and visible signs of the spirit.

And this is so interesting because so much of our life today in the church is we actually don't really care much for any transformation. We pray a prayer which we'll pray that prayer but then the church doesn't expect radical power of the holy spirit or radical transformation of being marked by a witness of Jesus Christ filled with this Holy Spirit. We just say come to church and vote differently. But we should expect radical transformation from the inside. Shouldn't we if we're a biblical church?

Is that Did I win you or lose you on that one? Acts two verse four, all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the spirit enabled them. So the spirit comes and the first thing that happens is the Holy Spirit fills the church and they begin to speak in known languages. And here what we see is the Jerusalem church is speaking in different languages that go all over the world representing that the gospel is for the nations right away. A new community is formed a k a the church.

Now the church has a mission to be witnesses to the ends of the earth and we're gonna follow this story for the rest of the book of Acts. But jump to Acts chapter 10. I'm gonna show you how Luke creates a pattern. What happens when the Holy Spirit falls on a different group of people? These are all God fearing Jews in Acts two.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

These are the followers of Jesus. Acts chapter 10, Peter has this vision. He he's he's hungry waiting for lunch and he has this dream of food being delivered except that it's a bunch of unclean animals that he's forbidden to eat. God says don't call something that's, unclean that I say is clean. He goes downstairs, here's a knock on the door, a bunch of Gentiles are at his door.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

You don't host Gentiles and you definitely don't eat with Gentiles or show up into their house but because of the dream, he goes to the Gentiles home. He preaches in verse 44 while Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers, the Jewish folks who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. How do we know they have the spirit?

They were speaking in tongues and praising God. Observable characteristics of the Holy Spirit on a Christian. Okay. Let's keep going. I know it's gonna offend some of you.

Surely, no one can stand in the way of them being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. So we ordered them to get baptized in the name of Jesus. So we see in this story, what's Peter's evidence that Gentiles are now part of this new family of God? The Holy Spirit and them speaking in tongues.

You with me? Yeah. Tongues are now a marker that the Gentiles are welcome into God's family. How This is how they're working out their theology in real time. Right?

So in Acts 15 when there's a debate, should we make the Gentiles join the family just like Us men aka circumcision. They deliberated and praise the Lord they said no. That you don't have to be saved through circumcision. Does anyone know good theology? You guys know the old testament, new testament, seal?

Okay. You're like, wait, what's circumcision have to do? Everything. Because to be a part of the Jewish family, men had to be circumcised. Now, fill with the spirit.

Amen. Hallelujah. Grace. You guys are awkward like what's going on? This is what This is all biblical theology.

This is all covenantal. Such a major theme in the bible. Paul is gonna talk about it all over the place. It's not It's circumcised of the heart by the Holy Spirit. Now let's keep going.

The church explodes. It's going all over the world and then we go to Acts 19. One more story. I'm just gonna say of the three services, 11 you're the quietest. I I don't know why.

I'm trying to figure out. It's it's just the vibe and I get it. Maybe you're a bunch of guests, maybe you were up late that's why you came to the 11:00. Right? You were out at Halloween parties and you know, hey, I'm judging you well.

Watching Netflix. I don't know what's a reasonable hour. My son and I debate the reasonable hour. He's going to bed later than me these days. It's very hard when you wanna wake up early.

Acts 19, I've been talking to Slav about this because youth group gets done so late but they love it. Slav is like, yeah, tell them 09:15. I'm like, I'm in I'm asleep by 09:15. I'm just this is that's the Lord's hour. After 09:15, nothing good happens.

Here's chapter 19. You ready? I knew we're gonna have fun. While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. So he's now he's now in Ephesus, the second most populated city in the Roman Empire at the time.

And then he found some disciples. Alright? And he asked them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? He finds some disciples and his first question is, did you receive the spirit? Apparently, just there are observable characteristics, attributes, observable gifts, fruit that you can see in a Christian who's filled with the spirit.

If you were to do a quick audit of your life, how visible is the evidence of Jesus filling you with his presence? I don't know if I can. That was like accent. If you were to just have some stranger walk with you, would they be, I can do what you do because you have power to do it through discipline? Or would they go, what is it that's in you?

Paul then goes on to go, did you receive the spirit? And I love this interaction because this is in our bible. We didn't even know there was a holy spirit. And then he's like, wait, woah, woah, woah, What baptism did you receive? So here's the apostle working on theology.

John's baptism. Okay. This is so good. Paul says, John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him.

That's in Jesus. On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they were they spoke in tongues and prophesied. There were about 12 men in all. So here in Acts 19, we have a group of people that have been baptized into John's baptism which is a baptism of repentance.

John comes before Jesus as the fulfillment of the old testament prophecy that a messenger would prepare the way for the Messiah. But John says, I'm not the Messiah. There's one coming that's more powerful than me. I can't even untie his shoes. He's so good.

He will baptize you with what? The Holy Spirit and fire. Wait. So Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John both, all four. There's both four of them.

Four of them. All of them say that Jesus' ministry will be one of baptism of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the baptizer. They don't get baptized in John's repentance and get filled with the Holy Spirit. They get baptized in the name of Jesus.

And they're filled with the Holy Spirit and and Luke records as a literary tool in that in the book of Acts. They speak in tongues and they prophecy. They do this spirit stuff. It's a formula that's used as an author to let you know once again a new group of people. These people that are stuck in the old testament.

Now the bridge into the new testament life is the mark by the holy spirit life. How do we know? Tongues in prophecy. Evidence of the spiritual life that comes with the audible and visible signs of the Holy Spirit in someone's life. Are you guys good?

Each outpouring signifies that a new community has been fully incorporated into the spirit filled people of God. This is how Luke uses it to say this is about mission, this is about the gospel expansion, this is about inclusion of people into the family of God. So what are tongues? Well, the word tongue in Greek is glossa and tongues are a form of prayer and praise directed to God in a language the speaker does not understand. It's spirit inspired speech directed to God unintelligible unless interpreted according to Gordon Fee the the theologian.

Sam Storm says, tongues are prayer and praise. So let me say that again. Tongues are prayer and praise. And it's an act of worship in the spirit. My mentor, one of my mentors is a guy named doctor Gary Bashirs.

He's also a professor mine right now and this is his definition. I wanted to put this in here. The gift of tongues is prayer and praise spoken by the empowering of the holy spirit and words not understood by the speaker speaker. It is primarily vertical addressed to God not to people. Prophecy is horizontal.

We'll go back to that next week. It can be a human language unknown to the speaker or a non human language but in every case it is spirit inspired communication expressing worship, intercession or spiritual groaning when normal speech is inadequate. That's the definition of tongues. Now, we'll talk about Paul's variation because there's private prayer tongues and then there's public and we'll distinguish that in a second. But let me start with this story.

I grew up not believing in tongues. So I had this theological conversion in college at Vanguard where I was introduced on to how to study scripture, how to interpret scripture in an academic way, how to prepare the word and understand the word. And tongues, I became open to the gift of tongues, I became available for the tongues, I prayed for the gift of tongues. For two years nothing happened. I was never a part of a church that taught tongues, that believed in tongues, I never heard tongues prayed but I wanted the gift of tongues.

I wanted all the gifts. I prayed for all the gifts. I was like crazy. I'm that guy. Like I want all of it.

Healing, prophecy, wisdom, intro. I was that wild child that just wanted all of it and didn't know my limits and I didn't really receive anything very often until one day. I was at the computer lab during spring break writing a paper, computer lab. Computers back in the day not everyone had their own personal computer or internet even on a phone. So we had to go to a place that had internet where you plugged in to of it was the computer was plugged in.

It wasn't wireless internet. And so I was there using Microsoft Word and like, you know, 2001 or whatever it was, 2002 and I was typing a paper and I went to the mail room and I I just began to pray out loud. Now, was in college, I love Jesus. I still love Jesus. I felt called the ministry back then.

So I was praying out loud, Jesus I want more of you and I began to pray in gibberish. Because it wasn't like God hijacked my brain. I just began to pray and what I felt like was gibberish. So I stopped and I'm like, that's weird. What was that?

That was gibberish. No. I'm just debating. Like is this the spirit? Is it not?

So I called my girlfriend at the time who's now my wife, Alex. Yeah. Let's go. She was in NorCal visiting. She's in Yosemite right now on a solo trip for her fortieth birthday doing Praise the Lord.

She's having the time of her life. She keeps texting me. I'm safe right now but I don't have cell service so hopefully, I don't get eaten by a black bear. That's her fear, like this fear comes in. Anyways, she's having a blast.

I call her and she says, oh, that's weird because she didn't really speak in tongues at all, didn't really believe in it. She's like, well, if it's from God, he'll have to confirm it. I'm like, yeah, okay. I'm gonna go back to writing. So I go back to writing.

She calls me back ten minutes later and she says to me, you'll never believe this. I'm like, Diana called me. She's in New Jersey. She woke up from a dream. Diana is her crazy Pentecostal friend.

Like the girl, like she's wild. I would debate her theology all the time because I was still like, I don't know about women in leadership at the time. Like I'm like just debating her and she's just like, at me all the time. She she's in New Jersey three hours ahead. She wakes up in a dream.

In the dream, she hears from the Lord, Darren received the gift of tongues. You need to confirm it that it's from me. Calls Alex in NorCal. Alex calls me in SoCal. I'm like, oh my gosh.

What's going on? And it began this journey. My journey was I don't know what to do. So Diana was she coached me. She's like, hey, when you do your quiet time, grab your bible.

When you begin to pray, pray out loud. And then just begin to open your mouth, speak words, praise Jesus, use Jesus over and over again and let God fill your mouth with tongues again and practice it like any other spiritual gift. Practice it like any other thing you have to develop. And I did and I love it. And I use it all the time.

When my boy Ezra was in the hospital and almost dying in chalk, I stayed up for two nights, I did not sleep, I lost words, I didn't know what to pray, I prayed in tongues. Their first person that we deliver from an evil spirit as a church was a woman who was putting potions on the stage. That's why it feels familiar. She was putting curses on us and we began to pray for her and I I I don't know what to do. She's like literally putting potions like dancing in this this part of the stage and I'm like, we don't do potions here.

And we took her to the back. We had 12 people in our church and I began to pray over her and I I I'll never forget this because I was standing there moving my mouth quietly, praying in a prayer language no one could hear. And she screams at me, stop yelling. And she took off running. Didn't see her again until a few weeks later, we heard the rest of the story.

She went to a church in Los Angeles, got arrested for spray painting Love Me on the building of a church. Goes to a hospital, gets $51.50 because she was out of her mind, they find no drugs in her system. We get a call, we send a team up there, a team from Newport Beach that we were walking with that were much older than me, they were a priest in an Anglican church. And they cast out a demon. She came back after the fifty one fifty was done with her entire family sat in the front row at a nightclub because we had our church in a nightclub and her family thanked me and she gave her life to Jesus.

I don't know what to say. Now, there's so many stories I can tell. A couple of weeks ago when pastor Michael Miller from Upper Room was here, I went up to go introduce him and there was a man standing here, a friend of mine. Lord said, pray for him, ask for the gifts. I'm like, Lord, just release the gifts.

I'm praying for him. One of our other elders comes up, prays for him. I walk on stage, I don't think twice. He receives tongues in that moment for the first time. He is a Calvary Chapel born and raised kid, never experienced tongues.

God filled him. He began to speak in tongues. In this moment, he began to see people in this place right here because he was sitting over He began to intercede in an unknown language for them. And I'm like, and then we talked about it this week. I'm like, tell me the stories like, wasn't just tongues, Darren.

I was filled with the spirit in a way I can't tell you. It's changed my parenting. It's changed the peace I have. I'm praying all the time. I'm interceding for my clients.

It's unbelievable. The spirit of God filled him in a way as he prayed, Lord, I want more of you. And now he has this tool that strengthens him. Now some of you believe like this of all the gifts because I was talking to some family members, friends of mine that are like family and they were like, you know, my wife prays in tongues, I don't. I've prayed for fourteen years they said.

I'm like, I get it. Keep praying. Keep asking. But I wanna help make sense of this because for some of us there's such an analytical gap. And it doesn't mean you're not intellectual and you're not using your brain.

I was like how do I make sense of what tongues are like? And I was thinking it's kinda like neuroscience meets pneumatology. So stay with me. This is a metaphor, it's not perfect but I made it up. Okay?

This is my my illustration for what tongues is like. So if you were to recognize that when you go to sleep, your brain doesn't shut off. What happens is you go into REM sleep and during REM sleep, your eyes move rapidly back and forth because your brain is processing what it couldn't process when you were awake. It takes fragments of your stress, your emotions, your memories and it kind of synthesizes and integrates them into your wholeness, into your brain and body. And it stores things differently.

That's why when you're not sleeping, regularly, you're emotionally unstable, you're spiritually dull, it's because you haven't allowed the inner world to repair itself because healing happens beneath consciousness when it comes to sleep. Like EMDR therapy. If you've ever studied EMDR, EMDR therapists use bilateral movement or stimulation to, process memories that are frozen in trauma. So it doesn't erase your story, it brings memories to a space of awareness where it's safe and you're present and it helps you release the pain that's been holding you hostage. This is what I think the Holy Spirit does with the gift of tongues.

In first Corinthians fourteen four, Paul says, anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves. The word edify means to build up or to restore from within. So think about this. The spirit gives you a prayer language that bypasses the analytical, the guarded part of your mind where you're stuck in fear, you're stuck in consciousness or most of us, you're stuck in a self consciousness. You're aware of everyone else.

And that part that the Holy Spirit comes is direct communion in your inner person like Ephesians three sixteen says. So imagine divine EMDR or divine realm, the spirit begins to move move rhythmically inside of you with groaning and flowing and interceding that's beyond your language or capacity. So the holy spirit touches places in your life that's hidden in grief, broken in trauma or confused and he mends your soul. He reorders your presence in the presence of perfect love. Just like your brain needs to process the chaos of the day, the spirit gives you language of heaven to process the chaos of the life even when you don't understand it.

So when you pray in tongues, it integrates your inner world with the presence of God and peace. So tongues aren't noise or performance. I'll speak on that in a second. It's strengthening for your soul. It's heaven's language working through you in the deep storage rooms of your being.

Is that alright? It kinda worked. It kind of works but maybe it doesn't work fully but anyways, I liked it. There you go. The apostle Paul has his own theology and I wanna present some some things in the next several minutes.

I got time. Praise the Lord. I'm gonna go for twenty more minutes. Is that alright? Because I wanna I I didn't have as much time in the last service.

I cut some stuff out to give to you but I wanna give you a succinct understanding of the Old and New Testament so you can understand what God's doing. So Acts has its perspective. Paul, it feels a little different and it should because he's he's concerned not as much about the mission like Luke or salvation history but on how the gifts are used for the edification of the church. Right? He's concerned for the church life.

Luke's using it, seeing it as also for mission. They work together and I'll show that in a second. Go to first Corinthians chapter 12. You guys good? I see some head nods.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

I see looks between couples who are like, yes, this is good. Some of you are saying, no, I disagree. It's alright. Some of you are just praying quietly in tongues. Okay.

First Corinthians chapter 12. Alright. We're gonna do a quick overview of of three chapters. Verse one chapter 12. Now about the gifts of the spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

You know that when you were pagan somehow somehow or other, you were influenced and led astray by dumb idols. I love that. Stupid idols. Idols. Therefore, I want you to know that no one who's speaking by the spirit of God says, Jesus be accursed.

And no one can say Jesus is Lord is except by the holy spirit. So he's he's helping people understand the theology that the gifts come from those who are filled with the Holy Spirit. It comes from Jesus himself. There we go. There there are different kinds of gifts but the same spirit distributes them.

There are different kinds of service but the same Lord. There are different kinds of workings but in all of them and in everyone is the same God at work. So there's enduring abilities, there's ministries, there's energizing activities, all from the Holy Spirit. Verse seven, now to each one, the manifestation of the spirit is given for the common good. This word manifestation is like this eruption, that happens in the presence of the community God.

The the the the eruption, the manifestation of the Holy Spirit is for what? The common good. So here's a summary of chapter 12. The source of the gifts is the Holy Spirit. Is that good?

The the over emphasis that Paul will have is there's no division over gifts. Stop dividing over gifts. The source and the focus is the Holy Spirit. And if you really have a marker of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will always point to Jesus. Let me just say off the bat, any of your gifts that point to you already missed the point of the gifts.

Anyone of you that wants to come into a public gathering like this and draw attention to yourself rather than point to Jesus, you missed it. You're being used by someone else. So much damage is done. I'm all for when emotion When God comes and there's emotions, I'm all for it. We can give grace to the move of of the spirit.

But when it's the consistent performative person, that's the problem. By the way, forgot this. The context of Corinth is that crisis. Corinth is in a crisis. They're spiritually immature.

They are applying a pagan mindset to the things of the spirit. They came out of pagan cults and they come into the church and in their context, the gifts of the spirit, the best gift was tongues. That meant you were ultra spiritual. You were the superstar. So you'd have a gathering like much smaller than this, like maybe 30 people and certain people begin going phonetically, frantically, excuse me, in a a spirit frenzy speaking in tongues over everyone in their prayer language because that's how pagans did it.

Paul's like, no, our god's the god of order And if it's a public setting, there's a reason for interpretation. We'll get to that in a second. But the point is that as the spirit empowers believers, the point is to not impress others but to build up the body of Christ. So if you're mature, you could submit your gifts. You could submit your way of worship for the rest of us.

Those of you that are like, oh I went to this one place and it's charismatic and it's off the charts and everyone does it this way and you come here thinking this is what you're gonna move people towards that, that's pride. That's a mark of immature Christianity. Those of us that are here going well I'm fine with me and myself and my bible. I don't really want the gifts. That also is immature and prideful because you're not being used to build up the church.

It's not about you. It's about him. And he wants to use all of us. And what's the characteristic? Well, we're spirit filled and we're humble.

Because we're gonna come here and we're gonna make it about Jesus. The focus is not the gift itself but it's on what the spirit does through you. Gifts are expressions of grace not measures of maturity. Alright. Let's go to, the next section of scripture for the sake of time.

So Paul gives you this whole teaching on the spiritual gifts, unity and diversity and then he like interrupts this whole spiritual conversation. He gives us the love chapter. Right? First Corinthians 13, this is what you all had read at your weddings. Right?

Love is patient. Love is kind. But the context is crisis and conflict which is perfect for marriage. But you didn't know it wasn't meant for marriage, it's meant for the church in crisis and conflict. You don't need to be patient if you're not in relationship with someone else.

You don't need self control if your life is determined by yourself and you're not in relationship to anyone else. You need these things when you live in community. And I would say you can't be a follower of Jesus without the church. What? You're not gonna be part of his bride?

I'm Oh gosh. If I have one more Christian say I'm doing church with my little group of people that all look like me and they all have the same church hurt and we all listen to the same podcast and read the same books, that is not the church. That is a Frankenstein of church hurt world and you've made Jesus in your own image and I'm so tired of it. Church hurt is real. Get healing.

Do the work. Get back in the local church and live on. You It's like oh suffering. You It's like oh I I don't wanna open up my heart anymore because I don't wanna be hurt. Then don't be in relationship to anyone because everyone's gonna be misunderstanding you.

You're gonna have expectations put on you. You're gonna disappoint people. You're gonna hurt someone. You're gonna say things you didn't mean to say. You're gonna have conflicts.

So if the church which is full of imperfect people hurt you, heal and move on. Amen? Amen. Alright. Let's go.

First Corinthians 13. Wow. Each service is different. This one's lit on fire right now. Nine was not like this.

All that intercession. I I was like ask him like we need to pray. I was in worship. I'm like no this isn't. We need prayer.

We need prayer. Thank you Jesus. If I speak in tongues of men or of angels but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. If I could get access to this container over here, can't get in, they know I wanna play the drums. You thought it was for the sound?

No. It's to keep me out. If I if I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all the mysteries and all the knowledge and if I have faith that can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. Without love, tongues become noise, prophecy becomes performance. The maturity of the church is not measured by how spiritual its experiences are but by how deeply it reflects the love of Christ.

Sam Storm says, spiritual gifts are how love meets need. So if we go to an environment that's hyper spiritual and they're having great experiences but you don't love that person, your gifts are more important than the person next to you. This is why we passed the bucket a second time because how can we take communion? How can we receive the body and blood of Christ when you can't afford rent? How can we have this meal when you are hungry?

That's the point. This is the church. It's like Ted Lasso. This is practice. This is the church.

You are the church and we're not being What will last? Will we be prophesying in heaven? No. Jesus is the revelation. Do we need tongues when he is the word?

No. What we need is the reflection of love. You with me church? Gifts without love distort God's character. Love gives power its purpose.

And then he goes on in chapter 14. Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the spirit especially prophecy. When was the last time you were marked by eagering eagerly desiring the gifts of the holy spirit? Do you have this thing inside of you that's like, I just want more of you God. Give me gifts.

I'm done praying for people and not seeing healing. Let me see healing flow. I wanna see our church marked by signs and wonders. I've had visions of just literally traffic jams trying to get in because people wanna meet God. I know there's a little bit of traffic but that's not what I saw.

I just saw all the way down PCH. Like if there's a marathon or or air show that people wanna get to the presence of Jesus because God meets and meets needs tangibly. Do you desire the gifts? Listen. I as a student, I desired the gifts so much.

When I was filled with Holy Spirit, I wanted all of the gifts. And then I realized my desire was about me and my relation to the Jesus not what gifts are for. They're never for you except for tongues. They're for everyone else. Lord I wanna have words of knowledge so that when I go to the supermarket you would make it easier for me to show your love.

He's like, but you don't need it to show his show my love. You need faith which is what? Courage. I don't feel courage. Be courageous.

Be strong and courageous Joshua says, why? Because he's afraid. You don't need to feel courageous to give the word, you just need to be it. In fact, your feelings often lie. Submit those feelings to Jesus.

Verse two says, for anyone who speaks in a tongue does not, speak to people but to God. So tongues are to God. Indeed, no one understands them. They utter mysteries by the spirit. So tongues are mysteries of the spirit.

For anyone, verse three, but the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging, and comfort. Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves. There it is. But the one who prophesies edifies the church. And look at what Paul says, I would like every single one of you to speak in tongues.

Are tongues available for all of the church? Yes. It's hard, right? Because why? It doesn't fit our experience.

Are you second hand Christian? Of course not. This is a journey with Jesus. This is about availability and openness and letting your life be moved and filled with him. May I suggest be humble and gentle towards yourself.

Don't judge yourself but just pursue God with hunger and keep going if you haven't received it. But then he says, would rather have you prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues unless someone interprets so that the church may be filled. What's the point? The priority is prophecy.

The priority is prophecy when? In the public setting. When we gather as the church publicly, the priority is one another. Not my experience with the Holy Spirit but our experience together. That's what it's for.

If there's tongues, you keep it quiet unless there's an interpretation in this context of gathering. I love what doctor Gary Bashir says. He says, he's he teaches that tongues are primarily a private prayer language to etiquette edification of itself unless interpreted publicly in which case they function as prophecy, spirit empowered communication for the edification of all. Prophecy builds up the community, tongues build up the believer, both are gifts of grace but prophecy has a corporate priority. So if we gather here like this, we will create space to encounter God and for all of you to be strengthened and encouraged.

If there's a microphone, it's gonna be publicly encouraging you. It will not be tongues unless there's interpretation. We've never had that. We might have had it a couple of times in the history of our church. In smaller gatherings.

We won't do it here. If you come up and someone prays for you, they lay hands, we train our prayer team in this church to be gentle. To not say thus saith the Lord. They don't prophesy dates and mates. They put a hand on your shoulder and nowhere else unless they ask.

There's a training and we If we pray in a prayer language, we keep it quiet. We don't pray over people in tongues here. Why? Because we're we're helping people that are coming from non charismatic backgrounds to being wildly charismatic into the future. But we can't scare them off.

Does that make sense? Yes, sir. But we should be praying in tongues all the time. Was Do you guys know Have you ever heard of Diamond Cross Ranch? The the t shirt you guys know?

There's an amazing iconic ranch in Wyoming. Grant Gallagher is this like epic man's man horse whisperer and he he trains horses that are in the wild and not, you know, trained and he he does non violent training for them and I got to go up there with my family a few years ago and got to meet him and hang out and he loved us and he's a wildly awesome Christian and I got to have lots of meals with him. He invited him over for a barbecue with our family, we had a trailer and we just got to spend all this time together and I was like, how did you build this ranch? He's like, I walked and did prayer walks in tongues. And and the Lord gave me a vision to build a ranch that looks like a cross.

It's literally a cross. The barn is red representing the blood of Christ and he built this whole thing and he said, one day global leaders will come and watch you tame horses. And he said, every tech company in in Silicon Valley, every major company come to do events at his little ranch to see it. And he says, I ask him how did it happen? Power of the Holy Spirit in praying in tongues.

Isn't that amazing? Like I That's a true story. You can't make that up. In in our environment, that's private prayer language being prayed in a in a in a context that is of your own prayer time. Paul in first Corinthians 14, he says, the main point of public prayer is that people understand and are edified.

So tongues have to have interpretation. So if a tongue is given publicly, it needs an interpretation. There's a difference between public tongues and private tongues. No. Go to that passage real quick and then I wanna share another story.

So Paul says, I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. That's Is that Like there are there's moments in scripture you're like get to John's gospel and it's like, the disciple whom Jesus loved. You're like, who's that? The guy writing the book. John.

John is so sneaky and then Paul's like, I pray in tongues more than all of you. Why? He's he's letting them know, look, this is valuable. You have this overemphasis of performative tongues in a worship environment. But then he says, but in the church, I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than 10,000 words in a time.

Do you see the priority? Can we just hold this tension, church, that we can be wildly charismatic and pray in tongues? Some of you don't know what I'm talking about. We're gonna pray for you. Look, I want you to have more of the spirit.

Yeah. That's it. Yeah. So whether you pray in tongues or not, I don't care. Just ask for more of God.

Yes? Yes. But we can do that and we can create safe environments for tongues. Can I share a story? I was a church planner, didn't experience any of this kind of charismatic stuff I'm talking about in gifts.

And my wife and I, when we were starting our church, we went on this global trip with about, I don't remember, it's like about a 100 church planters from around the world, everywhere. And we were just starting out and there was this one couple that was moving from The US to the South Of France to learn French French dialect and to start this church in in a really hard place in Europe. And so we're praying for them and commissioning them. They were leaving the next week with a family of five. How crazy is that?

And this little girl, this young woman grabs the microphone and she prays this prayer like just goes. I have no idea what she's saying. I'm like, she's going off in French. I can tell it's French. I've listened to movies.

And they stop and the guy leading the gathering was like, so and so, you don't speak French. Right? She's like, no. And the couple getting prayer, they just start weeping. And they they stand up and they go, this is what you said.

And it was everything detailed to confirmation they needed to feel the courage of God to move to France and they did because it was a public tongue, a declaration, this is what God is and what he's doing for you and they had the interpretation. So all of us were like, God is in this place. God is in this place. Remember last week I told you the story of transformation with a friend of mine who was struggling with addiction for a year and a half and in and out of rehab and we got to the point where we're so devastated. We're like, send him back to where he was in South Africa and he'll never come back.

He's gonna be just, you know, divorced and lose his family and heartbroken. That was a Saturday. Sunday he comes. His his daughters get baptized. We He listens to two talks on this On deliverance.

But in between services, my wife's like, let's go pray. We gotta pray for him because he's gonna go back and let's do it one more. All of our elders are here so we go to a kid's room because it's the only place we could go and everyone's praying. I didn't wanna go. I was drugged there.

I needed a snack. I had another service to preach. My heart was like, get him out of this family's life. Let's get on with it. We'll walk with them all the way through this guy.

He's got There's no way. We've done everything we could. In that prayer gathering, everyone's praying. You know those moments where everyone's invested? They're just crying out.

Our elders are amazing. They're just crying out to God. And I'm literally thinking about, I can't wait to eat some food. It's real. And then I have this phrase in my head.

And I'm sharing this with you. You know me. You know me. Yes? As best as you can.

I'm being as vulnerable and honest as possible. I have this phrase in my head and it's like a virus, I can't stop thinking about it. It's something, it's like a phrase I don't know what it is. I hear the same thing over and over and over again. And it's getting so loud, I'm like, I don't know what to do but now I'm feeling like that feeling of like it double dutch like I just gotta jump in because it's it's time.

Let me just trip over the rope so I can be done and go on to preaching. So I say to our elders when everyone quiets down, I was I was standing back, I like walked forward and put my hand. I'm like, hey guys, I'm gonna do this thing. It's gonna be weird but I'm gonna do it and if there's an interpretation, that would be awesome. If not, just keep praying.

That's how I submitted this. Okay? Because I know I wanna be as biblical as possible. Public gathering. I say this thing, tongue.

I don't know what I say but heaven comes into the room. And one of our elders says, know what it means and then interprets it. And the power of God falls on this person. It was so powerful. That person has not touched alcohol and been two years sober since that moment.

Now, that's incredible story of a proclamation or a declaration of praise to God, prayer and and then an interpretation about the identity of this person, about who God is and what this person is gonna experience. Now, that was incredible. I talked to this person this week and he never told me this. He's from South Africa. He's like, Darren, you don't know this but you spoke an African tongue.

And it was an African tongue that I heard two years before I moved to The States that kept me from moving into witchcraft and protected my identity to stay in the church. Can't make that up. I don't know what the baggage is that you have with tongues but I know Jesus wants to pour himself out more. I know he wants more for you. I know he wants to open your mouth so that you can pray bold prayers.

I know he wants to fill the spaces of your soul, the store houses, the the rooms of your soul that have been closed off to him. He wants to give you a a tool for ministry so that you can be strengthened. He wants to give all the gifts to our church. I believe that so that it's the purpose is this this church which every time we do a word of knowledge and we pray for people, we get twelve, six to twelve intake forms for pastoral care. We need you to be the church.

Couple weeks ago we're like, how many of you serve at the nine 11? There's about 12 of you which is kind of equal to what we're experiencing with giving. It's about 18% give 82% of our offerings. 18% serve. Imagine if you come here and just this section in the front where the only ones worshiping and reading their bibles.

That's what's happening in our church. I don't know what to do. I'm doing everything I can. I'm as hungry as possible. I'm reading.

I I go to bed at 09:15 so I can be with Jesus. I don't know what's going on with these two services, three services, and the growing room. I don't know what the effects of God moving right now are gonna be. But I wanna be prepared. And I don't wanna be I don't wanna just be prepared alone.

I want everyone that says I believe in Jesus that's here on fire for Jesus. Who said I want more. I pushed the spiritual gifts aside. I'm content with just doing my job and watching Netflix. Forget it.

The time is now. And let me finish with this. Paul and and Luke have, conflicting views. There It's a different emphasis. So the four biblical expressions of tongues if you're taking note according to the book of acts in first Corinthians is mission, inclusion, communion, and edification.

When you look at what tongues represent, they're for mission, they're for inclusion, they're for communion and for edification. And Paul and Luke have different emphasis. Luke focuses on mission tongues as an outward sign of the gospel moving forward for all. Paul focuses on edification. Tongues and prophecy are gifts to build up the church.

Luke says, tongues demonstrate that no group is excluded from the from God's promise. Tongues demonstrate according to Paul that every believer can participate in God's presence. This Luke says, the spirit gives us a message to the world. Paul says, the spirit gives us a language for the heart. Together they complete the perfect picture.

Both point to the same reality. Everyone has access to God. The spirit who spoke to the prophets now speak through sons and daughters empowered by the Holy Spirit. Tongues move the heart upward towards God. Prophecy moves God's heart outward towards people.

We'll talk about that next week maybe. Hey, I know you come from different backgrounds but can I invite you to receive more?

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