Thank you, Nick. Hey, if if you're listening to the announcement from Nick about parking and you're going It actually was full down there at Welsh higher and I there this lot was full and that lot was full and you had to park on the street We understand that so we're not saying okay You have to park two miles away and then hike or something like that We just want to encourage you to drive really slowly when you're leaving after you've parked Or after you've left church, please just love our neighbors well by driving with care in the neighborhood Okay, so we understand that there's certain nights I mean for the 4 p.m We knew that there was cars on the street and we just couldn't get around that but we still want to do that with care Okay, is that all right? Okay Again, we're gonna say this later, but please do not walk up Mount Elmwood. Okay.
Is everybody don't walk down or walk up it? Well, I'll give details later. Okay How are we doing? We don't get okay?
We are continuing our series called same and same is all about the idea that holy spirit the same one that raised Jesus from the dead broke through the grave that same spirit actually lives inside of the believer and so we We love that we get to be in relationship with Holy Spirit and during the sermon series We actually want to learn about his personality his character Who holy spirit is as a person and we talked about that in the first week a lot and then second week We talked about our personal stories that everyone has a story with the Holy Spirit And there's actually gonna be an advancement further in your story with the Holy Spirit as you continue in relationship with him And then third we're gonna talk about the gifts of Holy Spirit and what he gives us and how he empowers us And so the title of my message tonight is called speaking in tongues Speaking in tongues. I kind of I felt like there's people in the room. They're like I don't want to talk about that Right. There's always there's always that with this topic You know, I believe that God desires that every Christian would speak in tongues and Katie and I have a desire and a hope that everyone in our community would speak in tongues now If you don't speak in tongues We don't believe that you're a second-class Christian or that there's some type of hierarchy of well There's the Christians that speak in tongues and then those that don't and those that don't are you know the Christians that don't okay?
We don't believe that at all. We believe that when you gave your life to Jesus you got all of the Holy Spirit But there's second experiences that can happen in an activation of the gifts that he gives that we want to step into And I believe that God wants us God the Father is really excited for us to step into the gifts that he's given I mean, can you imagine buying a gift with God blood for someone and then say okay We're gonna give it to him and then You never open the gift. Can you imagine buying gifts for your kids and they're like, oh, but it kind of is scary I don't like the wrapping paper. You're like I literally spent Thousand millions of dollars on this gift and you're not gonna open it, right?
And so I want to encourage you on and implore all of us to seek and earnestly desire after the gift of tongues Alright, I know that can I just say something I think this so fun in high school. I All the throughout growing up. I was never able to roll my arse. You know like rolling Spanish was awful.
I got deez in Spanish and now we adopted like 100% 100% Mexican maybe girl and I'm like man, I need to learn Spanish, but I got these you know I got just gonna work right but but I could never roll my arse until I got baptized in the Holy Spirit spoken tongues and I started rolling ours After that isn't that fun? Okay But all throughout the scriptures we see back to the I believe all we see in acts 10 We see acts 19 first Corinthians 14 and mark 16 all of those passages talk about all praying in tongues Mark 16 even Jesus says this is a sign that will follow the believer. They're gonna speak in tongues Apostle Paul In first Corinthians 14 he says I want you to pray in tongues I want everyone to pray in tongues and then he says my like tongues game is next level better than all y'all I pray in tongues more than everybody, you know like he's gained a little get a little prideful a little air get okay But all throughout the New Testament we see that there's this theme that happens that we all can pray in tongues So I want to apologize on behalf of all of the crazies Where there's been user air with the gift How many of you know the Holy Spirit is not a spirit of confusion but of order But maybe many of us have experienced confusion with this gift And I just want to acknowledge that and say as somebody that does pray in tongues daily I just want to apologize on behalf of everybody that prays in tongues We are so sorry for the user air in the misuse of the gift of that the Holy Spirit has given us I I'm not good at fishing okay really bad so growing up my parents would take us to Estes Park and Colorado Because I grew up in Colorado and there would be these fish farms I don't know if you've ever seen this where you literally pay by the pound to catch fish out of a stocked pond and there's literally Thousands of trout like I don't know hundreds of thousands of trout. We're just gonna exaggerate in this pond And you literally you have to be though.
It's you just put it in the water and within five seconds There's like a fish that comes and gets it and that's the only time that we could ever catch fish It's a family just had no idea what we were doing my kids started getting into fishing this summer bad news, okay? All they're doing is catching bull heads if you know what a bull head is it's the worst fish It's slimy. It's gross. You like blood all over your hands because it cuts you and so they're in the back in the pond Just like fishing bull heads bull head boy boy, okay And then anytime that I'm fishing with him somehow all the lines get tangled I don't know what I'm doing, but it happens every single time right and so my father-in-law who is a fisherman He sees these fishing rods in our garage and without even telling me he's like fixing the fishing rods for me And he's just so gracious, you know and it actually happened multiple times just like the servant that doesn't say anything But all of a sudden it's like oh the fishing rods are fixed, you know, and he's such a good father Just knowing it all right this guy this son doesn't know what he's doing right and I want to encourage you that tonight I might my hope is that we would untangle some of the lines of the user air of this gift to just help Demystify some of what this is okay I believe that there's three types of tongues that we see in scripture some some people teach that there's four types But I've combined two of them, okay, so the first type is evangelistic tongues Second is corporate and third is personal and sometimes teach some people teach that there's a Tongue of intercession and a tongue that's more of like a personal prayer language, but I just combine those together And so I've combined those together I believe there's three types of tongues so what we're gonna do and when I say three types of tongues I'm saying scripturally in the Bible I see that there's a theme of three instances or uses of tongues that we see in the New Testament So what we're gonna do is we're gonna take a journey through and talking about each one of those three and we'll just breeze through it Okay, can we do that The first tongue that we see in the scriptures is in Pentecost that on the day of Pentecost Man, how many of you remember this storyline where where the Holy Spirit comes and it's like flaming tongues of fire resting on the followers of Jesus what happened is Jesus rose from the dead and After three days of being in the grave then he hangs out with his disciples for 40 days and visits over 500 eyewitnesses over the span of 40 days In his resurrected body I mean it's just wild right and then at the end of those 40 days He stands on the Mount of Olives all of his disciples are around and he actually floats into the sky And if you believe in the Bible then you believe that okay Jesus floats into the sky and takes his seat on the throne of heaven at seat at the right hand of God above the circle of the earth Okay, whoa Then he says I don't want you to go and check because the disciples were like let me out of let me out of let me out I'm gonna share the good news of Jesus everywhere right and Jesus is going no I want you to wait And he said I want you to wait for dynamite power, right?
So then the disciples have a seven-day prayer meeting because from Passover It's 50 days till Pentecost so there's three days Jesus in the grave. He has sins or he's there for 40 days That's 43 days then there's a seven-day gap from 43 days to 7 to 50 Wow simple math here 43 days to 57, okay, so they have a seven-day prayer meeting in the upper room Holy Spirit comes on them in the upper room and they start speaking in tongues and They leave the upper room and they probably look pretty nasty seven-day prayer meeting Like it's the morning and they're just like oh and they're just they're praying in tongues Or they're not praying in tongues or speaking in tongues and what's happening is the feast of Pentecost is there so there's Jewish pilgrims or those that have taken the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate Pentecost that speak in different languages from all around the world That made the pilgrimage to Pentecost so that's why there's people in the streets that don't speak Hebrew or don't speak Arabic Okay, so there's a lot of different languages that are that are spoken on the streets of Jerusalem and all of a sudden these people these followers of Jesus They are speaking perfect Like dialects of other people's languages and people are going what the heck is going on right and everybody and there's a mockery Where there's some of them that are skeptical going what's going on are these guys drunk and Peter says no It's the morning they're not they haven't been drinking they've just been in an upper rooms They smell bad because they've been a seven-day prayer meeting but they haven't been drinking right and so and so this is an evangelistic tongue That's happening because they're praising God in other languages and this is something that we see in modern day all over the place I've heard so many stories of people speaking in different languages because they felt like there's an utterance that Holy Spirit gave them and they Start speaking in tongues don't know what they're saying and then there's somebody behind them that says wait a second Did you know that you were speaking perfect French and they're like what are you even talking about like your accent was perfect? And you were speaking in French perfectly are you from France? They're like no wait me right and there's so many stories of that Where there's this evangelistic tongue that's given and maybe it's in moments that even just encourages other believers right?
But it's an earthly language that sometimes Holy Spirit is able to give us in in in moments Okay, so that's the first type of tongue that we see I want you to turn to first Corinthians 14 I want to talk really briefly about something here as it relates to the evangelistic type of tongue that's an earthly language tongue and Contrast it with a heavenly language First Corinthians 14 say amen if you're there all right verse 20. We're gonna pick up This is a very difficult passage to understand Traditionally for the body of Christ I want to read it because it seems like it contradicts itself says verse 20 brothers do not be children in your thinking be infants and evil But in your thinking be mature in the law It is written by people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people and even then they will not listen to me It says the Lord thus tongues are assigned not for believers But for unbelievers while prophecy is assigned not for unbelievers, but for believers verse 23 if therefore the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues and Outsiders or unbelievers enter will they not say that you are out of your minds But if I'll prophesy and an unbeliever or outsider enters he's convicted by all he's called to account by all the secrets of his heart Are disclosed and laid bare and so falling on his face. He will worship God and declare that God is really among you So we're looking at this and it go we it looks like Paul is saying that tongues are assigned for unbelievers But then later it says that to unbelievers they're gonna think that you're crazy and they're gonna be confused by you speaking to tongues So is it for unbelievers or what's the story because then they're just gonna get confused right? Well in this passage we see that there's Isaiah 28 is quoted Paul is quoting Isaiah 28 at the start there in verse 21 And in that passage what's happening is God has been speaking to the people of Israel and the people of Israel have hardened their hearts And they're not listening to God and so God says okay I'm gonna have the Assyrians come in and they're gonna conquer you and they speak a different language So you're gonna actually have to hear me speaking through the Syrians Conquering you and overtaking you they're those that speak a different language.
So what Paul is saying is For the non-believer that has a hard heart Tongues will make their hearts more hard How many of you have you ever seen on YouTube? You should just search this on ABC or on like YouTube You can search like ABC or CBS is one of those news channels They did a thing on tongues and they literally have footage of people praying in tongues in small groups And as a person that prays in tongues every single day I literally am cringing right because I'm like this is foolishness This is so this is so foolish as I watch it and I if I didn't believe in Jesus I'd say this is insane and as a skeptic my heart would just become more hard and I'd say like all these idiots What are they thinking speaking in tongues right? So Paul is saying speaking in tongues is not a sign He's saying the same thing but in a different way speaking in tongues is not for the building up of non-believers because it's just foolishness to them So Paul is saying hey, let's stick with prophecy with those that don't know Jesus. Okay?
So that is unless there's an evangelistic tongue and it's actually in their language Then it does something significant right as we saw in Acts 2. Okay, the second type of tongue is the corporate tongue Are you guys ready? Okay, first Corinthians 14. We're just gonna look a little bit back in the chapter verse 5.
Let's start Is it okay if we read the Bible a little bit? I decided that instead of basing what we believe on our own experience like some that we would actually go to the Bible Like those that think that tongues have ceased that based their belief on one verse in first Corinthians 13 That is not talking about what they think it's talking about and they're saying tongues have ceased right along with knowledge That doesn't make any sense When the canon of scripture, I'm not trying to make a lot of this But I honestly think that this is the monic doctrine that says that tongues and prophecy and knowledge Have ceased since the canon of scripture was created a couple hundred years after the apostles That's not founded on anything other than speculation and in addition to the speculation It's based on experience And so we have to come up with some type of verses to excuse the fact that I have an experience whatever in the Bible or we could just take the Bible And go hmm. I've never experienced this and we could go low and walk in humility and go everything that you have I want it even if I haven't experienced it, okay, all right just I know that was a little sharp all right Verse 5 first Corinthians 14 verse 5 it says this now I want you all to speak in tongues That word all but even more to prophesy the one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues unless someone interprets So that the church may be built up now brothers if I come to you speaking in tongues How will I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching? If even lifeless instruments such as the flute or the harp do not give distinct notes How will anyone know what is played and if the bugle I love the bugle that he just Gives an interesting sound who will get ready for battle So with yourselves if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible How will anyone know what is said for you will be speaking into the air There are doubtless many different languages in the world and none is without meaning But if I do not know the meaning of the language I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker foreigner to me So with yourselves since you are eager for manifestations of the spirit strive to excel in what building up the church So there's a corporate tongue that can be given where it actually has the effect of building up the church But paul is saying it only has the effect of building up the church if it's interpreted And so we see that you can give a tongue Publicly whether it's in a small group or even in a setting like this if it was on the microphone or something like that But it needs to be interpreted or people are going to say it's just like a clanging symbol It doesn't make any sense It's just noise and everybody leaves confused and that's what exactly what was happening in the kurinthian church What was happening in the church of Corinth was there was a lot of chaos There was a lot of tongue speaking and no interpretation So then there's there's this confusion and nobody's actually built up paul was saying I want you to be encouraged And this is I as I look at this I see there's four Interpretations that can happen when somebody interprets a tongue look at this In verse six it says some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching Can be the interpretation of a tongue?
So somebody gives a tongue and then one of those four things can actually be shared in the interpretation that can actually build up the church, okay now Turn in your bibles or maybe you just look on the the page that's adjacent to the one that you're on in In first Corinthians 12 27 says how you are the body of Christ and individually members of it And God is appointed in the church first listen to this apostles prophets teachers Then miracles gifts of healing helping administrating and various kinds of tongues are all apostles are all prophets So are all apostles? No are all prophets? No are all teachers? No do all work miracles?
No do all possess gifts of healing? No do all speak with tongues? No do all interpret? No, but earnestly desire the higher gifts Hold up Didn't we just read that this was one of the signs that will accompany believers Or I quoted I know we didn't read it, but didn't Paul just say I want you all to speak in tongues You all have capacity to do this, but not all wait.
I'm confused right? As Paul's writing this he's talking about corporate gifts to build up the church Right, but if you look at the list guys look at the list administration helping Teaching how many of you know that you can all prophesy you can all administrate you can all help Is that true? I'm not very good administration, but I can do it right? I'm not very good at helping but sometimes I can help We can all prophesy we can all do these things But he's saying that there's actually a special grace or a special gift that some have To build up the church in these areas where there's a special gift a grace to build up the corporate body of Christ Does that make sense?
So he's saying I want to encourage you though to seek to step into these things Because there's a capacity that you can walk in these things even if you don't have that special gift or that grace You can still desire the higher gifts. Okay, that's corporate tongues Number three personal tongues. Are you guys ready to tackle that? This is what we see in the acts in the book of acts in mark 16 verse 2 actually let's start in verse 1 Pursue love and earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy Why because it actually builds up the church?
For one who speaks in a tongue what speaks not to men, but to who? God Okay, so if I'm speaking in a tongue, I'm speaking to God Let's continue for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the spirit On the other hand the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding encouragement and consolation the one who speaks in a tongue builds Himself up, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. Okay. Now skip to verse 14 or 13 Therefore one who speaks in a tongue should pray for the power to interpret For if I pray in a tongue my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful What am I to do?
I will pray with my spirit, but I'll pray with my mind also here I just want to pause real quick. We're gonna continue reading But some of you maybe you've heard a message on this or you pray in tongues a lot I want to encourage you listen and lean in because you're gonna be the one that's gonna teach someone that's a born-again believer And and you don't even need to send them a message on tongues. You just explain it to them with the bible Okay, I want to talk to you. You are a leader Stop listening like you're a follower Listen like a leader Leaders listen and lean in because they know that they're gonna have to teach somebody else someday Okay, so if you think you know all this I just want to like hey, let's take Like take a hungry route and remember that you're a leader and that you're gonna tell someone about this and decode it, okay All right, we're gonna keep on reading.
All right Otherwise, okay, verse 15 we're gonna start there. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit But I will also pray with my mind. I was singing praise with my spirit But I also sing with my mind also Otherwise if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say amen to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you're saying and it continues So What Paul is talking about is this personal Gift that's given to you for your vertical relationship with god, right?
It's not speaking to man. It's speaking to god Mysteries uttering mysteries to god. There's there's also another passage talks about it's like an angelic tongue or an angelic language And so maybe you don't understand it and you're not going to okay So what Paul is saying is that this is a tongue that's a vertical and it's oftentimes praying even Paul is writing about this in Romans Even when we don't have the words the Holy Spirit gives us utterance in Romans it talks about this And then you pray with groanings too deep for words He's talking about praying and tongues and the spirit of intercession coming upon you to actually pray and partner with god's heart and pray out in tongues And you don't even know what you're praying but god does everything in partnership with his people And so you're you're interceding and what that means is praying on behalf of somebody else and you're just praying in tongues And there's so many stories about that as well and I don't have any fresh in my mind I'm so sorry But there's so many stories of that taking place and literally people getting in car accidents that same hour and getting saved and like walking away from accidents And then you're going to be in the spirit when they didn't even know why they were praying okay So you get to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit with us But what's happening is I'm praying and what is prayer communication with god right? But maybe some of us are listening or going okay um, but why right?
Like what's the point is there any good fruit that comes from babbling? You kind of ask that question like what's the point then if you don't know what you're actually saying why would you do it? verse 4 The one who speaks in a tongue Excuse me builds up himself Okay, builds up himself or herself what that means is as you pray in tongues You're building up your spirit man as you pray in tongues. How does this work?
Well, um, it seems really foolish right because your babbling doesn't seem like anything's getting accomplished But as you're doing it and you're doing it in faith You start building up your faith as you do it because even though it seems foolish what you're doing is you're believing in faith Just like the gospel When you give your life to Jesus, it's by faith. It's not my feeling is that right? As you pray in tongues, it's the same thing You believe You confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart. That's how you get into the kingdom How do you pray in tongues?
You Confess with your mouth You open up your mouth and start praying in tongues and you believe in your heart that it's actually making an impact And you look at the scriptures and say okay, it says that it builds me up and what build up builds up means is increases your capacity It raises the roof in the spirit It starts edifying you and building you up and you're going man. I don't even know what's happening and this I've had this experience so many times It starts lifting my hope levels Man, if you pray in tongues for 10 minutes, you start getting to the point where you're going man. I'm more than a conqueror You say you start tapping in to the holy spirit inside of you through praying in tongues and you start having faith for what you didn't have faith in before What happens is this you start praying in tongues and then you see the person that's in front of you that has a tumor growing out of their neck Like a baseball and and naturally you'd go I'm looking at them and I don't have faith because I'm looking with my eyes I don't have faith that they're gonna get healed you start praying in tongues more which is such a foolish act Because nothing says that that should be making an impact, right? But it's by faith you're building up in faith believing this is making an impact.
I'm actually taking ground I'm getting built up so you've been training your spirit to not base your belief on what you see But you're basing your belief on what you read And what the word has said so then you start basing it on truth rather than experience So then you stand in front of the person you go, oh man, I've been building up my faith That it's not according to what I see but what he's done, right? It builds you up in the spirit now look at this maybe you're going, okay, that's great builds me up in the spirit But I don't even understand what I'm saying, right? It's like yes, that's true paul has a trick for us He has a key look at this in verse 14 If I pray to tell my spirit praise, but my mind is unfruitful. What should I do?
See he's asking the same question you're asking. What do I do? If I don't understand what I'm saying What do I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I'll also pray with my mind I'll sing with my spirit by also sing with my mind.
What's your mind? Your soul So God's saying this is how you build up your spirit now. This is how you build up your soul as you're praying in tongues Then you pray in english and you season it with english This is how I do this. I'm praying in tongues and then i'll pause and go lord I thank you that I'm building up my spirit and then i'll go right into praying in tongues more And then as i'm praying in tongues, this is what's wild about tongues.
I'll get to that later, okay It's so funny, okay But then as you're meditating on the things of God You don't have to but you can meditate on the things of God while you're praying in tongues And then as things happen or revelations come which they do Like if you pray in tongues long enough and you're meditating on things of the Lord I'm telling you it's like a web of connection that starts taking place It's like cross-refinches everywhere you're like an amis and malachi and then you're in revelation You're like whoa, God This is why all of that right then you get so stirred up because your soul in your mind is getting activated And then you speak it out And then you keep on praying in tongues and you start it's a way to meditate on the things of God To set your mind on things above, okay So that's the spirit the body and I love that tongues or that's the spirit in the soul And I love tongues is actually a blessing to our bodies. Listen to this Dr. Carl Peterson conducted a study in Oklahoma And i'm just gonna read this says being a brain specialist Dr. Peterson was doing research on the relationship between the brain and praying or speaking in tongues He found that as we listen this is so fun He found that as we pray in the spirit or worship in the spirit and in tongues The brain releases two chemical secretions.
I love that word secretions it's awful Two chemical secretions that are directed into our immune systems Giving a 35 to 40 boost to the immune system when you pray in tongues This promotes healing in our bodies amazingly. This is a creation there was again Amazingly this secretion is triggered from a part of the brain that has no other apparent activity in humans and is only activated by speaking in tongues Come on That is so good So God is giving you a gift that's to build up your spirit Build up your soul and build up your body And it's a gift that we get to have access to all the time whenever we want to i'm coming down with the cold I'm just gonna start praying in tongues, right? Oh my goodness. I love that.
Okay one of the things that uh that I think that if you haven't experienced praying in tongues and and There's your stories like mind where maybe I got baptized in the Holy Spirit and the gift wasn't activated for me Um, the question is why? Why didn't I get it? Why am I not praying in tongues? I know there's many in the community right now that you're going up first of all I've never even heard of this So I don't even know what you're talking about this is really weird And then some of you guys are going yeah, I've been wanting this and it's weird because I feel like everyone has it and I don't Which is totally a lie And then others that are going man, I'm just curious about it But the question for people that have been pursuing this is why am I have I just still not spoken in tongues And I think that most of the time there's two reasons and every person's story is different But the two reasons are fear of being out of control Right fear of being out of control and then false expectations That holy spirit's gonna start moving and babbling your tongue back and forth right Those and and then it's gonna feel like something but it's not by feelings.
It's by faith, right? There's another study done dr. Andrew Newberg he did a study on tongues as well and how it interacts with the brain And what he found is that the frontal lobes which are overseeing that interact with our language It's like the language hemisphere of our brain where when we speak they're just firing and there's like electricity that's happening in our brain I guess I don't know how it works, but it's there's there's like currents that are going through the frontal lobe of our brain Right when we speak but he hooked up people to this machine that was looking at their brain activity when they're praying in tongues And what he discovered was that when people pray in tongues the frontal lobe that's the language center is primarily inactive Isn't that interesting so they're not making it up. They're not doing it in their own strength There's something happening spiritually where it's not language that they're creating.
It's actually inspired by God, right? But then he also discovered in this study that the area in the brain that that oversees self-awareness That is in charge of self-awareness is still hammering on all cylinders So what that means is you actually have self-control when you're praying in tongues That's very important for us to understand when you're at the gym and you have your headphones on and you got baptizing the Holy Spirit praying in tongues at church And then you're okay, it's Tuesday Tuesday morning. You're not gonna be working out and all of a sudden You know, it's like that's not gonna happen. Okay, if you're curious, that's not my tongue.
Okay, that'd be It's like a yodel over and over and over again So you when you prophesy or when you speak you have a choice of when you want to do it And the same thing is tongues the same thing is true for tongues So it actually takes and the other thing that I talked about where people oftentimes are waiting for something really special to happen A tingly something to really man like, okay, that was tongues. I'm gonna roll with it No It actually takes faith just like when you gave your life to Jesus You believe in your heart and then you start confessing You believe in your heart and then you start speaking in faith and you just go with a syllable It's like the first syllable that comes to mind and you just start going with it And then the Holy Spirit's gonna give you utterance But most of the time we're afraid that we're gonna create something that's not there Is that right? There's a sphere of like, well, I don't want to fabricate it. I don't want to fabricate salvation either Right?
I don't know if I fabricate prophecy But that doesn't keep me from stepping out and I mean when I when I share the gospel or prophesy and public I will literally open up my mouth and I don't know I don't have anything in my brain I'm just taking risks, right? And then the Holy Spirit helps me and I just start declaring things over a person They're like, wait, how do you know that? Right? And it's because I just stepped out in faith and that's how praying and tongues is for the first time and then it continues you actually have to believe That it's real That Holy Spirit's given that to you if you got baptized in the Holy Spirit and that you get to step into it Four things five things I want you to remember is that everyone has a different story Everyone has a different story your neighbor's gonna have a different story than you with this whole topic of tongues Secondly, Holy Spirit's not gonna take over your tongue You do it in partnership with him He's gonna know where in the scriptures I love this Pastor Peter Haas said this when I went back went to substance Katie and I went to substance back in the heyday And early how many of you guys love substance church?
Let's go we love substance we felt so supported by them love Pastor Peter and Carolyn But we went there when it was at the U of M campus and I remember him saying You know that that with tongues You actually you can't just expect okay. I'm just gonna sit here There has to be this level of okay I'm gonna step out and I am going to open up my mouth and I want to encourage you He's not gonna take over your tongue you step out it requires faith You're not gonna understand You're not gonna understand what you're saying right? That's why it requires faith and then lastly the thing that I want to Speak about is that the gift of tongues in all of its forms. This is very important It's for influencers and it's for leaders Oftentimes we think tongues are for the crazy people okay But I believe that that it's actually set aside for all of us and we're all influencers and we're all leaders There's people that are in the highest levels of government that pray in tongues There's CEOs in our city that pray in tongues at work because they know they need strength and spirit soul and body I want to encourage you whatever difficulty that you're facing you have a secret weapon It's like a fission six.
It's all of the armor of God that's talked about and then it says pray in the spirit What is that praying in tongues? It's an offensive weapon that the Holy Spirit has given us whatever you're called to in any of the spheres of society God's wanting to give you this gift of tongues. It's actually strengthen you across the board. Amen?
All right We're gonna do an activity is okay What we're next week this is this is a this is a precursor to next week We're gonna talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit next week and and oftentimes you'll talk about baptism of the Holy Spirit And then you'll throw in this like in ministry time. It's like okay praying tongues now People like oh, I don't I'm scared all right And so I thought it'd be best if we talk about tongues first and demystify that And then next week we can just have our hearts ready to receive If you still haven't been baptized in the Holy Spirit and want to experience that okay So next week we're gonna be hitting that but what I want to do for our activity tonight is turn to a neighbor and talk about what's your story With speaking in tongues or lack thereof and what it what's your background with this topic? And then secondly what are steps that you want to take moving forward whether maybe you've prayed in tongues before and you're like man I want to pray in tongues a lot, you know like like 30 minutes a day or four hours a day I'm just like whoa, that's good for you. Okay, like go to work, but good for you Okay, I'm just kidding But uh, whatever it is so what's your story and then what are steps that you want to take towards this?
Or maybe you're going I don't want to take any such stories and this freaks me out still and that's okay But just vocalize that with your neighbor grips of two or three Are you ready? All right, we're gonna just go into conversation and then I'll commission you after that for about five minutes five ten minutes We're gonna have conversation around tongues ready set go turn to a neighbor If there's somebody that isn't part of a group welcome them into your group Okay One of the things that I think is important to know when you pray in tongues and maybe if you know this week I'll encourage you maybe you've never spoken in tongues before and you want to get that language between you and God that vertical prayer language You can seek after that without being at church Okay And so this week you can just earnestly desire the guests of the Holy Spirit and you can just step into that yourself by just having conversation There's so many people that I know that have encountered God when they're not at a corporate event and there's encountered God them and him And it's powerful so I'd encourage you to seek after those things now When it happens you'll realize that you can be thinking about something that has nothing to do with God While you're praying in tongues like you can be thinking about d'Angelo Russell again trade to the tambour wall So let's go and you can be thinking about that and praying in tongues Right But if you want that spirit soul body experience with God then you start meditating on things of the spirit Okay And remember that it's all by faith So even if you don't feel the tingles you continue to step forward step forward in faith And just believe this is what I get because the bible says it and just step into it I believe that there's going to be a meeting where Holy Spirit meets you in that place And it's going to be special so next week is going to be so fun Are you guys excited for next week baptism the Holy Spirit It's going to be great I'm going to commission us out lord. Here we are lord We thank you that you are the best giver of gifts Man, you knew exactly what we would need for life and godliness You said that we have everything we need And so lord, I thank you that we have everything we need for monday morning and tuesday morning Wednesday morning when we wake up lord I declare over this people that we are going to be a people that praise in tongues Making paul shy because we pray in tongues even more than a apostle paul Building ourselves up in the holy faith So that we can be an encouragement to others and reach the world for Jesus We declare that you are the best dad in the whole world And it's so good to be your sons and daughters in Jesus name amen amen