Life, there’s not another way to true peace and true joy apart from knowing Jesus.

So thank You that even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and though, Lord, through many seasons in this life we feel distant, many seasons in this life we feel as though maybe we’re just hanging on in the Christian faith and we’re not running the way we want to or think we should. You have not let go of us, and You will keep us, Lord. So we worship You for who You are, what You’ve done, what You’re promising to do in us, Lord. We take all of our focus and attention off of ourselves, off of our weaknesses, and in that place we see Your strength and we see Your wisdom. We see Your power. We see Your salvation. We see Your salvation.

It’s just You, Jesus, that we seek, and we pray that You would fill all in all. We pray You would bless this time, that, Lord, Your Word would penetrate deeply.

Lord, we pray You would take our tithe and our offering, Lord, all that You call us to give, and, Lord, we would joyfully and cheerfully give that to You, and You would continually multiply it. Lord, for Your sake. Lord, for Your kingdom, as You so faithfully do.

We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen.

Well, good evening. We’re going to be in 1 Corinthians chapter 14.

Turn there with me. In your Bibles, 1 Corinthians chapter 14. 1 Corinthians chapter 14, mostly in verses 1 through 12,

but I’m going to be all over the chapter at the same time.

Paul writes, Pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God, 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 and encouragement and consolation. The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. Now, I want you all to speak in tongues, 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, 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 a flute or the harp do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is played? And if the bugle gives an indistinct 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 a foreigner to me.

So, with yourselves, since you are eager, eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. Strive to excel in building up the church. So, last week, Elder Chase preached through that very popular

passage of Paul’s. You know, it’s very high. You know, it’s full of emotion. It’s that popular one on love. Randomly, I think that chapter is always read or popularly read at wedding ceremonies. I don’t know. Maybe it was read at my wedding ceremony. I don’t know. And I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. It’s just if you’re going to get to the context of 1 Corinthians chapter 13,

he’s mostly talking about… about the way that the body of Christ loves itself well. So, again, I hope, whatever, it’s fine for marriage. But the point of chapter 13, and Chase walked through that, is do you really love with the love of Christ the body of Christ?

So, he goes on from that, and the question is, what does it mean to be Spirit-filled in chapter 14? And it can’t mean something to you, one thing, and something to the other. It can mean to me a different thing. Paul really demands that we all understand Spirit-filled the same way

because we’re all governed by that same Spirit. So, it can’t be so that God defines one thing in one way and another thing in another way according to the same Spirit. The Spirit is the Spirit, and the Spirit fills us with the truth of the person of Jesus. And truth is truth is truth is truth. So, he connects the dots between what is love in chapter 13 with what it means to be filled with the Spirit in chapter 14.

And love is kind of like, if you will, a compass.

Now, if I was lost in the woods and I had a compass, I might as well not have that compass because I don’t know how to read a compass, but I know that there is a way to read a compass and it would help you know where you are and where to go. So, in the same way, Paul is teaching us if you really want to be one who manifests the gifts of the Spirit, and we’ve been talking about that the last couple of weeks, in a way that pleases God, you must be governed by Christian love. So, what is love not? Love is not a rush of ecstatic emotions. Love is not some positive feeling towards other people. Now, we should be filled with, like, positive, warm affection for our brothers and sisters in Christ. And something’s wrong if we never have those kinds of feelings towards one another. But I believe Christian love is a much greater force at work in the Christian. And I think you would have to say being filled with love is to say to be filled with Christ. It’s Christ working in me. It’s the force of love, not in some general sense, but it’s the force of the person of Jesus. And knowing Jesus and being filled with Jesus doesn’t drive, again, just my feelings, just my affections, but it drives my actions. It drives my actions.

Love is my willingness to improve, to serve someone else, especially when it comes at a great cost to me.

Especially when it comes at a great cost to me. Love, based purely on feel-goods, is entirely superficial.

Because no one can give someone else feel-goods all the time. And you cannot give someone feel-goods all the time. Because you’re sinful. And I’m sinful. And we hurt people. Or sometimes someone else doesn’t hurt us and our own personal emotions and thoughts are just malfunctioning and we just don’t treat people or think of people the way that we should. So, emotions cannot be, the definition of love. And I think we do, for a second, to rope back around, talk about what it means to love one another as a family. If having, like, blood family is any sort of indication of what a family is. I love my children and my children love me, but my children do not always give me feel-goods. And that doesn’t mean I don’t do what’s best for them. I know, you know, a husband and a wife, a wife right now that they’re dealing with one of their children and this child is giving them terrible, terrible problems, great, great problems. And they are having to deal with it, you know, and it’s a lot and it’s a mess.

They’re not getting feel-goods from that child, but you’d better believe they’re seeking all the help that they can get. Why? Because they want to improve in helping love this child. They don’t throw the child to the side of the road and just say, I’d like another. I’d like another. I’d like another one, please. A child is a child. And so love is not my feelings alone. It’s not less than that, but it’s also how I serve. It’s my welfare for other people. So I can’t throw my spouse to the side of the road when I want another spouse or my spouse wants another one. I hope not, you know. I can’t throw my church to the side of the road when my feel-goods go away. I can’t let the people that I love languish. Okay? So love is costly. Okay? And I think we have to say love is extremely costly when we look at the cross of Jesus. Because what do we see in Jesus? We see someone who got no feel-goods back from the people he’s serving by being nailed to a piece of wood.

He did that for your improvement and my improvement. He loved us perfectly and it was costly. It was costly. So that kind of Christian love I think exclusively governs, like a compass, the actions, that we outwardly do or don’t do towards one another in the church. It governs our relationships. Particularly then, how we use and manifest spiritual gifts towards one another. So spiritual gifts, it’s like a conduit through which Christian love comes. So, to go all the way back to where I started, to say I’m spirit-filled or for you to say you’re spirit-filled can’t mean anything other than loving you for your improvement through the tools and gifts God’s given me irrespective of whether or not I get anything out of it. That’s what spirit-filled has to mean. It means with the love of Christ building up my church family with the gifts and the tools God’s given me regardless of whether I’m being served in return or I’m being improved. That has to be what Paul means. It has to be.

So Paul expects the love to manifest itself through the operation of spiritual,

gifts. So he says two things, not one thing. He says pursue love,

seek after what it means to love, and, so it’s coupled with this, and earnestly desire the gifts. So it means be zealous to have spiritual gifts. It’s not two different things. Those two things, if they’re going to be present in your life, they’ve got to be interdependent. So I can’t love you with my emotions, nor can I have an operation of spiritual gifts in me that please, that pleases God unless it’s harmonious with Christian love governing how it plays out. Here’s the problem in Corinth, and here’s the problem that you and I face all the time because we’re sinful people. In Corinth, they were manifesting spiritual gifts, but they were not loving one another while doing it. They took a thing that was supposed to be about one another and they had made it about self. So what does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 12, 7? And we looked at this a couple weeks ago. He says, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for, what does he say? The common good. When we go down to 14.26. He says, what then, brothers, when you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for what? What does Paul say all things are done for? For building up. Not, showmanship. Okay? So how were the Corinthians then failing to love one another? How were they being, let’s put it this way, inward focused rather than outwardly focused, which is what Christian love does for us. How is that playing out? They were undervaluing the role of prophecy and what it should play in the life of their church and they were placing an unhealthy, ungodly premium on speaking in tongues. That’s the immediate, the issue Paul’s addressing very much so in 14, but even all the way as far back as 12 that we looked at a couple weeks ago. So to talk about it again, speaking in tongues, if we took a survey of the book of Acts, how do we see speaking in tongues manifesting itself there? Well, we see it initially at Pentecost. And remember what happens? They’re praying and what Pentecost was, it was a feast. So you’ve got Jews all around the Roman Empire, is what you call the diaspora. So they were Jews that had moved out and lived in other parts of the empire from exile and other reasons why they weren’t in Judea anymore. So they’re all there and they all speak different languages, but what’s happening, these uneducated Galilean Jews, they begin to speak in tongues. They begin to worship God. They begin to exclaim things about God in a language that all these foreigners knew, these uneducated, these uneducated Galileans from Judea, there’s no way that they actually could speak that language. We see it in Acts 2, 7-11. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? How is it that we hear each of us in his own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia,

Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, parts of Libya, Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Whites, Cretans, Arabians, we hear them telling in our own tongues, what? The mighty works of God. So it was a mighty,

supernatural manifestation of the Spirit for the benefit of who? Who’s benefited there? Well, the non-believing were. It was a sign and wonder to say to those who didn’t know Christ, hey, this is real. Paul will emphasize that again in chapter 14, verse 22. All the way down. What’s he say? Verse 22. Thus, tongues are assigned not for believers, but for unbelievers. While prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers, but for believers. Tongues are assigned not for believers,

but for unbelievers. While prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers, but for believers. Now, it doesn’t limit Paul to tongues only in evangelistic setting because we’ll read further down and Paul permits that they do it in a regulated way in the service. Chiefly, Paul says that’s what the gift is for. So if one begins speaking in an unknown language, okay, and they’re all gathered in church, or many people start speaking simultaneously in different unknown languages,

God knows what’s being said.

But no one else knows what’s being said, not perhaps even the person who’s saying those things in that tongue. No one’s being edified. The person who is speaking the tongue is being edified, but not in the most optimum way according to Paul. Verse 14 in chapter 14.

Paul says, for if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? Paul says, I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also. I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will 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? For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up. I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of us. I love you. Nevertheless, in church, I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue.

So a tongue speaker, I think, may experience that manifestation of the Spirit and they are certainly grateful for it. And certainly, if you were to speak in a tongue, there would just be the grace of wow, God, you know, is working through me. And that gift. But Paul’s saying, ultimately, if there’s not an interpreter present, you’re not being built up and no one else around you is being built up.

Paul says you’re not being edified. So Paul sets forth this, then I think very plainly, and he says it multiple ways in this chapter, don’t choose tongues over prophecy at the gathered service. He says don’t do it. Verse five, in chapter 14, he says, now I want you all to speak in tongues, 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. What is your aim, Paul, if you’re going to say all that? Well, Paul’s aim is love. He wants this outward sort of consciousness going on in the church gathering so that the church so that not one person is seen and made much of. His desire is that when we all gather as the church, everyone is built up. It’s an outward focus on all being built up in the spirit and in the word. And you could imagine, I mean, I certainly, you could imagine when this letter in Corinth was read for the first time, it was probably deflating for a number of people who were like, we show up, like we do this tongue thing, no one knows what we’re saying, and we walk away feeling like more spiritual and there’s a lot of people and there’s a bunch of people that don’t do it. And you can imagine they probably had built that into their theology, like this is like a big part of like what we do. And here Paul writes this letter saying, hey, y’all really shouldn’t do that unless there’s an interpreter because not everybody is being built up. He’s saying, y’all, you want to be seen. So stop. Use your words that everybody can understand. Do what’s best for everybody is Paul’s prescription for the church in Corinth.

Tongues without an interpreter, I think according to Paul here, it hurts, it doesn’t help. It doesn’t help. It serves one person. It doesn’t serve everyone. And I think I want to be really clear here. In this chapter, Paul is not anti-tongues.

Paul didn’t say don’t do it. He says at the very end of the chapter, at the very end of the chapter, he says, you know, don’t hinder people from speaking in tongues. He says, don’t forbid speaking in tongues in verse 39. He just says, do it in a way if you’re going to do it that edifies everyone. So if Paul’s not anti-tongues, what is he? He’s pro-love. He’s pro-love. And that’s really a mindset that if we’re filled with the Spirit, we have to in the same way set aside my preferences, set aside my desires and say, okay, the body of Christ, it’s many, and we talked about the body of Christ a couple weeks ago. It’s all these different parts with all these different abilities. Some abilities, you know, are bigger and some maybe perhaps seem smaller. Some are more noticeable. Some aren’t. At the same time, God in His wisdom has made us all what we are. And so we should be what we are and encourage one another in what God has called us to do in the church. You know, imagine, you know, I mean, it’s kind of gross, but like those bodybuilders are like, whoa, like swole. You know, like they’re, they’re huge. It’s kind of like, I didn’t know there were muscles in your neck. And it’s kind of like, that’s like, you look huge. But imagine if you saw a bodybuilder and like he worked out one muscle. How weird would he look if he had like this one massive bicep, right? Or sometimes you see guys in like the top half of their body is ripped, but they don’t work on their legs. Like these little toothpicks and like, how are you balancing and standing up? It looks weird because it’s out of proportion.

And I think Paul’s making the same point. The same point here is if you don’t really seek to edify everybody at the same time, you’re going to be weirdly out of proportion as the body of Christ. Okay? So there’s two conversations going on here. And I want to make sure we see both conversations and see the more important one. The initial conversation is tongues,

they were out of regulation and they were unhelpful. And Paul’s saying if they were to be done, they must be regulated appropriately. There must be an interpreter present. That’s what Paul was saying in that chapter. The bigger conversation though, and the bigger point you need to see through that conversation is this. Do you love your fellow man or woman? That’s the bigger question. Because life in the local church will offer us a great variety of situations and contexts. Well, you have the choice to say what’s best for me or what’s best for we.

What’s best for me or what’s best for we. Okay? I know I’ve said that before, but I’m going to have to keep saying that because you and I were constantly prone to look in the mirror and say I’m looking out for number one. But Paul says to be spirit filled is to be filled with the love of Christ, which is to govern the gifts God’s given me. And that’s not for me. It’s for the body of Christ.

It starts with, I do believe, worship services. It starts with seeing the church gathered as a very effective, meaningful, God-ordained, God-given grace where we come together and together we love one another. Together we encourage one another. We worship the Lord together. There’s a variety of services to be done when Christians gather. So it doesn’t stop there. And I’m the first one to say that. We need to be in a web of, of discipling relationships and you need to find a variety of ways. You know, you can be blessing and helping and encouraging people. But it comes back to the question of are you willing to die to your own preferences? Are you willing to be a prayer warrior? Are you willing to be an evangelist? Are you willing to go out of your way to help? I mean, Paul says that as one of the spiritual gifts. Helps is a spiritual gift. Leadership. Maybe you should be leading and you’re not leading. Maybe you should be generous and you’re not being generous. It’s a spiritual gift. So there’s, there’s a great variety of ways when the church is gathered and when the church is scattered in which you could give yourself up to edify, to improve

the body of Christ. And the question is not just are you conscious of that as true, but do you have the Spirit-filled love to do it? And that’s what we should be asking God is fill me up with more of Jesus. Because when I’m full of Jesus, I’m full of, you know, Christ-centered, you know, die-on-a-cross sort of love. And when I’m full of that kind of love, I’m willing to give myself up on a Tuesday evening to go serve a brother who needs help. I’m willing to give up, you know, a morning to drive across town and be a part of a prayer group. I’m willing to take somebody food when they’re sick. I’m willing to, you know, pray and labor in prayer for somebody who’s going through, you know, maybe a physical or spiritual ailment. I’m just willing to say no to Chad and yes to the body, the body of Christ when I’m filled with the Spirit.

If we’re going to define being Spirit-filled the way Paul does.

And just to reemphasize again, let me say this. Studying for a sermon like this is dizzying because there are as many, you know, theological opinions as there are blades of grass in a field. Okay? I’m just going to be honest about that. What I’m trying to do here this morning is just look at the book. And that’s what I genuinely try to do on Sundays. I’m just trying to look at the book and preach it. So again, if that question is, well, is tongue speaking for today? I said it two weeks ago and I’ll say it again. I have never found any argument from Scripture that it must be passed away. Okay? I’ve never found that convincing to me. At the same time, I think at least in Western culture, because we do have the availability of the written word and I think we have access to good teachers, it seems to be, as one person has said, supernatural communion and unity replaces supernatural gifts. I think when God has His people in a certain place, I think that’s His witness. So I’m not saying God couldn’t use someone to speak in tongues. And I do think that God works different around the world where there’s less availability of the Word of God. But if someone again came in and they said, I speak in tongues and I would like to speak in a tongue this morning, what would we do? I would say, one, is this a person a member in good standing? Two, is this person to have good character? What is their motive? Do I believe they’re just blowing smoke? Or do I think this is really from the Lord? So that would have to be something that would be assessed probably by me and the elders. And then certainly, absolutely, there would have to be an interpreter present. And if there was an interpreter present, you’d have to say, hey, sit down. Okay? So again, I don’t know if I want grace and charity on that. Like if you disagree, that’s just where I am on it. I think that’s very biblical and that’s very plain on if it were to happen, that’s what it would look like. Okay? But again, the bigger issue here is love. And are you outwardly focused in building up the body of Christ?

Look back at verse 6 with me in chapter 14.

In verse 6, he says, 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? So, I think it begs the question, if Paul’s going to say prophecy, and he says it plainly multiple times, prophecy is much more valuable and useful than tongues, certainly if there’s not an interpreter present, at least, what is that and why is it better? I think those are two fair questions. What is it and why is it better? So, he says, if I come to you, how could I possibly benefit you? So, again, what’s Paul after in this? Not after himself being seen, he’s after the church at Corinth being built up. How could I profit you, it means, or how could I be an aid to you, it means. He says, I couldn’t do that unless I brought to you a revelation,

prophecy, knowledge, teaching. And I think there for Paul, I don’t think there’s hard lines, like there’s a category of revelation, there’s a category of prophecy, there’s a category of teaching, there’s a category of doctrine, they’re kind of blurred lines. Here’s why. If someone had a revelation from God, how can a revelation be made known except through prophetic speaking and teaching? And how do you and I assimilate doctrines into our hearts and minds? Someone has to teach it. So, I don’t think it’s so much four hard categories. Paul’s just kind of saying, hey, I’m going to have to do this and all those things are kind of interrelated together. So, the lines are a little blurred there and I don’t think that’s a big issue. It’s like the word hot, okay, on what prophecy means here. And I’ll explain myself. If you and I were to go out to eat and I were to say, my food is hot, okay, would you think that I meant my food is spicy? Would you think I meant my food is temperature hot? Would you think I meant my food is attractive? Or would you think I meant that my food is stolen? Okay? That’s what you call semantic ranging. In every language, every word has a semantic range in which you understand what the intent of the author was when they said that word. Alright? So, when we get to prophecy, what exactly does he mean in this context? Now, I said this two weeks ago and I’ll say it again. In the Old Testament sense, purely, a prophet was someone who audibly would get a word from God, they’d take that word to the people, and they would, they would proclaim it. Even in the New Testament, Agabus twice prophesies in that way. He tells Paul that, you know, if he goes to Jerusalem, he’ll be bound. And he also foresees the coming famine on Jerusalem. So that’s there in Acts. And I don’t think that we have to exclude that ever from the life of a church. What I think more pointedly, though, in this context, Paul is talking about, I will define it this way. Declaring the mind, will, and knowledge of God. So prophecy doesn’t strictly mean foreseeing and foretelling the future. Prophecy means just someone shows up and with passion, with conviction, because they’ve been, you know, moved upon by the Spirit, with inspiration, they’re just going to declare truth. They see a place, they see a people, they see a time where truth needs to be proclaimed, and it needs to be applied. That’s what I think prophecy is more accurately in this context. He says in verse 3, prophecy does what? It up-builds, it encourages, and it consults. So I think we can have a wider semantic range there than strictly the foretelling of future events. I think that Calvin gives a really good definition of this. I’m going to read him on this. He says, By this term, he means, in my opinion, not those who were endowed with the gift of prophesying, but those who were endowed with a peculiar gift, not merely for interpreting Scripture, but also for applying it wisely for present use. My reason for thinking so is this, that he prefers prophecy to all other gifts on the ground of its yielding more edification, a commendation that would not be applicable to predicting of future events. Farther, when he describes the office of prophet, or at least treats of what he ought principally to do, he says that he must devote himself to consolation, exhortation, and doctrine. Now, these are things that are, are distinct from prophesying. Let us then by prophets in this passage understand first of all, eminent interpreters of Scripture, and farther, persons who are endowed with no common wisdom and dexterity in taking a right view of the present necessity of the church that they may speak suitably to it, and in this way, be in a manner ambassadors to communicate the divine will. So, you would say, well, Chad, when you get up every Sunday and preach, is that not a sort of prophesying? I think it absolutely is. If not, I think we’re in trouble. Because God knows where we are in the life of our church, and He knows what you need to hear from His inspired Word. It doesn’t mean I’m the original recipient of it. When I read Scriptures, and I rightly teach them, and hopefully by grace and the power of the Spirit, I’m applying that to your life in a way that’s useful for you. I think it’s prophetic. I will say this, though. I had this thought, I had this thought this past week as I was studying, and I called my grandpa, who’s in Puerto Rico, and I asked him about it. I remember this, and I don’t know, maybe for some of you who if you grew up in the church, and maybe it was a smaller church thing, I vividly remember, and it hit me this week, at the end of every service, there would be like a time where people were given space to speak up if they believed that the Lord had laid something on their hearts. Okay? So, it would be somebody just saying, I’m going to just make up a few things. It would be like, I just want to say my heart’s heavy for the direction of our country right now, and I’ve been dealing with fear, but the Lord really taught me, don’t be afraid and just trust His will, and so I just think that might be an encouraging word for others as it was an encouraging word for me. Or, hey, I’ve been dealing with this, and I just want to kind of share what God’s been teaching me. Or, I want to say that I’m just praying for our church in this. So, it’s an encouraging, consoling, up-building word for the church. And that was a very, very normal and regular thing that they did. And I called my mom. She said, oh, they always did that her whole life growing up all the way until, you know, whatever, we left that church and we went to another one. And so I asked my grandfather, who’s in Puerto Rico,

I said, why did we stop doing that or whatever? And he said, because everybody got in a hurry. We’re too busy for stuff like that anymore.

So, I think that that’s in the semantic range of what Paul’s talking about here. Because he doesn’t seem to be saying in this chapter, that one guy who is the pastor should get up and prophesy. It seems to me he’s saying it’s good in the gathered service that perhaps the Lord’s laid a word on someone’s heart. And it’s for the general encouragement,

consolation, and up-building of the church. That being said, you say, well, we don’t do that. Maybe we should. Why would I deprive us on Sunday mornings if the Lord’s given someone an encouraging word about something going on in their life? And you just want it just to be a blessing to the church about something God’s showing you. And you say, well, because we’ve got to eat dinner. Well, that would be a bad reason. I think that we should let the Spirit move among us in that way. So, I think that’s one way in which I think prophecy can happen in a church. Let me, you know, skin the cat in a different way. And I don’t think this is even true like if you said, well, I’m not at all on the charismatic spectrum. I’ve never been on the charismatic spectrum whatsoever. I think everyone has had the experience to some degree of you’re driving down the road, you don’t know why, but God’s laid somebody on your heart. And they’re heavy on your heart. And you pray for them or you call them all to discover, oh, they were going through something and they needed an encouragement from me. They needed to hear my prayer. Now, in the smallest way, that was the Spirit revealing something to you about someone that you did not know by any other written means or by any other way. Or, you know, means of communication between humans. So, I say that to say this. I think we can be so scared of abusing stuff, okay?

And certainly in our Western American context, gifts, especially tongues and prophecy have been so abused. I think, and this is my upbringing, we just like tie our hands behind our back and say, absolutely not. No way. I don’t want to even consider it because I’m not barking like a dog and doing back flips down the aisle. No way. And you shouldn’t bark like a dog and do back flips down the aisle. Because it’s wrong. At the same time, like I said earlier, I think we can come to the text with a sanctified common sense and just pray about, Lord, what is right in our context and what is appropriate. Okay? One more thing. One more thing. It’s not been a rare thing for me to hear in the last many years about prophetic dreams that God has given people in the Middle East. So, some village somewhere,

and someone has a dream that a white person is coming soon and you better listen to what they have to say. You know, Middle Easterners take dreams very serious. And sure enough, who showed up but some white missionary preaching the Gospel and they come and say, hey, I’ve heard that many, many times before. So again, I’m not, you know, I don’t know what I’m trying to not be seen as. I’m just trying to be honest with the Bible and how God seems to work in the text and how God seems in an appropriate way that up-builds the church enormously. And believers to draw in and build up the body of Christ. So it’s not about spiritualism. It’s not about mysticism. And look at me. I can do this stuff. I can speak in tongues. I can have these dreams. It’s just about God doing things that builds up the body of Christ. Okay? I will say it again. If someone were to claim that God had a special word from the Lord and it was all in relation to some field of future foretelling or a special word for somebody, I would require them to be a good standing in the church. I would want to know their motives. I would want to know what kind of Christian… Are they someone that I know is in the Word? I would take that into account, I think, with the elders and pray about, okay, do we think this is something worth them sharing? It’s not a free-for-all where you got something? Well, come on up and just tell everybody what’s happening in four years. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re just talking about with sanctified common sense

being a Christian. Being sensitive to what and how the Spirit moves. Okay? That’s the what of why prophecy matters because God’s Word, everything that accords with Scripture,

is good. Okay? Here’s the why. Okay? And the why is Romans 10.17. Why Paul would say

prophecy is better than tongues.

He says it, because faith comes from hearing and hearing through the Word of God. Alright? And I want to kind of say that and let that sit in. That seems simplistic, but I want you to think about how do human beings communicate chiefly, regardless of technology? Words.

God communicated words to Adam and Eve about what is right, what is wrong, who He is, what they shouldn’t do. It was by listening to to the wrong words that they were deceived and died.

When man fell, what did God use to teach us who He was? He gave us the law, which was words. The Ten Commandments. What is the Gospel? What is Scripture? It’s words.

No one comes to saving faith by anything but hearing the Word of God and being convicted of it.

We need to hear words.

And words are powerful things. That’s why we have to be people of the Word. That’s why we have to be word-saturated, as I say so often, because this is life. God’s Word comes, you know, life comes through God’s Word. And He uses this illustration

in verse 7 to 11, and it’s a simple one that I think makes sense.

If you have an instrument, a flute or a harp, and you don’t play distinct notes, well, how in the world can you know what was being… Was that a song? What was that? Or when a soldier’s going to war, like, was that mess call? Was that pull your sword out and go, you know, fight? Like, that was too indistinct. I don’t know, what was the noise?

Darcy’s been taking piano lessons for the last several months, and when she started, that was some noise. But yesterday she said, Daddy, I want to play. I want to play something for you. I said, okay. And she played a full, beautiful song, distinct, and I knew what it was.

What is Paul saying? He’s saying, if the church is going to be built up, encouraged, and consoled, it must have the Word of God. We must be outwardly focused to preach and teach Christ to one another. That’s Christian love. Working through the gifts.

Not just words. We need those, but certainly all the ways God uses us to minister to one another. And that’s what it really means to be Spirit-filled. So the Word has keeping power just as much as it has saving power. And that’s why I say all the time, if you’re in the life of the local church, the Gospel’s not something for, oh, you’re a new believer, you need to hear the Gospel. I need to hear the Gospel. I’ve been going to church since I was born. Because I forget it. And I don’t value it. And I don’t love it. And I fail to believe it. Like I need the Word of the Gospel. Paul says at the end of Romans, in the last chapter, he says that the Gospel is God’s power to strengthen you and save you. You need the Word of God.

And lastly, on why it’s so important, when we look again at verse 24 and 25 in chapter 14,

Paul says,

if all prophesy and an unbeliever or an outsider enters, he’s convicted by all. He is called to account by all. The secrets of his heart are disclosed. And so falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. That’s what the Word set forth does for people that don’t even know Christ. That’s why we have to love the Word of God for not yet saved and already saved people.

Verse 12, and we’ll finish here.

He says, so with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit,

strive to excel in building up the church. So with yourselves, since you are eager, he doesn’t say don’t be eager. He says be eager, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, what am I supposed to do with that? Well, he says, let love be your compass because he says, strive in that eagerness for manifestations to do what? Excel, grow, improve, keep going and building up the body of Christ. And what Christ is building up through the members, Christ also promised He would bring to completion.

So we’re all going to be finished someday. We’re all going to be, we’re all going to be completely complete. And it’s an amazing thing to think how you and I love one another with our gifts now is an effective, meaningful, real way that God is using to prepare you and I for eternity. It’s happening right now in the simple, mundane, everyday stuff of life. You and I are how God is preparing us for eternity in the way that we love and improve and console ourselves. And we’re all one another.

So be poured out as Christ was poured out. Be filled up with the Spirit as Christ was filled up with the Spirit to be poured out for the church as Christ was poured out for the church.

Thomas the Train. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Thomas the Train. It’s like a toddler show, but I love it. It’s a good show.

It actually was written, it was, it was, the stories were created by a reverend years ago. But if you watch Thomas the Train, in that little world, these trains and they’re running around the island of Sodor and Sir Topham Hatt runs the island of Sodor. Those trains live to hear Sir Topham Hatt tell them, you have been a very useful engine. And when they think that they are broken or they think that they’ve made a mistake, I haven’t been very useful.

And I think, friends, in the same way, we all want to hear Jesus say to us, well done, good and faithful servant. I’m not talking about your salvation. I’m not talking about if you can do enough to get saved. I’m talking about since we have been saved, we are a part of the body of Christ, we should desire Jesus to say to us, man, you’ve been very useful in building up my church. Wow, you were very useful in that person’s life. Oh, you were very useful in the life of Providence Fellowship. You did not focus on you. You were worried about everyone else. Be filled up with Christ to be poured out for his body.

Okay, let’s pray.