The following message was given at Grace Community Church in Mendon, Nevada. Well, we come tonight to our second study in this section, and just a reminder, the whole unit of 1 Corinthians 12 to 14 deals with spiritual gifts, gifts of the Spirit. And if it were not for the Corinthians' abuse of spiritual gifts, we would not have 1 Corinthians 12 to 14. You think about it. And if we didn't have 1 Corinthians 12 to 14, we wouldn't have 1 Corinthians 13, we wouldn't have such rich teaching on the gifts. We noticed the same thing as we went through 1 Corinthians 11. If it were not for the Corinthians' abuse of the Lord's Supper, we would not have one of the richest texts dealing with the Lord's Supper in all of Scripture. And so God really does cause all things to work together for good. And so as we come to this text, it of course, is controversial, and you might remember a few weeks ago as we were talking about the controversial things, the power went out, which of course was a sign that maybe we shouldn't be talking about those things, but we kept talking about them even in the dark. By the way, I think the kids kept going in the dark too, didn't they, Jeff? Yeah, yeah, that's the way we do it at Grace Community Church. We don't care, power outage, floods, we don't care, we just keep preaching, all right? So we started week before last looking at starting verse 4, and you'll notice in verses 4 to 6 that there is this wonderful Trinitarian emphasis. Now we look at these texts and we think that the primary thing is gifts, and the reality is that's not the primary thing that Paul is getting after. In fact, one of the things that is really indisputable is the fact that Paul is emphasizing the unity of the body in spite of a diversity of gifts. This is brought out by the fact that he says that there's a, and remember the word is not just a variety in the sense of lots of choices or something like that, but there's a variety of distributions of these grace gifts, but the same spirit. The emphasis then is there's a variety of distributions of services and ministries, but it's the same Lord. There are a variety of distributions of effects or results, but it's the same God who is affecting all things in all persons. So verses four through six is emphasizing the fact that all of God's people have gifts, And there's a variety of gifts, a variety of ministries, a variety of results, but the fact is is that it is the same God who is giving them, who is working through his people and producing the results. And so what verses four to six should do for us is verses four through six should, in a sense, bring us together in the reality that no matter what we do, no matter what our service, no matter what our ministry, we are all indwelt by the same spirit, serve the same Lord, and the same God is working in all of us to bring about His results as He sees fit. there is this wonderful, I don't know what you wanna call it, there's this wonderful democratization or this wonderful sort of egalitarian sense where the same spirit indwells all of us, and yes, he gives different gifts, but he's working in all of us, and nobody's better than anybody else because they have a certain gift. In fact, we know that that is Paul's emphasis through especially chapter 12, because first of all, he never describes for us any of the gifts, he just names them. But what he repeatedly does is he talks to us about the unity of the body. Now, the Corinthians were undermining the unity of the body. They were elevating the gift of tongues. So that, of course, why the gift of tongues? Well, probably because that's one that's easily put on display, right? Nobody's envious of the person who has the gift of helps. Okay, right? Person stands up and speaks in tongues, woo, look at that. Paul is actually going to undermine that view of spirituality. And I don't say this to be unkind, but in a real sense, modern Pentecostalism, I've never said Pentecostalism, Pentecostalism, modern Pentecostalism has much more in common with the weaknesses of the Corinthian church than anything else. Right, you understand what I'm saying? So the very things that Paul is trying to correct in 1 Corinthians 12 to 14 are often the very same excesses that you see supposedly displayed today, all right? Which means that when certain people read 1 Corinthians 12 to 14, what they like to do is proof text 12 to 14 with little verses that support their view instead of seeing the big argument. Because if they saw the big argument, then of course, their practices would change. Paul says explicitly in verse seven, the purpose of the gifts, says, and to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit. So notice, again, where do you think the emphasis is? The emphasis is not explicitly on the manifestation of the Spirit, it is on to each. to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit, and so again, what that means is that no matter what your gift is, no matter what your ministry or service is, that is the manifestation of the Spirit. And it's the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good, right? So, God, through His Spirit, gifts the body, but He gifts the body for the intent and purpose of the common good of the body as a whole. So, I may have used this a couple weeks ago, I can't remember, but when we see after lunch, for instance, some of our young men and even some of our older men cleaning the tables, all right? That's a manifestation of the spirit for the common good. And in a real sense, it is just as much a manifestation of the spirit for the common good as is preaching or praying or doing any of the things that seem really important to us, okay? So the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the common good. Then Paul goes into a partial list in verses eight through 10. And I say a partial list. There's been quite a bit of research on a comparison of the list. You have a list in Romans 12, six to eight. You have another list at the end of 1 Corinthians 12. You have, again, another list in Ephesians 4. You have another list, a short list, but 1 Peter 4. And there's been a number of analyses of those lists. Paul only gives a partial list here. And he probably focuses on these because He's thinking specifically in terms of the manifestation of the Spirit. Whereas later, he's going, at the end of chapter 12, he's going to be talking about appointments. Appointments as apostles and prophets and teachers and so forth in the body, all right? Those are gifts as well, but they are appointments. Here he's talking about the manifestations of the Spirit. And again, just to reiterate, he doesn't define what these are. Now it is interesting, he doesn't mention teaching, and so that leads quite a few people to look at the first two, through the Spirit is given to one a word of wisdom, to another word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit. So whatever Paul has in mind specifically, with word of wisdom and word of knowledge, it probably is more oriented towards a teaching function, than rather, God just told me there's somebody here and your right hamstring hurts. Oh, that would be me. Well, that was easy. That probably is not what Paul has in mind, right? Some word of, you know, some word that drops down from heaven. He probably has in mind the idea of the teaching function and then one wisdom would be in a sense sort of an emphasis on the application of truth, knowledge of course, could be an emphasis on the content. Then he says in verse nine, and we've already looked at these, to another faith by the same spirit. Now again, what you end up having is through the spirit, same spirit, same spirit, one spirit, so forth, and that again is the emphasis, but to another faith by the same spirit. We mentioned this is not a saving faith. Saving faith is a gift that God gives to all of his people. In fact, if you don't have saving faith, you're not his people, right? So faith is a gift from God, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, Philippians 1, 29, faith is a gift of God, but the kind of faith that's being mentioned here is probably what could be called, in a sense, sort of extraordinary faith. a person of vision and boldness to step out and to do something, and I used the example of William Carey. William Carey's motto in life, of course, was expect great things from God, attempt great things for God. That's not the ordinary faith of an ordinary Christian. To get on a ship and go to India and spend your life like he did took an extraordinary measure of faith. There have been people like this throughout all of church history. Then next is to another, and notice we emphasize this, gifts, plural, of healings, plural, by the one spirit. Even certain Pentecostal commentators will point out that that what is in view here is probably not the fact that you had healers. Like you had teachers. This guy's a teacher, that guy's a healer. What you probably have is a distribution of plural gifts of healings, and certainly God will use certain people to pray for those things, but it is a distribution of gifts of healings, right? And so I would argue that the pattern that we should follow is in James chapter 5, that if anyone is sick among you, let him call for the elders. They will anoint him with oil and pray over him in the name of the Lord. And so that's what we do. If you're sick, the elders will pray for you and will pray all kinds of things for you. we'll certainly pray that God will heal you. Just because we're not charismatic in this contemporary sense of the word, that does not mean that we don't believe that God does miraculous things. God, in fact, does heal today, but he doesn't heal at our command. So if you're here for Sunday school, you know we started a little brief series on the Word of Faith movement, prosperity gospel. This is one of the fundamental flaws of this perspective is that somehow there's power in your words to claim what is already yours. And that's not the way that we see healing. In fact, It's not the way that we see healing because that's not the way we see sickness. Sickness may well be God's means to sanctify us in ways that health never could, right? And so the apostles, by the way, didn't heal at will. We saw that a couple weeks ago. So yeah, the distribution of gifts of healings, and then the next was to another workings of powers. This is probably the idea of miraculous demonstrations. And again, it's the same plural construction, workings, plural, of powers, plural. Schreiner makes the point here that this probably shouldn't be sharply distinguished from gifts of healings, that's probably true. Grudem, who is a continuationist, says any kind of activity where God's mighty power is evident, and so he would list here under workings of powers, demonic deliverance, deliverance from immediate danger, or even acts of divine judgment. So for instance, when Ananias and Sapphira lie to Peter in Acts chapter five, remember Ananias comes and he lies to the apostles. And Peter says, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? And of course, Ananias drops dead. And Sapphira, as we well know from many textual traditions, was out shopping. She did not have cell reception. So she gets back to church and Peter says, behold, the feet of the men who carried your husband are here to carry you. And she dropped dead. that would be a demonstration of power. That would be a working of power. So in that case, an expression of divine judgment. That brings us to another prophecy, prophecy. Now, I'm just going to disappoint you a little bit and just tell you that we're not gonna dig into prophecy right here because Paul deals with it extensively in 1 Corinthians chapter 14. So once we get to 1 Corinthians 14, we'll look in detail at prophecy, but I want to give you just sort of an overview of basically the main views of what prophecy is, because you have to understand, at this point, defining prophecy now becomes a very controversial thing. Right? And the reason defining prophecy becomes a very controversial thing is because depending on how you define it, then must compel you to answer the next question, which is, does that then still continue today? All right? So we'll sort some of that out a little later, but basically throughout the history of the church, The predominant idea of prophecy is that prophecy was just preaching. That's the way Calvin understood prophecy, it's just preaching. William Perkins, one of the early and famous Puritans, wrote a book on preaching, and you know what it was called? The Art of Prophesying. He had not a charismatic bone in his body. The art of prophesying is the art of preaching. And in fact, The Art of Prophesying is a wonderful little book about Puritan preaching and how to preach and how to be effective. The Puritans actually would have preaching seminars. So this actually is pretty cool. They would get together, so you had pastors and they would get together, they would then choose a text and then the pastors would preach to each other. And then the pastors would critique each other. And this was a way that they saw them being able to improve their gifts and skills in preaching. And do you know what they called these preaching seminars? They called them prophesigns. That's what they called them. So there's a wonderfully long tradition of just looking at the gift of prophecy really as being nothing more than, in a sense, spirit-empowered preaching. Now, there are other views, of course, and I'm not of the opinion that just because Calvin said it or Perkins said it, that it must be true. Tom Schreiner, argues that prophesying is communicating revelation from God in a spontaneous utterance that's inspired by the Spirit. Now that's more than preaching. So Schreiner defines this as a revelation that comes from God and then is given to the people in a spontaneous utterance, and that spontaneous utterance is actually inspired by the Spirit. Now, Schreiner will argue also that that kind of prophesying does not go on today. All right? So you have preaching, you have Spontaneous revelation that then is uttered and inspired by the Spirit. Sam Storms, who is a charismatic and a continuationist and a fine man, he says that prophecy is the, listen to this, this is, you gotta listen to the details. The human report of a divine revelation. the human report of a divine revelation. He says, and this is a quote, prophecy is the speaking forth in merely human words of something God has spontaneously brought to mind. Now, I have to just, and like I said, we'll go into this in more detail, but I have to spend a little bit of time here because this is important. This view of prophecy, held by Sam Storms, Wayne Grudem, John Piper, okay? Fine men, excellent theologians. They would see this gift of prophecy as, so a revelation, God brings something out. By revelation, they don't mean like a vision like Abraham had or Isaiah had, but a revelation is something that God brings to the mind of the person, okay? And so God reveals something to him or her, and then that person spontaneously, in a sense, then speaks forth that revelation. But notice the qualification, and Grudem qualifies it the same way. That revelation comes and then is expressed in merely human words. Now, there's a reason why there's an emphasis on speaking prophetically in merely human words. And that's because this view of prophecy views this as a, first of all, a truly supernatural gift that continues today, but is fallible and non-authoritative, okay? Now, just wrap your head around that for a minute. The view is God brings a revelation to you. You express that revelation, but you express it in a way that it may not be correct. and it is not authoritative, which means it's not binding. Now, I wanna say a couple of things about the view, and that is that one, I appreciate the fact that these men are trying to, in their own way, do two things simultaneously. They're trying to protect sufficiency and unique authority of the word of God is divine revelation, and yet they are also then trying to hold to the continuation of all of the gifts, which means you have to hold on to prophecy. So you're trying to hold on to both things. So here's the problem. If, if, prophecy is revelation that comes from God, that I speak authoritatively and infallibly, then guess what level that prophecy is at? It's Scripture, right? And these guys don't want to go there. Understandably, because in the history of Pentecostal and charismatic movements, there has been a tremendous amount of damage done by people standing up claiming to speak infallibly from God. Right? Arnie, I have a word of prophecy for you. God just told me you're supposed to go to Zambia with me. Now, here's the problem. How does Arnie know that? How does Arnie know that's from the Lord? Because I'm a prophet. Remember, I told you, I took that spiritual gift test, and one of my gifts is that I'm a prophet. I hope you realize tongue in cheek, okay? What this view does, is it tries to protect. So for instance, there is, I'm going into this more than I wanted to right now, but so in the Old Testament, what two categories of prophets existed? True and false prophets. Those were the two categories. And a true prophet was right how much of the time? 100% of the time, right? This is 100% of the time. And if you were wrong, that made you a false prophet, which also made you liable to capital punishment, all right? So, two categories. You come to the New Testament, you have two categories of prophets in the church. True prophets and mistaken prophets. Really? Here's the amazing thing. Mike Bickle, who is, some of you who are familiar with these things, International House of Prayer in Kansas City, the Kansas City Prophets that were a part of the third wave back in the early 90s, Mike Bickle is still going. He has just, and by the way, he claims to be a prophet. He has openly said, we're wrong like 60 to 70% of the time. If that's true, then what good is the gift of prophecy? Because how do you know when the 30% is? Right? So, This view, which by the way is a predominant view, Storms actually argues, the interesting argument Sam Storms makes is that he argues that all of God's people should prophesy, but not all are prophets. So you should be prophesying, of course he gets that from Acts 2 and Joel 2. But that doesn't mean just because you prophesied that you are a prophet, all right? Okay, so here's a summary of the view. So it really is divine revelation and it has ceased. There are, of course, other views that say it's divine revelation and it continues. Then there are others that say it's it's a little bit less than actual divine revelation, and whatever it is, it continues. And then there are those who say that it's less than divine revelation because it's preaching. So you basically have a charismatic, non-charismatic divide over this gift of prophecy. Now let me just say one more thing here, and that is that when you listen to the proponents who are trying to qualify the gift of prophecy as potentially fallible and non-authoritative, and we'll get to this, they use passages in the book of Acts to try to make their case, I don't think that they prove their case at all. But you listen to the view and a lot of times the view is set forth anecdotally, that is with stories about how this works, all right? So, Here's the thing is that I've listened to literally dozens of stories, either hearing them or reading them. And some of the things that they say, I think to myself, I believe that God can do that today. But I don't think it's prophecy, right? Then there's other things that you read or hear and you simply say, Well, why would God do that today? Sam Storms is really one of the most articulate advocates. He tells lots of anecdotes and there are things and you just think, well, that doesn't mean anything. The function of it doesn't do anything. It's just sort of an oddity. Then there are other things you go, yeah, I believe that that could happen, right? I told you, you'll hear this story four more times. Spurgeon's preaching, right? Preaching at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, and he stops in the sermon. This is in his autobiography, I've read it with my own eyeballs. And he stops and he says, there's a young man seated in the balcony, and you have gloves in your pocket, and those gloves are Stolen. And then he goes back to preaching. And guess what? There was a guy sitting in the balcony who had stolen gloves in his pocket, and he went down to Spurgeon afterwards, confessed his sin, repented, was converted, and made things right with the person he stole the gloves from. Now, do I think Spurgeon made up the story? And the answer is no, I don't think Spurgeon made up that story at all. Do I believe that story happened? And the answer is yes, of course I believe that story happened. Do I think that makes Spurgeon a prophet? And the answer is no. Do I even think Spurgeon was prophesying? And I think the answer ends up being really no. Do I think the Holy Spirit supernaturally prompted him to say something? that was true, and the answer's yeah. The question is, does it make him a prophet? And does it make that prophecy? And I would just say no. I would say no, all right? Okay, well, obviously, there's a lot more we can say. David Garland, in his commentary, has an interesting definition of prophecy. Declaring God's will to the people addressing contemporary situations in ways that bring encouragement, comfort, conviction, and summons to repentance. Do I think that happens today? Yeah, absolutely. Anthony Thistleton, this definition, by the way, has become somewhat famous. Thistleton says, as a gift of the Holy Spirit, prophecy combines pastoral insight into the needs of persons, communities, and situations, with the ability to address these with a God-given utterance or longer discourse, whether unprompted or prepared, with judgment, decision, and rational reflection, leading to challenge, comfort, judgment, or consolation, but ultimately building up the addressees. Well, if that's the definition of prophecy, then I have absolutely no problem at all saying that that continues. We hope that happens every Lord's Day. We hope that happens all the time, right? Okay, well, next is everybody's favorite gift, and that is to another discernment of spirits. Watch out for people who claim they have the gift of discernment. Normally, they're just opinionated, and want to make sure that their opinion has some level of weight to it, right? So I've got the gift of discernment. Also, watch out for so-called discernment ministries. Some are okay, but some just, their whole stock and trade is just finding things to be super critical about among God's people, right? And you read them, and they don't like anybody, right? And when the people that are, in a sense, sort of the stalwarts of orthodoxy today are the ones that are always getting thrown under the bus by these discernment ministries, there's something that is profoundly wrong, right? Okay. the gift of discernment of spirits, what is this? Well, you remember in Acts chapter 16 where Paul and his companions are traveling, or they're going back and forth every day and they're preaching, and this woman is following them. And she's saying, these men are servants of the most high God. You remember this? Was that the truth? It's absolutely the truth. I love, I love Acts 16 because you know what it says? Paul being greatly annoyed. So I feel incredibly Pauline and even somewhat apostolic when I start to feel greatly annoyed. I'm like, that's the spirit of Paul working in me. And so Paul turns around, greatly annoyed, turns around, and what does he do? He rebukes the demon that's speaking through the girl. How did he know that? because he had the ability to distinguish the spirits, right? He knew that she was demon-possessed. By the way, he's so annoyed, he cast the demon out of her. Remember this? She was a moneymaker for her masters. And this is what leads to the great upheaval and riot. Because the masters now realize we're gonna go broke because she's lost her gift. Because somebody cast a demon out of her. Now, I would say, there's an example of distinguishing spirits. Paul knew, even though what she was saying was true, he knew that it was from a demonic influence. Right? So John tells us, 1 John 4 verse 1, test the spirits to see whether they are from God. And so I think spirits there is probably a reference to traveling prophets in the apostolic era. And so here is this emphasis here. And Paul says there are some people that actually are gifted to do this. They have keen insight into whether something is from God. Gordon Fee, who's a classic Pentecostal, suggests that this was the ability to discern and to judge prophecies. Grudem says distinguishing between spirits is a special ability to recognize the influence of the Holy Spirit or demonic spirits in a person. So one of the things about distinguishing spirits or discerning spirits is that God does in fact equip people to be able to exercise this gift, but what's one of the things that can actually hone this gift and sharpen this gift and make a person more effective in the employment of this gift? Yeah, how about knowing the word of God? Right? Knowing the word of God. Now, let me just make a point of application, and that is that God's people, even though the spirit gives this gift to some, it doesn't give it to everybody in the same way, obviously, we're all called to be discerning. We're all called to be discerning. And one of the things that boggles my mind is how undiscerning people are who have been in good Bible teaching churches for years. It really is unsettling at times because there's a certain assumption that if you're in a good Bible teaching church and you're a person that's grounded in the word, that you automatically just have discernment. And actually, it simply is not true. Even just doing this Sunday school lesson this last Sunday on the Word of Faith movement and having somebody came up to me and they said, pray for my wife. She reads one of the, and this person's been in our church for years and years and years. There's just a lot of bad stuff out there. And it far outweighs the good stuff that's out there. And just because something is a best seller, In fact, with the exception of the Bible, if it's a bestseller, don't waste your money. If everybody's reading it and loving it, there's probably not a whole lot of truth in it. So just look at the sale of the book. If it's under 10,000, you're probably safe. So I got up here tonight and This was up on the platform for me. Your best life next time. Seven steps to living at your full potential eventually. Special Hindu edition. She noticed the turban there. I want you to stop and think about how undiscerning God's people are. Look at the largest churches in America. And overwhelmingly, not absolutely across the board, but overwhelmingly, the largest churches in America are churches that preach a prosperity message. The Staples Center is filled every week in Houston. Seven million people tune in by television. So I have Sirius Radio in my truck. There is a Joel Osteen channel, okay? So in preparation for Sunday school, guess what I've been doing? Yeah, I'm ready to stick my head under the front tire of my truck and let out the emergency brake on a downhill, okay? Here's the thing though, is that error never comes out as blatant error. Error always piggybacks on true-sounding things. That's how error becomes gets woven into our lives and creeps into our lives because it piggybacks on true sounding things. And so one of the sermons I was listening to today was, starts off with him affirming that God is in control of all things, including the disappointments of your life. And I'm like, well, that's not that bad. That sounds pretty good. But by the time he gets halfway through, then you're finding out that if you believe it and declare it, God will do it. I dare say that the idea of believe, declare, and God will do is contrary to what he said at the beginning. But how many people get their guard down because of the true thing that's set up front and then it's hijacked in so that then it ends up sounding like, wow, this God who is in control of all things really wants me to have the nicest house in the neighborhood. and to drive the best car, and to get straight A's. Don't miss Sunday school, because we're going all out on, because, you know, the problem is not the hard prosperity guys like Ken Hagen and Kenneth Copeland, guys that are like, money cometh to me, right? Most people are like, oh, that's gross. It's the soft prosperity. It's the Joel Osteens, it's the Joyce Myers. It's the people that preach a message of God wants you to have an awesome life all the time. And it's dangerous. If the preacher isn't preparing you for suffering, He's a prostitute. Okay, well, let's move on then to tongues. I've been trying to delay this as long as possible. Then to another various sorts of tongues. Now, what do you notice about this is that tongues and interpretation of tongues is where in the list? Last. All right, that wasn't a hard, that wasn't like asking for a verb tense, it's just notice, it's just last. This has not escaped the notice of exegetes and commentators, so Brooks and Longenecker note that the gift that excited them the most is mentioned last. Garland, Lowering the Corinthians' glamorized estimation, which has created division, is the ultimate target of this discussion. So he says various kinds of tongues. Now again, just as with prophecy, we have to ask ourselves, so what are the tongues? What's the glossa, right? What are the various kinds of tongues? Well there's of course different views, and let me just give you just three very quickly. One is that they're actually just foreign languages. Where would you get such a crazy idea? Well, Acts chapter two. The apostles are speaking in tongues, 120 in the upper room are speaking in tongues, and actually it's during Passover, so you have the diaspora Jews all in Jerusalem, and guess what they're hearing? They're hearing the mighty works of God in their own language. So some say, so the tongues mentioned here in 12 and 14 is, there's no reason to think that it's different than the tongues mentioned in Acts 2 and Acts 10 and Acts 19 and languages. Others would say that what's in view in the Corinthian epistle is what could be called ecstatic utterance or ecstatic speech. In other words, not a language at all. Discombobulated syllables put together said really fast. Now, I don't say that in a disparaging way because there are some who would say that that's exactly what tongues is. And the reason that that's what tongues is is because the person speaking in tongues is speaking not with their mind but with their human spirit and that's what it sounds like when it comes out. Others don't want to make that claim, and the claim is that it's actually a spirit-inspired language. It's not meaningless syllables. but it is a spirit-inspired language, meaning that it may not have a actual foreign language counterpart in this world. but it is a spirit-inspired language which is addressed to God. So Craig Keener, who's a fine New Testament scholar, is also charismatic, and he says what this is is just spirit-led prayer, and you're praying with your human spirit, and you're praying in a spirit-inspired language. That spirit-inspired language is unintelligible to all the people that are hearing it. So, if I started speaking in tongues, in this view, Heiko wouldn't say, ha, that's high German. Or low Spanish. Or Hungarian. Because it's something that's spoken to God and only understood by God, but they would argue that it is actually a language. So Storms, and we'll go into this in chapter 14 in more detail, but Storms says that tongues should be understood primarily as a form of prayer. So just kind of run this through the grid that you know of in 1 Corinthians. It's primarily a form of prayer. It's a means of self-edification. The only time it's edifying to anybody else is when? When there's an interpretation, okay? Now, of course, tongues are not to be spoken publicly when there's no interpreter. As a teenager, I went to Pentecostal and charismatic services all the time. And do you know one of the most common practices? Is for everybody to speak in tongues at the same time. Absolute thorough violation of 1 Corinthians 14. He says, third, it's a form of blessing the person in the works of God, so you're actually not just giving prayer, but it's a form of offering praise, and then he says it's a way of giving thanks, and which, If it's unintelligible and you don't know what you're praying, then I guess you are fundamentally guessing that it's a form of blessing or giving thanks or praise, because you don't actually know which one it might be, right? Then he says this, and this is important, compensating for our weakness and ignorance. Now, he's making a connection. to Romans 8, verses 26 and 27. When we don't know how to pray, the spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words. Now, we'll explore later whether or not Romans 8, 26 and 27 is speaking in tongues, all right? I'm not sold that it is, but it is an interesting point because if there was a connection to an expression or compensating for weakness and ignorance, then tongues was not a display of supersized spirituality, It should have been a manifestation of weakness and ignorance, right? The language is clearly unknown to the speaker, okay? When Ariel's speaking Spanish, I don't sit there and go, oh my goodness, she's speaking in tongues. Okay, she knows Spanish, so I'm not impressed, okay? So I speak Spanish too. In fact, where do you think she learned her Spanish? It's unknown to the speaker. Now, the last, to another interpretation of tongues. This should appear fairly obvious to us, but here's a couple of observations. First of all, the interpretation of tongues would then be a revelation. Okay? Right? You understand? So, now, I don't even pretend to know how this would have worked in the early church, but somebody has the gift of tongues, they stand up, they speak in tongues. Then, the only way they can speak in tongues is if they know there's an interpreter, that is, a person that has the gift of interpretation, all right? So then that person gets up and then gives an interpretation of what was said, and then at that point, the interpretation becomes a revelation, which is tantamount to prophecy. Okay? Make sense? Now here's the interesting thing. depending on what you see the gift of tongues actually being, then determines how you view interpretation in a sense. I will say that on the day of Pentecost, the interpreters were those who spoke the languages that they were hearing. In that sense, on the day of Pentecost, it was not a supernatural gift. It was just the ability of them to understand the languages that they knew, all right? What Paul is getting at here is most definitely a gift, all right? So again, if Ariel started speaking Spanish, then somebody else that speaks Spanish understands that's not the gift of interpretation. That's just, I just understand the language, right? This is a gift, all right? Now, here's the thing, the gift is supernatural, so the suggestion is that the tongue is unknown to the interpreter. That's what would make it supernatural. Now, Anthony Thistleton suggests that what happens is that when the spirit-given language is spoken, the interpreter actually gets up and articulates that which is unintelligible into speech. But it's not technically a translation, okay? Right? Now, there were some naughty Biola students. I was not one of them. And they were taking Greek. I've told the Greek classes story before, I think. And they all went to the local Pentecostal church. And they stood up, and one of the Biola students stood up and said, Somebody gets up and says, The Biola students start snickering because he had just recited the Lord's Prayer in Greek. And he goes, no, that's not what I said. I said our Father who art in heaven, at which point they were, of course, escorted out of the church. Now, here's the interesting thing, and if you've been in Pentecostal circles, you'll know this is true. The gift of interpretation is rare. In fact, My friend Tony Slavin was at Evangelical Theological Society meeting recently, where Sam Storms and Tom Schreiner were having a friendly interaction and debate. And afterwards, Tony went up and asked Sam Storms if he ever knew anybody that had the gift of interpretation. Storms has been in this movement for over 30 years. He said, no. Tony says, have you ever heard anybody interpret? He says, honestly, no. So let's just say this, that interpretation is relatively rare compared to those who claim to have the gift of tongues. Now, I'm gonna suggest that that ought to make us pause for a minute. Whatever you might think about tongues, the fact is, is that the only time that Paul says it is edifying to the body is when there is an interpretation. All right? Okay, verse 11. And by the way, everybody should know that I'm basically a softer and nuanced cessationist. So as I say these things, it's not as if I'm hoping that you stand up and speak in tongues, all right? And Jeff interprets or something, all right? Okay, verse 11. Now here, in a sense, this is the bookend. So four to six, and then 11, this is bookends. So the one and the same spirit works all these things. So again, what's the emphasis? The emphasis is not, what gift do you have? Figure it out. The emphasis is, it's the same spirit that does all these things. That's the emphasis. And then he says, in verse 11, distributing to each one individually just as he wills. And so the emphasis falls on the role of the spirit, the spirit in terms of the unity of the body, all these things in the midst of all of their diversity come from one and the same spirit. And in fact, it is the Holy Spirit who does what? Who sovereignly distributes these gifts just as he wills. By the way, the second part of verse 11 is huge for a number of reasons. First of all, it underscores the reality of the personhood and the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit. Right? It's not an impersonal force that wills. It's a person that wills. Third person of the Godhead wills and distributes. The second thing that absolutely should stand out to us is if this is the case, that the Spirit is the one distributing the gifts just as He wills. He is, Paul is going to say, desire the greater gifts that you may prophesy. Why? Because that's the most edifying of the gifts, but the fact is, is that that may not be what the Spirit has sovereignly determined you have. Verse 11b actually undercuts the idea of the haves and the have-nots. In the body of Christ, we all have by the one Spirit. And so, the gift, the service, the ministry that you have, God the Holy Spirit sovereignly gave that to you. That's the one or ones he wanted you to have. That was the service he wanted you to do. Do you know what that means? It means there's no room for jealousy or elitism when it comes to gifts and ministries. None. God sovereignly gives these things. This is the way that it works. I don't wanna embarrass you guys, but you know, too bad. God has equipped Steve and Molly Nugent. He's gifted them in certain ways, right? Steve and Molly are gifted people. I mean, Molly's really gifted, okay? Steve, we're not too sure about, but Yeah, we won't go there. But the Holy Spirit has wired them, gifted them, equipped them, and now the Lord of the church has given them a service, a ministry. And they've always had ministries, they've always done, they've always been great doers, okay? But now, they are plugged back into City of Refuge. That's their focus of service. Why are Steve and Molly at refuge? And the answer is, is because the Holy Spirit sovereignly distributed that ministry to them. Right? And you know what I say? I say, praise the Lord. And I say, thank God he didn't distribute it to me. Because if he would have, he would have had to do a lot of other work in me to help me do that because I can't do that. Right? You have a ministry. You have a gift. And the Spirit of God sovereignly distributed that gift to you according to His perfect will. He's over visiting a friend. He's physically challenged. And I was noticing the ramp in his garage. And Ariel said, oh, you got your ramp in. And he says, actually, Fred came over and did most of the work for me. That's a ministry, that's a service. By the way, that nobody would have noticed unless I just said something. and the Spirit of God sovereignly distributed those gifts, those ministries to Fred for the common good. For the common good. For the common good. So here's the thing, at the end of the day, this is not about trying to take some test and figure out what gift you have. This is a matter of loving the body, serving the body, and doing what God puts in front of you to do. Now, if I'd have been asked to build a ramp, nobody would ever have gotten the house ever again. I couldn't do it. I can't cut a straight line. I don't know why. I don't know why. I tried to build a bench once in our garage. And the boys came out, they were little, and they're like, Dad, how come the front's higher than the back? I'm like, shut up. I measured it. I did, I had a tape measure, I measured it, it just didn't turn out well. So God gifts people, equips people, sovereignly. Sovereignly. And so do whatever he's put in front of you to do. and do it for his glory, and do it for the good of the church. And you might think to yourself, well, it doesn't seem that important or that significant. Well, here's the thing, the only assessment that matters is Jesus Christ's assessment. And he says, all of it comes from me, by my spirit. and it's all good. It's all glorifying. It is for the good of everybody. In fact, Paul's gonna argue a little later that it's actually the members that seem least significant that are worthy of most honor in the body of Christ. So let's pray together. Lord, thank you for this passage tonight. Thank you for your goodness to us. Thank you that that really Lord, we're not lacking in anything. You've provided for us because you love us and you love your church. So we pray that you'd help us just be servants, trust you and do the work. We pray that in doing that, you would build up the body for the glory of your son, amen. We hope that you were edified by this message. For additional sermons as well as information on giving to the ministry of Grace Community Church, please visit us online at gracenevada.com. That's gracenevada.com.