Clarity is King
🗣️ Speaker: Pastor Tom Van Kempen
This week, Pastor Tom Van Kempen shifted gears to focus on the importance of clarity when it comes to spiritual gifts like prophecy and speaking in tongues. He emphasized that while these gifts are valuable, their primary use should be in serving and edifying the church, not elevating oneself. The key takeaway is that all spiritual gifts, especially tongues and prophecy, must be used with love as the ultimate guide. Pastor Tom urged everyone to seek these gifts but to use them responsibly and with clear communication to avoid confusion, emphasizing unity and love within the congregation.
Additional Info
The info below was generated by an AI from the audio recording of the sermon.
Introduction
Happy Valentine's weekend! Many people celebrate this holiday with significant others, but love isn't just a romantic affair; it is a universal theme that holds deep meaning in our lives. In this discussion, the focus shifts to exploring the concept of love within the context of spiritual gifts, particularly as presented in 1 Corinthians.
A Church of Dreams and Visions
The church community is defined by a collective vision and purpose, and it’s essential for congregants to start dreaming about their future and the church's impact on the community. This spirit of aspiration is a key element in fostering growth and cooperation within the church setting. By working together towards a unified vision, individuals contribute not only to their spiritual journey but also to the well-being of the community as a whole.
Love: The Foundation of Gifts
Love stands as the supreme concern in spiritual matters. Many spiritual gifts, such as prophecy and speaking in tongues, are overshadowed if they aren't rooted in love. Understanding the essence of love—as communicated through the stories and wisdom shared in personal experiences—reminds us that without love, even the most impressive acts are meaningless.
Spiritual Gifts and Their Importance
The Apostle Paul emphasizes the importance of spiritual gifts in the church, advising members not to remain ignorant about these gifts. Each person has been blessed with unique abilities that serve not only their own needs but also the collective needs of the church. Paul’s message to the Corinthians highlights the necessary balance between seeking spiritual gifts while remaining grounded in love.
Addressing Common Issues with Spiritual Gifts
The Corinthian church was grappling with several key issues: divisiveness, a drift away from core teachings, and disorder within its worship practices. These problems required clear communication and guidance to restore unity and purpose. Addressing leadership struggles, inappropriate behaviors, and misuse of spiritual gifts is crucial for maintaining a thriving church environment.
Encouragement through Prophecy
Among the spiritual gifts, prophecy is notably significant. It serves multiple purposes: edification, exhortation, and comfort. Paul emphasizes that the prophetic word is more valuable than other gifts because of its power to encourage the church. It fosters a sense of community and guidance that is often indispensable for spiritual and personal growth.
The Essence of Communication in Worship
Clarity is paramount in any public expression of spiritual gifts. It’s vital that messages delivered in a worship context are understood by the congregation, which can sometimes be overlooked. When communications are unclear, or when spiritual gifts are exercised in a manner that's disruptive, it detracts from the worship experience and poses challenges for spiritual growth.
Governance of Spiritual Gifts in the Church
Establishing clear guidelines on the exercise of spiritual gifts is essential in preserving the integrity of the worship environment. Favoring clarity and understanding over emotionalism ensures that gifts are exercised appropriately. Each member of the congregation is encouraged not only to embrace their own gifts but to test and judge contributions from others in a spirit of love and community.
Conclusion: Unity in Spiritual Gifts
As a community of believers, it is vital to work together in nurturing each other's spiritual growth while respecting and valuing the diverse expressions of faith present in the congregation. By prioritizing love and clarity within the use of spiritual gifts, the church can foster an atmosphere of unity, support, and encouragement, ultimately empowering each individual to fulfill their God-given potential.
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Use the questions listed below as a launching point to discuss the sermon points together as a family. These are great for dinner table discussions and small groups.
Dream Big: Pastor Tom encourages us to dream of what God wants in our lives and our church's future. What dreams and visions do you have for yourself and our community?
The Role of Love: Why is love considered the primary motivation behind all spiritual gifts?
Clear Communication: How can clarity in communication help prevent misunderstandings in a church setting?
Use of Spiritual Gifts: Have you experienced or exercised a spiritual gift? How did it impact you or others?
Handling Criticism: How can we lovingly address differences in opinion regarding the use of spiritual gifts in the church?
Use these questions to spark thoughtful conversation and personal reflection, and discover how the message applies to your daily life.
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1 Corinthians was written by the Apostle Paul around 55 AD to the church in Corinth. Corinth was a major trade city in ancient Greece, known for its wealth, cultural diversity, and immorality. The church there was struggling with internal conflicts, misunderstanding of spiritual gifts, and moral issues due to the surrounding culture.
Paul wrote to address these issues, emphasizing unity and love within the church, and providing guidance on spiritual gifts, among other teachings. The city was heavily influenced by Greek philosophy and pagan religions, which might have contributed to the church's confusion over spiritual gifts and their appropriate use. Understanding the historical tension between fervent spirituality and cultural pressures helps clarify why Paul stressed clarity, love, and order in the use of spiritual gifts.
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Theme: Understanding Love and Spiritual Gifts
Objective:
To help kids understand the importance of love and clarity in their actions and words, inspired by the teachings of Pastor Tom Van Kempen about spiritual gifts.
Introduction (5 minutes)
Welcome the kids warmly and gather them around.
Opening Prayer: Let's bow our heads and ask God to help us learn today.
Lesson Highlights (15 minutes)
1. What is Love?
Ask: "What do you think love is?" (Encourage kids to share their thoughts.)
Share a Story: Share the following stories:
A little girl said that love is when you tell someone you like their shirt, and they wear it every day. (Get giggles!)
Explain that love is kind and caring, just like how we should treat our friends.
2. Why is Love Important?
Bible Verse: "Love is patient; love is kind..." (1 Corinthians 13)
Illustrate: Use examples like sharing toys or helping friends to show how we show love.
Emphasize: Love is the most important thing we can do!
3. What are Spiritual Gifts?
Explain: Spiritual gifts are special abilities that God gives us to help each other.
Clarity is Key: Remind the kids that it's important for our actions and words to be clear, especially when we talk about God and help each other.
Example Activity: Ask the kids to think of a time they helped someone and how it made both of them feel.
Fun Activity: "Love Detective" (10 minutes)
Instructions:
Have each child think of one way they can show love this week—like helping at home or sharing.
Give them a sticker or a small heart cutout for participating.
Conclusion (5 minutes)
Recap:
Ask the kids what they learned about love and spiritual gifts.
Reiterate that being loving and clear in our words and actions is how we can please God and help others.
Closing Prayer: Thank God for His love and ask for help to be loving this week.
Note to Parents:
Encourage your kids to share their 'Love Detective' missions at home, reminding them that showing love is what God wants us to do every day!
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Happy Valentine's weekend. I hope you had a good Friday night. If you're married, if you're dating, I hope that you bought. Uh oh. Uh oh.
Someone already got in trouble, didn't they? I read here this week that the average man spends twice as much money as the average woman for Valentine's Day, which it was just the opposite in my family. My wife actually bought me a bunch of stuff, and I gave her one of those experiential gifts. You know what an experiential gift is, don't you? It's when I take her out to my favorite restaurant.
So we went out and had some good seafood. We had a great time. And last week we talked about love in preparation. And we're going to kind of tag came off of last week a little bit, actually. We've come full circle.
My very first message was where I declared that we are a last days church. And that in the last days, there's going to be dreams and visions and prophetic words that come forth in God's last days church. And so I wanted you all to start dreaming. What is it that God wants in your life over the next year, the next five years, the next 10 years? I want you to start dreaming for the church.
What does he want us collectively to do? And I believe that coming this summer, maybe this fall, that God will start helping us to coalesce around a common vision, something that we're going to spring into action towards, something that we're going to do in order to make a difference in this community. But there was another part to that, Joel prophecy, and that is that people are going to prophesy. And so last week I actually communicated that if you prophesy in arrogance, it's absolutely useless. If you prophesy because you want to be the center of attention, that it does no good whatsoever.
What's really important is love. Everyone say love. Love. That's what's a primary concern. That's the supreme thing is love.
And with that, I heard a couple of more definitions for love, so I thought I'd spring them on you. One little girl says love is when you tell a guy that you like his shirt, and then he wears it every day after that.
Leo, age 7, said, if falling in love is anything like learning how to spell, I don't want to do it. It takes too long. Okay. And Roger, age 9, said, Love is like an avalanche where you have to run for your lives.
This is what I didn't understand. Online this week, I read this one woman said, my husband is in trouble this year for not getting me anything for Valentine's Day after I told him not to get me anything for Valentine's Day.
Wow. I mean, I didn't know that doublespeak, you know, came into this, that whatever I say, do the opposite here. But that's why today's message is entitled Clarity is King. Because I said some things last week about speaking in tongues being a gong and prophecy being useless and even giving your life to be burned at the stone, completely meaningless if you don't do any of those things with the motivation of love. And so I want to springboard off that a little bit, and I want to bring clarity.
First Corinthians 12:1 says this now concerning spiritual gifts. Brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant. God wants us to be clear when it comes to spiritual gifts. He wants us to know what is appropriate. And so Paul wrote about this in this letter that we call First Corinthians.
So my goal today is to brush away the ignorance and to bring clarity. Now, I know this is going to be challenging, and this is going to be challenging because we all have baggage, say baggage. We all have some, and some of it's good. When you open up those bags, good stuff comes out, but some of it's bad. And when we open up, bad things come out.
And when it comes to Pentecostal churches like the Assemblies of God, there is both good and bad in regards to spiritual gifts. We've seen abuses, and because of the abuses that we've seen, we get a little gun shy, and we don't want to see anything any longer. And so I just need to let you know that in the last couple of weeks, I've had people criticize the use of spiritual gifts in this church. I've had people comment on spiritual gifts being exercised in this church. I've had people commend the exercise of spiritual gifts in this church.
Now we're talking about the exact same thing. And yet people in this church, people who are members, see it differently. Does everyone understand that that's okay? Okay? That's okay.
Spiritual gifts is a part. Actually, it's a small part of what we do, but we still need to address this. I have never been conf. In 30 some years of pastoral ministry, I've never seen an issue divide a congregation, a Pentecostal denom like this one does. And so we need to talk about it.
We need to address it. And so here's what I'm asking you. I'm asking you to let God's word rule in your life. Who can say amen? I mean, this isn't about my experiences.
It's not even about what actually happened. All that matters is what does the Bible say and how do we move forward in light of what Scripture says, Who can say Amen? Okay, so we're gonna try and answer some simple questions to get a little clarification here. And trust me, this is not the only time we're gonna be able to address this. I'm actually talking about this on Wednesday nights in a month or so.
And so come back and we'll add even more clarification. But question number one is this. Why did Paul write First Corinthians? Please understand. We call it a book, but it was nothing more than a letter.
He was hearing reports about what was happening in this particular church that he had planted. He had got it started, he had left leadership in place, and now he's hearing reports that are hurting his heart just a little bit. And so he makes this decision. I've got to write them a letter and help them. And so at the very beginning, First Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 7, this is what it says.
I'm writing this so that you come short and no gift. So one of the main reasons he's writing the letter is so that they understand what a gift is or a charisma. This is a grace gift that comes from God. We're not talking about something natural that they're born with. We're talking about something supernatural, something that at salvation or subsequent to that, God decides, I'm going to endue you with a spirit special anointing or power so that you can effectively serve, say serve, so you can effectively serve the church.
And so this letter is gearing towards what we talked about last week, and it's gearing towards what we will talk about today. However, Paul had to deal with some issues, some problems before he could address spiritual gifts. Because look at it, he says he wants them not to come up short in the seventh verse of chapter one, but he doesn't talk about spiritual gifts till chapters 12, 13 and 14. So there's a bunch of stuff in between that he has to deal with, number one is divisive behavior in the church. He doesn't want there to be divisions.
What were their divisions about? They were divided over who was the best leader. Some said Paul was the best leader. Some said, Peter's the best leader. Some said Jesus is the best leader.
And you'd think that would have ended the argument, but it didn't. They were still fighting. Some were thinking that others were higher than Jesus on the food chain. And Paul's showing up and saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. In chapter seven, they're talking and dividing about marriage.
They don't know what's appropriate for their virgin daughters, and they don't know what's appropriate to do in marriage. And so Paul has to. To give some correctional advice in that chapter. But it's interesting to know that we're still divided about things today. Leadership, marriage are two of the issues.
Did Anybody watch the 2014 movie Unbroken, the story of Louis Zamperini? Anybody watch that movie? A few of you, A couple of you saw that. Okay. And after the movie was getting marketed really hard, somebody asked Louis Zamper, did anything good come out of two and a half years of torture in a POW camp?
And he said, yes, it prepared me for 53 years of marriage.
Wow.
Why do I say that? Because human issues are always going to be here. If you're looking for a church that has no difficulties and no challenges, you're not gonna find it. And so some people go, that's great. I'll just stay at home.
That's not. The answer is as iron sharpens iron, as we talk about these things, as we debate these things, as we come to some understanding of where each other are coming from. I mean, back then, they were actually suing each other. And Paul said, what are you guys doing? You're going to a pagan court to issue a dispute.
Don't you understand that you're going to be judging angels? Do you guys understand that we are going to be judging angels someday? I mean, we have to be able to resolve little petty issues among our church, don't you think? Yes, of course we can. So that's one issue.
Issue number two was drift. They were actually kind of drifting away from the gospel, even. And he names a bunch of things. He talks about sexual immorality and how that's proof that they're drifting away from their purity towards God. He talks about being uncaring and unloving towards newer Christians.
He talks about rich people acting superior to poor people. And so as we discussed last week in chapter 13, Paul said, your giftedness, your money, your position is worthless without love. And the third thing that he addresses is what we're going to talk about a little more today. And that is disorder. Say disorder.
Disorder. Disorder. Disorder in church services. Now, you're probably not gonna believe this, but people were getting drunk at communion.
So I guess they were using real wine back there. That's one thing we know for sure. But, yes, it says this in First Corinthians, chapter 11, that. That some of you are getting drunk during Communion. Now, understand, Communion services probably looked a lot different than ours.
They probably had an entire meal that was being served. And so people were eating and drinking, and some people started drinking way more than they were supposed to be drinking, and they were getting drunk. And Paul has to address it. This is disorder. This is wrong.
In the body of Christ. He says people were disrupting the service with loud talking.
That never happens here, does it? Ah. Hey, guys. Do you understand that the person behind you is trying to listen? Do you understand the person beside you is trying to listen?
Some of you have voices that carry from one end of this building to the other. And we just need to be careful that if we're talking during the service about what you and your wife are gonna have for lunch today, probably not appropriate. Even if you're commenting, I'm not talking about amens. Give me an amen. Amen.
That's appropriate. Give me a hallelujah. That's appropriate. You can shout out. That's culturally acceptable.
But when you're trying to whisper next to the person next to you, and it's not a whisper, that doesn't work in this setting. The women all sat over here, and the men all sat over here, and some of these women didn't know what was going on and say, honey, can you help me with what's going on over here? I don't get what the pastor's saying and Paul's saying, no, wait until after the service to ask those disruptive questions. Even though they're not bad questions, they can be disruptive in the wrong context. And finally, people were speaking in tongues in an inappropriate way.
They actually believed that they were more spiritual than everyone else because they were the tongue talkers. And you can understand why. Do you know that all the gifts of the Spirit in the New Testament are in operation in the Old Testament except for speaking in tongues? It is the identifying characteristic of the church. It's the thing that set them apart.
It's the thing that showed the birth of the church. And so you can see how some people might think we're a little bit special, we're a bit. Little bit superior, because we can speak in tongues and you can't. And so it was almost like there was a contest as to who could speak speak in tongues the most. And Paul is saying, no, no, no, no, no.
That's disruptive in the church. So the solutions in chapter 12 to disunity is unity. The solution in chapter 13 to uncomely or bad behavior is love. And the solution in chapter 14 for confusion is clarity. And these three chapters are bundled together on purpose because they're kind of a.
A semi climax, because chapter 15 is actually the climax. But 12, 13, and 14 are that near climax at the end of the book. So we're gonna go to First Corinthians, chapter 14, and we're just gonna look at a couple of verses to help us to understand what is going on here. So it starts out this way to pursue. Oh, I know.
See, I gotta learn how to use this thing. All right, I have to hit my pen here. So it says, pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. So what's going on here? Well, based on what we talked about last week, we know this is priority number one.
We're supposed to pursue love. This word literally means to almost run after, to chase after. After that. It is the most important thing in life that you're pursuing God and his love, and then you're pursuing the operation of love coming out of you on a regular and consistent basis. And once you've done this, or once you understand the priority of this thing, then you move on to desiring spiritual gifts because they help function the body of Christ more effectively, who agrees that if you have cancer and you get healed miraculously, that that's a good thing.
Okay, That's a good thing. So we want miracles, we want healings. But listen to what he says, especially that you may prophesy. Why is he communicating that prophecies more important than any of the other gifts? That's the implication here.
That's what it sounds like he's saying. And what I believe he's trying to communicate is that a word from God is more valuable than anything. Are you hearing me? He's saying that if you hear from God, and especially if the entire church hears that, it's even more valuable than a healing miracle. It's even more valuable than a financial blessing.
It's more valuable than hearing a tongue that you cannot completely understand. He's Saying that prophecy is the gift that we should all be trying to get in Jesus name. And so the rest of this chapter is all about clarity and why clarity is so important. And so we're going to go to the next verse here, and this is what it says. For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak but to God, for no one understands him.
However, in the Spirit, he speaks mysteries. Now, it's kind of interesting, isn't it? He's saying, especially pursue prophecy. And then the very first thing he talks about is tongues. But you have to understand what he's doing.
He's making a correction. He's trying to help people understand that prophecy is actually superior to spiritual speaking in tongues in the public, say public. In the public setting. We need to understand this, because first he's talking about tongues, and he says that tongues are spoken. He says it again.
They're spoken. He says that they speak mysteries. This word is lilo in the Greek language. So some of Pentecostal's critics will say that speaking in tongues is nothing more than gibberish, that it's nonsensical, that people are just putting together vowels or syllables, and it makes no sense whatsoever. Paul says it's a language.
Lilo literally means to speak. It means to talk in a language. When he uses the word lilo next he uses it in regards to prophecy in the Greek language. So it's obvious that speaking in tongues in Paul's theology is a language of some kind. But there's a problem.
Tongues. For he who speaks in a tongue does not. You see this. He does not speak to men, but he speaks to God. And you might say, what's the problem?
We are in a public setting, so we have to be careful using tongues. I'm not saying don't speak in tongues during praise and worship. I'm not saying don't sing in tongues and praise and worship. The music drowns that out. I'm talking about the authoritative sound when someone stands up and shouts at the top of their lungs or relatively so, and draws all attention on themselves, whether it's purposely so or whether it is in the spirit, it doesn't matter.
He's saying that you're not talking to people and it's a public setting. And in a public setting, the priority is the people. Tongues do not communicate to men. So listen, the problem is they're using a beautiful and glorious gift, but at the wrong time. I went to Brazil a number of years ago, and I was preaching in like 15 cities in 21 days.
And I was flying into Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro. I was in Fortaleza, Recife, and I went to this small town called Tahua in the inner continent of South America. So it was like, smack dab in the middle of Brazil, and it was hard to get there, and it was a long trip. And for. For that message, I was preaching from the book of Psalms.
And if I remember right, I was preaching from Psalms 24. And as I'm preaching, I'm noticing a resistance from the congregation. I have a translator, and he's, you know, I don't know what he's saying. He's supposed to be saying what I'm saying. I'm hoping he's saying what I'm saying.
And all of a sudden, there's just this resistance. And at the end of the service, there's no. No response whatsoever. And I thought I had bombed miserably. I thought it was the worst sermon I'd probably ever preached in my entire life.
I was down. I was disappointed. And then I noticed the pastor of the church yelling at the translator. I'm like, what's going on? And as we're driving back to the pastor's house, I find out that he was quoting from the wrong chapter of Psalms.
So when I would read Psalms 24:1, he was reading Psalms 25:1. When I was communicating on Psalms 24:1, he was referencing Psalms 25:1. And it went on the entire service. That's what Paul is trying to communicate, that if you can directly or more directly hear the word, use the means, that is most easy to understand. So tongues are addressed to God, and you might say, isn't that a good thing?
Yes. Even on the day of Pentecost, in Acts, chapter two, they're speaking in tongues, and people are saying, what's going on? What's going on? But they could hear them. It says, and what were they doing?
They were praising God. They weren't talking to them. They were proclaiming God's works and God's praises. Later in this chapter, he says, when I speak in a tongue, I speak praises to God. So it's directed at God and not to Men.
In First Corinthians, chapter 14. I think I'm going to go over a couple of verses. Let's see, verse 4. He who speaks in a tongue. Watch this.
Oh, I got to hit my pen button here. Edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. So we're getting a priority of ministry. In this verse, what the Scripture is saying, what Paul's trying to Communicate. Our tongues are for self edification.
That is, their primary use is to edify, to build up yourself. I just got talking about love and this. This is somewhat contradictory to the spirit of love. When you're in a public setting, love does not parade itself. Love does not puff itself up.
That's what we learned last week. It's not prideful, it's not arrogant. Reminds me of this man. He passes out at a school carnival, and he's laying there on the ground, and a woman comes rushing on over and she kneels down and. And she starts administering some care when a man just bursts through the crowd and he starts barking out orders, get out of my way.
Get out of my way. He pushes the woman over to the side. He says, I just took a CPR course. I know exactly what to do. And he gets down.
And right before he's about to do something, she says, well, when you get to the part where you have to call a doctor, I'm standing right here.
That's kind of what's going on here. We're using an insufficient means to communicate God's word when we're looking for tongues and interpretation when it could be a straightforward prophecy. When you read later in the chapter that everyone brings a revelation, everyone brings a prophecy, everyone brings the tongue. That means we should be prepared in advance how to handle this stuff. This whole idea of spontaneity is not necessarily the appropriate action.
Things done in spontaneity oftentimes are done poorly or in the wrong order. When we think in advance and prepare under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, things can be done better. Now you might say, but Pastor, the Scripture says that tongues may be a. And the answer is yes, you're right. There are always exceptions to the rule.
There are sometimes unbelievers in the congregation who would appreciate the fact that when they hear a tongue, they would recognize it as the presence of God. But listen, the Bible says the opposite is more often the case. He says in this chapter that most foreigners, most unbelievers, most of the ignorant, will just think you're crazy. Isn't that what happened on the day of Pentecost? They thought that they were drunk, and so we've got to be careful.
The tongue talkers were the disruptive ones. In verse 19, Paul says five words in a known language are better than 10,000 words in a tongue. Hear me. He is not belittling tongues in any way, shape or form. I wish you all spoke with tongues.
Did you see this? So that means some people in the church still had not received their prayer language. But it's called a prayer language for a reason. Have you ever thought about that? But even more.
More. This is more important that you prophesy. For he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues, unless indeed he interprets that the church may receive the edification. So he's saying that a tongue with an interpretation is equivalent to. To a prophecy.
Now, what's interesting is it's not the only thing he says that's equivalent to prophecy.
Here we're at 1 Corinthians 14:3. But he who prophesies speaks edification. Say edification. Exhortation. Say exhortation.
And comfort. Say comfort. You might say, pastor, why are you having to say those words? Because it's getting quiet in here.
Last week's message was way more fun for me to preach than this week's message. I'm just being honest. But this week's message is just as important as last week's message. Okay? And just because something's difficult to address, it doesn't mean we don't address it.
It's how we address it that matters. So Paul shows us the purpose of prophecy. The first purpose is edification. This word means to build up like you're literally building a house. Edification.
It reminds me of the Wilbur and Orville Wright story. And you might say, what are you talking about? Well, if you remember, 120 years ago, the Wright broke were the first ones to fly. They were there in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and they flew for 12 seconds. Not a big deal.
But later, in Orville Wright's autobiography, this is what he writes. We were lucky enough to grow up in an environment where we were always encouraged. So prophecy is meant to give you wings. Prophecy is meant to and encourage you. Prophecy is meant to take away any confusion as to what God might say.
And you might say, is it really that important? Well, because the Wright brothers were encouraged. There are going to be 45,000 planes over America today. Nearly 3 million people are flying today. That's in the billions of American citizens and foreign citizens that fly over our country every single day.
Because of their encouragement, everyone is better off. The same is true in the body of Christ. If a person gives a prophetic word that encourages us, we will all be better in Jesus name who can say amen. So we want to be encouraged. We want to be exhorted.
The scripture says exhortation is the next one. That's a cool Greek word right there. It's paraklisis, and it means A calling near. And it's kind of like the prophet is saying that God is calling you near to him, that God is going to guide you down a particular path with this prophetic word he's gonna speak. Maybe a correction, it might be a little hard, maybe an instruction, maybe a clarification of a teaching, some kind.
And this is why the Holy Spirit is actually described as the Paraclete in the Book of John, because he's known as the comforter. And that's what this edification and this exhortation is supposed to do. It is supposed to comfort each and every one of us. So First Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 6 is where we're going to go to next. And it's just a couple of verses later.
And it says, but now, brethren, if I come to you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit? You? I got to draw this out. This word profit is telling you what is the purpose of spiritual gifts. The purpose is to benefit the congregation.
It's to profit the congregation. It's to be useful. It's to be helpful in some way, shape or form. So if it doesn't do that, we don't want to use that particular gift. Unless I speak to you either by.
Watch this, watch this revelation, knowledge, prophecy, or by teaching. And you might be thinking, what's the big deal here? Well, Paul is broadening the picture of prophecy. He's helping you to understand that he's not talking about some old man in the Old Testament with a beard who says, thus says the Lord. That's not what he's referring to.
He's telling you that these spiritual gifts that are found in Romans 12 and First Corinthians, chapter 12, and First Peter, chapter 4, and Ephesians, chapter 4, there's some overlap between these things. There's not rigid, rigid guidelines on them, but they work in conjunction with one another. Most people don't have a gift. They have a gift mix of some kind. And this mix gives them a unique ministry in the church.
So we're not predicting the future. We're not fortune telling, as a lot of people do. Paul is showing that spiritual gifts are equivalent, or, I'm sorry, prophesying is equivalent to a revelation. Prophesying is equivalent to knowledge, or more than likely the word of knowledge that is discussed in First Corinthians, chapter 12. And prophecy is even equivalent to, to teaching.
You might say that today's message is a prophetic word from God. If you're learning something doctrinally that you've never learned before, it is a revelation. It is something new. Now, some denominations believe that that is the only prophetic message is from the pastor. We believe that everyone, say everyone, everyone has this potential locked up in them.
Most of the time, it's not for the public service. Most of the time, it's in a small group. Most of the time, it's one on one. Has anyone ever received a word from somebody? Somebody came up and said, I think God wants me to tell you something.
Has that ever happened to anybody? Yes. And what is your job? Is your job just to say, okay, whatever you say must be true? No.
Your job is to judge. Oh, we're gonna get into that in just a minute. All right, number four. Paul is teaching that clarity is more important than false spirituality. Now, I don't have time to go over verses 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, but they're all talking about unclear.
Sounds kind of like at the beginning of First Corinthians, chapter 13, that a tongue can be unclear. It can be just a gong or a cymbal. Now he's saying that every instrument must be distinct. The trumpet must be distinct, or people won't prepare for battle. Prophecies in church must be clear.
There should be no questions whatsoever because the goal is always edification. And so we're going to close with this last question. How should spiritual gifts be governed in the church today? There's a lot of debate about this. Different denominations disagree.
People in our own church disagree. Right. I mean, people right here in this fellowship disagree on how this should be handled. And so let me give you some ground rules that I think will help all of us as we move forward. Number one, spiritual gifts should be sought after.
Who can say amen? Okay. They're not in the Bible for nothing. Some fellowships say that God doesn't do that. Chapters 12, 13, and 14 don't apply any longer.
They still apply. Okay. There's no word. That's not for today. They're all for today.
We can use them all. So we should desire spiritual gifts, especially prophecy. That's what it says in verse 1, in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5. Look at this. We've actually used one of these verses here.
It says, do not quench the spirit. Whoop. I know, I know. I'm getting used to it. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Do not quench the spirit. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago where quench means put out the spirit's fire, but it actually tells us how we oftentimes do that. Do not despise prophecies.
Do you know what concerns me about this word? This word means to doubt prophecies, not to judge. It just means that you doubt all prophecy. You don't believe that they're relevant for today. You disregard them as being unimportant.
Or worse yet, you mock them. This is the exact same word that is used when Herod and the soldiers mocked Jesus when they were beating him. I mean, think about that. When you mock someone in the church who prophesies, even if they do it wrong, you're acting like Herod and you're acting like the soldier's beating Jesus. You're treating other brothers and sisters in Christ with contempt.
It's the wrong way to do this. Yes, we're supposed to test all things. That's what the scripture says. And we're supposed to hold to what is good. So that means we examine it, we scrutinize it, we see what is genuine.
And for ourselves, if it's not for us, we discard what isn't useful. But we don't get mean spirited about it in judgmental and in a bad attitude. But we do judge. This is what's so challenging. First Corinthians 14:29.
Let two or three prophets speak and let the others judge. The others judge the operation of spiritual gifts. That means if someone speaks in a prophetic word, you have a responsibility to. To use your reasoning powers and to compare it with what is written in the scripture and say, yes, that's an alignment. I receive that, or no, I do not receive that in Jesus name.
You don't just go on with your business. You think about what is transpiring. You think about what's taking place. I'm so glad I trained my children to be wise. I had a son who was either 16 or 17 years old, and he went to a event at another church.
And while he was at that church, they started having this prophesying session. I'm not sure I'm into prophesying sessions, okay, where people just started prophesying over each other. And one person came on over and laid hands on my son and said, the spirit of the Lord wants you to know that he understands your pain and all the abuse that you're experiencing in your home from your mother and your father.
So he tells me that he started laughing and it wasn't the laughing spirit that came over him, it was probably the mocking spirit that came over him. But he couldn't wait to come home and tell me what happened and teased me about how abusive I was as a father and I called my youth pastor and I said, you will never, ever go to that church again. That was out of line. And first of all, you don't prophesy over someone else's sheep. Are you hearing me?
You don't prophesy over someone else's sheep. The scripture says Agabus was a prophet who known among them. This is important. You don't let anyone put their hands on you. You don't let anyone touch you in an inappropriate spiritual way.
You don't know what kind of spirit they have on them. You need to trust the spiritual authority in your church is what you need to do. So listen. Listen.
So the scripture, this is Jesus says, beware of false prophets. Let me tell you, if you start talking in this church and I don't like what you're saying, I'm calling you out. I'm just letting you know I'm calling you out in front of everybody. So make sure that it's from God. Now, again, it's got to be heretical for me to do that.
If it's innocent, if it's immature, if it's ignorant. I'm not going to say anything because the rest of the church should be mature enough and I will give instruction afterwards where we can handle those things. But if there's a false prophet in the house, guess what? I'm going after that wolf. I am going after that wolf in Jesus name.
Even First Corinthians 13, 9 says, we know in part and we prophesy in part. So. So you can't trust even the wisest of men and women will make mistakes at times. And so we have the right to analyze, to make a distinction, to separate, to decide if it's for us. And so use the word.
Is it edifying? Do I sense edification? Is it challenging in a positive way? Is it comforting? Is the quality.
This is important. Is the quality of the message of a higher level than what that person normally speaks?
Are you getting this? Because the scripture says even tongues are mysteries, right? So if someone's speaking a mystery, don't you think that the word should be at a little higher level? It shouldn't be the same thing every single time. If it is, that person is speaking out of emotionalism, not out of inspiration.
And that's not bad. Hear me? That's not bad. My job then will be to put my arm around that person's shoulder and say, good try.
Good try. I validate your boldness, but next time, let's make sure that it's from God. Okay? Let's make sure. And if you're wondering, why don't you come, I sit right over here.
Why don't you come over here and ask me, Pastor, can I give this word today? Well, what is it? And I'll listen to it. I'll know. I can tell you I will recognize something from God as something from your own spirit.
It's not that hard to judge because if it's not above the normal level of inspiration, it's got to be inspired. Speech. When we say we're giving a word, when we speak in tongues and interpret, what we are saying is we're speaking for God. Do you think God's going to interrupt the service with nonsense, with silliness? No, it's going to be something powerful.
I've been in services where I literally get goosebumps. The word is so powerful that I burst into tears because it moves me to such a degree. That's the kind of communication God wants us to have. And so everyone, here's the final thing here. Everyone say everyone.
Everyone should operate in the fruit of the spirit. I'm talking about everyone. I'm talking about the prophets. And when I say prophets, I'm not talking about Old Testament prophets. I'm talking about those operating in the gifts and those judging the gifts.
Both groups have to be operating in the fruit of the spirit. Not based on our experience, not based on the abuses that we've seen in the past. But we're obligated that we're operating in the fruit of the spirit, number one being love. Okay, now love we talked about last week is really an action word. It means we're gonna do something.
I saw this story so I had to include it. A little boy, four year old boy, picked up by his mom at preschool. And he comes home and she drops him off and he's in the kitchen and he sees his dad reading a book across the way and he just runs, sprints towards his dad, jumps into his dad's arms. The dad doesn't even sit. The book goes flying and just crashes into something.
And dad goes, what in the world? And this is what the little boy said. I love you. And I just had to do something about it.
So what if someone gives a mediocre milquetoast word? Can we still encourage a person like that? The answer is yes. We can verbally tell them we appreciate the effort. We can verbally tell them, you know what?
I think you're going to get there someday and maybe you don't feel comfortable doing that, but I guarantee you I'M going to do it. I'm going to start communicating to every single person who gives the word. And we're going to talk, we're going to say, why did you think that time timing was appropriate? Why do you think you should have done it right there? Not because I'm trying to bust anybody.
I'm trying to school, I'm trying to teach, I'm trying to encourage. I want more accurate words from God who can say Amen. I want more of God speaking. I want to be kind in the administration and the governing of this stuff. I want to be long suffering impatient.
In my first church ever, this was over 30 years ago, there was a young man who got saved. He was kind of a hippie young guy. He had long hair and all the stuff that went along with that. And he was excited about Jesus. And if you remember history, people used to go, thus says the Lord.
That's how they would start. Okay, if God's speaking, you don't need to tell us, we'll know. But this young man, he couldn't remember how everyone else started. And so he's thinking about it. I can see him.
I'm up on the platform. This is when we all used to be on the platform. And he yells out, ahoy.
I started laughing from the pulpit, not in mockery. It was just so innocently cute. That's the best way to put it. And often what happens to happen to that guy next? Gentleness is important in correction and instruction of spiritual gifts.
I think it's really interesting that if you read this entire chapter, Paul calls the Corinthians brethren four different times. He's trying to connect with them on an emotional basis because he's correcting them. He's been correcting them from chapter one. Quit being divisive. Use God's wisdom.
In chapter two, Quit being divisive. In chapter three, know sexual immorality. In chapter five, quit suing. In chapter six, know what it means to be married in chapter seven, he just keeps going after him and after him and after him. And now he's starting to say, come on, brothers, come on, brothers.
You might say that gentleness is not very effective. It was one of Jesus most effective tools. I've learned that gentleness is mastering your emotions while maintaining the Spirit in the mind of Christ. It's a good definition for gentleness. Number three.
Self control must be used in the exercise of spiritual gifts. First Corinthians 14:32. And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. You're supposed to Govern yourself. And the Bible actually says it's better to say nothing than to say the wrong thing.
So be silent if someone else is speaking, if something else is happening, if music is going in a exploratory and praise directed route, it might not be the right time to utter that prophetic word. Feel the spirit out, see what's going on. Silences is golden. They told me a long, long, long, long, long time ago. And finally, peace is the byproduct of chapter 12 unity, chapter 13, love, and chapter 14 clarity.
First Corinthians 14, 33 and 40. This is what they say. For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace. And finally, let all things be done decently in order. Pastor Jeff, if you'd join me up in the front.
I just want us to love each other and I understand differences of opinion. Like I told you, in the last month I've had complaints, comments and commendations and all three groups thought they were right. Now, those of you who've talked to me have a responsibility in light of God's word, correct yourself. Okay. What was the motivation that you were having, you know, when you heard those things?
I can tell you. I'll just be honest. Sometimes I saw so much abuse when I was younger that my first response, response to an audible word is a little cringe factor.
I'm just being honest. And it's because you know who gave the most tongues in my church growing up? An adulterer?
People with the most messed up lives in the world and they were the ones speaking in tongues and prophesying. Now, I'm not saying God can't use those people because the gifts and the callings are irrevocable. Okay? But when you're an 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 year old child, that leaves an imprint on you and you don't want abuses. And I hope you, you understand my heart that the reason for this message is because I love you.
It would be easy for me not to preach this message. Okay? I hope you see that because I care so much. I spent time to go over this, even if you disagree with me. All right?
And so my desire is that we just continue to explore the scriptures. Come back on Wednesdays and look at those fundamental doctrines that we've been talking about, those bedrock principles. And let's grow together. Let's find out what does God want in regards to dreams, visions and prophecies. In Jesus name, would you stand with me, please?
