Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good morning & welcome

I read recently that the well known San Antonio pastor, Max Lucado, now claims to speak in tongues during his personal prayer time with God.

“When I was 64 on a July morning, as I was praying, I began praying in tongues,” Lucado shared [saying]... “I had not done anything different, except I came across the passage where the Apostle Paul said, ‘Eagerly desire the spiritual gifts’…I prayed that every morning for two or three weeks.

And then one morning, early in the morning, I began praying in a heavenly language.”

[https://churchleaders.com/news/433857-speaking-in-tongues-max-lucado-prayer-time.html]

...

I read elsewhere that Billy Graham, as a young preacher, went into period of time that he prayed fervently for the power of the Holy Spirit to empower him as he preached the word, that people would come to know Christ and be saved.

The story continued saying that Billy Graham did receive that anointing and gifting of the Holy Spirit and began to lead many people to Christ during his lifetime and remains today one of the most respected preachers in the world.

We have seen selective outpouring of the Holy Spirit in times of great revival, such as is taking place in Kentucky at Asbury University, where hundreds of people have fallen to their knees, broken in repentance and given the Holy Spirit the power to work in them and through them.

We’ve spoken at great length about the Holy Spirit, explaining that the Holy Spirit is part of the Triune God: Father, Spirit, Son.

We explained how and why we received the Holy Spirit as a gift from God to help us in our spiritual walk, growing to be more like Christ and to have more of his character within us.

We’ve talked about the Fruit of the Spirit, which are these characteristics.

I’ve given you an overview of the spiritual gifts, explaining their purpose and how they come to play a role in our lives and in the way that we interact with each other in the church.

Finally, we’ve talked about the supremacy of love and unity in the local church and how our spiritual gifts should be used to that end.

Today we are going to focus on a section of scripture that addresses some often misunderstood gifts, primarily those that are connected to communication—namely tongues and prophecy.

Let’s read the initial passage from 1 Corinthians 14 as we begin our Bible Study today...

[pray]

The truth is that many of us do not understand these gifts very well because we have never experienced tongues or interpretation or prophecy.

At least not in the ways that we have expected or in ways that we have been told to expect.

I know people who say that they speak in tongues and I have heard people pray in what I would call a “prayer language.”

But I have never personally experienced this.

I cannot speak to this from personal experience other than having heard that rapid, whispering language that sounds like a stream of repetitive sussuration.

I have never been able to understand or interpret those prayers.

In these times of prayer with my, so called “Spirit-filled” friends, I have seen some unexplained things take place and have felt the hand of the Spirit on me and seen the effects on others.

However, I still come into these times with a bit of suspicion.

It might be easy for me to dismiss their experience, having not shared in that experience myself.

But I have seen enough to know that there are usually things going on that I cannot explain away.

Yet again, I turn to the words of Paul, who says things like “I wish all of you spoke in tongues, but even more that you prophesied” (14:5).

I see these statements and it makes me think that there could be something there if only I could believe it to be true.

There are these miraculous gifts, such as tongues and interpretations, prophesy and the word of knowledge gifts.

There are fantastical sign gifts, like performing miracles and raising people from the dead.

You might be wondering why we don’t see those gifts being used in our church today.

All I can say is this—while our church is blessed and gifted—we are not gifted in that way.

And then, there are the more mundane gifts.

Those gifts that we see commonly in our churches, like service and hospitality.

And we spoke about the great gifts of faith, hope, and—the greatest gift—love.

It would be easy to draw the conclusion that these gifts have ceased and all my spirit-filled friends are experiencing some form of hysteria or they are deceived into thinking these things are taking place.

However, I think that would be taking the easy way out.

Paul dedicates a lot of words to this and gives some very clear rules.

Why did Paul spend so much time talking about speaking in tongues and prophesy?

Paul is not speaking about some unknown language here, some heavenly prayer language, but about earthly languages, as we read about in Acts 2, when the Spirit began to use languages and interpretation to spread the Gospel message of Jesus Christ to the multilingual gathering.

I.

The Gifts are for the Edification of the Church

Paul writes this passage about the spiritual gifts and we sometimes get so caught up in the gifts themselves that we miss the point of his message.

Paul tells us this.

He says that we get so caught up in the fantastical gifts that we lose the purpose, which is to edify the church.

I have said this before that I believe the speaking and interpretation of known languages was a tool used by the Holy Spirit to propagate the Gospel message throughout the world.

The whole purpose of these miraculous sign gifts, such as tongues, interpretation, and prophecy is that the church might spread and flourish.

II.

The Gifts are about Communicating a Message

Furthermore, these gifts have a purpose of communicating a message and they should be used in distinct ways...

Paul uses these examples of instruments that are poorly played.

[guitar example]

When we try to...

Acting outside of our gifting and trying to force the issue

Or we don’t prepare properly and we sell our gift short

If I try to play on my guitar the song that we sang today and I sing it out of tune, the beauty of the message will be lost on you.

However, if Joe comes up here and plays and sings, especially along with our worship band, it will communicate a very different message.

Paul does not promote the use of gifts that do not communicate properly.

He says if you are speaking in a language that nobody understands, it is just pure noise and it should be avoided.

If you are babbling out a repetitive sound that nobody understands, why waste everybody’s time?

Likewise, if you are speaking a foreign language that nobody can interpret, it is no better than the one who speaks the unknown language.

There is a reason that we don’t practice tongues in our tradition.

Where there is no understanding, there can only be confusion.

III.

Communication Is All About Understanding

I studied communication in college.

At the beginning of every communication class that I ever took, in my undergraduate studies and in my graduate level studies, the definition of communication was given:

Communication is the act of giving, receiving, and sharing information in such a way that it can be understood by the listener.

Think about that as we read the next section...

If the gift of the tongue is about communication and understanding does not take place, “What then?” Paul asks.

Paul says that we must have our priorities straight in the church...

The gift of tongues was for communicating the Gospel message and the spread of that message to those who came into the assembly without understanding.

However, the gift of tongues, as it is used in many churches today is not for this purpose at all.

It is wholly misused and misappropriated in the church today.

For this reason, we don’t make a habit of practicing the use of speaking unknown tongues in our church today.

It simply does not fit within our context and it does not aid us in our communication.

IV.

We Have An Immature Understanding of the Spiritual Gifts

Paul goes on to tell the believers at Corinth not to be immature in their way of thinking...

Paul told the believers not to be childish in their thinking.

He went on to talk about speaking in tongues, quoting Isaiah 28:11.

His point here, which he will continue in the following verses, is that the speaking of tongues can interrupt good communication and cause people not to listen.

Let’s continue from verse 22...

He was telling them that tongues do actually exist, but to serve God’s purposes they exist for a reason.

They are used for a sign for unbelievers to reveal the truths of God’s word to them in a way that they cannot avoid.

The speaking of tongues breaks through the natural order of things in a surprising and attention getting way.

However, Paul also gave a warning that speaking in tongues provides for a confusing and alarming experience.

He was warning the believers to use this fantastical gift in a cautious manner.

Paul then went onto to compare prophecy.

I’ve already told you that I believe that some form of prophecy does continue in our church setting.

Prophecy is not necessarily understood to be the practice of speaking some mystical magical words over people that will reveal some unknown truth to them, that might be considered the so-called “word gifts.”

It is not preaching a message of hellfire and brimstone.

Paul says that prophecy convicts and brings the hearer into account.

The one who is speaking God’s words and expounding on them can sometimes attain the level of prophetic speech, by bringing people into an encounter with God.

Prophecy is boldly and fearlessly proclaiming God’s truth.

I believe this shows up at times in the Sunday School lesson and in the preaching.

I do my best to prepare a message that will expose the truth of Scripture to you every Sunday when I come to preach.

But there are times that the words I speak are a bit more than what I have prepared.

Sometimes this is something that I have written, but on occasion I feel compelled by the Spirit to press in a little harder on some certain point.