“I Wasn’t Talking To You”
Joke: A sales manager overheard one of his salesman stating to a customer that they haven’t had any in a while and it didn’t look like they were going to get any in the near future. Not wanting to lose the customer the sales manager rushed up to them both and said, “Sir this man is new and just learning the business no matter what you want, if we don’t have it we will order it immediately, what was it you were wanting? The new salesman looked at the manager with disgust and said, “Rain.”
Children are a lot like that. They come into a room during a conversation and they don’t take the time to understand the conversation.
There are even adults like that and sometimes you just have to say, “I Wasn’t Talking To You.”
Every Sunday morning I come before you with messages that come from one main source, God’s Word.
These messages don’t always apply to everyone.
If I preach on lying and you don’t lie then I am not talking to you.
If I preach on committing adultery and you are not doing it then I am not talking to you.
If I preach on not being faithful to God and you are faithful then I am not talking to you.
And I hope this morning’s message applies to absolutely none of you.
So if you leave here thinking, I don’t do that, then you know what? I wasn’t talking to you.
There are several topics in the scriptures that are controversial simply because they are misunderstood and this message is meant to make it clear as to what the Bible says.
Now there are many different religions and many different beliefs that I don’t agree with, and neither does God’s Word.
I am always telling you that when Jesus or one of the Apostles is teaching to those direct they are also teaching to us.
This is a true statement but there are times when certain statements are made that don’t directly apply to us.
When Jesus told Peter to step out of the boat onto the water He was speaking directly to Peter, not to the other disciples, and certainly not to us today.
If you are under the assumption that Jesus was referring to everyone in this situation, after services go get you a boat, take it out in the middle of the lake, and get out and see what happens.
Trust me you will sink because what Jesus instructed Peter to do that day was a lesson. And it is not a lesson that needs to be carried out by everyone to prove it.
It’s unfortunate that God’s Word doesn’t use an asterisk with a footnote that says, “I wasn’t talking to you!”
Because there are times when we all could really use that kind of guidance.
Last week I spoke to you about gifts from God and how we should use them. And I told you that if you were not sure what your gift was, then simply ask God.
There were certain gifts given to the apostles to use for the building of Christ’s Church that some believe still exist today.
In other words they believe that Christ’s disciples were given these things and since we are disciples of Christ we have them also.
Now before I go any farther let me clarify something. We are Disciples of Christ but we are not Apostles of Christ.
There is a difference! Apostles were on a higher level than disciples.
First of all an Apostle is one who had actual contact with Jesus Christ. None of us have ever experienced an actual contact with Jesus.
Now if you are thinking, wait a minute Paul was an Apostle and Jesus had already ascended into heaven before he came along.
Yes he did but Jesus also made personal contact with Paul on the road to Damascus.
Apostles were an elite group that were given authorities and gifts that were not given to disciples.
Some of these gifts include healing and speaking in tongues.
So, what is “speaking in tongues?”
Acts 2:1-13
Now this gift was given to the twelve that were there. In the previous chapter the eleven disciples, (only eleven because Judas had hanged himself), were there to replace Judas which they did with Matthias.
Now this gift came from the Holy Spirit, and given to these twelve for one reason and one reason only.
So God’s Word could be understood by everyone.
Speaking in tongues is when someone speaks in a language that he or she does not know.
If I were to get up here and start speaking Spanish or Japanese, that would be an example of speaking in tongues because I don’t know how to speak those languages.
In Acts 2, at Pentecost, this is what happened. Folks from all over the Roman Empire were gathered and they heard the apostles speaking in their own language.
Now the key to this statement is; in their own language.
The apostles were praising God and preaching and teaching in languages they had not learned.
There are groups of people today who claim to have the ability to speak in tongues.
This is a problem, however, because very, very few people who claim to speak in tongues today are speaking another human language.
Linguists have listened to thousands of tape recordings of tongues speaking and only very rarely have found even a fragment of another known language.
In Acts 2 the apostles apparently spoke in tongues because the people listening to them spoke a wide variety of languages.
If we are in a worship service and we all speak the same language then there would be no point for anyone to speak in another language.
1 Corinthians 13:1
Paul is simply stating here that if he speaks in tongues just to try to impress people all he is doing is just making noise because the love of God is not present.
In other words when we do something or say something without doing it to edify God we are deceiving others.
Something else we need understand that these amazing gifts that were given to the Apostles also had a stipulation.
The apostle’s could pass the gift on to others but those receiving the gift could not pass it on.
If I were an Apostle and had these special gifts I could give the gift to ?
In other words after the person that received such a gift from an apostle died the inheritance stopped.
The point is we need to use gifts we have to edify and lift up Christ.
