Spiritual Gifts- Tongues And Prophesy Series

Spiritual Gifts- Tongues and Prophecy

Spiritual Gifts Series

CCCAG, 6-27-21

Scripture: 1 Cor 14:1-5

One quick note- I will have a Q&A session when we are done.

After about five years of being a full-time paramedic I had a series of pretty bad calls that started to take some of the joy out of my chosen profession. I used to love going to work. I looked forward to drive into Lake Geneva and running on a primary 911 ambulance.

The downside of doing that is you see some pretty horrific things, and no matter how strong you are or resilient you are it starts to affect you after a while.

I was in that kind of spot when I heard about a job for paramedics with leadership experience. This had no clinical work involved with it. Instead, it was being a supervisor at a medical call center. The pay and benefits were much better, and Tammie didn't have to worry about the dangers I faced on the ambulance.

I applied, and got the job. About four months into me working there the call center director was replaced by a man named Dave. Dave was a very charismatic and gifted leader and would have us all come to his office once a week for leadership seminars to make us better at our jobs.

One of the books he had us read was a leadership book called “Gung Ho, How to motivate the employees in any line of work”

The book told the story of a failing plant manager who was befriended by one of the employees who was Native American named Andy.

Andy told her stories that he grew up with and used them to teach her leadership. One of the leadership lessons he taught was called the “Gift of the Goose”.

One spring morning they were taken advantage of the nice weather and walking outside during their break and a flock of geese flew over the factory. Andy looked up and started to explain why geese flew in formation and turned it into a lesson on leadership.

Here are 5 things you may not have known about geese that you can apply to leadership.

1. The lead goose does most of the work, and bears the heaviest burden when it comes to how much and how hard they have to flap their wings. Because of his or her hard work, he followers of the leader only have to do about ¼ to ½ of the flapping as the leaders does because the leader is generating the slipstream they all are riding on.

2. The lead Goose does not honk- his followers honk to encourage him to keep going.

3. Stay in formation- when you try to go it on your own, you loose all that work your leader did for you. Think of it like walking though a jungle, and the person in the lead is swinging a machete to clear a path. That’s what the lead goose is doing for the other geese, but you have to stay behind him to benefit from his hard work.

4. Leave no goose behind- when a goose gets hurt or tired and falls out of formation, several other geese will fall out with it until it can recover enough to rejoin a flock

5. Rotate- the leader doesn’t always stay the leader, but rotates back and lets someone else carry the burden of the flock for awhile. All the geese in the formation have the responsibility of leading the flock sooner or later.

You're probably thinking at this point, “what in the world does this have to do with spiritual gifts?”

I'm glad you asked.

God has given us spiritual gifts for our encouragement, or growth, our edification, and even our protection. Having these spiritual gifts at your disposal makes you the spiritual leader when you are out in the world interacting with those who do not know Jesus. They are given as much for other’s benefit as they are for your own.

Today we will look at the speaking gifts in the church. You can think of the speaking gifts as the gift of the Goose for the modern church- something that brings encouragement to everyone.

This morning we'll be looking mostly at the spiritual gifts of speaking in tongues and of prophecy.

Let's read

1 Cor 14:1-5

14 Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy. 2 For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit. 3 But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort. 4 He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. 5 I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may be edified.