The Language of the Spirit

In this message, “The Language of the Spirit,” Pastor Marcus teaches on the power and purpose of praying in the Spirit.

Drawing from passages in John 14, 1 Corinthians 14, and Romans 8, we discover that when we pray in tongues, we are speaking divine mysteries — communicating directly with God in His language. This Spirit-led prayer releases hidden truths, aligns us with God’s perfect will, and strengthens our relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Praying in the Spirit is more than a spiritual gift — it’s a heavenly language that empowers believers to partner with God beyond the limits of human understanding.

Key Scriptures: John 14:16–17, 1 Corinthians 14:1–5, Romans 8:26–27

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

You know, mission. Everybody say mission? Anyone in here besides me like the Mission Impossible movies? I watch the Mission Impossible movies. I just have to tell you, I'm amazed at what all Tom Cruise can do. Take a motorcycle, run it off of a thing, and actually he's the guy doing it, and that's actually live across that mountain. That's amazing. He's actually hanging off that airplane. That's just amazing. But you got to know what your mission is. Now, this isn't my sermon, this is just my prelude. But you know, mission is important. And so, whenever you go to a church, what's their mission? Where are they headed and where are they going? I love our mission. I mean, I just love the mission that we're on and what God's called us to do. See, we're a family church full of love and compassion. And in that love and compassion, we reach the lost, we disciple the found, and we empowered the called. But it's all fueled by love and compassion. If you don't have love and compassion for people, then I'm here to tell you whatever you do, you're going to do it in the flesh. See, folks, on the inside, I just love kids. Something God put in me. I love teenagers. I'm hanging out with them. Matter of fact, I'm more comfortable with them than I am with some adults. But it wasn't until I fell in love with them and grabbed hold of compassion that I could become effective. Man, my first years as a youth pastor, I was a great principal, but I was a terrible pastor. I was trying to get them all in order and get them all in line. Come on. No, but when you get full of love and compassion, then you can reach people. You can share the gospel with boldness and compassion in everyday life. Disciple, invest in helping others grow deeper in their faith and their journey. And then what we want to do is equip and release others to fulfill their God-giving calling. See, we got people ministering and doing things, but they're not the only ones. There are callings to be imparted. You know, like I said this morning, I think I'd go around to two or three other people and start imparting some things, but the Lord just ain't just wait, wait. There'll be a time, there'll be a time. But boy, I want to go out and grab one or two of you this morning. Because that is our mission. See, we're not a church that wants to keep you inside. We're a church that wants to get you outside. See, that's where our values come in. Our values are go, grow, partner, connect, and serve. Go. Yeah, we're gonna go on mission strips. We had an amazing mission strip. How about that mission strip, missions team? Wasn't that good? Woo! You should go next time we next time we get out of the country, you should go with us. It was just great. So we go, but not only do we go forward, the first place you got to go is you gotta go to your neighborhood. Did y'all realize that Macomb High School is in our neighborhood? You think there's some reasoning why Pastor Marcus goes to Macomb High School? They can't get rid of me. They might want to, but you know, because they're in my neighborhood. Why do we mow the lady's yard behind? Because we just want to show everybody. No. We mow it because she can't get somebody to do it, and we can. We go. We get out of these four walls and we go and we be the church. We are the church. We do the church. And and we help people when they're in need. Why? Because we're full of compassion. Compassion moved Jesus to feed them, to pray for them, to raise them, to heal them. And compassion moves us to quit being religious. But see, I think it's important you understand what kind of church we are and what our mission is. So if that resonates, then you hook up and you run with us. Everybody say run? I refuse to walk anymore. I'm done walking. Because time is running out. Time is short. See, each and every person on this planet is headed to two seats. There are two seats that everybody you can go to, one or the other. And one of those seats is the judgment seat of Christ. And that's where all the Christians go. All the believers go. All those who are new creatures in Christ. You're gonna you're gonna be in front of Jesus one day, and you're gonna have a private interview. And everything you do down here is in preparation for that interview. Folks, I'm here to tell you, you think you've had some interviews in your lifetime. You've never had an interview like that one. No, I'm serious. Now it's a reward seat. Amen. It's private, it's not open to everybody else. But then there's another seat, and it's called the great white throne of judgment. And you don't want to be there. That's the one for everybody who failed to say, Jesus, come into my heart, change me and rearrange me. And so every single solitary person on this planet who never accepted Christ, at the end of the millennial reign, they will appear at the judgment seat of God, the creator of everything, and they'll have to give account for their works. We'll have to give account for our works. But they'll have to give account for their works. Have you ever heard anybody say there ought to be a special place in hell for Hitler? For George Manson, you know? The answer is yes, and there are, and there is. Just as there are varying degrees of reward at the judgment seat of Christ, there are very varying degrees of judgment at the great white throne of judgment. And one of my responsibilities as a pastor is to make sure the mission's clear, make sure the values are clear, because that's how we fulfill the mission. But when you're missional, you put yourself in position to receive rewards. But how can you be missional if you don't know what the mission is? How can you receive rewards if you don't understand it? You know, when it said over there in Matthew chapter 6, lay up treasures in heaven, not treasures on earth, but treasures in heaven where rust and moth and duff, duff corrupt, but lay it up in heaven. Your treasure in heaven is when you're living on mission. When you're reaching, you're teaching, and you're empowering. The treasure in heaven comes from you being full of the love of God and allowing the commandment of love to fuel the commission of the church. Amen. And so one of the things I want you to understand is that we're on mission. And that as you're a part of the mission, guess what? You're in line for the rewards. Yeah, thank you. Whoever said thank you, Jesus, I agree with that. See, it's all good news. But I want to make sure I'm on mission so it doesn't get burned up. Guess what? Marcus has done a few things that are going to get burned up at the judgment seat of Christ. Matter of fact, I pastored a church one time that's going to get burned up at the judgment seat of Christ because I took it on my own accord. Just the way it is. Might as well speak the truth. I speak it to myself in love. But after that happened, I I told myself, that'll never happen again. I never go anywhere that God doesn't send me. He sent me here. That's why I'm here. Not because I got voted in, but thankfully I did, but he sent me here. Amen. And so when we live on mission and we understand the mission of the church and how to get involved and serve, one of the greatest things you can do when you're at a church and you're part of a local body of believers is find out where you can serve in that body. Where you can roll up your sleeves and get active. I did that back years ago at my church back in Birmingham. I just started peeling gum off the sidewalk. Because we were a storefront church, and people kept leaving gum on the sidewalk. And the associate pastor would get out there, and the Lord told me one day, he said, He said, You ought to do that, so he's got other things that are more important to do. I said, All right. You want to know how to get gum off the sidewalk? Anyone want to know in the middle of the summer when it's all gooey and ooey, how to get gum off the sidewalk? Ice. What you do is you get that can of air, that cold air, freezes it, putty knife, pipes it up, you look like a genius. I'll give that one to you for free. So here at our church, there's a lot of things we've got going on. We're praying some things out. We're in the middle of some transitions. What did you tell me this morning? It's the shift. That's what you said, right? Yeah, we're in the middle of a shift and we're shifting gears. And I think what happened this morning was part of that shift. Sure surprised me. Oh my gosh. But but I'm in for whatever God's doing. Amen. I'm not in for Marcus. I'm in for what the Spirit of God says. So, so one of the things that we're doing right now, some things that you can participate in, is we do have life groups going on on Sunday morning. Sunday morning, we have a life group, and I really think if you're new to the church, you ought to be there on Sunday mornings. What time does it start, Floyd? It starts at nine. You ought to go in there. If you're a new believer, if you're new to the church, you ought to hang out at nine o'clock with Debbie and Floyd. It'll do you some good. They get different people in there that teach. I think Pam taught this morning. But I'm here to tell you, if you're new to the church, you ought to show up at nine and get involved with that. It will help you. It'll bless you. And then if you got a teenager, they ought not miss tonight. I dragged my teenager here tonight. I know the sermon I'm preaching. I got a sermon tonight that if I'd heard it when I was their age, it would have saved me a lot of cost. A lot of bad decisions. But so we meet with our kids, our teenagers at four. We're giving away money tonight. Teenagers, I'll have money. So if you've been studying those things, you I'm bringing money and I'm bringing fat boys. Amen. They know what fat boys are. And then Wednesday night we've got a group on Proverbs. I think studying Proverbs is one of the smartest things you can do. I read the Proverb every single day for the day. Now I didn't read it this morning because I got caught up in some other stuff the Lord wanted to talk to me about. But but every day I read the Proverb. Every single day. But we've got a study on Proverbs. You ought to come on Wednesday night. And then we're talking about the end times. Eschatology. You want to have motivation to live in the last days? Come to my eschatology class and you're going to get some motivation. Amen. And have some fun. And then on Tuesday mornings at 11, we have healing school. It's another life group. We're talking about healing. That's an area. So I had a prophet lay hands on me Thursday night. Was it Thursday night? Yeah, it was Thursday night. Ain't that right? Thursday night, the prophet laid hands on me, right? Okay. And uh, you know, when people lay hands on you, you're you're receiving, but you don't always want them to talk to you. Sometimes you just sometimes you think you want them to talk to you. Oh, thou son of God, you're doing so great. You're moving in the right direction. Oh, all is well. But sometimes they give you some correction. What is this? It's a notebook. You know what I you know where I carry this? I carry it to every single solitary service that I go to. I never, ever, ever, you'll never see me without this. If you see me without my notebook, it was a mistake. Why? Because I expect speak God to speak to me. So I was there listening to Keith Moore on Tuesday night, mighty man of God. He's teaching, and he comes in. I'm standing, I'm sitting on the end right here. This is not my sermon. And I am going to preach a sermon, so y'all just hang on. And there was a whole row of ministers right there. And so Keith stood right here, and I looked across right here, and he's preaching, and every single one of those ministers, and some of them are pretty heavy hitters. They got big churches. Every single one of them had a notebook. Every single one of them had them out, and every single one of them was scribbling like you wouldn't believe. Let's be a church of notebooks. I see your notebook, girl. See, I don't care who's up here. If I'm sitting here and Jonathan Hodges is up here in this pulpit, you know what I'm going to be doing? I'm going to be sitting there scribbling with my notebook. Because he's going to say something by the Spirit of God that I need to hear and that I need to catch. Well, I don't know why I got off on that, but I got off on it. Oh, I know what it is. I picked up my notebook. The prophet said, pick up those things that have lied dormant. Recover those things. So the prophet lays, the prophet grabs my hands. She had all of us stand there and put our hands out. She grabbed my hands and I fell out under spirit and buckled me. You know, when you get in touch with the anointing, sometimes your body will react. The anointing is God's present spiritual realm. Electricity is God's present in the natural realm. Anybody ever grabbed a whole electricity and it buckled you? If you never have, praise the Lord, but I have more than once. But there are times when the Spirit of God will speak to you and it'll buckle you. Amen. So I just buckled. I hit the I hit the floor real quick. But as I hit the floor, she started saying something. And that's what she said. So I paid attention to it. I made a mental note of it. And the minute I got up from there, I crawled back to my chair and I wrote it down. Now she said something else. She called me up again with my daughter and said some stuff, and I didn't get it. It went, yeah, we got lift off. So now I'm gonna have to call the audio department on Monday morning and say, guys, could you send me the audio of that? I know the prophet said something to me and gave gave us some guidance and direction. I got some of it, I didn't get all of it. Between just the glory and her crying, I didn't get it all. The kid just started boohooing. That was cool. That was a cool moment for uh for a dad. It was a cool moment. But he said, pick up those things that have lied dormant and recover those things. And as I'm sitting there, she says that she starts to turn away and then she stops. You remember that Fay? She stops, she pointed at now. You know what I'm talking about? She said, You know what I'm talking about? And I went. And and one thing she was talking about, there's a couple of things, but one thing, and I won't share everything, but one thing's is that I've I've laid dormant the healing anointing that's on my life. There's a there's a gift of healing to minister healing to the sick that's on my life, and I've done it out of my head, and I've done it, try I've tried to do it through teaching rather through demonstration. So I'm gonna quit doing that. I'm gonna keep teaching, but I'm gonna demonstrate and I'm gonna allow the healing anointing, when it comes on me, to minister to people. So I'm gonna pick that up. So I'd appreciate our prayers to start taking that to the Lord on my behalf. Okay, Faye, make sure that gets out to all of our prayers, Anna, and let's start praying for that because I've got to pick that back up. I've let it lie dormant, and and I've got to pick it up and see what the Lord wants to take with it. See, he's still the healer today. There's gifts of healing working on miracles and special faith. And I know, I know there's there's um a flow for me to operate in that. Amen. So y'all help me. Y'all help me pray that out. Because the very first thing I started doing on the way home is I started praying that out. So, okay, Lord, I think I know what what it was, but what do you think it is? Amen. Amen. Well, wouldn't that a great prelude? Amen. Don't remember, don't forget, we got another uh life group that meets tonight at 5 pickleball. Come on, let's play pickleball. The air is cool. You ever heard about pickleball? Think about a pickleball. Come play with me today at 5 15 up there, and we'll have a great time. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. So open your Bibles this morning. And in the book of John 13 through uh 17, the Lord's had me reading in there, had me digging in and pulling in there. And as I got into John 13 through 17, now let me set the scene. John 13, especially when you're starting about verse 30, Judas has left the building. Everybody say Judas has left the building. Not Elvis, but Judas. And I'm here to tell you, Judas has left the building. And so from about John 13, 30 on, Jesus is talking to his 11 disciples who become the apostles of the Lamb, the apostles of the church. So what he begins to do, he begins to say things to him, to them that he's never said before. Test this, y'all. They're getting new information, they're getting new revelation. Folks, the revelation that they're getting is revelation that you and I need for the church today, so that we can function as God's called us to function. You got to grab hold of it. So your assignment this week is to read John 13 through 17. Dig into it. And I tell you what, folks, um, I've been listening to it. And there's amazing, I can read it and I can listen to it because of these great things called phones. And uh, but when you start reading it and hear it, all of a sudden, the Lord just kind of opened my eyes and I saw that there were three main themes. Number one, it's all about love, divine love. And folks, that was brand new to them. Divine love was brand new. A new commandment I give to you. See, you don't have to love others as you love yourself out of your own ability anymore. You get to do it now as Jesus, because Jesus put love on the inside of you. The day I got born again at the age of 20 years old, he poured his love into my heart, and now I can love people the way he does. I can forgive them like he does, I can be patient like he does, I can be kind like he is. Now I have to meditate on that word and get it in me, but I'm here to tell you I love with a different type of love than the world does. Just look at everybody in Hollywood. They are marrying each other and divorcing each other two or three times. I mean, it wasn't too long ago somebody got married, and I tell my wife I give them two years. Because they don't know anything about divine love. And they've both been married to other people in Hollywood, and it was a little bit less than two years. They got divorced. Bless our heart, Batman. But anyway. So, so love. But then the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The ministry of the Holy Spirit in traditional denominational churches, for the most part, has been misunderstood. And it and it's been a it's been a partial understanding, but not a complete understanding. And then the subject of prayer. And if you read through there, you can pretty much put everything that is said into three big themes. And those three themes are the foundation of the church. Love is our foundation. We move in the gifts and the power and the relationship we have with the Holy Spirit, and then we pray in order to help God get things done in this earth. And that's the foundation of the church. And so the thing that really that the Lord is trying to get me to get over here and to really spend some time with is over here in John 14 in the Ministry of the Holy Spirit. And in John 14, he says something really important here in verse 15. He says, If you love me, obey my commandments. Well, his commandment is what? Is to love one another even as I loved you, and to believe on the name of his Lord and Son, Jesus Christ. So if you love me, keep or obey that commandment. And then verse 16, he said, and I will pray the Father, and he will give you another helper, that he may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you will know him, for he will dwell with you, and he will be in you. Father God, we thank you for the divine word today. We thank you for the divine message for this body of believers, for the people who are listening this morning. We receive the revelation in Jesus' name, and everyone said. So when you look at this, all of a sudden you begin to see the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Now notice what it says in the Amplified version. It calls him the comforter, but in the Amplified it says, but this in the Amplified says in verse 16, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another comforter, a counselor, a helper, an intercessor, an advocate, a strengthener, and a standby that may that will remain with you forever. Folks, you are never without help. You're never without information. You're never without the ability to have revelation for any situation, opportunity you're in. Because the Holy Spirit does three things in your life. He's a role. The role is the Holy Spirit. His responsibility is to be your teacher, to be your guide, and to bring power to your life. A powerless Christian should never be. Because the Holy Spirit is on the inside of you. And he's a teacher. I'm here to tell you, folks, he has incredible information, intelligence. He knows more than you know, I know, and all of us put together. We'll ever know. And he's worthy of us recognizing him, respecting him, receiving him, and responding to him. You gotta recognize there is a Holy Ghost, and he's at work on the inside of you every single day. But in order, as you recognize, then you gotta respect what he's there for. He's there to teach you, to guide you, and empower you. You gotta honor that. You cannot receive from anybody you don't respect. I've been a youth pastor forever, and I can tell you right now the kids that respect me receive, and the kids that didn't, duh, it's like a brick wall. And I'm using a two by four. And the two by four normally gets all ripped up into shreds because they ain't receiving nothing. You gotta you gotta respect. Then you have to receive what it said, and then you have to respond by acting accordingly. That's the Holy Spirit. So when you look at the Holy Spirit and you look how it changes lives and how it how his ministry develops people, you you have no farther to look than the apostle Paul. See, he was Saul, but then he became Paul. But Paul came about because Saul received the Holy Spirit and partook completely of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Completely. So when you flip over here to 1 Corinthians 14, and this is going to be up on the screens, and in 1 Corinthians 14, you'll see this. And it says, For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. Praying in tongues. Oh my gosh. The apostle Paul wrote this, folks. And the apostle Paul wrote this from his personal experience, and he said, For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays. Remember, your spirit, soul, and body. You can pray with your soul, or you can pray with your spirit. And if you're praying with your spirit, you're gonna pray with a tongue and a tongue, and we'll say more about that in a minute. But my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. That means my reasoning, my thinking. It's not really involved because I'm not praying with my soul, I'm praying with my spirit, from my spirit, by the Holy Spirit within me. Then let's go to verse 15. What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing also with the understanding. See, in this entire chapter, he's trying to bring some light and revelation to a misunderstood subject, which is tongues. Everybody said, those tongues things. Oh my gosh. When I when I had my when I had a girlfriend and she led me to the Lord and I got born again, she said, Now you stay away from those tongue things, they're of the devil. Her church had taught her it was of the devil. So I how many of you know I had something I had to get over? I have some thoughts in here that didn't come from the Bible, they came from someplace else. Religious teaching that she picked up. Took me forever to figure that one out. But I had to go to the word. What does the word say? And so this is the Apostle Paul speaking. And then he says, He said, I will sing with the Spirit, I will also sing with the understanding. And then he says, I thank God I speak in tongues more than all of you. But in verse 18, put up verse 18 in the amplified up. Verse 18 he says, I thank God that I speak in strange tongues languages more than any of you or all of you put together. Oh my gosh, the Apostle Paul was a tongue talker. Now, let's talk, let's talk about this. Let's get let's get this really clear. I don't talk about, I don't really say praying in tongues as much as I say praying in the spirit. Because I use what it says in 1 Corinthians 14, 14, pray in the spirit. And when you pray in your spirit, then we'll have them put it up in the Amplified Version, verse 14 in the Amplified. And this is what got me over the hump. For if I pray in an unknown tongue, unknown to me, it's not English, it's not my language, somebody else's language, and we'll find out whose it is. By the Holy Spirit within me, oh, if I pray in an unknown tongue, it's my spirit, the real me on the inside, by the Holy Spirit who lives within me, he's doing the praying. Because I read over there that the Holy Spirit prays. Oh, okay. But my mind's unproductive, it bears no fruit and helps nobody. So what am I going to do? Verse 15. Then what am I to do? I will pray with my spirit by the Holy Spirit that is within me, but I'll also pray intelligently with my mind and understanding. I will sing with my spirit by the Holy Spirit that is within me. I will sing intelligently with my mind and my understanding also. Oh man, that was just, that was just a great revelation that came. And all of a sudden begin to see it. See, there's praying in the Spirit, but then when you're baptized in the Holy Spirit, it opens the door to the gifts of the Spirit. There's nine gifts of the Spirit. And two of them are tongues, the gift of divers tongues, and their interpretation of tongues. And those together are the simple gift of prophecy, and prophecy is for edification, exhortation, and comfort. And what prophecy, and I hope every time I get up and preach, there's a prophetic to it that it brings inspiration. It brings edification, it brings comfort. But there's sometimes when you in a service in a church through tongues and interpretation, the Lord will bring a prophetic utterance that will help somebody. But that's different than everybody all just singing, standing up and going off in tongues. In church, most of the times, that's just out of order. Because what you're doing, you're praying with your spirit by the Holy Spirit within you, and you're praying in that spirit language, and we'll talk about that a little bit more. Now you can do it in a church or in a church meeting or in a prayer meeting where everybody understands, then that's a very effective way to pray. That's a very effective way. We do that a lot on Saturday mornings. If you've never been to Saturday morning prayer, you've got to come. If you want to learn how to pray, come on Saturday mornings. Nobody said amen. I thought I'd gotten at least one. Mama Faye, you're in here this morning. Give me better at me. Yeah, come on now. She comes every Saturday morning. Pam, where are you, Pam? She comes, thank you, girl. Come on now. Yeah, folks, I got hooked up with a prayer group and I learned how to pray. I love praying with that group on Saturday, because they know how to pray. Miss Todd knows how to pray. She knows how to get on in the spirit. I like that. So come on Saturday mornings and learn how to pray. But see, praying in the spirit is different than tongues and interpretation in tongues. And where praying in the spirit maybe has gotten confused or maybe abused a little bit in certain public settings, it's brought confusion, especially in denominational circles. And so one of the things we have to realize when the apostle Paul said, I thank God I pray in the Spirit, or speak in tongues more than all of you put together, but he said, Yet in the church, verse 19, I'd like to speak with just five words and intelligence that you get it, so everybody's blessed. But then he said, But don't prohibit or keep people from speaking in tongues. Folks, I'm just gonna have to tell you, I'm sorry. Just gonna have to come, come, I'm just gonna come clean this morning, okay? Very transparent service. When I'm up here singing on Sunday mornings, and I'm up here praying on Sunday mornings, I don't make a big deal of it, but folks, I'm singing in the spirit and I'm praying in the spirit. Because my spirit knows more than my understanding does. When I get up here and begin to speak things out by the spirit, 99.9% of the time, it doesn't come from here, it comes from here. I don't have a I don't know what I'm gonna say. Now, this morning the Lord gave me a mini-vision of you guys. And I started to call them to get their permission. I started to text them. Matter of fact, when they walked in here this morning and Brady's standing right there, good bald-headed guy just like me. He got a little bit more hair than I do. I know he gives some of the buttons if any of y'all noticed, but but when they came up there, I walked out the side door. It kept me from talking to y'all. I started to talk to them. And the Holy Ghost told me this morning, he said, Don't you talk to them, get out of your head. Justin's over there just smiling at me. He knows what I'm talking about. So we want to live in the Spirit, we want to minister by the Spirit rather than by the flesh or just our soul. So let me tell you what happened to Apostle Paul. He got papers when he was Saul, and he was a Pharisee, and in Acts chapter 9, he was headed to Damascus to serve papers on all the new Christians and dragged them to jail. And in some cases, he was going to have them killed. He's dragging them. And all of a sudden he gets arrested. And Jesus starts talking to him. And as Jesus is talking to him, it's like it's like, what do you want me to do, Lord? And he says, go into the city. So he does. He heads into the city, he's blinded, he can't see. They have to lead him. And for three days he prays to God and said, Lord, I'm yours. I've heard, I've seen the light. I've seen the light. I've seen, he really saw it, folks. He got arrested by the light. He gets born again. And and then all of a sudden, now there's a new, there's some assignments coming on, some things are happening. And so when I come over here to Acts chapter 9, I'll read to you what happened to him and what changed his life. And what him, what put him in the place of saying, I pray in the Spirit more than all of you, put together. And so in Acts chapter 9, I'll flip over here in this old Bible. I use this one occasionally because it has the amplified. So in Acts 9, Ananias, this certain disciple, went to pray for him. And Ananias went his way and he entered the house and he laid his hands on Saul and he said, Brother Saul. Everybody say, Brother Saul. See, Saul's already born again by this point. Three days he's seen Jesus. Everybody said he's saved. Now, you get saved by the Holy Spirit coming to live on the inside of you, right? I've taught you really well. You're born again, the fruit of the Spirit now is a party life. The Holy Ghost has come in you. You're a new creature in Christ. But notice he says, brother saw the Lord who appeared to you on the road as came, he sent me that you might receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight that once he arose and was baptized. But notice it said, he sent me to that you might receive, and in other translations it says, Ananias laid hands on him, he received the Holy Spirit, he was healed, and then he got baptized in water. He's born again, baptized the Holy Ghost, went through believers' baptism, and then the next day he starts preaching, and everybody just couldn't believe it. All of a sudden his life has changed on it. It hadn't pivot, he's turned around completely, he's going the other direction. But he had an encounter with Jesus, he had an encounter with the Holy Ghost, and then he moved on that encounter. Folks, I'm here to tell you right now, Jesus is the gift to the world, but the Holy Spirit is his gift to the church. And he wants everybody to receive the full ministry of the Holy Spirit. And that directed Paul's life and his ministry from that point on. Now, if you go to Acts 19, this is Apostle Paul again. And in Acts 19, he's now he's no longer file, he's now the Apostle Paul. And now in Acts 19, I'll pick up in verse 1. And it happened when Apollos was at Corinth. Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus or Ephesus, and finding some disciples, he said to them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believe? So they said to him, We've not even as much heard whether even be a Holy Ghost. Oh my goodness gracious. And that took him by surprise. And then he said to him, What do you mean? What were you baptized into anyway? And they said the baptism of John. He said, Well, the baptism of John is the baptism of repentance, but you're supposed to believe on the one who would follow him, which is Jesus. Now, a lot of people say they were believers here. They weren't believers in Jesus. And so then notice what happens. And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. They're baptized into Christ, baptized in the name of Jesus. Now look, and when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they spoke of tongues and they prophesied. See, they got born again, got baptized the Holy Ghost, and then they spoke in tongues or they prayed in the Spirit by that Holy Spirit language that was within them. See, one of the things that we have to realize, if you'll read through the book of Acts and you'll read with an open mind, Acts 2, Acts 8, Acts 9, Acts 10, Acts 19, you'll see the dual ministry of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit within, and the Spirit upon. He comes in you to live and you produce the fruit of the Spirit, but He comes upon you in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Acts 1.8, but you'll receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you. That's not the word power, just ability and might. No, it's supernatural ability and might by the Holy Spirit. He comes on you, He comes in, comes upon, He'll be in you and be with you. Remember, we read that in the book of John. And so when you experience the full ministry of the Holy Spirit in your life, then all of a sudden now you can be led by and guided by and moved by the Spirit and operate not just with your soul, but through your spirit. God never intended for your mind, will, and emotions to be in charge. You're not that smart. You don't know enough. Let me say that again. I got some pushback. You're not that smart. You don't know enough. See, the Holy Spirit's an amazing teacher, and he knows more than I know. But I've got to do it his way, not my way. Oh, come on. Let's get a better, better amen with that one. His way, not my way. So if you go back over here to Acts 14, then let's look at what Paul was trying to clear up. Not Acts 14, but 1 Corinthians 14. And in 1 Corinthians 14, we come back here. And in verse 1, he says, Pursue love and desire spiritual gifts. But especially that you may prophesy. See, when you pursue love, you're going to walk in the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generous, faithfulness, self-control. That's the way of love. And that's that first ministry of the Holy Spirit flowing in your life. But then he said, desire spiritual gifts. Well, the gifts of the Spirit come from the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And then he said, He said, desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. Prophesy is not for telling the future. That would be the word of knowledge or the word of wisdom. That's different. Prophesy means to get words from the Holy Ghost and speak them out to somebody, and it means something to them. Hopefully, I'm being prophetic in your life and I'm speaking out words that are helping you and stirring you and moving on you. Hopefully, you're getting a hold of them. You're not just sitting there, they're not bouncing, but hopefully they're getting inside and there's and they're building you up. And then he says, For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Oh, okay, cool. Speaks to God. For no one understands him. However, in the spirit, he speaks mysteries. But he who prophesies speaks edification, exhortation, comfort to the men. He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, brings edification, exhortation, comfort to himself, strengthens himself. But he who prophesies edifies the church. See, when I'm praying in the spirit, number one, I can pray out things that God needs me to pray out. And then another function of praying in the spirit, by the Holy Spirit within me in an unknown language that I do not know, is it strengthens me and it connects my soul with my spirit. And it connects my tongue to the Holy Spirit within me. How many of you know that the most unruly member of your body happens to be your tongue? Anybody having any problems with their mouth besides me? Anyone ever said something you wished you hadn't said? Oh, some of you are looking way too innocent out there this morning. Folks, I'm telling you, if you can keep your tongue in line with your spouse, you'll have a happy house. Oh, it's when you cross over. I know none of you have ever crossed over. I know that's never happened to any of y'all. But I have to pray in the Spirit a lot to keep that unruly member of my tongue in line sometimes with my spouse and my kids. The people who I know the most. I know the most dirt on them. Y'all want to hear some dirt? Oh, wait a second. I forgot I'm gonna walk in love. Yeah. You gotta watch that thing. Praying in the spirit over the years has helped me to submit my unruly member to hear so I don't say stuff all the time that I ought not say. Now, there are times I still blurt out things. I blurted out something one time to one of our church members, I had to go back and apologize. That was a mess. You'd think your pastor would know better. Actually, I know better. That's why I repented. When I said, Well, you've done, well, I can't tell you what I called myself, but I forgave myself. And then I did what was right. Amen. So notice what it says. I wish you all spoke with tongues, but even more that you'd prophesy. For he who prophesies greater than he who speaks with tongues, now he's talking about the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues and how you use praying in the spirit within a public setting. Now, a few weeks ago we had a church service, and John got over and he was led by the Holy Ghost singing in the Spirit. But when you sing in the Spirit, sometimes people don't understand all that. He said, Now everybody sing in the Spirit, and I got up and kind of clumsily taught a little bit about it. Said, if you want to receive the Holy Ghost, do blah, blah, blah. And we had a couple of people here, and you could tell that's not something they were used to. Hadn't seen them since. And that's why, as a pastor, I have to watch that. I have to be wise because I don't want to run anybody off. But then again, at the same time, we have to do what the Spirit of God leads us to do, and I have to do a good job of explaining it. Now, now, Jonathan was right on. He was absolutely right. And there'll be times in the future we'll have more times being led by the Spirit in that area. But then I have to do an equally as good a job of explaining it because my job or role as a pastor in a service is to, oh gosh, this new watch must be really messed up. There you go. And uh it says it's a time that I need more time than that. But and since I'm the senior pastor, I can take more time. But but the thing is, we we've got to do a good job of explaining these things. So that's why I'm doing it this morning. So when you get in here and you begin to see this, then all of a sudden you understand some things. So let me put some things up on the board for you and we'll look at another scripture before we close. But but I want us to kind of get a feel for this praying in the spirit, what happens when you pray in the spirit, who are you praying to, and what are you doing? So, so one of the first things you have to realize, you're speaking directly to God in his language. Everybody say, to God. His language. Yeah, it's his language. It's not your language, it's not my language, it's not English, it's not Spanish, and anything else in between. It's a heavenly language. Now, in World War II in 1941, then in 1942, we were in the Pacific theater, and the Japanese are really taking our troops to task because they're able to decode everything that is said. Our codes aren't complicated enough. They're smarter than we are, and they they're showing up at the battle before even our ships do. Our ships are told to go someplace and they show up because they know where we're going to be there. So we're taking heavy losses. But then there were some troops who had had come into the Marines in 1941. They had signed up and they were Native Americans and they wanted to serve their company, their country, and they were Navajo Indians. Everybody say Navajo. Well, the Navajo language at that time was not written down. And the Navajo language at that time didn't even have an alphabet. And it was spoken and passed down from generation to generation to generation. It's amazing. And you may have seen it in the movie Wind Talkers from 2002. Nicholas Cage. So anyway, they started off with 29 Navajo Indian men, and they they sat down for a couple minute months, and the men came up with a language based on their language to communicate and receive highly secretive information. And throughout the war, over the next three plus years, the Japanese never ever broke another single code in the Western or in the Pacific theater. All of a sudden, our battles, they said in the Battle of Iwo Jima, without that code language, they would have failed and they would have never won the battle. It went from 29 men to over 400 men by the end of the war. It was a supernatural code that could not be broken. Well, folks, I'm here to tell you. When I'm praying in the Spirit, I'm empowered by the Holy Ghost, but I'm speaking a language that the devil cannot decode. I'm speaking a language that my neighbor cannot decode. But more than that, I'm speaking a language that is empowered, number two, by the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is giving me the words, and the Holy Spirit is praying through my spirit things that need to come to God so he can act on them. He gets them from God. Now, folks, I don't know why God put prayer as a part of his moving in the earth, but he did. And so when you flip over in your Bible, and you'll see over here in the book of Romans 8, in Romans 8 it says, it says, likewise the Spirit helps our weakness, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought. If all I ever pray for with is my understanding and what I know, I'm gonna be limited because I don't know enough. I don't know, I don't know what a couple might need. Man, you get in a marriage counseling with a with a with a pastor, and people start telling their life story and what's going on, you better hope he's been praying in the spirit. Because if all he's got to say is from his understanding, he's gonna fall short. I mean, there's sometimes I start hearing stories. I say, Oh Lord, I thank you. I've been praying in the spirit. I know the answer. Help me, Lord, help me. And all of a sudden I'll open my mouth and I'll go, I didn't know that. Well, the Holy Ghost knew that. Right? He'd already had me praying that out before I went into that session. Before I go into a marriage counseling, I pray with my understanding, but boy, I get over the Holy Ghost and I oh shake up my do his sheet. Okay, help me, Lord. Help me. Help me, help me not minister to them in the flesh, but in the spirit. What do you know about them? What I need to tell them, what I need to say. Don't go to somebody who only knows the understanding. If that's all they got for you, they don't have enough. Well, that was good preaching. Amen. For we do not know, it's a weakness. We don't know everything. That's why we get to pray in the Holy Ghost. But the Spirit does. The Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And now he who searches the heart knows what the mind of the Spirit is because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. So when I'm praying, remember that verse in verse 14 of 1 Corinthians 14. It's my spirit by the Holy Spirit within me praying. When I'm praying in tongues, it's the Holy Spirit giving me the words. It's a heavenly language that can only be decoded by God. And he understands it, he gets it. And then I'm praying out hidden things, secret truths that I don't necessarily know or understand. See, in verse 3 or number three here, in this outline that I gave you, I want these parts, declaring hidden truths and divine purposes according to God's will. See, I'm praying, I'm praying out the will of God when I'm praying in tongues. If I'm praying for a couple, you know, like this morning when I began to pray for Brady and Ty at my office in the house, I'm not praying in English. I know so much in English, but now I got to get over in the Holy Spirit and pray out the things in the Holy Ghost that need to be prayed out. I prayed out some things that I thought I had prayed out until I laid my hands on them. When I laid my hands on them, I went, oh my gosh, there's more. Sandakaha. I mean, I'm gonna have to go back and listen to the recording. They get their D's before the M's, but moms love it when it says mama, but then again, you wish they said daddy more often. My daughter's got a little when she's going mama, mama, and I've said he's gonna say daddy first because he gets his D's first. He said, no, he's gonna say mama. But the thing you've got to understand, folks, when we're over in the Spirit, praying in the Spirit, he's giving us words just like our little kids get words. But he gets them, he understands it. We're saying mama and daddy to him in the spirit, but he gets it, he understands it. But we're praying according to his will. And then number four, praying in the spirit is the exchange of divine secrets. Everybody say secrets. See, the code talkers, the Navajo Code Talkers, the language guys, they were transmitting secrets that were meant for only for one person. For HQ. And vice versa. There's divine secrets you have to pray out. That God intends for you to pray out, and He gives it back to you. But you have to pray it out by the Spirit. I say it like this: praying in the Spirit is praying in a heavenly language or code that the devil cannot break. He can't break it. He can't translate it, he doesn't understand it. And according to 1 Corinthians 14, 2 and 5, which we read in Romans 8, 26 through 27, speaking in tongues and spirit-led communication with God, empowered by the Holy Spirit and expressing mysteries, divine truths, alignment with the perfect will of God. See, if you'll notice, he said in words that are too hard to well, actually, let me just go back and read it to you instead of butchering it. He said this. Now he who speaks the heart knows what the mind of the spirit is because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God, with groanings which cannot be uttered. One translation says, with inarticulate speech. Another one says it this way the Holy Spirit communicates on our behalf beyond our human language. In an inarticulate speech, too deep for words, or too deep for English, Spanish, Chinese, etc. The Holy Spirit uses us to pray out these prayers. We are the voice of the Holy Spirit. So as we close this morning, I want to make sure that we're real clear on a couple of things. Number one, the full ministry of the Holy Spirit is being born again, Spirit within, the fruit of the Spirit. But then there's the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and with that comes the entrance into the supernatural, the gifts of the Spirit, but also the ability to pray in a supernatural language that God understands. And then it's very clear that that's what the Apostle Paul did in his ministry and life. You see, other believers like Ananias, who was not an apostle. There's no evidence that any of that's ever passed away. There's theological and religious explanations for it, but it's not sound biblical practice. And so when you look at it too, and I hope you will, I hope this week you'll go back through and study that, and I hope you'll look at Acts 2 and Acts 8 and 9, 10, and 19. And when you do, it appears that everybody who believed and everybody that was in those rooms received. Not just a few here and there, but everyone. Now, in the one we read in Acts 19, the 12 men, all 12 of them, baptized in the name of Jesus, all 12 of them had hands laid on them, and all 12 of them spoke in tongues and magnified God. If you look at Corneus's house in Acts 10, all of them received the Holy Ghost, and all of them magnified God. If you look in Samaria, and this is one of the ones I think is the most clear, in Acts 8, 15, 16, 17, you get down there, they received what Philip preached. They got born again, but later Paul, I mean John, Paul wasn't in church yet. John and Peter go down, and it says they laid hands on them because the Holy Ghost had not yet fallen upon any of them. I'm not sure what different doctrines from different churches say, but I do know what the Bible says. I went to my professor at a college that I attended, it had a particular denomination on the name of the college. And I just said, help me out, Dr. P. My girlfriend tells me this is of the devil, and if it's of the devil, I'm fine. But I keep reading and keep studying. I can't see it, Dr. P. There's no verse in there that says it's of the devil, and I shouldn't desire it. And Dr. P said, well, you know, now the way we teach it in seminary, and he'd just gotten out of seminary, and he said, The way we believe, and then he called their faith and everything. We just know that that's no longer for us. And I asked him, why not? Because it looks like they were better off than we were. Now, Dr. P and I were good friends. He was about 30-ish, and I'm about 21 at the time. We ran together, we did races together and stuff. Dr. P and I knew that we I ate at his house. I actually helped move him into his house. But Dr. P didn't have an answer for me. Now, I didn't think any less of Dr. P. I didn't start talking about Dr. P. But I decided I had to go this one on my own and receive what I thought was for me. So I received it. I went to a friend, I said, okay, David, I've read my Bible for the last two years. I've figured everything. I said, You lay your hands on me. The Holy Ghost will come on me, and I'm going to speak in tongues and I'm going to pray in the Holy Ghost. I'm going to pray in a heavenly language. And David in his chair. I just walked into his house. I'm coming around the couch. David comes to me, hits me on the head, says, Receive the Holy Ghost. I say, I receive. I landed in the sofa, and I've been praying in the Spirit ever since. But see, I came to receive. I turned my brain off, and I came to receive from in here. I had a guy one time, I got to preaching like this, and I was doing the basics at the church where I was associate pastor, I was the lead associate, so we did the basics on Sunday night. So I was preaching about, and we had a guy who'd gotten born again in our church, and he started coming to the classes. Big guy, six foot two, muscles on top of muscles. He was a lumberjack for a living. He had his own tree business. Climbing trees and stuff and cutting things, chainsaws in each arm, you know. You talk about a guy who I thought would never receive. So I preached to him a couple weeks. And then one night after class, he's just standing back there, just like this. And I'm talking to people and kind of doing and praying and doing, get through, and I walk and said, Hey man. He said, He said, I'm ready. I said, ready for what? He said, I'm ready to receive. Well, there are people just hanging out. So I said, Why don't you and I go to our office? And I was gonna try to go through it again and talk to him again and you know, make sure, you know. And as I was going, the Holy Ghost said, just lay your hands on him, he's ready. So we literally walked into my office, we shut the door, and I said, You ready to receive? He said, I'm ready. I laid my hands on him. Holy Ghost came on and he started praying in tongues, started speaking. I couldn't, I was shocked. A man's man. Chainsaw God. But he was hungry. I love what happened with Jonathan Hodges. Oh my gosh, talk about fun. The guy comes comes back, he sits there, he's being faithful, he's just awesome. I think he's baptized the Holy Ghost, he speaks in tongues all the time. I don't know. One morning he comes up, says, Lay hands on me. I'll speak in tongues. Laid hands on me, bam! And he's been going full guns ever since. God's got some stuff. For that guy. If you come hungry and come in faith, you'll receive. Now, everybody look at me. We got some people in here who are baptized the Holy Ghost, but you haven't prayed in spirit very much lately. You need to get refilled. You need to get stirred back up and get somebody to help you do that. Then there's some of you that you need to turn off all those things you've been listening to in your car, and you need to start praying in the spirit more in your car. It's time for you to go to a higher level, but you won't ever get there until you pray it out. You're praying out hidden things, mysteries, secrets. I'm right now praying out two, three, four, five years down the road for us. We've already prayed out the next shift. And now the Lord started to show Justin and show me what we're going to do and how it's going to be done decently in order so nobody gets slung off. But I'm here to tell you, if you'll if you'll take more time praying in the spirit, you're going to make more progress than you've made in years. But it's going to require you praying in the spirit to do it. Because your soul is going to get hooked up with your spirit. And the Holy Spirit's going to start telling you some things. And as you do that, what will happen is all of a sudden it'll start popping like popcorn. I know I'm going long, but I'm in the flow and I'm not going to get out of it. You've got a great job. You have the perfect job. You know why you've got the perfect job? Because you're in a truck by yourself. You're going to get some things while you're praying in the spirit. You're going to start seeing things. You're going to start getting it. And it's going to turn this place upside down. Spend more time in the spirit. Spend more time in talks. Spend more time. Spend more time. Spend more time. And as you do, you'll hear, and the thing is you'll know. You'll know. Now, this morning, if you're not baptized in the Holy Ghost, I'm going to have Pastor Justin and Anna down here. They're going to stand right there. And you come up and you talk to them about it. You talk to them about the Holy Ghost. Because it's for everybody. It's not just for a special feud, it's for everybody. And if there gets too many people up here talking, then Faye, you grab up here. Floyd and Debbie, you get up here. But I'm here to tell you, by the end of the year, God wants everybody in this church baptizing the Holy Ghost. Because we've got too much to do next year in order to do it in the flesh. I repented to Justin. Me and Justin had a nice come to Jesus meeting this morning, and I repented for getting in the flesh. I just totally fumbled something a couple years ago. Totally fumbled it. I got in the flesh over. And Justin and I knew what to do, and we just didn't do it. But he's going to give us a do-over. But in order to do it over, we've got to be in the spirit, but then we got to have everybody else in the spirit with us. Because what we're going to do over next year is going to be bigger than what we can do by ourselves. Justin and I can't do it by ourselves. Well, Anna, thank God she's amazing. But we need more than Anna. Hopefully, our wives will go with us. Hopefully, Pastor Page and Anna will go with us. Hopefully. But we need everybody. It's time for us to step up, it's time for us to do more, and it's time for us to get going. But we can only do it in the spirit, we can't do it in the flesh. But so if you don't know much about the Holy Ghost, there's a book back there. Pam, where are you? Now, Pam, go back there. You grab that book and put them in your hands. It's the one written by my son, Joel Sims. It's on the Holy Ghost. And if you're not sure about this Holy Ghost stuff, that's fine. I'm going to be preaching on it a lot over the next few weeks. So just keep coming back. But take that book and read it. Do like I did. Take it apart. I took it apart, folks. And I'm so glad I did. At the age of 23, my life and my projections, it changed. I would have never ever left the medical profession, dropped out of medical school after three and a half, almost four years of medical school, and become a. I would have never done it without the Holy Ghost moving in me. The Holy Ghost literally had to speak to me audibly and say, Marcus, you're going in the wrong direction. You need to leave medical school and you need to go now. And I did. And I'm so thankful I did. That will not get burned up at the judgment seat of Christ. I know that for sure. Thank y'all for listening so well. Thank y'all for being so kind. Because I got on a roll there and I just kept rolling. I promise to get on time next Sunday. Amen. Father, let's pray. Father, thank you for the Holy Ghost this morning. Thank you for the move of your spirit this morning. Thank you for what you've done today by your spirit. Say this with me. Dear Heavenly Father, I believe Jesus is your Son. Now let's all say that together. I'm not going to lead you into joining something or doing something. Just trust me. Say this with me. Dear Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus is your Son, set to die for me. I've received Him as my Lord and Savior. And I want all of the Holy Spirit. Give me wisdom. Give me revelation. That I might receive all that you have for me. In Jesus' name. And everyone said.