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“Earnestly Desire the Spiritual Gifts”

June 8, 2025

Teacher: Daniel Baker
Topic: Pentecost
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:31; 14:1–5, 36–40

“Earnestly Desire the Spiritual Gifts”
1 Cor 14:1 – Pentecost Sunday – Daniel J. Baker – Jun 8, 2025

Introduction

“If you’re able, please stand.” Reading 1 Cor 14:1–5, 36–40. “Thanks be to God.”

Pentecost Sunday.

This spring, World Magazine, had an issue dedicated to the Jesus Movement from the 1970s. It was reporting on the 2023 movie, Jesus Revolution, the story of Chuck Smith. Chuck Smith founded Calvary Chapel. Smith was also part of a huge revival breaking out in California.

But not only California. It spread across the country also. Many of you were saved in that revival. The beginnings of this church have to do with people who were saved in that revival.

When Dr. Diane Poythress read the article, she responded with a letter to the magazine.

For many it was a revival that involved powerful experiences in the Holy Spirit. The Continuationism of our church here in Apex, NC, 2025, has a lot to do with that revival.

But experiences aren’t enough. Convictions and doctrine have to be undergird it. If God’s Word doesn’t support it, our experiences have to be minimized.

With experiences in the Holy Spirit, like all things, there’s a continual going back to God’s Word to interpret them.

That’s what we’re doing this morning. Going back to God’s Word to see what kind of Continuationists we want to be.

That might be a new word for you, “Continuationist.” In general, avoid long words at all costs!!! But sometimes you use it, because there isn’t a better short word. That’s true here.

To be a “Continuationist” is not to be a “Cessationist.” These are two basic views on the gifts of the Spirit in the Church.

Basic definitions:

Cessationism: The belief that some of the gifts of the New Testament have ceased since the foundation of the church and the completion of the New Testament canon. Typically, the gifts to have ceased includes “revelatory gifts” like prophecy and tongues, and certain “sign gifts” like gifts of healing and miracles.[1]

Continuationism: The belief that all the gifts in the New Testament continue throughout the Church age until the return of Christ, though none of these gifts bring revelation to rival the Bible, which is a closed canon of God’s inspired and authoritative Word.

You can hear this in our Catechism:

Q43. What spiritual gifts can we experience in this life?
A. Since all the gifts of the Spirit found in the New Testament continue in this present age, God in his kindness might give any of these to us according to his boundless grace and the need of the moment. We are to desire them earnestly and never to despise them. (Luke 11:13; Eph 4:7–14; 1 Cor 12:4–7; 14:1, 39; 1 Thess 5:19–21)
The Trinity Catechism

This morning our goal is not to check a doctrinal box. It’s to cultivate an attitude and expectation about the gifts of the Spirit. To do that we’ll be in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.

Three times he gives us this command, “Earnestly desire!” We are to “earnestly desire” “the higher gifts” (12:31), “the spiritual gifts” (14:1), “to prophesy” (14:39). Three times in a tight space we’re give that same imperative, “Earnestly desire!”

But each time the imperative is qualified in some way. We want to feel the weight of the imperative and not miss how it is qualified.

Not a Christian? This sermon is a good reminder that Christianity is not just do’s and don’t’s. There are things we must do and not do, but Christianity means a relationship with Jesus Christ and not just do’s and don’ts. But today we’re reminded that it’s not only a relationship with Jesus Christ but experiencing Jesus Christ in his powerful and personal presence. 

This morning’s sermon: “Earnestly desire the spiritual gifts!” – (1) Desiring the gifts and love; (2) Desiring the gifts and prophecy; (3) Desiring the gifts and order.

Summer 2023 we preached a series of sermons on these chapters as part of our 1 Corinthians series.

Prayer

I. Desiring the Gifts and Love (12:31)

We start with Paul’s exhortations surrounding chapter 13. The last verse of chapter 12 and the first verse of chapter 14. Read 1 Cor. 12:31; 14:1.

These verses are connected. They are bookends for the great love chapter 13.

First let’s get a sense of this verb, “earnestly desire” (zēloō). Used 11 times in the New Testament, often in a negative sense of being jealous about something. There’s an intense emotion with the word.

Here the zeal is for something very good, spiritual gifts. Even though in these chapters he’s bringing corrections to the Corinthians about their practice of the gifts, he still wants them to “earnestly desire” them.

In this first verse we are to “earnestly desire” “the higher gifts.” We’ll see in the next point that this means “gifts” that most build up other people. All the gifts are good, they all come from God. But some effect others in a greater way. These are the “higher gifts” or “greater gifts” as it’s translated in some versions (NASB, CSB, NET, NIV2011).

We’re being called to “earnestly desire” the gifts that will most bless others. Don’t obsess about your own spiritual achievements. Don’t turn spiritual gifts into an Olympic sport. Seek to bless others. Seek to be a blessing.

But here there’s something else he wants to bring into the discussion. “Earnestly desire the greater gifts,” but then he says, “I will show you a still more excellent way.”

A still more excellent way of life.”

Spiritual gifts are to be desired. They represent an ability a person has that has been given to him by God in order to bless the church.

But there’s something else that is bigger than an ability. It is a “more excellent way of life.”

That way of life is the way of love. That’s where he goes next in Corinthians, the great love chapter 13.

I’ll read just a few verses of it to get a sense of what he says there:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Cor 13:1-3)

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. (1 Cor 13:8)

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor 13:13)

Spirtual gifts without love make us big fat spiritual Zero (13:1–3). Love is eternal where the gifts are temporal (13:8). Love is even better than faith or hope, since it is eternal. But don’t imagine Christian love is possible in this life without “faith” or “hope.” Only those born again by the Spirit of God and living by faith can love as God demands.

So, in our “earnest desire” for spiritual gifts, we are never to minimize “the way” of love. But likewise, in our pursuit of love, we are never to minimize spiritual gifts as if they’re unnecessary or even unhelpful. Read 1 Cor. 14:1.

D.A. Carson, Showing the Spirit:

Love, then, is not a ‘charisma’ but an entire way of life without which, as we shall see, all ‘charismata’ must be judged utterly worthless. It is this way of life that gives meaning and depth to any spiritual gift God grants....The greatest evidence that heaven has invaded our sphere,...that we are citizens of a kingdom not yet consummated, is Christian love.
D.A. Carson, Showing the Spirit[2]

Love is to define how we live out the Christian life.

But within this “way of love” we are to “earnestly desire spiritual gifts.” And this makes sense.

  • If I love God, then I want the gifts that God gives!
  • How can I say, “I love the Giver, but I hate his gifts?” That doesn’t make sense! I love the Giver, and so I love his gifts.
  • And also, if I love others, then I want the gifts that will help others to flourish!
  • How can I say, “I love my brothers and sisters in the church, but I hate the things that will help them to run their race with energy and fruitfulness?” That doesn’t make sense!
  • I love others, and so I want what will help them to flourish in Christ.

So, that’s the first thing, “earnestly desire the higher gifts,” as you walk in the “still more excellent way” of love.

CONTINUATIONISM: We want to be loving Continuationists.

  • Those who “earnestly desire” spiritual gifts but are truly loving.
  • Loving as God defines love and not our culture.

II. Desiring the Gifts and Prophecy (14:1–5)

Read 1 Cor. 14:1–5.

See how Paul compares prophecy and speaking in tongues in these verses. Both are gifts of God for the people of God. Both are desirable.

The spiritual gift of speaking in tongues is the ability to speak a language you don’t know that also isn’t a known human language. It’s a language with distinct sounds and syllables, but not simply a known foreign language.

Based on all that he says in these chapters, it seems like they’re evelating speaking in tongues above all the gifts. The impression we get is that when the Corinthians gathered for worship a lot of people were speaking in tongues but not a lot of that speaking in tongues was being interpreted. Paul says this shouldn’t be.

Speaking in tongues when the whole church gathers needs to be “interpreted.” But since the language isn’t a known human language, the ability to interpret is also a spiritual gift.

Without interpretation, public speaking in tongues isn’t to be practiced when the whole church gathers. At least not in a loud, public manner. If there’s no interpretation, a visitor will think you’re insand.

That’s why he says in 1 Cor. 14:23.

If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? (1 Cor 14:23)

The solution for Paul is to have interpretation when you public speak in tongues in the corporate gathering:

27 If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. 28 But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. (1 Cor 14:27-28)

Paul wants to bring some correction to their emphasis on speaking on tongues. He wants to elevate the gift of PROPHECY. Read 1 Cor. 14:1.

A definition:

Prophecy is when you speak a message to God’s people that was spontaneously given to you by the Spirit of God.

Prophecies can vary greatly:

  • They can be very precise or more general.
  • They can be for a group of people or an individual.
  • They can be about the present or about the future.
  • And they can also be for unbelievers.
  • But primarily, Paul has in mind messages we get from God that are for other believers in the church.

The result of prophecies can vary, too. Read 1 Cor. 14:3.

  • “Upbuilding” – edification – growing strong in faith
  • “Encouragement” – a call to action or a gentle word
  • “Consolation” – God is with you in your suffering, you are not alone

In March 24, 2000, I was at a pastoral training program. A prophecy team came from a church outside of Philadelphia. They asked me my name, and that’s all they knew about me.

A couple of them started to pray over me and speak God’s word to me:

  • I see you involved in Worship.
  • And in evangelism with many coming to him
  • You’ll be engaged in evangelistic worship.
  • Many songs will come from you, condensing what God is doing for the “annals of God.”
  • I see a significant call with continually going back to your prayer closet, on your knees.
  • You’ll be condensing God and his ways into word and prose.
  • I see you in the lion’s den, but “God will preserve you.”
  • I see a guitar strumming.

That prophecy was personal and future. With those types of prophecies, all you can do is wait and see.

For some of it, I didn’t have to wait long. For the first fifteen years of my service at Cornerstone I led worship and led the worship team. I’ve “strummed” a lot of guitar! And occasionally still do!

In different seasons I’ve gone back to that “lion’s den” prophecy and been encouraged by it.

Condensing the ways of God into “word and prose” has resonated. I write and speak and preach a lot.

Going back to my “prayer closet” is a part of my life with God.

But certainly I can say that these messages spontaneously given to God’s people and shared with me, resulted in “upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.”

And I know that’s happened to many of you in our Sunday meetings or in other meetings of the church.

There’s a lot to daw out in these verses, but let’s look at 1 Cor. 14:5 just a minute.

  • Paul the great apostle and giver of so much that we call sound doctrine is saying this.
  • Note how prophecy is better than tongues if there is no interpretation for the tongue.
  • But prophecy is equal to tongues-with-interpretation.
  • So, we don’t want to read Paul as if he is minimizing or “demoting” tongues in these paragraphs (See Fee, NICNT, 731).

CONTINUATIONISM: We want to be Continuationists who want God’s gifts to be blessed and to bless others.

  • “The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself” (1 Cor 14:4)—that’s a good thing!
  • But when we’re with the church, we want even more to “build up the church”!
  • We want the gifts that will build others up!

III. Desiring the Gifts and Order (14:36–40)

Read 1 Cor 14:36–40.

Note that once again is our phrase, “earnestly desire.” Here it is paired with prophecy. 1 Cor 14:39.

In the third point we want to see that our Continuationism is to be done “decently and in order.”

“Decently and in order” has a couple sides to it.

First, it’s “ordered” by being submitted to God’s Word and the authorities that God places in our lives. See 1 Cor. 14:36–38.

“A command of the Lord” (1 Cor 14:37) is strong language. But that’s what we have in the Bible, isn’t it? Commands in the Bible are “commands of the Lord.”

It reminds us that being truly spiritual people will always involve giving God’s Word the highest place amidst all words in the church. Obeying its commands, believing its promises, trusting in all it says.

  • There is to be a reverence for it.
  • Attention to it.
  • Submission to it.
  • A deep knowledge that no prophecy or word of knowledge will ever command us to do something forbidden in God’s Word.
  • A sense that no prophecy or word of knowledge will ever say something about God or his character or his ways that contradicts what God teaches in his Word.
  • A prophet or spiritually gifted person who does not “RECOGNIZE” this “IS NOT RECOGNIZED” (1 Cor 14:38).

There is here the basic “order” of seeing God’s Word as preeminent over all spiritual gifts. It judges and evaluates all things, especially things of the Spirit.

Any so-called prophet who rejects this is to be rejected.

But another point to make here is that we are Continuationists BECAUSE we are submitted to God’s Word.

  • It’s God’s Word telling us, “earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy”!
  • It’s God’s Word telling us in 1 Cor 14:39, “earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues.”
  • We say, how can you say you hold God’s Word over all teachings and doctrines if you are NOT a Continuationist!

A second part of “decently and in order” is how we manage our time together when we gather as God’s people in worship.

When we gather we’re eager and expecting God to do things spontaneously and in the Spirit. But there’s also care that things happen in a managed fashion.

You can hear this in how prophecies and tongues are to be handled:

26 What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. 27 If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. 28 But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. 29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. 30 If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, 32 and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. (1 Cor 14:26-32)

We try and do that through a prohecy mic. You come to the mic and speak to the man at the mic what’s on your heart you believe is from God. He’s there to keep us to that “two or three” number.

But also, he’s part of that command, “let the others weigh what is said.” He’s not the only one to “weigh what is said,” but he is the first one.

If the person speaks in the microphone, then it’s up to the rest of us to “weigh what is said.”

There’s an APPLICATION side to this. Asking ourselves, “Is it for me?”

There’s a DOCTRINAL side to this. Asking ourselves, “Is this consistent with the Word of God?”

Most prophecies won’t be for you—but some will!

CONTINUATIONISM: We want to be Continuationists that live out our Continuationist life “decently and in order.”

  • Submitted to God’s Word
  • Committed to Order in our corporate worship

Conclusion

Diane Poythress ended her letter with a prayer, “We pray for this rain of grace to fall again.” Yes!

That’s one of the reasons we continue to mark Pentecost Sunday. As a reminder to “pray for this rain of grace to fall.” 

What kind of Continuationists do we want to be?

Those who are “earnestly desiring” spiritual gifts, but also:

  • Walking in the way of true Christian love
  • Pursuing those gifts to bless others
  • Pursuing those gifts submitted to God’s Word and having corporate gatherings that are “decent and in order.”

But first, what is of “first importance”?

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. (1 Cor 15:3-5)

For some of you, that’s the place to start. Believe in Christ as the payment for your sins: “Christ died for our sins.”

But this Christ is also the one who after he was raised “on the third day.” Then he ascended to God’s right hand. Finally, he poured out the Holy Spirit on God’s people (Acts 2:32–36).

Our Savior, Jesus Christ, is the one who gives the Holy Spirit and who baptizes us with the Holy Spirit.

But as the people of God, who do believe in Christ, let us be those who “earnestly desire” spiritual gifts to see the people we love “built up and encouraged and consoled.”

To see them experience more faith, more strength, more healing.

Let us be those who know

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:17)

And among these “good” and “perfect” gifts our Father gives are the gifts of the Spirit. We can trust that these gifts are good, because our God is good!

After the service, we invite you to come forward for a time of ministry.

Prayer and closing song.

[1] But on this see Kevin DeYoung’s post, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/the-puritans-strange-fire-cessationism-and-the-westminster-confession/. The early Reformed Protestants were not quite as cessationist as some of their modern counterparts.

[2] D.A. Carson, Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12–14 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1987), 57, 76.

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