 2 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 14 and we will read the following if you grew up in a Russian church this verse was always pronounced at the end of the service every single service that's the first verse I memorized and I didn't memorize it because I was hungry for God's word I was memorizing it because it was that when that service was spoken it told me the services over and now we're ready to go home and eat and I love that verse for wrong reasons but today I love it for the good reasons for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ somebody say grace and the love of God somebody say love and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all amen another translation would say fellowship or communion with the Holy Spirit be with you all and so as you see there's three components to this wonderful verse and I believe there's three components to us we are made as a try and beings body soul and spirit and the reason why we are made like that is because we're made in the image of God and God as a try and God a God in three persons God the Father Son and the Holy Spirit and we see the mention of the Trinity here we see the Lord Jesus Christ we see the love of the God the Father and we see the Holy Spirit and so and I believe that these are the three components to our spiritual life that extremely vital let's break it down number one is the love of God the love of God we all have heard and been reminded and I'm gonna remind you one more time that God is love can somebody say amen but I also have to warn you love is not God not everything that feels love looks like love smells like love or tastes like love is God you can never take your feelings of love and make them the standard of what's right and what's wrong but God is love that means the what is the most important thing we have to learn about God is that he loves us he loves us he's not mad at us he's madly in love with us he's not against us he is for us amen sometimes it's hard for people to believe that God loves them especially if you grew up in a broken home maybe you had an absentee father maybe you had somebody who God forbid messed around with you maybe you had a boyfriend that dumped you maybe you had people who always like you know just they would they big bite you and they did bad things to you and when you've never seen any love around you sometimes it's hard to hear something like that and the moment I said love your mind when blank last week I went to I love Mexican food while I live in Pasco you gotta love Mexican food if you live in Pasco you man and also it's very affordable and so I went to this Mexican restaurant and I don't I like taco trucks but they don't accept visa and so they don't accept visa I know for what reasons but but they don't accept visas and so and I need something to use it with the plastic and so I would go to a restaurant here in Coors Street it's a very small tiny restaurant and so when you go in there with a moment they sit you down before they even ask you for your order and before they bring you drinks and before you you have a chance to order your food they bring you this chips and salsa how many loves chips and salsa thank God for chosen salsa amen some of you you're not worshiping God for anything but the chips and salsa like thank you Jesus if they would have added chips and salsa to the worship I would have had my hands raised up but one thing you have to understand about chips and salsa is that chips were not brought there for my meal they were brought there to prepare me for the meal they were brought there actually to stir my appetite you know and they were free we all know nothing is really free so they were actually included later on in some kind of a pricing but they were brought there to stir up my appetite for the meal and it will be foolish to come and eat cheese and chips and salsa and just walk out of a restaurant and be mad and say you know what I thought I came to a Mexican restaurant I thought I'm gonna eat some chicken torta I thought I'm gonna have some enchiladas I thought I'm gonna have some chicken quesadillas and here I have only just shit chips and salsa see every person in the right mind understands chips and salsa were preparation for the meal they're not supposed to be the replacement of the meal see your parents your friends your family even the church environment your society is the chips and salsa sometimes they could be a little bit tasty sometimes they could be a little bit salty sometimes they could be sweet but they're not a replacement for the love of God God's love is the chicken torta God's love is the enchilada God's love is that chicken quesadillas somebody say thank you Jesus and see what most of us do is that when we have chips and when we maybe come in a broken family maybe we come and we listen honey all of our families broken we just all look good on Facebook and Instagram but you dig deeper you'll find out that we all got issues we all got problems and nobody's parents are perfect but we have to understand that our family is not the main meal God's love is the main meal the family is there to stir your appetite for the real Heavenly Father who is perfect who is always present always caring and his love is unconditional somebody say yes God will never allow your family to love you so much to make his love unnecessary God will never allow your friends love you so much to make his love unneeded God will never let your husband your wife boyfriend fiance love you so much to make him unnecessary and many times when we feel that ache when we feel that hunger when we feel like it's not enough what we do is we squeeze we squeeze it out of our fiancee we squeeze it out of our husband we try to squeeze it out of our parents we give them books secretly we send them on podcasts so they could be better parents and there's nothing wrong with that that is good we all need to improve on loving one another better but listen as much as you can eat you can eat chips until it comes out of your mouth it's not supposed to be the replacement God's love is the foundation somebody say man the second thing is it leads us to is the grace of Jesus the love of God leads us to the grace of Jesus now the grace of Jesus so God wants to give you love Jesus wants to give you grace before I mentioned what grace is I have to mention you another word which is justice justice is when you get what you deserve for example you punch somebody and they suspend you out of school that's justice that's not it's not fair that's justice you drive recklessly and they take your license that's justice if you you know hurt somebody harm somebody and you get a restraining order you get fees that's justice that's that's that's normal if we just you know we turn our back toward God and we said I want to have nothing to do with God and you know and you say I just want to do nothing with God God's not gonna send you to heaven because he wants to respect your free will sending you to heaven will be a greatest punishment to you if you cannot stand his presence here why should he punish you with being in his presence forever so God will let you have what you want to have that's called justice the second level is mercy mercy is when you don't get what you deserve mercy we all know what mercy is it's what we hope for when we are pulled over most of you don't pray but when your police officer pulls you over you speak in tongues you're like I don't believe in tongues but until police officer pulls me over mercy I remember two weeks ago I was going to Seattle and I have a European car and has an accident they put a German a grill in front of the car a front grill which has a plates for German cars or for European plates they're tiny they're not like the square ones and so and I have these you know not nice ones license plates so I went online and I ordered a good license plates I put them on my car drove for six months no problem until I went to the camp in Seattle and I get pulled over and I know why I got pulled over because there's only one thing that's wrong with my car and and that is that license plates they're not legal they're not supposed to be there and the police officer pulls me over and asks you know do you know why I pulled you over and I play a hypocrite no and he says your license plates are wrong and I said well these are diplomatic license plates he said he said yes they're diplomatic and I said I'm a diplomat he said what and I said I'm a diplomat for the kingdom of God he said he won one ticket or two tickets so he gives me a warning and he gives me mercy he doesn't give me a ticket oh man it feels so good I mean that that feeling you get when you like don't get what you deserve like you like sir I'll change it up the first thing I'll do is I'll change it I didn't well I didn't have a screwdriver and so next morning I'm going to Starbucks and you won't believe it two minutes from the camp literally less than 24 hours another police officer pulls me over and this time exactly same thing about those license plates and this time he took my title put it on my title that he warned me so that the next guy if he pulls me over I actually get a ticket and he didn't give me a ticket but it felt so good getting mercy we all need mercy it's good when we get mercy and God wants to give you mercy but mercy is not grace see mercy is when you deserve something bad and you don't get it grace is something more it's when you get something you don't deserve see the police officer gave me mercy but police officer didn't give me grace you know what would have been grace if he were pulled out his checkbook and given me 500 bucks you're like that's impossible yeah that's why Jesus only gives grace because you don't have it I don't have it nobody have it only Jesus Christ can give you grace somebody say amen a police officer can give you mercy your mama your daddy your principal listen we can give mercy to one another but when it comes to grace it has to come from above because we didn't got that currency running in our in our society in our community amen see grace is like it's grace is not like you're feeding a homeless person you know giving them something they don't deserve grace is more like you're feeding a person for example let's say he is homeless who the night before broke into your house broke your glass broke your car stole everything sold it and now you came to him and you're gonna give him food now it's one thing to come to him and saying you know what I won't beat you to death I won't drag you to court you know I won't do anything bad to you that's mercy but coming in and say I forgive you for what you've done and hey let me take you to a coffee shop or let me take you to a restaurant and let me pay for you now that is something that is grace and the Bible says that God gives love Jesus gives grace he doesn't just give you you know washes away your sin he doesn't just take what you deserve but Jesus comes and on top of that he gives you something you completely don't qualify for that's why as a Christian you always have to pray big prayers don't just pray Lord God don't get let me get caught don't just pray Lord God help me to pay my bills you gotta play big audacious prayers why because Jesus has a great second and he wants to give it to you amen some of you you're gonna have a marriage you don't deserve to have because you've done mistakes in your past but Jesus will give you grace other people will look at you and say you know why did you end up with that person and you will say this grace God will prosper a lot of you you guys gonna prosper you financially you maybe come from a family or maybe you don't have an education you had no opportunity to be in school and you will see God will just bless you and not because you're better not because you're cocky not because even you are a Christian but because you believe in the basic aspect and factor of Christianity Jesus gives grace amen now it leads me to the third factor and that's the communion of the Holy Spirit fellowship of the Holy Spirit now I want you to see that it doesn't say fellowship with the Holy Spirit so this is not saying you fellowshiping with the Holy Spirit though that is good it's saying the Holy Spirit will fellowship with you so we see God the Father saying I want to give you love a God beloved unconditional love Jesus saying I want to give you grace not just justice not just mercy I want to give you grace something even more than that and the Holy Spirit is coming and the Holy Spirit is saying I want to fellowship with you I want to commune with you I want to have a relationship with you so that tells me that Holy Spirit is a person you and I can have a relationship with Holy Spirit is not a force Holy Spirit is not a wind Holy Spirit is not a fire oil or dove Holy Spirit is not fuzzy feelings Holy Spirit is not tears rolling down your eyes Holy Spirit is not tongues Holy Spirit is not falling on the ground Holy Spirit is not even prophecy Holy Spirit is not a gift he is the gift of God he is a person if the fact the Holy Spirit gives us communion tells us that there is a relationship the Holy Spirit wants to have with us while he is on this earth with us and as Christians we believe he lives in us. Does somebody say amen? One of the ways Holy Spirit communicates to us is through his word. The author of the Bible is not James Peter and John. It's the Holy Spirit. One of the ways he communicates to us is many times through our parents and our pastors our mentors. Sometimes he speaks to us through our consciousness and our promptings. At times he speaks through dreams and visions. Sometimes he will speak to us through our circumstances. And he also likes to speak to and through us through his gifts. And we know the gifts of the Holy Spirit. One of those gifts that Holy Spirit gives to the Christians is the gift of speaking in tongues. It's in the Bible. The Bible says Jesus baptizes us in the Holy Spirit and any time that happened we see in the Scriptures numerous times all the writers of the New Testament that they would receive this gift and they would speak in another language. I know for those of you maybe who are coming you know from another background religious background which made fun of this or maybe you were a part of that that you made fun of those people. I understand. Or maybe you're coming from a place where you were taught that this is of the devil and also the healings are you know not from God. Gifts of prophecy are not from God. All of these things were completely done and gone with. I do have to correct that understanding a little bit to let you know that the Bible says Jesus is the same yesterday and it didn't end there today and forever. So let me ask you a question. Are the demons stayed in the book of Acts? They didn't. They moved on to 21st century. The sickness stayed in the book of Acts. It didn't. It's our need for power stayed in the book of Acts. It didn't. You saw the testimony today and it hurts my heart to see little girls who are filled with the pressure of life and cutting themselves and you're looking like in America in the 21st century this is happening in my own backyard. This is happening that just shows how much vacancy we have and how much need we have for the power of the Holy Spirit. I believe the Holy Spirit is for today. I believe Jesus wants to bless us with the Holy Spirit today and so in the conclusion I want to give you just four practical steps on how to receive the gift of speaking in tongues. As we are praying for this every service and we are encouraging each one of you to encourage you to ask God for more. If you come here you've gotten saved. I want to let you know that there is a relationship with Holy Spirit God wants you to have. Jesus and Heavenly Father are sitting on a throne. The Holy Spirit is on this earth and He wants to have a relationship with you and He wants to not only fill you with with Himself that you speak another language but He also wants to fill you with Himself that you have in power to live a Christian life and spread the message of Jesus Christ. Somebody say amen. The first thing is that is you have to relax. The Bible says when the Holy Spirit came upon disciples in book of Acts chapter 2 verse 4 verse 2 we see one thing is actually I didn't see that before. They were seated. Disciples were not praying. Disciples were not even underneath. Disciples were seated and as they were sitting the Bible says the Holy Spirit came and they started to speak in other tongues. One of the biggest hindrances to receiving the fullness of the Holy Spirit is being panic stressed out or anxious. Sometimes I go to camps and they ask me to pray for people to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and you see this man and women coming to the front as though they're pregnant about to deliver something and they feel like if I miss this I'm gonna go straight to hell. There's this tension. There's this panic until you relax. Even today when we're going to pray if the Lord gives us opportunity if we're going to pray one thing you have to understand the Holy Spirit will baptize you but you got to chill just like that. The baptism of the Holy Spirit doesn't make you more righteous. The love of God the grace of Jesus that's already our foundation and to receive that you just have to relax. Even last Wednesday when people who received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and they testified one thing they said until I actually relaxed and I said listen there is no pressure I just focus on Jesus. I glorify Jesus. The Holy Spirit lives inside of me and as he fills me and they just yield their tongue to him next thing that happens they started to speak with the heavenly language and God began to fill him with the presence of the Holy Spirit. You have to relax. The Holy Spirit wants you to when you get relaxed don't be stressed don't live in panic don't be like oh my goodness but I'm a home group leader you know I really have to get it why why so that you can put it like a badge in front of your home group. You just have to relax and that's when God will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. Number two tongues are not just for praying. The Bible says that they spoke with other tongues. The Bible didn't say they prayed in other tongues. Did you know that when the first Gentile received the baptism of the Holy Spirit Peter was preaching and as Peter is preaching preaching about Jesus crucifixion how Jesus is the son of God the Bible says the Holy Spirit comes upon the first. This guy was a Roman soldier. He wasn't like a Christian. He was not even a Jewish and right away as they were hearing the message they were not even praying the Holy Spirit came and they started speaking in tongues. Apostle Paul says that he likes to sing in tongues as sometimes you hear during worship when our worship team you know it takes that moment when the music is playing and we all sing and we sing to the Lord and then we sing in the language unknown and you may be saying wow they're singing in Russian it's so beautiful it actually not Russian and all of us Russians were like well spin is singing Spanish man Spanish so beautiful but it's not Spanish and so I believe as we come as you come more to church you will begin to hear more and more when we worship God not only with our mind but we all worship God also with our spirit so tongues is not only for prayer you can speak even when you don't pray you can worship with tongues even when you don't pray can somebody say amen number three the Holy Spirit gives utterance but we speak in tongues the Bible says they were filled and begun to speak means the Holy Spirit doesn't take control of your mouth otherwise it will be witchcraft the Holy Spirit doesn't control us he leads us he fills us the Holy Spirit is not like the devil that takes hold of you and makes him to do what he wants the Holy Spirit gives you utterance means he fills you on inside you yield your tongue to him and he takes over and he speaks as he wishes now I understand you may say why tongues you have to understand one thing is that your mind is very limited you know of the problems that you know off right now in your life the Holy Spirit knows of the problem you don't the Holy Spirit knows of the problems of other people's lives and many times what he will do is when you will begin to pray he will begin to use your language to pray for the situations you right now don't even have an idea about and he will begin to use that sometimes you know he bypasses our limitation of our mind to pray the way he wants it to be pray and that's why prayer in the Holy Spirit becomes a prayer that's pleasing to the Lord same thing when it comes to worship we are so limited in an English vocabulary but the Holy Spirit is able to pray how it is pleasing to the Lord and that's why I really want to encourage every single one of you that when you speak in tongues sometimes those tongues are actually angelic languages the Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 1 is that if I speak with tongues of man and tongues of angels apostle Paul says that means when you speak in tongues not always but sometimes it's the language angels speak angels don't speak English when God allows them they can speak English to you but their language is different their angle in their language is not Russian their language is not Spanish they have a completely different language and when we go to heaven you're gonna speak their language even those of you who maybe think that the speaking in tongues is a charismatic idea wait till you get to heaven angels have a different language so when you speak in tongues sometimes you actually are speaking in the language of angels where you are speaking in a language that heaven speaks and God right away and Holy Spirit tells angels what to do through speaking in tongues sometimes you speak in the language that actually people speak on the earth a Holy Spirit chooses to use that I heard a lot of stories I've met people who have these stories when they spoke in tongues and people were in the building who did not know Jesus and did not speak English and understood the message of Jesus clear and cut came God saved and asked them where which part of that country are they're from and they said I have no idea what you're talking about and how Holy Spirit is able to use they can somebody say man and number four don't be distracted by those who don't understand you know it's interesting that though this was the move of God though Jesus was behind it the Holy Spirit was behind you know what some people said some said mocking some mocked some laughed and that's nothing new people still do that today people mocked the idea that Jesus rose from the dead some of you you know who became Christians you're comfortable with that but then the idea that the Holy Spirit can use people today you might not be comfortable with that and as a Christian when you get filled with Holy Spirit do not be distracted with what people say we have to pay attention love and respect people but we have to go always back to the Word of God sometimes even a family will rise again it says you went to what you said what you speak in what in that church I told you stay away from those crazy people that's how it happens disciples had exactly the same thing people mocked them but you know what usually the mocking happens from who it comes mostly from it's not the people it's from us it's when you get filled with the Holy Spirit you begin to speak in tongues and it's so great it's so awesome and the next day this thought comes into your head I made all of that up we all have that I've had that I know when I got baptized in the Holy Spirit I called my pastor and I told him that I got filled with the Holy Spirit but honestly the only thing I had was a few syllables that was coming out I knew was from the Holy Spirit and then it turned into a sentence and it felt so awesome felt so great I knew that was from the Holy Spirit I see that in a Bible and I told my pastor finally got baptized of the Holy Spirit after like six months of praying and then next morning I wake up and I literally have this cloud of thoughts that overwhelm my mind Vlad you made all of that up your tongues it you they sound so weird they sound so so different and I told the pastor I said I feel like so this is like not not this is from me pastor says well it's supposed to be from you it's supposed to be your mouth but he says every single person will have that just cast away those thoughts he says the Holy Spirit baptize you and don't look back and I did that on Sunday and I never looked back don't get distracted even with your own understanding your understanding is like a cup you can't fit an ocean into a cup but it doesn't mean you can't start drinking amen