What is the true purpose of the church? Is it just about gathering, serving, and keeping things running, or is there something deeper at the heart of our worship? In this sermon, we explore 1 Corinthians 14, where Paul calls the church to edify one another, worship with understanding, and ultimately encounter the presence of God. Through spiritual gifts, orderly worship, and meaningful revelation, we are not just maintaining a routine—we are creating a space where even an outsider can walk in, fall on their face, and proclaim, "God is really among you."
Join us as we unpack what it means to move beyond duty and into a life-changing encounter with God.
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We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting.
Read the transcript
Good morning everyone. I'm going to be reading from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 14, starting at verse one:
Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy. For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people, but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit. But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging, and comfort. Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves, but the one who prophesies edifies the church. I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would prefer you to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets so that the church may be edified. Now, brothers and sisters, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good will I be to you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction? Even in the case of lifeless things that make sounds, such as the pipe or the harp, how will anyone know what tune is being played unless there is a distinction in the notes? Again, if the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle? So it is with you. Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air. Undoubtedly, there are all sorts of languages in the world, yet none of them is without meaning. If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker is a foreigner to me. So it is with you. Since you are eager for gifts of the Spirit, try to excel in those that build up the church. For this reason, the one who speaks in a tongue should pray that they may interpret what they say. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding. I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding. Otherwise, when you are praising God in the Spirit, how can someone else, who is now put in the position of an inquirer, say “Amen” to your thanksgiving, since they do not know what you are saying? You are giving thanks well enough, but no one else is edified. I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you, but in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue. Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults. In the Law it is written: “With other tongues and through the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to me,” says the Lord. Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is not for unbelievers but for believers. So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and inquirers or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you’re out of your mind? But if an unbeliever or an inquirer comes in while everyone is prophesying, they are convicted of sin and are brought under judgment by all, as the secrets of their hearts are laid bare. So they will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, “God is really among you!”
This is the word of the Lord.
Now there are no slides today, so if you need to get a Bible or something to keep your attention (such as a Bible), then feel free to do so. There are some out in the foyer, or you might be able to access it on your phone.
Our Vision for 2024: "Be the Church"
In 2024, our vision was to be the church. Not to come to church, not to attend the church building—be the church. And we did that to remind ourselves that church wasn't about a building or a staff team, an organization, leaders or groups who would create something that we would consume. It was about owning our identity as people alive in God because of Jesus, partnering with God together all the time, wherever we are, to bring that life to the world—being a people refreshed by God, bringing that refreshing to the world.
But there was a contradiction (or maybe a paradox) in our 2024 vision. Because to be the church, we did still need to come to church and to do things at church—doing church as well as being church. We had to use our gifts to lead and to give and to clean and to welcome and to make coffee and do our clearances and go to training and give. (And did I mention give?) If you've been around church for some time, and particularly if you've been part of the same church for a long time, you can have moments where you just feel like you're on this kind of machine—a bit of a hamster wheel—where the job is just to keep it moving. Christmas comes around, Easter follows hard on its heels, and you're told to invite people. The musicians have to think of some fresh songs, and the preachers have to say the same thing but in different ways. And there are rosters, and there are working bees and budgets and safe ministry and rosters (did I mention rosters?).
It's a rare person who wants to spend their life investing in an organizational machine just for the sake of that machine—to keep it running. You want to invest your time and your energy, your finances, your passion, your week-in, week-out experience into something that has an impact, that has a purpose. You know you've got a reason for turning up, that these routines and this mechanism are actually toward something.
A company’s discovered this, particularly in the early 20th century as the industrial age hit its stride with factories, efficiency, and assembly lines. They discovered that to get the most product, you had people only make a tiny part of the whole and just get really good at it and do it over and over and over again. But it wasn't long before they realized that that sort of work actually led to employees becoming exceedingly demotivated and fatigued—disillusioned to the point of quitting. In 1914, Henry Ford (maker of Ford cars) had to double wages to combat the disillusionment and lack of motivation that people on the assembly line were feeling. And the problem was not that they were working longer or harder than they had before. It was that they had become disconnected. They had lost sight of the final product—the purpose of what they were making—because all they saw was a nut or a bolt or, if it was making clothes, they only saw the collar or a tiny button. Maybe later, with more modern tech, they only made one little chip on a computer or however these things work. The day-to-day work, even though it was for a purpose, became meaningless because they didn't see what they were there for. And then the quality started dropping, efficiency was gone, and the business itself became unsustainable.
In a church of our size (between 100 and 200 people), we have a real danger because we're working very hard to try and reach a vision that is just a bit beyond our resources. And people are serving on rosters multiple times a month. We're talking about needing improvements to the building. There's a lot of pressure. And families need us—my family needs me, your family needs you (doesn't matter how old your kids are). And the world is super complex. And so we have to make sure that we don't fall into this Henry Ford trap—that what we're doing week in, week out doesn't become a routine disconnected from the purpose of church.
We need to know the big outcome. We need to know why we play our various parts. We need to know what is the purpose of church—being it, doing it, being at it, going to it, all of those things. Well, one of the answers (and a key answer, I think) is found in 1 Corinthians 14, which is why we had it read (thanks, Tony).
The Church in Corinth: Gifts and Purpose
Today in Corinth, they weren't necessarily at risk of being demotivated at that point (not the very active ones, anyway). Certainly there were people who were being sidelined and excluded (you can see in chapter 11 there are people being left out of sharing in the Lord's Supper because of the way they're doing stuff). There were plenty of people questioning the core teaching about Jesus' resurrection (like Layla read from 1 Corinthians 15 this morning). Plenty of people living in ways that were mind-bogglingly bad (that's chapter six, with a sniff of chapter seven). But in terms of the church gathering, they were still in danger of being disconnected from the purpose of using their gifts together. They focused on their favorite parts of the assembly line—just conducting themselves in a way that meant the final goal was never being reached.
So let me explain. People in the Greek city of Corinth in the first century had received the message about Jesus. People had come—apostles had come, evangelists—and taught them that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection was the way God intended to restore people to Himself. And when they trusted in Jesus, when they heard this message and said, This is my life, God gave them His own Spirit (His Holy Spirit) to dwell in their inner being. And that is still the promise for today, and that is still what God does today. And one of the things God’s Spirit does in the person who believes is to give them new gifts or skills, or to renew certain abilities so that they can take their place to grow both the church and to impact the world for good. We call those spiritual gifts. They could be:
- leadership,
- hospitality,
- practical care,
- endurance in prayer,
- the ability to understand and teach the Bible,
- a special attention to the way in which the Scriptures might apply to a certain situation (or even what might be coming in the future),
- a new language in which to pray (Paul often refers to this gift as “tongues,” meaning a prayer language from the Holy Spirit that allows a person to give thanks and praise to God in a way that connects their spirit with the Holy Spirit and with God Himself),
- praying for physical healing and seeing that happen more often than not,
- ways of hearing or sensing or seeing the things that God wanted a fellow believer (or even a non-believer) to know about themselves, or about God, or a particular situation.
And it was motivating to receive a gift. But the issue in Corinth was that these individual ways of working weren't being expressed or used together in the way that God had given them for. They were using the gifts in gatherings in ways that were leading to people being confused and excluded. Worship time was becoming a noisy display of individual expressions. Some were speaking in the prayer language (tongues) without interpretation, and it just made noise to other people. Others were bringing teaching or revelation from God without listening to others—butting in, not wanting to take their turn, not realizing that human beings can really only absorb a certain amount of information all at once (I may not have learned that lesson myself!). The result was not a church being the church, but confusion and exclusion.
Now, you might have heard in that reading something strange that Paul says about tongues and about prophecy being a sign for unbelievers and believers. If you were following the argument, you might have gotten to the point of thinking, Oh yes, I understand: Paul really likes prophecy and it's going to be helpful for people. But then suddenly Paul says tongues are a sign for unbelievers and prophecy is for believers—that doesn't seem to make any sense at all! Well, actually, what he meant was that tongues were functioning as a way of showing the unbelievers that they were unbelievers—keeping them in that category, a sign that they were excluded from God's presence because they couldn't come near to Him, since they couldn't understand anything that was going on. So just as Isaiah had said, when the people hear the words of the prophet, it'll be like they can't even understand them. That's how rebellious they are; that's how excluded they are from my true intention and heart. When unbelievers heard tongues, it was a sign that they were excluded—it was a sign that they were not coming close to God. It functioned like a prophetic sign. But for believers, prophecy actually brings people close, and it can even create people who are part of the family of God.
Now, when Paul says “prophecy,” he doesn't just mean what maybe you and I think of as prophecy (you know, like me pointing and saying, "You over there, God has this word for you..."). Actually, he means any revelation from God shared together. He uses the words revelation, wisdom, knowledge, instruction—all of this is what Paul means by prophecy. You could be bringing an interpretation of the Scriptures. You could be bringing a reading from (in their case) the Old Testament. You could be bringing something that God had revealed to you about the Lord Jesus, about the gathering, or about a particular person's situation.
So what was the ultimate purpose of the gathering then? If doing things in that way was not creating what God intended and was causing confusion and exclusion, what is the point? Well, Paul gives a number of sub-purposes before he gets to the ultimate purpose of the gathering. (And I wonder if you've been part of groups or churches that have kind of stopped at the sub-purpose before they've got to the ultimate purpose—they've made the underneath bit the main thing.) So let's have a look.
Orderly and Fitting Worship
Verse 40 (just outside of the reading we had, but in the same section) says:
Everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way. (1 Corinthians 14:40)
Many churches or denominations or groups have embraced this as their main goal: that when they gather for worship, everything is prepared for and anticipated. You have a full written-out order of service or liturgy. Even if you're not a liturgical church, you know that the same people are going to do the same things and there will become a set shape. There is nothing spontaneous; everything is anticipated.
And it's absolutely true that our experience of church should not cause us to be anxious, or confused, or to feel that things are chaotic. Absolutely. In verse 33, Paul says:
God is not a God of disorder, but of order and peace. (1 Corinthians 14:33)
But Paul is not trying to prevent anything spontaneous. Actually, he's managing a lot of spontaneity in Corinth! He's not prioritizing making sure nobody's noisy in the service (kids or adults). He's wanting a gathering that points people towards the character of God—a God who is not anxious or chaotic or confusing or excluding, but who is gracious and holy and loving and welcoming and understandable, forgiving and trustworthy.
A gathering that enables us to say, like the psalmist:
One thing I ask from the Lord;
this only do I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple.
Paul only means “orderly and fitting” in the sense of being able to truly see the Lord and not be distracted—to gaze on His beauty and to desire Him as the one thing. But Paul does not want us to try and manufacture that. And this is where the whole assembly line thing massively falls down. So leave it behind. Architecture. Band. Lights. Flowers. Liturgy. Whatever. All of those things—wonderfully helpful at times.
But Paul says the next goal always is intelligible revelation from God.
Intelligible Revelation from God
That's why a prayer language that is very spiritual (indeed a gift from the Holy Spirit) doesn't take center stage in a church service. Many of us here do have that gift and do use it in our own prayer times, or in our ministry with others, or in small groups or other settings. I've asked God a couple of times in a gathering to tell me what it was that the person might have been praying in tongues, and I did actually get a sense of what it was. I wasn't leading, and so it wasn't my place to interrupt and say (it was their practice to have that during worship). I think it's possible—I think it's really possible, these things that Paul talked about today—but Paul is saying it's communication about God and from God (revelation, knowledge, prophecy, words of instruction) that needs to be focused on in the gathering. Not necessarily long sermons, but an expectation that God is a speaking God—that God wants to be known by us. And when these things are made intelligible, they will strengthen, encourage, and comfort people.
It could be a conversation. It could be words to a song. It could be our prayers. But in all of these things, we are to expect that God wants to speak through them, to use them for His revelation. These are the sorts of things that will—like a trumpet call that can be understood—ready people for battle. These will be things that give people an opportunity to praise God in song.
Now, we’ve got to do it in an orderly and fitting way. Make sure it's intelligible, because this is about God wanting to communicate. And then there's the penultimate (second-last) goal.
Building Up the Church
Verse 26, Paul says:
Everything must be done so that the church may be built up. (1 Corinthians 14:26)
So he doesn't want anyone coming in saying, "This is my time to shine!" But also, he's not looking for the maintenance of a religious mechanism that allows everybody to "get a go" just for the sake of everybody getting a go. And he doesn't actually want them to focus on the downloading of information for its own sake. (Remember Jesus talking to people—religious leaders who knew so much about the Scriptures, whose whole lives had been dedicated to information about God? And yet Jesus said to them, "You don't know the power of God. You don't know the purpose of God.") Paul says everything must be done so that the church may be built up, so that those who are going to be on mission for God in the world are built up—strengthened, encouraged. The church is to be growing itself up in love.
But is that an end in itself? Does that still leave us with this idea that the church kind of exists to be the church for the sake of the church—that when we come, we're being the church, and that's really good to do and be and act as the church? No. We find the answer—the ultimate goal. We don't want to stop at orderly. We don't want to stop at information. We don't want to stop at building up the church. We want to get to God's point.
Encountering God's Presence – The Ultimate Purpose
When the church functions rightly, it is a place (it is a space, it is a community) where people encounter the presence of God. When our gifts, our worship, our prayers, our preaching, our service, our rosters, our turning up are all done rightly, the purpose is that all people—even an inquirer or a complete outsider when they come in—will fall on their face and worship God because they understand who He is, who they are, what they need in this life, and what their purpose is. That's what it means to uncover the secrets of their heart. (Not that I'm saying, "I know that you did this thing last summer"—that's a movie. It could be that, but actually they come in and they know who they are, and they know what God has done, and they fall down and worship. And they say, "God is really among you.")
The entire purpose of the church is these two things: to declare the praise of God (to fall down and worship), and to encounter the living God. Everything that happens—orderly, fitting, information, revelation, building each other up, everybody playing their part—is so that we might fall down and worship, and so that we might encounter the living God. The presence of God. Not just learn about God, but know that He is here and moving and transforming, and that is what He longs to do in our lives. God loves to be among His people, and to be glorified by them as they enjoy Him. It's His whole reason for creating us: to be present with us, to encounter us, to be encountered by us, to be rightly adored, and to generously bless. We were created to encounter God.
I wonder if you've ever thought about the way in which the life with God is described. To me, it seems like it's always described with verbs of encounter:
- Walking
- Companioning
- Speaking
- Listening
- Abiding
- Dwelling
- Loving
- Seeking
- Befriending
Nothing about our life with God—nothing about our life as human beings or as the church gathered—is meant to be static, or just an information download, or a way of fostering or bolstering an identity. It's movement. It's encounter. It's walking with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, telling Him our problems and our disappointments and our hopes. It's having Him actually open the Scriptures to us (through each other, through His own Spirit), and sharing a meal with us, being present with us. It's Him telling us that:
He no longer calls us servants, but He calls us friends, because that is what we are.
In John chapter 10, Jesus paints a picture of Himself as the Good Shepherd, and He says:
The sheep come to Him because they hear His voice. They know Him, and then He gives them life. Abundant life.
When we gather, we are allowing ourselves to hear the voice of the Shepherd—the revelation of God. But we are not stopping there. We are moving into life with the Shepherd. Abundant life. Our life as a church, when it is fitting and orderly as we focus on hearing from God and when we make sure we're building each other up, is about encountering a God who is present among us. That's why having a table at the center of the room is so useful, and why when we share the Lord's Supper, we tell the story again. The secrets of our hearts can be laid bare.
Now, I say that I have a super sniffer. And to be honest, it is more of – (for the recording, I am pointing to my nose) – a curse than a blessing. Because, you know, you really are so distracted by smells. When I was pregnant, it was the worst. Anything—something that might have smelled nice—I just couldn't bear it. But for me, it's so strong, just in general, that if I've been to a café and they've been cooking breakfast or lunch or whatever, you know, you go out and you think, I smell like... I didn't eat bacon, but I smell like bacon. I smell like garlic, whatever it was. Or if you hug someone who's got strong perfume on, you're like, Ah, now I smell like that person. If my mum hugs my dog, then my dog smells like my mum to me, which is very confusing.
But the purpose of gathering together to worship and encounter the presence of God is to actually have that aroma about us wherever we go—that we can be the church, because we've come to church and been at the church in the presence of God. And wherever we go, we just have that aroma on us. (Heidi is just barely holding it together.) People know that we've encountered the living God.
And so, as we gather around the Lord's table (which we're about to do), would you talk to the Lord about moving beyond fitting and orderly, moving beyond revelation (and even sharing), moving beyond just building up the church, and focusing (even though all those things are excellent) on falling down in worship and experiencing the presence of God among us.
