Bible Reading
Good morning everyone. Today's reading is one Corinthians, chapter 14, verses 1 to 25. And if you've got the read Bible that is on page 1785.
Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the spirit, especially prophecy. For anyone who speaks in the 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 edify themselves, but the one who prophesies edify is the church.
I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you 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 would I be to you unless I bring to 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 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 for a 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, Inquirer, say amen to your Thanksgiving, since they do not know what you were 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 10,000 words in a tongue.
Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children in regard to in regard to evil. Be infants, but in your thinking, be adults.
In the law it is written without, without, 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. Prophesy, 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, will they not say that you are 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.
Prayer
Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you meet us clothed in your promises, in your word that you meet us as we gather as your people. We pray that you would speak to us now, that you'd reveal yourself, that you'd encourage and strengthen and challenge us, that you would nurture and feed us with your grace. In your name we pray. Amen.
Introduction
Well, I still remember the way the bubbles kind of fizzed up under my nose as I leaned over the mug of lemonade that the teacher had just poured in the staff room after calling me in from the playground. I didn't really know why I got called in to get a mug of lemonade, although I discovered soon enough because not only did the bubbles fizz under my nose as I leaned over the mug, but the teacher said, it's not for you.
I'd been called in to get a mug of lemonade to take to the teacher on yard duty. I just hadn't, like, put the kind of pieces together. But. So the question of who or what something is for is an important one, and it's one that's addressed in this passage in one Corinthians 14 today for us.
It's a critical question what's the purpose or goal? Because that affects everything. And in this passage, it's the purpose or goal of church, of gathering with other Christians, whether on Sundays here or in small groups or other ways through the week.
Why Do We Gather?
And there was a study a number of years ago in the US by the Pew Research Center. You might be able to make out they asked people why they they came to church, what their purpose was in coming together. And for the highest response there was to become closer to God.
You see then also some reason to do with seeing kids or ourselves formed morally, learning to behave in certain ways, maybe finding comfort in times of sorrow or trouble. helpfully, for preachers like me, at least some people think it's because the sermons are valuable. I don't know.
You may resonate with one or more of those. That might be the reason that's brought you here today. But here in first Corinthians chapter 14, we find the reason that trumps every other reason.
What is the purpose of church? Why do we gather together? Well, it's to help not only ourselves, but also other people. Draw closer to God.
The purpose of church is to help not only ourselves, but others. Draw closer to God. And this really pulls together the threads from the previous couple of chapters we've spent some time in in the last couple of weeks.
We've considered how we all have different things to contribute to the body. That's chapter 12, and we're called to do this out of love for one another. Chapter 13.
And so now we're shown here how these pieces come together and help us fulfill the purpose that God has put the church together for. Now in chapter 14, verse one, Paul says, follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the spirit, especially prophecy.
I will spend quite a bit of time this morning on that word, especially there. And because it points us to what Paul thinks the church is for. But what I want you to see right now, as we begin, is that Paul tells the members of the Corinthian church that all Christians have different things to contribute.
It's worth desiring and seeking the Spirit's gifts to you, which we can use to serve and bless and build up others. Secondly, if we do this out of love for others, not for our own sake, but for the sake of others. And then thirdly, this leads to a kind of relative prioritizing and ordering of the gifts in the context of the Christian gathering.
Because not every gift helps in the same way or to the same extent, with the main purpose of gathering together with other Christians. Some gifts are more fit for helping others for help than others, for helping achieve the purpose for which we gather as church.
Now I can imagine you might feel the weight of that a bit. Right. It's kind of prickly thing, particularly in the context of what we've seen in First Corinthians in the last couple of weeks, where this church was kind of saying, well, some gifts are better than others and others are not valuable, and those people with those gifts are less valuable.
That's not what Paul's saying. It's got to do with the purpose for gathering as a church. So Paul's going to pick his way through these thorny issues, and we're going to try and follow them along.
What We'll Consider
And these are the things we're going to consider how we love other Christians, and how that implies a relative priority of the gifts when we gather how we love those who aren't Christian in the gathering. And then we'll consider the challenge of loving other people closer to God.
And I think just significant resources for us here in this passage of the scriptures that can help you, Deep Creek Anglican Church, to grow in building one another up as Christ's body. So first, then how does loving other Christians imply kind of prioritizing a relative ordering of gifts?
Loving Other Christians
Well, having said that, we should especially desire prophecy. Paul launches into an analysis of prophecy with respect to the gift of tongues. And there's some debate among Bible scholars about whether the tongues Paul is talking about here are human languages or a kind of angelic language unlike any human language we know of.
I'm not particularly going to get into that debate. You feel free to ask me later. I think actually the broad principles that Paul lays out here apply either way and apply much more widely than with respect to this gift of tongues.
But let's make our way into it. So we're going to start with verses 2 to 5. 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 edified themselves, but the one who prophesies edified the church.
I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but even more 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, I've had a go trying to kind of lay this out in a bit of a table. I don't know if you'd like tables. I'm a bit of a table guy. Anyway.
So tongues. Tongues, you see, are in these these verses. Paul says it's directed to God. It's a vertical kind of spiritual transaction.
I pour out my Spirit to God directly, and maybe even we learned later. My mind not might not be very involved in it, as I utter things in a language I'm not familiar with. It's not my natural tongue.
The result of this is that the words I speak are not intelligible to others. Maybe not even to myself. But this is not bad. Therefore, Paul says it actually builds me up.
there's a good thing there. I can express and experience intimacy with God, even an intimacy beyond words. So then compare that with what Paul says about prophecy.
It's not only a vertical thing, it's also horizontal, right? It's directed to others and therefore it's intelligible to them. They can make sense of it and understand it.
And as a result of this, it can build others up. So what do we say about this? Does this mean that tongues are bad? No, not at all. Please. Please hear me here.
Paul's laying out a relative priority. Not an absolute priority. And what his preference for intelligible speech for prophecy is relative to is the purpose of the Christian gathering.
Because the reason Christians gather as a body is to build others up and help them draw closer to God. And as a result, the most appropriate tool to achieve that purpose is prophecy rather than tongues.
You've got to find the right tool for the job. Right. And in the context of the Christian gathering, that's it. Paul also illustrates this as he goes on, with respect to a kind of musical instruments or a trumpet calling to battle. Right.
There's a purpose, and what you do has to serve that purpose. The same goes for church. Apple then draws the logical conclusion in verse 12, so it is with you.
Since your eager for gifts of the spirit, try to excel in those that build up the church. Right. You hear it there. Paul says, when you gather as a church, strive to do the things, to exercise the gifts in ways that help others draw close to God.
And one of the most helpful things I heard in this regard was at a missions conference a number of years ago. It was my first time there, but I learned pretty quickly that there was a big change that had happened at that mission conference. The music style had changed, right?
They'd got songs out of a different songbook or something. Right. And for a number of people, that was a deal, right? They were feeling it because it was like it's unfamiliar. You felt that, right? If a new song.
I'm not sure it's really doing it for me. Right. And the worship leader said something I just thought was super helpful at that point. She she named the fact.
Yep. We we're doing songs in a slightly different style. Different kind of stable. that might not kind of. You might not be familiar with it, she said.
But I want you when we sing, to look around the auditorium. And if you can see someone else for whom this is helping them draw closer to God, to experience intimacy, to express their hearts and pour out their thanks, then sing louder for their sake. Brilliant, right?
That's. That's what Paul is calling us to be about in the church as a body. Sing louder. For their sake, use your gifts to help them draw closer to God.
Don't only prioritize yourself, but also others. So loving each other in the context of the Christian gathering implies a relative ordering of the gifts for the purpose of building up other Christians. That's why Paul says that prophecy, intelligible speech, is more useful for that purpose than tongues unintelligible speech.
But having said this, there's kind of a surprise in what Paul says next. I don't know if you noticed it, but Paul doesn't say, as I was kind of expecting. So strive to excel in gifts that build others up, those that are intelligible. So get on with prophesying.
Instead, he says in verse 13, strive to excel in gifts that build each other up. So if you speak in a tongue, pray for the power to interpret it. Verses 13 to 15. 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. But Paul's thinking here is flexible enough to accommodate the way that the Corinthian Christians prefer to express themselves in their Christian gatherings.
We've seen in the past couple of weeks that they were keen on the sort of impressive seeming spectacular gifts, and this was kind of unhealthy in lots of ways. But Paul isn't against impressive, manifestly supernatural gifts in and of themselves, but he's happy to see them expressed among groups of Christians.
He just insists that, given the purpose of gathering together with others is for building others up, then they need to prioritize intelligible speech over unintelligible. And that can include speaking in tongues if it's interpreted so.
Loving other Christians in the church gathering implies a relative ordering of gifts relative to the purpose of our gathering. But there's a new factor that Paul introduces in verses 16 to 25. And that's the factor of these inquirers outsiders to the Christian faith.
Unbelievers, we find out non-Christians. And he says loving outsiders, loving non-Christians also implies an ordering of gifts. Again, I've tried to summarize it with a table. So.
In verses 16 to 25, he picks up again tongues without interpretation and compares this to prophecy, but this time in terms of its impact on those outsiders, the inquirers or non-Christians who are present in the Christian gathering with tongues. Paul says, here they are. They're inaccessible to unbelievers or outsiders because they can't understand them.
And what this does is it confirms that these unbelievers are outsiders. It confirms them in that status of not really belonging. They go, look, I just don't get what's going on. I don't really belong here.
And the result is this kind of pushes them away from the church and from God. This is why Paul says it in verse 23. So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues and inquirers or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind?
This is the thing actually the Corinthians are terrified about, right? They want their gatherings to impress people, to show the power of God so that the people looking on think of the Corinthian Christians as sophisticated and powerful and impressive. But Paul says here, if you make us interpreted tongues, your main game, in your gatherings, things that people don't understand, then that's going to backfire.
You're not going to look impressive. It's not going to show God's power. It's actually going to push people away. In contrast, then prophecy can be understood by outsiders and unbelievers.
In fact, it can't only just be understood, it actually can go to work in them. It can convict them of their sin and need for God's grace. It can expose the secrets of their hearts is the language Paul uses, and as a result of this, it can bring these people closer to God.
They can discover that God is really in the midst of the Christian gathering. They can join God's people in worshiping him. Verses 24 and 25. If an unbeliever or inquirer comes in while everyone is prophesying, they are convicted of their sin and brought under judgment by all as the secrets of their heart are laid bare.
So they will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, God is really among you! So once again, a kind of ordering of gifts emerges here. In this case, Paul says that prophecy is once again more useful for the purpose of gathering as a church than an interpreted tongues.
It can help people who aren't Christian connect with church, access what's going on, and ultimately become believers themselves. Now, it's possible for churches to lose sight of the need to be accessible to outsiders.
Ironically, this can sometimes happen precisely where church helps people who are already believers the most. You know, the things we do, the words we say, the way we structure our gatherings, their flow. It can help us right? And as it helps us, we get comfortable with doing it.
It becomes routine, even if what we're doing isn't very accessible or intelligible to outsiders. One example of this comes from the kind of great revolution in church life in the in the last couple of generations, the move from formality to informality as the general rule of church life. Right.
For for kind of, I think many baby boomers and Gen X kind of Westerners, this was a pretty significant moment. Suddenly church went from being this kind of thing that pushed me away by how sort of stiff and formal and kind of weird it felt to being much more normal and natural, expressing the fact that God comes to meet us where we are very powerful for people. Kind of my generation and a bit older.
But actually, it turns out that's not always so appropriate or helpful for people with other backgrounds or from other generations. And in fact, it's quite difficult for people who come from non-English speaking backgrounds, particularly if they come from cultures that have a higher value on formality and respect for tradition and authority. It can.
It can actually really put them off. They don't know what's going to happen next. There isn't a sense of kind of seriousness and or in engaging with God. It almost feels flippant.
Really comfortable and engaging for people like me. Really inaccessible, off putting for others. This is a tension that you feel.
So let's review. Right. There are two key principles that Paul's laid out so far. There's a relative priority or ordering of the gifts.
Because first, things that are intelligible help people who are Christian draw closer to God. And secondly, things that are accessible and intelligible help people who aren't Christian. Draw closer to God when we gather together.
So now, at this point, rather than plunging on through the rest of the chapter, which would take at least one more sermon, I know there's some people who really want me to say things about what's happening later in this chapter, maybe come and talk to me afterwards. I want us to just pause and reflect on this challenge. Right.
Because there's a challenge here. The challenge of loving other people closer to God, whether they're Christian or non-Christian. This is a challenge with with some layers to it, right? In terms of the outward tasks required to make this happen, and to love people in ways that help them draw closer to God.
There are all sorts of questions. There are questions around how we help those people find their way into our Christian gatherings, whether here at church on Sunday or some other time during the week. There's a whole lot of questions around that.
How how do we help them get here? There's also questions around how we ensure we're communicating and doing things in a way these people can understand and access. Right. I love the steps you've taken here, right?
To have have the Bible reading in multiple languages so people can follow along, even if English isn't their first language. And you have when ped drums here, he's translating for people who speak Farsi, right? Going out of our way to make other people people who aren't like the majority, perhaps able to access what's going on.
And there's lots of questions and things to wrestle with around that. And then there are questions also around how we help those people who help them get into the gathering. We've helped them understand what's going on.
How do we do this in a way that connects really, actually, deeply, that gets to their heart, right? Typically, these people have to feel safe enough, know that they're loved and welcomed enough to open up. They also need to hear that what God has done in Jesus actually addresses the actual things going on in their lives.
The matters that weigh on their hearts, what what's happening in their everyday life and relationships that God meets them in, that we have to help them connect with that. So there's lots of kind of outward challenges, if that makes sense. There's also inward layers to the challenge.
Not just questions about what we do and how we should do it. But but why? About our motivations, about whether we want to help other people draw closer to God? Because it can be challenging, can't it?
To want and to actively seek to help other people draw closer to God when we gather as a church. And sometimes it can be challenging because we're busy and tired and stressed ourselves. You know, I don't know about you.
I often feel like I'm running at like 110% to get about 90% of what needs to happen in my life. Done. Right. And when that happens, I don't have any margin.
To also have an eye out for others. Sometimes it can. It can be challenging because it feels like we're running really hard on the treadmill of seeking to draw closer to God ourselves. You know, we're pursuing those experiences that lift us and help us feel closer to God.
And the thought of trying to help someone else feels like. But what if I miss out? What if I don't have the energy left? Sometimes we can slip into approaching church with the kind of usually unspoken expectation that it's meant to give us the majority of our spiritual nourishment, rather than taking responsibility for ensuring our own spiritual well-being through the the rhythms and practices we weave into our everyday lives.
We look to church to. That's going to do it for us. Give us the pit stop and the refueling we need. Whatever way it happens, we often struggle, don't we?
To tear our eyes off getting our own needs met long enough to pay attention to others so we can help them draw closer to God. Especially especially when the law of diminishing returns kicks in. You know, when the songs that used to move us.
The prayers and experiences that have so spoken to our hearts become a bit sort of routine and stale. And we've just got to go harder and get more. And.
I think one of the things we need, if we find ourselves in a situation like this, is to reckon with the effect of what? New York Times columnist David Brooks calls the Second mountain. And this is the book, The Second Mountain.
And Brooks writes about middle age. One of the shore signs you're approaching or in middle age is you start to read books about middle age. And I've been reading this book.
There's other signs, of course, taking up long distance running, golf, smoking meat. You can see from my physique which of those I've taken up. But the basic idea that Brooks lays out in this book about The Second Mountain is that that in the first phase of adult life, which often leads up to middle age, but for many people can persist longer.
Life is about climbing the mountain with our self and our own happiness and needs for self-realization at the center. Whether we're going after it through achievement and career progress, or building the kind of perfect relationship and family that we dream of having or pursuing any other kind of number of different kinds of experience and collecting the trophies that go with them, we kind of climb this mountain that says, I've got to do these things to be happy.
But at some point, Brooks argues, typically when there are kind of cracks appearing, maybe things start to fall apart a little bit. In that first quest, we can start to find our way over to a second mountain. On this second mountain.
The satisfactions we find are less and less to do with ourselves, and more and more to do with helping others. As it turns out, the rewards and joys on this second mountain come in deeper and more lasting varieties than those available on the first mountain. You know, on that first mountain, so much depends on the circumstances, getting the settings right and keeping them right so that we can be happy.
But on the second mountain, as we seek to pursue the good of others, things can be kind of a bit imperfect, limited, and messy. And yet we can still find joy in and in the midst of all that, as we don't only pursue our own interests, but also the interests of others.
We actually know this is true not just for midlife. there was research done about what helps faith get passed on from one generation to another, and it was found that children and teenagers of Christian parents who stayed Christian were overwhelmingly those who didn't only attend church and youth group and things like that. But they also served and gave well.
There's just something powerful about living in a way that's not all about you. But that can be a battle, can't it? To pursue a life that isn't only about me, about my happiness and getting my needs met. Particularly when that that kind of costs me.
Or we can even do it in kind of Christian terms, you know, making sure I personally engineer my environment, get to the right church with the right style of worship to maximize my chances of feeling close to God. And one of the ironies in all of this is that I know I increasingly find that I feel closest to God when I get to experience and help others draw close to God.
In my other work, I work with people who start churches, and I heard from one of these guys down in the far south east of Melbourne this week through some things that I'd kind of messages I'd help send. He got connected with a guy who had recently moved from Sydney to that part of Melbourne. A guy, a Bangladeshi Muslim who was interested in church and inquirer, and he invited him to this new church that started recently.
The guys come the last couple of weeks and this church plant, a friend of mine met with him this week and led him to the Lord. I don't know a time this week when I felt closer to God than when I got to watch the video of this planter saying, look at what God has done, had nothing to do with me, was all about helping others and seeing others move closer to God.
And yet, ironically, or maybe not so ironically, was the thing that. Well, yes. God's. God's. God's at work. It's real.
Ultimately, it's only the Lord Jesus who can free us from the overpromising but under delivering treadmill of putting ourselves at the center. When it comes to church so we can pursue loving others closer to God.
You see, Jesus as the Son of His father deserved to be at the centre eternally. I mean, we sing about this. His is the name we lift up above every name. But when he came among us, Jesus didn't insist on others meeting his needs.
Instead, he consistently put other people's needs ahead of his own. He put others at the centre. He served them. He lifted them up.
He sought to move them closer to God. And he did it even when it cost him. I mean, he could read this all through the Gospels. He goes off to pray and draw close to his father.
And then the crowds turn up and he doesn't go. Having my time with God here. Sorry. He serves. He gives. He helps them experience God's kingdom breaking in again and again through the Gospels in all sorts of ways, and ultimately on the cross.
He ensured it. He underwrote it. He paid the price that was needed. He was thrust out of the center to bring you and me right to the center, into the very throne room of grace, because of what Jesus endured on the cross.
You and I are brought as close as it's possible to be with the God of the universe. We have access to him. We're united with him. We're wrapped in his loving embrace.
And when you grab hold of that, that in Jesus, you're there. We don't have to kind of push yourself forward quite as much. You don't have to be quite so relentless in chasing, getting your own spiritual needs met in having that feeling of closeness because it's there, eternally unassailable, not up and down.
And you can find freedom in making church not only about you, but about helping others draw close to God. Friends at Deep Creek Anglican Church I want this for you. I want this to be your experience individually. I want this to shape you as a church.
Closing Prayer
Let me pray that God would do that work among you. Lord Jesus, we praise you. We praise you for your love. That you move mountains.
That you left heaven because of your love for us. Because you wanted to draw us close. We praise you that you achieve that and that that frees us to not only pursue our own interests, but the good of others to help those around us, those who know you and those who don't know you yet draw close to you.
So you strengthen us. Will you work in us? Will you lead us deeper and deeper into this? Amen. Amen.
