God of Peace
1 Corinthians: "Life Under Grace" • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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†CALL TO WORSHIP Isaiah 57:15
Pastor Austin Prince
Today, the call to worship begins with all of us. Let’s declare his word together.
Congregation: For thus says the high and exalted one who lives forever, whose name is holy,
Minister: “I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit.”
Congregation: We gather to worship you, O Lord. Come, dwell with us, work in us that you may work through us. Amen.
†PRAYER OF ADORATION AND INVOCATION
Almighty God, you built your church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ himself as the cornerstone. Come, Holy Spirit, join us together by Christ’s faithful work and the saints faithful witness. May we too be a holy temple in which you dwell to the glory of our triune god.
†OPENING HYMN OF PRAISE #244A
“A Mighty Fortress is Our God”
† CONFESSION OF SIN & ASSURANCE OF PARDON
based on I Tim. 1:15; I Pet. 2:24
BEFORE CONFESSION
As we prepare to confess our sins together this morning, we take great comfort from these words in First Timothy:
“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15, ESV)
Minister: Man is humbled, and each one brought low, and the eyes of the haughty are brought low. But the Lord of hosts is exalted in justice, and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness.
Congregation: Forgive us our sins, O Lord. Forgive us the sins of our youth and the sins of our age. Forgive the sins of our hearts and the sins of our hands. Forgive our secret and our whispering sins, and our presumptuous and our careless sins. Forgive the sins we have done to please ourselves, and the sins we have done to please others. Forgive us the sins that we know, and the sins that we know not. Forgive them, O Lord. Forgive them all, through the atoning work of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24, ESV)
CONTINUAL READING OF SCRIPTURE Exodus 14:15-31
Steven Hoffer, Elder
THE OFFERING OF TITHES AND OUR GIFTS
CONGREGATIONAL PRAYERS
THE LORD’S PRAYER
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
†PSALM OF PREPARATION #119M
“O How I Love Your Holy Law”
SERMON 1 Corinthians 14:26-40
Orderly Worship
PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION
Blessed are you, God of all creation. You spoke in the beginning and all things came to be. You spoke, and your word came to dwell among us, full of grace and truth. Bless this place where we would hear your voice. As the word is spoken, may our ears be attuned to you. As the word is spoken, may you speak to us.
TEXT 1 Corinthians 14:26-40
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. 33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, 34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. 35 If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. 36 Or was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? 37 If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. 38 If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. 39 So, my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. 40 But all things should be done decently and in order.
AFTER SCRIPTURE
Teach me your way, O Lord and I will walk in your truth. Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.
INTRO
As we have been studying over the past few weeks, Paul is teaching the congregation how to think about spiritual gifts and the regulation of them. And the guiding principle that Paul has given to the church is that gifts are given for the building up of the church, and they are to be governed by love, the more excellent way.
As we saw two weeks ago, sometimes these gifts can be abused. They were not to be used as a means of personal pride which would “puff up the gifted person”, but they were to use them in a manner of love which would build up the congregation. In the previous section from this chapter we studied two weeks ago, we noted how Paul gave regulations on the use of tongues, demonstrating that the use of them in Corinth was not an act of love because it was unintelligible speech which confused outsiders, and without interpretation, it failed to edify anyone in the congregation–comparing what was going on to instruments which give indistinct sounds, falling short of what they were designed to do, giving off noise rather than music.
And in our text for today, Paul concludes his long section on the use of gifts by restating the guiding principles and giving a few brief applications.
Take a look at how this section opens and closes from v.26 and v.40.
v.26 - “Let all things be done for building up”
v. 40 - “But all things should be done decently and in order”
And here, captured in these two statements, is how Paul instructs the church to love one another and serve one another as it worships together.
Order instead of chaos. And service over self.
All Things For Building Up
“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.” (1 Corinthians 14:26, ESV)
Coming on the heels of the previous section about confusion in the church, Paul isn’t saying that when the church comes together each should have a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, and an interpretation. He is saying, rather, that this is how they have been coming together and it is tumultuous and disorderly. And the result is that the church isn’t built up at all.
One of the striking themes of this whole argument from chapters twelve through fourteen has been the absolute insistence that church life is much more corporate than we often practice. We tend to focus on being built up in our church life (which is wonderful and right and good) while rarely thinking about our role to build others up, a priority in which Paul seems to rebuke the Corinthians for getting backwards.
Being built up is great. Anyone looking for a church to call home should seek a place that would build them up by the preaching of the word and the fellowship of the church. But as someone who has been given a gift by the Lord, receiving cannot be the only relationship that we have with the church. We are not meant to be mere consumers. We are gifted by the Spirit to build up and to serve. And, I would argue, that you are being built up as you build up.
The word for building up here is oikodomē, which is a compound word for building and house. And when we come together on this project, the foundation is set by Christ, and it’s as if each of us comes to build up this structure wearing a tool belt with only a handful of tools to work on the task before us. I don’t have all the necessary tools to accomplish the job, but I can look around and see who does have them and be glad that they are here with their hands to the work.
And Paul is framing the situation in such a way to remind us that in worship, all, is to be done for the building up and serving of each other.
When we come to sing, it is not just for you and your personal experience - it is for all. Lift up your voice
When we come to pray, it is not just for us and for our needs, it is for all.
When we come to listen to the word preached and taught, it is not just for our edification only, it is for all. It is, as we saw two weeks ago, that we may be able to say “amen” together, having the word dwell in us richly.
And what does this building look like, exactly?
The gifts that God gives us build the body through encourage and comfort in Christ.
If everything is to be done for building up, then everything will be done through encouragement and bringing comfort.
Like a team of runners, when one is straining to make it, another one of us comes alongside and says, “You can make it. One more lap. You can make it”.
When one of us is struggling, another one of us comes alongside with encouragement.
When one of us is hurting, we don’t let them suffer alone as we worship God individually but in the same room as them.
No, our worship is profoundly corporate. If we remember from chapter ten, part of the hypocrisy of the church in Corinth when they took communion is that they did it without considering the body — body here being represented by not only the physical body of Christ, but the corporate body of Christ, the Church.
Inescapably, church life is about being in each other’s lives over against private and personal experience. Church life comes with encouragement and comfort, but it also comes with accountability and challenge.
Life in a faithful church will stretch you. You will have people who want to help you, and serve you. Serve you in your marriage or singleness or parenting. And that can feel intrusive. And, make no mistake, it can be done imperfectly, but a faithful church will not want its members to be merely tithers, or numbers in a seat, or advertisements for the next members,–they will want to know you and bless you and be blessed by you.
Encourage COG - they do a great job here.
So, that is what was supposed to be happening in Corinth, but it wasn’t. Instead of building each other up they were building up themselves. And this manifested itself by each person coming with their own agenda, talking over one another, bringing disorder and chaos.
And here we have a long section from vv.27-35 where Paul addresses those who are speaking when they shouldn’t be. He addresses those who are speaking in tongues, prophets who were speaking over one another, and the women of the church.
And this brings up an important dynamic of worship — order over chaos. Remember our two themes from this text: Everything was to be done to build up, and everything is to be done decently and in order.
We’ve already noted how much of the Corinthian worship was self-focused, “puffing them up” as Paul phrases it. But now we come to see just how that was displayed when they came together. It was chaotic, disorganized, and distracting.
To summarize vv.27-35, the tongues speakers were shouting out without interpretation and overwhelming the congregation with unintelligible babbling — see the sermon from two weeks ago.
The prophets, those who were saying that they had a word from God, were speaking over one another, vying for a turn to share.
And then Paul singles out the women of the church. And in the same way as he has censured speech on behalf of others in the church, including the men, he also doing with the women. This isn’t a flat prohibition against women speaking. We have already seen from chapter eleven on how the women were to adorn themselves in honor instead of rebellion, and that they were allowed to prophesy and speak in the church. Some like to suggest that this text was just a Corinthian exhortation, but the text says that this is the rule in all of the churches. So if they were allowed to speak, what is going on here? Well, it looks like the women were participating in some sort of questioning of the teachers — an interrogation that was completely unfitting and disrespectful of the teacher and of their husbands. If they had their questions, they could save them for home and not for the public assembly.
Throughout all of the examples, the central theme is cacophony — everyone speaking out of turn and on top of one another with self-assertion.
Poor pastor - he’s just trying to preach and everyone is interrupting him and the women are interrogating him
And so Paul cries out the central theme: God is not a God of confusion but of peace.
And so, consistent with the more excellent way of love, there should be order in the service instead of this chaos.
There should be consideration on who should speak and when (and why), in order to build one another up.
Instead of a cacophony of voices speaking, the scriptures rather give us a model of a dialogue in worship — a conversation back and forth between God and his people.
For a deeper dive into this structure you can go back and listen to some of the recent Inquirer’s Class lessons on the website.
In the call to worship, God’s word is read to us
And we respond in praise and song
God word speaks to us about the need to confess our sins, and then we respond with confession. God’s word responding with assurance of pardon
We listen to the word of God read and then we respond with our corporate prayer needs and thanksgiving.
We listen to the word of God preached and then we listen to God, and partake of the visible words of God, in the Lord’s Supper.
Ending our time with a benediction — God having the final words in our time together.
The effect being that the voice which dominates the worship is not the whims and opinion of individuals but the word of God and a fitting response - the praises of his people.
Application:
So, instead of seeking personal experience, the church was to yield to one another, seeking what was best for building each other up.
Now, in a church like ours where this type of order is practiced, what could possibly happen is that we leave little room for building each other up. We come to the Sunday gathering where the elders lead the service and could either feel that there is no room or need for our contribution, or we could simply content ourselves with the leadership of others and neglect to engage ourselves in other areas of ministry. But although the elders have the tools and qualifications to rule here, they do not possess all the tools and gifts necessary for building up the church. We need each other in prayer, teaching, hospitality, visitation, funerals, supper clubs, and fire teams, and ladies nights, and weddings, and discipleship, and friendships, and in countless other engagements.
Which is why we push back on a private faith and a private expression of it. We make it our ambition in belief and practice to serve and build one another up. New members and guests should not only see us sitting quietly next to them at service as we listen to the word together, but also hear us and be built up by our varied gifts through life in the church.
Conclusion
By all means, we are to expect to be built up, but by God’s grace, may we make it our aim and prayer to also be faithful to build one another up. Taking our cue from Jesus, who himself came not to be served but to serve.
†HYMN OF RESPONSE #406
“Jesus, With Thy Church Abide”
THE MINISTRY OF THE LORD’S SUPPER
Minister: Lift up your hearts!
Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord.
Minister: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
Congregation: It is right for us to give thanks and praise!
CONFESSION OF FAITH* Based on Matt 16:16; Mk. 16:9; Jn. 20:28; I Cor. 15:1-6; Rev. 22:13
Minister: Christian, what do you believe?
Congregation: This is the good news that we have received, in which we stand, and by which we are saved, if we hold it fast: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day, and that He appeared first to the women, then to Peter, and to the Twelve, and then to many faithful witnesses. We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus Christ is the first and the last, the beginning and the end; he is our Lord and our God.
THE INVITATION TO THE LORD’S TABLE
The Lord invites you to this table if you love him and trust in him alone for salvation. It is for those who belong to Christ through repentance, faith, baptism, and continuing union with his church. If you are truly sorry for your sins, sincerely believe in Jesus as your Savior, and desire to live in obedience to him as Lord, you are invited to come with gladness to the table of the Lord. “O taste and see that the LORD is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.”
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
Congregation is seated.
DISTRIBUTION OF THE ELEMENTS
THE WORDS OF INSTITUTION AND THE SHARING OF THE SUPPER
Does everyone have what they need?
It may be a little difficult (a balancing act), but today we will partake of the bread and the cup in between responsive readings. So, you will briefly need your bulletin to follow along.
Minister: Our Lord Jesus Christ said, “Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you.”
Congregation: By your divine presence, by the holy sacraments, by all the merits of your life, sufferings, death, and resurrection, bless and comfort us, gracious Lord and God. Amen.
Take bread
Minister: Our Lord Jesus Christ said, “Drink from this, all of you. Do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
Congregation: Whenever we eat this bread and drink this cup together, we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
Take the cup
Minister: Christ, the Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world;
Congregation: Grant to us your peace. Amen.
†OUR RESPONSE #567
“Doxology”
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him, all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
†BENEDICTION: GOD’S BLESSING FOR HIS PEOPLE
The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord makes His face to shine upon you and is gracious to you. The Lord lifts up His countenance upon you and gives you peace. Amen.
Grace Notes Reflection
Church life is much more corporate than we often emphasize. With its various administrators appointed, it’s easy to believe that a church’s ministry is carried out by professionals while the rest of us are merely consumers who can choose what options are right for us. This would be a decision consistent with believing that the ultimate perspective about a church is our own — a place that has the right amenities to serve us as we grow a personal faith. And while choosing a church that builds you up is wonderful and right, it wouldn’t be sufficient for your growth unless you also committed to the building up of others. The Corinthians were highly focused on building up themselves, talking over one another and disrupting the service. And the way that Paul encouraged them to remedy situation was to bring order where there was chaos. Everyone still participated, but in turn and in the right place, giving deference and service to their brothers.
And while I’m probably not one who should be using sports metaphors, I could see this situation being something like a baseball team. Everyone’s strength leads them to a different position on the field. There are sometimes great catches in left field by the generous hospitality of one family, a home run by some of the older ladies who are discipling the younger ones through dating and marriage, and a double by the college student who is teaching the children’s Sunday school class.
The team needs each others gifts and those gifts must be organized and in service to the whole. A player can’t succeed apart from the team and it’s not a staff baseball game with the church members in the bleachers (It also can’t be watched online by those who are meant to be on the field).
As an expression of love, each member engages and yields in an orderly manner, holding as their goal the building up and the service of their brothers.