Christian Worship: Women in Worship [Sinners & Saints]

Thank you so much for listening to the Sermon Podcast for Mission Hills Church in San Marcos, California.

We pray that this message blesses you as you love God and love others.

If you would like more information about our church, please visit us at missionhillschurch.org.

God bless.

Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I deliver them to you.

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head.

But every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven.

For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short.

But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head.

For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.

For man was not made from woman, but woman from man.

Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.

That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.

Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor man of woman.

For as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman, and all things are from God.

Judge for yourselves, is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered?

Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory, for her hair is given to her for a covering.

If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.

This is the word of the Lord.

Good morning and welcome.

My name is Sam Pascal.

I'm one of the pastors here at Mission Hills Church, and it's my great honor and privilege to welcome you into worship as we learn from God's word together.

Before we step into this text itself, just a few housekeeping matters that I want to keep in front of you.

One, obviously, if you've been here for the last few weeks, you've known that our projectors have been out.

And if you're a guest with us, you're probably looking up the screens going, what on earth is going and going on here?

Well, uh, I want to encourage you all.

Uh this week our church decided to move forward with a new projector project.

I want to bring that in front of you as a church family.

Uh not only are we gonna uh install new projectors, um, but also we're gonna do some upgrades here in the chapel.

The the the bill for that is gonna be about sixty-five thousand dollars.

Uh the each projector itself, not including installation and new wiring, costs about fifteen thousand dollars.

They're pretty pricey.

Um so if you as a church member here at Mission Hills Church want to contribute towards those new projectors and that project, we're gonna try and get started sometime this week.

Uh, if you want to contribute towards that, we would love your contributions.

You can just uh there in the seatbacks in front of you, there's little envelopes.

You can uh submit your gift to the building fund, or you can also do that online through the app or the website.

Just uh direct your fund or direct your gift to the building fund if you want to help with this project.

We're looking forward to getting this project finally completed.

Hopefully, sometime in the next few weeks, we will have projection back up and you won't have to be singing like this the whole time.

So, uh, continuing our series, though, in the book of 1 Corinthians, I want to just bring you up to speed.

If you're a guest with us or you're new with us, we call this, we're calling the series Sinners and Saints.

And this idea comes from Paul's first couple lines that he writes in this letter to this church in Corinth.

Uh, if you read the whole letter, you get a sense that this church in Corinth is a real mess.

There's a lot of sin going on.

These people are doing things that are causing all kinds of problems, wreaking havoc in the church.

But Paul introduces this letter by calling these Corinthians saints.

He calls the sinners saints.

And I think some of this can often be confusing for some of us because we tend to think of saints primarily as, maybe in a Roman Catholic way, uh really good people.

But for the Apostle Paul and the Bible itself, the primary meaning of saints isn't really good people.

The primary meaning of saints is belonging to God.

People who belong to God.

And what Paul is telling us in this letter is you may be a mess, you may be sinners, but you are God's sinners, you are God's mess.

And he is writing to this church to help them mature and grow up in what it means to be a part of God's people.

And so that's really what the letter of 1 Corinthians is all about.

Well, okay.

So now today we're going to step into this text in 1 Corinthians 11.

But before we do, I want to talk about hand gestures.

Hand gestures.

Um, hand gestures have a meaning specific to a cultural context.

All hand gestures have a meaning specific to a cultural context.

So, for example, what does this mean?

That we give approval, right?

It's a mark of approval.

If you do this in the Middle East, though, it's like flipping somebody off with your middle finger.

So you gotta be careful what signal you do in what cultural context.

You all with me on that?

Uh, what does this one mean?

Peace, sometimes victory.

Um, if you turn it around, and Claire, you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, in the UK, in Australia, and New Zealand, that's also an offensive insult, a gesture like the middle finger.

Subtle difference, right?

This symbol.

What does this mean?

Okay, that's exactly right.

In Japan, money.

It means money.

In Turkey and Greece, the middle finger.

Cultural context determines meaning.

Y'all with me on this?

Okay, how about this one?

Fingers crossed.

Hopefully, luck, right?

Vietnam, middle finger.

Okay, uh, how about this one?

This is yeah, this is horns, right?

Uh, it can mean rock on, it can mean uh what Gabe.

Where's Gabe?

Hook'em! UT Austin, right?

What does this mean, Gabe?

I just offended one of our brothers here.

It, you know.

So, um, but this symbol in Italy and Spain and Portugal means adultery.

So you gotta be careful, you gotta know the context in which you're gesturing, because that gesture can mean very different things in very different contexts.

Uh, in fact, uh, many of you uh came in this morning and you saw Chad, one of our elders, out there greeting you.

And what, does anybody remember what jersey he was wearing?

Yeah, he was wearing an Argentina jersey, and what he was gesturing is that he's on the bandwagon.

Right?

He's not here in the chapel right now for me to make fun of him, but that's the way I like to roll as a pastor.

Cultural context, gestures meaning.

And I think if we get this basic idea, this basic context, that gestures have meaning in culture, it'll help us understand a text that is incredibly difficult.

This passage in 1 Corinthians 11, pretty much unanimously agreed on by most biblical scholars, the most difficult text in the New Testament to translate and interpret.

It's an incredibly challenging text.

And for those of you who are not very familiar with the Bible, you might have read this and been like, wait, what just happened?

What kind of thing am I stepping into here?

And so, we here at Mission Hills Church, we're committed to teaching every single word of God of God here.

And this shows up in God's word, and we need to work through it.

There are some parts of God's word that are like creamy mashed potatoes.

Super easy to eat and digest, and others are like gristle.

This is like gristle.

This is a tough text to work through, but we're gonna work through it and see what profit might be in this text for us today.

So, in order to do that, we need to understand the context of what's going on here in 1 Corinthians chapter 11.

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

Otherwise, we'll be pretty lost about this text about head coverings.

And I know there's probably quite a few women in here a little bit anxious, like, am I supposed to have a shawl over my head right now, or not really sure what to do about this?

And so we gotta work through the context first to be able to see what the Apostle Paul is talking about.

So, a few things to remember about the context.

We need to remember broadly the story and the whole of the letter that Paul writes to the church in Corinth.

It's broken up into roughly five sections in which Paul is addressing questions or concerns that are rising up in this church.

So the first section, chapters one through four, Paul's addressing divisions in the church.

Chapters five, six, and seven, the apostle Paul is addressing some confusion and false teachings surrounding sexual immorality and marriage.

Chapters eight, nine, and ten, he is addressing the issue of idolatry.

Here in chapter 11, and ending in chapter 14 of the letter, the apostle Paul is gonna turn and address some issues that have risen up in the worship services in the church in Corinth.

That there are some things going on in their worship services that are causing problems.

And then chapter 15, the Apostle Paul writes to correct some broken ideas about the resurrection.

So that's the kind of the overview of 1 Corinthians.

And this morning we're gonna be tipping into and starting to reflect on Paul's instruction to the church in Corinth about worship, about how the gathered worship of God's people ought to be led and conducted.

And so we'll be in this section for the next several weeks, but chapter 11 and this passage about head coverings really kicks us off.

The other thing to remember is a major theme that we've looked at for the last several weeks and really throughout the letter, Paul writes to the church in Corinth is this theme of spiritual pride.

Spiritual pride.

It is this kind of primary affliction in the church.

It's affecting everything that's happening in the life of the church, that this church is proud, it's puffed up, it's boasting in itself, and it's causing all kinds of havoc in the church.

And in effect, what spiritual pride is, it's something like this using the Christian faith to impress others, to perform for others, or to draw attention to ourselves for how spiritual we are, for how devout we are, for how religious we might be.

And spiritual pride, the aim of spiritual pride is to use spiritual things to draw attention to ourselves.

And this is what's going on in the church in Corinth, that they are using spiritual things, spiritual teachings, spiritual ideas actually to draw attention to themselves.

Um, Paul is going to call this group, whoever they might be, in the church in Corinth, in chapter 12, verse 1, he calls them spiritual ones.

And I've used the term over the last several weeks of the super spiritual group.

This is a group that's afflicted by this spiritual pride.

They think that their spirituality exists to impress others.

And so this idea is going to show up here in our text this morning.

Last thing we need to remember as we move forward this super spirituality, this group that is using spiritual things to impress others, we've already seen one particular place that it's really affected marriages.

And we we looked at that in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, that some of these kind of super spiritual people thought it was more spiritual to not have sex in their marriages.

1 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

And even some of them were teaching that it's more spiritual to be unmarried, and the net result of that is that some of these Christians in this church were leaving their marriages in the name of Jesus because it's more spiritual to be unmarried.

And Paul has to write and correct this idea in 1 Corinthians chapter 7.

1 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

It's a real problem in the church, and all of this is a false belief rooted in spiritual pride, a kind of showing off or boasting that they were they were boasting that they were more spiritual because they were unmarried, or more spiritual because they weren't having sex in their marriages.

And that was showing how devoted to Christ they really were.

In fact, some were even leaving their marriages, as I said, and so what this meant is like wow, some people were looking at them and thinking, wow, they must be so spiritual.

They are so spiritual that they are leaving their marriages in order to follow Jesus.

Wow, how spiritual.

And Paul says, this is a really broken idea.

This is not only causing problems in the marriages as we saw in 1 Corinthians 7.

What we see now in 1 Corinthians 11 is this is starting to cause problems in their worship services, in their worship gatherings.

So, if we've got those things in place about broadly the letter that Paul has written to this church, now we can start looking at the specifics of the passage.

And remember what I began with that gestures have meaning in a certain context.

Well, what we need to do and understand as a church is well, what's the meaning of a head covering?

It's a gesture, it's a signal that communicates something important in the Corinthian culture.

It signaled marital status.

So a woman who was married would cover her head.

It was a way of signaling publicly that this woman was married.

Almost every culture has some kind of public signal for marriage.

So for example, in Hawaii, if you wear a plumeria or a hibiscus flower on your right ear, does anybody know what that means?

You're available, you're single.

If you wear it in your left ear, you're married, you're spoken for, you're taken, you're in a relationship.

And so these signals are they're public cues that signal to others your marital status.

In our culture, we have them, right?

The rings that signal to others publicly that I'm married.

Well, in the ancient Corinthian culture, that's what the head covering did.

It signaled to others that you were married.

That was the meaning of that gesture.

And almost every culture, as I said, has this form.

They signal marital status in all kinds of different ways.

And it's a really important practice, actually, in every culture.

You wouldn't want, if you're a single guy, you wouldn't want to start flirting with a married woman.

And the way that you protect against that and guard against that is there's a public gesture, a public signal that tells them, oh, I'm married, I'm spoken for, I'm taken.

And it's a kind of a polite way of nonverbally cueing others about your marital status.

It's about protecting the boundaries of marriage.

And this is true in almost every culture throughout the world.

And so this is in Corinth, it's the head coverings that was the gesture that signaled this to others.

Now, in Corinth, what we come to discover is there was something happening regarding head coverings.

That some of these women who were in the church who had who were being kind of affected by this spiritually proud movement, this kind of super spiritual movement in the church, some of whom, as I said, were abstaining from sex in their marriages, some of whom were even leaving their marriages, are now entering into married women entering into the worship service, and what are they doing?

They're taking off their head coverings.

In other words, as they enter into the worship service, they're signaling something.

Their intent is to signal to others how spiritual they are.

This is a signal of I'm really devoted to Christ.

I'm so devoted, in fact, that I'm leaving my marriage behind to signal how committed I am to Jesus.

This is what's going on in Corinth.

Oh, these, and so the other people in the church, some of them were beginning to think, oh, they look how spiritual they are.

They're so committed to Jesus that they are even leaving their marriages behind and abandoning their marriage vows because they're so committed to Jesus.

And so Paul hears about this thing that's happening in the church.

And he's gonna give three responses to this.

Three responses that correct this broken idea that's circling in the church in Corinth.

First, Paul says this.

He says that it is not less spiritual to be married.

It is not less spiritual to be married.

Look with me there in verse 3.

Paul says this, but I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

Um, here, what what Paul does is he links human marriage to God.

And he does that through the language of headship.

That that it's not less spiritual.

In fact, human marriage is deeply connected to God, it's a deep part of how we relate to God.

If you're married, it's a deep part of our connection to God.

It's linked to Him.

And Paul links it with this language of headship.

Now, right here is another place where we as modern people get tripped up, ensnared by a text like this.

When we, uh, especially a modern world that's kind of the post-sexual revolution, post-feminist movement, we read a text like this and it's deeply distressing for us.

And we need to make sure that we understand what Paul means, not what our culture has informed us to read this text as its meaning.

And so Paul here is going to talk about headship.

The reason why our culture has such trouble with a text like this is because we think about the head very differently than the ancient world, especially the biblical world.

We tend to think of the head as the location of what important organ?

The brain.

We think of the head as the control center of the entire body.

It's the boss, it's in charge.

That's the way we tend to think of the head as moderns, and so when we read a text like this, we think that's what Paul means about the husband's relationship to the wife, that he's the boss, he's in charge.

He's in control.

We tend to think that about the meaning of headship.

But this is not the ancient biblical understanding of head.

In in the ancient biblical world, the control center of the person was not the head, but what other important organ 18 inches lower?

The heart.

The heart was the control center of the person.

The metaphor that Paul is using here is a metaphor of connecting the head to the body.

In other words, the head is the representative of the whole body.

We actually have this idea still that endures somewhat in our culture.

Um, uh a few minutes ago here in church, there was one of our hosts, and they were taking a head count.

Now, do you think what they what I mean by head count is they were just counting all the heads in here and not the bodies?

No, your head represents the whole of your person.

Does that make sense, y'all with me on that?

The head represents the whole of the person.

And you need to remember in the biblical understanding, when a man and a woman come together in marriage, the two shall become one flesh.

They are a head and a body.

A head and a body.

The head is the representative of the whole.

We recognize a person not by their body.

When you go onto the church website, you don't have a picture.

When you look at the staff, you don't have a picture of my shoulder or my knee or my feet.

You wouldn't recognize me that way.

What do you have a picture of?

My head.

We call it a headshot.

Because that's how you recognize the whole person.

And this is what Paul is communicating about headship that the husband is the representative of the family.

It is how you recognize the whole together.

Husbands represent the whole.

And this, in order to make sure Paul isn't misunderstood, he's gonna correct any kind of misconstrued ideas about headship a little later in the passage.

Skip with me down to verse.

Verse 11.

He's just finished talking about the Genesis story and how man was created first, and then the woman was taken from the side of Adam, and that's how God made Eve, that woman came from man.

But then he makes sure that that's not misunderstood.

Look what he says in verse 11.

Nevertheless, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man, nor man of woman.

For as woman was made from man, so man is now what?

Born of a woman.

What Paul is saying is just like head and body are interdependently related and mutual, how much more is a husband and a wife interdependent and mutual?

Men come from women just like women came from man.

He's communicating this idea of mutuality and interdependence.

That these two relate this way.

And the purpose for which Paul is communicating this, especially as it relates to head coverings, is that a woman is not independent of her husband.

And so she shouldn't act that way.

And if you take off your head covering in a worship service, what are you communicating?

That I'm independent of my husband.

I don't need him.

All I need is Jesus.

I don't need my husband.

I don't need to be connected.

I don't need to be committed.

All I need to do is be committed to Jesus.

And Paul says, no, no, no, actually, if we go back to the Genesis story, what we come to discover is that men and women are in interdependent relationships.

And this means that a woman should not act as if she is independent of her husband by taking off her head covering.

In the same way, the body isn't independent of the head.

None of your heads got here this morning without your what?

Your body.

You really needed your body.

It was essential to getting here.

And your head needs your body.

Right?

Your body needed your eyes and your ears to get here today.

They're interdependent.

And this is what Paul is communicating.

Because head and body are interdependent, because they are mutual, this means that a wife should not act as if she's independent of her husband by taking off her head covering in worship.

So first, Paul makes clear it's not less spiritual to be married.

But married people are in a mutual and interdependent relationship, head and body relationship, and this needs to be maintained in worship.

Second thing, Paul says, that this practice of removing head coverings was resulting not in true worship, but actually in embarrassment and confusion.

Look with me in verse 5.

Paul says this way but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered does what?

Dishonors her head.

In other words, when wives were doing this in the worship services of Corinth, they were bringing embarrassment to their husbands, their heads.

Imagine if, for example, I came into church today, and the first thing I did when I walked up here was took off my wedding ring and flicked it that way.

How do you think that would make my wife feel?

Would it dishonor her?

Right?

That's what Paul is saying.

That this gesture, what it was doing, was it was it was embarrassing these husbands.

Now they're feeling like there's something wrong with them, there's something messed up with them, there's something unlovable about them, and it's causing them to be distracted in worship.

If you were a husband, if my wife came into worship today and I did that with our wedding ring, do you think she would be thinking about anything I'm saying right now?

Do you think she would be like, oh, um, my husband just shamed me, but all creatures of our God and King.

No, she would be distracted and diverted from worship by this practice.

And so Paul says, this act of uncovering the head, it's causing embarrassment and shame to the husbands.

But not only that, it's not just that it was causing embarrassment, it was causing confusion.

Look what he says there at the second half of verse 5.

Every wife who prays or prophesied with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her what?

Her head were shaven.

Her head were shaven.

Now, again, this is an important gesture to shave a head, especially a woman's head.

It's an important gesture, and we need to understand its meaning in cultural context.

In the ancient Greco-Roman world, when a woman committed adultery, what did they do to her?

They shaved her head.

It was a gesture, a sign, a signal that this woman was an adulterer.

There's a famous American novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Anybody remember that?

The Scarlet Letter.

And how did you gesture if you were an adulterer in that culture?

You sewed a scarlet A on your clothing, right?

These are gestures communicating meaning.

And what Paul is saying is when a woman uncovers her head, it's the same as if her head were shaved.

She's gesturing that she's an adulterer, or perhaps even open to adultery.

In other words, it's sending mixed signals, right?

This woman who's uncovering her head, she thinks what she's gesturing is how spiritual and committed she is.

But actually, what's happening in the worship service is there's other guys in the worship service and they're seeing her head covered and they're like, is she doing what I think she's doing?

And maybe there's even some men in the worship service, we come to know this from 1 Corinthians, that there was lots of sexual immorality going on.

Maybe there's some men in the worship service who are thinking, maybe she's available now.

Do you think any of those men in the worship service are now thinking about how deep the Father's love for us?

Or are they distracted and confused by this mixed message that is being sent?

It's likely the case that these women were not committing adultery or marrying other men.

It's just that they were gesturing about how spiritual and devout they were and wanting others to be impressed with this.

But this gesture was sending a mixed signal.

And what it was doing ultimately in the worship gatherings of Corinth is it was causing embarrassment and confusion.

Now nobody's worshiping Jesus.

Everybody's confused about what's going on, the relationships are confusing.

And so Paul says this gesture that you're doing, it's not having the effect you intend.

It's actually having the opposite effect.

The third thing Paul says in his argument is he gives them an example, a very common, ordinary example in their culture that helps them understand why uncovering their head would not be a good idea in worship.

We read this in verses 13 through 15.

It's the example of long hair.

Paul says this, judge for yourselves.

Is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered?

In other words, he just, hey, I want you guys to think this through.

And then he's going to point to the example of long hair, and he says, like, for example, you guys already know this about long hair.

You should also know it about head covering.

So he says, Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is a disgrace for him?

But if a woman has long hair, it is her glory.

In other words, what Paul is saying is, look, you already know about long hair.

If a guy walked into your worship service with incredibly long hair, you wouldn't, that's a gesture, it means something.

It's a form of disgrace.

It's him signaling his effeminity in the worship service.

In this culture, that was a particularly powerful signal.

You already know this about hair, right?

But it's not, it wouldn't be disgraceful for a woman to walk into a worship with long hair.

And so he says, look, you already know this about hair and the length of it.

You should also know it about head coverings.

In other words, Paul is saying to the Corinthians, don't be naive.

Ladies, he's saying, who are uncovering your head, you know already what the meaning of uncovering your head is in your culture.

You already know this.

And so you thinking that uncovering your head is communicating a different message when everybody already knows what that message is, is really and profoundly naive.

Um, let me give you an example.

It would be naive of me.

Let's say we had working projectors, and I wanted to point to something with that projector, and I used my middle finger to point to it.

Some of you would likely be offended.

And I could say this, I could say this.

Well, that wasn't my intent to make that obscene gesture.

And you would probably say to me, Pastor Sam, don't be naive.

You know what that gesture means.

This is what Paul is saying.

If you already know what the gesture of long hair means, then you would also already know what the gesture of removing your head covering means.

The culture has already agreed on this meaning.

And because of this, you may be thinking that you're acting spiritually mature and signaling to others how mature you are and how devoted to Christ you are.

But actually, what you're doing in worship is creating disorder and distraction.

Disorder and distraction.

Now that's not very spiritual, is it, precious?

That was a line from Lord of the Rings, by the way.

So I'm gonna smuggle it in there real quick.

Here's the irony.

They were uncovering their heads as a way to impress others with how devoted they were to Jesus.

But what was actually happening was they were distracting others from Jesus.

Y'all with me on that?

Does this make sense?

This is what's going on in Corinth.

It's causing problems in their worship.

And so this morning, as we draw to a close, I want to just point us to three spiritual principles from this text that I think can help guide us and lead us as we think about worship in our lives in this culture.

So three principles from this text I think are really important to notice.

First, culture isn't everything, but it's not nothing.

Culture isn't everything, but it's not nothing.

Christians are not to be naive about their cultural context and the meaning of their actions.

Um I learned this pretty young in the church.

I would go on mission trips to Mexico, and um I remember, for example, uh going on some of these mission trips, and all the young ladies that were in the high school group, they would be told not to wear shorts, but to wear pants or long dresses.

Because in that culture, if you wore shorts, it was offensive.

It was gesturing something offensive.

And so you had to be thoughtful about what you wore so as not to cause offense.

There's other cultures that have very similar practices.

Some cultures, if you show the bottom of your feet, that's considered offensive.

We need to be thoughtful and not naive about our own culture and the meaning of our actions.

Some acts on their own aren't bad, but can, in certain contexts, create obstacles to Jesus.

They create obstacles for others to be able to see Jesus.

I think maybe a good example of this is dress.

Um, the kind of clothes we wear into worship would be a good simple example of this.

And everybody's like a little bit nervous right now.

Oh my gosh, what's Pastor Sam gonna say?

Here's the basic principle that Paul is getting at.

Look, you need to be aware that what you wear can distract others from Jesus.

You need to be aware that what you wear can distract others from Jesus.

And so that's gonna just generally shape the kinds of clothing you might wear to church.

I am not gonna wear a tank top to church.

Because what will you all be thinking about?

How impressive my arms are.

Ladies, you're not gonna wear a bathing suit to church because what's it gonna do?

It's gonna distract.

A bathing suit isn't wrong on its own, and in other contexts, it's perfectly fine.

In worship, not appropriate.

Y'all with me on this?

And we as a church need to be sensitive and aware of what we're, for example, wearing in church so that what we're wearing isn't a distraction from Jesus and causing people to think about what that person is wearing rather than thinking about Jesus.

This is the Apostle Paul's basic missionary strategy.

Flip one page with me back, if you have your Bibles, to 1 Corinthians chapter 9.

1 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

Paul writes this in verse 19.

He says, For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.

To the Jews I became as a Jew in order to win Jews, to those under the law, I became one under the law, that I might win those under the law, to those outside the law, I became one as one outside the law, that I might win those outside the law, to the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak.

I have become all things to all people that by any means I might save some.

I do it all for the sake of the gospel that I might sh I may share with them in its blessings.

Do you hear Paul's missionary strategy?

I uh Paul is laboring to not cause unnecessary offense and put an obstacle in anybody's way about hearing the good news of Jesus Christ.

You all with me?

And so Paul is telling the Corinthians, you also need to think this way about your head coverings.

Now, just to be clear, ladies, you are not required to wear head coverings next week in worship.

This is a cultural cue, a symbol, a sign, a gesture.

It would be important if you come to worship, ladies, for example, that you keep your wedding rings on.

That's probably not hard for you to do, but this is an important part of how we gesture to others.

And we need to be thinking about these things as Christians in our culture so that we might do as Paul says, we might win them to Christ.

So, first, culture isn't everything, but it's not nothing.

Second, the second principle from this text that we need to pay attention to as followers of Jesus Christ, we need to, second, watch out for spiritual pride.

We need to watch out for spiritual pride.

Let's back to the topic of dress, for example.

If your attitude about church is something like this, well, I can wear whatever I want to.

People shouldn't judge me.

If that's your attitude about what you're wearing to church, you are making worship about who?

You.

About me, about my own comfort or my own style or my own freedom or my own sense of attractiveness.

You're making worship about you rather than about who?

Jesus.

Watch out for spiritual pride.

Watch out for the powerful temptation to make church or worship about impressing others.

Jesus warns against this in Matthew chapter six.

He gives three examples in Matthew six in his famous Sermon on the Mount.

He calls out the Pharisees for three practices.

First, he calls them out for giving.

And this is what they would do.

Let me just ask you this.

Is giving to the church a good thing?

Being generous?

Yeah, that's a good thing, right?

It's a good thing.

But the Pharisees, they were twisting this practice.

And how they were twisting it is they were doing this.

Um, they would they would bring out their big loud money bag, and then they would hire somebody with a trumpet.

This big loud horn trumpet.

Everybody just look at how generous I am.

I am giving it anonymously, but I want you all to see that I'm doing it.

Twisting generosity into a form of impressing others.

Y'all with me?

He gives a second example of prayer.

And the Pharisees, would you say prayer is a good thing?

Yeah, prayer is a good thing.

But here's how they were twisting prayer.

They were standing up on the loud corner, on a stretch on a street corner and praying out loud in King James English, thou holiest, most mighty Father.

And impress praying to impress others.

And he gives a third and final example of fasting.

And when the Pharisees, would you say fasting is a good thing?

Yeah, yeah, it's a good thing.

It's a good spiritual practice.

But what they were doing when they would fast is they would make themselves look miserable while they were fasting.

And everybody would look at them and be like, oh my gosh, look at how devoted they are.

They are so, they are so committed to God that they look miserable doing it.

Making your Christian life about impressing others.

And what Jesus says, look, when you do this, when you live this way, you already got your reward.

Your reward was that maybe some people were impressed.

They're probably not as impressed as you think they are.

But you get nothing from God.

You get no reward from God.

Don't make the Christian life about impressing others.

In fact, Jesus has a great line here, and specifically he talks about it in relation to giving.

He says, Don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.

You're so secretive in your Christian life that you're secretive to yourself.

This is a great story that Jesus tells at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, the sheep and the goats.

And there's these people who, you know, they they care for the sick and they visit those in prison and they clothe the naked and they feed the hungry, and Jesus says to them, uh, thanks for doing that to me.

And they say, Lord, when did we do that?

They didn't even know that they were doing it.

When you pray, Jesus says, Go in your closet and pray in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you.

Watch out for spiritual pride and the way it twists the Christian faith into a way to impress others.

So culture isn't everything, but it's not nothing.

Watch out for spiritual pride, third and finally, most importantly, worship is about Jesus.

Amen.

Worship is about Jesus.

Rightly ordered worship draws attention to Jesus, not to you.

That's one of the things I love about our worship team.

When Brandon or Jeremy or any of our vocalists up here, they they lead worship in such a way as not to draw attention to themselves.

I mean, I've heard their voices, they can sing much better than I can.

But they don't do it to draw attention to themselves, but they do it so that you would be able to sing along.

Not to draw attention to themselves, but to point us to Jesus.

Rightly ordered worship points us to Jesus, draws attention to Jesus.

This is Paul's primary concern throughout the rest of chapters 11, 12, 13, and 14.

He wants the worship of the church to be worship that is focused and ordered to Jesus.

This is his most deeply animating passion.

This is what he said to the church in Corinth and 1 Corinthians chapter 2 I came to you knowing nothing except Christ and him crucified.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

There's nothing more meaningful, nothing more powerful, nothing more central than the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus for broken sinners like you and me.

And that is where our worship as a church needs to be focused.

Life, joy, peace, fulfillment, wholeness are found, not impressing others with how spiritual we are, but life and joy and peace and fulfillment and wholeness is found in Christ alone.

Hallelujah.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Father, as we take consideration of Paul's words here, of your words.

Lord, help us to be wise people.

Wise in our conduct so that the way that we conduct ourselves, both in worship and in our families, in our places of employment, in our communities and neighborhood, I pray that you'd help us to be wise in such a way that our lives would speak of Jesus.

That we would live in such a way as to win as many as possible to the grace and the glory and the goodness and the beauty and the love of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Father, I pray that you would correct and break and shatter any spiritual pride that might abide in our hearts.

Ways and forms that we are tempted to impress others.

Maybe with how intellectual we are and how much theology or Bible we know or maybe how much we serve, or whatever it might be, Lord, I pray that you would make us a humble people who are impressed not with ourselves, but are impressed with the might and the wonder and the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Father, my prayer is that our worship would be worshiped with reverence and awe.

Knowing that you are a consuming fire.

That you would make us a people whose hearts are oriented and ordered to the worship and praise of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And Father, I pray for any who may have come here this morning.

Maybe far from you, estranged from you, have a broken relationship with you.

Maybe some who have believed that you don't love them.

Father, my prayer for them this morning is that they would hear the grace of our Lord Jesus, of his sacrificial death for them and their sins, of his mercy and forgiveness, of his call into fellowship and relationship with you, and I pray that they would receive the Lord Jesus Christ this morning, placing all of their trust in him.

In Christ alone, my hope is found.

We pray all this in the name of our Savior Jesus.

If you'd like to connect with us, visit visit us at missionhillschurch.org or on Instagram at Mission Hills Church SM.

Grace and peace to you.