1 Corinthians 14 | Pastor Drew

And so today uh we have been talking about 1 Corinthians for a few months.

Uh we took a break in June, came back around to it in July, and we'll be done with it by the end of this month, which leads us to 1 Corinthians chapter 4.

1 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

If I had a title, it would be Build Up or Building Up the Body.

Building Up the Body.

Paul in chapters 12 through 14 is addressing corporate worship in the house.

So what is what is appropriate for corporate worship?

What is appropriate for the public setting?

Last week we talked about love.

We spent some time in one of the most familiar chapters in the Bible where we talked about love.

Love is patient, love is kind, love isn't jealous, doesn't boast, it doesn't insist on its own way, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love rejoices in the truth.

Love bears, believes, hopes, and endures.

And we've said that the church is God's school of love.

The church is God's school of love.

And some of you all wrote names.

I want to continue to invite you to write names out there in the area of someone who has demonstrated one of those characteristics of love in the church in this body that you have seen demonstrated.

It's important for us to be able to see how people see us.

Oftentimes we think about people helping us find our spiritual gifts, and we'll do a survey, which are good.

Questionnaires are good, surveys are good.

But part of the way in which the early church discerned spiritual gifts is they did it in community.

So when you hang out with people long enough, people get to know you.

You know, we can go take a survey on by ourselves, and we can think that we got all these things right, but then people in community don't affirm it or say, hold up, you took this survey by yourself about the spiritual gifts test, and that hasn't been affirmed in community, right?

And so then you might think that you're strong in this way, and then in the community doesn't experience you that way, and it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, where did you get that?

And so they didn't, they wouldn't have done an assessment.

Now, I think assessments are good, questionnaires are good, they're thoughtful and they can help us.

And the body is who affirms the gifting.

Amen?

The body affirms the gifting.

So Paul had to address some things, and so we are the school of love.

This is what Paul's saying, and we're learning how to love one another.

But Paul's not finished there.

Chapter 13 isn't something that Paul is like randomly stuck in between two chapters in this letter.

Chapter 12 is about spiritual gifts, 13 is about love.

But chapter 14 shows us what happens when spiritual gifts are practiced through love.

Paul begins with this word.

I would encourage you to read the whole chapter.

It's a long chapter.

Read it by yourself.

I'm going to speak to the points of the sermon today, and I'll read those passages along the way as I preach.

But he says, pursue love and strive for spiritual gifts.

That's the connection here.

Pursue love, but desire the gifts of the spirit.

And those who use gifts to build up somebody beside yourself.

Again, spiritual gifts are used to build up somebody besides you.

It's bigger than you.

No big me, little you, it's bigger than you.

That's what this whole chapter is about.

The church in Corinth had a problem.

They were a spirit-filled church, but they were also a divided church.

And when their worship gatherings had become places where division showed up, Paul is addressing these issues where their worship gathering has some division.

Some people apparently place great value on speaking in tongues.

And Paul does not tell them that tongues are bad.

As a matter of fact, he says, I speak in tongues more than all of you.

He does not say that it is bad.

So he's not anti-tongues.

And he's not anti-spirit.

He isn't trying to calm everybody down and turn worship into something lifeless.

But his question is much more thoughtful and practical for the whole church.

Does what you are doing build up the body of Christ?

Ask yourself the question now.

Am I building up the body of Christ?

It connects directly to what Paul has already been teaching throughout the letter.

Back in chapter 3, he says, he talks about building the church.

Chapter 8, he goes on to say how knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

Chapter 12, we learn that we are one body with many members.

13, we love that without we learn that without love, even the greatest spiritual gifts, they mean absolutely nothing.

And now he says, in 14, use what God has given you to build up the body.

Plural, y'all, not me.

We have things going on with our church services, time.

Who's serving where?

How long will we worship?

Right?

These are things to think about and discern amongst the body because it's bigger than any one person.

So today I had to be thoughtful of time because we got people watching some of y'all kids in the nursery.

And we love your kids and your babies, and we love the workers who are serving their time to allow you to be in here to sit freely this morning without children and with you and praise the Lord for them.

And yet I gotta be thoughtful of their time and not go on till 12:30.

Just telling you.

So here, this is important.

Everybody has something.

Verse 26 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.

This is important.

Everything to do, when we come together, everybody can have something.

Now, we have to understand that Paul was talking to a house church.

So it's probably 30, 40, maybe 50 people, right?

So if we got a hundred people or a thousand people, it's impossible for everybody to get a word or a revelation or a tongue or whatever the case may be.

And so then we have to think about what is best for the body and how we love each other well.

Because sometimes, sometimes, and it's important that everybody understands that everybody has something to offer.

We often think of church this way.

No, go to the next one, the other one, not that one.

There should be two pictures.

This is how we often think of church.

God somehow, it's the weekend, God's somehow far away, vacationing.

There's a stage, there's just a few gifted people who lead and perform, and then the audience is just kind of passive.

Spectators, consumers, just come and watch.

You know, come get my coffee, sit down in my chair, or maybe the chai.

Thank you, Sarah, for using your gift and other people, Debbie and other people.

Yeah, amen.

Thank you, Jesus.

We come get our chai or tea, and we just come to be passive spectators.

I want a word for me today.

It's consumerism.

This is not faithful Christian practice.

We're consuming.

We're consuming social media.

We're consuming on Amazon.

Our love is primarily altered.

Unless we come to know the love of Jesus Christ, our love is actually selfish.

And our desires are disordered.

Again, the problem with our love is that when it's not rightly ordered, we love the right things in the wrong order.

Or we love the wrong things in the what?

The wrong order.

This is the challenge.

So then we begin to be consumers instead of Christ's followers.

We got our C's mixed up.

Right?

Here's actually what Paul's trying to say.

This is what actually God.

God is actually with us, present with us, always present at work through the Spirit.

We all, everyone, right?

Everyone has something to contribute, using our gifts to build each other up in love and order.

Together, active participants, encouraging, listening, building up the body of Christ.

This is much more of what Paul has in mind for the church.

Changes the way we see things.

It's not the lights, camera, action, and you just got a few gifted people who come up here and do their thing and go home.

No, this is the work of the church.

All of us.

You can get rid of that now.

And I think that's important.

Each one has something.

Paul pictures a church here, not just a few gifted people doing ministry while everybody else watches.

Again, I just talked about that, but everybody has something.

There's different functions.

There's different giftings, there's different needs, there's different perspectives.

But everyone has something.

There is no audience in the body of Christ.

There is no audience.

If there's any audience, it's God.

It's never people.

The next one is your gift isn't just for you.

This is where Paul is really addressing tongues and prophecy.

Paul says that the person speaking in a tongue speaks to God, but the person who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and comfort and consolation.

Paul, again, is not attacking tongues.

He's saying, what benefits to gather community?

What you do at home by yourself is different sometimes than what you do here.

Because it ain't about you or me here.

It's about God and how God wants to meet his people together.

Part of our challenges in the West is this Western individualism where it's me, myself, and I.

And we have a hard time even reading scripture without seeing ourselves when God mostly or people are mostly writing to a community to discern the Bible together.

It's not just for you.

It's important for us to remember this.

Your gifting isn't just for you.

He's asking here what benefits the gathered community?

Build up a church.

Love does not insist on its own way from last week.

Chapter 14 says, then don't insist on practicing your gifts in a way that only benefits you.

Think about somebody else.

Since you are eager for spiritual gifts, he says, strive to excel in them for building up the church.

So the question that we ought to ask ourselves is who is this a gift for?

Who's a gift for in the body that God has given you?

Somebody else is the answer.

God may give something to you, but He often intends to give something through you to someone else.

And that's why spiritual gifts should never become status symbols.

Corinthians had a habit.

Again, remember we talked about a couple of weeks ago when I talked about chapter 11 and 12, I talked about communion and how the people who would have been the wealthy in that context, and then you had the poor or the slaves, and they weren't slaves like we think of in America.

That's not what they're talking about.

They're talking about people who had a debt that they had somebody else pay off, and then they committed their life to working for that person until that debt was paid.

That's the difference between New Testament, Corinth, versus what we think when we read the Bible.

We can't read our story into the Bible.

We have to understand what the Bible is saying to us and do some good research on background and understanding culture on what was happening then.

So guess what?

I talked about communion and how the rich, the poor, or the enslaved people or the workers were working, so then the rich would just show up because they they ran the businesses.

They just showed up.

They had freedom in their time.

It's a gift.

They had freedom in their time, they just showed up, ate up all the food, drank up all the communion, and did what they wanted to do.

Guess what?

The folks is working.

And so when they show up who've been working, guess what happens?

All the food's gone, and all the juice is drank, all the wine is drinking.

So folks are drunk.

And that's not love.

Same thing is happening here in Corinth chapter 14 with spiritual gifts.

Spiritual gifts were often demonstrated by people who had power.

They had education, philosophy.

So people often were demonstrating these spiritual gifts who had power.

It was about status and symbol.

Remember, corn culture is always about powering up, stepping on a little person.

And that's how you show yourself by stepping on somebody.

Even in the church, Paul's like, we got to address some of this here.

There's some power dynamics at work.

We got to build up the church.

And as a matter of fact, we need to honor those who are actually considered to be the least.

As a matter of fact, those are the people that we ought to honor.

That's why I put that chair there.

That chair is the church is giving us some more stuff.

I go pick it up.

I need about five guys today, about two o'clock, maybe six guys at two o'clock, meet me here at the church.

I need you to go get some other stuff from a church that got bought.

They're turning into a business, and they called me yesterday and said, We got some stuff that you could have if you wanted.

But that chair typically would go up here in the seat of honor for the church.

And sit down here.

You know, pastors at funerals sometimes and places, it's the seat of honor.

You know, up here eating fat, high on the hog, and doing the things that we want to do, right?

And the kingdom of God is actually right side up.

It's not self-serving.

As a matter of fact, Jesus says that the first will be last, and the last will be first.

Paul has all of this in mind as he's writing this letter to the Corinthian church.

Honor is not about for the person who has the power.

Honor is actually for the person who is within without power to bring them up and to say you matter.

And we see that's a different amen.

Thank you, Jesus.

Paul goes on to say, who's wiser, who's stronger?

Who's more spiritual?

Who's more important?

Who's got the better gift?

Paul's laying this stuff on our heads, and unfortunately, our church culture reinforces Corinthian culture today.

The cross tears it all down.

God becomes flesh, dwells among us, and while we're still sinners, doesn't wait for us to get right, but moves towards us while we're still doing things apart from him that are not pleasing to him on our behalf, moving on our behalf for us to redeem us and to save us if we would believe the good news of Jesus Christ that God has come in the person of Jesus, a poor man through Bethlehem and raised up and reared in Nazareth, living for 33 and something yard years, dies on a cross publicly to turn the world upside down.

That's the good news of Jesus.

It's the right side kingdom.

So if you're looking for your rights, you might not want to follow Jesus.

If you're looking to have your way, Jesus is not the one you want to follow.

Another part here in verse 15.

I will sing praise with the spirit, but I will sing with the mind also.

Sometimes Christians create a false choice.

Either you're spiritual or you're thoughtful.

You know the dualisms that we live in.

I've done this before.

You know, I'm you know, educated and I've lost the spirit.

As if the spirit doesn't work through education and as if education, as if the Holy Spirit's dumb.

As if the Holy Spirit is dumb.

So we do this dualism, which is another part of Western Christianity, where we create these chasms and we separate these things as, well, you're either this or you're that, and the reality is God is both ends.

Either you're led by the Spirit or you're organized.

And if you're organized, then that's not the Spirit.

That's foolishness.

Order in the church is not about being tight and constrained, it's about honoring the body of Christ.

That's called love.

Or you have passion or you have understanding.

No, you can have both.

You can have both.

You can have knowledge and you can have spirit.

I hope that we all have knowledge and spirit.

Paul says, I want both.

Spirit and mind.

Freedom and discernment.

Passion and understanding.

The Holy Spirit doesn't require us to turn our minds off.

You know, I think it's funny.

I, you know, folks, I grew up in church, folks will fall out all over the place speaking in tongues.

And I, you know.

I'm not opposed to speaking in tongues, by any means.

And interpreting tongues, and I believe God can do these things.

And so, you know, and folks will be like, well, you know, you just can't control it.

Huh?

You can't cooperate with the Spirit.

What do you mean you can't control it?

Why won't the Holy Spirit just fall on you Friday night when you shacked up with somebody?

Since you can't control why why does the Holy Spirit just fall on you on Sundays and not at work Wednesday morning when you can't stand your co-worker and you're about to cut some mouth?

Why wouldn't the Holy Spirit just fall on your mouth and just take control in?

We gotta have some reason, church.

We gotta be people with some reasonableness here.

Holy Spirit doesn't just take you over.

No, maybe you want the Holy Spirit to take you over.

God actually wants you to have agency to cooperate.

God invites us into obedience.

Maybe it would be too easy for the Holy Spirit just to fall on us and just take over.

No, no, no.

Part of love is that we begin to exercise God-given agency in a redemptive way to live out what God has called us to be and do.

That we actually get to choose to do this.

Don't tell me the Holy Spirit just fell on you and you ain't got no control.

No.

But we need discernment.

We need discernment.

Spirit and understanding.

They belong together.

Not only that, this church where people are just speaking in tongues, if people don't understand what's being said, who's that about?

It's not about the person who's new, who actually should have the seat of honor.

If we're going to show biblical hospitality, new people who are coming into our congregation who may not know Jesus, may have been hurt by the church or other things, or may just be looking for some hope, might come here.

And if we're too busy, caught up in our own little world, we can't see them.

They're the ones who actually should be sitting right here.

They're the ones that we're supposed to be honoring and thinking about as we glorify and worship God.

Now, if you need some of that other stuff, create a separate event for that or a separate time for that.

Gather some other people and do that.

That's what you need.

Whatever you need, do it.

But this just ain't the space.

My brother Chip has taught me a lot.

There's just some things you don't do in the public space on Sundays, and I've been guilty of that.

I've apologized multiple times.

And I'll keep apologizing when I fall short.

And I ask that you'll be gracious, but some of y'all might need to apologize sometimes too.

Don't just look at me.

When somebody apologizes, it takes the weight off of the other people.

Who also knows they need the apologize.

I ain't nobody sacrificial lamb, I'm just living free.

I don't accept that.

So if you don't want to apologize, it's on you.

I'm gonna apologize when I need to.

If somebody tells me something wrong, tell me, I apologize in a heartbeat.

New York Minute.

So we gotta think about other people.

God is really among you, the person coming from the outside.

That's what the scriptures say in 14.

When they come to experience us, even if they don't know much, if they can hear something in their language or hear something in a way that speaks to them.

This also goes to sign language, different mental disabilities and capabilities.

It also speaks to these other things, too, that if people can't understand or be able to pick up on something, how can they?

They're the ones who are supposed to say, God is really among you all.

Those of us who are here consistently, I hope that's what we're experiencing, and that's why we keep showing up together.

But for the person on the outside, they're the ones who are actually giving us the test.

And we'll know if we passed, if they say, I witnessed God today.

God showed up in somebody's welcome, somebody's hug, Greg and Tracy's coffee, somebody's chai, somebody's words, some songs during prayer, a word that was prayed.

My hope and prayer is that the person who comes here to visit says, I experienced something here today.

They're the ones who give us the witness.

Another part here, everybody speaking also means everybody listening.

One of the parts of the chapter I think we sometimes miss, he doesn't say make room for people to speak, he tells people when to stop speaking.

If somebody else receives something, Paul says, Let the first person be silent.

That means if while I'm preaching, if somebody gets something, I've done this before.

And I also had to uh also had to have some discernment and to shut something down that wasn't healthy or whole for the church.

But I I'll listen.

We usually associate being used by God with speaking, but sometimes being led by the Spirit means shutting up.

I do a lot of talking.

I continue to learn that I gotta shut up to listen.

Love doesn't just make give me permission to use my voice, it teaches me how to make room for others.

Again, patient, kind, doesn't insist on its own way, it isn't arrogant.

We love we also listen together and we test together, right?

And Paul talks about the prophets when they speak.

Others should weigh what it said.

When somebody, how many times have y'all seen a church, been in church, and everybody had a prophetic word?

And it was not tested in the community.

So guess what?

If you got a prophetic word, I invite you to speak it, but just know it's gonna be tested.

And if the church doesn't affirm it together, guess what?

What's loosed in heaven is loosed on earth, what's bound in heaven is bound.

If the church doesn't say amen together, guess what?

Now I wouldn't know what to do with that because then because if somebody got an individual word, I got a word for you.

Well, you might think you got a word for me, or you might not.

Discern it.

Make sure there's space for it.

This is what was going on in these house churches, y'all.

This is what Paul's addressing how to have order to love people well in the body.

So if you got a prophetic word, we we want to see and we want to test it because it's subject to the prophets, which are people who are filled with the Holy Spirit as well, and have a mind and have wisdom.

They're not separate things.

And yes, this also includes women.

In the lobby, there's a black table.

It's called Gifted and Called.

It explicitly is about women who are called to ministry.

We believe that women are called to every area of leadership in the church.

There is not a place where a woman cannot occupy, cannot lead, cannot serve, and everything else that some of you might have a problem with.

There's, and some of men, we might need to read that too.

There's a book out there, short brooklet, kind of talks about this.

And when women are wanting to explore gifts and calling, there's a place for that.

But I want to say, out there, Paul is including women.

Verse 34 and 35 says, Women should be silent in the churches.

I wonder what Herod thought when he heard of Mary's magnificence.

I wonder what King Herod would have thought when he heard of Mary's magnificence, where the high and the powerful will be brought down low.

That's what woman is talking, baby.

It's never been good in the history of the world for women to remain silent.

Never, ever, ever has it been good for us.

It's not been good for any human being to be remaining silent unless you need some discernment about what to say in the right time.

But you pull in verses out.

It can sound like Paul is saying women should never speak when the church gathers, but we already know that that can't be the picture.

Because earlier in chapter 11, Paul gives instructions for women who are praying and prophesying in the gathered setting.

So this is not even up for debate.

But here, chapter 14 says, you can all prophesy one by one so that you all may learn and be encouraged.

And we know what Paul, what Peter announced at Pentecost from the prophet Joel, that your sons and daughters shall prophesy.

Joel 2.28.

So whatever is happening in verses 34 and 35, we have to interpret it within a larger context or understanding of what was going on at that time.

Paul is addressing order in the Corinthian gathering, not real community covenant churches gathering in in 2026.

There are different people who've said different things about the disruption that he's addressing, and even some textual questions that surround these verses.

But the issue is this the Spirit gives gifts through the body.

Men, women, young, old, black, white, brown, rich, poor, middle class.

God gives gifts through the body of Christ.

And the people that society considers important and people society overlooks both together.

So the question that we have to ask ourselves is: is the Spirit using this person to build up the body?

Last part.

Order does not mean control.

Toward the end of the chapter 14.

God is not a God of disorder but of peace, is what he says.

And then he says, and finally, let all things be done decently and in order.

Sometimes we interpret order to mean everything is scripted, nobody moves, nobody interrupts, nobody does anything expect unexpected.

That's not what Paul's saying here, y'all.

Paul leaves room for spontaneity.

Sometimes we use order because we really got control issues.

Keep it real.

Some of us use structure and order because we got control issues.

And as long as we feel like we got structure and order, then we feel like we're in control.

Well, guess what?

Jesus is never bowing down to your idea of order and control in a church body, a family, or anything else in the world.

There's a lot of things, slavery was considered order at one point in time.

That was part of American structure.

There's all kinds of things out here that's considered structure and order that God ain't got nothing to do with.

People respond, right?

Paul's not choosing again between spirit and order.

He's describing spirit-led order through chapter 14.

If one person dominates, the rest of the body doesn't participate.

So Paul says, make room, take turns, listen, discern, build each other up, y'all.

Order is not about controlling the spirit.

Order makes room for the whole body to participate.