Good morning. If this is your first time to Grace


[PDF]Good morning. If this is your first time to Grace...

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Good morning. If this is your first time to Grace, welcome. It is that time of year where we see a lot of new faces which is always fun. If you are new to Grace, let me take just a moment to tell you how we approach our teaching here. It’s actually fairly simple. We believe deeply that all parts of the Bible are God breathed and profitable, so we just walk through different books of the Bible and we don’t skip parts that might be confusing for uncomfortable. And the second half of the summer we have been in 1 Corinthians 12-14 which happens to be one of those polarizing texts that can sometimes be confusing. So this morning we come to the beginning of Paul’s final words on the topic of tongues and prophecy. In true Pauline fashion, he has given us the theological truth before he ever tells us what to do. A great example of this is his letter to the Romans where he writes for 11 chapters before ever giving them a single to-do. And we have the same thing here. Paul has already elaborated at length about what tongues and prophecy are and why the exist and now he is telling us what exactly an orderly worship service should look like. Now I know when we hear the word order, it can create some very different and sometimes very strong emotional responses. Some think of order simply as someone telling them to do something they don’t want to. For our more artistic personalities, you might think of order as the enemy of creativity. I know other artists though who see order as the essence of art. The creation of something out of nothing. I have friends who are extremely orderly and their car is clean, their desk is organized and I would guess their closet is in perfect order. I know one of our elders likes having the volume on his car on even numbers while driving:) I on the other hand, have a messy car, a messy desk and a messy closet and the idea of order really sounds great in theory. The problem is it stays theory. Then, at the far end of the spectrum, I know of a pastor in Iraq who is begging God for order as he watches those he loves slaughtered as the chaos of ISIS spreads throughout the region. So we are all going to approach this idea of order differently, but I hope that by the end of this sermon we can better understand and appreciate the type of order Paul is calling for and even more importantly, why he is calling for it. So I want to look at this passage from three angles this morning. I. The Corinthian Confusion II.Paul’s Peach III.Oxford’s Instruction. That is, what instruction can we gain from this in the 21st century in Oxford, MS I. The Corinthian Confusion Ok, this could be the shortest point you’ll ever hear from me since JD has masterfully laid out the situation in Corinth over the past year. I also want to say if you have any 1 Corinthians 14:26-32

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questions about what exactly tongues and prophecy are, you can go back over the past 4 or so sermons and hear a great explanation by JD. And because of this, I am not going to spend time defining tongues and prophecy this morning. But, in case you are just joining us, let me briefly say that worship services in Corinth were confusing at best and complete chaos at worst. We have seen people were getting drunk and gorging themselves at communion while others went hungry. They were all speaking in tongues at the same time which Paul has rebuked them for saying, “If an unbeliever enters your church, they will think you are all maniacs.” Not only this, but they were even preaching at the same time and interrupting each other. Can you imagine if every time JD preached people were standing up and arguing with him like the English Parliament? With no order the result is simply that the louder, more obnoxious person is heard. The New Testament scholar N.T. Wright defines order like this: How to prevent bossy and overbearing Christians exploiting an extemporaneous worship service in order to show off their gifts and strengths. They were apparently also arguing during the service over which songs to sing and Paul, like a judge who has lost the courtroom is yelling, “Order!! Order in the Church!” Paul clearly believes that order is what is needed for God to be worshipped properly in a corporate setting and for His Spirit to be unleashed on that congregation. So what type of order is Paul calling for? Is Paul calling for everyone to simply shut up and listen? I don’t think so. Is he calling for everyone to obey the teaching of the leader? No, Paul couldn’t have this in mind because he says this in verse 30: Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. The final decision on the validity of the the teaching is with you, the congregation. I also don’t think Paul is calling us to some sort of permanent church calendar or unified church liturgy. So what exactly is Paul calling for? II. Paul’s Peace Let’s look at verse 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. Paul is saying it is fine if each one of you brings something different to the table. it should be this way, this isn’t the problem. The problem is your pride! You are just wanting to be heard and not listen. You are just wanting to be seen as super spiritual. You are just wanting to be seen as important. And who can’t relate to that at some level? I know I can. But there are good and bad ways to address this. And the place I think we see it most clearly today in our context actually isn’t in church. It’s on social media. 1 Corinthians 14:26-32

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For the first time in the history of the world, we can all talk at the same time and it actually isn’t terribly chaotic. We can post our vacations, our verses, our children, our muscles, our selfies, how early we got up and any number of other accomplishments for all to see. “Little Johnny got a home run! #humbled.” We have new ways like never before to say look at me!!! Look at what I’m doing!! Look at how many virtual friends I have!! I’m important! I matter! But, if this is how we deal with our insecurities, it won’t fulfill us. Because human pride is a bottomless pit. It doesn’t matter how much you put in that pit, it will never fill up. It is never satisfied. And Paul is saying this type of pride is the enemy of the Spirit and is causing the chaos they are experiencing. Not just chaos in that home they are worshipping in, but chaos in their hearts as well. Because there can only be two outcomes when we want people to look at us. If you are getting the attention, you become prideful and others can begin to resent you. And if you are not getting the attention, you become insecure and begin to resent others. Now, I certainly am not saying that social media is bad. It is A moral. It’s not bad or good on its own. It becomes bad or good based on how we use it. And this is why Paul simply asks, “Is it building up you or others?” This is our main filter. My wife and I began to look at what we post on social media and ask ourselves are we building ourselves up or other in what we post? And I say this to my shame. When that became our filter, 99% of our posts didn’t make the cut anymore. Paul so eloquently and gently is telling us that this is not what God wants in our lives and certainly not what He wants in a worship service directed at Him. Look at what he says in verse 30: For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. There is something very interesting about this sentence. The opposite of confusion isn’t order, but peace. Peace in our hearts and that will then lend itself to order as we see in verse 40. But all things should be done decently and in order. Order isn’t the command it is the result. Order comes from peace. And our God is not a God of confusion, but of peace and order will follow. And this is one of those things that according to Romans 1 we can observe about God. God created a universe out of nothing. There is an exact order to the way our earth rotates creating day and night. There is an exact order to the way our earth goes around the sun creating the seasons. There is order to how far we are from the sun. Any closer and we would burn up and any farther and we would freeze. You can observe this order not only in the universe, but also in the tiniest parts of creation: In our molecules, cells and atoms. We know that every time we throw something up, it will come down. There is order in creation.

1 Corinthians 14:26-32

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Some of you might interject at this point though and say, “But Jim, tornados don’t seem orderly and peaceful. Earthquakes don’t seem orderly and peaceful. My sister’s death didn’t seem orderly and peaceful. My dad walking out on my family brought the exact opposite of order and peace. What do you do with that?” That is a really good question. And if you are thinking this, I want to say to you that it wasn’t always like this. God created a world where even nature and relationships were in perfect order and peace. But something terrible happened. Sin came into the world and chaos with it. God once flooded the earth, but even that didn’t restore order and peace. It would take something even more drastic because the problem is that grave. God had two choices: 1) He could reject creation completely or 2) He could redeem it. And in a way, He did both. He came to the earth to live the orderly, peaceful, sinless like we should in the form of Jesus Christ. And in the most chaotic moment in the history of the world, Jesus was marched out of town and up a hill and nailed to a cross. And just before Jesus died, God rejected Him so that justice could be served and we could be redeemed. Someone had to be rejected! Either Jesus or us. Because to just let sin go would make God no better than corrupt judge letting criminals go because he just doesn’t want to deal with it. And at that moment, chaos and strife was finally held at bay and order began to come back into creation. When the Spirit of God enters our hearts and we believe that Jesus is the only way we can be reconciled to God and we believe that He was rejected so we could be accepted, something dramatic happens! Order and peace are given to our hearts. The course of our desires are corrected. And the more the peace of the acceptance of God takes hold in our hearts, we care much more about others and much less about ourselves. The way we talk is different, the way we act is different, the way we pray and give is different. And even the way we post is different. St. Augustine famously said “The problem isn’t our desires, but our disordered desires.” And only the peace of the gospel will bring our desires back in line with God’s order. Now, here is where many people say, “I’m still not convinced I want to fall under anyone’s order...even God’s. A pastor I like once gave an example of a fish in the water always looking up at the people walking around and how that fish decided he wanted to leave the confines of the water for the world above. He felt limited by order. One day the fish jumped out of the water and onto the land. He had successfully left the confines of the water and order..... and he was dying. He gasped for a breath, but it wouldn’t come. Finally someone threw him back in the water and he was immediately fine. He now realized that he was designed for the water and he would thrive within the boundaries provided for him. To look at it another way, when I was in high school and got my driver’s license my Dad gave me our hunting truck. Well, as a 16 year old with a 4 wheel drive truck and I 1 Corinthians 14:26-32

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certainly didn’t want to be confined to the order of the public roads. So with no concern for the way the truck was designed or for the long term maintenance of the vehicle, almost every time it would rain hard, I would take that truck mudding. And because I was concerned with my fun and not the design of the truck, the truck was soon broken. In both examples order is for our good, but pride and selfishness create chaos. I have three little children and I get a clear picture of this when we try and have family time before bed. I am trying to organize 5 sinful people who are all tired and it can quickly descend into chaos. The kids want to play, I want to read or watch TV and Angels is due some needed sleep. So for order to be established, all 5 of us are going to have to sacrifice something. Many of our fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers had to sacrifice greatly in the 1940’s as the world descended into the chaos of a second world war. Only great sacrifice was going to restore order. Order requires sacrifice, it requires our denying ourselves and building others up. And never was this point more clearly illustrated than Jesus the Perfect giving up all His rights, comfort, honor and glory by leaving heaven and coming to earth to die as a criminal. His sacrifice gave us the peace that brings order to our souls. Over a thousand years before Jesus went to the cross the prophet Isaiah would prophesy this event saying: But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. That is the peace that Paul is proclaiming and the source of order in our hearts, our relationships and in our church. This is the peace that allows us to build others up and not ourselves. Lastly, let’s look at how this might affect us here in Oxford in the 21st century. III. Oxford’s Instruction I want to apply this to us in two ways. I want to apply this inside this room on Sunday mornings, but also outside of this service. So first, to our worship service. I certainly can’t stand up here and tell you that our way of doing things is best. I’m sure that’s not true. But we have really tried to apply Paul’s teaching about an orderly worship service based on the peace of the gospel. So at Grace we really do think about our order of worship. Now, we are not trying to create a somber ritual that will put you to sleep or create a terribly stiff service. But, clearly order and the moving of the Spirit go together and this is a good opportunity to explain how we approach worship.

1 Corinthians 14:26-32

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First, we plan what will be taught 6 months out. The sermon cards for all sermon texts from now through the end of the year should be sitting in the lobby next week. We are in the process of finalizing the Christmas sermons. And as I have already said, we just walk through the Bible. We don’t pick texts because we already know them or because they have an application we really want to make at that time, but strive to preach the whole counsel of God without avoiding tricky texts. All of it is God breathed and profitable! Second, we want a clear beginning to our service. So we call the congregation to worship with a verse usually from Psalms. You may notice this comes after our announcements because we don’t see announcements as worship. We then sing a song and then someone, usually me, will pray a prayer of praise and invocation. This simply means we will praise God for something He is doing specific to the teaching that morning. We then invoke His Spirit to move in our hearts and do a work that only He can do. We sing some more and then a member of our church will read the text being taught that day. We have had people urge us to read the text ourselves because it might in some cases be smoother, but we don’t want to be exclusive in worship. We value getting more people involved from the front. Immediately before the sermon, we have a pastoral prayer by the person preaching, usually JD, where we ask God to do some very specific things in the life of this church and beyond. And we have a clearly ending to our service after our last song in the form of a benediction. A benediction is necessarily a prayer you need to close your eyes for, but simply a good word spoke to the congregation. If you know a latin based language this will make sense as ‘bene’ means good and ‘diction’ comes from ‘dicere’ which means to speak. Good word. Our music people also think through, pray through and practice what they do. Andy spent a considerable amount of time this week talking with me and the musicians about every detail of the songs down to the specific order. 
 Now I think it is interesting to point out something here. Outside of not arguing over what we sing, do you notice how Paul doesn’t address singing in the text? He doesn’t because it is something we are suppose to do at the same time. The main point of singing isn’t to listen to David, Andy or Barker as good as they might be. The main point is for all of us to sing. Sing together and sing loudly. Ideally so loud that we don’t even hear the musicians. In doing so, we get a picture of what John saw in his revelation: After this I looked up, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their 1 Corinthians 14:26-32

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hands, crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” When we sing, this is what we are modeling. Or more accurately, this is what we are foreshadowing. Lastly, at Grace there is a time to respond to the singing, praying and preaching. So, after the sermon, there is a time of reflection where we can be silent and ask God if He has anything specific for us this morning. We won’t ever have an altar call here, but we do have tear off tabs you can fill out and a pastor will be in touch with you quickly. JD and I also stay after each service to talk to anyone who wants. Many have asked me, “Jim, my goodness, with all that order where is there room for the Holy Spirit?” This is a very common and very good question. And my response is that we don’t limit the Holy Spirit to these 60 or 70 minutes on Sunday morning. We pray and we trust that He is involved in every minute of planning that leads up to this time. We also trust that He continues to work in our hearts after this service is over. So this is how we try, under that influence of the Holy Spirit, to order our service in a way that promotes the building up of others, the teaching of the Bible, the proclamation of the gospel and the worship of our God in heaven. That is clearly the direct application for this text, but there is I think a very important indirect application and it is this: We are a part of bringing peace and order to this world. One day Jesus is coming back and will in one moment fully restore order to this world. Paul talks about this in the next chapter: Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. There will be a day when Jesus presents all of creation back to the Father perfect and complete just the way it was originally designed. And all those who have been redeemed by Jesus will have a place in redeemed creation. But we must realize that there are people who do not have the peace of the gospel because they don’t believe and who will not have peace after this life and will not have a place in redeemed creation. And this reality should shake us. It should make us want to pray for our friends, family, coworkers, teammates, classmates and anyone else who does not see Jesus as their Redeemer. And as opportunities present themselves, we should be willing and able to tell them about our Lord who came to restore order to our souls and to invite them to worship Him in Spirit and in peace every Sunday morning. We are a part of bringing peace and order to this world.

1 Corinthians 14:26-32

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I pray that the peace of the gospel, would mark this congregation well beyond Sunday mornings. I pray that we would so clearly build others up and not ourselves in our community that people would see and, Lord willing, hear the gospel we believe and come to know the Savior we worship. Let’s pray.

1 Corinthians 14:26-32