Westtown Church
Westtown Church
All Things Decently and in Order
Pursuing love in worship and in life means pursuing self-denial out of selfless consideration for what is good for building up, respecting, and honoring others who are around us. We see this most supremely in the selflessness of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross, as He died for our sins and for our salvation.
Good morning Westtown Church. It's a beautiful Lord's Day. I invite you to open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 14. I know God's a miracle worker because we're going to get through this chapter in just two weeks. Last week and this week, if you were here for the love chapter, we were in that for months, but we're going to get through this in just two weeks. We were in that for months, but we're going to get through this in just two weeks.
Speaker 1:And it was a generation ago. There was a Christian apologist. His name was Francis Schaeffer. He wrote a famous book, how Should we Then Live, and he was going off the prophet Ezekiel, chapter 3310, where it says how should we then live? And so I bring that up because I think 1 Corinthians 14, we then live, and so I bring that up because I think 1 Corinthians 14, you could summarize this chapter by saying how should we then worship? And, of course, as we learn how to worship, there are principles that we can also apply to our broader life as well. We'll see that Last week we looked at the first 25 verses of this chapter.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to look at 26 to 40. And I think, if there's a key to understanding this section that we're going to look at, 26 to 40. And I think if there's a key to understanding this section that we're going to look at, it's the very last verse in this chapter, but all things should be done decently in an order. To a Presbyterian minister, that's sweeter than the Song of Solomon. It's a wonderful verse, isn't it? But all things should be done decently, in order. Paul's going to show us how doing things decently in order relates to love and also to edification. So if you want to put this together, you can look back at verse 1 of chapter 14. That's the overriding verse that colors this whole chapter, and Paul starts out by saying pursue love. So in chapter 13, he's laying out the nature of love.
Speaker 1:Begins chapter 14, pursue love in worship, because that's what chapter 14 is about. So the main idea, if you want to wrap your mind around it, as before I read this scripture is, is that pursuing love in worship and, for that matter, in life, means pursuing self-denial. Not too many Christian books flying off the shelves at Barnes, noble or other places with self-denial, but in Scripture we see this the self-denial that's out of a selfless consideration for what's good for building up, respecting and honoring others who are around us. That's what Paul's getting at in this chapter. So, with that brief introduction, I'd like to, if you're able, invite you to stand, and I'm going to read from verses 26 through 40. I do want to remind you this is the infallible, inerrant, holy word of the living God, and he sends it to you with love, and so let's receive it now with faith in our hearts. Verse 26.
Speaker 1: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. If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two, or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. Let two or three prophets speak and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent, for you can all prophesy, one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged. And the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets, for God is not a God of confusion but of peace.
Speaker 1:As in all the churches of the saints, 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. 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. Or was it from you that the word of God came, or are you the only ones that has reached? 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. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. So my brothers earnestly desire to prophesy and do not forbid speaking in tongues, but all things should be done decently and in order. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord endures forever. God's people said amen, you may be seated, father. We now come to your word, but we need your Holy Spirit to illumine our hearts and minds and transform our hearts. So help us understand that we might bear good fruit and give honor to the Lord, jesus Christ, and be an encouragement to our brothers and sisters, amen.
Speaker 1:Well, we're going to look at this section in three parts. We're going to look at from the standpoint of spiritual gifts and then secondly, god's marital design and thirdly, the more general idea of God's word. So let's look at this first idea here in this latter half of chapter 14 and realize that, pursuing love, all things must be done decently and in order when exercising our spiritual gifts. That's the first major point Pursuing love, all things must be done decently and in order when exercising our spiritual gifts. Notice verse 26. Here there's a principle Let all things be done for building up, that is, for edifying, for comforting and encouraging and strengthening who, your Christian brothers and sisters, where Paul's talking about in worship? Now, that applies to other places, of course, but he's addressing them in worship. Now, you applies to other places, of course, but he's addressing them in worship. Now.
Speaker 1:You got to take your mind back a couple of thousand years, to the ancient city of Corinth, where the gospel had come and God had converted sinners. And where were they meeting? It was not in a place like this. They didn't have formal churches for the first several hundred years of the church. They met in house churches, and of course you remember that as they well, paul's actually reminding us here as they came, what would they do?
Speaker 1:Each one had a particular psalm or hymn to be sung. Another had a lesson that is, an insight into the application of the Christian life, christian truth, to life. Then another would come and the Holy Spirit would inspire them to speak in tongues a miraculous gift of that time. And then another was ready to exercise their spiritual gift of interpretation of tongues, and so on, and so it was a time of great excitement. It was during the apostolic time, a time of the miraculous spiritual gifts of tongues and prophecy, and we need to remember too this flowed out of a time where it was of a great revival. That great revival at Pentecost, when God poured out his spirit and mighty power and you can just envision this pouring out. And then there was just waves, of waves of spiritual power that went all the way through the Roman empire as the gospel conquered and plowed through that pagan land and that empire and churches were planted all over that empire in the ancient world and eventually conquered it, conquered it by God's blessing. But in all their excitement of God's spirit at work and it was an exciting time they lost sight in all of that of God's purposes for blessing them with various spiritual gifts.
Speaker 1:And as we touched on Paul's extending the idea of what we discussed last week. They needed to realize that the spiritual gifts were given to them by God not primarily for the purpose of their personal enjoyment, although that certainly has its own blessing from God. Rather, the spiritual gifts are given to each one of us as God's people to build others up in our midst. And so Paul, in particular, now moves on in verses 27 and 28 and says let's talk about tongues. Building up decently in an order is applied to tongues. And he's basically saying this look, when you exercise the miraculous spiritual gift of tongues in your worship services, allow two tongue speakers two, three at the most, and even then each needs to speak one at a time, taking their turn, not speaking over one another. And so right here we see one of the first applications and bit of wisdom that God can grant us here in this text that to pursue love is to pursue intelligibility.
Speaker 1:We talked about this principle last week. What do I mean by intelligibility? There has to be an understanding of the mind for a person to be spiritually edified or to benefit spiritually from it. They go hand in hand. Understanding and edification spiritually go together. Some of you parents and teachers know, you, know you parents, a bunch of kids run up to you, your teachers, they all seven or eight kids run up to you and they all start talking at the same time in excitement. And what do you say? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, one at a time. I can't understand all of you coming at me at once.
Speaker 1:And basically that's what Paul is telling these Corinthian Christians. That's what you're doing in worship. You're all talking over each other, no one's taking a turn, it's chaos, and you may all be having a good spiritual experience yourself, but you're not building up your brother and that is not pursuing love. That's the point. And so understanding and building up spiritually. We saw it last week, we see it again here. But Paul, he says a little more. He says not only that, but if someone's ready to speak in tongues and there's no one to interpret, keep silent, don't speak it. God may have given you that ability to speak in tongues, but if others don't understand it in the assembly, just keep it to yourself. It doesn't build other people up. It'd be like them hearing a foreign tongue and not understanding. And so it may give you personal enjoyment, it may give you a wonderful experience spiritually, but it's not going to spiritually profit your brothers and sisters next to you, and so pursue love. Don't do your own thing in worship. That's wrong, it's not loving.
Speaker 1:And here we see a second application that there's another principle at work that in pursuing love, more of a good thing is not necessarily a good thing In pursuing love. In pursuing love, it's often the case that more of a good thing is not necessarily a good thing. Now I mentioned in the first service and I think the illustration works pretty good we got some cheesecake lovers in this room, I'm sure some key lime pie lovers I don't know where you're at on the spectrum, but you eat that first full piece, man. That was great. Well, now you move on just a few minutes later to your second piece and you finish that. How are you doing? And now you move on to your third piece. You hanging in there Now your fourth piece and your fifth piece, and you see what I mean.
Speaker 1:Too much of a good thing is not necessarily a good thing, and that's not just with cheesecake and key lime pie, it's also true in the context of worship and in matters of love and good order. And so you can see how tempting it would be us having an opportunity now to get to know the Corinthians a little bit, you remember what they struggled with the most. Pride seemed to be their great sin, and they thought that speaking in tongues was a mark of super spirituality. And you might see how that, when they came together, they might be tempted to think well, now, if the Holy Spirit has given 10 of us Christians the ability, right in this moment, to speak in tongues, and then all 10 must be heard today, and if you're not willing to sit and listen to all 10, you must not be spiritual, you can almost see how they might be tempted to that way of thinking.
Speaker 1:Paul says actually, no, no, that's not right at all. Actually, wisdom and good order dictate that limits be honored, and so as we grow in wisdom, we begin to realize that love and limits go hand in hand. Oftentimes, love and limits go hand in hand. Balance and proportion have to be honored. There's other things in the service praying or reading of scripture or sacraments or whatever. The case may be right, just like our services today.
Speaker 1:So Paul applies this first idea to tongues in 27 and 28, but then he says let's talk about prophecy. Now for a second, in verses 29 to 32. Building up decently in order is applied to prophecy. He says the same principle. He says look, god may be giving you a word of prophecy. Only two prophets speak, maybe three, and even then again, one by one, one at a time. Don't speak over one another. He's going to go on to root. Why not speaking over one another? Because God is not a God of chaos and confusion. And so here we see, why do we not speak over? Why do we teach our kids not to speak over one another? Sometimes we do, we get excited, we butt in or whatever. But why do we do those good manners? Because that's reflecting something of God. God is a God of order. There's a theological reason for good manners and we need to try to honor that.
Speaker 1:And you see, here in verse 31, that prophecy, just like preaching and teaching, it involves learning. It involves learning. But this learning, we see, comes with a responsibility. It's not only my responsibility to prepare, to preach. You have a responsibility in hearing preaching and teaching. Verse 29,.
Speaker 1:And let the others weigh what is said. You see, paul was saying people were getting up and prophesying in the church in Corinth and you have a responsibility to weigh what is said. It's literally let the others discriminate, that is, let them judge, let them discriminate right from wrong, what's biblical, what's not biblical. And here this leads to yet another application that the congregation has a responsibility to weigh and judge any message. And you see, what goes along with that responsibility is growing in your knowledge of the word of God so that you can judge it. All of us are responsible to help the church maintain being a pillar and buttress of truth and contending for the faith, once for all, given to the saints, as Jude puts it. And so where do we get this? In the Westminster Larger Catechism, question 160, it even says that we have this responsibility to examine what they hear by the scriptures. That's one of the responsibilities. They list others, but when we hear a sermon or we hear teaching, we're to examine the scriptures. Now, where does that come from? Now, from the catechism. The catechism gets it from the scriptures.
Speaker 1:Acts, chapter 17, verse 11. Luke says there that the Berean Christians were more noble than the Thessalonian Christians. Now, why was that? He says because the Berean Christians received the word, that is, they received the word preached by the apostle Paul and Barnabas with all eagerness, examining the scriptures to see if these things were so so, if they were commended for double checking the apostle Paul's preaching and teaching with the Old Testament because they didn't have the New Testament yet. You can see that my preaching and teaching should be tested by you. But you have to get to know the Word of God. And Paul wrote the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 5, do not despise prophecy, but what? Test everything. Hold fast to what is good. We're to test everything. Test it with what the Word of God.
Speaker 1:1 John 4,. The apostle says there are many false prophets out in the world. Then he goes on to say this by this, you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist. And so John's just talking there about there were those that were denying that Jesus became truly man, that he became truly man and that he, they said, some said it was an illusion, that kind of thing. So you had Gnosticism and Doceticism and other heresies and John's saying no, no, no. You need to be able to distinguish and discern when you hear things, and your beeper ought to be going off. When you hear certain things, weigh them against the word of God.
Speaker 1:That's why, throughout the centuries, the church has done creeds and confessions, has done creeds and confessions. Are they perfect? No, they're not perfect. I'm not perfect. There is no such thing as perfect when the church produces it. But a lot of imperfect things can be extremely helpful. And so the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creeds and the Reformation creeds and confessions, for example, they're trying to guard. In the early creeds, like the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, they were trying to guard the biblical teaching of the Trinity and putting guardrails. It doesn't say everything that can be said about it, but it's saying if you go outside this fence, you're out of bounds, you're outside the Christian faith. And the great Reformation creeds and confessions were trying to protect what Jesus accomplished on the cross and that the Bible is the ultimate authority.
Speaker 1:Now, why do we teach creeds and confessions? We do it because we're trying to focus on the fundamentals of the faith. We're not, in the creeds and confessions, trying to get off in the minutiae of some obscure passage. We're trying to do the fundamentals so that when you hear something, or our children and youth hear something that goes outside the lines of what we would call the fundamentals or the basics. Their beeper ought to go off. It ought to go off like that check engine light in your car. They ought to say that doesn't sound right and they go back and double check in the scriptures to see if it was so.
Speaker 1:Understanding is so important for us to be spiritually edified, for example, we have to come in and remember that our God, who created us, is our Father, who loves us and cares for us. He cares for us as his own beloved children. We need to remember that, for all of our weaknesses, for all of our sins and failures, he rejoices over us with singing because of Christ, and that nothing in all creation can separate us, who love God, from his love Nothing. Now, you see, if I was speaking in a foreign tongue, you would not have been edified. You would have just been looking at me.
Speaker 1:We have to have understanding for our faith to be strengthened and for our hearts to be encouraged, and so it's pretty clear from the early chapters of first Corinthians that the Christians in Corinth, they had lost sight of something in particular they lost sight of the cross of Christ. They lost sight of the cross of Christ, and they lost sight not only just of its meaning and application to the life of the church and they got swallowed up and influenced by the wisdom of the world, as Paul calls it, the pride-filled wisdom of the world which exalts the self, rather than the wisdom of God, which is revealed in the cross of Jesus Christ. You can go back and look at the first two chapters of 1 Corinthians and that's what you'll see there. What am I saying? They did not understand, they didn't have a true understanding of the cross of Jesus, that the cross of Jesus is there so that we can see that when we trust Christ, that he has truly paid the penalty and we are truly forgiven of all of our sins, past, present and future. And that's how we receive the gift of life is through Christ. He's the one that makes it possible. But we have to go on and realize that Christ on that cross is not only our savior but he's also showing us, he's our example. And what did he do on that cross? He's our pattern of dying to self for the good and benefit of others. That's what we see in that cross, and Paul's simply just trying to take the cross and apply it to their gathering as worshipers. He's saying you're all caught up in yourself. You're over there speaking in tongues, nobody can understand a word you're saying, five of you are speaking at once, nobody knows what's going on, but you're all having a good time while everyone else is just standing there. That's not love, that's not wisdom, that's being selfish, that's being self-centered even as you're being spiritual, and so Paul's trying to get that corrected. So true spirituality takes into account decency, doing things decently and in order. And again, why? Because it's rooted in God Verse 33, because God is not a God of confusion but of peace. So our worship is to be ordered that way. So to pursue love, we have to remember to do things decently, in order when we exercise our spiritual gifts. That's the first major point. The second major point is this that, pursuing love, all things must be done decently, in an order, in light of God's creational order or his design for marriage.
Speaker 1:The end of verse 33 through 35. This is sort of a oh and, by the way, while we're on the subject kind of a comment. Paul just throws this in there While we're on the subject. I heard this about you too, and I just want to make something clear. Now. What's he talking about in these verses? He's talking about.
Speaker 1:Some of the Christian women in Corinth were conducting themselves in worship in a way that was dishonoring their husbands, and Paul addresses it. In fact, he says here at the end of verse 35, that what they were doing, their conduct, was actually shameful or disgraceful, which is pretty strong language indeed. So that begs the question what was the particular problem at hand? Well, look at verse 34, where Paul says the women should keep silent in the churches. Now our modern ears hear that and some people are thinking remember something from the 80s, what you talking about, willis? Remember something from the 80s, what you talking about, willis? You know where are we going here. It shocks our modern ears.
Speaker 1:Now, before we go any further, what he's not saying is that women could not speak in the church. On its face, that is what it looks like, but he's saying it in a particular context. He's not talking about them that they couldn't speak or they had to be absolutely silent. That's not what he's saying. How do we know that's not what he's saying? Because back in chapter 11 of 1 Corinthians, the women had the gift of prophecy. Just like the men, the women were praying in the assemblies. Just like the men, you can imagine, they gathered in the house, churches. They're all sharing things. The women are standing up to pray, and just like the men are standing up to pray, and so on and so forth. Okay, so he's not talking about absolute silence, but we can begin to read between the lines and try to figure out what he is talking about.
Speaker 1:Whatever they were doing, here's what we do know. It's always best to start with what we do know. What we do know in verse 33 is they were not following the practice of all the churches of the saints. Now think about that. If the Lord walked in here and said Westtown Church, there isn't one other church that does what you're doing, if we had any humility about us, we might want to double check to see should we be doing that? It ought to at a minimum raise a question mark as to whether we should be doing that. Paul's saying all the churches. You're doing something that none of the other churches do and you should have. You should realize that.
Speaker 1:And this leads to another application. It's true that the Holy Scriptures is our only ultimate authority. It's not our only authority, but it is our only ultimate authority. But but we also have much to learn from God's universal church, the universal church throughout our denomination. The universal church throughout our nation, throughout the world. The church even throughout the history of the church. Why? Because just like individuals have blind spots, so do individual churches and we need checks and balances. We need checks and balances in the spiritual life. For example, if you're handling snakes in worship and you look around the world and there's only 0.000000017% of churches handling snakes in worship 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 7% of churches handling snakes in worship you could at least go back and question did I read that scripture right? Are we the only ones that saw this? It doesn't prove you're wrong, but humility would dictate you probably are. And so Paul's saying your women are conducting themselves in a manner that no one in all the churches is practicing, and this should cause you to pause.
Speaker 1:But he goes further. He says in verse 34, if you had considered the law and by the law here he means the scriptures, and in particular he's talking about the five books of Moses he says if you'd considered the scriptures, you would have seen that you're violating a fundamental principle in the five books of Moses. He says if you'd considered the scriptures, you would have seen that you're violating a fundamental principle in the relationships of wives to their husbands, and what you're doing is you're adding to the disorder of the worship. You see, this is why he oh and by the way, let me throw this in there, he's really talking about tongues and prophecies. But as he was talking about it, this other thing popped in his head that he'd heard about the Corinthian church. He says, well, while I'm on the subject, let me deal with this one too. And so that's why he has these two and a half verses thrown in here.
Speaker 1:And so again, what the women were doing, he says, is shameful. And there's a couple of clues as to what that might be. Look at verse 34. There's one clue. It's pretty clear. They were violating what theologians would call the submission principle, that is, they were not respecting and honoring their Christian husbands as the head of their home and marriage in some way within the Christian worship itself.
Speaker 1:Now, what am I talking about? Well, sometimes it's called the submission principle as it relates to the wife. The male headship principles relates to the husband. You hear it back in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 3. Listen, the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband and the head of Christ is God. So God set up this certain order of things. And, of course, when Paul refers to the law here, he says you should have known from the law that what you're doing is violating this principle.
Speaker 1:He's referring to Genesis, chapter two. Even though he doesn't say it, it's pretty clear that's what he's talking about. Why? What do I mean? Adam was created first. Then, when Eve was created, she was made as a helper that's the language a helper to Adam, and she was put under his spiritual headship in the marriage. That's a model for God's marital design.
Speaker 1:And so the submission principle was being violated in some way through the speaking of some of the women. It's not exactly clear what they were doing, but it's clear they were violating it. And then the second clue as to what he's getting at is in verse 35. Look what it says. If there's anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. Well, that's another one that hits the modern ears. What are we talking about here? But you have to remember, 2,000 years ago, in the ancient world, the women were usually not educated. Some were, there were some educated, but it was usually the men that had that opportunity. And so here we get some insight.
Speaker 1:In the apostolic era, the Christian worship included prophets that were sharing messages they received from the Lord right and, as we've already said, there was this judging process that would go on in these house churches. So somebody would say, hey, I have a prophecy from the Lord and they would mention it and the others weighed what they were saying and there was this process. Well, it appears that part of this judging process involved asking questions and seeking clarification from those who gave the prophecy, and it appears that some of the women were either asking their own husbands who had prophesied in a way that dishonored them, or they were asking other prophets likely other male prophets questions about their prophecies in the gathered assembly. Now, what do we do with that? In the gathered assembly? Now, what do we do with that?
Speaker 1:Well, in that ancient culture, it was shameful for a woman to speak to another man, not her husband, in public, and so, you see, it would have been perceived in that setting. A violation of the headship principle was not being honored if a woman was bringing shame upon herself and her husband by speaking, in a way, to another man in a public setting and a man who is not her husband. So what do we do with this application-wise? Well, we see that biblical principles, though they, never change, they have to be applied in different cultures in different ways, have to be applied in different cultures in different ways. There's an unchanging principle here, but it gets applied in different ways because different cultures have different sensitivities. The truth is never up for grabs, but the way the truth applies can change in different cultural settings. It's shameful for a Christian woman to be disrespectful of her husband in worship, and it's shameful for a Christian husband to be unloving to his wife in a worship setting.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, in the ancient world, the women were not typically educated, and so you see, in verse 34, if there's anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands, master husbands at home. But what do we do with that? Well, here's another application it's possible to go after a good thing in a wrong way. It was good they wanted to learn. It was wrong in that setting for them to go about it the way that they did, and so it's not enough to go after a good thing. We have to go after good things in the right and biblical way, with wisdom and love and honor and respect. And so we pursue love, all things being done decently in order when exercising our spiritual gifts in light of God's design for marriage, and thirdly and lastly, in pursuing love. All things must be done decently, in order, according to God's word. So Paul's now just broadening the principle out to God's word as a whole.
Speaker 1:We see this in verses 36 to 38. We see there was pride in these Corinthian Christians. That was their problem. They were proud. And the fact is there wasn't merely a submission issue just with the women. The entire church had a submission issue to God's word. They had a submission problem to God's word.
Speaker 1:All of us are called to submit. For example, I as a pastor, I lead the leaders but I also submit to them. I submit to the session, I submit to our regional presbytery. All of us submit. Everybody's submitting. The children submit to the parents. The wife is to submit, not as a doormat but in a biblical way, to her husband. Her husband is to spiritually love and lead her, and so on and so forth in submission to Christ. So there's a certain order. Everyone's called to submission and their pride was getting in the way.
Speaker 1:And Paul gets a bit sarcastic here with them. He says in verse 36, you can see they're doing their own thing and he says or was it from you that the word of God came, or are you the only ones that has reached? You see, he's being sarcastic and saying no one else is doing what you're doing and you're wrong. You're in clear violation of the word of God, unless God gave you some special revelation that none of the rest of us got, and so he's cutting them down to size a little bit in their pride. He's telling them stop enjoying your own self-centered spiritual experiences by speaking over the top of one another. Right, stop with this chaos and disorder. It's not helping anybody. And take a look around and look in the Word of God and look at what some of the other churches are doing, and I think you'll see you're wrong and out of hand. As a matter of fact, it's real simple Verse 37,. He says this is the command of the Lord. So he flexes his apostolic muscle there a little bit and gets really direct this is the command of the Lord. This is not an option for you. Stop it.
Speaker 1:And this leads to another application, because we still battle this same pride and lack of submission to God's word as it relates to worship. In our own day, they had their own unique problem with submitting to God's word as it relates to worship. In our own day they had their own unique problem with submitting to God's word in various ways. I touched on this last week but I think it applies here as well. Multitudes of American Christians think of their spirituality in a way where they're not conscientious that they're part of the larger body of Christ. They go beyond being personal in their relationship to God to be an individualistic Jesus and me kind of spirituality.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that does grieve me as a pastor, it does grieve my heart, is that many Christians frankly take the commandment of the Lord and they make their own commandment. They take the fourth commandment says remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy, and they turn it into remember the Sabbath day once a month, remember the Sabbath day maybe twice a month or three times or whatever the case may be. And you see, that's just pride and stubbornness in us. We're all called to submit to the commandment of the Lord. Remember the Sabbath day and we see clearly from Scripture he's talking about every week, because the Sabbath is every week and you see that not only in the Old Testament but you see it in the New. The Lord's day is once a week. I say that because it's easy for us to see the faults of the Corinthian Christians. But our own day, we have our own challenges and each person has to examine their own heart and mind on these things.
Speaker 1:Not all things worship our preferences. There are clear principles that you can get out of line and go out of bounds on, but you know there are many. Pride sometimes gets in the way with our preferences. You know Christians can get upset. Well, I don't like that, or I wish we did it this way, or I don't like this or that or the other thing. Well, us as parents, we know the deal right. Oh, I don't like peas, I know, but your brother does, and carrots are on the menu for tomorrow, your favorite. So enjoy your peas tonight. And you see, we see it in children. But adults can do the same thing.
Speaker 1:And so Paul's trying to get the Corinthians and, by extension, get all of us out of ourselves, to get over ourselves, to deny ourselves and get on with the things that are important, rather these petty, prideful things. And he says here, in verses 37 and 38, we see how serious he is he's not giving the Corinthians a suggestion, but a command. It's a command of the Lord. Anyone who's unwilling to come under the commandments of Christ will not be recognized by Christ at the judgment. That's his point, very strong.
Speaker 1:That doesn't mean every Christian battles sin. I don't think that's what he's talking about. I think the point is true faith not only trusts in Christ as Savior, but it submits also to his lordship. That's what Jesus meant when he said if you love me, keep my commandments. That's how we express our love to God. So true faith trust in Christ as Savior for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life, but it also has this posture to his lordship. Lord, not my will, but your will, be done as a way of life. And that's what the Corinthian Christians were not doing in worship. They were doing their own will, their own thing, and Paul was trying to correct that, and Paul's trying to correct it in us as well.
Speaker 1:So let me conclude this way Time to park the bus. None of us get it right, none of us get it all right. We all have our pride, we all have our stubbornness, we all dig in with our self-focused, selfish ways at times. And it's not just in worship, it's in life. We all know this. But there's some good news tucked away quietly in this section. And if you look at verse 33, look what it says. As in all the churches of the saints, you see he's including the Corinthian Christians here. We know that from his opening in the first chapter, the first couple of verses, he calls them you were called to be saints. The Corinthian Christians were saints just like the other Christians. A status of saint is nothing we earn. It's something that God, by his grace, calls us into when we're saved.
Speaker 1:At Westtown Church. I want to remind you again we're not always going to get it right here, but you are the saints of the living God, and what a high calling God has given us. You are the saints of the living God Because of what Jesus has done for you and for me. Yes, we'll battle sin, but we are saints, and what does God want us to do with that? What Paul is saying and what our Lord is saying in this passage is realize who you are. You have a high and holy calling. Don't live a self-centered life like the world. Look at that cross of Christ and see what he's done for you and then apply that to your life as well To deny yourself, to get over yourself to love God and others before yourself. Yesterday we just had a funeral here. Barb Meister was a great example of putting others first, wasn't she? She wasn't perfect, but she was a saint who lived it out. And that's what Paul's saying here.
Speaker 1:Let us live up to the holy name of being a holy saint of God, because that's what you are, dear Christian.
Speaker 1:That's what you are. How do we do it? We ask for God's help. So let's ask now, heavenly Father, christ's selflessy died for us. He died for our sins, he died for our salvation, and it was Jesus alone who's lived the perfect life of love. So this morning we come into your house and we ask that you would forgive our pride and self-centeredness, our lack of love. Help us be more intentional now to pursue love, to pursue it in the humble exercise of our spiritual gifts, to pursue love in the way we respect and love one another as husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, when we gather together in worship and at other times. Lord, help us to pursue love and doing all the things in accordance with your word, your commands, which is your perfect will. It is the way of love. It's a lamp unto our feet and a path of joy. Let all we do be done decently in order. Let all we do be done decently in order, For we know, father, you are not a God of chaos and confusion, but of peace and order. No-transcript.