Sermon Tone Analysis

“*SIGN OF AUTHORITY*”

(A Series on I Corinthians)

 

Westgate Chapel 9~/12~/98 a.m.

I Corinthians 11:2-16

 

PROPOSITION:  God’s people are to be people under authority, honoring God as our Source, honoring God’s order, and honoring God’s people.

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I. introduction

!! -     FROM the fall in the Garden of Eden, the sin of mankind has been rebellion....I don’t care about God, I don’t care about others, I WILL do things my way.

!! -     I JOHN 3:4 says,

!!!       “*Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness*.”

!! -     IN 2 Thessalonians the anti-Christ is called the man of lawlessness...and Paul tells us that the spirit of lawlessness is already at work (2 Thessalonians 2:7).

!! -     THIS was the essence of Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden.

!!! ~*     God had ordained in creation that man would honor Him and be dependent on Him for moral understanding and purity.

!!! ~*     That was why He forbade eating of the fruit of the tree of the ‘knowledge of good and evil.”

He wanted humankind to depend on Him  for that.

!!! ~*     When Eve gave in to temptation and ate the fruit of the tree she was saying that she wanted to be independent of God.

She wanted to do things HER way.

!! -     IT is the sin of rebellion.

It is at the heart of all sin.

!!! ~*     We see it in the heart of the criminal, who rebels against the law of the land without regard for the life or property of others.

!!! ~*     We see it in the heart of the terrorist, who rebels against the government of the land without regard for the safety of others.

!!! ~*     We see it in the heart of the child, who rebels against the order of the parent or family without regard for the peace of the home.

!!! ~*     We see it in the heart of the employee, who rebels against the order of the workplace without regard for the goals of the company.

!!! ~*     We see it in the heart of the rebellious in the congregation, who resist the government of the local assembly without regard for God or His Church.

!! -     IN each of these places, the nation, the home, the workplace and the church, God has instituted and appointed representatives of His authority....so rebellion is actually rebellion against Him.

!! -     HUMANKIND chafes under and resists coming under God’s authority.

!! -     AND you see it in the disrespectful attitudes towards any authority in our day.

!! -     THE Bible says that this spirit of rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft.

And the reason is that, like witchcraft, rebellion is the sin that invites Satan to take up a base of operation.

!! -     SO, this spirit of rebellion has been around since the fall of humankind in the Garden of Eden.

!! -     SHORTLY after coming into the wonderful land of promise, and enjoying all the blessings of the Lord in Israel, the people became rebellious...and Judges 17:6 says of the people of God that,

!!!       “...*everyone did as he saw fit*.”

!! -     THE apostle Paul says that, as we approach the second coming of Christ, we will see this spirit of rebellion on the increase.

!!!       “*But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.*

(2) *People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,* (3) *without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good*, (4) *treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God*--(5) *having a form of godliness but denying its power*.”

(2 Timothy 3:1-5)

!! -     THE people of God are to be a people “under authority.”

!! -     IN this way we honor God.

We show God respect.

It is our proper worship and service.

!! -     THAT is the theme of I Corinthians 11:2-16 (page 1135)

!! -     I CORINTHIANS 11,12,13 and 14 are all about the worship environment in Corinth.

!! -     IT seems that in the church in Corinth, one of the problems was a spirit of rebellion....and it showed up in the worship setting.

!!! ~*     The people who spoke in tongues or prophesied wanted to do it when they wanted and as loud as they wanted...without regard for anything or anyone.

!!! ~*     Some were exalting their gifts and degrading the gifts of others.

!!! ~*     The people who took communion wanted to eat when they wanted and as much as they wanted....without regard for the others in the service.

!!! ~*     Some were actually getting drunk on the communion wine in the services.

!! -     AS a result the worship services were noisy, chaotic and confusing.

It was a mess....because no one was willing to be under authority.

!! -     SO in I Corinthians 11:2, Paul wades into the subject....and verse 10 contains the heart of the message where Paul asks the women to have a,

!!!       “...*sign of authority*.”

!! -     THE challenge of this passage is to live your life in such a way as to show that you are “under authority.”

!! -     AND, after much study, and a lengthy conversation with an eminent Bible scholar on this passage (Dr.

Philip Payne has written 275 pages just on these verses), I want to show you three areas where the follower of Christ must show himself~/herself to be under authority.

!! -     HERE is the problem that had developed in Corinthian worship services.

!! -     MOST of the believers in the church had come out of a society where over 85% of the populace had worshipped at the Temple of the Greek god, Dionysis.

!!! ~*     In the Dionysic cult, every night great cisterns of water were sealed up and to show the miracle power of Dionysis, when the Temple was opened in the morning the water had been turned into wine (Archeologists have since uncovered secret conduits that ran the wine into the vats after the temple doors were sealed each night).

!!! ~*     But the worship of Dionysis started with great feasts designed to gratify the appetites of the worshipper.

!!! ~*     In these feasts great volumes of wine were consumed, lowering the inhibitions of the worshippers.

!!! ~*     When the worshippers were sufficiently drunk, the women would let their hair down, launch into ecstatic prophetic utterances, and be available for temple orgies.

!!! ~*     Many of the men who would get drunk would put their hair up, like a woman, and engage in homosexual activity.

!! -     NOW some of these men and women had gotten saved, and they needed to know how to honor the Lord.....and not just live unto themselves.

! ii.

honor GOD AS Your source

!! -     SO, in this passage, Paul addresses the subject of being under authority and showing honor to others.

!! -     THE first way, in this passage, that you and I show ourselves to be under authority is by honoring where we have come from....what I have called honoring God as your Source.

!!!       “*I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings, just as I passed them on to you.* (3) *Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God*.”

(I Corinthians 11:2-3)

!! -     WHEN most of us read the word, head (and it is used 13 times in this passage), we think of hierarchy....someone being over someone.

!! -     BUT Bible scholars believe that most of the time that Paul uses the word head, as in Ephesians 5, a better synonym is Source.

!! -     IN Ephesians 5, when Paul tells us that husbands are the head of the wife AS Christ is the head of the church, he is talking about Christ who.....

!!! ~*     ...purchased the Church from slavery to sin at the cost of His own life.

!!! ~*     ...gave Himself as a ransom for the Church without regard for His own safety.

!!! ~*     ...protects and nurtures the Church to the point of laying His life down.

!! -     SO, in this passage, in verse 3, Paul is saying three things....

!!! 1.

The Source of every man is Christ.

!!!! •     Christ is the Author of life, the Giver of life, the Savior and Protector of humankind.

!!! 2.   The source of every woman is man, speaking of God’s act of creation in the man, Adam.

!!!! •     God is the Creator, and provided the means for its procreation and order.

!!! 3.   The Source of Christ is God, begotten of the Father before the beginning of time.

!!!! •     God is the Father of Christ and all creation.

!! -     AND in our worship, we humble ourselves and come under the authority of Christ, of His created order for life, and of the Father.

!! -     WE are not a law unto ourselves.

We did not create ourselves from nothing.

We are not self-made, nor are we self-perpetuating.

!!! ~*     We honor Christ in our worship....as the Source of every man.

!!! ~*     We honor God’s creation order in our worship....the Source of all that we see and hear and touch from Genesis 1:1 to today.

!!! ~*     We honor our heavenly Father...the Source of the Only Begotten Son, and the family of God.

!! -     HONOR where you have come from with your life, your attitudes and your worship.

!! -     COME under the authority of heaven.

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iii.

honor god’s order

!! -     NOW, we get to the part of the passage that has been used for generations to support teaching on length of hair, wearing hats, not wearing hats.

!! -     BUT the context of the next few verses is WORSHIP...and the sobering fact that the angels themselves attend the throne of God WHEN God’s people worship Him (verse 10).

!!! ~*     Also see Hebrews 12:22&23, where we are told that the angels join the assembly of the Church in joyful worship.

!! -     AND in the worship setting in Corinth the believers were being disrespectful to God by ignoring the order that He had established for marriage relations, for husbands and wives and for godly sexuality.

!!! ~*     Literature, coins, frescoes, paintings and statues and portraits of this time in Corinth tell us that respectable women wore their hair long and put it up....NO headware.

!!!! •     The verses we are about to read are not about women wearing hats.

!!! ~*     They tell us that loose women showed their disdain for marriage, their husbands, and common moral decency by letting their hair down....available for immoral sexual activity.

!!!! •     A woman caught in adultery had her hair shaved off to publicly show her shame.

!!! ~*     They tell us that respectable men wore their hair short, and that homosexual men wore their hair long and up like a woman....available for immoral homosexual activity.