Building Up The Church

The Ideal Church

I want you to start this morning by imagining the ideal church. Now if you’re imagining this church - I thank you for the sentiment, I do think we’re a pretty good church - but I think you can probably think something even more ideal.

But I wonder what it is you imagine when I say the words - ideal church?

Is it the music?

Is it the preaching?

Perhaps its the people and the relationships you have with those people?

Do you think of the building and it’s surrounds?

Maybe you think of the gospel focus? Or a church that is making a real difference in the community around them.

The reality of course is that when you use the word “ideal”, it straight away becomes unattainable, for the simple fact that every church is made up of people, absolutely every single person inside every single church… well let’s just say they are less than perfect, and so are ideal picture is always dashed.

There’s a problem however, most of us are all too aware that churches are far from ideal, and it is easy, sometimes even tempting, to give up on them.

It’s not necessarily that we are giving up on God, although that can be a sad outcomes that we see, but rather that we somehow seem to think we can do it on our own.

And so we emphasize our personal relationship with God. In ways this is good. After all, it is your personal relationship with Jesus that will save you. Your salvation isn’t somehow better because you’re part of a group. And so we head off on this journey by ourselves.

Today, that temptation can be even greater, because you now have ready access to a lot of resources.

Think about it? Whatever your favourite style of worship music is… well, you can jump onto Spotify and you can have a those favourite tunes as loud or as softly as you want.

And the preaching… well, this is easy to come by too. You can choose the style and the topics you want, and with a few clicks you can listen to as much or as little as you want.

So why bother with the ideal church when you can have the ideal set up at home?

Well, here’s the thing. While the local church might not be ideal, it has been given specific gifts by the only one who is ideal, and believe it or not, even in a bunch of flawed people, those gifts can make the most remarkable difference.

Now, I’m going to stand by that statement, that is, that even in a bunch of flawed people, the gifts of the Spirit can make a remarkable difference within the local church, however, even so, a misunderstanding about the purpose and proper use of those gifts can and does occur, and this can result in further mess.

The Corinthian Church mess

And for exhibit A today, I’m going to present you the church of Corinth.

Okay, so we’re talking about this church that the Apostle Paul helped to establish on his second missionary journey. It was a church that I described two weeks ago as being cosmopolitan, that is to say, being made up of a wide variety of people which would have been a function of the type of town Corinth was.

Now on the positive side, some amazing things were happening in this church. Prominently, it was very clear that the Spirit was moving among them.

Now the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the life of an individual can happen in lots of ways. It will usually involve a changed perspective - a perspective of the world that is more in line with God’s perspective. With that changed perspective, you’ll find new ways to love other people, and this is where the variety will start to become more evident. You might find that your ability to become hospitable is greatly enhanced. You might find your ability to be discerning goes beyond what is to be expected.

Now all of these gifts are supernatural in the sense that the Spirit is equipping you in special ways. Sometimes they might be building on existing abilities, but there is still a supernatural element to them.

Coming back to the Corinthian church, these changes were clearly evident, which is a good sign.

The problem, however, was that they valued some gifts above others. You see, I just argued that all gifts have a supernatural element to them, however, there are some gifts that are more clearly supernatural (from our perspective anyway).

You see, there is one specific gift that involves an individual to speak words that are unknown to them. Now, I briefly spoke about this last week. I even asked the question, what language are they speaking, even asking if it was an angelic tongue. As I mentioned last week, I wouldn’t discount such a possibility, however, I also wouldn’t suggest that this is always the case. I would however conclude that for many people, there is a genuine exuberant expression coming from a believer as a result of the Holy Spirit in their life.

For the Corinthians, they really valued this gift. And in some ways, I can understand their fascination with it. It’s a very tangible experience that can leave someone feeling very satisfied.

Problems started occurring, however, when this gift was placed in a position that it wasn’t intended to bring. And from here, we get into quite a mess.

You see, things got rather disordered.

Now it’s easy to sit here and be very critical of this church, but they were trying to do the right thing.

If the Spirit is causing these experiences, isn’t it right to share them with the church?

Well, after Paul gave us the basic building blocks for understanding Spiritual Gifts in chapters 12 and 13, he now endeavours to try to unravel the specific issues that were happening in this church at Corinth.

And while the circumstances around our own problems are different, after all, we’re not about to get accused about an overuse of speaking in tongues, however, we’ll find that the lessons we can learn from this chapter will help us to understand how we should be using our Spiritual gifts.

Edification

So let’s jump into the teaching in chapter 14.

The way it starts follows directly from the previous chapter, saying: “Follow the way of love...”

And this is a good reminder. That little interlude Paul did in chapter 13, it was not just a message on the side - rather it’s the message that needs to permeate everything we do.

But then Paul says something which might sounds slightly unexpected - actually, we’re going to see a few unexpected statements today.

He tells us to eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy.

The reason I think of it as slightly unexpected is that, first of all, we can eagerly desire gifts, but secondly, that he puts a specific gift in the spotlight that should be eagerly desired, namely, prophecy.

So this begs the question: what is prophecy? and why should it be eagerly desired?

What is prophecy?

Well, let’s start with the question, what is prophecy?

If we turn to the Old Testament, we see lots of examples of prophets. These are mostly men (although there are some notable women as well), who speak the words of God into a specific situation. It can include some future telling, but the reality is that the majority of what they said actually spoke into the present circumstances.

As you read through the writings of these prophets, you’ll often see that the words they speak are the very words of God. In fact, they now make up the authoritative word of God that we have in our Bible today.

There were of course false prophets in the Old Testament, but with careful testing they would be found out soon enough.

In the New Testament, there is some carry over from this tradition but with some notable differences. Now, to clarify, I’m primarily talking here about what we might call the age of the church, that is, the time after Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the believers.

So we still have prophets who speak the words of God into a situation, but whereas the prophets of the Old Testament were part of God’s progressive revelation to humanity, prophets in the age of the church fit within the revelation that God has already given. I believe we can have prophecy today, and it can be powerful, but one of the tests we can use today is whether it fits within what has already been revealed in Scripture to us.

Now, there is a question of how broad or narrow we define this concept of prophecy. Some argue that when Paul talks about prophecy, such as in our context here, he’s also included the idea of preaching - by this understanding, what I’m doing now could be considered prophecy. Is this the case? Well, to be honest, I think we could get caught up in semantics, and I think there are probably better things to spend our time on.

Why is it so important?

You see, I’d prefer to go to the next question, which is to consider - why does Paul think prophecy should be eagerly desired?

And this is actually going to get to the heart of the matter. It is going to help us the better way of framing our understanding of spiritual gifts.

You see, he gives us the answer in verse 3.

“The one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort”.

You see, Paul is here making a contrast with speaking in tongues. He had just said in the previous verse that tongues are not for other people, but rather are a mysterious thing of the Spirit. Now that shouldn’t be dismissed. In fact, Paul is very careful to not diminish this whole thing of speaking in tongues, even to the point that in the second last verse of the chapter he specifically says not forbid speaking in tongues. But while tongues has a place, it is not in building other up, and for this reason its not the gift to be sought after, rather gifts like prophecy should be.

So, should we all be eagerly desiring the gift of prophecy? Well, I think Paul is probably exaggerating his point to make it clear. We’re not all going to have the gift of prophecy, otherwise he would be negating one of his main points from back in chapter 12, rather he is saying that what we should be eager to do is to strengthen, encourage and comfort God’s church.

As great as speaking in tongues is going to be for your own journey, it’s not about building up the church - therefore, it’s not the one you should be seeking after.

So the first point I want you to take home from today is: seek after that which will build each other up.

Understanding

The next point that Paul makes essentially flows out of this idea to build each other up.

But first let me make an important observation about Christianity.

You’ll often hear critics of Christianity talk about this idea of a blind faith… that you have to put aside all of our known facts and believe some fairy-tale like story. But the reality is that Christianity is nothing of the sort. It is rational and logical.

To believe in the claims of Christianity, you don’t have to check your brain in at the door, rather you engage your brain and test each of the claims.

Now I make this observation, because when we over spiritualize things, things can become so detached from reality that they lose all meaning.

This is one of the dangers with speaking in tongues. We don’t know it’s meaning.

Paul is keen to say however that it is important that we keep our understanding of things. Again, one reason why prophecy is so important.

In verse 13, Paul does explain one way in which tongues can be used within a church service - and that is with an interpreter.

Now, I think that verse should be used with some caution. I actually don’t think it is Paul saying that this should be promoted, rather, he’s just saying that allowing people to understand the meaning is important, therefore, things within a church service should not be left as a mystery, rather, they should have an explanation. So it is more of a concession rather than a promotion of the idea.

A sign for unbelievers

Now, when we get to verse 22, you’ll be forgiven for thinking that this is somewhat confusing.

In verse 22, Paul tells us that tongues are a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers.

But then he’ll go on to explain that after hearing someone speaking in tongues, the unbeliever will be left bewildered, having no idea what is going on, and left with the conclusion that they must be out of their mind.

So what in the world is Paul going on about when he says in verse 22 that tongues are a sign for unebelievers.

Well, I think the confusion is somewhat reduced when we recognise that a sign is not always a positive thing.

Let me give an example. My sister-in-law did a PhD in some sort of biomedical science. After she had finished, I remember picking up her thesis to have a look, and you know what, I couldn’t even get past the title. I could sound out the words well enough, but for all I could tell, the document was written in tongues.

I’m going to suggest that that document was a sign to me. It was a sign that I have zero understanding of that field of science.

Paul is not saying in verse 22 that we should use tongues with unbelievers because they will have a sign that it’s all true, rather the opposite. If we use tongues with unbelievers, they’ll think we’re out of our mind.

So the first two main lessons I want to draw from this chapter...

The first one… Spiritual gifts should be used to build up the church

And now the second one… we should be helping people to come to an understanding of the truth, not add more confusion.

Order to worship

Well, I want to add one last point that Paul makes in this chapter.

This point can be summed up with verse 33: “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace - as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people”.

When we gather together, we gather a lot of different gifts together. People then can feel justified in what they do because they will argue that it is something that God wants them to do.

It would seem this was part of the mess in the Corinthian church. Someone would receive a word from God, and so they would feel compelled to speak it.

Another feels the Holy Spirit coming on, and so they spontaneously burst out with the ecstatic speech that comes with speaking in tongues.

They all feel justified, because, after all, this is the Spirit of God working in them.

But Paul is saying, hang on minute. Who do you think God is? Do you really think God is so disorderly that he will be the author of such chaos?

The answer of course is no. When the Spirit comes on you, you still have control.

Thinking otherwise is to misunderstand the gifts themselves. God may give you insight, but you need to use it wisely.

Women

Now, verses 34 and 35 bring up a topic which can be controversial. He makes what sounds like a rather categorical statement, that is, “women should remain silent in the churches”. Now, it’s not my intention to cover this topic thoroughly now, rather than to say that in the context of this passage, Paul’s point is that we need to avoid unnecessary interruptions which is going to cause disorder in the church service.

Various scholars have argued, in my mind persusively, that Paul is trying to correct a specific issue within the Corinthian church where women were causing disruptions in the service.

I’m happy to talk more about my understanding of this issue after the service if you want to ask me.

Application

For us, however, the application is not that we should silence women, rather that we should all be using our gifts to ensure that the church service can be as uplifting as possible.

While the church service might only be approximately one hour in a week, but it is a very important one hour that helps to feed us so that we go into the rest of the week ready to continue to praise and worship God in all that we do.

The church service is important because it get us ready for our service to God.

Because it is for only one hour of any week, we need to be careful to use it as wisely as we can. Use the gifts God has given you to help keep the church service as ordered as possible, because it is in this order that we will be strengthen, encouraged and comforted, as well as drawn to a greater understanding of what God is doing.

Conclusion

I started by asking what the ideal church is. Of course, we know there is no such thing as an ideal church, yet there is an ideal God and he gives us gifts to serve the church.

While a church will never reach perfection, yet we can do amazing things through Christ who has gifted us for a purpose.

As individuals, you each play a role in making the most of the gifts God has given us.

There is a temptation to use these gifts for our own edification, but we need to avoid this temptation.

We rather need to be using what God has given us, to strengthen, encourage and comfort the church. We also need to be using our gifts to help people to gain a greater understanding of God.

But all of this needs to be done in a orderly fashion. Because this reflects who God is.

The church is a beautiful thing, and when people use the gifts God has given them inn this way, we will start to see something truly amazing happen.

Let me pray...