Sermon Tone Analysis

Announcements

Bible Study & Prayer at 7pm on Wednesday.

We’ll be working through Psalm 27.

It is a good time of Bible Study and group prayer together, we’d love to have you join us if you’re available on Wednesday at 7pm.

This Saturday at 10:30am, we’ll have a community outreach ministry to Chester Hill.

This is the third time that we’ve tried to go door-to-door in that community, hopefully, this time, the weather will hold out and we’ll be able to.

We could use some help, please talk with Natalie if you can do so.

On June 26th right after the Sunday AM worship service, we’ll have a cookout in the field across the street—the service will be in the building, but the meal will be outside.

We’ll have canopies for everyone to sit under, but let me encourage you to bring lawn chairs with you or blankets to sit on.

Our chairs cannot go in the field because the legs will sink into the ground (and it won’t be very comfortable or safe for anyone).

On July 3rd, right after Sunday AM worship, we’ll have a quarterly business meeting.

If you plan to help with children’s ministry, I do have the paperwork you need to fill out for your background checks.

We can also help you schedule your fingerprinting.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve done this before or if you’ve done this dozens of times, it is a legal requirement in the state of Pennsylvania, so you need to get this done before you can help with children’s ministry or Vacation Bible School next year.

Please see me after church to get the paperwork.

Let me remind you to continue worshiping the LORD through your giving.

To help you with your giving, we have three ways for you to do so: (1) in-person giving can be done at the offering box at the front of the room—if you give cash and you’d like a receipt for your gift, please place it in an envelope with your name on it; if you give a check, please write it to Grace & Peace.

If you’d prefer to give with a debit or credit card or through ACH transfers, you can do that either by (2) texting 84321 with your $[amount] and following the text prompts or (3) by visiting us online at www.gapb.church

and selecting giving in the menu bar.

Everything that you give goes to the building up of our local church and the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Prayer of Repentance and Adoration

Call to Worship (Ps 52)

Our Call to Worship is Psalm 52, which links to David’s flight from Saul.

David had convinced Ahimelech, the priest into providing sustenance to him and his men.

This causes Saul to denounce the priest and massacre the community.

Doeg was the informer who told Saul about David and Ahimelech.

The psalm takes David, who trusted in the Lord and contrasts his faith with the lack of fait in a treacherous man who followed sin.

Please stand and read with me Psalm 52—I’ll read the odd-numbered verses; please join me in reading the even-numbered verses.

Congregational Singing

To God be the Glory (19)

Creation Sings (29)

We Will Glorify (97)

Scripture Reading (1 Cor 1:18-31)

Our Scripture Reading this morning is 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, which is the first chapter of the book that I’m preaching out of this morning.

In this section of the book, Paul makes the point that the preaching of Jesus crucified seems like foolishness to those who don’t believe, but for those who do, it is the very power of God.

He continues in the text to speak about how some people seek out miracles (or the results of sign gifts) and some people seek out human philosophy, but the reality is that the power and wisdom of God is found in Jesus Christ.

You’ll notice the idea of miracles being presented as something that is sought for but misses the point in 1 Corinthians 1.

Our text in 1 Corinthians 14 will build on that idea.

Natalie, can you read 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 for us?

Sermon

Introduction

If you have your Bible this morning, please turn it to 1 Corinthians 14:1-12.

You’ll notice that the title for this morning’s sermon is The Sign Gifts, which is vague enough to cause you to wonder what exactly we’re talking about today.

So, let me explain what the sign gifts are before we dig into Scripture.

The sign gifts are a collection of spiritual gifts that were utilized in the first century and in the Old Testament for very specific reasons.

This would include speaking in tongues, interpreting tongues, spontaneous healings, and miracles.

All of which, you’ll notice, are gifts that we don’t try to use in our local church (and there’s a reason for this).

Note that I’m making the assertion that these were gifts utilized for very specific reasons in the first century and before, which goes against what certain churches that we would call charismatic or pentecostal believe.

Pentecostal and charismatic churches believe that these sign gifts are still used today, which is why you see some churches still trying to speak in tongues; and they believe in these gifts so strongly, that despite Scripture’s teaching that not everyone will use these gifts, they make it a point to teach that if you truly believe, you will speak in tongues.

At our church, we take what’s called the cessationist position, which is just a fancy word meaning that we believe these sign gifts have ceased to be used in the same way that they were used in the Bible.

Again, because these gifts were utilized for a very specific purpose in the early church and once that purpose was complete, they weren’t used again—this is seen even in the New Testament; we see the sign gifts prevalent early in the New Testament but as you continue in the New Testament, the frequency of sign gifts lowers and eventually ends completely.

In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul is writing during a time in which speaking in tongues and the sign gifts are still active.

And thus, he’s writing with the understanding that some people may still participate in these sign gifts.

He’s writing 1 Corinthians to a group of Christians who desperately want to speak in tongues and do miracles and spontaneously heal people.

In doing so, he admits that during that time, people could still be using these sign gifts but he essentially writes that the sign gifts aren’t nearly as important in the everyday life of the church as the people assumed and still assume they were and supposedly are.

Let me start before we read 1 Corinthians 14:1-12 together with making this statement abundantly clear—the sign gifts (the miracles, spontaneous healings, and speaking in tongues) were utilized in the first century and before as a means to prove the message was genuinely from God.

Or in other words, the sign gifts were used before or after a prophet, preacher, and even Jesus proclaimed a message.

The sign gifts were for the express purpose of definitively proving that the message was indeed from God.

When the Bible was completed—both the Old and New Testaments, the need for sign gifts ceased because the message of God was complete—consider Hebrews 1:1-2 “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.”

And what He has spoken to us through His Son is written down and recorded for us through the Word of God.

Or in other words, the sign gifts were gifts used by the Holy Spirit through people to authenticate and show the authority of the words that were being spoken.

People were to believe these prophets, apostles, and preachers because the signs proved the words were just as authoritative as the rest of God’s Words from the Old Testament.

Which is essentially what people are trying to claim when they use semblances of these sign gifts today—they’re trying to convince people that they are genuinely hearing from God and that the words they speak are just as authoritative as God’s Words.

And if you truly believe that God’s Word is sufficient—that all of our questions and needs can be answered through and in Scripture, which is a doctrine that we learn in 2 Peter 1:2-3, 1 Timothy 3:16-17, Jude 1:3, Galatians 1:8, and Psalm 19 then you really have to question why people would insist the sign gifts are still active today.

Even Paul, in 1 Corinthians 14:1-12 though he admits at that time the sign gifts were still being used, points out that the sign gifts aren’t a necessity anymore and that the sign gifts were fading.

You’ll notice that his area of focus in this passage concerns speaking in tongues, but I would argue that his point in 1 Corinthians 14 applies to all the sign gifts and not just speaking in tongues.

Let’s read 1 Corinthians 14:1-12.

As we study this passage together, we’re going to break it into two parts: (1) Pursue Love and Earnestly Desire Spiritual Gifts (1-5) and (2) Strive to Build Up the Church (6-12).

The first section brings the previous two chapters into a comprehensive statement of what Paul is stating—spiritual gifts are good, but loving people is still better.

So, the best way is to utilize your spiritual gifts to love one another.

The second section points to the issue of utilizing gifts that people can’t understand and explains that if people can’t understand what we’re doing within the church, it does far more harm than it does good.

Both sections are tied together with the idea of utilizing the gift of speaking in tongues, but it speaks heavily of the original purposes of all the sign gifts and encourages those who want these sorts of gifts to reconsider their use and pursue love to build up the church.

This sermon should help us develop a biblical understanding of these sign gifts and it should encourage us to seek other ways to serve the Lord.

Prayer for Illumination

Pursue Love and Earnestly Desire Spiritual Gifts (1-5)

Paul starts this text by making the statement, “pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.”

And we really have to stop here because there are a couple of questions that you might have.

By making the statement, “pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts,” Paul shows us the connection between chs.

12-13 and now ch.

14.

He introduced the concept of spiritual gifts in ch. 12 and he explains that these were gifts given by the Holy Spirit for the common good of the church.

The purpose of spiritual gifts is to build up the local church of God.

In ch. 13, he explains how love supersedes the spiritual gifts in that whereas spiritual gifts may or may not be used, Christians are to love one another with a love that’s described in ch.

13—the same love that God has for us.

In connecting these two chapters, Paul essentially tells us that the crux of his argument is found in ch.

14.

In other words, he introduced spiritual gifts in ch. 12 and he expressed the need for love in ch. 13 as a foundation for ch.

14.

And the foundation is that the spiritual gifts are worth desiring and Christians are to actively pursue love for God and love for one another.

Christians are to earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, “especially that you may prophesy.”

Now, the question that you may have is what exactly does he mean “especially that you may prophesy?”

We have to stop and figure out what exactly Scripture means when it uses the word prophesy because we have a modern-day idea of what the word means that isn’t always what the Bible means by the word.

Our modern-day assumption is that every time the Bible uses the word prophesy, it refers to foretelling the future.

The Bible does use the word prophesy with that meaning on occasion, that’s how we have prophecies in the Old Testament concerning the New Testament Messiah and we have prophecies in the Old and New Testaments concerning the eschaton.

So, there is a sense of the word prophesy that refers to the foretelling of the future, but that isn’t the only meaning of the word in Scripture.

In fact, the idea of prophesying referring to the foretelling of the future is actually the second meaning of the word.

The first and primary meaning of the word is to deliver a message concerning proper behavior and righteous living; we might call it a subset of preaching.

Christians are to pursue love and earnestly desire spiritual gifts, particularly that of preaching right behavior and righteous living.

He isn’t telling them that they are to pursue foretelling the future, but rather that they ought to pursue what’s typically referred to as forthtelling—the idea of making public the Word of God.

And then Paul continues by contrasting the gift of prophesying, which again, is a subset of proclaiming the Word of God (making it public).

with that of speaking in tongues.

Vv. 2-4 says, “For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit.

On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.