Well Ordered Worship

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

From Doctrine to Application in 1 Corinthians 12–14

So, for the last five weeks, we have trekked through 1 Corinthians chapters 12, 13, and 14 as we've looked at the Apostle Paul's teaching on the spiritual gifts. And during that time, over these last five weeks, we've seen Paul develop a robust theology of these gifts as he's moved through his letter, correcting many of the Corinthians errors.

All of these issues, tongues, and prophecy, and unity, and division. And if we look back over the last five weeks, Paul realizes that we've covered a lot of ground. There are a lot of passages in the Bible that people memorize that are in chapters 12, 13, and 14.

So, by way of just a quickest review, we've seen that Paul taught that there are many distinct gifts, speaking gifts, serving gifts, but there is one God. We heard that there are many members and yet one body.

We've heard that there is a diversity of gifts that God has given us, and we've seen a few of those, and yet it is one church. We've looked at the absolute necessity of every member of the body, even when these members are not prominent or presentable in the church.

We've learned about the primacy, the necessity, the characteristics of Christian love. That passage that everyone reads at a wedding, 1 Corinthians 13, love is patient and kind, and we saw God's intended purpose for these gifts.

Steve preached that a few weeks ago, the edification of the church, the building up of the church. And then last week, we wrestled with the important role of the mind in worship. And this afternoon, as we round off our study in 1 Corinthians 14, we find ourselves looking at Paul's final instructions on the application of these gifts.

And this is really, if you know scripture, you know this is how Paul works. Paul lays this foundation of doctrine and theology, and then once everything is established and firm, he builds upon it with meaningful application, with practical things that we can do in our lives with this doctrine.

We see this, for instance, in books like Ephesians and Romans, where Paul spends several chapters, three chapters in Ephesians, eleven chapters in Romans, building this doctrinal, this theological foundation.

And he unpacks whole categories of theology. The doctrine of God, sin, predestination, adoption, justification, regeneration, sanctification, and a whole host of other doctrines. And then he translates that rich theology.

He translates that deep doctrine into rich practice, into deep practice. In a single word, Paul will take, like one of his favorite words, therefore, Paul will unleash sound doctrine that transforms into sound application.

And if we know Paul, or if we were to meet Paul, I'm sure he would say that he is a lover of good theology, but even more so he's a lover of good living that is informed by good theology. And so what we see here in this last section in 1 Corinthians 14 is Paul taking this theology that he has built in chapters 12, chapters 13, chapters 14, all practical theology, but he takes that theology and he is now going to bring it to an end with this final capstone, this final applicatory or application comment.

And so that's Paul's goal in our text for today. If we were to summarize this whole text in one sentence, we'd say that Paul here shows us how we are to take all of his teaching on the use of the spiritual gifts and he shows us how we can apply this in decent, orderly, peaceful, and God-honoring worship.

How do we worship God in a way that is decent, that is orderly, that is good, that when he looks at our worship on a Sunday afternoon, he is pleased and not disgusted. It's a pretty important idea. Paul shows us what well-ordered worship should look like in the weekly meetings of the church.

Now, I said you might be tempted to slumber this afternoon because we've looked at a lot of these things already. One of the things that Paul does when he recaps and applies is he builds on the doctrine he's already taught.

And so you'll be able to look at every point I have today and say, we've heard that before, but this is why you need to pay attention. The church today, even if we don't feel like it's our church, the church today desperately needs this kind of counsel that Paul is about to give.

We need this inspired text because our chief activity as a church, when we come together, children, maybe I'll ask you, what is our chief activity? What is the very first and most important activity that we do when we come together as a church?

It starts with a W. Worship. That's right. The church comes together to worship. Worship is the church's chief activity. And so it's best that we order our worship in a way that it pleases God. We need to offer worship to God that is acceptable to Him.

We must do it on His terms. That's why God has given us this very text, for that purpose, to worship Him rightly. And we need this counsel today. Maybe we feel like we need this counsel more than the other, but we need this counsel today because regretfully, much of the worship that we see in some churches today, at least, I don't want to pick on churches today, it'll sound like that, but some of that worship cannot be described as decent or orderly worship.

Sadly, many churches, just like we have, have studied 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14, and then they go on to not only misapply the texts and do exactly what Paul has told them not to do, but one of the greatest contributing factors to the disorderly worship of these churches is that they have not studied, they've not understood, and they've not remembered this text that is before us today.

If people would just bring this text before their eyes, we would see a dramatic difference in the worship of that church. So we're going to jump right in. Last week I gave us a long introduction. Hopefully this week was a bit shorter, mercifully shorter.

Every Member Contributes to the Edification of the Church

We're going to get right into the text and see what it has to say to us. So we're going to begin in 1 Corinthians 14 and verse 25. 1 Corinthians 14, excuse me, and verse 26. Paul writes, 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. So here Paul is going to take all that he's taught, and he prepares us how to apply it. And he kicks off this section, just like we said, from doctrine to application, using that word therefore.

He uses this time the question, what then, brothers? So in light of everything that I have taught you, what are we to do now? And Paul asks, it's a question that's affectionately posed to these brothers and sisters.

I think every time you see Paul use that word brothers, brethren, brothers and sisters, he's saying we're brothers and sisters in Christ. You've gotten it wrong, but now what do we do about it? It's a term, or it's a statement of affection.

Now that you have these instruction on gifts, unity, tongues, prophecy, love, the mind, what shall we do with it? And here Paul gives us the very first point of his application in this text. It's in verse 26.

Paul tells us, he tells the Corinthians, well-ordered worship requires every member. Well-ordered worship in the local church requires the contribution of every single Christian, every single believer that belongs to that local church, without exception, ever.

Paul begins, he says, when you come together, in verse 26, meaning when the church is assembled, when all of the Lord's people meet together, that's all of you, on the Lord's day, when everyone comes together, this is what church should look like.

And I'm not sure, you guys know that I have a strange love for history, I have a love for the cultural context of the Bible, and so I find this to be a fascinating glimpse into the life, if we were to transport ourselves into first century Corinth, what a well-ordered worship service would look like in Corinth.

If you were to walk in the front door of the Corinthian church, what would that service look like? And how does that instruct us? Well, this is what we see. Paul says that various people should contribute to him.

People are coming together, they're contributing songs. It's the Greek word psalmos, which means a psalm, or just a song accompanied with music. Others, he says, come with a lesson. Maybe you guys have heard the word didache.

There's a church history book called the Didache, and it means instruction, doctrine, or teaching. So people are bringing songs when they come together for worship on Sunday. People are bringing lessons, instruction, doctrine.

People, he says, come with a revelation from God. Maybe that's prophecy, tongues, interpretation. And it's not an exhaustive list, but what Paul shows us is that the church was a place where people contributed to the worship of the church.

It shows that there was a communal and a collaborative aspect to the church's order of worship. The church would come together to sing, to pray, to preach, to fellowship, and everyone had input in some way.

No one was left out as a mere observer. And this is something, if we look around, even as we look at the weaknesses in our own church, this is something that has largely been lost in the church today, this communal, this collaborative enterprise that is the meeting, the worship of the local church.

You see, you can learn a lot about a church and their ecclesiology. That's the doctrine of the church. Just by looking at the language that they use, and by even looking at the furnishings in their church building.

So if you were to go home and one of your Roman Catholic friends was to invite you to church on a Sunday morning, the very first thing that they would probably say, they wouldn't say, will you come and join me for worship?

But they would probably say, would you come and join me at the mass? And if you were to walk in the front doors of that building, to participate or to observe, hopefully, the mass, what you would find is that at the front and center of that basilica, probably a multi-million dollar basilica with intricate stained glass windows, and gold trim, and ornate wood decorations, at the very center of all of that would be the altar.

And there at the mass, the priest, the Catholic doctrine would claim, the priest offers up the sacrifice of the mass, putting Christ to death once more for the remission of sins. There's a participatory element to the mass, but few Catholics would argue, if I were to say that is primarily a sacrifice and it's a spectacle.

If you were to walk into a Catholic church, what is happening in the mass is a spectacle to be observed. And at the very end, at the very, very end to participate in. If I were to, kids imagine this, get us into a time machine and transport us back to the 17th century, 1600s, just after the Reformation, maybe 17th century Geneva.

If we were to live in that time and a friend were to invite us to church, they probably wouldn't say, hey, do you want to come to church with me on Sunday? What they would say is, would you like to join us for the sermon this Sunday?

And the reason that was, was because following the Reformation, the reformers completely abandoned this idea of the mass and the sacrifice on the altar and taking the role, taking the place of the mass in the altar was the preaching of the word, powerful expository preaching.

If you were to go to the sermon in the 17th century Geneva, perhaps what you'd find as you walk into the building is that there would not be an altar at the front of the room, but there would be a massive pulpit.

When you went to the sermon, you'd see the pulpit. And if you go and look at John Calvin's pulpit in Geneva, it is such a large pulpit. It needs a spiral staircase to get up to the lectern of this pulpit.

And so even though I love the Reformation and I love reform doctrine, and I love what the Puritans and people like John Calvin brought to us, if you went to church following the Reformation, you went to a sermon and not even to the church.

And today, if we look at the language that many pastors and church growth strategists use, we wouldn't be invited to the mass. We wouldn't be invited to the sermon. We wouldn't even be invited to the church.

We would be invited to the worship experience. The worship experience. If you read any New Age books on church planting or on the design of a church or church worship, it is all about the experience. And if you were to walk in the front doors for that worship experience, you would not find an altar, you would not find a pulpit, but you would find a stage.

And there aren't preachers, there aren't priests, there are performers. The church meeting in our modern day has become a performance. And if we think about all of this, if we think about even how the reformers came closest to it, all of these groups in some way missed the mark.

But here Paul takes us back to the intended shape, the intended structure, the intended order of the worship of the church. And Paul says here, when the church comes together, it's not a spectacle, it's not religious theater, it's not Christian themed music or a concert or a TED talk.

It's not even a sermon alone. As good as good sermons are, but it is an assembly. When you come together, God's gifted people, every person in the church, every believer in this church, is to serve each other by contributing wholeheartedly for the mutual edification of the body.

And we see Paul hinted that in other letters to other churches. In Ephesians 5, verse 18, he says, Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery. We would all agree on that. He says, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.

I remember I had a friend, he lived with us for a period of time, and he always talked about, he came from a very charismatic background, he always talked about, I just want to be around other spirit-filled Christians.

And when he had this idea of what a spirit-filled Christian was, a spirit-filled Christian was someone that spoke in tongues, that believed in prophecy, and that was surrounded by miracles at all times.

And I love that brother, but that in his mind was a spirit-filled Christian. Well, in Ephesians 5, Paul shows us what a spirit-filled Christian looks like. He says, don't be drunk with wine, for that is debauchery.

But he says, be filled with the Spirit. This is what that looks like. Addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

That's what it looks like to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You come to church and you contribute. When the spiritual gifts are working right in a well-ordered church, it is a church full of people contributing.

He quotes here from Colossians 3 as well, Colossians 3 .16, he says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Brothers and sisters, what does it look like for our church to have the word of Christ dwelling in us richly?

If people were to come to this church and say, of all the churches I have ever been to or have ever seen, in that church the word of Christ is dwelling richly in all of them. Would it be accompanied with signs and wonders, tongues and prophecy?

What would that look like? Paul says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thanksgiving in your hearts to God.

It seems that Paul is trying to make a point that spirit-filled worship, when you take all the spiritual gifts and you put them all together, it's not this performance, this show of signs and wonders, but it's just the ordinary means of Christian men and women who have the spirit of God, who have the word of God, and who are loving, edifying and building each other up.

That's what well-ordered worship looks like in the church. Now let me ask you, brothers and sisters, do you have a biblical view of well-ordered worship in the church? When you think about spirit-filled worship, when you think about a church or a person that is filled with the Holy Spirit, is this what you think of?

Or do you think of other things, the spectacular things, the prominent things? This is a common kind of thinking, but it's a wrong kind of thinking. So brothers and sisters, we've asked you repeatedly over the last five weeks, how are you serving?

What is your gift? How are you using your mind? All of those things. And Paul says it one more time, and so I'm going to say it one more time. What role do you play when this church meets on Sundays? It doesn't have to be the prominent.

It doesn't have to be spectacular. It doesn't have to be attractive. It just needs to be active. What is your role in this church? Are you known to be like a Barnabas, a son of encouragement? When everyone comes around you, man, that guy encourages me.

Are you the person that always has a word in due season? Are you a person that has no words ever? And you just say, let me pray for you now. What is your contribution to this church? Today as we put together our worship service, I asked Sam and Kate, what songs would you like to sing?

I'm trying to put this into motion. Bring a psalm, bring a hymn, bring a spiritual song. Brother, thank you for sending me a psalm or a hymn this week. We haven't gotten to it, but send us hymns. Contribute to the worship of the church.

And then Paul says this, he says in the second part of verse 26, that all of these things are to be done for the building up. The oikodeme, that's a word that you'd expect to hear on a construction site, around carpenters and masons.

It refers to the building of a house. And what Paul pictures here in well-ordered worship is that a well-ordered church is first a church where everyone has a part to play. We can keep everything neat and tidy if only one person does everything, or if only one or two people do everything.

But what God desires most of all is that we all contribute, that you are all a kingdom of priests. A well-ordered church is a church that works together for the common goal of building each other up into God's perfect spiritual temple.

And this is something that we ought to pour our lives into, something we ought to organize our lives around. Speaking about this passage, I really like what John MacArthur said. He said we are to be lost in the edification of others.

And so that should influence the way that we spend our time, the way that we spend our money. Brothers and sisters, hear this, the time that we go to bed on Saturday nights and the time that we wake up on Sunday mornings, the time that we arrive here for worship, the words we say, the songs we sing, even the time that we leave, all of these things should be informed by this desire, by this sense of opportunism to serve the church.

Every single Sunday, every single Thursday the church comes together, we have the opportunity to serve one another. And if only every Christian knew the vital role that they play, that you guys, that you yourselves play in the life of this church.

What an awesome effect it would have on the health of our church if everybody knew that every time we come together, I am to contribute, I am to bring something. It might not be to everyone, but even to one person.

Tongues Must Be Limited and Interpreted

The next thing that Paul writes in verse 27 is this. We see in verse 27 he writes,. If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three. I want you to pay attention to what Paul writes here.

And each in turn, and let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each one keep silent in the 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 be encouraged. And the spirits of the prophets are subject to prophets.

For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. So what we see here is that Paul tells us that at most, two or maybe three people should be speaking in tongues when the church meets for worship. And they're not to talk over each other, but each person is to take their turn one at a time.

And what we see about this gift is it's not an ecstatic utterance, meaning that it can't be controlled. But that every believer, at least in this time, that had the gift of tongues could harness that gift.

And they were subject to each other, so that they didn't have to talk over each other. And in keeping with the main thrust of everything that Paul has said about tongues, up until this point, Paul says that if there is no one that can translate what is being said, he says, let each of them keep silent.

They can pray quietly, they can speak to themselves, but they are not to speak a word out loud. Paul says, in as clear of terms as you can possibly say it, if there is not an interpreter, if it does not engage the minds of your hearers, if it does not edify the people around you, and you feel the urge to speak in tongues, don't.

Be quiet. Remain quiet. And I don't know about you, but when I read these words, the very first thought that comes into my mind is how many churches act in complete ignorance of this passage. Again, not to be hard on those churches, but whether it's complete ignorance, or even worse, whether it's just a total disregard for this text, there are many Christians in many churches that today simply choose, or don't know the Word of God well enough to obey the commandments of God, this one included.

Many churches would be so much healthier and so much more obedient to the Bible if they would just read these words in this passage. I can think of countless times that I've gone to churches where dozens of people break out, I'm sure many of us have been there, dozens of people break out and speak in tongues, and they're speaking in tongues over top of each other, and in a way you would think that that church itself has become cessationist, the only difference is that the only gift that has ceased in that church is the gift of an interpreter.

There's no interpreter to interpret these tongues, and Paul says, no, if there's no one, be quiet. I don't mean to be harsh, again, to these churches, but historically, this type of ecstatic utterance that Paul is talking about has more in common with pagan worship.

In this setting, with the Corinthians in mind, it has more in common with pagan worship than with biblical Christianity. That's the kind of behavior that Paul is teaching directly against. But Paul does commend speaking in tongues, interestingly enough.

Almost entirely up to this point, Paul has told us all the things that we shouldn't do with tongues, but here he does, he commends, there should be at least, there should be two or at most three, he says, people speaking in tongues, and what are we to do with that in this context?

Do we say, yes, we need to speak in tongues, we need to work this up, we need two people today, three people next week. How are we to apply this text? I think that, for one, we can appreciate that this was a unique time in redemptive history.

You've heard me talk about that before, and that God not only permitted, but empowered particular signs and wonders both to confirm and to proclaim the gospel in that setting. And so it would be perfectly fine if churches were to say, we do not believe that this gift is no longer used, and therefore we do not practice it.

You as an individual Christian are well within the realm of orthodoxy to say that, as far as I can tell, the Lord no longer uses this gift. You can also be well within the realm of orthodoxy to say that God does allow that gift, but it must be done decently and in order according to the precepts of God.

In my experience, I was thinking about it this week, just wrestling, how do we apply this text? I thought, I've only ever seen tongues used once biblically, where I thought, that is the perfect use of tongues.

And if the setting in our church was exactly like that, I would say, we should speak in tongues too. But before you run away, this was the setting. So in the church that sent Steve and I and my family to plant, and Jason as well, in the church that sent us, at one time they had a thriving ESL conversation ministry.

And so what we would do is every Saturday, we would invite our neighbors, who are English second language speakers, to what we called the conversation cafe. And at the conversation cafe, we would speak about all sorts of issues.

If it was Halloween, we would talk about the origins of Halloween. Or if it was Canada Day, we would talk about Canada Day. But we always incorporated a biblical worldview and the gospel. We brought the word of God and the gospel to bear on all of these conversations, so that these ESL students could learn English and hear the gospel.

And one of the fruits of that ministry is that that church became very rapidly multicultural. We went from being a prominently gentrified white North American church to having Ethiopians and Somalians and Kenyans and people from Mexico and Southern America and Eastern Europe.

And it was absolutely wonderful. And I remember on one particular Sunday, when we started singing in tongues, and what happened in that setting was this, that the person that was leading the worship said, this Sunday we're going to sing this verse of this familiar hymn.

We're going to sing it in English. And then we're going to sing it again in Swahili. And then we're going to sing verse two in English. Then we're going to sing verse two again in Swahili, and three, and then four, and then five, and then six.

And what we did was we sang the whole song in English and in Swahili. You could say we were singing in tongues. Now, you would say, people would stop and say, but Shane, that's not what Paul's talking about.

He's talking about the gift of tongues. And I agree, but I think that this follows the spirit of what Paul is trying to say. And this is what I mean. This is when tongues, we know, is being employed biblically.

Firstly, when we as a church sang Swahili, we sang for the edification and for the up-building of our Kenyan and our Rwandan brothers and sisters in Christ. And it was a way for us to bless them, to richly bless them and build them up as they got to share their language and their culture, for sure, but even more importantly, because they were able.

Think about this. You travel across the world. You move to this cold, harsh climate with a bunch of people that don't speak your language. And six months after meeting them, you're in that assembly, that church with those people, and you are singing the praises of God in your own tongue, in your own heart language, and people are joining you.

It was biblical because we were able to build our brothers and sisters up. They were able to use their heart language. They were able to engage their minds with the words that they were singing rather than questioning their pronunciation or their grammar or to wonder about the definition of a word that they were singing.

The words of those songs were able to minister to their souls and to ours at the same time. And then secondly, even as we sang in Swahili, for us as English speakers only, we knew or at least trusted that we understood the words that we were singing.

We could hear the familiar tune, and can it be. We could read along with the English words. We could compare the English words to the foreign words that we were singing, and we could watch, and as I was writing this, tears started coming to my eyes.

You could watch the joy on your brothers' and sisters' faces from that culture as they got to sing the praises of God in their language, even as a bunch of Canadians butchered the words to that song. And so it built them up, and it edified the whole church.

And so if you're going to practice the gift of tongues, if you're going to practice tongues, I would say that's what tongues needs to look like. It needs to build up the whole church. Everyone needs to know what is being said.

And I would venture to say that in this time, in God's redemptive history, that is the best way to worship in tongues. And it's the kind of worship I think that reminds me of and that helps me to look forward to heaven.

Revelation 7 -9. After this, John says, I looked, 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 hands, and crying out with a loud voice.

What language were they crying out in? We don't know, but crying out in a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb. That's what biblical tongues looks like when it's done decently and in order.

We speak it for the edification of the church. If it can't be edifying, if there is no interpreter, we don't speak it. And as I said, what churches would benefit from if they remembered this verse, if Christians would say to their pastors or to the leaders of their church, why do we let people speak in tongues like this, if it says that we shouldn't?

This is God's word, is it not? Then Paul says in verse 29, that we should apply the very same diligence in the exercise of the gifts of prophecy. He uses prophet. We don't believe that there is the office of prophet anymore, simply because in the New Testament, we don't see the qualifications for the office of a prophet.

We have the elders and the deacons. But still, what we see here is the use of discernment. To piggyback from last week, the use of the mind in this prophecy. And unlike what we often see today, we don't see that prophecy was just readily received.

That it was just believed wholesale without any questions or without any discernment. In Paul's day, there was still a clear distinction between a true prophet and a false prophet. A distinction that we would do well to revive today.

Is what he's saying true or is it false? And so these prophets, Paul says, their words were weighed carefully. They were examined, they were discerned. And then anything that didn't pass the test was discarded.

And so we would listen to every person and then people would examine that and say, is it true? And we see that Paul taught this in other places when he wrote to the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 5.

He said, do not despise prophecies, but test everything. Test everything, hold fast to that which is good, abstain from every form of evil. You're going to take some, you're going to hold fast to it. The rest, you're going to discard it.

You're going to put it aside. John wrote in his epistle to test the spirits. And one of the ways that he said that we test the spirit is we weigh that prophecy, that claim, that truth claim, that claim that this is divine truth from God.

We put that beside the gospel and we put that beside the revealed word of God. And if it aligns, then we might be able to agree. But if there is no alignment, it gets cast aside as false. This is how the Bereans, we remember the Bereans, this is how they weighed Paul's teaching.

They asked, does it agree with the word of God? And I think that, I fear that many of those who claim to be prophets today, if we were to weigh their words in the scale of God's word, they would be found wanting.

God Is a God of Peace, Not Confusion

And then Paul shows us in verse 33 the very motive for this well-ordered worship. Some people might ask, why can't we talk over each other? Why can't we run around in circles? Why does God concern himself so much with decency in worship?

In verse 33, we see why. For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. Our motive for orderly worship is nothing other than the character and the attributes of God. We worship God according to his person, according to his character, according to the way that he has revealed himself to us.

God does not want us to worship a God that we fashioned after our own image in any way that we desire. But God wants us to worship God on God's terms. And so that's why we worship in a way that is decently and in order.

And what that means is, when we come together on Sundays, brothers and sisters, as a church, we're a small church, there's room for all kinds of difficulty and disruption and distraction and all of those things, but our worship cannot be chaotic.