Greater Gifts Build Up the Church

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I want to invite you to open your Bibles with me and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 14.
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I understand the bulletin says we're going to be in verses 1 to 25, and that is true, but we're going to focus on verse 12.
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So we're going to, in our standing of reading, this is going to be the thesis, the focus of the message.
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So we're going to read just this one verse and then pray, and then we'll go back and begin our exposition.
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Verse 12 of 1 Corinthians chapter 14.
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So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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Your word is the light to our path, the very lamp to our feet.
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And Father, as we sit down today and examine the word together, I pray that you would, by your Holy Spirit, first and foremost, keep me from error.
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For Lord, I am a fallible man.
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I am capable of preaching that which is untrue.
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And for the sake of my conscience, for the sake of your people, for the sake of your very name, I pray that you would protect me from that.
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Lord, ever since the beginning of the church, there have been men, evil men, who have crept in unaware, who have sought to bring damage to the church by teaching those things which are untrue.
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And this is why your word says not everyone should presume to be a teacher.
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So Father, I thank you for the opportunity to teach, but I know the burden.
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And Lord, were it not for your Spirit, it would all be for naught anyway.
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So Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit would speak through me.
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I pray that He would apply the truth of the word to the hearts of the people, and I pray that through that word being applied to the heart, that there would be changed lives from this passage this morning.
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For the believers, that they would be changed to closer conformity to Jesus Christ.
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For that is what we have been predestined to.
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And Lord, for those who have come today who know not Christ, that this might be to them a very clear call to their conscience to repent of sin, to take up the cross, and follow the Savior.
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And it is in His name.
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Amen.
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You may be seated.
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Well, I'd like to welcome everyone back to our continuing study of 1 Corinthians.
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When I first started this study, I said I was going to try to do 1 Corinthians in one year, and Brother Andy kind of laughed after church that day.
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And so I guess I am fulfilling the prophecy of his laughter by having been nowhere near the end, and it's been well over a year.
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So we're going to continue on.
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Doesn't matter.
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It was an artificial time frame, and we have expired it.
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So we're just going to continue on.
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Part of the reason for the delay, if you want to call it a delay, is passages like this one.
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Because when we come to 1 Corinthians chapter 14, we have 40 verses that we have to deal with.
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And honestly, we could take that whole chapter, and that could be a year's worth of study if we spent the time that was really necessary to plumb its depths.
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And even then, we would not really crack the surface of what all is contained in this passage.
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This chapter is very long.
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If you write down notes, feel free to write this down.
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You don't have to, but this is something just to keep in mind.
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When you're thinking about 1 Corinthians 14, it is all about the church, and particularly it's all about worship in the church, and it's broken into two parts.
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The first 25 verses is the principle that greater gifts in the church are the ones that build up the church.
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That's the principle.
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The greater gifts in the church are the ones that actually build up the church.
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And the second half, or not quite half, the last 15 verses, verses 26 to 40, is the application of that principle.
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He gives us the principle, greater gifts build up, and then he gives us the application of the principle, and we'll see this in a few weeks.
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The application of the principle is this, the church is not built up by chaos.
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And that's why he talks about ministry of the gifts, and how they're to function, and how they're to operate, and how men and women are to operate in the church.
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It's all about order.
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In fact, it ends with that call, all things are to be done decently and in order.
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Worship is not to be disorderly.
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That doesn't mean we have to be the frozen chosen.
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But, it's also not supposed to be on a whim.
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We are to think about it as we do it, think about it before we do it, think about it after we do it.
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Consider what we are doing, and take it very seriously when it is done.
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So we're examining the principle.
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We've been looking at this over the last few weeks.
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We've done an introduction to the chapter by looking at the two gifts that are mentioned.
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Do you remember the two gifts that are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 14? Are the tongues and prophecy.
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And so over the last few weeks, I've examined what we believe the tongues are, and I've examined how we understand prophecy to operate.
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And if you weren't here, I'm not going to go over those again.
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But I will give you just a very quick.
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We believe, at least I teach, as the pastor, preaching pastor, I believe that the tongues are the ability to speak God's word in a language that's unknown to the speaker.
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But I do believe it's a human language.
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I argued in my sermon that it was not simply ecstatic speech, or what some might just call a repetitious syllabic noise.
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That's the way I defined it.
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Repetitious syllabic noise is not what we see.
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We see real languages being spoken.
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And in fact, I mentioned in that sermon, when the first charismatics came on the scene in the early 1900s, that's what they expected.
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And when it didn't happen, ecstatic speech became the default.
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The first lady who supposedly spoke in tongues up in Kansas City supposedly spoke in Chinese until it found out she didn't.
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But they expected her to speak in a real language.
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So tongues is real languages.
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And the second thing is prophecy.
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Prophecy is the proclamation of revelation from God.
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And we noted last week when talking about this that prophecy does have, or rather preaching, does have a prophetic element.
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So when I stand up and preach, there's a sense in which this is prophetic because it's God's word being proclaimed.
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But I don't stand up and say, thus saith the Lord, unless it's followed by a chapter and verse.
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I don't say, thus saith the Lord, and then speak.
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Because that gift of prophecy is not what I operate in.
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So any type of prophetic value that I have in my preaching is not the ability to say this is what God is speaking to you today, unless I say in Mark chapter whatever and verse whatever.
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You understand? However, in the early church we do know there was the gift of prophecy because before the New Testament is completed, there is this need for progressive revelation.
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There's this need to understand what's happening and to be able to apply the work of Christ to the church and to Israel and all that's happening.
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And so there is a prophetic word going out.
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And what was what we said last week? What was the hallmark of prophecy? It was always true.
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Deuteronomy tells us very clearly, if it was untrue, they're not a prophet.
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If what they say is not true, it's not prophecy.
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It has to be, if they say something's going to happen and it doesn't happen, they're a false prophet.
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If they say something is true and it's not true in accordance with the word, they're a false prophet.
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They had to be true in their predictions and they had to be true in their theology.
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So prophets had a, what do we call it? The prophets' burden.
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They had a burden of accuracy.
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So that's important to keep in mind.
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And I want you to think about this.
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The reason why Paul is talking about these two gifts is very important to realize before we even begin to try to understand what he's saying.
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Why is Paul mentioning tongues and prophecy? I'm going to tell you what I believe and what I think.
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I believe the reason why Paul mentions tongues and prophecy is because 1 Corinthians is corrective in nature.
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You say, what do you mean it's corrective in nature? You start back at chapter 1.
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You follow my sermons through and you will see that it's rebuke after rebuke after rebuke after rebuke.
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Whether it's they were calling certain leaders more important than others.
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I'm a Paul, I'm a Paulist, I'm a Peter.
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Whether it's getting on to them for not dealing with sexual sin in the church.
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Whether it's getting on to them for meat being offered to idols and whether or not they should eat it or not.
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It's always a corrective rebuke throughout the book.
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And now we come to chapter 14 and it's maintaining that same idea.
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This is a correction.
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And with that in mind, you say, well, why does he bring up tongues and prophecy? Well, I would say this, both of these are gifts that are used publicly and are liable to misuse.
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Tongues and prophecy both happen publicly and they're liable to misuse.
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In fact, I'll say this.
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If we look at the church in the modern era, what two gifts, if you had to choose two, are most misused in the church? Tongues.
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And God told me.
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By the way, that's the modern version of thus sayeth the Lord.
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When somebody comes up and says, well, God told me this.
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They say something wrong, you say, well, why were you wrong? Well, I just misinterpreted it.
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No, how about God didn't talk to you? People tell me God told me.
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I say, no, he didn't.
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Who are you to say? Well, I have burden of proof in on me.
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The burden of proof is not on me if you say God told me.
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Keep that in mind.
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If you say God told me, you better be right.
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Because you're the one placing the burden on yourself.
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It's a dangerous burden to carry.
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I mean, you get all excited there, but I do get upset when people, especially people who demand things or who proclaim certain things.
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And it's all nothing.
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And here's the thing about it.
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We look at the church in the modern era.
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We see these gifts being misused.
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And how are they being misused? Well, for some, they provide a sense of spiritual superiority.
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Some people say, if you don't have the tongues, you're not saved.
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And they promote misunderstanding and confusion.
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What does the last or verse 33 of chapter 14 say? God is not the author of confusion.
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Is there anywhere in the church where there's more confusion than in regard to tongues and prophecy? And the thing that's really, the really bad part is it's associated in general with people who seek to build themselves up.
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And the whole point of this chapter is that the gift isn't to build up yourself.
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It's to build up the church.
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They're associated with people who are building their name.
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They're building their brand.
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They're building their importance.
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They're building themselves.
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And these are the things we should keep in mind as we go through this text today.
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God gives spiritual gifts to build up the church.
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And the greater gifts are the ones that are used to build up the church.
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And if our focus and desire for spiritual gifts is self-centered rather than church-centered, then our desires are wrong.
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If our desires are self-focused rather than church-focused, then our desires are wrong.
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That's the rebuke.
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That's the point.
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And I think that's what Paul is dealing with here.
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So what I'm going to do, I'm going to walk through the text.
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I'm going to read the text.
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I'm going to make comments as I go.
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And then I have three points of application to make at the end.
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25 verses.
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This ought to be fun.
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It's a lot.
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But I think it's important you hear them.
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So that you understand what I'm saying and what the text is saying.
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Verse 1, chapter 14.
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This is right on the heels of this great love passage, right? So at the beginning of verse 1, it's still connected to chapter 13, where Paul says, The three great things are faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.
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Now he says, Pursue love.
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Chapter 14, verse 1.
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Pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts.
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And actually the word gifts isn't in the Greek.
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It actually just says the spirituals.
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But it means spiritual gifts.
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So it's okay to translate it that way.
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So earnestly desire the spirituals, or the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.
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The three parts to that verse.
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Pursue love, desire spiritual gifts, and especially the gift of prophecy.
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Why prophecy? I mean, we understand the first two, right? Pursue love.
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He just spent a whole chapter telling us why to do that.
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And desire spiritual gifts.
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That actually connects back to chapter 12, verse 31.
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Because in 1231, he says, Earnestly desire the spiritual gifts.
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I'll show you a better way.
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The better way is love.
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So love comes first.
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But after that, we still have to concern ourselves with gifts, because that's how we show love to one another, is by ministering to them in the gifts that God gives us.
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So the gifts still have importance.
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So pursue love.
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Earnestly desire spiritual gifts.
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And the one that you should desire most.
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And remember, we're talking to a first century audience, first century church.
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The one that they should desire most is the gift of prophecy.
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Why? He's going to tell us in this chapter.
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The reason why he says prophecy is the most important is because prophecy could be understood.
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Prophecy could be understood.
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He's going to compare it to tongues.
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And the point that he makes between prophecy and tongues is this.
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Prophecy can be understood, and tongues can't.
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Unless the person speaks the language.
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And if I got up here right now and started speaking Chinese, it'd be a miracle because I don't speak Chinese.
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But it'd also be a miracle if it did anything for you.
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Because it wouldn't do anything for you if you don't speak Chinese either.
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You understand? It might be a miracle to show that God's doing something, especially if it were accurate Chinese, but it certainly would not be edifying except to say, well, God did something.
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We don't know what he did, what he said, what he meant, but he did something.
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So that's what moves us to verses 2 through 5.
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This is where we get the comparison between prophecy and tongues.
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Verse 3, he says, For one speaks in a tongue, speaks not to men but to God, for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the spirit.
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On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.
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The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church.
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Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy.
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The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues unless someone interprets so that the church may be built up.
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All right, let's just very quickly break these down.
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Number one, he says, no one understands him.
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This is used by those in the charismatic movement to say, this is proof that it is repetitious syllabic noise.
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It's not real language.
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It's repetitious syllabic noise because, he says, no one understands him.
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But the interpretation of this language needs to be understood within context.
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Who's the no one here? Is it no one in the world or is it no one in the room? I would argue it's no one in the room.
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And I think the point of the text is this.
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If you stand up and speak a language that you don't know in a room full of people who don't speak that language, then the only person who's going to know what you're saying is God.
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You understand? So why do it? If there's no interpreter, why do it? You're going to be uttering mysteries.
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And yes, it's a spiritual gift.
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And yes, the mysteries are in the Spirit.
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But they're still mysteries if nobody knows where they are.
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So he goes on to say this.
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The better gift would be prophecy.
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And he says this in verse 3.
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On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to the people for their three things.
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Upbuilding, encouragement, and consolation.
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That's what prophecy did.
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Tongues confused people.
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But prophecy brought consolation, upbuilding, and encouragement.
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So you've got a choice.
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You've got the one that confuses, or the one that consoles, upbuilds, and encourages.
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Which one are you going to choose? Well, it depends on who you care about.
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Because if you care about building yourself up, you'll worry about the one that makes you look the most spiritual.
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And the one that makes you look the most spiritual is the one that's going to get you the most attention.
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And let me tell you, if you stood up right now and started speaking Chinese, you're going to get a lot of attention.
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But if you're concerned with the church, you're going to be concerned with the things that console.
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The things that encourage.
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You're going to be concerned with those things that build up.
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So he goes on.
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The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church.
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Can I say this? I believe verse 4 is a rebuke, not a statement of encouragement.
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When he says, the one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, that's not what the gifts are for.
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And I've heard people say, well, yes, but tongues can be used as a personal thing where I come over here and I build myself up.
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And then I can go over here and I can build up the church.
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I don't think that's Paul's point.
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And again, if you disagree, that's fine.
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We can disagree.
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We can talk about it.
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But I think Paul's point here, because the whole subject matter is building up the church.
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And he says, here's a guy who's wanting to build himself up.
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Here's a guy who wants to build up the church.
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You tell me which one's right.
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If your focus is self-service, then you've got the wrong focus.
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I've heard it all kinds of ways.
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Well, you know, guys work out so they build themselves up so that they're stronger to help everyone else lift up.
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Okay, if that's how you want to interpret it, fine.
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But I really think that if you maintain the idea that 1 Corinthians itself is a rebuke, it helps you understand this passage as a rebuke.
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And you say, but what does he mean then when he says, I want everybody to speak in tongues? If it's a rebuke, why would he say, I want everyone to speak in tongues? Think about it just like this for a minute.
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Tongues were a good and useful gift when used properly and usefully.
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With an interpreter, where people could understand what was being said.
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Right? He's going to say that later.
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Unless you have an interpreter, don't do it.
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Keep your mouth shut if you don't have an interpreter.
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And only let two or three do it at a time.
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And only with an interpreter.
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So there was a right and proper way that tongues could be used.
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So when Paul says, I wish that all of you would speak in tongues, he's saying, I do.
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I speak in tongues.
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Paul spoke in tongues.
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And he says, I speak in tongues and I know the blessing of it.
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And I wish all of you could share in that blessing.
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By the way though, this is not Paul saying they could all.
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Because remember chapter 7, when he says, I wish all of you would be single as I am single.
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He wasn't saying every Christian should be single.
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Some people believe that.
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But I want to tell you, if you believe every Christian should be single, that means we're going to die off in a generation or two.
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So when Paul says, I wish you were all single as I am single, what he meant was, I wish you all understood the blessing of what I have by being single.
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And I think the same thing is being said here when he says, I wish you could all speak with tongues.
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I wish you understood the blessing that came with it.
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There is a blessing in this.
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And certainly there is a blessing in somebody who's gifted of God to speak in a language they don't know or somebody who interprets a language they don't know.
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Certainly there is a blessing there.
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Paul says, I wish you all had this blessing.
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But what did he say in chapter 12? Do all speak with tongues? No.
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Not everybody has that blessing.
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By the way, if you've ever been in a church that tells you you can't be saved unless you speak in tongues, remember 1 Corinthians 12, 30.
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Do all speak with tongues? The answer is no.
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It's built into the answer in the Greek language.
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In English, it's a rhetorical question.
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Do all speak with tongues? But in Greek, there's actually a built-in negative.
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No.
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No.
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All do not speak with tongues.
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Even in 1 Corinthians, or even in Corinth in the first century, not everybody spoke with tongues.
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So he goes on, verse 6.
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Like I said, I got a lot to say.
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So I want to move on.
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My wife and I, I read my wife the sermons beforehand.
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And she's like, you better hurry.
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I appreciate honesty.
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Verse 6, he says, Now brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching? If even lifeless instruments, such as the flute or the harp, do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is played? And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? So with yourselves, if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air.
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There are doubtless many languages in the world, and none is without meaning.
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But if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker a foreigner to me.
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By the way, I believe that verse, 10 and 11, I think proved my point about real languages.
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Because hear it again.
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There are doubtless many different languages in the world.
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None is without meaning.
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But if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a barbarian.
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That's what the Greek says.
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Barbarians were called barbarians because the word bar-bar-bar was how they sounded to people who didn't understand what they were saying.
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If you don't know the language of another person, and they begin to talk to you, Sounds like gibberish to you.
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Hey, wow, Zion.
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Hate and tate.
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Yold and cough.
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Lamed, mim-num, si-samic, ion.
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Pay, tessaric.
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Cough, rash, sin-shin, tav.
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Avanu, shalom.
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Shalom aleichem.
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Okay, so I just said, first time, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God, that was Greek.
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And the second thing is I gave you the Hebrew alphabet as a song.
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So I ended with shalom, shalom, shalom aleichem, which is to peace, peace, peace be unto you.
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Right? You probably heard it in Arabic.
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As-salamu alaykum.
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That's the Arabic version of shalom aleichem.
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But all that sounds like nonsense unless I explain it.
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You see? If a bugle makes an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? If somebody just comes up here and starts beating on the piano, a binga bonga binga bonga, it's going to sound like nothing.
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And that's what language sounds like if you don't know it.
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Now do we understand the point? Okay, it's not that it's gibberish, it's that it's unknown.
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And when it's unknown, it sounds like a barbarian.
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Bar, bar, bar, bar, bar.
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All right.
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Now, verse 12.
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This takes us to verse 12, because verse 12 gives us the thesis of the...
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I think this is the thesis of the whole passage, actually.
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This is the thesis verse or the focus verse.
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He says, So with yourselves...
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And when he says so, by the way, the word so means thinking of all this, so this, right? Because this is, so is this, right? So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit...
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That's a point there.
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That could be a whole sermon.
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They were eager for manifestations of the Spirit.
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Why? Because they wanted to build their own spiritual stock.
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They wanted to build themselves up.
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They wanted to have some spiritual clout.
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And what better clout is there than to stand up and be able to speak in a language that everybody hears me speak, or to be able to get up and say, Thus saith the Lord.
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They wanted that ability to have that.
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And Paul's saying, Look, if you want to have manifestations of the Spirit, know this, you need to be concerned about manifestations of the Spirit that build up the church.
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That should be your concern.
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You guys know what a hashtag is? I know I'm getting, some of you are, you know, social media elites out here would wonder why I would even ask.
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But some of our folks are not on computer, so you don't know what a hashtag is.
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A hashtag is a little, is a little, it's used to call a pound symbol.
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Back when we used to have phones that you had to dial.
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Well, nowadays, you put that little, that little sign in front of a word, and that links it to a larger network where that word has been used.
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And so if something becomes a hashtag, like, I don't know, something like a mega, you know, Donald Trump, you know, make America great again, that's a hashtag.
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It's like if you type hashtag mega, it connects it to a larger network of things.
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And there's political ones, there's religious ones, there's all kinds of stuff.
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I mention this only because for a long time, we have said, or I've said, I believe my unofficial ministry motto is theology matters.
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And so a lot of times when I'm on computer, I'll put hashtag theology matters just to connect that to a larger network, right? To say that's who we are.
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We care about theology.
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We care about truth.
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We care about the scripture.
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We care about preaching and teaching the word of God.
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Theology matters.
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Well, I want to start in your mind a new thought this morning.
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Church matters.
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Hashtag church matters.
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You want to put that out? If there's something you want to put out today and let people know what...
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Church matters, y'all.
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This whole chapter is about the church.
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Almost every New Testament book is written to a church.
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Church matters.
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And that's why this passage is rightly understood, I believe, as a rebuke because it's Paul rebuking people who are more concerned with themselves as individuals than they are concerned with themselves as part of the body.
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They're more concerned with themselves as individuals as they are concerned with themselves as part of the larger community of faith.
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When we come here, we're no longer individuals.
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We are a body.
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Each individual has gifts, and I'm thankful for the gifts you have, and I'm thankful for the gifts that you bring, but your gifts are part of a bigger network called the body.
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No one's more important than anyone else, but at certain times, certain gifts do things that are more important at certain times, and that's why he talks about greater gifts.
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It's not that my gifts are greater than yours in importance before God, but when come Sunday morning, the gift of prophecy, preaching, however you want to define what I'm doing right now, this gift might have more importance at this moment than, say, the gift of giving or mercy, which may have another importance when you're at a hospital bed, or the ability to disciple.
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If God's given you that particular ability to sit down one-on-one with people and disciple them through the Word, that has purpose individually, but when we're here, this gift is being used, and so Paul's talking about the assembly.
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He's talking about coming together.
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The whole chapter is about this, and so when we are together, let us focus on the things that build up one another.
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You say, well, all I do when I come to church is sit here.
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No, you don't understand.
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One, we sing together.
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That's actually corporate worship.
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We pray together, even if there's only one leading.
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It's a together thing.
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We're studying together.
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I'm reading.
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You're reading.
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We're together, and I understand some people miss, and they say, well, I'll catch it on Sermon Audio, and I am thankful for Sermon Audio.
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We just went over 75,000 downloads, which is praise God for that, but this is where we come to encourage one another.
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I wish we could stay here all day, and now I get you nervous, but we come in.
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We pray, study, and sing.
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Go eat.
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Come back.
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Do it again.
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It's called the Lord's Day, not the Lord's Morning, just so you keep that in mind.
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You know? We cut everything down to as short a time as we can.
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I love the fact that I don't get to lock the door until usually about 12, 31 o'clock because many of you do sit around and care for one another after the service.
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That's a blessing.
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That is a blessing, even if we're not eating.
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You know? We're together.
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We love each other.
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That's part of it.
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Church matters.
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Kind of eating into a little bit of my application there, so I'm going to back off a little bit.
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That's this verse.
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That's the focus.
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Do what you do and build up the body, and guess what? In building up the body, you will build up yourself because you're part of the body, but you're not focused on you.
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You're focused on the body, and therefore the body grows together.
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It's like a person who works out, and maybe Kevin will correct me later, but I know there are guys who work out, because it ain't me, and they'll work on one muscle group, and they'll get really big arms, but they have really small legs, or they'll work on their legs and have really big legs and a really small neck or something.
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They kind of look kind of funny because they're not working out the whole body.
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They're focusing on one thing.
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I hope I'm right.
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I think I've seen them.
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You understand what I mean, though? If we focus on you, not the body, we're not all growing together.
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All right, I want to move on because the next part, verses 13 to 25, is we actually see Paul talking about the limitations of the tongues compared to the limitations of prophecy, and that's really this focus.
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Again, I'm going to speak again next week on part of this, so I'm just going to read over it right now and make a few comments so that I can make it to the application, but I do want to, because it all goes together, I want to read it and make a few comments.
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Like I said, we'll be on this next week again.
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Beginning verse 13 says, "...therefore..." What does therefore mean? Everything I've said up until this point, now therefore this.
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"...so therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret." That tells me right away, by the way, that there were people in the first century who had the tongue and could interpret it.
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That's a pretty amazing thing.
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They had two gifts in one.
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Later, he'll say they have to have an interpreter, but it could be the person himself has that gift.
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At least it seems to be that way in verse 13.
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Then he goes on to say, "...for if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful, what am I to do? I will pray in my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also.
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I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing praise with my mind also.
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Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say amen to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you're saying? For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up.
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I thank God that I speak in tongues more than any of you.
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Nevertheless, in the church, I would rather speak five words with my mind to instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue." Very quickly, let me just make a few comments here.
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Some people use verse 14 to say that tongues is a private prayer language given to them to speak directly to God in a specific angelic language.
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They use 1 Corinthians 13.
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If I speak in tongues a minute of angels, and they use that to say angelic language, right? It's an angel language.
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It's not a human language.
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I think that's reading into the text.
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I think that's reading too much into the text.
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Because ultimately, what it says is if I pray with a tongue, it doesn't say anything about being in private.
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It doesn't say anything about it being a special language or a heavenly language or an angelic language.
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All of those things are isogeted or introduced into that concept.
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I think that this is talking about the public, because again, context is king, right? So the context has been public worship.
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I don't think the context has changed.
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And a person who spoke with tongues could also pray in tongues, could also sing in tongues, because they had the gift to know other languages.
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And so they had this gift and they were exercising it in the body.
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And Paul says, look, if you do that, your spirit is praying, but your mind is shut off, because your mind doesn't know what you're saying.
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So he says this, I will pray with my spirit and I will pray with my mind also.
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I will sing with my spirit and I'll sing with my mind also.
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And some people take that to mean, well, what he means is sometimes I'll have my mind and sometimes I'll have the spirit.
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And it'll just sort of go back and forth.
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That ain't what he means.
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The language here, I think, is very clear.
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He is saying that when I pray or when I sing praise, I will have both the spirit and the mind engaged.
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I'm going to talk about this more next week, because I do think, and especially in the Reformed churches, people come in with their mind engaged and their spirits are not engaged.
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It's an intellectual exercise and that ain't no good.
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But on the other hand, there are churches where you come in and the emotions are engaged and the mind is shut off.
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And that's bad too.
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Jesus Christ said very clearly, he who worships, God desires worshipers who worship in spirit and in truth.
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And I would argue in that statement, he's saying with the heart and with the mind.
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We're not supposed to sit on a mountain somewhere with our legs crossed going ohm, ohm, ohm, ohm, ohm, ohm, or making some humming sound so that we can shut our mind off and open our spirit up.
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Your spirit and your mind can function together.
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And I believe that's what he means when he says that I will pray with the tongue, or pray in the spirit, but I'll pray with my mind also.
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I'll sing praise in the spirit, but I will also sing praises with my mind.
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I'm not going to shut one off in deference to the other.
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Verse 20.
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20 through 25 has got to be the most complicated part.
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He says, Brothers, do not be children in your thinking, be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.
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That's not hard.
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He's saying when it comes to the issue of understanding spiritual gifts, don't be immature.
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That's fairly easy.
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But in verse 21, he says, In the law it is written by people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people and even then they will not listen to me.
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He says, Lord, that's a quote from Isaiah chapter 28, verse 11.
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This is talking about when the foreigners would come in and invade and become the judgment to the people of Israel and it was foreign tongues and he's using that to compare that to, again, the gift of tongues, which, again, kind of pushes me to think it's human languages because that's the whole point of this whole thing.
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But then he goes on to say this, Thus tongues are not assigned for believers but unbelievers, while prophecy is assigned not for unbelievers but for believers.
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If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you're out of your minds? But if all prophesy and an unbeliever or an outside enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart is disclosed, and so falling on his face he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.
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Now, I said earlier this is complicated.
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Why is it complicated? Well, it's complicated because Paul seems to contradict himself.
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Now, I want to say from the outset, I don't believe the Bible contradicts himself, I don't believe Paul contradicts himself, but we do have somewhat of a paradox here.
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Paradox is when you have an apparent contradiction where you have to come back and understand it in its more fullest sense.
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You say, well, where's the contradiction? Look with me again at verse 22.
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Thus tongues are assigned not for believers but for unbelievers.
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Whose tongues assigned for? Unbelievers, it says.
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It's not for believers but for unbelievers.
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That's key.
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Because in the very next statement he says, verse 23, If therefore the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues and an outsider or an unbeliever enters, will they not say that you're out of your minds? So he just said it's assigned for unbelievers and now he's saying if you do it in front of an unbeliever they're going to think you're crazy.
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So it sounds almost like he's contradicting himself.
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In fact, some people have even gone as far as to say that this is a textual variation and this is supposed to be the opposite and the textual translators and the textual copyists made a mistake here, but there's no evidence of that.
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We have evidence of textual variation in other places and we can discuss that, but this particular text doesn't have that.
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So we have to be able to say this is, that's not, that dog knows don't hunt.
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You're trying to find an answer when I think the answer is in the text, not outside the text.
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What does Paul mean when he says tongues are assigned for an outsider? Well, if you, this is how I understand it and again, I'm willing to be corrected especially on this because this is one of the hardest passages, but I'll say how I do understand it.
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Maybe it'll help you.
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The gift of tongues, initial giving was at the, to the 120 in the upper room at Pentecost.
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Who was it then for? The unbelieving crowd, right? So what was the purpose of the gift when it first came to reach unbelievers? Later, it became what confirmed that the Holy Spirit had fallen at Cornelius' house who was at that point an unbeliever.
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He received the spirit and he received the gift of tongues and now we know he's a believer.
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Later, we see it the same thing in Ephesus.
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The people received the gift of tongues and now we know they're believers and it's gone from the Jews to the God-fearing Gentiles to the rank and file Gentiles.
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It's gone out into all the world.
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It's gone from Jerusalem to Samaria to the ends of the earth which is what Jesus said it would happen.
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So we see this, we see the initial giving of tongues as an operative gift to unbelieving people.
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However, that's outside the church.
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When you bring that gift into the church, now it's not for unbelievers anymore because what happens in the church is for what? For believers.
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And here I want to say, going back a few verses, remember what Paul said, I'd rather speak five words of understandable words than to five thousand in the tongue.
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Where? In the church.
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So where were tongues useful? Outside.
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They didn't have as much use in the church as they had outside the church.
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So yes, if you were going out into the world and you were able to speak in a language you didn't know to a person who spoke that language, there it becomes a sign to an unbeliever.
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But when you do it inside the church and unbelievers come in and everybody's speaking a different language and it's chaos, people are going to say you are out of your minds.
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So I think this goes along with what Paul says about five thousand words versus five words.
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I'd rather speak five words in the church that build up than five thousand words that make people think we're crazy.
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They already think we're crazy enough.
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We follow a crucified Messiah.
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They think we're crazy enough.
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And so in this I don't think there's a contradiction.
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I do think the sign gift of tongues was meant for unbelievers.
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And that the reason why it was given was to reach the world and to demonstrate to the church that the gospel did not belong to the Hebrews only.
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The gospel belonged to every tribe, every tongue, every nation.
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And so why was it allowed to be done in the church? To remind them of that.
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The purpose of gifts in the church was to proclaim the word of God in other languages to remind us it's not about us, it's about the world in the sense of the gospel is not confined to any one group.
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You know that was what the Judaizers had the problem.
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Remember the Judaizers? What did they want to do? They wanted to trap the gospel in the Jewish community and they wanted to say you had to be a Jew before you could become a Christian.
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That wasn't the way it was.
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It wasn't about being a Jew.
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It was about coming to Christ.
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And later in the book of Revelation it says, I looked and I saw a great multitude that no man could count from every tribe, tongue, by the way that word tongue is the same word here, language, from every tribe, language, people, and nation.
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So yeah, I do think that the tongues can be assigned to unbelievers but I do think also if unbelievers came into the church and see people speaking in tongues it becomes then a sign of being out of our minds.
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So Paul says you're better to do this.
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Proclaim the truth in an intelligible way so that when they hear it they can respond to it.
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And how do they respond? Conviction and conversion.
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Look again at verses 24 and 25.
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If all prophesy and an unbeliever and outsider enters he's convicted by all.
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He's called to account by all.
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Convicted by the spirit.
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Verse 25.
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The secrets of his heart are disclosed.
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That's the spirit working on his heart and so falling on his face he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.
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Beloved, that's beautiful.
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Because if an unbeliever comes into the church that's what ought to happen.
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He ought to be convicted of his sins.
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He ought not be coddled.
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He ought to be convicted.
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I start a little war here with some other places.
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There's places called seeker friendly churches where they try to model everything around the world to try to make everybody feel comfortable.
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I want you to feel comfortable when you come here.
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I want you to feel welcome when you come here.
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I want you to understand this.
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We are calling you to repentance and faith when you come here.
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The huge thing with the Methodist church right now and I didn't come intending to say this so be careful real quick.
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The big thing with the Methodist church right now is the question of whether or not there should be ordination of homosexuals and marriages recognized within the church.
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If it were up to the American Methodist church the United Methodist church in America that would have happened a long time ago.
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But they're being fought against by the Methodists in Africa who do not believe that and they're willing to stand up for that.
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It just so happens this time that they stood firm enough to where it didn't pass.
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That's a blessing that that happened but I fear that it's going to create a big divide and it already is creating a big divide and it may create a big split.
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The point in all this the point I'm simply trying to say is when somebody comes in let's say somebody comes in who's a homosexual.
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My kids and I had this conversation last night.
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We talk about we have family worship.
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We sit around the table read our Bible we talk and a lot of times my older kids they're in their early 20s late teens we can talk about heavy things.
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And we said you know what what happens when a homosexual comes into our church? I said well a lot of times we don't know.
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We wouldn't know if somebody was unless he told us.
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But I said the first thing is we would want them to be able to sit and hear the Gospel.
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We would want them to know that they are loved as an image bearer of God and that we understand that as being an image bearer of God that they have a special significance in this world that other things don't have.
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Human beings are different than all animals and everyone else.
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And so we would want them to understand that.
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But we would also want them to understand this.
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In the same way that lying, stealing, thievery, murder, fornication or anything else is a sin, they are living in a sin that needs to be repented of.
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And we would call them to repentance of that.
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And that would have to happen before they could come and become a part of the body.
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Because in 1 Corinthians chapter 9 Paul lists sins and one of those sins is malikoi and arsenikoites which is homosexual relationships between men and he says such were some of you not such are some of you.
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Meaning we turn from those things and we turn to Christ.
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But it would be the same thing it would be the same thing if we had someone who coming in was fornicating living in fornication.
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We treat them the same way.
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We would say we call you to repentance and faith.
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So you understand it's not that we say you can't come.
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We say we come through Christ and to come through Christ means to come through repentance and faith.
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So I only mention that because some people would say that the church should just welcome them into membership without any question.
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I think the question is why would you think that? We don't welcome anyone into membership that's not a member of the body of Christ.
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Honestly you can be a nice person and we can really like you and you can be sweet you can give money you can give time you can give talent but if you've not given your heart to Christ if he has not changed your heart you cannot become a member here.
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We even tell you you can't take the table because it's not for you.
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The whole purpose of the table when we come at the end of the service is to remind us where we are in Christ.
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We're either in Him or outside of Him.
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It's like the Ark right? You were either Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth and their wives in the Ark safe from the wrath of God or you were outside the Ark and the wrath of God was crashing down upon you.
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That's where people stand today.
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You're either in the Ark which is Jesus Christ or you're outside of the Ark and the wrath of God is going to fall upon you.
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Either one of those things is true.
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You cannot have one foot in the Ark and one foot in the world.
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You're still going to get crushed.
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So I kind of moved in my application without really moving into my application.
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Let me give you my three points of application and I'll draw to a close.
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Like I said next week I'm going to go back over a few of these things that I sort of went over quickly but I wanted to bring it to an end.
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Three things, three points of application if you want to write these down you may but they're just short things to think about as we draw to a close.
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Number one, the church matters.
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You say you already said that.
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I know I already said that.
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I want to say it again.
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Those who say church is inconsequential do not understand the New Testament.
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And I have friends that man they say oh I love Jesus but I hate the church.
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I said that's like saying Keith I love you but I hate your wife.
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Not sure I want that relationship.
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Really.
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Church is the bride of Christ.
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Church matters.
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Now I understand people get burned by church and again I can start a whole new sermon on that and I won't.
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If you have been burned by church a few things to consider.
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You've burned some people along the way too.
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You've not been perfect in any of those relationships where you feel like you got burned.
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That's one.
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But two not every church is the same.
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If you're at a church that's teaching bad theology if you're at a church that's preaching bad doctrine if you're in a church that's not opening the word of God on Sunday mornings and proclaiming the truth if you're at a church that's singing songs about reckless love and all this garbage then you might want to look somewhere else.
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I really think that.
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There are times when you need to pick up your stuff and go on.
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But you're not there today by the way.
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You're here.
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Just so you know.
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Church matters.
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Finding a church that loves Jesus and loves you matters.
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But they need to love Jesus more than they love you.
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Because if they love Jesus more than they love you they'll tell you when you need to be told something.
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If they love you more than they love Jesus they'll be afraid to tell you anything.
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They're more worried about numbers than they are about Christ and they will be afraid to say anything.
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And they certainly won't preach like this.
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I'm not putting myself up on a pedestal.
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I just know it to be true.
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A lot of pastors have to protect their pocketbook and so they won't say what needs to be said.
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My wife and I confirmed a long time ago if I get fired for preaching the truth we will be okay.
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It's got to be the way it is.
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I'm not worried about that by the way.
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Especially if you knew you're like, oh is he good? No, I'm not.
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I'm thankful that the church allows me to preach with such freedom.
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A lot of freedom here to preach the truth and that's a blessing.
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Second thing real quick.
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A clear presentation of truth is essential to building up the church.
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That's the point here.
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When we proclaim the truth it should be clear and it should be understood.
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That's why tongues were a problem.
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They weren't clear, they weren't understood.
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The clear presentation of the truth must be understood.
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Right? Number three and finally.
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And this is, I'm going to focus on this more in the weeks to come.
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But here it is, this is the third thing.
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There will always be unbelievers among us there will always be unbelievers who need to hear the gospel and so what do we do? We always proclaim the gospel.
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We always proclaim the gospel.
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You guys come on Wednesday night? How often in the Wednesday night message do I just talk about Jesus and what he did on the cross? How often on Sunday morning do I just talk about what Jesus did on the cross? People say, well we know that.
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We know what Jesus did on the cross.
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Let me tell you something.
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If you're a believer you would never get tired of hearing the gospel.
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And if you're not a believer you need it more than anything else in this world.
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So I want to, because I believe that's true that the clear proclamation of the gospel is what Paul is talking about here.
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The clear proclamation of truth is more important than anything.
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Let me finish with the gospel and then we'll close.
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It's very simple.
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You are a sinner.
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What does that mean? You have broken God's law.
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You stand before him as condemned.
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On your own, if you stood before God his judgment would crush you and you would be in hell forever.
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But God sent his son born of a woman, born under the law that he would redeem those who were under the law that's those who were going to be crushed by that law.
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Redeem them and give them the adoption as sons.
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You can have a relationship with God but it's only through Jesus Christ.
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This has to be clear.
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And you have to understand the clarity of it.
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When you die you are going to face God.
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I did three funerals this week.
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Only one did I get to stand up and rejoice and say praise God here is a man who loved Jesus.
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One of the services said we don't want you to preach.
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I said then you don't want me to come.
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I said if I can't talk about Jesus I can't come.
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I ended up going I ended up talking about Jesus because that's what I'm going to do.
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The other one I won't get into but the point is you're going to die one day.
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Hebrews 9.27 It is appointed unto man once to die and after this is judgment.
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You will be judged and you'll be judged in one of two categories.
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Either you'll be judged bearing the weight of your own sin or you'll be judged having your sin bore by a substitute and that substitute is Jesus Christ.
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If you are in Him that substitution takes away all of your sin and gives you righteousness whereby you stand before God perfectly righteousness in Him.
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Not by what you've done not by how many times you've come to church not by how much money you've given or what talent you have.
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You will stand before God wrapped in the righteousness of Christ alone and that's the only thing that can save you.
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Or you will be outside of Christ you will stand in the filthy rags of your own righteousness and you will receive the eternal reward of sin which is hell.
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That's the gospel.
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It's very simple.
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Can we expand it out further? Yes.
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But we don't need to.
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We need to understand this.
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There is only one name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved and it's the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and to Him be glory and honor forever and ever.
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Let's pray.
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Father I thank you for the opportunity to preach your word and Lord it was a long sermon.
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It was a lot of things to say.
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I pray Lord that folks were encouraged that your people were encouraged and Lord those who are outside of you today that they would be drawn to you by your spirit.
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I know nothing I say can save a soul but it can be used of the Holy Spirit to open the heart and I pray that you would open the heart today and apply the words of truth to the hearts of those you've chosen to save and I pray that in Jesus name.
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Amen.