Well, welcome this morning. My name is Jason and I'm one of the pastors here at Faith Community Bible Church and today I'm excited to share with you what I think is the most important section of the most important chapter in the entire Bible.

And the reason it is so important is that everything Christianity claims about life, death, creation, the afterlife, the character of God, the forgiveness of sins, the entirety of it hinges on the resurrection claim we find in this passage.

Let me give you an illustration of the foundational nature of this chapter. This week I got a letter in the mail from one of my financial institutions which said that due to inactivity on my account, my investments were going to be transferred to the state unless I contacted them. This as a small retirement account that I started when we were first married. Early on we switched to a different retirement account and so this one just kind of has been sitting for a long period of time. Now let's imagine a conversation that is happening on the side of the financial institution. They are reviewing their accounts, and they come to my account and it gets flagged. We have evidence that this account has been abandoned.

We sent him a letter without response.

He hasn't logged into his account for over 10 years.

There hasn't been a deposit or withdrawl for more years than that.

There hasn't been any email interaction ever.

Now that's all really good evidence that the account has been abandoned. The normal, statistical pattern of this kind of evidence is that 99 percent of the cases where these things are true, the account has been abandoned.

But here's the deal. All that reasoning and speculation is silenced in an instant when all of the sudden I just show up in the flesh. It doesn't matter how much it looks like the account was abandonded, I'm here to tell you, it's not abandoned it.

Now here's the point: the lesser pieces of evidence, no matter how numerous and no matter how powerful, must yield to the greater evidence. When I show up in the flesh and claim that account, it's like laying down a royal flush at the card table. There's nothing greater that can be leveraged against it.

Now the resurrection of Jesus Christ plays a similar roll in validating all the claims of Christianity.

Some say,I just don't believe in the supernatural. Okay, good argument.

Some people have a problem with the idea of a trinity. Good argument.

Some people have a problem with the idea of the biblical ethic. Good argument.

And while these are all really good things to think about, the speculation around these points vanishes in an instant as soon as the historical reality of the resurrection is established. Why? Because the lesser pieces of evidence, no matter how numerous, must yield to the greater. The resurrection is the royal flush.

If it is true, that Jesus rose from the dead, that this an actual historical fact, well...

of course miracles are possible, because the resurrection itself is a miracle.

Of course Jesus was God because who else can conquer death but God himself.

And as God, whatever ethic he lays down ought to be submitted to.

What I am going to do, disagree with him? The lesser must yield the greater. To disagree with Jesus on any of these points would be like the banker arguing with me that my account had been abandoned when I'm standing right there telling him that I own it.

Do you see how much hinges on the resurrection? The cornerstone of the gospel is that Jesus rose bodily from the grave. That's the royal flush. Everything in the Christian faith hinges on this. If this is true, it's all true. This is how Paul begins 1 Corinthians Chapter 15

It all hinges on the resurrection.

In the first seven verses, Paul says the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a historical fact. And he was saying this to confront some who were denying that it was a historical fact, just like many today deny that Jesus really rose from the dead bodily. Now Paul's point is that if you deny the resurrection, you deny everything. Listen to how he says it.

Here's what Paul is saying. He says this whole Christian faith which I delivered to you rests, hinges on the real historical resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's either true or it's not true and they have polar opposite implications.

Okay, so my goal in this first section is to have everyone agree that this is true. The resurrection is the foundation of Christianity. If the resurrection is a historical reality, then it's all true.

If Jesus did not rise from the grave, then this whole thing is a hoax and we are all massively wasting our time. Let's go home right now. There is not a middle ground.

Can we agree on that?

Proof for Resurrection

If you set things up that way, then of course the next really important question is what? "Did it really happen?" Now initially this seems like a hard question to answer because we of course are 2000 years removed from the situation. But this does not mean we don't have methods for discerning realities even from a distance.

Anything that happened in history is a fact that cannot be proven absolutely. Take for example the claim that our church began on Mother's Day, 2003. That's a claim. How do we prove it? We cannot go back in time and replay the scene. So what methods are we left for evaluating the truthfulness of a historical claim? This applies to all history from one day ago to 5000 years ago.

The answer to this question is simple. The major method for proving a past event is to examine #1 the quality of the evidence and #2 the reliability of the witnesses to the event. That's it. You have to rely on agreed upon 'indisputable evidences'. So in the case of our church:

We have eyewitnesses.

How many of you were here that day? So we have a few eye witnesses.

We also have some manuscripts of sermons that were preached that day.

We might have a date of incoporation we could look up at the city?

We might have a deposit we could cross check from our first offering and bank account that was opened around that time.

We could dig up some old emails that talk about the launch date.

This was all before my time, but I don't question the reality of that because all of these pieces of evidence are really good. There's no reason to question it. There's no motive for distorting the truth.

So let's apply this kind of reasoning to the resurrection and see what comes back.

So today we are just looking at three arguments (there are many, many more):

.

One of the criteria for determining the value of a source document is to determine the proximity of the document to the event.

So, you've got the event - in this case the resurrection. And then you have the document that records the event. What's the gap? The smaller that gap the greater the quality of the evidence for obvious reasons.

What makes it better still if you can have multiple copies of something. That both elimates the possibility that there were copying or transmission errors but it also gives you an indication about how widespread the acceptance of these claims were. It's easy to deceive a person. It's hard to deceive a nation. There are too many critical, skeptical minds.

Now on both of these fronts, the resurrection claim is virtually bullet-proof.

Let's examine the evidence. Look at our letter 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians was written somewhere around 55AD at the latest. If you took the earliest possible date of the crucifixion of Jesus at 30AD that would mean that the document of 1 Corinthians was written at most 25 years after the event. Now just so you can get an idea of what that feels like, here's a few things that happened 25 years ago.

The Movie Lion King was released.

The famous O.J. Simpson white Bronco Chase

Those of us who lived through these things can remember them very well.

Now think about the significance of that. Eyewitnesses wont let you get away with nonsense. Some of you will remember princess Dianna and the tragic car crash where she died? She died 25 years ago. Now imagine someone trying to circulate a document today that says, "Princess Dianna rose from the dead three days after her car crash." What would people say? What are you talking about? Of course she didn't.

We watched the funeral coverage.

Here grave is right there

There are thousands of eye-witnesses that can testify that this is not true.

If she's alive where is she?

You see if you are a historian you have to answer the question, "How in the world did such a wild claim come to be so widely accepted so soon after the actual fact."

But the this line of reasoning gets even tighter. The claim didn't start 25 years after Jesus' resurrection. It started immediately after. The Church on the very day of its founding, Pentecost AD 33 (Acts 2:32), only fifty days after the event, claimed that Jesus rose from the dead bodily.

The reason this is important to establish is to affirm that the story of the resurrection, unlike many legends, fables, etc, was not something that developed slowly over time. It was claimed from day one.

I listened to a fascienating lecture this week that explained how the current consensus in modern secular scholarship is that the credal resurrection formulation of Christianity can be traced to within six months to two years after the event.

These are modern skeptics, using historians tools will admit, that this was documented, taught and believed by the Christian community virtually from day one.

These are guys like

Bart Eerdman - University of N.C.,

Richard Bawkum of Cabridge,

James Dunn - University of Duhram,

E.P. Sanders - Duke University.

These are perhaps some of the most skeptical, educated NT scholars who sit in the chairs of the most prestigious religion departments in the world. They aren't Christians. And all of them admit this. Let's absolutely dispell the idea that this is an idea that evolved over time like, Homer's Odysey or the Legend of King Arther.

Paul himself used this argument when he spoke before King Agrippa, the king of the Jews.

So this takes place in 59AD. We know exactly when King Agrippa ruled. So this is 29 years after the resurrection.

Paul was claiming Jesus rose from the dead and Festus says, "Your crazy." Now why did he tell Paul he was crazy? For the same reason that a cornered child when he has no argument left, will result to name calling. If the truth is too plain, then you have to resort to smearing the chararacter of the truth-teller.

Paul won't let him get away with that.

How could Paul have the guts to look Festus in the white of his eyes and say, "You know this is true." There's now way in the world I'd be here if it was all made up. Festus, you've heard of the resurrection. Everyone's heard of it. This isn't something that's been done in secret. It can be ignored.

So do you see the power of the proximity argument?

Another argument is number of sources.

Here's some exaple of well-known documents and their proximity to the event.

We won't spend much time on this but suffice it to say that when you combine proximity with number the Bible stands far, far, far alone. Now admittedly these are cherry picked statistics but not in the way you are probably thinking. These have been hand-picked as the very best second place-contesters to the Bible.

Many, many of the things we claim to be historical fact come from a single document we possess.

Listen carefully to the way this next sentence is worded: It is among the most well-established of all historical facts that Jesus was crucified, buried and that IMMEDIATELY afterwards, his disciples and thousands more people believed he rose from the dead. There is not an ancient fact more established through normal historical methods than this.

Whether he did or not still needs to be discussed, but the fact that they believed this is indisputable. This was not fabricated over time. Let's look at a second evidence.

This is a pretty powerful argument. Whenever strange things in history happen, as a historian, you have to try and find a theory as to why it happened - some force must have caused that phenomena. When an entire people group moves 1500 miles across the globe, you know with absolute certainty there is some giant impulse at work. That doesn't just happen. That's not normal.

Rare events are noteworthy clues in history. In the NT, you have two serious skeptics of the Christian faith who are converted: James the brother of Jesus and Saul of Tarsus who later became known as Paul. These two according to our records were both serious, outspoken critics of Jesus. What would cause them to convert? The more committed and extreme the more rare the conversion.

It's important to feel the weight of this. By way of comparison, we have some pretty famous atheists who have become well-known because of their hostility toward Christianity.

Probably the most well-known is Richard Dawkins. If you're not familiar with his style, you can get an idea just from the titles of his books:

Outgrowing God: A Beginner's Guide

The True Nature of Human Nature: The Symbiotic Parasiote Known as Religion

Now I want you to imagine that one day, he gets on the Internet and posts a video, "Guys, you won't believe this, but Jesus appeared to me, not in a dream, but in person. I've seen the resurrected Jesus Christ. It was absolutely terrifiying. I'm so ashamed of everything I've written. It's all rubbish." And then he goes to seminary and becomes a pastor and uses all his intellect to begin defending the Christian faith and preaching the gospel of Jesus.

You'd be like Festus. All your great learning, Dawkins, is driving you mad. You'd have to ask, "What happened to you that would cause so much change?" He shows no signs of psychological instability. You might expect this behavior from someone who struggled with mental health but not Dawkins. He has nothing to gain by this move, only loss. He loses his entire friend base, his respect among his peers, his job, a giant financial loss. The most likely explanation is that it is true.

Skeptics that get converted are not conclusive evidence, but very powerful pieces of evidence because by definition they are the hardest to convince.

James and Paul were unlikely in every way. Neither of them were convinced during the ministry of Jesus. Paul was a militant antagonist against everything Jesus stood for. James humiliated Jesus publicly on at least two occasions.

It wasn't until they saw him rise from the dead that they were overcome. As a historian you have to develop theories for why things happen. And they have to be plausible.

Now some will too quickly say well the information about their conversion comes from the Bible. The Bible has an agenda and so I'm guessing the Bible just makes that up these conversion stories to help support the point. You can say that but keep in mind when you say that, no secular historian will agree with you.

Why? Because of the strong evidence we have already given for the proximity of the writing of the book and the events themselves. How could you invent the conversion of James if James is standing right there unconverted? Or to flip it around, could you invest a monstrous, Christian-hating past for Paul if Paul is standing right there and hundreds (even thousands) of people know Paul's entire life from childhood to the present? It's not a creditable theory which is why every historian in the world will admit these facts. There must have been a conversion.

If you disagree with factual accounts of the conversion of James and Paul the only way you can do that as a historian is to abandon the principles on which your entire discipline is founded.

So you must ask, what force caused them to convert?

And not just convert, but to become willing to die for their faith. Now keep in mind martyrdom does not prove something is true; martyrdom simply proves that someone believes something to be true. It proves they are so convinced of it they would loose everything to demonstrate it's truthfulness.

What would cause one of the most educated persecutors of the Jews to be:

beaten,

left for dead,

thrown in prison,

flogged,

chastized,

run out of town

stoned and then eventually

die for his faith?

Human beings are fickle. If it wasn't true, you'd give up. If you didn't believe it, you'd eventually just cave after all that torture.

What would cause James, Jesus own brother, to go from claiming he was mad, to bowing at his feet in worship and being willing to die for him? You'd have to swallow a lot of pride. You'd have to really humble yourself.

And this could be said of all the disciples: On the day of the crucifixion, by their own admission, they were in terror and fled for their lives, yet fifty days later these fearful men became the fearless band that neither floggings, imprisonment, persecution, nor death could shake from their message.

Something transformed those cowards into the bravest men the world has ever seen. All reason demands that it would take a fact as mouth-dropping as Jesus’ resurrection to transform this timid band into the courageous apostles who turned the Roman Empire and their world upside down for Christ in three decades.

What caused these transformations? We are told. It was the resurrection. There are other possible explanations, but the most likely explanation was that it really happened.

This proof is negative proof which normally makes it not very powerful. However, in this case, the argument is extremely powerful.

The idea goes like this. I know the resurrection is an unbeleiveable claim. Of course it is. Nobody disputes that which is why this is so unusual.

Nobody is going to swallow that hook, line and sinker. People don't rise from the dead. All people believe that. So how was it that an entire world religion was birthed out of a massively unbelievable claim? How is it that our calendar is cleaved in half based on the resurrection of Jesus? Come up with an alternate theory that explains what happened to the body of Jesus?

People for centuries have been trying to come up with alternate theories of the resurrection. Here's the question: Which theory about what really happened in Jerusalem on that first Easter Sunday can account for the data?

There are five possible theories: Each of these theories says something about the death of Jesus, something about his resurrection and says something about the motive of the apostles.

Two things to say: These are all logically possible. But here's a much understated point - these are the only things that are possible. Believe me, the best minds in the world have thought about this for centuries.

These are the only possibilities, so which explains the data best? The argument goes like this, if you can easily disprove all alternative explanations, then we've proved the resurrection.

The Swoon Theory

This is not very popular today because it so unbelievable but the theory goes that Jesus didn't actually die. He was just stunned by the blunt force trauma and upon being laid in the tomb he revived and it only appeared that he was resurrected. Is this theory credible? I think the weight of evidence says this is very, very unlikely.

First, Crucifixion was designed to be lethal in every possible way. Roman law laid the death penalty on any soldier who allowed a prisoner to escape in any way, which included incomplete crucifixion. It was simply never done.

Think about this. If you were a Roman soldier and you knew that your life was on the line if Jesus wasn't completely dead what would you do to make sure he died? You would do exactly what the text says. You would take your spear and stab it clear into heart to make sure that this guy who looked dead didn't revive. The text says that when he did this blood and water came out which means the speartip had reached the paracardial sack around the heart. It shows that Jesus' lungs had collapsed and he had died of asphyxiation. Any medical expert can vouch for this. The Roman soldier was so sure he was dead he didn't bother breaking his legs.

The body was totally encased in winding sheets and entombed (Jn 19:38-42).

It is psychologically impossible for the disciples to have been so transformed and confident if Jesus had merely struggled out of a swoon, badly in need of a doctor. A half-dead, staggering sick man who has just had a narrow escape is not worshiped fearlessly as divine lord and conquerer of death.

How were the Roman guards at the tomb overpowered by a swooning corpse? Or by unarmed disciples? How could a swooning half-dead man have moved the great stone at the door of the tomb? Rolling stone tombs are common in Israel.

In fact, here's a picture of Nate and I in Israel when we were a bit younger trying to roll away a stone from one off these 1st century style tombs. With both of us in our prime physical strength, we could not move it.

Finally, and I think this is the most powerful, if Jesus awoke from a swoon, where did he go? Think this through: you have a living body to deal with now, not a dead one. Why did it disappear? There is absolutely no data, not even any false, fantastic, imagined data, about Jesus' life after his crucifixion, in any sources, friend or foe, at any time, early or late. A man like that, with a past like that, would have left traces.

I think we, along with most people can rule out the swoon theory. What about the myth theory.

Myth Theory

The myth theory simply says that disciples didn't intend for people to really believe that Jesus rose from the dead. They simply promoted a spiritual resurrection which was later embellished by people as a physical resurrection.

We've already largely answered this in our previous point by pointing out that there was no time for a myth to develop. The clarity of the claims of a physical resurrected Christ are too close to the event itself.

Try to imagine how a series of legends could arise in an age where truth and history were appreciated, obtain universal respect, and supplant the historical recollection of the true character of Jesus. How could that happen if it is agreed upon by secular and Christian historians that there was no gap of time?

Think about the myth theory this way. In order for it two work you have to have two completely separate and distinct layers. The first layer which according to the myth theory is the truth has Jesus as a man:

who was not divine,

did not claim divinity,

performed no miracles,

and did not rise from the dead.

The second, layer, the mythologized layer is the Gospels as we have them. What do we see there? Here you have Jesus

who was divine

claimed to be divine,

performed miracles

rose from the dead.

The problem is there is not a shred of evidence, not one piece of this first layer. Where is the evidence of this normal guy. All we have, and we have mountains, is the second layer. To loose that much data on this central of a figure would be the most extreme data loss history has ever seen.

Additionally, the style of the Gospels is radically and clearly different from the style of all the myths. Any literary scholar who knows and appreciates myths can verify this. Short not long. Specific not general. Common not extraordinary. There are many, many differences. There's meaning. There's psychological depth. If it is a myth it's a titatanic departure from all other myths ever told.

If you want more information on this read C.S. Lewis in "Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism" his articles entitled, "Christian Reflections" "Fern-Seed and Elephants"

Let me finish this line of reasoning by saying that the myth theory and the conspiracy theory are actually one and the same.

The Conspiracy Theory

Think about it this way. The Bible explicitly says it is not myth, if it is myth it is a deliberate lie rather than myth. You can't escape this dilemma. Once a child asks whether Santa Claus is real, your yes becomes a lie, not myth, if he is not literally real. Once the New Testament distinguishes myth from fact, it becomes a lie if the resurrection is not fact. And clearly, most clearly, the NT claims fact. William Lane Craig has some excellent resources on this point (see: Knowing the Truth about the resurrection).

So really the Myth theory is the conspiracy theory. Maybe these guys were trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes. So let's examine how possible this is?

The main problem with this argument is the historical fact that no one, weak or strong, saint or sinner, Christian or heretic, ever confessed, freely or under pressure, bribe or even torture, that the whole story of the resurrection was a fake, a lie, a deliberate deception.

Even when people broke under torture, denied Christ and worshiped Caesar, they never even thought to say that it was all a hoax. No Christians believed the resurrection was a conspiracy; if they had, they wouldn't have become Christians.

To pull of conspiracy theories on a large scale takes incredible intellectual horsepower and it also takes incredible connections. You have to know the right people, bribe the right people, know people in positions of power who are on board and will keep their mouth shut.

Is it really plausible that a band of fisherman pulled this off? If they did, they were the most creative, clever, intelligent con-artists in the history of the world.

Use your imagination and sense of perspective here. Imagine twelve poor, fearful, stupid (read the Gospels!) peasants changing the hard-nosed Roman world with a lie and a lie that is not easily digested. The lie is really not that attractive (take up your cross and follow me).

Further, examine the content of the NT.

You have in the NT a book which has kept some of the greatest minds in the world occupied for centuries. The ideas are so profound that more books have been written about the Bible than any other book. You have in it real power to curb the appetites of the flesh, it gives men hope, it has transformed millions of lives. I'm here today ready to give my life for everything this book teaches.

If this was all started by fisherman who conned the world then we have here genius's, far surpassing Shakespeare, or Plato or Tolkien. Fisherman's "fish stories" are never that elaborate, that convincing, that life-changing, and that enduring.

There could be no possible motive for such a lie. Lies are always told for some selfish advantage. What advantage did the "conspirators" derive from their "lie" ? They were

hated,

scorned,

persecuted,

excommunicated,

imprisoned,

tortured,

exiled,

crucified,

boiled alive,

roasted,

beheaded,

disemboweled and

fed to lions

That isn't exactly what I'd call a compelling reward for your deception!

If the resurrection was a lie, the Jews would have simply produced the corpse and nipped this feared superstition in the bud. All they had to do was go to the tomb and get it. And if the Jews couldn't get the body because the disciples stole it, how did they do that? The arguments against the swoon theory hold here too: unarmed peasants could not have overpowered Roman soldiers or rolled away a great stone while they slept on duty.

Another detail sometimes pointed out is that the Gospels records that the first witnesses of the resurrection were women. In first-century Judaism, women had low social status and no legal right to serve as witnesses. If the empty tomb were a conspiracy, its inventors surely would not have had it discovered by women, whose testimony was considered worthless. If, on the other hand, the writers were simply reporting what they saw, they would have to tell the truth, however socially and legally inconvenient.

The Hallucination Theory

Well maybe none of those are true. Maybe they were hallicinating. This seems like a really desperate attempt to me, but let's take it seriously for a moment. Does this hold water?

There were too many witnesses. Hallucinations are private, individual, subjective. Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene, to the disciples minus Thomas, to the disciples including Thomas, to the two disciples at Emmaus, to the fisherman on the shore, to James (his "brother" or cousin), and even to five hundred people at once (1 Cor 15:3-8). That's just not possible.

The five hundred saw Christ together, at the same time and place. This is even more remarkable than five hundred private "hallucinations" at different times and places of the same Jesus. Five hundred separate Elvis sightings may be dismissed, but if five hundred simple fishermen in Maine saw, touched and talked with him at once, in the same town, that would be a different matter.

Hallucinations usually last a few seconds or minutes; rarely hours. They aren't repeated. This one hung around for forty days (Acts 1:3).

Hallucinations do not have flesh and bones. The disciples touched him (Mt 28:9; Lk 24:39; Jn 20:27). They also don't eat. The resurrected Christ did, on at least two occasions (Lk 24:42-43; Jn 21:1-14). They also spoke with him, and he spoke back.

The apostles could not have believed in the "hallucination" if Jesus' corpse had still been in the tomb. This is a very simple and telling point; if it was a hallucination, where was the corpse? They would have checked for it; if it was there, they could not have believed.

Same goes for the spread of the religion. If the apostles had hallucinated and then spread their hallucinogenic story, the Jews would have stopped it by producing the body—unless the disciples had stolen it, in which case we are back with the conspiracy theory and all its difficulties.

A hallucination would explain only the post-resurrection appearances; it would not explain the empty tomb, the rolled-away stone, or the inability to produce the corpse.

So what do you think? Which theory best explains the data. You can't not have a theory. This is the point. These are the only theories. Which one is it?

Application

The greatest evidence of the resurrection to me can be summarized this way: somehow the most unbelievable thing in the world was believed by nearly the entire Roman empire in a few decades.

Either the disciples were somehow deceived or they were deceivers. Both are very difficult to take seriously.

How could all the disciples (and I mean every one of them), be so entirely and completely deceived by something as plain and obvious as someone literally rising from the dead?

The alternative is not any easier. Is it really believable that a band of fisherman were deceivers who conspired to foist on the world the most famous and successful lie in all of history? Do you see the problem?

How did that happen? No explanation, in my estimation, even approaches making sense unless it was true. I gave you three evidences today. There are may more. What if it is true? It changes everything.

Listen, if this is just a good story — simply a tale like all the others, a fable — then we have the option to assess its elements with no consequences. If it’s just a story, then it doesn’t matter much what we think about it. We can enjoy it for entertainment, pat it on the head, and get on with our lives.

But if it's not a story, then it has implications. In fact, I want you to image reading a story and man it's a good story. Imagine turning to page 350 and you are just rivited because the plot is so thick and intricate and then it just ends and it's blank. But whatever you did next was just written into the book. You were both reading the story, but suddenly you were in the story.

You see if Jesus Christ really rose from the dead, then the story isn't over. And since you too are in the story, you are one of the characters, and what happened to Jesus has consequence for you since you are both in the story and your lives impact one another.

You see the story is being written right now. And what you decide to do with Jesus is part of the story that is being written.

C.S. Lewis said it this way, "What are we to make of Christ?’ There is no question of what we can make of Him, it is entirely a question of what He intends to make of us. You must accept or reject the story. (God in the Dock, ch. 19)"

Jesus Christ died on a Roman cross for a reason to reconcile God with man and give you hope. If Jesus really did die on a cross and really was raised bodily then everything the Bible says about human flourishing, the happiness, joy, hope, it's all true.

If Jesus rose from the dead then 1 Peter 1:3-5 is true:

If Jesus Christ rose from the dead, this is true. We are living the greatest story ever told. It's a story you've been written into and are being written into.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever would believe in him would not perish but would have everlasting life. If the resurrection is true, that is true. The good news addresse every part of who we are. It addresses our conscience. It addressed our imagination, our heart. It addressed everything.

Maybe you are here today and you are still considering these claims. I urge you to not let this slip away. Keep pursuing and considering. Talk to one of the pastors here. We can provide you resources and help direct you as you look for answers. Come up here.

If you are hear today and you have not submitted to this story. If you have not said to Jesus Christ, you are my Lord, you are my master, you are my king, if you have never done that but you are ready to, then I want to encourage you to come up to the front here after the service is over and we want to pray with you. There will be a prayer team up here who literally just wants to hear your story and help you. They aren't scary people. Just talk.

Maybe you have believed this but haven't been living in light of the reality of the resurrection and you want to confess and ask for forgiveness. Come up here.

Listen, if it is true that Jesus rose from the dead, then death has been conquered. Then it's all true. We too will rise. Our sins are forgiven. And this is cause for massive, massive celebration.

Next week is communion Sunday and our last together at the Table before two services begins Sept 8th. Would you all bring a meal next week so we can celebrate the implications of the resurrection together over lunch?

1 Corinthians 15.12-17 (Resurrection and Reality)Transcript

Good morning friends, for those of you I haven't had a chance to meet my name is Brian Baughman. I’ve attended church here for roughly 4 years with my wife and 2 daughters. I drive a lot for work. Recently I got on the freeway when it was getting kinda dark and move quickly into the fast lane only to realize I failed the check my blindspot and nearly avoided an accident. It is a terrible feeling to see that car behind you slamming on their breaks just so they don’t blown off the road. But it’s an even worse feeling when that car behind you then turns on those red and blue flashing lights on top of their car and says “pull over”

Blind spots, like the one I failed to check, exist while we are driving, but also in other areas of our lives. In the context of personal development or beliefs, we have blind spots we aren’t fully aware or conscious of. This can refer to a broad spectrum of different things — our traits, values, actions, idiosyncrasies, habits, feelings, thoughts, etc. Today, we are going to address a blind spot that we all have, which carries eternal consequences.

I am preaching today so that you will have an honest conversation with yourself and others and take an inventory of what you really believe. Even if I fall apart and preach and awful sermon, the subject matter here is way too impactful to ignore.

Today we are going to tackle a difficult topic. Our message today is titled “Blind spot” and it will be “A topical look at the reality of hell” The outline of our sermon will

look like this: introduction, then a review of scripture, followed by a historical look at the cycle of belief Christians have regarding this topic, and lastly, I’ll address three groups: (exhorting)Those of you who have been Christians for a long time, (encouraging) those who are new Christians or maybe in a sensitive or vulnerable spot, and (pleading) with those who are not Christians.

(If I knew who you were, come and encourage you..)

Hell has become very uncomfortable to discuss – really at any level. It’s hard to bring up with friends, or strangers, you name it. You could jeopardize a promotion at work if word got out that you were one of those kind of Christians. You could be scorned at a family bbq. Really there isn’t a safe place to talk about a topic like this.

Statistics show us that most people still believe in an afterlife, even believe in a heaven and hell. However, what is changing is that hardly anybody truly believes they’ll be the one in hell someday. This is contrary to the Bible.

Matt 7: 13-14, Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.)

Matthew 7: 22-23 (22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’)

Preconceived Ideas of hell. Far Side/ devil horns

Heaven and hell, not a full picture, but a very good idea.

Our world has really two times that it will discuss hell. The first is when they mockingly depict a “hell fire and brimstone” preacher during a movie. This is a caricature. This is done to reinforce the idea that only a hateful, ignorant person would believe something like that. Their goal is to persuade you that hell is absurd and hateful to believe in.

We also see people defuse the topic with jokes. People will divert from being serious with comments like “If I’m going to hell I might as well go there a legend” or “ at least I know my friends will be there” or (movie example) . Friends, lovingly and respectfully, this can be the talk of fools. We are told in the Psalm 14 a fool says in his heart there is no God. The same goes for someone who says that there is no God in heaven who can stand over them in judgement.

But where does this leave Christians?

We love to acknowledge God and do our best to love people, but consistently divert our attention from this serious topic hell. Sports and entertainment and politics and family take our every waking moment and somehow we stop thinking about, talking about, or maybe even believing that there is such a place as hell. Do people I know, who die, really go there? Do I believe that? Do Christians believe that? All of the statistics show

American Christians are consistently confused and compromised on hell.

I’m preaching on this today because I believe you and I are in great danger. We are in danger of having the time, the resources, the energy for life and Godliness and talking ourselves out of basic Christian doctrines that should not only motivate us, but warn and deter those who have not embraced the Lord Jesus and repented of their sins.

Let me be direct with you: we are not taking hell seriously enough. It has become a blind spot in our lives.

Here is a quick background on how a Christian will understand heaven and hell using the Bible as their foundation: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Sin entered the world through Adam and Eve. Because of that, Romans 5 tells us man has a sin nature, but we also learn that man can be made right in God’s eyes through Jesus Christ. We do not deserve heaven. We are sinful creatures. Christ died because we had no way to enter the holiness of God, without being clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Without Christ, men are hellbound. God, who reigns eternally in infinite holiness, will not allow sin in his presence. The acknowledgement of hell has been a refrain for years.

First John the Baptist, prepared the way for Jesus, and announced his arrival:

Matthew 3:1-2 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

(this is important as a call to repent is found at the beginning of the ministry of John, Jesus, apostles)

Matthew 3: 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Matthew 3: 11-12 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Jesus started his public ministry with the same words John the Baptist did:

Matthew 4: 17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Jesus went on to bring up hell during the Sermon on the Mount. He talked about things like anger and sexual lust being damnable offenses to God’s holiness.

Matthew 5: 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults

his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

He also makes the point that nothing is worth going to hell over:

Mark 9 47-48 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 48 ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’

Here are the words Jesus had for his early disciples, many of whom would die horrible deaths for their faith:

Matthew 10: 28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Here is Jesus talking about the final judgement:

Matthew 25: 31-34 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

We’ll also take a look at what is referred to as The Great White Throne Judgement:

Revelation 20: 11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. 13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

The Biblical imagery we see from Jesus is hell as a lake of fire. I can’t imagine that. And yet, it was important enough the Jesus used the term Gehenna, and called it a lake of fire. Pastor and Author Tim Keller says he is often asked if the lake of fire imagery used is metaphorical. He usually replies with yes. It is metaphorical. It’s metaphorical for something far worse than fire.

Hell is a real place. People will go there. Jesus, the God man, who perfectly carried out the will of his Father in heaven thought it necessary to use it to strongly warn people.

Let’s talk about Gehenna. This is the term consistently used by Jesus. Follow me here because I’m not a Biblical languages guy but I think we can all get this: Gehenna in Greek comes from the Valley of the Hinnom, Hebrew Valley is where you get the Ge from, and Hinnom becomes Henna. For Valley Hinnom equals roughly Gehenna. This was a valley outside of Jerusalem with a dark history. Many rabbinic teachers talked of Gehenna as the resting place of the wicked.

For centuries, before Jesus, this was a place of obscenely demonic and wicked practices. The Israelites conglomerated the most evil practices from their neighboring countries to form a massive area dedicated to worshiping any imaginable false God. They were so wicked that God ended up having Jerusalem get ransacked multiple times and ultimate burned to the ground. Gehenna, during this time of wickedness, was the penultimate place of every horrible thing that could happen. Imagine for a second that we took down this cross, and replaced it with some freaky satanic alter. But that wasn’t enough, so we went into the countryside and created a massive satanic alter. Here are some Bible verses to show you what we are looking at: In 2 Chronicles 28 King Ahaz 3 and he made offerings in the

Valley of the Son of Hinnom and burned his sons as an offering, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.

Later that book we are told of King Manasseh:

2 Chronicles 33: 6 And he burned his sons as an offering in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, and used fortune-telling and omens and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.

Gehenna is not an exact replica of hell. It is an image of how wickedness, without the benevolence of God, has no boundaries. We can’t really understand heaven, nor can we understand hell. So our words and ideas are essentially this vague ideas trying to convey a point.

Gehenna was a place of fire. There were so many fires, that it had also been referred to as Tophet, a phrase you’ll see used in the OT. The phrase Tophet is often used, which means in Aramic, “fireplace”.

If the temple at that time was supposed to be the ultimate picture of holiness, The Valley of Hinnom was the ultimate expression of evil.

The temple was where the priests did their sacrifices to Yahweh, the one true God. Hinnom was where the Israelites would dictate which false god’s served them.

Jesus during his ministry replaced the temple, saying “something greater than the temple, is here” and yet the opposite to those listening to him, would be Gehenna.

By the time Jesus was preaching, Gehenna was no longer a place of idol worship, it was essentially a dump where they burned things. People will often say “wasn’t Gehenna just a trash dump? Why make a big deal out of it?” It was used to burn trash, sewage, animals, corpses of criminals, etc. It was revolting to the point of throwing up and at worst it would be bring on paralyzing fear. The smell would be nauseating, and see to that carnage would be revolting.

This is important: Even hundreds of years after the evil practices Jewish people considered Gehenna to be cursed. Think of a haunted graveyard or place where some horrific act of violence had taken place.

Gehenna struck fear in their hearts, just like hell should strike fear in our hearts. This was not a place you wanted to be. People at that time did not shrug off talk of Gehenna. We should not shrug off talk of hell.

At this point we’ll shift into our 2nd segment of the sermon,

Let me give you an illustration: A little more than 150 years ago this great country broke out into a civil

war. The election of Abraham Lincoln was the last straw, and the South said they would be breaking from the Union and forming a confederacy. Now you may think that the South was filled with rednecks who fit some stereotype but that is far from the truth. They chose a man named Jefferson Davis to be their leader. Davis attended West Point, read Aristotle, read founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson, and had parts of the Constitution and Bible memorized. The obvious question that then pops up is, how could a man that educated and with a Christian influence in his life be so blind to the radical wickedness of the Civil War era slave trade? William Wilberforce was a Christian, and he helped topple slavery in England 50 years prior. Lincoln was so committed he marched hundreds of thousands of men to their deaths over it as both sides pleaded with him to stop the war.

Just like Jefferson Davis was calloused to the horrors of slavery we are working diligently to push far from our minds the destiny of the souls of men. We subconsciously reject the doctrine of hell and of continuing to bask in carefully crafted theological ignorance. Telling ourselves and our Christian friends that we are living for eternity when we have eradicated the thoughts of eternal judgment from our minds. Christians from all over the globe would be stunned to hear that with churches on every block, a Bible in every Christian home, and freedom of religion, there is very limited evangelism taking place in our culture.

Howe did we get here?

There is a discernible historical cycle to the Christian Church’s attitude toward the doctrine of hell. (I want you to see where you might fit into this) (churches, denominations, countries all moving at a different pace, but the same cycle exits) A Bible Scholar by the name of Robert Morey did research on trends within Christian believe as it relates to hell, detailed in his book, Death and the Afterlife, and here is what he found out:

The cycle begins with a long period of time during which it is acknowledged that the Scriptures clearly teach the eternal punishment of the wicked. It is assumed by all that this was and always shall be the doctrinal position of historic Christianity.

After acknowledgment comes indifference. People will avoid the “negative side” of the gospel in which sinners are warned to “escape” and “flee” from “the wrath to come” (Matt. 23:33; Luke 3:7) While this is ignored and often downplayed, while the “positive side” of God’s love in Christ is overemphasized to the exclusion of anything else. The doctrine of hell is acknowledged to be true but rarely preached. Or discussed, or studied.

After indifference comes ignorance. (not the person being completely ignorant, but to this doctrine) The biblical theme of hell is ignored, the people in the pew do not

know why they are expected to believe in hell. Churches are avoiding the label “hell fire and brimstone”.

After ignorance comes doubt. Since no one is told why he should believe that there really is a hell, doubts begin to creep into people’s minds. It becomes fashionable to speak of the doctrine of hell as being “unkind,” “unloving,” or “negative.” - I saw a very famous pastor on tv years ago. When pressed about a false religious group really being Christians or not, he punted saying “I didn’t go to seminary so I’m not sure”. When pressed further the response was “we focus on the positive” If the pastor of a shallow, yet sadly very influential church set that as an example that difficult questions can be avoided, why would the parishioners be expected to do any better?

After doubt comes denial. This is critical place in the cycle. This is where the cycle hits rock bottom. False religious groups are quick to put forth either Universalism(everyone goes to heaven, or some kind of heaven) or annihilationism (that an evil person will not go to hell, but rather cease exist upon death, or cease to exist after some period of time) as the answer to the “horrible” doctrine of hell. Many books are published and distributed which directly attack the orthodox position. Many people will be convinced, and controversy rises up within churches.

Let me rephrase what he wrote for a slightly more modern audience: Many podcasts are recorded, many blog posts are published and even conferences held, which directly

attack the orthodox position. Many people will be convinced, and controversy rises up within churches.

After denial comes irritation. (this is where the cycle starts to swing back up) When the pressure from the Universalists and annihilationists is first felt by orthodox theologians, they respond by saying or thinking, “I don’t have time to deal with this issue right now,” “Wasn’t this issue solved one hundred years ago?” or “If we ignore them, maybe they will go away.”

After irritation comes affirmation. When the Universalists and annihilationists don’t go away but multiply drastically, the orthodox theologians take up the defense of historic Christianity and demonstrate that the Bible does indeed teach the doctrine of eternal punishment. God’s people are once again instructed as to why they should believe that there is a hell to shun and a heaven to gain. The subject is preached and taught with boldness. False views are thoroughly discredited and refuted.

After affirmation comes acknowledgment. The Christian Church reaffirms its historic position, and it is universally acknowledged that the Scriptures do teach the intermediate and eternal, conscious torment of the wicked. The controversy passes.

(maybe-UMC, American churches reject hell, Africans churches don’t)

To avoid a dangerous theological shift we must study the holiness of God, the character of God, justice of God. His patience and graciousness.

I believe that we can see signs of indifference, ignorance, doubt and denial not only across our broader culture, but within even the best Christian churches. Perhaps you’ve seen where you might fit into this cycle. I don’t have the goal of attacking you for where you stand, but I do want to call you to acknowledge the reality of Biblical teaching and that danger we all face in subtly minimalizing this doctrine, even with the best of intentions.

(all of us are in a different spot, addressing all three groups - explain the chance to pray, to talk, etc)

First

The first are those who know the gospel is true and has eternal implications.

Why do we not have more fear of hell? Friends, if our culture is not post Christian today, it will be soon. The time to plant the seeds of the gospel is now.

A friend of mine left a false religion. He said, I’m terrified to think of family going to hell… The question is, why am I not terrified for people? My concern is that you and I don’t have a chill run up our spine when we think about hell. I

don’t think that is sticking. Friends, fear can be a healthy thing. When you hear a rattle snake in that bush, you back away quickly. Are you acting out of fear? Yes, and it’s a smart fear.

When the benevolence of God is gone, there is nothing but terror left at God’s wrath punishing sin. We live in a time and place where warning people about hell may seem out of touch, but it is more necessary than ever.

I’m calling some of you to be bold. Some of you need to dig deep and step outside of your comfort zone. In your neighborhood, with your families, at work. Be griped by eternal realities. “Oh but I’m so busy with my kids I don’t have time to think about it”. Try this: tell your kids all of their sports or other extracurricular activities are cancelled until you have time to really think about it. Maybe you don’t have kids, your job is to stop or obessing about whatever they are discussing on Fox news until you put first things first. Now I have kids and I like politics, but when my priorities are out of line, it shows. Really evaluate what your life is about.

Where are the people who will be consumed by God?

Where are the people who will consistently share their faith?

Where are the people who along with their dietary goals, or business goals, or family goals, say I hope to share my faith with 10 people, or 50 people this year?

Where are the people who will set aside time on their schedules to pray relentlessly?

Where are the people who invite neighbors and coworkers to church?

Where are the people who tell a foreign missionary, every day that you are on the mission field, I will be praying?

Where are the people who won’t go to a foreign country, but treat this country like the mission field that is?

Where are the people who will build up the kingdom of God by saying “my disposable income isn’t mine” no Christian family is unable to adopt for financial reasons on my watch. No Christian family will be prevented from doing foster care on my watch?

And perhaps most important: Where are the people with the humility to say “I’ve made excuses for myself for way too long, and I want to be sold out to God”

Friends this can be something seemingly small – a man recently approached me after church and simply explained he needed to get more involved. We discussed a ministry he was interested in, and got him connected to the ministry leader. Doesn’t have to a massive change.

Perhaps you are fearful of making change. Let my cousin be in inspiration to you. She is very introverted, doesn’t like attention, is terrified of public speaking, but was convicted that she had never talked about God with her neighbors. She said when she wanted to their homes she was shaking in fear. She invited them to church. Neither one of them could attend. But both, at different times, circled back around and re engaged with her on the discussion. Do not shut doors that you haven’t even tried to open.

I want each of you to consider one thing you can do differently to boldly be a witness, and I want you to tell someone what you are considering. If you have an idea but you want prayer and to talk we’ll have the prayer team available right after the service.

SECOND The second group may be those who are newer Christians or maybe you’re in a vulnerable or sensitive position. Maybe you have doubts of your own salvation., and I’ve probably horrified you today. Please do one thing for me: Say, out loud in prayer “God, even though I don’t understand and it’s hard to imagine I’m trusting you know all things” Plead with God, to give you comfort in times of hurt and distress.

Trust God. Cry out to God in prayer, and reading his word, specifically the Psalms, which dealt with hard places in life. Continue to learn and grow within the body of Christ. Ask questions of of others like “how do you deal with this issue, or think through hard things?”

Psalm 34: 4-7

4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me

and delivered me from all my fears.

5 Those who look to him are radiant,

and their faces shall never be ashamed.

6 This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him

and saved him out of all his troubles.

7 The angel of the Lord encamps

around those who fear him, and delivers them.

Luke 18: 28-30

And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” 29 And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, 30 who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”

Turn this over to Him. Please take time to have a conversation with someone, to pray. Just a simple act by asking someone to pray with you will not only help you to identify this as something you want to discuss, but let a brother or sister in Christ walk with you.

Just like the offer to pray with someone was extended to the first group I’d like to ask you to pray with someone after the service is over.

THIRD

The fact is that many people want to think of our world as a good place but it is not. Do you really think a world that within the last hundred years produced a holocaust is a good place, with good people? A world where half a million people are murdered each year is a good place with good people? Where the sex offender list is overwhelmed is a good place with good people? Where today, globally, over 100 million people are slaves is a good place? Did you know that facebook has thousands of people whose sole job is sitting in a massive building at a computer screen deleting inappropriate content? Every

30 seconds they have to make a judgement on if they pull the content or not. The reason you don’t see these things is because they do. These aren’t dirty jokes, these are extremely violent images, images of murder and bestiality, or pornography. The job is mentally traumatizing, and the people are emotionally crushed because there is so much evil out there. There are dark corners of the internet that would make you physically sick. You can buy books at that teach people how to be a human trafficker. When people say “I’m not sure I can believe in a God who sends people to hell” I’m thinking “ What about the merciful God who sent Jesus in the midst of our sin? How kind and gracious is God to not kill every person on the planet with the radical amounts of wickedness that we produce?”

You’ll fire back and say “but I’m a good person. I don’t do that stuff. Of course those people are bad. But most people aren’t that bad”

God has a standard or righteousness that is called perfection. You and I could never meet it. See you can do everything right and work work work your way to trying to please God, but you’ll fail. God’s standard is too high. If you start to think little of God’s holiness, you’ll think very little of your need for a savior, and very little of the precious blood of Christ that was shed.

This is why Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a guy whose full time job was getting it right and doing the right thing went to Jesus, sat him down and said in John 3, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do

these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Here Nicodemus is saying “I’m supposed to have the answers, and I’m supposed to be the guy who helps other people find the answers, but you have something I do not have”

The simple reply of Jesus was 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus needed a spiritual rebirth.

Friends, you must be born again. I hope this is bell that rings in your head over and over again.

If you have not turned over your life to Christ I am crying out that you would be born again with a Spiritual rebirth. Maybe you’ve heard the word Gospel a million times but never fully understood what it mean. Gospel means good news. Here is the good news. It’s the news of a completely lopsided and unfair deal. That Jesus, perfect in every way, would die, and his righteousness, the only acceptable eternal sacrifice to God, could be transferred to sinners. This is the great exchange of the cross. Trading our sin and our wickedness for the righteousness of Christ. This is why the symbolism of Baptism is so powerful, the worst of us being crucified with Christ and going down to the grave, and then being raised back up clothed in his righteousness.

But this message is hard to hear because you must acknowledge one thing: you are sinner and you are lost without Christ. This is why the simple gospel message presented by Billy Graham confronted millions, Graham

would say something along these lines; God is looking deep down inside of you, he sees you as you really are. Outwardly you might be a good person, you might be a respected member of your community, you might be part of a church, and all of that is fine. But if you have not confessed your sins and cried out to God for forgiveness you will not be in heaven.

Today we have covered a lot. I’m going to pray, and when I’m done the worship team will sing a song. When they are done Noah will let everyone know they are dismissed. However, if you feel like you would like to pray with a member of our prayer team, they will be here in the front ready, and eager to pray with you. Our goal is that if you’ve been confronted with something whether it be reaffirming who you want to be in Christ, or turning your life over to Christ for the first time, you will have someone to pray with you.

Main Point:

God’s Grace as Divine Confrontation

Introduction:

Good morning! Before we begin looking at 1 Corinthians, which is a very personal letter from Paul to the 1st Century Corinthian Church, I’d like to make just a few personal comments to this church: You may remember, the very first sermon in this series on 1 Corinthians was preached by Nate Foreman on September 3rd, 2017. For nearly two years, we’ve been arduously laboring over each verse, seeking as a church to allow the authority of God through his word to address us personally. And as a result, a great deal has changed in our church since we began this series. You can probably attest to that in greater and more profound ways than I could, given that I arrived at this church in the middle of August 2018. God has been at work in and through his word. I’ve seen only a year of this ongoing transformation in our church, and it has given me cause to praise God this past year.

So, before I begin with our text this morning, I’d like to note that this previous year has honestly been one of the best years of my life. Though leaving friends, family, and good Gospel work in California was very, very difficult, we are slowly putting down deep roots here in Boise, and we are also beginning to see God’s heart for this amazing city. But more than anything, we have come to know Christ more closely because of our move here and our service in this body. So, as a member of your church family, I want to start by saying how much Lauren, Samuel and I love this church, and how grateful we are for this body.

But, I also work here. So, not only am I required by the gospel to love you as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, but I am obligated by virtue of my job description to serve you, and to serve you effectively! So, very briefly, I want to say that this has been the best job that I have ever had. I absolutely love my job here. And, there are many reasons for this: Jason and Kirk and the Elders are a tremendous encouragement to me. The admin staff, Nicole, Hailey, and Lori make my life easy![1] And I love the students that God has entrusted to me. Working here reminds me every day that God loves me.

So, how is the Youth Ministry doing? Well, that’s always a difficult thing to measure given that there is no app for tracking spiritual growth or steps of faith. But, over the last year, the size of our group has grown substantially so that we are averaging in the high 60s on Wednesday nights. We’ve added several new youth small group leaders this Summer. We studied through the book of Romans on Wednesday nights, read the Gospel of Mark as a high school group, and have begun studying the prayers of Paul and the book of Psalms this Summer. So, we’ve been busy!

Usually in youth ministry, numbers drop during the Summer months, but just as we have been experiencing on Sunday morning, we have been seeing numbers increase! As a previous pastor of mine once noted, healthy things grow and reproduce.[2] And I think that sums up quite a bit of what we’re experiencing here.

So, I am excited about what God is doing in our church, but I would also like you to see the obviousness of our need for more people to be pouring into the lives of our students through mentoring and discipleship. As one theologian has said, “It takes a whole church to raise a child.”[3] While God always gives the growth, he uses people to plant, water, and nurture faith. Please consider this! And talk to me. Or, email me.[4] Or, call me. Or, text me. Or, just come over to our house. I believe in this youth ministry because I believe that God is mighty to save sinners.

Exegetical Introduction

I would invite you to turn with me in your Bibles now to 1 Corinthians 15.9-11. As you are turning there, allow me to set the stage for the text we’re about to study. One of the reasons that 1 Corinthians is so interesting is because it exposes the nature of human relationships, which are inherently challenging, and how the nature of our relationships changes because of the Gospel. First, we must say at the outset that according to the Bible, it is obvious that people can, in fact, change. They can transform. People can begin as bitter, ugly, and murderous kinds of people, and somehow flower into dynamic, beautiful and radiant displays of God’s glorious grace. Just think of what you would be like without Jesus. I shudder to think what I would be like! People are moved not only to new kinds of behavior, but to become new creatures entirely. While behavior modification can take place under the right conditions and given the right motivations or rewards, no one, but God alone can resuscitate a dead heart. The letter to the Corinthians would make no sense if Paul did not believe this premise: God can transform people.

Second, the Bible teaches that people often change most profoundly as they meet other people. Relationships have this ability to transforms habits, value systems, and entire cultures. Yet, given our American individualism, we frequently run from relationships rather than into them. (especially as introverts!). The letter to the Corinthians bears this out as well. Paul recognizes that his responsibility in the Gospel, meaning his relationship to God vertically, makes him responsible for the Corinthians as a God-appointed shepherd and apostle, horizontally.

It is very important then, as we are addressing communication between Paul and the Corinthian church that we understand the status of their relationship, both to God and to Paul. Strewn all throughout the book of 1 Corinthians, we find Paul making spiritual assessments about both the maturity of his listeners and the legitimacy of his role as an apostle. You might understand this relationship as akin to a parent-child relationship. If you have teenagers, you will be finding yourself doing similar things: explaining, exposing, and confronting emotional maturity issues, dealing with them yourself, and seeking to confirm your God-given authority as a parent.[5]

As we approach 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is addressing the final theological issue in the Corinthian Church, which deals directly with a proper understanding of the resurrection, both Jesus’ and ours.[6]

In 1 Corinthians 15.1, Paul signals that this is a “reminder” (1 Cor. 15.1) of the Gospel that he preached to them while he was with them for a year and a half (Acts 18:11). Acts 18 details that “…many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized.” However, while Paul agrees that the Corinthians are “called to be saints” (1 Cor. 1:2),[7] Paul assesses their spiritual maturity with the following terms: they are like “infants in Christ” (1 Cor. 3:1-3), who still need to be fed spiritual milk. Later, he admonishes them away from self-deception, implying a tendency toward pride (1 Cor. 3:18). He acknowledges rampant and flagrant sin against God by the commitment of grotesque sexual immorality, which the pagans don’t even tolerate (1 Cor. 5). They are arrogant in relation to Paul (1 Cor. 4). They engage in lawsuits between church members (1 Cor. 7), misuse of spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 12-14), among other things. Naturally, Paul encourages them to not be “…children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature” (1 Cor. 14:20). And, one of his final exhortations or spiritual assessments is to say “Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to you shame” (1 Cor. 15.34).

So, if we combine all these assessments, we might say that the Corinthians are spiritual newborns, milk-fed babies, immoral yet arrogant, ready to sue in seconds, tongue-speaking children, who are in a spiritual punch-drunk slumber, ignorant of God. And yet, not only are they called to be saints (1 Cor. 1:2), but we must remember that Jesus tells Paul in a vision that he has “many in this city [Corinth] who are my people.” And so Paul, rather than run away from this immaturity, “…stayed a year and half, teaching the word of God among them” (Acts 18.10-11). When Jesus looks at this spiritually immature church, he says “My people.” And Paul says, “My responsibility to care and shepherd.” How is this possible? I would argue that this is the power of the Gospel for salvation played out both in salvation history, and demonstrated for us to see on the canvas of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. God’s grace is both vertical and horizontal.

It is in this context then, the context of this very interesting, conflicted yet honest, pastor-church relationship that Paul delivers his “reminder” of the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15.

Now, Jason helpfully explained last week that all the manifestations of spiritual immaturity in the Corinthian church [and in any church] can be traced as symptoms of sin all the way back to the root problem of sin itself. Jason articulated this well as “the Gospel fixes everything.” If sin is at the root of it all, the Gospel is the real solution to every major problem. And this is because, at the root of all brokenness is sin. But, sin is not only the sense of brokenness that we carry within ourselves, but it is the brokenness that is painted in broad strokes on the canvass of all our relationships because of our disjointed relationship to God. Sin, is both the main issue in our hearts before God and the main issue in our relationships with others. Sin manifests in our relationships primarily as distrust, among other things.

This is exactly what the Corinthians felt toward Paul: distrust, skepticism. The gospel threatened and confronted some of their most precious sins. Yes, precious. Therefore, Paul issues a “reminder.” The Corinthian Church, and our church, is always in jeopardy of forgetting the Gospel the deliverance of what Paul says is of “first importance…” (1 Cor. 15.2). After dealing with many specific issues within the Corinthian Church, Paul now circles back to the Gospel in order to reestablish trust. Trust in God. And trust in his apostle.

The key aspects of this reminder are: that Jesus’ death for our sins and his resurrection according to the Scriptures are the very grounds for the salvation of the Corinthians, and the sequence of appearances to the disciples, verify the reliability of the Gospel that Paul preached.[8]

This sequence, therefore, serves as a “reminder” in two ways: first, it grounds Jesus’ work in the context of Scriptural fulfillment and the historical reliability of real appearances to real people in real places in real time; but second, the sequence shows that Paul was the final stop on Jesus’ itinerary of post-resurrection appearances.

In other words, the Gospel not only grounds the Corinthians in salvation (to believe the Gospel is to be saved), even despite their immaturity, but it also secures the relationship between the Corinthians and Paul in a way that is intrinsically sanctifying (to believe the Gospel is to be united in Gospel community). Paul not only reminds the Corinthians of grace, but of God’s grace as it is mediated or given through Paul to the Corinthians. Grace that Paul didn’t deserve. Grace that transforms Paul from an opponent of the Church to the world’s greatest proponent of the Christian movement since its inception. 1 Corinthians 15.9-11 is here both to remind the Corinthians of their salvation in Christ, but also to secure a tumultuous relationship between Paul and the Corinthian church with a proper understanding of the grace of God.

I would argue this morning that God wants to accomplish these two things with us as well: he wants to secure us in relationship to himself, and he wants to secure us in our relationships with one another. Could it be that the Gospel has become a vague, foggy reality in your life today? Could it be that the significance of your gospel-relationships have become superficial and shallow? No one drifts toward the gospel, we must be intentionally reminded, again and again. Let’s read the text, starting in verse 8, and then I’ll pray:

8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. (1 Cor. 15.8-11).

So, here is how we will break up and explain this text:

Outline:

Paul’s (dis)qualifications for Apostleship (1 Cor. 15.9)

The Qualifying Nature of the Grace of God (1 Cor. 15.10a)

The Perfect Effectiveness of the Grace of God (1 Cor. 15.10b)

Work as God’s Grace in Disguise (1 Cor. 15.10c)

Grace: for Work & for Unity (1 Cor. 15.11)

Main Point:

God’s Grace is Divine Confrontation

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, as your word goes forth this morning, I pray that you would cause it to have its full effect in our hearts. We acknowledge this morning we suffer under sin with some of the same responses as the Corinthians. We not only need your forgiveness, but we need your power for the Christian life.

Jesus, you are one for whom our soul longs. Even with all our Summer plans, recreation, anxieties, burdens and joys, you are the only one who can truly satisfy our longings. Expose the idols of our hearts this morning through your word.

Holy Spirit, illuminate our minds. You who search the mind of God, and who search every intention and thought of our hearts, show us who we are in Christ. Strengthen us, convict us, and empower us now to come to your throne with humility and boldness. In Jesus name, amen.

Paul’s (dis)qualifications for Apostleship (1 Cor. 15.9)

8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

Again, 1 Corinthians 15.1-7 unfolds this “reminder” of the Gospel as a series or sequence of appearances. Jesus appeared again and again to various sorts of people, people who the Corinthians knew or could meet in their day, and then he stopped appearing. The timing of post-resurrection appearances was over. The Church was given the Holy Spirit as the abiding presence of God’s grace, even as it began to face persecution and trials. In between verses 7-8 Jesus ascends to heaven, then the Spirit descends at Pentecost to be the primary agent of God’s work in the world (Acts 2).

And yet, Paul claims that Jesus appeared to him using the same Greek word as all the previous appearances. Jesus makes one more stop. This grounds the “untimeliness” of Jesus’ appearance to Paul. For all intents and purposes, Jesus was done appearing. But, there was one more person that Jesus intended to see personally, with his resurrected body, radiant in light, on the road to Damascus. You can read this full story in Acts 9, but if you turn there, we’ll just read the first 7 verses.

But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. 4 And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” 5 And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6 But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” 7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.

According to Paul, this was not a vision, or a dream, or a psychedelic experience fueled by dehydration and a hot desert walk. This was an “appearance.” The “threat-breathing, murder-promising, holiness-police” reached a dead end, a divine confrontation, what he will later call: “grace.” This was no mere mirage. This was not fantasy.

For this reason, Paul is like someone who is “untimely in birth.” In fact, Paul was headed for death. He was an unwanted spiritual life. Left for dead. He was an enemy of God. And God in Christ brought this dead man back to life! C.S. Lewis helps us to see the significance of this event when he writes, “It costs God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert rebellious wills cost his Crucifixion”[9] Paul was the epitome of rebellion. And Jesus appears.

Can you imagine how much this meeting must have cost Jesus? Who on earth would our natural selves regret more to see but an enemy like Saul? While many of us avoid conflict even with the people we love, Jesus, timing his approach perfectly, addresses conflict directly: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?...I am Jesus whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9.4-5). He doesn’t sweep Paul’s evil under the rug. He goes to him personally, he speaks to Saul directly, and he speaks the truth honestly. Maybe we ought not handle our most important conversations over email, but in person. Maybe we ought to learn timing, precise language, and emotional maturity so that we can speak wisely when we confront others about the pain they are causing us.

Now, we often imagine that Jesus is happily sitting on his throne, ruling and reigning with no hindrance, no pain, and no suffering. But here, it’s clear that Jesus still feels the effects of a world suffering under sin. He really does feel your pain. In fact, he takes such personal interest in the suffering of his people that he explains that Paul is really throwing stones at him, not just his followers. This is an untimely visit. And it leads Paul to conclude the following back in 1 Corinthians 15:

9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

This is a properly grounded inferiority complex. Jesus meets Paul with stones in his hands, and murder in his heart. If there is anything that could make someone unworthy to be an apostle: it’s church persecution. Killing Christians. Approving of the murder of Stephen. Being the central figure in the squelching, and stamping out of the Christian movement.

Many of us look to our pasts with horror considering the ways that we have betrayed Christ or opposed him. We see ourselves as unworthy to be called Christians. Some of us have even gone through periods of doubting our assurance in Christ because we can’t see the adequacy of our transformation. On the other hand, some of us doubt not our salvation but our need for grace. We were saved at age 4 and don’t remember a pre-Christian life. May I suggest that if anyone had a right to doubt, it was Paul?

Paul is right about himself here. And, we are often right when we consider ourselves before a holy God. Whether you were saved at age four or age forty, it is the same grace of God that both saves you and assures you. The four year-old and the forty year old can both alike believe and apply this trustworthy phrase: (1 Timothy 1)

15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

There is a connection between seeing yourself as the chief of sinners, and the least of the Apostles. The Bible leads us to a low view of ourselves, but a high view of the grace of God:

The Qualifying Nature of the Grace of God (1 Cor. 15.10a)

10 But by the grace of God I am what I am,

In other words, Paul says, “By the grace of God, I am an apostle.” One commentary states this well, “In spite of his unfitness to bear the name[apostle], the grace of God made him equal to it.”[10] Grace qualifies. This is why Paul wrote later to the Colossians that he was praying for them that they would give thanks to “…the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1.12).

Grace qualifies us for positions that works simply could never achieve. You have what you have in Christ not because you are intelligent, good-looking, and deserving. Not at all! (though you may be all of those things!)

“Grace” is an overused, misused and abused word, and so we must allow a few moments to disentangle it. If you grew up in a Christian home, you might have said “grace” before a meal. Or, if you’re a particularly permissive person, you may have “erred on the side of grace.” If you grew up without a religious persuasion, grace is simply an impersonal, yet welcome reality of being #blessed. A mere consequence of time + chance. Grace is luck. Or, maybe you’ve seen all the churches named grace. Or the people named “Grace”. As you know, the more a word is used, the more confusing and entangled it becomes.

May I suggest a new definition based on this passage: grace is not only “unmerited favor” as though our sheer passivity was rewarded with divine blessing? “Grace” from this passage could be more richly and explicitly defined as God’s divine confrontation in Christ, in radiant light, on the Road to Damascus to stop sin. God’s grace is simply the summary word for all of God’s work in Jesus Christ to save sinners. Grace properly defined is the fact that “…God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us…costly grace is the incarnation of God.”[11] Grace is not the extension of some theoretical or impersonal force to give someone a life of blessing, it is, rather, the extension of the arms of Christ on the cross for our sins. It’s not sunsets and cute pictures on Instagram or mountain ranges or good vacations, God’s grace is a confrontation, God standing in your way and preventing you from taking one more step toward hell. Grace calls us out for our festering, foolish sins and hard hearts.

Grace does not, and cannot, justify our continuation in sin because it frees a person from sin at infinite cost to the Savior. This what Paul means when he says “but by the grace of God…” He is not being trite or trivial. He is showing, with the power of words, just what it cost God to move him from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of his beloved Son.

Then, Paul says something equally astounding to finish this phrase: “I am what I am.” It is not as though God’s grace swallows a person alive so that a person’s intrinsic personality is devoured and overcome by God’s coercive will. On the contrary, when a person experiences and is transformed by the grace of God, they become who they really are.[12] For Paul, the grace of God made him equal to his ministry as an apostle. And the grace of God makes us equal to our own ministries as parents, teachers, workers, lay-people, pastors, professors, engineers, insurance agents, real estate agents, and FBI agents (if you’re here). This is because grace is both a divine gift, but it is “…also a power that transforms.”[13] Marriage Illustration:

The gospel of God’s grace was both the qualifying factor of Paul’s apostleship, and it was at the same time the divine fuel for accomplishing this ministry.[14] And this leads us to the next verse:

The Perfect Effectiveness of the Grace of God (1 Cor. 15.10b)

and his grace toward me was not in vain.

Grace confronts us. And it continues confronting us until it perfects us.

In other words, God’s grace is so effective, that God never cries with the author of Ecclesiastes, “Vanity, vanity…” (Ecc. 1), or this fateful phrase “He who digs a pit will fall into it…” (Ecc. 10:8). I did all this work, and all I have to do now is sit in this pit. God never sits in the pit, idly wallowing in despair (like I do sometimes), “Oh well, it is what it is.” No! God says, it is whatever I make it to be. He never fails, but he always accomplishes the task that he sets out to do, even when this work involves real people and rebellious wills. Psalm 135:6 says, “Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.”

Now, again, we are liable to believe theologically or theoretically in the grace of God. We see the grace of God in the Bible, and we celebrate what God has accomplished in other people. But, I think this verse invites us to consider ourselves for a moment. This verse confronts both our inferiority complexes and our superiority complexes. It humbles us, and it exalts us. To those tempted by their superiority: you are not beyond the need for grace. To the inferior: God’s grace is sufficient.

If God does whatever he pleases in heaven and on earth, it follows then that he is currently doing exactly as he pleases in you, for you, and through you. God’s grace, his divine confrontation and redirection of your life, is extended toward you. And it is not in vain. He will complete the work that he started. There is not a heart on earth that cannot be melted, including yours, by God’s precious grace. God’s grace is perfectly effective, and it turns us into workers:

The Biggest Loser Illustration

Work as God’s Grace in Disguise (1 Cor. 15.10c)

On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Notice how dynamic the grace of God is! It has been the means of Paul’s transformation (by the grace of God, I am what I am). God’s grace has been extended “toward” Paul. And here, the grace of God is “with” Paul.[15]

Now, this is not false humility coming from Paul. Some people, when thanked say, “Oh, it was just the Lord!” Well, it sure looked like you out there! But, Paul is arguing that God’s grace is not ineffective. Rather, the unleashed energy that comes from the grace of God empowered Paul to become equal to his apostolic ministry. And, he outworked the rest of the Apostles. Or, in other words, he became more, by the evidence of his efforts, of an Apostle than the rest of the Apostles. By competitive comparison, he doubled their efforts. Paul’s life was a living demonstration of the principle that Jesus taught that “…whoever has been forgiven much, loves much.”[16]

But, Paul balances his diligent efforts with the reality of union with Christ. “though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” So, when thanked, we should say, “I worked harder than anyone! You’re welcome, but there was someone who did even more than I did!” You see, God’s grace manifests itself in our lives with the disguise of effort. Dallas Willard states this well, “God grace is not opposed to effort, but to merit.”[17] We do not earn standing with God, but God makes us equal through effort to our standing with him.

Parents sometimes come to me wondering how they are to balance grace with work in the home. Are they to discipline their kids for not coming to church? Are they to force their kids to read their Bible’s? Pray? Sing songs during family worship? Here we see that grace not only forgives and nurtures, but it compels to growth. While I don’t think it’s wise to trap our kids in Christian bubbles and suffocate them with Bible memorization, I do think it is wise to compel them to grow in grace. Grow in the knowledge of God. Read books. Participate in Christian community. Pray together as a family. This is because grace moves us toward change, and it is also with us during transformation.

In the end, we will find out that all of our diligent efforts, our hard-fought days of parenting, and our skillful working at our various crafts, and our pursuit of relationships and spiritual growth are all accompanied by Someone else who is really at work right beside us, “with us”. Grace is shown here to be the means of our transformation, the grounds of our efforts, and even the primary actor in our accomplishments. This is union with Christ. The work of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Salvation applied. Again, C.S. Lewis could help us here:

“In the Christian life you are not usually looking at Him [the Holy Spirit]. He is always acting through you. If you think of the Father as something ‘out there’, in front of you, and of the Son as someone standing at your side, helping you to pray, trying to turn you into another son, then you have to think of the third Person as something inside you, or behind you…Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever?”[18]

God’s grace is Trinitarian in nature. The whole Godhead is involved in producing the end for which he created a person.

So, therefore, Paul concludes that it is God who really gets the glory for establishing him as an apostle, for reaching the Corinthians with the Gospel, and for uniting them together as a Church family. This leads us to a final point of unity.

Grace: For Work & For Unity (1 Cor. 15.11)

11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Here, Paul takes us back all the way to chapter 1 in which the Corinthians are wrestling over who is the greatest of the apostles. Paul’s argument goes like this, if Paul as the least likely and last of the apostles can become the foremost and first in his expression of God’s work, it is God who gets the credit for the gospel, and God who gets the credit for real belief. “…so we preach, and so you believed,” is to say that all of the apostles, whether first or last preach the same Gospel. And, it is the same Gospel, the one gospel that secures them as part of the church.

Let me then conclude with just a few points of specific application. I want to draw these out in the context of relationships, since that is specifically what Paul is doing here. He is reminding the Corinthians of the Gospel that saves them and the implications that that has for their relationships.

Gospel Applications

Transparency of Our Past. If we are going to establish trusting, deep relationships and friendships with each other, we simply must be transparent about both our sin and our past. While it is true that not everyone can handle the brutal details (you don’t see Paul detailing how he killed people), you do see a clear honesty and transparency toward the Corinthian church. Take the “chief of sinners” mentality. Confess your sin in the context of community.

Let Grace Qualify You For Ministry. The grace of God not only saves you, but it qualifies you for ministry. Let’s not forget that God’s grace is sufficient and that God makes his power perfect not through strength, but through weakness. It would be really easy to think that your spiritual gifts match up with your Strengthsfinder 2.0 insights. And, they might. But God makes the greatest display of his power in and through weakness. If you’re feeling weak, praise God! Depend on Jesus.

Be Compelled By Grace Toward Diligent Effort. Grace gives us as Christians a competitive edge given that a person that has been greatly forgiven is able to love so exceptionally. All true service and good work stems from love. Let grace by your daily, and continual meditation in your service.

Pursue Unity. Pursue Friendship. While we are deeply connected through technology, we are deeply fragmented in our personal friendships. This leads to loneliness, something that individualists would not admit gladly. Let’s take an “I or they” mentality. Let’s not allow who’s doing which kind of Gospel work to divide friendships that are meant to be participated in with unified Gospel-joy.

“There is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets...Hence true friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend…in this friendship exhibits a glorious “nearness by resemblance” to heaven itself where the very multitude  of the blessed (which no one can number) increases the fruition which each has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, [gives] that unique vision to all the rest.”

Prepare for Death & Resurrection with the Grace of God.

 

[1] Reminding me of Hebrews 1:3 “[Jesus]he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” And, Jesus upholds this little part of the universe as his powerful word enables our admin staff.

[2] Britt Merrick.

[3] Albert Mohler, in a lecture given at the Gospel Coalition Conference in April 2019.

[4] Just so you can have a sense of our leadership group, I recently polled our volunteer leaders in their self-assessment as to whether they were introverts or extroverts, and we currently have a 100% introvert rate in our youth ministry volunteers. Way to go guys!

Problems

Nobody likes problems. The dishwasher doesn't work, there's a conflict in the home, there's a financial pinch. Whenever we are faced with problems, we try to fix them. That is natural.

A good metaphor for a problem is a musical chord that needs resolving. When there's lots of dissonance in music it creates tension. Here's the best example I know of this:

Just those sounds create so much tension. We hate that feeling. It's creating stress in you right now. I can see it in your eyes. It's so hard to just walk away from that note. You want to resolve it. And life is full of problems that are much more significant than just unresolved chords.

These problems cause dissatisfaction that is very uncomfortable. The longer the problem sits there or the more serious the problem is, the more we want to resolve it.

We have problems personally.

We get angry when we don't get our share

We get frustrated when we aren't understood

We get irritated when there isn't enough time or money to go around and we have to give up something that we consider to be unreasonable.

We have problems at the office

Relationships

The amount of work that needs to get done

With the small amount of pay or recognition or the tight working conditions.

We feel so much tension. And in order to resolve that tension we put a lot of effort into being problem solvers which is good and necessary. But there is one really important step that we need to make sure we don't miss before we go into problem solving mode. We need to make sure we've identified the right problem.

You see it's possible to have no tension in your life about a really serious problem. Your biggest problem might not even be part of your conscious thought.

identity might RIGHT NOW be compromised and someone right now is running up your credit cards

your house might be burning to the ground right now as we speak

a disease might be growing in your body

a family member of yours might have just got seriously injured

But if you don't know about it, well, 'ignorance is bliss.' In order for that motive tension to be created, in order for you to get serious about solving a problem, you have to first feel the problem.

This gives us an important category of thought. It's entirely possible that our greatest problem is unknown to us.

The Sin Problem

In all these examples, the CC fraud, the burning house, the disease, the only way for you to become aware of it, is to have it be revealed to you. Someone has to tell you. Now 1 Corinthians 15 does exactly this. It tells us what our greatest problem is. Our greatest problem according to our passage today is our sin problem which leads to our death problem. When the Bible says, "Jesus died to save you from your sins" its both identifying your greatest problem and solving it at the same time. Jesus died to save you from your sins.

Now it's easy to miss that this gospel good news is actually an insult. The gift itself is an indicator of the kind of problem and the severity of the problem. It's like someone giving you deodorant for your birthday. It's a bi embarrassing. You have to humble yourself quite a bit to, in front of everyone watching, lift of the shirt a bit and gently apply. You have to admit something about yourself that isn't pleasant.

But the problem isn't body odor and the solution doesn't cost $3.25. The problem is this thing we are calling sin and the cost to solve this problem is the death of the Son of God. Jesus died to save you from your sins.

So let's read about this problem and the solution in our passage for today in 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15 represents the summit of everything Paul has been saying to the Corinthians. The church in Corinth was pretty messed up. Pride was eating them from the inside out. Pride in personality cults, pride in sexual liberties, pride in their Christian freedoms, more recently pride in their spiritual gifts. And Paul literally says, "You want to know what the solution to all this is?" The simple gospel. Because all of these pride problems are manifestation of the great sin problem and that is what Jesus came to fix. Let's stop for a moment, strip it all down and let's get really simple.

Jesus Christ died for your sins.

So this is the claim we are wrestling with. In my garage I have hanging on the wall these two signs that came from a gospel campaign from Collister Community Church decades ago.

That is the gospel in as short a form as you can put it. The claim made by these two signs is that sin is the most fundamental problem of mankind and Jesus came to solve it.

Our deepest social problems are solved here.

Our deepest marriage and parenting problems are solved here.

Our deepest political problems are solved here.

According to 1 Corinthians 15, Our sin problem is the giant tear down the hull of the titanic. Our sin problem is radical, pervasive, extends to the mind, the heart, the affections. It is the factual case that the greatest problem we face in our life is our sin problem because our sin problem leads to our death problem which leads to our judgment problem.

That's a big problem.

Our Reaction to the Claim

Whether you believe that or not, it's almost impossible to not react to a claim like that. When someone says to you, "Did you know your house is on fire?" You have to respond. You check to see if it's true. You can't just not care. It's too personal.

And when the Bible says, "Jesus died to save you from your sins" you have to react to that. Essentially the claim Jesus is making is, "Man, you reek. You need deodorant." You can't just listen to that unaffected. God is saying, "You have some seriously rancid, moral stink."

Either you agree with it, you see it, you feel it and you fall on your face and worship because of the unbelievable mercy of God absorbing your problem. Or you have to find a way to impair and impoverish the claim and render it powerless. You can't just let it stand. It's too personal.

And the survey we took this morning represents different ways that people have reacted to the claim. And perhaps you are here wondering about this claim. That is great. We are glad you are here. Truly, we want this to be a safe place for you to consider the claims of Jesus.

The four choices in our survey represent four ways that men have responded to the claim that Jesus died to save me from my sins. So we'll look at why these ultimately fail, and then we will just look at the beauty and simplicity of how the gospel actually solves the problem.

So let's see how we voted. More than anything this vote is for me to see how all of you see our culture changing and reacting to the claims of Jesus. I'm just curious what you guys think.

Let's look at these various reactions.

I don't need Jesus to die for me

Jesus' death has nothing to do with me

It might be true but I don't care

If God was real, I wouldn't be suffering.

I Don't Need Jesus to die for me - Smell is Relative

Let's take a look at this first one, "I don't need Jesus to die for me." What is this guy saying. He doesn't agree that he's done anything that warrants a substitutionary death. When the Bible says, Jesus died for your sins, it implies that you broke a holy standard. It implies that there is this objective absolute law of God that you have broken and which deserves death.

The guy who says, "I don't need Jesus to die for me" doesn't agree with that claim. I didn't ask him to die for me. What's wrong with me such that a death like this was necessary. Essentially this is the postmodern claim that morality is relative. Or to put it in terms of our word picture, stink is relative.

There is no such thing as a moral absolute. It may stink to you but smells good to me. Who made you the stink police? Who determines if I smell? Why do you get to determine that I stink. Maybe I think you stink. There is no such thing as a moral absolute. I haven't violated any divine decree. And because there is no such thing as a universal moral imperative, I have done nothing objectively wrong and therefore I don't need Jesus to die for me.

Now in a sense, this fixes the sin problem. You remove the sin problem by saying there is no such thing as sin. Sin is just a social construct. As a society we invented the idea but it's not absolute. Fine. That is a great workaround.

Boom, have we solved the sin problem. But let's think deeper. All we've really done is kick the can down the road. We borrowed from Peter to pay Paul.

Because sin is real, the consequences of sin are real. We can't make gravity loose its grip on us by claiming it's a social construct or that gravity is what you decide to make it. You can definitely make yourself feel differently toward it based on your own ideas but you can't change it's effect on you.

How do you point this out?

The Problem of Shame

Let's forget the word sin for a moment, since that is a word our culture doesn't use well. What is a universal feeling, an emotion, a sense, which most approximates what the Bible calls sin? Or to say it more clearly, what is the psychological result of sin?

Here's the answer: Shame.

You can claim that sin is relative, that stink is relative but that does nothing to eliminate shame.

“Can you imagine a chicken blushing in shame. Why not?”

Why do humans experience shame? If you answered that question properly, you would have the meaning of life. You would have the center of the Bible.

Our greatest problem, which then trickles down into all our secondary problems is the fact that we sense there is something deeply wrong with us. We sense that we have done something wrong. We sense a violation deep within our Spirits. We sense that we are not worthy.

A chicken doesn't look at himself and say, "I am so unworthy." I have violated a standard. We have a chicken and he constantly is scratching the bark out of our planters and making a royal mess of our deck. But no matter how I scold him, he feels no shame. Why? Because he is operating exactly in accordance with his design.

Why do men and women blush? They are the only creatures in the world that blush because they are the only creatures in the world that have reason to be insecure. They are the only creatures in the world who sense with acuteness that they have done something which goes against the created order. We have usurped the design of the maker. It's that internal voice that says to us, "how dare you. Who are you to determine that you know better than the maker. Shame on you."

Shame is this God-given alarm that goes off that lets us know that we are in violation of the created design. We were designed to live to the glory of God and when we live to the glory of something else, God created an alarm in us called shame to alert us to the fact that something is desperately wrong. The moral fabric of your soul is torn and shame is the result.

Now if you are confident person, you probably say to yourself, "I feel very self assured. I feel like I have lots of value. I feel I have lots of worth."

It is likely that the reason you feel you have worth is because you have worked hard and are good at something and lots of people affirm you. But step back and think a little more carefully. Why are so many successful people successful? Because in so many ways they are especially driven more acutely than other people by this sense of guilt and shame, of fear of failure, of liability, or a sense of unworthiness. What's driving all that effort is this desire, this unquenchable desire to be validated, legitimized, approved, affirmed. You desperately are craving a judgment of worthy.

But deep down you know that all the success, all the accolades, the accomplishments, are nothing more than the papering over of this blistering problem of shame. You can perhaps get rid of the idea of sin, but you can never escape shame.

But look at the gospel alternative. Jesus died for your sins. Period. Full Stop. Look at the GREAT NEWS alternative. Now what does the gospel do? The gospel, if you accept it, enables you to stand. Look at the language of 1 Corinthians chapter 15

That word stand is a word that speaks of judgment. When it says the gospel enables you to stand think in terms of geography, "Where are you standing?" Where is this testing and judging taking place. And the answer is beneath the white-hot, penetrating gaze of the holiness of God. It allows you to stand beneath the scrutiny of the righteous one.

Imagine that heat. I think the only way of visualizing this is to imagine those situations in which you feel ashamed of your inferiority.

Maybe there are times when you find yourself in a room with someone you consider to be an intellectual giant. You just listen to them talk and you can tell in a moment, this person has a forest of words at their disposal. Without effort they are slinging two-three multi-syllabic words you've never heard of into each sentence.

And this fear begins rising up in your throat. You just fear that if you even breath a single word they will judge you for being absolutely inane. What in the world is he even thinking. You can tell by their smirk, they are evaluating your ignorance. You can tell they are making judgments upon you. You dare not open your mouth for fear that out will come spewing reasons for them to further condemn you. You are imagining belittling sentences they are saying in their head.

That's a microcosm of this idea of being able to stand before God. Just the very glimpse at him, just the slightest peek into his character and I guarantee every living being will just crumble. You know in Romans 14 talks about this day when

Believer, unbeliever, alike, all you have to do is just look at him and it's patently obvious that he is brilliantly, blindingly holy. You've never seen something so majestic. How can I stand beneath this gaze. Your only option is to fold the knee.

No man can, unless what? Unless he is innocent. Do you see how the gospel eliminates the sin problem, not by making sin relevant, not by pretending it doesn't exist, not my playing word games and redefining it, but by paying for it.

Can you feel how amazing this is to be able to stand without shame. No shame. You are forgiven. Christ clothes you in his righteousness. He looks on you as spotless, stainless, sinless. He looks on you and doesn't stare you down in disapproval. He stares at you and smiles and that smile lifts your shoulders and enables you to stand. What a beautiful reality!

Do you see how much better a solution it is to allow someone to pay for your sin than to pretend there is no such things as sin?

Instead of shame you have been given value and worth.

You have been given an identity that cannot be taken away.

You have been given freedom to live as one not under condemnation or fear of rejection.

So much confidence. So much joy. So much assurance. It's a beautiful thing.

So let's review:

Christ died for you sins. Some will say, "I don't need Jesus to die for me." Smell is relative. Others will say "Jesus Death has nothing to do with me."

In other words, this is the atheist, the naturalist who doesn't believe there is such a thing as God. Let's put this in terms of our word picture. If the gospel essentially is you stink, here's the solution. The guy who says, Jesus' death has nothing to do with me, essentially what he is saying is this, deodorant isn't real. Smell isn't real. And there isn't a God out there to offend.

Deodorant isn't real.

This is the guy who takes a slightly different angle on eliminating the sin problem. In the previous answer, we tried to eliminate sin by eliminating morality. Here we try to eliminate sin, by eliminating God. This is the naturalist, the evolutionist, the atheist who says, "Not only is morality a fiction, the whole concept of God and atonement and judgment are fictions.** Sure Jesus was a man, he lived and died a tragic death. It was unjust. It was cruel. But he was just a man. Jesus was not God. His death has no more effect on me than a snail who gets unjustly crushed by a guy walking down the road with his dog. There is no supernatural element to what we observe here." We live in a natural world in which everything can be explained materialistically all that we experience is chance happenings, undirected forces, and the significance of you killing someone has no greater objective meaning than you saving someone from being killed.** They are meaningless activities of chance atoms, reacting and responding to their environment, where metaphysical concepts of will, joy, sadness are imaginary ideas, with meaningless impact on other chance meaningless collections of randomness.

Now this sort of thinking also, in a way, eliminates the problem of sin. If you remove the concept of God then of course there is no such thing as a divine anything, especially not such a thing as divine displeasure, divine wrath, divine atonement.

These too are nothing more than ideas created in heads filled with meaningless atoms and to even argue or debate these concepts is absurdity in the most meaningless way. What in the world could 'win an argument' even mean to a pile of atoms.

One pile of atoms named Jesus dying which is nothing more than breaking the bonds between that system to save another pile of atoms from the way those atoms reacted to their environment.. This is absurd. So you can remove sin by removing God but you do it at the cost of also removing meaning.

How can life mean anything if there is no God, no creator. Design equals purpose. Design equals meaning. And without it, you have meaninglessness. Without design everything in life is no more meaningful than a computer program that selects letters from the alphabet and displays them at random.

Meaning has to come from design.

Design has to come from a God.

And if you remove God to remove the sin problem then you just shot yourself in the foot because you got rid of meaning in the process. In an effect to limb the tree of dead wood, you cut off the very branch you were sitting on.

Now by contrast, do you see how superior the gospel's answer is to this question?

We remove the problem of sin, not by eliminating the God of judgment but submitting to the God who absorbed the judgment. And now look at this: by allowing God to solve the sin problem, we amazingly discover that He has also solved the meaning problem. Look how Romans 7:4 connects together the solution to the sin problem and the solution to the meaning problem.

So the body of Christ was crucified which solved our sin problem and now we are given meaning. Here's the meaning he points out: With the problem of sin solved, we now have meaning. Our meaning is found in belonging to one another and bearing fruit for God.

What are the most meaningful things you do in life? They always have to do with people. Isn't that cool? You now have meaning in life because why? Because Jesus Christ died for your sins.

Now there's a third way that people try to deal with the sin problem.

You say to them, Jesus Christ died for your sins. They don't deny that sin is real and they don't deny that God is real but they just don't care.

The gospel tells them, you stink.

Deal with My Stink.

Recently, I listened to a podcast by a very insightful guy who I can't remember his name (super helpful I know) and he was making the observation that we are quickly moving past a post-modern culture that denies moral absolutes into what many are calling a post-truth culture. And a post truth culture does not challenge the fact that something is true. They just don't care.

What a post-truth culture cares about is experience. I'm living for experience. So to put it in terms of the movie the Matrix, they don't care about the truth. Just give me the pill that shields me from the truth so I can have my experience.

My own theory on why this is a rising philosophy in our culture has to do with the information overload that we all experience. We are constantly, daily, hourly, inundated with claims of truth all the time and I don't have the emotional HP to try to figure it all out. The times I have tried to figure it out just lead to conflicting answers, arguing, debating.

And so it kind of just hardens people to the concept of truth. The only truth I care about is the truth of my experience.

Truth is not important. In as much as things relate to me having good experiences, well I'm willing to listen, but I have no desire to bother myself about things that do not pertain to my direct experience.

Jesus died to save you from your sins.

"It might be true that I stink to some God out there but he's going to have to deal with my stink because I just don't care. Is it even true that I stink to some God out there? I don't even know how I'd figure that out.

If you don't like me the way I am, tough.

Now this another very clever way of circumventing the sin problem. You don't deny morality or even absolute morality. Sure I admit I am sinner. And you don't deny God. I'm sure there is a God out there. I just don't care. An indifferent man can't be threatened. Jesus died to save you from your sins. You are a sinner. I don't care. No motive tension is created.

One of the defense mechanisms we have if a truth is too painful is to just stop caring. If we can't handle the truth we just say, "I just don't care."

For example, If someone is up to their eyeballs in consumer debt, the hard truth is that you've really made some bad choices. The hard truth is your heart believes a lie about where to find happiness. The hard truth is it's going to take a long time to get out of it.

And very few can face into that hard truth so they laugh it off. I don't care. Live it up. And so the truth has no fangs because apathy removes them.

Jesus died to save you from your sins. You get rid of the sin problem by refusing to care about either God or sin but you do it at the expense of joy and satisfaction.

People that don't care about truth can't be happy. Caring about truth and having your world make sense is the only way that a person can be happy.

Jesus connects truth with freedom. You can't have freedom without truth

Here's the gospel alternative. The gospel alternative is to accept the truth. The truth is you are a sinner. And in fact, the truth is you are a far worse sinner than you could ever have imagined. Your sin is far more offensive to God than you ever could have realized. Your sin has bought you a one way ticket to hell which is just a right and righteous and beautiful. That's the truth. And the gospel says, "Care deeply about that."

How could I care? That will destroy me to realize just how serious a problem there really is. If I care about that I will be driven to the breaking point.

The only way you can be allowed to care that deeply is by believing another truth. It is also true that there is a grace that is far more unbelievable than you ever could have dreamed. It's far more forgiving than you ever thought possible. It's far more complete, far more generous than you ever could have dreamed. And Jesus, because he loves you, wants to give that to you.

And because you believe the truth and respond to that truth what follows on the heels? Joy, unbelievable joy.

Jesus died to save you from your sins.

Now there is a final way in which people try to solve the sin problem.

Others Stink More than Me

They don't deny the problem of sin. They feel it very accutely. They don't deny that God exists. They very much grant that this makes logical sense that a creator must be out there. They also care very deeply.

Jesus died to save you from your sins, to save you from your stink. What they end up doing is shifting blame. It's like trying to break up a fight with your kids. You hear screaming and one of them says, "He hit me." And you say, "Why did you hit him?" Because he said I was a jerk. Well why did you say he was a jerk, Because he took my toy....and on and on it goes. There is no confession and softness and personal repentance, because there is an outrage at the way other people's sin has injured him.

The problem of suffering in this world is a direct result of the problem of personal sin. And when God says, "You are a sinner" many of us will look around and say, "Why are you talking to me? Aren't you in charge here? Why did you create a world where people stink?"

And the language usually comes out, "If God was real, all these bad things wouldn't be happening." God wouldn't allow rape to happen and murder and racism and oppression and social inequality. But it's actually a strange form of blame-shifting. Can we not admit that if every person stopped pointing to the problem of evil and simply responded to God's free gift of grace, Jesus died to save you from your sins, there would be no problem of evil?

Can we not see that the problem of evil is really the problem of men not personally responding to the offer of forgiveness. Cannot we see that the problem of evil has been solved by the simple gospel offer, Jesus died to save me from my sins?

So the guy who blames God for sin by shifting responsibility acknowledges there is a God. Acknowledges sin. He care deeply about it. But it's not my problem. It's God's problem.

It's God whose the one that should be shamed for allowing people to suffer not me.

It's God whose the one should be feeling guilty for allowing all these innocent people to suffer.

It's God whose the one who needs to apologize for creating a world that he claimed was good and then filled it with pain and suffering.

So the blame is shifted off of me personally to God. But at what cost? Blame-shifting creates bitterness.

Bitterness is an inward condition of holding someone liable for a sin. To hold someone liable means I cannot treat you as if you hadn’t sinned.

When the utility company holds somebody liable for a bill, it cuts off the electricity or water or gas. To hold someone liable means, “We can’t relate as we did before because of what you have done to me.”

And you see how this kind of bitterness has soured people to religion. It soured people to the idea of God. It has soured people to the gospel, this great news. Why? Because they are convinced that God needs to be held liable for the sin problem.

Have you seen a person destroyed by bitterness? It's so tragic. And even more tragic is when their insistence that this other person is to be held liable is factually inaccurate. I've seen this many times over the years where someone is poisoned by the idea that they have been mortally wronged by another person. That thought worms its way into the heart, distorts the way they view the world, sours them to everything beautiful and they just nurse on that thought until their soul is shriveled into a non-person.

It's so horrible to watch. Is that the way you want to solve the sin problem?

The Gospel Solution

Listen, the sin problem is real and serious? How are you going to deal with your sin problem?

Deny morality at the expense of shame.

Deny God at the expense of meaning.

Stop caring at the expense of satisfaction?

Blame-shift at the expense of bitterness.

Or would you let God pay the price so that you can have freedom from shame, security, a new identity. Let Jesus die for your sins so that you have meaning. Let Jesus die for your sins so you can be satisfiedinjesus. Let Jesus die for you sins so that you can be eternally free from all bitterness and rather explode in joy that the bitter cup was swallowed by Jesus for you.

You see the gospel is amazing because it's true. The gospel works because it's true. Here's the simple truth. The gospel fixes everything. That sounds like an overstatement, oversimplification, a rhetorical device, but I promise you it is not. The gospel really does fix EVERYTHING because it is the only thing that fixes in an ultimate way, the problem of sin and hence the problem shame, the problem of meaning, the problem of satisfaction and the problem of bitterness.

How do you receive this forgiveness? The Bible says it so simply. What do you have to do. It almost feels too easy.

Do you want to do that today?

FITTING IN TO GOD’S GOOD ORDER

 

1 Corinthians 14:33–40

“For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.

 

As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

 

Or was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. So, my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. But all things should be done decently and in order.” (ESV)

INTRO:

Well, it’s summer and that means wedding season.  We’ve all been to some amazing weddings that express the beauty of of what marriage is…To introduce our text this morning, I want to share a wedding story.  We had a young couple in our church in England who decided to get married in Scotland where the bride was from. So, our whole church did a big road trip to the Highlands of Scotland.  Imagine the setting, the rolling green hills and the wedding set in a hotel that looked like a castle…All the Scottish people in their kilts.  The bride and groom looked amazing, the service went perfect and people were in awe of their vows and the beauty. Afterwards the reception was and amazing party and so much joy was there with people dancing and enjoying the food and fun. And THEN the toasts came and one of the groomsmen got up to give a toast.  Sadly, he proceeded to air the all the groom’s dirty laundry and past sin to the whole room!  It was an attempt to “be real” but it fell like a thud and succeeded only in offending 99.9% of the room including the families of both bride and groom….It just didn’t fit the occasion.

I share that story to illustrate the main point that Paul concludes this chapter, chapter 14 with.  He says in verse 40, “all things should be done decently and in order…”  There are things that are fitting and things that aren’t fitting for every occasion in life, and especially for the important things like weddings AND in the context of 1 Cor. 14…worship.

But, I’m sure as I read our passage this morning, some of you weren’t thinking primarily of what’s fitting in worship.  I guess at least half the room noticed that this passage had a thing or two to say about women in the church! And we’ll look at that, but its very important to once again realize the context that Paul is writing to in both the city of Corinth and to the Corinthians church.

Remember the Corinthian church was full of pride and divisions…Paul earlier made sure that they were told that all their rivalries, divisions, jealousies, etc. were libel to make them sound like an annoying crashing symbol.  He contrasted this with what a patient, forbearing, humble, love would produce in their midst.  They could use their gifts to create noise, or they could write a symphony by looking to love one another and build each other up.

At the beginning of this section of spiritual gifts in chapter 12, Paul pushed back on their disorderly, boastful and spiritually competitive gatherings and told them how to really be spiritual.  He told them in verse 7 of chapter 12 that to be spiritual was to use your gifts for the common good. To be spiritual was to be part of the family of God, the church and live as one body working together for each others good.

AS we close up in chapter 14, Paul’s been taking pains to specifically lay out the ways in which even the most controversial gifts among them, even the ones they mainly prided themselves about, could be worked together in harmony during their times of gathered worship. His overarching conclusion of the previous section was in verse 26…”let all things be done for building up.”

He put the notes of the music of their worship so to speak in order for them in verses 27-32 with specific instructions on the gifts of tongues and prophecy.  He tells them to play the right notes at the right time.  One or two could speak in tongues at most in their meeting, and they needed to be interpreted…two or three could speak a prophecy and others need to judge if they are God glorifying…This is the way the gifts could be exercised in love and build up the whole church.

Now, as we close up this section on the gifts and worship, please remember, the Corinthian church is coming from a completely different direction than we are coming from. Remember the charts that Jason used to talk about the gifts of the Spirt?

The Corinthians were all the way over here (Charismania) and we tend to be mostly all the way over here in our practice…even if what we believe is more in the middle. Paul is correcting abuse in Corinth and trying to reign them in…he  would probably be urging us to seek the Spirit empowered life, while running after love!  He told them they were like a loud annoying symbols making unintelligible sounds…Maybe he’d tell us we are a bit monotone and we play the same one or two notes over and over and could use some more music on the sheet!

And now as he closes out chapter 14 and gives instructions about worship Paul is essentially telling them that to be really spiritual means to fit into God’s good order…

God’s Good Order - v. 33

 

And I really want you to note verse 33 in our text today.  Because this is the basis for us seeing why order in worship is good.   It’s not because Paul has OCD and needs an extremely ordered service.  It’s not because Paul has a certain personality like a computer programmer and wants it to be church the way he designs.  Its not even because Paul likes things the way they’ve always done them in his tradition and he has a stylistic preference.

It is because of the very nature of God. “God is not a God of confusion, but of peace.”  This passage overall is about what is fitting and what is in right order for Christian WHEN we gather to worship.  But Paul makes it clear…the reason for this order is because of WHO we worship. And I don’t just want to pass this by in the text this morning…God is not confusing…He’s a God of peace and everything has it’s order. Let me illustrate this way.

This past week I was walking by Jason’s office.  I noticed he had two massive screens in the office and I walked in to see what was happening. There was some sort of gibberish all over the screen, I think you computer geeks call it - CODE - lol.  He was designing software to make our new missions map interactive and feed information to these screens so the rest of us plebians can get the info in an accessible way in order to find out what the Lord is doing in various countries…I am just a touch screen computer consumer, I could never do this programming!

But it made me think…Wait a minute, he’s designed our website, our internal network systems as a church, and on and on I could go…this guy has a serous brain for order and structure! And I have to say, it was super humbling to think about the intelligence at work to build the software that runs the order I live and breath in….And that is just from the small 3 pound brain of one single human being who knows less than .001 percent of all knowledge in the universe!  Now imagine Who our God is.  The God of the bible knows everything!  He knows how it all works.  He designed the order of how it all should and could and does work!   I was in awe of Jason…but I am so much more in awe of the God who made him, me and everyone else’s intelligence.

Now, I wouldn’t have assumed in that moment as the touch screen, user friendly, mostly computer programming illiterate person that i am to tell Jason anything about how to make that CODE in the proper order to generate the missions map information.  AND I DIDN’T…I said, wow, that’s cool and walked right out the door, knowing my place!!!              4

And really, it would be good for us to acknowledge this God of order and peace right now.  For example, This same God, in the Old Testament, set up a rhythm for our lives in the creation order.  6 days work and 1 day of rest. And Jesus said that this pattern of rest was made for man as a blessing. God was actually caring for us as his creatures when he established this at creation and continued it in the nation of Israel.  He knew we would be so foolish that we would constantly work ourselves to the bone.  And when we do this, we are foolishly fighting against his good order…Think about it.  God actually says REST!  We spend so much time trying to pack everything into our lives instead of prioritizing what is good right and in order.  God says my good order involves rest.

The nation of Israel also was told to not farm the land once every 7 years to give the creation a rest.  Did they do that?  NO, they were too greedy and just kept on working until the Lord had to send them out of the land to discipline them and give the land its rightful rest.  In our greed, our efforts to prove ourselves, our attempts to be everything to everyone, we live outside of God’s good order and we suffer for it.  Think of all the anxiety, stress, depression, physical illnesses, etc that are sometimes the result of us living the American lifestyle and burning ourselves out. God in his goodness says REST!

WELL, back In our text today, the Corinthians with their practice of tongues, prophecy and other church practices are trafficking in trying to tell God what the right order should be! They should be humbly saying, God how does this work?…how can we worship you to build up the whole structure of your church and work in symmetry with your order? But Paul had to exhort them to fit into God’s order.

I say all that to carefully introduce verse 34 - 35… Because we need to come at this section in the right way.

I know one way we in our culture today will approach this passage, simply because of the way we have grown up and what shapes us in the 21st century is this….We will read these words “the women should keep silent….” and immediately repel backwards, feel sick to our stomachs and think they sound barbaric, out of place and even evil. There’s just no way around it.  Especially if you are not yet a Christian or visiting here today, I want to say to you…I know how you think this sounds…If you are a woman today I think I know how this might sounds to you.  You see I asked a fairly large group of women in the church to tell me their impressions of this passage upon reading it…and even the ones who believe this is God’s words and want to obey it (if we can figure out what it means) think it sounds demeaning, out of place and a little strange.  For example, one of them said:

I don't think most women hear or read passages like this one and immediately think "this is addressing my function and role, and NOT making a statement about my value." Unfortunately, I think the opposite is the case, a passage like this comes along and we feel demeaned, pushed to the back, and undervalued as those whose voice is not to be heard... We must not have anything good/important/helpful to say.

So I get it! While I am not a woman and can’t hear this passage from your point of view, I have tried to listen well…So let’s try and see what Paul may be saying about women fitting into God’s order

Women in God’s Good order v. 34-35

Alistair Begg said “These are Two challenging verses - both For men who have to expound them and  for women who have to listen to them!”

But, sometimes it helps to know what is being said by knowing what is NOT being said.  This is one of those times.  Let me tell you what this passage absolutely is not saying as it centers around two Words, “SILENT” and “SUBMISSION.”:

“SILENT” Let’s talk about this word silent….

This cannot mean That women can’t say a word once they enter into a church worship gathering.

1 Corinthians 11:5 - Paul has already said they pray and prophesy in the order of the church and gave instructions for this (some say the context is not the church gathering like here in chapter 14, but it is 5 clear that church order is in view in chapter 11 since he talks about communion practice).

We also need to see the context that Paul tells the tongues speakers that are out of order to be silent earlier in verse 28. Paul also does this in Romans 9 in answer to a rebellious questions that accuses god of wrong….

“SUBMISSION”

That women are unequal with or less than men

3:28 affirms the essential equality and unity of men and women in Christ. Just as racism has no place in God’s church order (Barbarian / Scythian), classism has no place (slave / free), so sexism has no place either.

That women are subservient to men in all strata of society.

Paul is talking specifically about the local congregation gathering for worship and its order.

There was a young woman who I spoke to in preparation for this message who was at school one time among Christian boys and was told she could not read the scripture or give a talk in a bible study they were all apart of. I believe this is out of place, first of all because these boys are not men yet (and proving it!), and most importantly because a bible study at a school is not the local church gathered under church leadership in the context of 1 Cor.

This passage is not saying women can’t be involved in worship or that they are unequal with men.  And, so let me say, after much discussion, I can say on behalf of our leadership here at FCBC that we truly want women to flourish in the roles and in the order that God has established.  We affirm our sisters in Christ in their equality with the brothers, and We don’t want extra-biblical tradition to rule women out of exercising their vital roles in the body of Christ…We NEED women to fulfill their ministries and use the gifts they have to serve the body and reach the world with the good news of Jesus!

Let me show you a list adapted from one scholar on biblical manhood and womanhood.  This is a listing of some of the many areas where women can express their gifts in the church and it is a massive list.

Like I said, we want to encourage the women of FCBC and particularly the young women in a culture where they are told the Bible holds them back, that there is so much room to express the gifts you have, and serve.

There has been so much misunderstanding, and misuse of passages like this in scripture to put women down and to make them feel less than.  That is not what we believe or want and that is not what the bible teaches…from the very beginning God spoke and said that he created us in his image - male and female he created them.  We can’t express the full image of God - the Awesome God of Order we have been talking about today - without both men and women in this church and in the world!

SO, what IS this passage saying about women in the church?

Well, like many difficult passages in the bible, i think we have to be humble and say there are a couple of options, so here they are:

A cultural argument - Sadly, women in the first century in which Christianity was founded were by in large uneducated. This was many times because of the prejudice of men and misuse of men’s power. Now obviously not all men were well educated, but women as a grouping of people generally were not.   (By the way, this makes other statements in the bible where it says “let women learn…” radical in the culture of the day…The fact that women were to learn alongside the men was a counter cultural upheaval of the status quo and made a huge statement about the equality of men and women.)

But, since this was the case at the time Paul is writing, some believe that the women in the church at Corinth were possibly sat across the room from the men.  When church was happening and something was said, this view says that the women were disrupting the service and asking their husbands what the meaning of a teaching, prophecy or tongue was - because they hadn’t learned as much…and so Paul says in verse 35 “let them ask their husbands at home…” Essentially this view is about the culture around the Corinthian church.

According to this view, Paul is saying:

Now, I think there is are elements of truth to this argument and it’s a very good possibility. It definitely helps to reconcile 1 Cor. 14 with 1 Cor. 11 and reconcile what the bible says overall about the dignity and worth of women with this passage…AND, It pushes us back to the wider point of the text and basically tells us “let everything be done decently and in order…” and we can definitely get plenty of application from that.

BUT, there are some problems.  that interpretation doesn’t address verse 33 as a connecting verse, where Paul seems to say that the order of peace that the God of order is establishing is for all the churches of the saints…

It also doesn’t address why Paul would say in verse 34 that they should be “in submission as the Law also says…” or later when Paul says this passage is a “command from the Lord”

And, if you think about it, this cultural interpretation could actually be MORE sexist.  Surely there were uneducated men in the congregation at Corinth too?

So, that’s why I believe there is another, better way to understand this text.

The context of this passage is all about the exercise of the gifts of prophecy and tongues in the church gathering. Paul mentions it in verse 28 when he tells tongue speakers (just like he tells the women here) to BE SILENT.  At the end of this section in verses 39-40 Paul bookends the discussion with tongues and prophecy again saying we should seek to prophesy, shouldn’t forbid tongues, and to do it all in order…

So, that means his instruction to the women had something to do with the exercise and order of the the gifts of tongues and prophecy.  It seems Paul could be saying:

 

For me, and hopefully for you, this clarifies so much in this passage. It shows that there is a cultural context, but also a wider principal in play.

Perhaps the women in the Corinthian church are rightfully relishing their freedom and equality in opposition to the overly patriarchal cultures of the ancient world.  But perhaps also some of their actions in expressing that freedom in Christ and equality were unknowingly (or knowingly) subverting God’s order in an “over course correction.”

Taking a good thing and going overboard…

This is so human for all of us!….We are pendulum people all the time!

In politics - we vote people out….don’t like them…then vote the other back in…etc..

IN their actions - whether intentional or not - the women in Corinth were making a statement by getting involved in the judging of the tongues and prophesies …and that statement was that we don’t need order…we don’t need God’s order…that’s not important anymore…we’ll be the judge of that. But here’s the problem, that’s not true, it’s not wise, and it won’t actually satisfy.

III. Men & Women in God’s Good order v. 34-35

 

Paul is saying that there is an order in the church that God has established.

Based on this passage and on 1 Tim 2:11-14 God’s order for the church is that men govern and lead the teaching of his church…

Remember this slide from when Jason preached on 1 Corinthians 11?

1 Corinthians 11 and Eph. 5 God has ordered the roles in marriage that men take the lead and headship by loving, serving and leading in the home.

And in this passage Paul ties it not simply to a couple of proof texts, but to the whole flow of the first section of the Old Testament - that’s what he means when he says “as the LAW says…” in verse 34.  He is saying that the order of God in men taking the responsible lead in the home and among his gathered people has precedent in the Old Testament story.  The same Old Testament that was accepted as God’s word at the time of the writing of the New Testament.  He superimposes the story of the Israelite culture onto the Greek culture of the Corinthians in order to show that God has always had an order since the creation of Adam and Eve.

This has nothing to do with women being inferior or unequal.  It’s just the order the the all-wise God has for his created institution of marriage and his gathered people, the church.

Like I said earlier…I know this grates on the nerves of our culture.  We are coming at this from a totally different space than the ancient world. None of us like being put in order so to speak.  We live in an anti-authority age and we are a very independent people out here in the wild west of Boise Idaho.  Beyond that, the culture around us is screaming that there are not only no differences between men and women, but it is barbaric to think that our roles should be different in any way at all. We aren’t even sure as a culture anymore if there is really such a thing as gender, so why could some people do certain things and others not…that violates our self expression!

Here’s the reality, though. It’s not just women that have to deal with this.  It’s men too.  There are roles men can never truly have….

For example, In God’s creative order, I can never birth a baby as a man. I have seen my wife carry all four of our children and there are aspects (though definitely not the pain!) that i have been jealous of…The intimacy that birth and nursing affords to the mother /child relationship is beautiful…and its something I will never experience. That’s not in order, and I have to accept that. I don’t get to do that.

We all have to accept God’s order to be truly satisfied….If I pin my happiness on physically having a baby someday as man, then I would spend my entire life unhappy and maybe a bit angry and frustrated.

Also, ladies just so you know, some men in fact many men….read about what it takes to lead and take responsibilities and be the source of sacrifice and love for our wives and the church and we don’t even want that or feel up to the task…it’s massively overwhelming.  I know that’s hard to believe when there has been so much abuse of power by men. But its true. I think that can be one good application of this passage when it tells the women in the church to ask their husbands.  He is not saying that the husbands can be their only teachers.  They off course can talk to the elders and pastors when the gathering in over…BUT the act of asking their husbands is an act of faith submitting to God’s good order.  And it can have the effect, really and truly of encouraging men to take the responsibility and lead that they need to. Otherwise men can get discouraged.

My wife Mindy and I were close to a couple when we were younger and spent time with them in their home, and eating dinner with them.  The wife would constantly ask me questions about the Bible because I was a youth pastor at the time.  And of course I would do my best to answer them.  But I was young and didn’t know much to be honest! And I realized after a while…Hey, you have a good man here.  Your husband is great and seems really wise…Why don’t you ask him!  That conversation would have created intimacy and growing relationship and encouraged him in his leadership…So I began to actually say…why don’t you ask him!

One woman who gave feedback for example said that this passage isn’t oppressive at all…in the concern of being too able dominated, we can err on the side of not encouraging the men to lead…So I believe Paul is pointing us back to the order in the family here too.

Families and the church are blessed when men are actually responsible - to know their theology and know how to weigh things in worship…

Anyway….as we move on..the truth is that the women in Corinth were only mirroring what their leaders and the whole church was all about in doing tWhat they wanted in worship.  Look at verse 36 - 38 -

Churches in God’s Good Order

Paul is saying that the Corinthians think that the gospel started and ended with them.  That it was all about them….that they were the spiritual ones and they could do the stuff of worship however they wanted.

PAUL SAYS NO

He tells them essentially that not only do tongue speakers, prophesiers, and women need to be in order…but churches need to be in order too.  They didn’t invent the gospel, and they didn’t invent the awesome God of the gospel with his infinite knowledge and order in the universe. They need to get back in line and recognize that Paul and the scripture have the right to actually give them the order of God to follow in their gathered worship.

I remember when I was a younger man I spent 2 months in Italy as part of a medium term mission team.  The goal was to find some partners for an eventual church plant in Rome. As we searched for partners we had a lot of different experiences with a variety of Christians from different denominations, backgrounds and streams.  We served the Italian churches and helped them in what they were doing in order to see if we were like-minded and could find some people to work together with long term.

One on occasion we were in a coastal city outside of Rome and we ended up working with a church that was doing a sort of Old-fashioned tent style revival.  They had an circus type tent and it was outside in the summer.  Packed full of seats and ready to welcome people who weren’t yet believers in to hear about the good news of Jesus.

On the first night of a week long spell in the tent, the church came out in full force.  the place was packed, but almost exclusively with people from the church other than one family, a man and his two daughters.  The band began to play worship music and the whole crowd of Christians lifted their hands.  Not really knowing what was happening, but looking around and seeing everyone else doing it, the man signaled to his girls to raise their hands too…And it seemed to be going just fine. But at the end of a couple songs, the visiting speaker for the night (who just happened to be Ukrainian speaking in English fir the first time and being translated into Italian), stop the proceedings and said, “OK, now I want everyone to not just pray, but pray in the spirit!”  After that, almost the whole group from the church began to all at once speak in various languages that didn’t seem to be known languages…It was a cacophony of loud confusion.  After a few minutes, the man who had brought his daughters looked around, looking confused and a bit freaked out and promptly walked out with his two girls.

The speaker eventually got up and preached a good gospel message to a crowd full of people who already were believers. Afterward, I approached him fearfully and trying to walk in humility, and told him what had happened…that the one person who really needed to hear the message had left due to the out of control way they had practiced the gift of tongues…He shrugged and said, “I’ve been doing this a long time and it works better and people like it better…”

Paul’s already described what would happen if the Corinthians used the gift of tongues in an “out of order” way back in verse 23.  He said that if people who aren’t believers come into a scene like that, they will think you are out of your mind….that’s exactly what I witnessed that night in Italy about 20 years ago…God’s word (sadly in this case) came very true!  The order of our worship has real world implications on what happens with the gospel message in the hearts of real people!

With respect and love, I can say according to the word of God, he was out of order…But I need to be open all the time to hear where I am out of order….We can look at other churches, but we need to constantly going back to God’s word and letting it change our lives and worship…

 

Fitting into God’s Good Order

SO HOW DO WE TAKE ALL THIS A PUT IT INTO PRACTICE?  Let me make some application.

Women use your gifts!

 

These slides show the some of the gifts of teaching, governing and public recognition that are in the church.  The couple of things mentioned above the first line are those we believe are reserved for main according to the Bible in order to maintain the creative order that God has established. Please not how little is reserved to maintain this order!  Preaching in church, being a pastor or elder and it’s function, shepherding a small group, and being ordained…that’s it!

The next grouping are those things that get discussed in church and are a “judgement call” so to speak.  What really matters is the attitude of the person who has the gift (man or woman really) and how it is exercised.  And then the rest of the lists are once again ALL those gifts that would be exercised by women in the church - THERE IS NO SHORTAGE!

If you are a woman as part of FCBC, know that you are valued and your gifts are…the Sunday worship gathering is one aspect of where our gifts as a body are being used and you are a big part of that.  We want to make sure you can read, pray, sing, and be apart of the harmony of voices in our gatherings.  And even more than that we depend on your perspective, influence and gifts in a myriad of ways in this body.

Men & Women live in the order God had given

I know a lot of the feedback I got from women I asked to help me prepare for this sermon was simply that they wanted to honor God and obey his word.  That is so encouraging!  Please continue your heart to honor in the way you approach opportunities to use your gifts.  IN reality, it is not even about when or how we get to use our gifts, but us ALL having hearts of submission to not be disruptive in our service.  There is a particular role here for you to express the order of God in lifting up the God ordained leadership in home and church….Rejoice in this role as you show the beauty of the complimentary nature of Christ and his church.  You get to show the world something different.  A place where we aren’t about power play in the battle of the sexes, but about mutual honor and fitting in our places to the glory of God.

All of us get into the place in God’s order that we belong

kids, youth, members of the body here at FCBC.  Tongue speakers, non tongue speakers, those who prophecy and those with every other gift…

Live in Worship of our great God and his perfect order.

This really gets to the heart of the gospel.  Our chaos and subverting of God’s order is the problem of humanity.  Whether in our lack of rest, our sexism, or our re-drawing of gender lines, or any other way, we bring chaos to God’s order in our sin.  And look around in the world.  Doe it look like it truly satisfies?  Are people in peace…or is there massive confusion?

Jesus Christ came and humbled himself, though he is the head of man.  Jesus Tok our subverting of his order, our rebellion onto him on the cross and took the lower place in order to wipe out the judgment of God on our rebellion.  He rose from the dead to give us eternal life in his peace and ordered eternity full of joy.  If you don’t worship him, turn to him, and turn away from your disordered rebellion of him!  God is a god God of peace and order.  Admit humbly that he is the one with the best way and find your place in his kingdom!

And may those of us that are Christians do the same.  Let me close by reading section of a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier that i think catches the heart of where we need to be from this passage.  We need to find our rest in fitting into God’s good order:

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,

Forgive our foolish ways!

Reclothe us in our rightful mind,

In purer lives Thy service find,

In deeper reverence, praise.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,

Till all our strivings cease;

Take from our souls the strain and stress,

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace.

LET OUR ORDERED LIVES CONFESS THE BEAUTY OF THY PEACE

AMEN

Introduction

The next two weeks we are breaking from our 1 Corinthians series to do a couple important messages. Today's message is timely both in terms of where we are in the calendar and in terms of the season we find ourself as a church.

I want to start off this morning with the word DONT. It's a word we use all the time but probably don't put much thought into. In my family this comes out of my mouth about every 18 seconds.

"Don't jump off the roof onto the trampoline."

"Don't walk through sawdust with your socks."

"Don't play with gasoline and matches."

I've got four boys so my examples are a bit biased in this direction. Lisa and I spent some time with some good friends of ours in the mountains and this family has two well-mannered girls I'm finding myself increasingly embarrassed as the day progresses. I'm just constantly saying, "

Don't pull that plant out of the ground.

Don't drown your brother.

Don't climb that tree.

Don't destroy that bush.

Don't start that log on fire.

And my friend leans over to me and says, "In the 16 years I've been a parent, Never have any of those sentences left my mouth."

So this word don't is a frequent part of our vocabulary. But let's observe a few things about the word.

First of all, observe that the word don't is a command. And all commands are issued from the mouth of someone who feels like they have some sort of authority or justifiable basis to ask you to do something.

Secondly, it assumes that without the command it is likely you will do the very thing they are telling you not to do. Either you are currently doing and you need to stop or your likely to do it so it's a warning.

Thirdly, it suggest that there is a reason why it would be advantageous for you to avoid whatever you are doing. Either the thing you are doing is vain and empty or even harmful, or there is something better awaiting if you reject this thing in front of you.

This is interesting and all, But here's the million dollar question. if someone tells you don't, will you listen?

At some point in your life, you've probably heard, "Don't eat fast food. It's bad for you." But then you went ahead anyway.

You probably heard, don't work too much. But then you went ahead and did it anyway.

You probably heard, don't yell at your kids or your spouse or your family. But you went ahead and did it anyway.

So when does a "don't gather enough force such that it changes your actions?"

There are two possibilities. The first is fear. You are afraid that if you continue something bad will happen to you. Fear is the driver.

Don't eat that bag of tootsie rolls because if you do your organic-loving, vegan-trending friends might condemn you.

You really want the tootsie rolls but you are afraid of something enough that it functions as an inhibitor. We might call this the "don't of threat". The threat of something bad prevents you from doing what you want.

That is the first possibility. There is however, a second possibility. It is possible that the don't is connected to a plea to seek something else better. Don't eat that bag of tootsie rolls because it will spoil your appetite for the homemade pies that your grandma is making this afternoon. This is the "don't of appeal."

Both don'ts result in changed behavior, but there is a world of difference between the two. Which would you rather be motivated by? The don't of threat or the don't of appeal? We'd all say the don't of appeal.

Now if you read the Bible, God uses the word don't all the time which would pretty obviously imply that there are things we are prone to do that God does not want us to do. Without the don't, we'd almost surely wind up doing something God deems unhealthy. So the don't is a warning of mercy.

But what kind of don't does God use with us? We all said we prefer the don't of appeal. Would it be accurate to say that God always uses the don't of appeal. No, there are many don'ts of threat in the Bible. I'll just give a single example of dozens we could cite. God is speaking the nation of Israel about this future monarchy.

That sure sounds like a threat? Why would he do that? That doesn't seem right. Why would God threaten us? Well to answer that question, there's another concept we need to introduce. Let me point out something very important. We created these two categories of thought as a sort of trick. There really is no such thing as a don't of threat.

All don'ts are don'ts of appeal. We can illustrate this simply.

Let's return for a moment to the tootsie roll example. Don't eat the bag of tootsie rolls because your friends might judge you. Initially it feels like a don't of threat because it's threatening the displeasure of my friends if I eat the tootsie rolls but think deeper. It's also a don't of appeal because you are appealing to a great love that you possess which is the approval of your friends.

Now the reason that it feels like a threat is because it is revealing that you have two loves that are in conflict. You love the approval of your friend and you love the taste of a tootsie roll. You can't have both. Anytime you are asked to give up something you love, you feel threatened. Either the approval of your friends OR you loose the taste of tootsie rolls. One has to give and we don't like that feeling. And so it feels like a threat when in all reality, it is simply pointing out a dual love that cannot coexist.

Think about the other example I gave. When I say, don't eat the tootsie roll because grandma is baking keylime pie tonight (my personal favorite) that feels like a don't of appeal but there is not here a difference in kind. It's exactly the same kind of don't it just feels different because there is no conflicting love. Clearly when you compare a tootsie roll to grandma's keylime pie, there's no contest. You gladly obey, because you don't have to give anything up.

Now here's the point of the introduction. Whenever a don't of God feels like a threat, you've encountered a dual love, a false love, an idol love that cannot coexist with God.

If you feel threatened by a don't in God's word, ding-ding-ding, You love God and something else.

Today we come to a don't that has the potential to feel threatening. And I want to read this passage with the filter we just created because this is one of the most beautiful don'ts of appeal you'll ever find in the Bible. It's so glorious, it's so magnificent. It's intended for your joy. It's intended for your good pleasure and happiness. And the fact that it is intended for you joy needs to be pointed out explicitly.

Open your Bibles to 1 John 1. Now I'm not going to belabor the context here. We can summarize chapter one with two simple points.

John tells in John chapter 1 that he's writing about Jesus. Why? That our joy may be complete. He describes Jesus, this man we have seen with our eyes, and touched with our hands and he wants you to know him. Why?

So John's aim in writing 1 John is for us to have complete joy in Jesus. Basically our mission statement. Satisfied in Jesus. That's step one. Got it.

Next step. Why is Jesus satisfying? Why will he make our joy complete? Because he is the light. Just like the light makes you happy because it shines and gives meaning to all things, God is like that. He's the ultimate thing worth loving and trying to achieve. Possessing the light is possessing the key that unlocks the world and gives us complete joy. Without God, nothing makes sense. The world is dark and how can you be happy in the dark. With him it all makes sense because light provides meaning. Complete joy, by definition, means possessing the light. That's step two.

Now with those two things firmly established, the very next thing he does is give us a Dont.

In other words, if you want the light, if you want joy, if you want happiness don't love the world. If this feels like a threat, like God is trying to steal your joy in some way, like God is a cosmic party pooper, trying to pour down rain on your parade, remind yourself that this cannot be the case. John's point in writing all this - that your joy may be complete. So in order for my joy to be complete I have to listen to this don't.

Now depending on the love structure of your heart, you may not be ready to jump on board. This don't may be revealing a dual love.

Maybe you love God AND you love your free time.

Maybe you love God AND your sport Maybe you love God AND your work Maybe you love God AND your freedom and independence Maybe you love God AND your peace and quiet Maybe you love God AND your financial security Maybe you love God AND your hobby

And God says don't love those things in an ultimate sense. Hold them loosely, submissively. If it feels threatening, remember, there's no such thing as a don't of threat only an exposure of a dual love. When God says, don't he's actually appealing to the light; he's appealing to the good. Don't love the darkness; rather, love the light. The light is where joy is found.

But if you continue to love the world, well, John says, that says something. That reveals something about you.

How can he say that? Because only one love can take that ultimate place. If I see heads, I can say definitively you didn't get tails. If you choose the world, well then I know absolutely, you haven't chosen the father.

Now John gives evidence for why this is a heads/tails sort of arrangement. Why it must be an either/or not a both/and.

In other words, these are opposites. Being satisfied in the world is the opposite of being satisfied in Jesus. It's as opposite as darkness and light. This is why the Bible compares love for the world to spiritual adultery.

Imagine being separated from your spouse for an extended period of time. Maybe one of you has to go to Iraq. And after two years the day comes to be reunited. Can you image the pain of getting off the plane and seeing your spouse arm in arm with another person? Can I ask, “Is your heart wrapped up in an affair with this world.”

Do you love money? Do you love power? Do you love freedom? Of course we love those things. But do you love them ultimately? Could you give them up? Should you give them up?

Now he gives a reason why Jesus is superior to the world.

The logic here is this: I understand why you would love the world if that is all there is. Of course it provides some level of happiness. But why would you choose to love the world when it is passing away, along with it's desires?

Don't you see that these strong desires you have for the world will one day be no more. It's like a fading piece of technology. Everyone wants it and then it just fades to the point where nobody wants it. But unlike technology, you don't get to trade up. You get one choice in life. You can't trade up. You either get the world, which is flashy and seductive and sexy for a moment but then fades away like useless 10mb hard drive. Or you could choose Jesus which is the opposite. It provides ever increasing joy, more full and complete light, everlasting fulfillment that grows and expands and blossoms into eternity.

Why would you long for the world? Both it and the desire you have for it are passing away.

And yet as insane as it may sound in this moment of clarity, we all love the world to some degree. The roots of the world are growing into our hearts constantly. So when you find yourself in that uncomfortable situation where you realize that you have a dual love, what do you do about it? When you hear a don't and feel threatened, what do you do? What do you do with an adulterous love?

Answer you expel it. You expel the inferior love by focusing on the superior love.

The Point

Thomas Chalmers wrote an article once entitled, "The expulsive power of a new affection."

I'll link this article in this week's newsletter so I suppose that's a plug for our newsletter. Sign up for it on our website if you don't get it. It's the main way we communicate here at church.

And in the article he argues that there are two ways to get someone to stop doing something. Either show him the vanity of what he is doing or replace it with something better. And he says, the first way, to show someone the vanity of something is almost alway entirely ineffective.

You can't just stay stop doing this thing that brings you some level of happiness. Because the human heart is designed to need happiness. So if you create a vacuum, well nature detests vacuums. Nature does everything it can to fill in vacuums. And so the vacuum of the human heart will suck right back in what it had before no matter how convincing your arguments that it is vain.

Apply this for a moment to the current addiction that everyone has to their phone or your kids to video games or whatever. Not a person on the planet is going to argue for the wholesome health of movie, video games and social media. Man it's just awesome that we are blowing hundreds of hours a year on this. Nobody would argue that. Everyone sees the vanity.

But this is not enough to effect change. The only way to effect change is to expel that inferior joy with a superior one. Give someone a great purpose, a great joy, a great pursuit, and then media is displaced. Now, it's a willing, glad, happy exchange. You don't discipline yourself to put down your phone. You just have no desire because there are so many other exciting, great things to do in life.

And for the Christian, that great, exciting, thing is the pursuit of Jesus Christ. It's living life and enjoying the world with Praise in your heart for him, living for him, loving him.

The Allure of the World.

Now why are we looking at this passage today? There are several reasons.

In general we are at risk of loving the world. We are always at risk of this but especially here in Boise. It's comfortable here. There's lots to do. Opportunity abounds.

What are you looking forward to? There is so much to look forward to in this life, isn’t there? Depending on your age and health, the world is spread out before you.

There are places to travel… Europe, Central America, Alaska, Far East

Toys to purchase… Boats, tools, cars

Projects to work on.

Houses to buy and fix up,

Kids to play with,

Children to love

Relationships to build

Camping trips to take,

Sporting events to participate in and watch,

Clothes to buy,

Gadgets to accumulate… the list is endless.

The allure of the world is strong in this city. And all of this has the potential to pull our hearts away from the all-satisfying person of Jesus Christ. In fact, I was recently somewhat shocked to discover Boise's ranking in a recent Barna research in-depth study entitled "the Most post-Christian Cities in America: 2019"

This really doesn't surprise me at all. Boise is the prime place to give up Jesus in exchange for our lifestyle, whatever way you've dialed that in, whatever combination of creature comforts, technology, leisure, entertainment concoction that works for you - we can begin to love this and be totally unaware.

But Jesus will not allow us to live unaware forever. A day will come when Jesus lays down a don't. I feel your like of this has become an adulterous love. And so I DONT want you to invest any more in the stock market....

Don't play your sport this year.

Don't go on your vacations

Don't want you to watch TV anymore

Don't want you to buy any more clothes

Don't want you to exercise like you used to

Don't want you to take that promotion.

And that don't is a don't of appeal. He's appealing to you. Don't eat that tootsie roll, grandmas pie awaits. But it's a threat because the roots of that love have grown deep. And now it's very difficult to rip it out.

Do you remember the rich man that came to Jesus and said, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" And he basically said, obey the law. And the rich man came back and said he had obeyed everything in the law from his youth. That's highly unlikely, but Jesus did not challenge that claim. Instead he said this, "one thing you lack. sell all your have." In other words, "Don't love the world." And the man went away sad. Why? Because he had great wealth, he greatly loved the world. He couldn't release his grip to his own peril.

How much of the world's wealth do you have in your heart? How sad does it make you to consider Jesus asking you to sell it all and follow him?

Today's message is not a message to go away sad. It's a message to go away happy! It's what John says, "I write these things that your joy may be complete."

Think about Thomas Chalmers and the expulsive power of a new affection. Our goal today is to give you Jesus so you gladly release the world. Remember the parable Jesus tells in

This is what we want!

FCBC and Gifts

Now here's a final principle and application to our church in particular and specifically to each of you in the room.

God will never be lovely and satisfying and valuable until you give him everything. You have to go all in. You have to sell out. He wants you to give him your heart completely.

You can't stick your toe in the pool to experience the joy of swimming. You can't dabble in Christianity.

In marriage, the beauty of relational intimacy will only bloom if you obey every don't God has built into the marriage covenant. And likewise you must also obey every do. What that means is putting all your eggs in one basket.

And the same goes for Jesus. What does Jesus want you to stop doing and what does he want you to start doing so that you can have your joy be made complete. Well he wants us to stop loving the world. But there is also something he wants us to start doing. What does he want you to do? Well what have we learned in 1 Corinthians?

This year's theme is gifted to serve which comes from 1 Corinthians 12.4

1 Corinthians 12.4 says we've all been given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

Our excitement in the growth of the kingdom of God is proportional to our investment. We can't possibly be excited if we aren't invested. You aren't excited if someone else's financial portfolio grows. Why? Because it's not yours. If you aren't using your gifts, if this isn't your church, you will just see the growth of the church as an inconvenience to your lifestyle.

The problem with the Corinthians is that they were using their gifts for themselves and as such could never have their joy be complete. They needed to use their gifts for others. How are you using your gifts in the church here? How are you invested?? How do you personally own a piece of what's going on here?

I think the degree to which you own the ministries of this church and the degree to which you are striving to see the gospel go forth and the degree to which you want to see other believers built up is the degree to which you will be excited when you see the church grow and when you see more small groups forming and people coming to Christ.

Of course there is a sense of loss in growth that is correct and understandable, but the greater joy of seeing the gospel work is greatly encouraging and exciting.

As you can tell we are getting full here in the sanctuary and unless something changes significantly, the elders made the decision this week to go to two services in the fall the week after Labor day.

This is a chart that shows adults only. Every week we have over 100 kids plus SS teachers in that part of the building over there. As you can see this is a trend that probably just begs the question not if we go to two services but when.

If you compare this year to last year and particular, let me draw your attention to the month of May, we will almost certainly be at a problem point come the fall. Last year we planted Table Rock church which is why there was a drop in May. We housed Compass Bible Church during the summer and they left in the fall. So in terms of numbers, we had two church plants leave last year and we will have none of that dropoff this year. So we are planning for the fall.

For some this comes as a sadness. You feel like the things you love, your friends, your close connections, the family atmosphere, are being crowded out. If you are a native to Boise, you feel about our church probably like I do about Boise. What happened to my city? And what you want is to just have this tight group of buddies that get to do things together and love to share in fellowship without having to be bothered with the troubles and messiness of having to integrate people. What you are describing is heaven.

This is not heaven. We are on a mission here to spread the gospel. We are on mission to share Jesus with the world. What if Jesus had that attitude? Glad it's just our small group. Not really interested in sharing this message with the world. Nope it's just us. This reaction of disappointment at growth is not healthy.

I had an unsolicited letter given to me a couple weeks ago that I felt was the Spirit of God giving us direction through this woman in our body who wrote this:

We’re new to FCBC. “New” as in ten months old in our participation with this local body. We’ve been Christians for a few decades combined, and we love the local church. In many ways, we’re still learning the culture, rhythms, and norms of being part of this local church, but in other ways we have come to feel very much at home.

There is one thing that provokes our curiosity. We’ve noticed an aversion to the idea of “two services.” In fact, we’ve seen the mention of the phrase “two services” yield a proverbial stiff-arm in conversation so apparent that it made me wonder if there was some prior difficulty coming along with this idea. We’ve seen frowns, thumbs down, and even an “amen” in opposition to the idea of moving toward two services. And we can’t help but scratch our heads a little bit.

As a body and a people that has been saved by grace, how can there be a reticence to the extension of that same grace (2 Cor. 4:15) through this local church to more people?

And the main point this person was making is quite simply: This church is Christ's not ours. The letter ends with this admonition: Let us grow in grace and in asking Jesus how we might serve and surrender ourselves to Him for the sake of the advancement of His Kingdom through us at Faith Community Bible Church, and maybe we’ll find ourselves saying, “Have your way, Lord!” at the thought of two services.

Here's another don't from Jesus. Do not hide your light under a basket. Rather let you light shine before men. In the book of Acts in a single day 5000 were added to the church and it was cause for great celebration, rejoicing and praising of God.

Don't hide your light.

The simple admonition here, is don't love the world, the comforts of the world more than the mission of Jesus Christ. The mission of Jesus is better. It's just plain better. For your joy to be complete, you have to love that more.

So how are you going to be a part? How are you going to be invested so that you can really love and enjoy and celebrate when the Word of God changes people? How are you going to make your joy complete?

There's not shortage of opportunities.

First of all two services is going to mean twice as many SS teachers.If you want to learn more go to our website satisfiedinjesus.org. Talk to Jeremy.

Now with a picture like that, who wouldn't want to teach SS?

last week we gave you a whole host of things we are doing this summer to reach our community.

We need everyone here. We need full participation and buy in. Let's love serving in his church. Let's love our city. Let's love the Lord and not the world!

Communion

Now we talked about the expulsive power of a new affection. Today is communion Sunday and one of the best ways to see just how beautiful and wonderful and attractive Jesus is compared to the world is through remembering what he's done for us in the cross, to consider his love, his surrendering of his comforts, the surrendering of his rights to love us.

Now to make this point, consider Paul's warning about false teachers in Philippians 3.

Philippians is a letter whose theme is joy. In a letter filled with joy we find Paul weeping. Why? Because here are men that have gone after inferior pleasures.

Paul is in prison. What is he weeping over? Why is he crying? His chains? His circumstances? No, he is weeping over the enemies of the cross of Christ. How are they enemies? Because they are convincing people to love the world! The primary descriptor of the false teacher here is that their god is their belly. They are totally into the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. The flat out love the world. And they are false teachers because they are trying to convince other people that the world is worth loving.

And we find Paul just weeping. No, you don't understand. Jesus is awesome. He's amazing. Don't drink the sewer of the world when you have Jesus. Don't do it. Stop twisting it. He is weeping over men who have this world as the limit of their horizon.

Paul says, no this world is not our home:

This Greek word that is translated citizenship here is only used here in the NT and it was used to describe people who were citizens of a country but who lived in outposts. In fact, I’m sure the reason Paul used it here was because the word was used to describe the Roman citizen’s who lived there in Philippi. Just like your names are written down on scrolls of parchment in Rome, because you belong to Rome and yet you live in Philippi, your names are written down in heaven, because you belong to heaven, even though you live on earth.

In other words, Paul is saying, your allegiance is to your homeland. Paul is calling believers to look at earth from heaven’s perspective. And people who live as “aliens and strangers” in this world act differently. They truly bewilder the guy who makes this world his home.

Why would he give it all up? That is strange. Well….it is only strange if you take away the reward. If you add the reward, it makes all the sense in the world. Because at the end of the day, he is not giving anything up… he is gaining.

You don't have to tell the guy in the motel not to remodel because he doesn't believe it's his home.

The Cup

1 John 3:2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

What makes heaven, heaven is that Jesus will be there. Meditate on this promise. Hold this promise as dear to your heart.

Paul lived much of his life void of creature comforts. He was beaten, shipwrecked, left for dead, imprisoned, flogged, chastised, betrayed, questioned for the sake of Christ. And why did he endure such things? Because he had his eye fixed on the prize….that prize is Jesus….

I was browsing movie titles this week and I saw a snowboard movie with the title Supervention. I had no idea what this word meant so I looked it up and it was like the light bulb came on, penny dropped. Boom. This is the concept we need to start today's message.

We all know what it means to intervene. You decide something needs to change so you interrupt a situation and insert a force that changes the outcome. When you intervene, you are the cause of change. You are in control.

Well supervene is where an unexpected outside force comes and changes the outcome. The cause of change is not you, nor were you expecting it. It crashed in from the outside and caused an unlooked-for development. Everything took a different, unexpected direction.

Here's why I think this is a helpful word. We are in 1 Corinthians 14 and which is all about gifts of the Spirit. And we've learned that we all have gifts that God gives gifts that help us in building up the church but the Spirit of God occasionally supervenes and the gifts takes a surprising, unexpected turn, an un-looked for development in a particularly miraculous direction almost always for a specific purpose.

Now when I say this, you probably are thinking in terms of the miraculous sign gifts, but that's not the point. This concept could apply to any gift God has given. Let me give you an OT example of this.

In the OT there's this fascinating section in Exodus 35 where we read of two artisans Oholiab and Bezeleel. The Bible doesn't say explicitly but we might surmise that these guys were born with artistic talent. But the text specifically says that the Spirit of God descended upon them at a very key point in Israel's history - we might even say that the Spirit of God supervened - and gave them the Spiritual gift of artistry. Why? Because they needed to build a tabernacle.

Now here's a moment in Israel's history where artistic skill is needed. They've been slaves for 400 years. They are really good at making mud bricks and that's about it. The Spirit of God supervened and their normal gift took a surprising change in direction were given artistic ability that shocked a nation.

When God supervenes, a gift is transformed into a GIFT.

It's the difference between small m miracle of your grandmother getting healed from disease. It really was God but you can't prove it was God. It's the difference between that and the apostle Peter saying, "Rise, take up your mat and walk." And the dude gets up. It's a miracle vs a MIRACLE. The Spirit of God was involved in both but there are times when he supervenes for a special purpose - either to authenticate the claims of the messenger, to demonstrate his presence in a situation, or something dramatic.

Now listen really closely here. Here's the entire point of the introduction:

The supervention of God moves a spiritual gift from a subjective experience where only you can validate it, to an objective reality where all present can testify.

Now let's take this concept into the two gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 14.

We saw this principle in prophesy. Let's first look at big P prophesy. What does it look like when God supervenes.

In the OT you have the Spirit of God who would descend upon believer, unbeliever, the witch and Endor, Balak or a donkey and The Spirit of God would conscript the mouth of the prophet and God would speak his words through him. We saw in these examples, revelation, interpretation and application rolled into authoritative, binding, declarative decrees from God. This is God supervening and because it's God supervening it is objective meaning it's a testable claim. Elijah says, "It's going to rain in three years." We'll call that big P prophecy.

Then, by way of contrast, we have little p prophesy. We saw this prediction from Joel 2 that when the Spirit came, it would usher in an age of prophesy in which men, women, children, slaves would all prophesy. It would be a result of the soft, steady influence of the Spirit indwelling his children. It's form was more in the form of impressions, ideas, influences of the Spirit. We saw the example of Agabus. It is revelation from the influence of the Spirit but it needs interpretation and application. And this is more subjective and therefore not as easy to test.

In both cases, it's the same gift, but one gets heightened, exaggerated, intensified by the supervention of the Spirit. The gift takes an unexpected, surprising, un-looked for development with a definite result.

Now we see this same phenomena with tongues. What are tongues?

That's the overarching definition but again, I think what you have here is the SAME gift of God that expresses itself in two ways for different purposes. Think of the NT Acts 2 version. Clearly here we have the supervention of the Spirit.

Peter is preaching, the Holy Spirit falls, and people just start breaking out. It's unexpected. It wasn't sought after. And it's purpose was to clearly authenticate Peter's message that Joel 2 had descended upon them.

Now by contrast you have the types of tongues mentioned in 1 Corinthians 14. It's a personal gift to be used primarily in private. It a result not of the supervention of the Spirit but the influence of the Spirit. It's of the same genre, but you have a totally different purpose, a different frequency, and different level of control. Both expressions are empowered by the same Spirit but for different purposes.

Okay, so that's the interpretive principle we are operating under. Now when we get to 1 Corinthians 14 and we read of tongues and prophesy, what kind of tongues and prophesy are we observing? Everything we read in 1 Corinthians 14 is of the small p prophesy variety. Everything we read in 1 Corinthians 14 is of the small t tongues variety. That really helps us frame the passage.

And the fact we are dealing with small p, small t tongues and prophesy makes sense, because this is an established church.

We aren't in an ACTS 2 setting.

We aren't in a Mt Carmel showdown setting.

We aren't trying to authenticate the claims of Messiah.

So we aren't in the realm of these infrequent, objective, superventions of the Spirit for the purpose of authentication. NO, we are in normal church. So that would lend itself to the normal, more subjective influence of the Spirit for the purpose of edification.

And to be sure, EDIFICATION is Paul's main concern in chapter 14.

So with that behind us and with those categories of thinking in our heads, we are finally now in the position to listen to Paul's entire line of reasoning and tackle the hardest part of chapter 14. I'm hoping that today will really be the capstone to both understanding what tongues and prophesy are but also to understand their place in the church. READY?

Review of Flow of Thought

Paul has been building his argument. Prophesy has more value than tongues because it edifies more people. "Understanding is essential for edification." Given that rule, tongues can have edification if there is interpretation. Or to state it another way, interpretation is a non-negotiable for benefit to the body.

And to emphasize that point, Paul says, sound without meaning is just noise at the end of the day which nobody benefits from. Last week we looked at Paul's two examples of uninterpreted noises that have no value.

An out of tune instrument makes sound, but its sound stripped of any sort of meaning. Paul specifically makes the point that the sound has to be distinct which means it has to be both repeatable and identifiable. A middle C has to be a middle C everywhere a middle C is played otherwise it can't be recognized as a middle C. If it's not distinct, Paul argues, what's the purpose of that? None.

A war bugle with indistinct sounds helps nobody. If you heard from your captain, "Listen for two high trumpet blasts in quick succession means retreat!" But then you hear one medium trumpet blast and a long pause and then a slightly lower note played three seconds later. What's that supposed to mean?

So Paul says uninterpreted noise helps nobody. The Corinthians loved the gifts because of how it benefited them. And Paul confronts that selfishness. Your not remembering the point of the gifts, to build up the body of Christ. So he ended with this plea.

In other words, stop creating an identity around the gifts God has given you and start thinking how you are supposed to use your gifts to edify one another.

Now today Paul continues his train of thought and actually lays down another example of uninterpreted sound but unlike the previous examples, this time there is a purpose for that uninterpreted sound for a certain class of people. Look at verse 21.

So Paul says, tongues (and specifically the uninterpreted tongue) are a sign for unbelievers and as evidence for this he quotes Isaiah 28. Now of course he is assuming we understand the context of Isaiah 28 which for most of us is not a good assumption. So let's open our Bible's to Isaiah 28 so we can grab the context here. Isaiah 28 is a judgment oracle directed particularly against the leaders of Jerusalem who are scoffing Isaiah and his prediction of judgment.

Isaiah is prophesying right before the Assyrians come and destroy Israel.

Now you can see from this map that Assyria is advancing. The pink is during the beginning of Tiglath Pilaser's reign and the green is the expansion of the empire to it's height under sargon. You can see it's spreading like ink spilled on a map.

Now you would think with this sort of territorial expansion they would be shaking in their boots. But the leaders of Israel are totally self-assured. They will mock and deride any prophet that tells them otherwise. Why are they confident? It doesn't take a crystal ball to see what's going to happen next. How can they be so self-assured. They are confident because they've made an alliance with Egypt to the South.

Egypt is powerful and they have reason to help Israel. Because if Israel is wiped out, well, they are next. So they are motivated to come to Israel's defense. And apparently Israel has struck a deal that makes them feel pretty secure and confident.

So, instead of turning to God, trusting in God, they turn to guns and governments. This is the nature of human beings. So as we open Isaiah 28, we see corruption at its peak. The leaders are drunk, overconfident and scoff at even the possibility that God would judge them. And Isaiah opens his mouth on behalf of God. We'll read 12 verses here so sit back and get yourself into the context.

What do you hear? Judgment. If you look at the map Ephraim is clear to the North and would function as the tip of the spear. They'd be the first to feel the heat of the Assyrian attack.

And yet, absurdly, they sit there with chests puffed out, proud and in there position of prosperity and wealth. God is warning her of impending judgment - judgment that is looming large on the horizon. Now I love this metaphor of judgment.

Ephraim will go down. Imagine a delicate royal crown just getting crushed beneath the hooves of a horse getting pressed into the mud. But the next analogy is even better.

Israel will go down like a ripe fig. How do you eat the first ripe fruit of the year. You relish it. You can't wait. It's something you've been waiting to do for months. That's how the Lord views your impending judgment, Ephraim. It's so overdue, it's so ripe, you just see it hanging there ready to be plucked and your mouth is salivating. With every boastful word, those glands salivate more.

Now the next verse is a verse of contrast. Because he says, it won't be judgment for everyone. He's saying, the coming day will be for the righteous a crown of glory.

So not everyone will be judged, just the pride of unbelief. Now the picture Isaiah paints of these proud men is not flattering.

These guys are just partying and feasting to the point where they are senseless. The meaning of life for these guys is intoxication and partying. Now this next verse you need to read as coming from the mouth of the leaders of Jerusalem to Isaiah in a mocking, jesting, jeering, voice? They are drunk, so their speech here is probably slurred.

So he's saying, Isaiah's message is for babies.

Grow up Isaiah.

That stuff works on kids, but we are passed that.

"If you do bad things daddy is going to spank you."

If you do bad things you'll go to hell.

Grow up. Are you seriously still saying that kind of stuff?

Get that sign off your neck, you look ridiculous.

Isaiah, I'm tired of your fundamentalism.

Can you get any more irrelevant?

As a grown man, as a thinking theologian - honestly - what kind of a message is that? Do you get the sense of their mocking tone?

Interestingly, those words precept upon precept, line upon line is unintelligible in Hebrew. Many think this is just them imitating baby talk much like we would do. "ma wa me wa dada." Isaiah, your so old school. All you ever talk about is simple obedience and simple judgment. Your prophecies are so lame.

And so Isaiah, says, you want complex. You want something complicated that rattles your brain? And out comes the passage that Paul quotes in 1 Corinthians 14. Out of Isaiah's mouth comes this ominous decree.

The point of verse 11 is this: God is addressing the rulers of Israel, because of your scoffing and because of your refusal to listen to the prophetic promise of rest, because you have instead tried to create security for yourself by making an alliance with Egypt, the word of God will from this point forward be to you gibberish spoken in an alien tongue - namely the language of the Assyrians.

Does that make sense, they wanted complicated. They wanted a message more complicated that Isaiah's simple message. Well now you have the voice of the Lord spoken to you in words you can't understand. It is absolutely God speaking to them, they just can't understand it. Isaiah says, when you hear languages you don't understand, remember that you got what you wanted, God speaking to you in something more complicated.

So that's the Isaiah passage. So now freeze that frame in your mind.

How Does Paul Use it?

Now we need to flip back to 1 Corinthians 14. How does Paul use this? Let's try to get back into Paul's flow. Paul is giving examples of how indistinct sounds help nobody. He is in a progression of thought where he is sequentially laying out examples of the unhelpfulness of uninterpreted noise, musical instruments and war bugles and now Isaiah 28.

What in the world does Paul mean when he quotes this passage and then says, "Thus tongues are 'a sign for unbelievers?'"

I think what he's doing here is saying, let's take this concept of unintelligible speech and think about it's effect on unbelievers. What does uninterpreted tongues do for unbelievers? Paul says to himself, "We have another example in Scripture where God spoke to his people in an uninterpreted tongue. According to Is 28, we are told that is is the voice of the Lord but it's gibberish. "

Now here's where we pull this all together. Does this voice of the Lord, melt the leaders of Israel? Is it effective in helping them understand the will of God? No, if they didn't listen to the Lord with plain speech why would they listen to the Lord in languages they could not undersdantd. No, very likely, they will never even recognize it as the voice of the Lord. They will very likely never even remember this prophesy of Isaiah. What will they do when they hear the voice of the Assyrians?

They will hear the voice of the Assyrians, and run in fear.

They will hear the voice of the Assyrians and scatter in confusion.

They will hear the voice of the Assyrians and hide.

They will hear the voice of the Assyrians and fight and scream.

Really what God is saying to the leaders of Israel is that by speaking to you in the tongues of foreigners, I will be be silent. I will stop speaking to you by speaking to you in a foreign tongue.

According to Is 28, God speaking to unbelievers in a foreign tongue is God not speaking to them. And the next verse really confirms this understanding.

Sure the reality might be that the Spirit of God us present in this, let's just grant that God's Spirit is causing all this for the sake of argument, but the guy is going to think your crazy and walk away. He's going to respond just like the leaders of Jerusalem responded in Isaiah's day. They will hear the voice and scatter. They will not hear the tongue and conclude that this must be God. They will hear the tongues and think your insane. So what's it a sign of according to verse 23? Your insanity. It's a sign that your not my type of people. It's a sign that this is a foreign power I need to escape from. I think that's the most natural way to understand it.

Some say, that tongues is a sign of judgment. That's a good reading as well. That certainly was the case in Is 28, but it's less clear how the tongues judge the unbeliever listening. I just think this is Paul creatively applying the broad idea. So I think it's better to just go with what verse 23 says, "They look at you and see a sign that your insane."

So what's Paul's point? Untranslated language at best is unhelpful and at it's worse does what? Turns people away. It is to those unbelievers listening, the SILENCE of God.

Again, the issue at stake is interpretation. Take the unintelligible and turn into understandable words. THEN it has benefit.

Because when it is translated, you have the opposite result. Think about tongues at Pentacost. Here you have supernatural tongues, same thing, heard and understood and because it could be interpreted and translated, those tongues served as powerful testimony of God's presence. People were saved through this example. Why? Again, because the tongues were translated.

So I think Paul's argument is quite powerful. Corinthians, don't you see the importance of speaking plainly so people can understand you. What kind of tongues do you want to speak? The tongues of insanity (uninterpreted) or the tongues of pentacost (interpreted). The one communicates nothing, the other communicates both the power and presence of God.

Do you want to speak a word in a tongue and turn someone away, perhaps ultimately writing you off as a lunatic or do you want to speak a word that has meaning which may have the opposite effect of softening and cutting them to quick and bringing them to repentance? Do you see the importance, Corinthians, of clarity and intelligibility?

Paul goes on to say, this is why prophesy has such value! Prophesy can be understood. He's contrasting sharply...

Do you see the point. Tongues uninterpreted will be to the unbeliever the SILENCE OF GOD just like it was to the Assyrians. Prophesy will be to everyone the voice of God. Why? Because it can be understood.

So Paul then goes on to explain that since interpretation is so important, we need to make sure it happens and that it happens orderly. So he gives guidelines and best practices on how to exercise tongues in verses 26-33.

And so the key concept in this section is INTERPRETATION.

Now based on last week, some of you may have had questions about this last section here. Last week we defined the gift of interpretation according to verse 13. In verse 13 Paul says, "let the one who speaks in tongues, pray that HE may interpret." So the gift of interpretation is given, according to this verse, to the one who is doing the speaking.

That is clear from verse 13 but what about this section below in verses 26-33 where it seems to indicate that the gift of interpretation is a separate gift given to a different individual. Well, unfortunately this is a translation decision that you can't see very easily in the English.

We are reading here the ESV which translates as if this were a separate gift. But there are other translations that show alternate renderings, particularly the NASB which prides itself in being literal. So I'm going to put the NASB in brackets alongside the ESV to show that it can just as equally be translated in such a way that the person doing the speaking is also the one doing the translating.

So do you see that Paul is saying, if you can't give an interpretation, then you should remain silent. Why? Because 'all things need to be done for building up.'

So Paul is saying the point of all these gifts is edification. And in order for there to be edification it must be done understandably and in order. So Paul continues now with prophesy must be done in order so you can benefit from it.

So Paul is simply saying, that our gifts all need to be controlled by love for others. We submit the exercise of our gifts and let love control those gifts. The gifts are for the edification of the body.

Spirit empowered Order and clarity are necessary parts of edification. Being subject to one another is part of edification.

Application

He ends our section today by just laying down all sorts of gifts and talents and combinations. I just love the diversity.

One dude is coming with a song he wrote.

Another guy is coming with a lesson plan. Maybe he's teaching Sunday School or church history or something else.

Another guy comes with a revelation! Wow, that's huge. Maybe this week, the light went on and this guys has clarity on how we need to move forward as a church.

Another guy came having been recently edified by a personal experience with God and he's ready to share how that benefited him.

Do you see this? This is the body coming together, but the concern is how can I help.

I want to end with this challenge, is this how you come to church or small group? So many of us are coming today, wanting to be fed. And that is good. I'm using the gifts God has given me, to feed you and it is my absolute joy to do so. I have the best job in the world.

But for you to come and just receive and then hoard your gift is just like speaking in untranslated tongues.

We understood the information problem of untranslated tongues. The information problem was that nobody could benefit from it. But what was the heart problem. The HEART problem was that they wanted to use their God given gifts for themselves.

And that HEART problem, that gift abuse problem, extends to every person in this room.

Are you using your gifts to benefit others or are you using your gifts to benefit yourself and perhaps only those closest to you? What has God given you?

The gift of compassion and empathy. But you only give to those in your closest circle. Your family, your kids, your spouse. Paul says, what credit is that to you? Don't even unbelievers take care of their own kids?

God has given you artistic talent? Do you utilize that only for yourself?

What about musical talent?

What about athletic talent? Is that just for you?

What about academic talent?

What about money? Is the money he gives just for you?

What about time?

To use your gift only for yourself is to be self-focused in the same way as the Corinthians. I like what the identity I receive from being a good athlete or a good artisan or a good student but it's not even on my radar on how God wants to use that gift to build up the body of Christ.

Do you see the point. God gave you your gifts for HIS church. You ought to come hungry, how can I build up the church? How can I build God's kingdom. Would you commit to changing the way you think.

Get involved in the outreach activity this week.

Get involved in VBS this summer

Pray for these activities.

In other words, stop creating an identity around the gifts God has given you and start thinking how you are supposed to use your gifts to edify one another.