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Jesus commanded His disciples to remain close to Him in order to bear abundant eternal fruit. If they did, they would have a fertile prayer life and would glorify the Father. Central to the command is that we obey His command to love one another.

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Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on 1 Corinthians 14:1-19. The main subject of the sermon is the need for clarity of message for the building up of the members of the Church.

I'd like to ask you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians, chapter 14. We continue our study in this incredible epistle, 1 Corinthians. We completed multiple sermons in 1 Corinthians 13, now we get to chapter 14, and as we do, we need to understand the overall context as we're unfolding 1 Corinthians. We're in a midst of a three-chapter section on spiritual gifts, and Paul began in chapter 12 on through chapter 13. The love chapter also really has to do with spiritual gifts and how they're used, and if gifts are not ministered in love and they really are ultimately damaging, they result in nothing beneficial at all if the spiritual gifts are not used in love. And now we transition to a focus on tongues and on prophecy. Now we need to understand the big picture all the time, we gotta understand this in life, that the reason that we exist, the reason that anything exists is for the glory of God, that God created the universe out of nothing for his own glory. And that when we get to heaven, the new heavens and new Earth, the new Jerusalem are gonna be radiant with the glory of God and what is the glory of God, but the radiant display of the attributes of God, the perfections of God. What kind of God he is, his power, his mercy, his grace, his justice, those attributes on radiant display. And I say to you that nothing displays the glory of God more clearly than the perfection of the church of Jesus Christ, through the redemption accomplished by Jesus on the cross and applied by the Spirit in every generation, that is the most glorious work there is. And it's an ongoing work. It's a work in progress. Jesus said in John 14, “I go to prepare a place for you.” And so that work of ongoing building of the church of Jesus Christ is glorious in every generation, it's also very imperfect 'cause it's a partnership ministry between the Holy Spirit and un-glorified saints who have sin natures and who mess up, and who don't fully understand doctrines properly and who don't live out what they know properly, and so when we come to tongues and prophecy, we come to a controverted area, we come to things where people who are genuine believers in Christ don't agree with each other, and so we end up needing humility and needing wisdom to come and ask God, is there a way that our church could grow and develop in some of these areas, are we seeing some things wrongly?

And it's interesting, an analogy that hit me this morning, and I've been thinking about... I don't know if it's a perfect analogy, but it's amazing how when a blood vessel is blocked, God opens up other blood vessels and delivers the nutrients and the oxygen often to the brain or to other parts when that is blocked, and so you take a local church and we would not say that the local church has to have a perfect understanding of all the spiritual gifts in order to be a healthy church, being fruitful. And so we're gonna see this morning over the next couple of weeks, God willing, how there are different definitions of the gift of prophecy. How do we understand it? What is it? And it could very well be that God delivers the goods through the Spirit, even if those people don't call that gift the proper name; that could be... It's, we're gonna find out a lot of these things. So the irony here this morning is, the basic concept is edification through clarity in the Word, that's what we're looking at, the body of Christ being built up by a clear speaking of the word of God, and that superior over unintelligible speaking.

 When someone once said a long time ago, as I've studied preaching, I continue to study it, “a mist in the pulpit is a fog in the pew,” so I was a little insecure this morning as I'm continuing even this very morning, to think new thoughts about prophecy and continuing to learn. So ironically, I don't wanna be unclear as I talk to you this morning in 1 Corinthians 14, it's a continued work in progress. So the simple doctrine that we're stating here is edification, the body of Christ, the church of Christ being edified. He says it again, again, look at verse 3, it says, "The person who prophesies, speaks to people for edification, encouragement and consolation," one translation. Again, in verse 5, he says, "He who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets so that the church may be edified." If your eye goes down to verse 12, you're gonna see the same thing. "So it is with you. Since you’re eager have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up [or edify] the church." And again, verse 17, “You may be giving thanks well enough but the other person is not edified,” so the spiritual gifts are given for that purpose.

Now, what is edification? Well, it means a building up, or reconstructing of the church. And so we have a very good practical illustration in terms of the more than a building program and the renovations that have been going on in our building, those of us that have continued to work here and are here every week have seen even in this room, the sanctuary, massive changes over the last five months. So at one point, you could have come in here and every square inch basically was taken up with scaffolding as they were painting the ceiling and they'd removed all the pews and all the scaffolding was in, took them a week to set up the scaffolding, incredible, massive undertaking. And so, I don't know if I was allowed to or not, but I slipped in here on a Saturday, I went up to the top, but I was able to look around... It's pretty cool. That's a high ceiling. It's up there and able to look... And by the way, friends, in case you don't know, that's where it all started, there was an area there that needed painting, and they said, "Well, the only way we're gonna do that is to remove the pews," and it was like the layers of the onion, it kept getting bigger and bigger. At some point, we had to say, "Okay, that's enough renovation, that's what we're going to do," but that's really the idea that you should have when it comes to spiritual gifts, they are scaffolding, they’re temporary construction avenues by which the real work can happen, and that is the building up of the body of Christ. As these skilled workers have come in, so we're talking about plumber, electricians, painters, carpenters at all different levels, following a pattern laid out by the architect and all that, that's a picture that we have of the body of Christ. And the body of Christ is likened to a spiritual structure in Ephesians 2, one of the text I've quoted the most in my preaching ministry, Ephesians 2:21-22 says, "In Christ, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord, and in him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit." So there is this spiritual structure, this spiritual temple being built. And as I've reached again and again over to 1 Peter where we have the image in chapter 2 of living stones, these are individual human beings who are redeemed, they are rescued out of Satan's dark kingdom, and they are like living stones in the wall of the spiritual structure as it rises, it's a dynamic word to become a holy temple in which God dwells by his Spirit, that's the building project going on in every generation.

So it really ultimately has to do with the evangelism/missions and discipleship or pastoral ministry, so individuals are rescued, redeemed, they're set in the wall as a living stone, but the work goes on in them, they are polished and kind of continue to be quarried while they're set in the wall, that's the picture of justification, you're perfect in Christ, but sanctification, you're made more nearly perfect and conform you to Christ, those things are going on. That's the edification. Now, how does that happen? It happens by the clear ministry of the word of God, both formally and informally, in the life of the church, the word of God is just flowing and the spiritual gifts are delivery systems for that ministry of the word. Beautiful picture. And it's temporary, but that's the edification that's going on.

Now, let's take a step back and look at the Corinthian context. Alright, we're in chapter 14 now, in 1 Corinthians, the Corinthian church was a local church in Corinth, about 30 miles south west, I think of Athens. Paul planted the church along some other co-workers, there you can read about it in Acts 18, that's how the church is planted, this local church, genuine church [of] Jesus Christ, was badly dysfunctional. All kinds of messed-upness, if that's a word. And this messed up church Paul is addressing in 1 and 2 Corinthians and it's much to the benefit of 20 centuries of other messed up local churches, of which every one of them is in some way messed up, so that we can see the problems: you've got factions and divisions along human lines, people following certain key leaders. You've got worldliness. You've got problems with sin that should have been addressed by church discipline, sexual immorality. You got problems with lawsuits among believers, people taking each other to court; bad witness. You got problems with sexual immorality, people visiting temple prostitutes. You've got problems with marriage, dysfunction in marriage, a bad understanding of marriage and singleness. You get problems, and Paul addresses it in three chapters with meat sacrificed to idols as they've recently come out of paganism, and they don't know exactly how to deal with that in the life of the Christian church, three chapters, and they get problems with the role of women in the church, they get problems with the Lord's Supper. Now, in chapters 12-14, problems with spiritual gifts. So what was going on from their pagan background, in paganism, there was often a sense of spirituality through frenzy, through acting crazy. We actually... Some of that still, it's like, “Man, that’s crazy!” means good, means amazing, like at a high level. But that idea of you're being touched by the divine when you're out of your mind, and so you got almost like in the Muslim whirling dervishes or this kind of thing, you got just a mindless, frenzy chaotic experience, which proves that those individuals, this is in paganism, were touched by gods and goddesses. Well, then comes the gospel and speaking in tongues and all that, and that gift got elevated and zeroed in on in the Corinthian church because it was in touch with the divine, and there was a sense of mindless-ness, and a sense of chaotic, weird behavior that was so awesome and amazing. Paul has to rectify that, he's basically gotta explain tongues and put tongues in its place. And so that's what he's doing here.

Now, our context, we are 21st century evangelicals, part of a denomination in which at the highest level, the leadership level historically has been hostile to the sign gifts, the charismatic gifts. The charismatic movement started in Azusa Street revival, modern charismatic movement in 1905, Pentecostal movement. And so I've been through all this, I'm not gonna review all this, but in 1 Corinthians 12 there are sermons in which I lay this out, but just quickly by way of review, there are charismatics or the people that believe the sign gifts, speaking tongues, prophecy, miracles, those things, are still functioning today. On the other end of the spectrum, you got cessationists who believe that those gifts ended with the end of the first century when the New Testament was completed; those gifts are done, those particular spiritual gifts. So tongues, prophecy, miracles, the gift of... The role of being an apostle, those things have been fulfilled, and then you have people in the middle who are like, they're not charismatics, they've not personally used the gifts like that, they're not willing, they're not cessationists 'cause they either strongly don't see cessation-ism in the New Testament, or they just haven't studied it much and they may have experienced it, so you got a kind of a wide range of open but cautious people, that's generally the phrase given to them, there could be some open, but skeptical people in there somewhere, I mean, you got all kinds of range in the middle, from the extremes of charismatics to cessationists. Now in my years, 22... Almost 22 years at FBC, I've never had anyone come and advocate an expansion of the sign gifts in Sunday morning worship, so that- we need to have tongues and prophecy working on Sunday morning, no one is advocating that. You could say, “Pastor until now, wait till you see what happens over the next number of weeks.” so we'll see, we'll have that interesting conversation, but we've never done that in 22 years, however, I do know there are individuals who practice private prayer languages, 'cause you've told me so and there are other individuals that are ardent cessationists because you've told me so, and we're doing local church together.

My own mentors are... My highest level mentors are divided on this topic, so you got Jonathan Edwards and John McArthur, on one side, they're just straight cessationists, they believe that those gifts ended with the completion of the New Testament, and they make a case from that, they seek to do it, biblically from 1 Corinthians 13, but I've shown that that's... I think that's not valid, and I've already be through all that. On the other side, you got John Piper, who is, I would say charismatic on this, believes in the gift of prophecy and tongues still functioning, and he and Wayne Grudem and others give new definitions to prophecy which are worth at least considering, they're weighty. We have to understand them. Etcetera. So that's the spectrum, I can speak for the others, I think on this, that we are not likely to make any significant changes in Sunday morning worship any time soon. If you think differently, if you're an elder, and you think differently, tell me later, but I think we talked about this quite recently, and I think both of us, all of us feel that on both of these gifts, tongues and prophecy, there's some reasonable biblical tests that would have to be passed for us to see that functioning in the life of the church, for example, tongues, which is just another way of saying this, King James, just languages. We would have to be hearing a language. I've been all over the world. I've been in worship services all over the world. I know what Paul is talking about when he says, "My mind is unfruitful." You can go through a whole worship service in China or India, whatever, and you're just thinking your own thoughts, I would just go over scripture, memory verses or different things, 'cause you just don't understand anything that's being said except, and I'll mention this later an occasional amen or hallelujah, so I got that. But other than that, I have no idea what's being said. So that's what tongues... Tongues are languages. I can hear a language I don't know at all, but recognize it as a language and make a distinction between that and gibberish and gibberish is just repeated empty phrases and patterns that can be learned, and so however, just because they are fraudulent versions of tongues and fraudulent versions of interpretation of tongues doesn't mean the gift itself has ceased or has ended, you just have to be a more careful thinker about that, but there are fraudulent displays, etcetera.

And on prophecy, I continue to believe that Deuteronomy 18 test of being able to predict the future in order to validate the prophetic gift is still biblical and reasonable, and so I'll talk more about that later in the message, but there may be other ways of defining our understanding, prophecy, that we might want to try to understand and in those sense, if that's a delivery system, for example, Piper, John Piper says that prophecy is just the delivery of God's wisdom and truth into a circumstance, so it just sounds like wisdom to me, and it says in James 1, "If anyone lacks wisdom, he should ask God. Who gives generously to all without finding fault," and not only that, there are individuals within the life of the church, both men and women, who are just consistently giving wise counsel and you go to them for wise counsel, and you get it again and again, and they're identified as wise people or counsel givers, but we don't call them prophets or prophetesses, when we get to heaven we'll get all this sorted out, but God may well be delivering the wisdom he needs to cessationist local churches, so they're able to function well and do what they need to do in mission and able to send out missionaries and do things strategically well in their community while they the whole time don't believe that the gift of prophecy is continuing; and guess what, it is, but they just call it something else. So that's what we're dealing with in 1 Corinthians 14. By the way, I'm planning on preaching three sermons in this chapter, you may notice a difference in pace in 1 Corinthians 14 from 13, so just... That's what's going to happen, God willing. So we're not gonna be real slow going through this, but we're gonna continue to look at...

 So let's look at the exegesis, 1 Corinthians 14:1-19. And the second point of my outline: prophecy edifies the whole congregation, verses 1-5. Prophecy edifies the whole congregation. So Paul strongly elevates prophecy over tongues. The basic concept here is this: tongues un-translated are unintelligible to the local church. Prophecy, by contrast, is clear to everyone, and therefore is superior, because what really edifies the church is the clear delivery of the word of God, that's Paul's basic point in these verses. Alright, now he begins in verse 1, commanding the church to pursue love and to pursue spiritual gifts, look at verse 1, "Pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts especially that you may prophesy." So the word, the Greek word here, pursue means to follow after ardently or to hunt, like hunt down, chase after with focus and intensity. So go after love as I've defined it, 1 Corinthians 13, we’ve walked through that. We know that we don't love perfectly, we know we could grow in love, so pursue that, ardently pursue love and pursue spiritual gifts, go after spiritual gifts and then especially that you may prophesy. Now, here's the thing, if you're not a cessationist, this ends up becoming troubling, if you're kind of a open but skeptical church where you're not using prophecy, you have to say, "Okay, should we be pursuing prophecy? And how do we do that?" And that's an important question. But anyway, this is what the verse says. Some interpret this as saying, “Esteem all the spiritual gifts, and especially esteem prophecy because of its impact.” Others argue, they say, “Look, if God gives spiritual gifts as he wills, then why should you pursue it, he's gonna give you what you're going to get so what benefit is there to pursue a gift, let's say you don't have?” So should we be pursuing gifts we don't have? I've always wanted the gift of evangelism, and nothing excites me more than be able to be there when someone crosses over from death to life. It's gotta be the coolest gift, but it's maybe a grass is greener syndrome where others say, “I would love to be able to just unfold the word of God and feed people week after-,” so I think we need to be content with what you have, but suppose you look at your gift package and you're like, "Man, it'd be awesome if that one more gift were added." Is it valid, biblically valid to pursue a gift you don't have?

Now, early in my Christian life, I thought whatever gifts you're gonna get, you get at conversion, bang. So it's kind of like you're a recruit at boot camp and they slide a group of things across the table to you, and that's what you have. However, the more I've carefully studied, I've seen no time orientation for the giving of spiritual gifts, it could happen any time, there's no verse that links it to conversion, so you could get gifts that you then discover and develop and use, or you could have another gift that's added to you as you step out in faith and go on a mission trip, something you never needed before, but now the Holy Spirit opens up an ability, we'll never know if you had it all along, but weren't using it or if it was given to you then and there's no Bible verses about it either way, beyond that, I don't think it's wrong to pursue something that God gives, I actually think this is the normal pattern in the Christian life, you read something in scripture that you consider a good thing, you don't have it, and you pursue it from the hand of God in prayer. Take biblical marriage, for example; let's say you're a single man or woman. We know it says in Proverbs 19:14, “A prudent wife is from the Lord.” You get houses and wealth inherited from your parents, but a prudent wife comes from the Lord, so it's like, Well, I don't need to seek her, God's gonna give her or he won't, that kind of... No one should act like that, and if you ever... You're an older man in the church that there's ever a young man like that just coasting who would like to be married, but he's not doing anything about it. You're saying, “Look, pursue her in prayer.” Pursue her generally. Now, in your prayer life, “Oh God, if it be your will and you want me to be married, bring a godly woman in my life.” Secondly, once you start finding somebody and say you're gonna pursue her in godly courtship, etcetera, there is an effort being made, but she is still a gift from God, so I don't think there's anything wrong with pursuing a spiritual gift, and then he says, especially prophecy over tongues. Paul is saying the Corinthians should be especially zealous after the gift of prophecy. Why? Look at verses 2-4: “For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, and indeed no one understands him, he utters mysteries with his spirit. But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening encouragement and comfort. He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.” So again, the whole goal here, as I've said, is edification of the church building up to maturity. The unintelligible, un-interpreted tongues are essentially, Paul says, mysterious to everyone, even to the person who speaks them. Now, in some way, a person who's speaking in a tongue he or she has never studied, is edified somewhat, Paul says, in themselves because they're having a supernatural experience that they know wouldn't be happening to them if they were not a Christian, if they didn't have the Holy Spirit, that's what Paul means when he says, he edifies himself. But he says prophecy is superior because it's intelligible to everyone who hears it, and therefore edifies the whole church.

Now, we need to stop and try to understand what prophecy is. What do we mean by prophecy? Now, in the Old Testament, to me, it's very clear that prophecy is the delivery of the word of God through a human being, male or female, there were women prophets and men prophets in the Old Testament as there are in the New Testament. So through a prophet or prophetess the individual is able to say, “Thus says the Lord” or “an oracle from the Lord,” and out comes a packet of words or truths that are directly from God, “Thus says the Lord,” That's prophecy. Now, the content in that could be anything. Could be anything. It could refer to any time aspect, it could refer to past, present or future, we believe that all of the written word of God are prophecies that were ministered through prophets, the whole Bible is a prophetic book. But when Moses wrote Genesis, he was writing about the past, it was a prophecy about the past. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” it had already happened, but he was prophesying about it. So prophecy, we tend to think of it only in future, and I'll talk about that in a minute, but it's really anything. Current events could be- I mean the Old Testament prophets were constantly talking about current events, about issues of injustice and morality. Think about John the Baptist; he clearly stated to Herod that it was sin for him to take his brother's wife. Got him killed. It was a current event. So prophets did that, past, present or future, however, the prediction of future events is unique in prophecy, it's set apart as unique, it's highlighted, especially in the book of Isaiah, as unique. And so I can say, and I've said many times before, prediction of the future sets the Judeo-Christian heritage apart from any other religion in the world, there is no other religion that has this feature, and it only had Judeo because that's up until the time of Christ, in that the Jewish nation rejected Jesus and rejected Christ as the fulfillment of those prophecies. The Christian church is almost on its own now as a prophetic entity in the world. We believe in predictions that have been fulfilled in Jesus and predictions that have yet to be fulfilled. We're looking ahead to prophecies, it sets Christianity apart from Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, any other religion, and not only that, it sets the individual who does it apart as a prophet. In Deuteronomy 18:21-22, Moses wrote this, this is God speaking, “You may say to yourselves, ‘How can we know when a message has been has not been spoken by the Lord?’ if what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken that prophet has spoken presumptuously, do not be afraid of him.” So I am asserting here that for any local church to identify an individual as a prophet or prophetess, it is right for us to ask that this be done, that independently verifiable predictions of the future be made, and this did happen in the New Testament. Agabus, in Acts 11 predicted that a famine would come over the entire Roman world; this was fulfilled in the reign of Claudius, that kind of thing. You can't predict something that's gonna happen in 70 years, like Jeremiah did with the return of the Jews, because that'll be 70 years of us not knowing you're a prophet. So there has to be something that comes up there very soon, so we can identify that gift.

Now, John Piper, Wayne Grudem and other more modern... They have a broader definition of prophecy, as I've said, more of a delivery of the word or of the will of God in a certain situation, what I would call wise counsel or strategic decisions about missions, about other things. That again, from James 1:5, “If anyone lacks wisdom, you should ask God,” they call that prophecy, and then therefore what you're looking for is a consistent pattern of wise counsel being given, they look on that as prophecy as well. Beyond that, however, all sides agree on this, that whatever is prophetically uttered must line up with the existing revelation of the word of God. Now, back then, it was a work in progress, the New Testament hadn't been completed, and so what Paul says in Romans 12:6, he says, “If someone's gift is prophecy, let him use it in accordance or in proportion to the faith.” Analogia, sometimes people just transliterate that over into the analogy of faith, but what it means is it's got to line up with the doctrine that we've already received from the Bible, so if anyone speaks false doctrine, they are a false teacher or a false prophet, and they must be eliminated. It's gotta be... So two tests then: predicting of the future that is verified, and then everything that's uttered is biblically true or accurate, that's how you would filter a prophet. Beyond that is it necessary for a church that has Godly counsel givers, both men and women who speak clear words of wisdom and discretion to be identified as prophets or prophetesses, maybe so, because this word is given to us and it could be we are defective in that way, not identifying them as such, etcetera. So for me, verse 1, where it says, pursue prophecy means study more and keep praying.

So I'll move on from the definition, what is the purpose, what should prophecy do look at Verse 3, “The person who prophesies speaks to the people for [one translation gives] edification encouragement and consolation,” these are the three functions of good prophecy back in Paul's day. Edification is the building up to maturity of the individual bodies of Christ, individual members of the body of Christ and of that local church and universally of the church as a whole. Edification, as we mentioned, secondly, encouragement or exhortation, this is more application-oriented, where you hear the truth clearly, unfolded you, you find out what it is, then you're exhorted to live accordingly, you're warned even maybe to live accordingly. So that's the exhortation aspect. Jesus said in John 13:17, “Now that you know these things you'll blessed if you do them.” So that's exhortation. And then beyond that, consolation, consolation or comfort, this world is hard. There's a lot of suffering that goes on, there's a lot of persecution in some regions in the world and some different times in the world, far more than for us now, it's a hard life, it is through many hardships that we must enter the kingdom of God and so the prophets were able to speak a word of consolation or comfort. Again, Jesus leads the way in everything. But in John 16:33, He said, “I've told you these things so that in me, you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world.” That's the ministry of consolation.

So, those three things are done by the prophets; I would say they're also done by good preachers today and good teachers of the word of God, if you wanna be a good teacher of the word of God, do those three things. Edify by instruction, by careful instruction, exhort to a life change and console or comfort the people on their way to heaven. I think that's just good preaching and teaching, by the way, the Puritans called preaching prophesying, so they believe that that was prophesying, so I'm not saying because they did it, it's right, it's just that's how they interpreted that gift. So that is the clear superiority of prophecy over tongues, Verse 4, “He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.”

Now, big picture in this chapter, Paul is not throwing the gift of tongues under the bus, he's not denigrating it, he's just trying to put it in its place, they had elevated it too high and misunderstood it, so he wants to put it and put it in its... He's not throwing tongues under the bus, look at verse 5: “I would like every one of you to speak in tongues,” and reminds me of when Moses said, “Would that all God's people were prophets!” that kind of thing. Now, he's not- he himself is gonna say in verse 18, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.” talk more about that in a minute, but he's clearly not denigrating tongues, 'cause he says he does it, it's not a bad thing. Neither is he questioning how the Spirit is apportioning the gifts, “I wish the Spirit would get on the ball and give everyone the gift of tongues.” he's not saying that either. He's saying, “I'm just... I'm very pro-gift of tongues, but I'm just saying prophecy is better for the edification of the body,” that's what he's saying. “He who prophesies [he says] is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets so the church may be edified.” verse 5.

Now, point three, we have the problem of unintelligibility. Paul heightens his argument here, and the problem of the unintelligibility of tongues if they're not translated, and he does it by means of some everyday life illustration. So Paul says, “Look, even if I myself came and did that, I would be of no benefit to you.” Look at verse 6, “Now, brothers, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good would I be to you unless I bring some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction.” those are clear deliveries of the word of God, that's what he's saying. So imagine how frustrating that would be Paul coming back to Corinth. We get the author of the book of Romans coming to preach our sermon today, we get the- I mean, just the greatest doctrinal mind in the history of the church, and he comes and does that, speaks in tongues for 20, 30 minutes and never... And then sits down. How frustrating would that be? You wanted a clear word from the Lord, you wanted clear instruction, so he said, “Even if I were the one to come do it, it would be of no advantage, unless I come and do edification, exhortation, consolation.”

So he uses two illustrations, first musical instruments, verse 7, “Even in the case of lifeless things that make sounds, such as the flute or harp, how will anyone know what tune is being played, unless there is a distinction in the notes?” So I've cleared this with Wes, we've talked- I don't know music, I love music, I appreciate music, but even me with an untrained ear, I can tell the difference between someone like Micah who sits down and plays beautifully, and a child that's big enough to sit on the bench and bang on the keys, you can hear it from the other room, “Oh, a child is banging on the keys,” your brain tells you. There's no chord progression, frankly, there's no cords. There's a bunch of sounds, there's no time signature, there's no progression, there's no musical story being unfolded, but any other pattern of music, even if you don't like it, it still has rules, even jazz has rules Wes told me, there are certain rules. Alright? And your ear hears it, and that's pretty awesome when you think about... I believe that the brain is wired to accept good music and hear it as beautiful, and I think there's a portion of our souls waiting to hear a new pattern of music that no human has ever heard up in heaven. It's gonna be incredible, the new song, but meanwhile, we can identify musical wisdom or musical science or musical logic, we can hear it in all patterns or our styles of music.

The second illustration he gives is of a trumpet in battle look at verse 8 “Again, if the trumpet sound does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?” So in the military, let's say in the Civil War, units would learn trumpet signals that would tell them what to do in the midst of a battle, whether to advance to retreat, turn left, turn right. These were very important as the way that the commanders could, somewhat, keep control in the chaos of a battle, and we know some of those sounds... Even if you've never been in the military you know the sound of Revelry or Taps, you know what those things? I'm not gonna hum them, but you know what Revelry sounds like, you know what Taps sounds like, even though you've never been in the military. It tells you it's time to get up/it's time to go to bed. So also in the World War II, the citizens of London, during the blitz, when the Luftwaffe was going over London, they had two different sirens, one for get in the cover now, and the other one is all clear, you can return to your normal life, you definitely need to know the difference between the two. And they did. So if the signals are not clear, then how will any soldier know what to do on the battlefield, he's saying in the same way, verse 9, “So it is with you, unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you're saying? You'll just be speaking into the air.”

Now, as he talks about this, he needs to clarify something about tongues, about languages. Look at verse 10-11, “Undoubtedly, there are all sorts of languages in the world, yet none of them is without meaning, if then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying to me, I'm a foreigner to the speaker and he's a foreigner to me.” so no true language is gibberish. We can tell the difference between repeated phrases again and again and an actual language that has a wide range of sounds, but that are cohesive, and you just don't know it. But even if it's a cohesive, logical, clear language, if you don't know that language, you get nothing out of what's being communicated for you with the untrained ear, it's like a foreigner speaking to you, the Greek word here is barbarian, and the word is literally barbar. It's, like that's what it was like: bar, bar, bar, bar, bar. It's people imitating a language they can't speak. I remember coming back from the mission field in Japan, and I had gotten functionally conversational in Japanese, but I was working in a certain area that apparently didn't get across the county line very much or something like that, and they were trying to do- [unintelligible] I was like- well, that's not what Japanese sounds like, friend, but anyway, that was just a moment that I had with that, but they were trying to imitate Japanese, but to you, it's effectively gibberish if it doesn't communicate meaning. So he repeats the point for emphasis in verse 12, “So it is with you since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church.” 

Point number four, the goal of worship then is a fruitful mind, resulting in a fruitful spirit, a combination of mind and spirit, that's what we're looking for. Verse 13, “For this reason, anyone who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret what he says.” Now, I think in chapter 12, it could be a different person in it. One speaks in a tongue, the other interprets, in this case, it seems like it'd be good if you could do your own interpretation, that may be possible, but in any case, you need the... And somebody needs to do the interpretation, un-interpreted tongues, Paul says, make a mind unfruitful, verse 14, “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.” Now, this would probably be the number one key, “I have a private prayer language” text in the Bible, verse 14, 1 Corinthians 14:14, an individual praying in tongues, their mind is unfruitful, but they're communicating in some way to God. Now, some people, the cessationists, say that's completely invalid, Paul's making another point or he's being sarcastic. They do different things with the text, but Alistair Begg points out very helpfully: later Paul is gonna say, look at verse 18-19, how much he speaks in tongues, he said, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you, but in the church, I would rather speak five intelligible words so as to instruct other than 10,000 words in a tongue.” Now Alistair Begg asks, “If Paul's not using his gift in the church then when is he using it? When is he speaking more than anyone else? Then it must be in his own private prayer closet,” something like that, that's the way he argues. There are different ways to interpret this text, even than what Alistair Begg said. Oh, the interpretations never end. I will say this, if you speak in a private prayer language, I don't have any verses to contradict you. I am commending these verses actually to encourage the practice and not shut it down. I don't personally know whether it's valid or not. But I know this: nothing I say in 24 seconds is going to convince you that what you're doing is not from God anyway. But at any rate, there is some indication here that Paul prayed in a tongue he didn't always understand. That seems to be what's going on here. But in any case, Paul's main point here is his mind is unfruitful during that time. He doesn't know what he's saying.

True worship then must be a combination of the mind and the spirit, verse 15, “So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I also pray with my mind, I will sing with my spirit, but I also sing with my mind.” So this is just how it works in sanctification and in worship. The mind understands the word of God. The Spirit is warmed up or heated up, the heart is heated up and loves and engages, and then the worship flows out through the body, mind, spirit/heart, body, that's how it works in the Christian life, everything starts with the mind and with the word of God. Jesus himself said with the Samaritan woman, about the perfect combination, this is what worship is, John 4:24, “God is spirit, and those who worship him, must worship in spirit and in truth.” So we could reverse it: truth first, hear the word of God and faith comes by hearing the word, in comes the word, your heart is transformed, and then out it goes in singing and prayer, praise and living. That's how sanctification happens, that's how worship happens. So we want a combination in our corporate worship of mind and spirit. We want light and heat, first, the light then the heat. You don't just want light; you don't just want heat. Maybe you've been to a service in which there was just heat and you didn't know what everyone was heated up about. I don't think they knew either. You don't want that. But you don't wanna be in a cold formal orthodox service in which you're getting all of the doctrine right, and there's just no joy or zeal or energy. There's got to be both spirit and truth.

"The Spirit is warmed up or heated up, the heart is heated up and loves and engages, and then the worship flows out through the body, mind, spirit/heart, body, that's how it works in the Christian life, everything starts with the mind and with the word of God. "

Alistair Begg puts it this way: you don't want the carnival on the one side or the crematorium on the other. I thought that was helpful. So you want a beautiful combination of mind and heart. So that's our goal in Sunday morning worship. Without intelligibility, he says, how can we say amen? Look at verse 16-17, “If you are praising God with your spirit, how can one who finds himself among those who do not understand say, ‘Amen’ to your thanksgiving since he does not know what you're saying. You may be giving thanks well enough, but the other man is not edified.” As I mentioned earlier, “Amen,” in different pronunciations is like the one word that's made it worldwide. Everywhere you go people say a version of it, it’s Hebrew word, means effectively “I stand” and it's related to the Hebrew word for stand, but it's translated when Jesus said, “Amen, amen,” it's “truly, truly.” So you're saying, what I'm hearing, I say, “True. I stand on that, I agree with you.” And that's what corporate worship is all about. Truth gets rolled out and everyone around says, “Yes, amen, I love it. That's what I want.” That's what we do together. And you realize that God, the Holy Spirit is working the same thing. It's why he says in 1 John, “You have an unction or anointing from the Spirit and all of you knows the truth. I don't write you 'cause you don't know the truth, but 'cause you do know it.” “Well, John, why are you writing if we already know the truth?” I didn't say you couldn't learn, what I am saying is when you hear the truth, the Holy Spirit enables you to identify it as truth and you celebrate it. It’s like, “yes, that's good.” And that's what corporate worship is all about, that Amen. You say it together. But if you don't understand what's going on, you can't do it, you can't say Amen, and you can't delight in it. So unintelligible words are worthless. Verse 18-19, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you, but in the church, I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than 10,000 words in the tongue.” Now, Paul's own use of the gift of tongues is established here and nowhere else in the Bible. Nowhere else. We don't even get it in his baptism account like you do in other baptism accounts. But Paul says, “I do, I speak in tongues, more than anybody else.” He's identifying with those with the gift of tongues, but he's saying, “Look, when I come for corporate worship, what I want is to speak five clear words rather than 10,000 unintelligible words.” Five clear words can change your life, “Jesus rose from the dead;” change your life. But 10,000 words in gibberish? Now, my Microsoft Word counted the words in my sermon up to this point, 5000. So we'd be halfway through 10,000 words of gibberish. I think many of you would have walked out by them, like, “What in the world was that?” So Paul saying this is clearly what we need is intelligibility. And I'd rather speak five clear words than 10,000 words in an un-translated tongue.

Application. First and foremost, let everything that we do here on Sunday morning be for edification. That's the goal. Every spiritual gift everything would be for the up-building, the strengthening of the body of Christ. This is what is being built here, not the physical building. This building is beautiful. It's ready to go, God willing, if the Lord tarries another X number of decades, we believe it is. But buildings, all buildings are temporary; everything physical is temporary. The real building project here is the Church of Jesus Christ, so let everything be done for edification.

Second of all, esteem in your hearts the clear unfolding of the word of God. Esteem this in your heart. Understand what clarity is all about. The book of Revelation, we've got so many clear verses, you know, says that the... “Before the throne of God was what looked like a sea of glass clear as crystal,” clear as crystal. That's where we're going. We're going to a new Jerusalem, which will, Revelation 21:11, “Shone with the glory of God and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like Jasper, clear as crystal.” And then the river of the water of life is gonna flow right down through the center of the city clear as crystal, everything's clear, and it just shines. So what you want is God's word, a lamp to your feet, a light to your path, shining clearly through the ministry of the Word, and not just through the sermon, not just at Sunday morning worship, but in all of the formal and informal teaching ministry of the church, it's all about clarity, a delivery of the truth. And that's what you should seek.

There are a lot of people that that's not what they do when they get up on the pulpit. It's not. There are a lot of charlatans, a lot of people that are tickling the ears. But my job should be to make the word of God clear. I love the story of Charles Spurgeon. He was the most, probably one of most eloquent, language gifted people in the history of the English language. He knew he could blow people away with his vocabulary. But what he did frequently was he had a young woman, a maid, not highly educationally trained, that would listen to one of his sermons before he preached it. I don't know if she was trained to raise your hands like, “Okay, what was that?” And he would just circle and just zero in and say, "Okay, I got to make that clear." There's no point in me getting up here and not being clear with the word of God. So you should never settle for anything less than a clear unfolding of the Scripture from the pulpit ministry.

Concerning prophecy and tongues, I can't finally render a verdict on whether they're still functioning in the same way they were in the first century. That's a matter for study. I'm confident that God will use our dysfunctional church, like he's used every other dysfunctional church in every generation of church history. But the more functional we can be, the better, so let's keep praying, let's keep studying. No matter what you personally believe about prophecy and tongues, the elders will seek to be wise about what we do on Sunday mornings, follow the rules that are given here in this chapter. Tongues will never be used unless they're interpreted. We'll talk more about that, God willing, over the next two weeks. Prophesy, we're gonna keep studying it, but fundamentally, we're gonna keep preaching and teaching the word and giving wise counsel. We're not likely to have an open mic anytime soon, but that's where we're at.

And finally the most important thing I can ever do is to exhort any that are listening to me, I mean by livestream or sitting here, who have not yet come to faith in Christ to trust in Jesus. The clearest word I can give you is that God sent his Son to die in the cross for sinners like you and me. You are a sinner, so am I. If you don't have Christ as your Savior, you will perish, you will die eternally. But if you know him and love him, and trust in him, all your sins will instantly be forgiven, and you'll have eternal life. That's the clearest thing I can say to you. So today, if you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts but trust in Jesus. Close with me in prayer.

Lord, thank you for the time we've had to study in 1 Corinthians 14. Thank you for the things that you've taught us. There's so many things to learn. Father, I pray that you would strengthen each one of us in your Word, help us to understand what's said here, and be able to walk in it, and to be healthy as a church. I pray that you'd help all of the spiritual gifts to be used as you intend, and wherein there's any misunderstanding or blockage or hardness of heart on our part, so Lord, we ask that you'd remove it and help us to esteem the spiritual gifts, all of them, not just the showy upfront gifts, but all of the gifts that are useful for the building up of the body. In Jesus name, amen.

How should we think about the value of prophecy and tongues in corporate worship? Paul talks about how the church is edified through clarity.

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Jesus commanded His disciples to remain close to Him in order to bear abundant eternal fruit. If they did, they would have a fertile prayer life and would glorify the Father. Central to the command is that we obey His command to love one another.

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Jesus prepares His disciples for their imminent separation from Him by promising the Holy Spirit, and the indwelling presence of the Trinity. But this is only given to those who love God and obey His commands. The entire section highlights the key connection between love for God and obedience to His commands.

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Pastor Andy Davis preaches a second expository sermon on 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 exploring the love we can expect in heaven.

This is my final sermon in 1 Corinthians 13. We've had a lot of opportunities to study this incredible chapter, and just again to set it in context, we're in the middle of three chapters, 1 Corinthians 12-14, the Apostle Paul wrote almost 20 centuries ago to a local church in Corinth that he helped plant, and he was seeking to address various problems and difficulties in the life of that church, but the Holy Spirit was filling him and giving him words and perspectives that would be beneficial for every century of local church life since then. And so he is discussing the topic of spiritual gifts, three chapters, and we're right in the middle of it, this love chapter. Now that spiritual gifts, special abilities that God has given to each individual member of the body of Christ which enable us to minister to one another, they really are delivery systems of the grace of God. Our salvation is a process, it's an ongoing work: justification, sanctification, glorification, and so we are enabled through the Holy Spirit by spiritual gifts to participate in each other's salvation. And that's exciting, isn't it? When you think about it, but there were excesses, there were difficulties in the Corinthian church. They were misunderstanding some things. But we need to understand how the spiritual gifts are delivery systems for the grace of God, as it says in Ephesians, he gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers. That is the delivery system, primarily those five roles for the word of God. How the word comes from the mind of God through the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to individuals, and people are converted and local churches are planted, and then they are strengthened and ministered to, a delivery system for the Word of God, and beyond that, beyond those five roles that are given there in Ephesians, we have those with gifts of healing, we have tongues and prophecy, which we are gonna have a chance next chapter to look at and to understand in its context. People with gifts of serving, gifts of administration, people with gifts of giving, all of these are delivery systems for the Word of God. God's grace flows through all of these, and they produce ultimately the three qualities that are highlighted at the end of 1 Corinthians 13: faith, hope and love.

So as the spiritual gifts are up and running in a local church they are strengthening faith, hope, and love in the people of God. That's what's going on, that's what hopefully is happening right now. As I preach this final chapter in 1 Corinthians 13 my desire is that the Holy Spirit would use me to strengthen your faith, your hope and your love, and we've come to understand those three, those vital aspects of the human soul: faith, hope and love. Faith is the eyesight of the soul by which we see invisible spiritual realities past, present, and future. By faith, we can see Christ crucified, by faith we can see the empty tomb and Christ raised from the dead. By reading the New Testament accounts of the post-resurrection appearances, it's like we're in the upper room and we can see the nail marks in Christ's hands and his feet like Thomas, and we are convinced and strengthened that Christ rose from the dead. It's the ministry of the word, it produces faith in us and our faith needs to be continually sustained and renewed and strengthened until we don't need it anymore.

And then what about hope? Hope is a strong feeling in the heart, a conviction, a sense of certitude in the heart that the future is bright based on the promises of God. It's something that lost people don't have. As it says in Ephesians that lost people are without hope and without God in the world, and we see that, don't we? As we look at current events, we see a bunch of hopeless people who don't think that the future is brighter, who are filled with fear, filled with anger, filled with rage, filled with all kinds of things. They don't have the hope that we have. And we have a responsibility to shine radiantly with hope, so that people who were without hope and without God in the world will ask us to give a reason for the hope that we have. And so my role this morning is to just feed your hope with the word of God, hence the meditation on heaven, that's gonna do it. If you believe what God says about your future, you should be buoyed up with hope as a result of the ministry of the word of God.

And then there's love, love is a strong attraction in the heart for another being, results in this world of sacrificial actions, but what 1 Corinthians 13 says is that faith and hope and love are the greatest and they abide but the greatest of these is love. And why is that? As I said in a sermon two weeks ago, it's because faith and hope are temporary. I look on them like the booster rockets that got the men to the moon. They drop off at a certain point. You don't need them anymore, when at last, you see Christ face-to-face you don't need faith or hope anymore. You will see him with your own eyes; you will see him, as the scripture says, face-to-face. And the need for faith is gone, and your hope will be gone too, because it will be fulfilled. Who hopes for what he already has? Romans 8 says hope is temporary, it will be fulfilled in heaven. But love, love continues. And heaven is a world of love. Heaven is a world of love.

Now, that phrase, that concept came into my life, into my mind from some sermons that were written by Jonathan Edwards almost 300 years ago, about two and three-quarter centuries ago. Edwards was a New England Puritan, very thorough, careful craftsman in the word of God, and he preached 17 sermons on 1 Corinthians 13, and the final one was, as I said last week, 40 pages long in the text, Charity and its Fruits, 40 pages on this one theme: Heaven is a World of Love. And I began kind of unfolding that and kind of explaining it last week, and got through four of his six points. I heard there was some trouble with the live stream, so I really don't know how much you heard last week, but I don't have time to go carefully through the first four, but I wanna give a bit of an overview of those four and then move on to the last two as we culminate our work. Now, we're talking about heaven because of the language at the end of 1 Corinthians 13. Paul talks about how the spiritual gifts deliver a vision, a concept of God that is imperfect and immature and incomplete, but it's enough for our salvation. It's like baby talk. And when we get to heaven we're going to come into a fully developed understanding of who God is, it's not inaccurate. If it's faithful to the text, it's inspired by the Holy Spirit, delivered by the ministry of the Spirit through proper use of spiritual gifts. It's an accurate picture of God, but Paul said it's like speaking like a child, like baby talk or the initial comments or concepts of a little boy or a little girl compared to what we're going to have when at last we see, not through a mirror dimly, but face-to-face. So he's talking about our heavenly experience of God. Now, Edwards divided his essay into six headings. First the cause and fountain of the love that is in heaven. Second, the objects of that love that is in heaven. Third, the subjects of that love that is in heaven. Fourth, the principle or nature of that love that is in heaven. Fifth, the circumstances in which heavenly love is exercised, expressed, and enjoyed. And then sixth, the happy effects and fruits of that love that is in heaven. So let me give a review of the first four before we get to the new material today.

 First, the cause and fountain of that love that is in heaven is Almighty God himself. We are going to see God at last face-to-face. The thing that was denied to Moses on the mountain when he said, "Show me your glory." And he could not see the glory of God for as God said at that time, "No man may see me and live." Whereas Paul will say later in this same epistle, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” we cannot handle a full display of the glory of God, but in heaven we will be able to handle, to look as it were, at the radiant sun in all of its brilliance and not be incinerated, not drop dead. We will be able to drink in the glory of God and the central aspect of the glory of God, I believe, the glory of God is the radiant display of his attributes. And the central attribute of God is love. God is love. And as I said last week, it's so far beyond our ability to comprehend the difference between God is love and God is loving. God is loving because he is love. We are loving because God is love. Not because we are love. What would you think of a person who said, "I am love." be like, "That's weird." That's an infinite claim, but God claims to be love, and he is love, and love is in God the way light is in the sun, it's hard to even- can't even separate them. There's an infinite source of love in heaven bubbling from the throne of God like the river of the water of life continually created and renewed like a river. Ultimately, I think of it like an ocean. And we should understand that the God of love has always been love, and love always has to do, as I said, with another person. And so we believe as Christians in the Trinity, the mystery of the Trinity, three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit. And we believe from eternity past, God has never changed, and so there has been love flowing and re-flowing within the Trinity from eternity past, and still today it flows and re-flows and we are going to observe it and derive the benefits of it forever. So the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, and the Father loves the Spirit, and the Spirit loves the Father, and the Son loves the Spirit, and the Spirit loves the Son, a perfect flowing and re-flowing of love. And then he's included us in it. Drawn us in. And so heaven is a world of love because the cause and fountain of that love is God and God will be in our midst, his throne will be right in our midst, that's why.

 Secondly, the objects of love in heaven, there will be nothing but lovely objects in heaven. First and foremost: God himself, a perfectly lovely object. When you think about that, realize the source of all beauty there has ever been, everything that's ever ravished your heart or your eyes, everything that's ever drawn you and drawn affection from you, and emotion from you has come from God. All of the natural beauty you have ever seen in this world has come from God. All of the relational beauty you've ever seen, whether it's from parents early in your life, brothers and sisters, good friends, a spouse, your own children. All of those experiences that you have of love have come ultimately from God, and God is a perfectly lovely being in heaven. He will be there. And all of the other beings in heaven will be perfectly lovely, there'll be nothing twisted or grotesque or immoral or defiled. It says in Revelation 21:27, "Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the book of life." So perfectly lovely objects, and all of the redeemed will be perfectly lovely, you will, each one of you my brothers and sisters in Christ, be glorious in heaven. "You will shine like the sun [Jesus said] in the Kingdom of your Father." You will be perfectly lovely, and I will look forward to looking at you, and you will look forward to looking at me. Isn't that weird to say? But there it is. And you won't worship me and I won't worship you, we'll understand that the source of all the beauty comes from God, but perfectly lovely, and all of the redeemed will be perfectly lovely both within and without. Our hearts will be lovely and our bodies as well. Jonathan Edwards put it this way, "No string in the heavenly Symphony shall vibrate out of tune. Not a single discordant note in the heavenly song of worship to the Lamb, and the place itself shall be lovely.” The new Jerusalem, a radiant city, shining and described in Revelation 21-22, radiantly beautiful. And the new Earth, who can even put into words? The present Earth is cursed, it's under a curse, bondaged to decay, but it will be delivered into glorious freedom of the children of God. It will be itself resurrected and radiant and ready to be explored and ready to be a source of us worshipping God, but we will not worship nature, we will be free from all idolatry.

Thirdly, the subjects of love by this Edwards means the nature of the hearts that produce the love, the subjects of the love that is in heaven. The heart of God, as I've said, the original seed of love, a never-ending inexhaustible supply of love forever. Now, what I believe with all my heart is that that love will flow in ever new and fresh and fascinating ways, it will captivate your attention for all eternity. There'll never be an end to the things you will experience and know of the love of God. You'll be learning the love of God forever, you'll be learning the glory of God forever, for you'll never be omniscient, and you will forever be able to have new ideas and fresh ideas of how glorious God is and how loving he is. Love, the love of God, is perfected toward us. God is truly attracted to the redeemed in heaven. He loves every one of them. No one is left out, no one is excluded, but God has a perfect affection for each one of his members, the bride of Christ, the bridegroom. Christ loves every single one of the members of his bride, or also members of his body. And not only that, but going outward horizontally, the hearts of the saints will be perfected toward one another, and we'll talk more about that in a moment.

What about the nature and degree of heavenly love? First of all, its nature, it will be all together holy, pure and divine. We will be totally conformed to the love of God, and love for God will at last be perfected. We will forever be studying and knowing and drinking in God, and therefore our love for God will be expanding in some degree for all eternity. I was reading last night a very negative article about heaven, it's like, "How could that be?" Well, this woman was a non-Christian and she said, "The Christian heaven, as it's described, sounds like hell to me." And she had 10 reasons for it, but one of the things she said is that eternity is static, never changing and therefore eternally boring. It's like, "Read my book when I write it." It will not be like that. Forever we will be learning new things about the glory of God, and that's exciting. So the saints' love for God in heaven will be pure, it will be accurate, it be based only on truth, and it will be free from all idolatrous conceptions of God, also our love for others will be perfected as well, we'll be free from all evil motives, free from all lusts, they'll be no base carnal desires, no selfish principles. There'll be at last, no pride, no envy, no covetousness; those aspects of 1 Corinthians 13 will be fulfilled in us perfectly in heaven.

And what of the degree of love? Well, all heavenly love will be perfect in degree. Start with this: vertically, we will love God more in heaven than we do now. Let's keep that simple. Amen and Hallelujah. You will love God perfectly in heaven and love him more than you do here on Earth. Now, one of the key concepts though, when it comes horizontally, and this has been explosive and I've been meditating on, I do believe it's true, and it's very powerful, that there will be differing levels of glory in heaven. Not every created being will be equally glorious. Some are more glorious than others. And some will be more highly honored and more highly rewarded than others based on how they lived on Earth. And yet for all of that differing level, as it says, "Star differs from star in glory, so it will be with the resurrection from the dead.” 1 Corinthians 15, God willing, we'll get to that in a period of time, but glorification will deliver our hearts from all envy. So you can imagine, you will be somewhere in the hierarchy of glory and there will be created beings more glorious than you, shining more with the glory of God than you, and then there will be creative beings that will be less glorious than you. Unless you're bringing up the rear, in which case I'm telling you, you'll just be happy to be there and you'll be delighted to be there. But even in that case, you would have no envy whatsoever for any that's greater than you in glory; you'll be free from that. And why is that? Because all of the glory given to created beings is coming from God, it's some display of God anyway, and you delight in that. Beyond that, you will see the justice of God in rewarding some for the way that they sacrificed, the way that martyrs laid down their lives, the ways that others served in ways that are glorious and honorable and courageous. And you'll see the rightness of it and you will be delivered from all envy and you will celebrate. And as it says in 1 Corinthians 12, "When one part of the body is honored the whole body is honored with it." And so we will delight as part of a vast Family of God in the honors given to our brothers and sisters, and how beautiful will that be? And then of those that are below us in glory, we'll feel no arrogance, we will not boast in such a way that they will feel envious of us but we will see them as beautifully created in the image of God and delight in their glory as well. And so, as Edwards said, "It will not be a grief to any saint to see another saint elevated and honored above himself, actually, it will draw forth greater love and admiration and honor because God has done it and God is revealed and glorified by that person.”

Therefore, there will be variable experiences in heaven, not everyone's gonna have the same experience in heaven. Edwards said, "All shall have as much love as they desire and as great manifestations as they can bear, and so all shall be fully satisfied with what they're experiencing in heaven and where there is perfect satisfaction, there can be no envy." So an interesting application for this is how you live on Earth now affects how you will experience God's love in heaven, it will expand your capacity, your appetite in heaven, I believe. I think that's the essence of the rewards, it's a greater capacity to enjoy God. So I look at the two journeys, putting sin to death now by the Spirit and growing in holiness will increase your appetite for God in heaven. And sacrificially, sharing the gospel with others and talking to others about the word of God and being salt and light, and affecting others and other Christians using your spiritual gifts to bless others, that will increase your capacity for God in heaven. So I just wanna set before you, by way of application, be ambitious in a holy way. Go for as much heaven as you possibly can get. Even today say, “I wanna do as many good works as I can possibly do because I want to enjoy God more in heaven as a result.” I will say this concept was new to me three, or four, five years ago, and it's rather explosive, but I think you can talk like a baby, and then you can talk like a toddler, then you can talk like a little child, you can actually grow and develop in your conception of heavenly realities the more you meditate on it. But all of us are gonna jump by a quantum leap when we finally see Christ face-to-face. And we will have perfect love for the saints, “There will be undoubtedly [as Edwards said] an inconceivably pure, sweet and fervent love between the saints in glory and that love will be in proportion to the perfection and attractiveness of the objects beloved.” It's a very powerful, very awesome concept. Alright, that's all by way of review. 

Now, let's talk about the excellent circumstances in which love will be exercised, expressed and enjoyed in heaven, and let's start with this, the love in heaven will always be mutual. One of the greatest griefs and sorrows in this world is unrequited love. All you have to do is listen to popular songs and within three or four songs, you'll hear some primal scream of some individual who loved and wasn't loved in return, maybe the love has died and the person has left that life, would say, "You know you can... I can bring them... " And I'm not gonna cause you to stumble in many ways by singing any of these tragic songs, but you know what I'm talking about. I loved and they didn't love me, it hurts, it hurts. Could be, man to woman, woman to man, it could be parent to child, could be friend to friend, it could be all of that, unrequited love, and it's a grief, but in heaven, that will be gone forever. There will be no unrequited love in heaven. Love expressed from one saint to the other will be reciprocated in the other saint back.

Now here I have to say a word about marriage. Marriage will be, I would say, not obsolete, but fulfilled in heaven. Fulfilled. The time for procreation will be over. We'll neither marry nor be given in marriage, it would be like the angels in heaven, Jesus said. But I still believe that the core- the center of a Christian marriage is Christian oneness. It's Christian unity. A Trinitarian unity, like between the Father and the Son. And what I wanna say to you Christian couples is, your best days are yet to come as a married couple. You're going to go up into super marriage in heaven, just without the physical side, and so there will be no exclusive relationships in heaven. So I'm not gonna go so far as to speculate because it says, "What we will be has not yet been made known," 1 John 3. "So are you saying, pastor, I'm gonna be like, married to everyone in heaven? Is that how it works?" Something like that, but I know that starts sounding weird, but there's no exclusivity, you're not gonna be excluding any saint, but in terms of your spouse, your best-relating days are up ahead and will be eternal, and that's exciting.

Also in those horizontal relationships there'll be no coolness, no aloofness and no jealousy within it. Now, in this topic of unrequited love you must realize that the single most tragic, unrequited love there has ever been has been God's love for his people, God's love for his people. It has in every generation, been not suitably requited. You know, in Israel's day, it was likened to marriage between God and Israel, and Israel was likened to a prostitute wife in Gomer in the book of Hosea, who was constantly wandering after her lovers and her husband had to buy her affections back so that she would even spend time with him. And as I was studying that book for probably two years and doing scripture memorization, it was early in the process that I realized that the Holy Spirit was saying that I was Gomer in some degree. That my heart was constantly wandering after idols and impure and not loving God the way I should. And that's a grief. But in heaven, we his people, we his bride, will love him back ardently and perfectly, finally. Our love for God will be perfected and healed, and it will be there forever. And if you're a Christian today, you must in your heart- your heart must leap up to say, "Oh, Amen, let that happen." The greatest grief of my life is my lack of love for Christ and for God, and to know that when I get to heaven, a world of love, that I will finally love God the way I should have loved him every day of my life. That that will be perfected in me, how beautiful will that be. But not only that, I will have an ever-increasing sense of his love for me.

One of the great graces- great verses, sorry, of God's love for us in Christ that I think is worthy of daily study is in Ephesians 3:18-19, and there, Paul prays for the saints that each of them would, “have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know that love that surpasses knowledge- that you would be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” That's dimensional language. The dimensions of God's love for you, you will know- have a sense of the magnitude. So think of the new heavens and the new Earth, think about outer space and the infinitude of outer space and probing to the edge of the dimensions of the created order, and God's love is greater than that. Heaven, even the highest heavens, can't contain him. And you're gonna have a sense of the infinite magnitude of God's love for you, the greatness of it, and that you will, in heaven, be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. I don't fully know what those words even mean; I'll be full as full as God is full. How beautiful is that? And I believe in this sense dimensions and details, that's a phrase that God I think gave me a little while ago, we're gonna study the dimensions of God's love for us in Christ and also the details, the tiniest ways he showed love to us in life. How many are there? How many ways has God loved you this week? How many ways has God loved you over the course of your life? You don't even know. That's why I believe a review of your life will be well in order, and God will show you all of the ways he loved you in your life, and you'll learn the details and you will get a second chance, an eternal second chance to thank him for all the ways he loved you. And not just you, but you'll get a chance to study and learn how he loved your brothers and sisters, and you'll study that and you'll love him for that as well. And it will just continue to grow and you'll have a sense of dimensions and details, the forest and the trees. So think of vast redwood forest expanding as far as the eye can see, and then you get to study the details of a single redwood tree and be able to study every aspect of the bark and all of the things that are there. You're gonna know all the dimensions and details of God's love for you in Christ.

And our love in heaven will be uninterrupted and never damped. There'll be no stray thoughts, no dissonant demeanors that will ever creep in to ruin our love, not even for an instant. Our hearts will never grow weary. Our love will never faint or grow dim. Like the church at Ephesus had forsaken their first love. That's not gonna happen to us in heaven. Or Israel in the Old Testament, how God said through Jeremiah, Jeremiah 2:2, "I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown.” “I remember how you used to love me, but you don't love me like that anymore.” Well, that's not gonna happen in heaven. Our love will never grow dim for God in heaven, and that's true also horizontally, human to human. We're not gonna start out the first 5000 years really loving this person or that person, and then something will happen and we won't love them as much anymore, that's just not gonna happen. Our love for each other, our ardor for each other will continue to grow. And there won't be any flattery, no fakery, people will be what they appear to be, and their love will be genuine. So much of our love here in this world is like a thin veneer over an unloving heart. Years ago, when I was in industry as an engineer, I worked for a company that made semi-conductor devices, this is a long time ago, and they did something called wet-metallization, they used to put gold, they used to plate gold on things. Well, I had a cross, a very cheap cross that I asked if I could plate with the gold, and you're like, "Wow, they are just giving gold away?" yeah, not much. Okay, it was in the bubbling kind of wet-metallization thing for about five minutes out came shiny and radiant and beautiful dripping and all that, and then it dried and there was my gold cross, and within a day it was kind of gold, and within three days it wasn't gold at all, and you're like, “Is that what our love for Christ and for each other is like?” Yeah, something like that. I noticed this morning that my iPhone buttons used to be shiny metallic on the side now they're white plasticy, anyway, that's worn off, so many things are like that in this world, they just wear off. But in heaven, it will not be that way. Our hearts will be pure and perfectly united behind every expression of love we ever made. And there will be no evil influence that will come from the outside to corrupt our pure expressions of love, and nothing will ever bubble up from within. Our hearts will be free and clear. In this world, we're somewhat like clods that don't really get it. How many times did the apostles- they were like that, the 12, just didn't get it. "Are you that dull?" Jesus would say. But our hearts will not be dull, we will understand.

Also in this world, we are frequently guarded and careful when it comes to love relationships. We tend to be closed. We tend to guard ourselves because of past wounds and past hurts. We're fragile and cautious in love, we don't believe it when people are nice to us or express love to us because we've been hurt before. But in heaven we will all of us have been healed from all of that, and we will be actually open, free, bold and courageous in love, because we know that the love will be requited forever.

And our resurrected glorified minds and bodies will aid this love for all eternity. Our flesh, as I said, hinders our experiencing of love in this world, but our resurrection minds will be able to understand, vertically, God, perfectly, never comprehensively. There will always be more to learn about God, but whatever we know about God, will be a perfect and right knowledge of God, our resurrection minds will be able to do that, and we'll be able to understand each other as well. We'll know who this is and who that is, and what their story is, and all that. And we'll get all that and then our hearts will be perfected as well, the right information that's come in will elicit the right response from us. And then our bodies will kick in; we will be energetic in expressions. First and foremost of worship to God, you'll never grow tired in your worship. Never. So I think of this as perfect truth plus perfect energy, you're just getting the truth and a perfect reaction to the truth and an energetic expression of love, how often will that be or how awesome will that be? Edwards said this, 

Often, the saints on earth want to fly, but they're held down as with dead weights upon their wings. Often they would be active and would mount up as a flame of fire, but they find themselves hampered, chained down, so they cannot do as their love inclines them to do. Love for God pushes them to erupt and burst forth in praise, but their dull, weak, lifeless flesh holds them back. But in heaven, they shall have no such hindrance, they will have no dullness, there'll be no corruption of the heart to wage war against divine love and hinder its expression. And in heaven, no earthly body shall clog with its heaviness the heavenly flame, the saints in heaven will have no difficulty expressing all their love. Their souls being on fire with holy love shall not be like a fire pent up but like a flame uncovered and at liberty. Their spirits being winged with love shall have no weight upon them to hinder their flight. There shall be no lack of strength or activity, no lack of words, where with the praise, the object of their affection, nothing shall hinder them from communing with God and praising and serving him, just as their love inclines them to do.

 We're going to have limitless energy in our resurrection bodies to express our love horizontally for one another and especially vertically toward God. And in heaven, love will be expressed with perfect decency and wisdom. On earth, sometimes we swing and miss as we try to express our love to other people. Today is Father's Day, I assume that some of you will want to honor your fathers and you'll give him a gift, perhaps. I'm not asking for anything from my family, I'm not making a pitch to be honored on Father's Day, but there is the possibility at least of a swing and miss when it comes to a Father's Day gift. It does happen, and not just that, it happens on Mother's Day, it happens on birthdays, you meant well but you just didn't know what the person really wanted or needed. Some of our expressions of love can be somewhat ham-handed. We don't really understand the circumstance that person's going through, we mean well, but we can't express it, but in heaven, there will be no unwise or ill-timed or foolish overtures, only genuine expressions of love genuinely received.

And in heaven nothing external will ever come in to sever a love relationship, we will never be separated from one another. Every wedding that I perform in the vows are these words, "Till death do us part." And we know that all human relationships, earthly relationships are temporary because of death, death is the final enemy. But in heaven, death will have been vanquished. Death and Hades will have been thrown into the lake of fire. Death will be dead, and we will live forever and ever. And therefore, our relationships will never be severed; nothing will come from the outside in. The gates of the New Jerusalem stand open forever because there are no enemies left, all the enemies are gone, they've been removed. And so there will be no sorrow. No grief. John Bunyan, when he was imprisoned in the 17th century for preaching the Gospel without a license, was separated for 15 years from his wife and his blind daughter, and he said the separation from them has been like the plucking of my flesh from my bones. I think it was hardest for him, as he could have gotten out that day if he just signed a document that he would never preach again, but he couldn't do it. In 1858, when John Paton said goodbye to his loving godly father in Scotland, to get on a boat to go to the New Hebrides Islands in the South Pacific, it was well for them to assume they would never see each other again on Earth. And so the parting is one of the most powerful emotional scenes I've ever read in church history, painful. It was like a death. Even though both of them were still alive, they would never see each other in that world again. But death will have been destroyed forever, and other things that have separated people, one from another will have been completely resolved. There'll be no barrier, no dividing wall of hostility at all in heaven. Racism at last will have been solved. There's nothing that governments can do, there's no policies, we can be salt and light and reduce the impact of racism, but we're going to a world in which there will be people from every tribe, language, people, and nation in perfect Trinitarian unity. And I believe we'll remember the journey we went through and see how Christ solved it and give him the glory, and I'm looking forward to that. And frankly, the more of that heavenly hope we can have now the better, this is exactly what our country needs, is people that are filled with this kind of heavenly hope to speak the truth into these circumstances.

Beyond that, all of the past history of wrongs, of invading armies that raped and pillaged and murdered, and then there are national hatreds against other nations and individuals from those nations tend to hate one another, all of those things will have been solved, swallowed up in the grace of God. How sweet will that unity be that we'll have in heaven? In heaven, we will be part of a beautiful family of God, we will all be members, he our perfect Father, we his sons and daughters, and we're gonna have that family unity. That's why I said, when one part of the body is honored, the whole body is honored with it. When your brother or your sister is honored, you're gonna celebrate because they're part of the family, and so are you, and it's gonna be marvelous. We're gonna belong to each other. Says the Song of Songs 6:3, "I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine." God will be yours, and you will be his, and your brothers and sisters will be yours, and you will be theirs. We'll belong to one another in a way we can hardly imagine.

And there will be uninterrupted prosperity; you're going to be super rich in heaven. Super rich, all of the things that you prize and are delightful displays of the grace and the goodness of God will be yours, especially the rewards that God will lavish on you for your faithful service. There'll be no grief, no sorrow of any pain to diminish your sense of that wealth. Christ himself will no longer be a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering, all of that will have been fulfilled because the sufferings of his people will have been completed and they will be done. And our ownership of property will serve our perfect love for each other. So you're saying, “Are we actually gonna own stuff in heaven?” Yes, you will, you'll have your own crowns, you'll get to cast them before the Lord and give him credit, but they'll be yours. And if any of you should sit on thrones to Jesus's right or left, I'd like to know who you are. I'd be honored to shake your hand if you're one of those that are sitting to Jesus's right or left in the Kingdom of heaven, but those would be your thrones.

And what about properties and inheritances and all that you may say, "Well, is that even biblical?" Well, Jesus said this in Luke 16:11 and 12, "If you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy," listen to this, "with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?" So we're going to have stuff forever and ever and ever, but yet we will have an expansive heart in love, so that whatever is ours, we will gladly share with others. So you all can visit my mansion, wherever that is, whenever you want, I hope that you'll reciprocate. I'm sure you will. If you're saying, "We're all gonna be living in the new Jerusalem in that infinitely tall skyscraper and all that, that is described in Revelation 21:5, I don't know the details. All I know is it says in Acts 4:32, "All the believers who are one in heart and mind, no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had." So they are our own. There are ours, but we will openly, freely share with one another.

And we will know in heaven confidently and peacefully that this experience that we're having will go on forever, we don't have any fear, we won't think it'll ever end. We'll know it won't end. It will go on forever and ever. We'll have no fear of bad news in heaven, but we know that the things that we experience will be forever. Edwards said, "All in heaven shall flourish in immortal youth and freshness. Age shall not diminish anyone's beauty or vigor. Attribute shall not wither like a river flowing forever deeper, increasing, always springing forth, always blossoming, always bearing fruit, not static." Like it says, Revelation 22:1-2, "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. And on each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” Forever. 

Sixth, and very briefly, the blessed effects and fruits of this love as it will be so expressed in heaven, we will because of this perfect love behave perfectly toward one another in heaven. I find this interesting that Edwards thought about our heavenly behavior and it will be good. We're gonna treat each other well in heaven, most excellent, perfect behavior toward God and toward one another. Heavenly society will be perfect in every way. No one will be isolated; no one will be ostracized, or as we say these days cancelled. No one will be unpopular or left out. All will be welcomed at all times.

I don't know, we don't know how we will be employed in heaven. I think we will have employments in heaven. Why would God give us a resurrection mind, a resurrection body, limitless energy, this incredibly- new heaven, new earth, and all of these- and nothing to do? That makes no sense at all. But we do know the central employment of heaven will be worship. We are gonna be around the throne, we're gonna be seeing the glory of God directly, unhindered, unfiltered, we will be on our faces forever praising God. And we will have perfect tranquility and joy in heaven. We will experience it in peacefulness and joy. Think about the crystal sea with no ripples or waves or storms or typhoons or any of that, but just peace. I think it represents perfect peacefulness. 

Alright, applications. First to you who are non-Christians, any of you that may be here in this building now, any of you that may be listening by live stream, my heart is filled right now with one thought, I don't want you to miss out. I don't want you not to be there. I've said before that if there were no hell, but just some neutral place that wasn't heaven and there were heaven, it would be like hell to not be there. But there is a hell, eternal conscious torment. And the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to live a sinless life and earn a righteousness through perfect love, vertically for God and horizontally for others, a perfect life of righteousness that he desires to give you as a gift, like a beautiful robe of holiness that you can put on yourself now by faith, you'll need it on judgment day, because without that he will not let you into heaven. And he's willing to take all of your filthy sins and all of your wickedness and your defilements, all of the ways you have not loved God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you've not loved your neighbor as yourself, all of that defilement, that record of sin and die, Jesus dying, shedding his blood on the cross under the just wrath of God, so that you would be free from guilt. Please trust in Christ; please believe in him. Don't miss out on this heavenly world that I've been describing for two weeks.

Now you Christians, spend more time, I would say daily, meditating on heaven. I've given you probably a 100 ideas today of things you could think about in heaven. It says in Colossians 3, "Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God." Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things, for you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. So you ought to think about, set your hearts on heaven more than you have in the past. Meditate on it daily.

Secondly, think of yourself, therefore, more and more as an alien and stranger here, this world is not your home, say that to yourself, "This world is not my home. I'm not looking for eternal blessedness here." This is a corrupted sin-soaked, world of sorrow and misery- opportunity to serve. Yes, opportunity. We'll get to that in a moment. But this world is not your home. So you ought to think more and more like an alien and a stranger here, think, "Heaven is my home."

Thirdly, let's study heaven as a world of love in particular, and let that study move you vertically to love God more than you ever have before. Let your love for God be more ardent and passionate and knowledgeable than ever before, love him with all- every fiber of your being. Ask the Holy Spirit to work in you to love God. And secondly, let him move you horizontal, love your neighbor as yourself, in the way that I've been describing here for two weeks, say, "Oh God, would you please take the truths that are in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, about what love is and what love isn't and fulfill them in me. Oh, God, make me patient. Make me kind. Make me not envious or boastful or arrogant. Make me not easily angered. Oh God, help me not to keep a record of wrongs, I want to fulfill 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, just work that in me." And let heaven, meditation on heaven, help you with that. I would also urge that you pray over Ephesians 3:17-19, daily, pray it for yourself and pray for others. Let me say it again, “I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. And that you would know that love that surpasses knowledge- that you would be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” He prayed that for Ephesian Christians and for all the Christians he knew, pray that for yourself, pray that for your spouse, or your kids, or your parents, or your friends, your pastors, pray that for me. I would love that. To be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God, knowing how much God loves me in Christ, pray for that.

Fifth, let thoughts of heaven's holiness and purity drive out all lust and sin habits. After Colossians 3:1-4, that set your heart on things above, set your heart in heaven, he said, "Put to death, therefore whatever belongs to your earthly nature.” All the lusts, the habits of sin, if there's anything in your mind, the Holy Spirit's bringing to your mind that you know he wants you to kill, kill it. Kill it now by the power of the Spirit, put to death the misdeeds of the flesh by the Spirit. Let yearning for heaven's holiness drive out sin.

And then sixth, let zeal for the glory of God in heaven move you to take risks in evangelism and missions. Live a risk your life. It's not really a risk. You can't lose. If you get persecuted, you'll get great rewards in heaven, if they listen to you and become your brother and sister in Christ, you'll get to be with them in heaven, either way, you can't lose, so let's be bold in evangelism. We're put here in Durham to be a light shining as in a dark place, let's be bold.

And then finally, let the comforts of heaven that we've described today greatly reduce any of you that are sorrowful, that have been through losses and crosses in this world, that are hurting. Maybe you've lost a loved one. Maybe you've got physical pain, chronic illness... I don't know what your circumstances are, but let meditation on heaven reduce the pain and the sorrow you feel about that. Some day, you're gonna be in a world with no death, mourning, crying or pain.

Close with me in prayer. Lord, thank you for two weeks that we've had to meditate on this, Lord, we ask that it would produce in us zeal for your glory in the two journeys, personal holiness, and also gospel advance. Help us, oh Lord, be a light shining in our country. Help us to live so filled with hope, that people who are without hope and without God in the world will be moved to ask us to give a reason for the hope that we have. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

In closing to 1 Corinthians 13, we explore the idea that heaven is a world of love and unity that we can look forward to eagerly.

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