Two Journeys

Turn in your Bibles to Psalms 2 this morning, as we're gonna meditate on God bringing forth his Son. When it comes to Christmas, I think we Christians, especially older ones, the older we get, we know that things are not as they appear. The holiday, Christmas, has a surface feel to it, and it's there everywhere, everywhere we look. I, for one, enjoy seeing houses get decorated, I like seeing the lights, there are certain houses near us in North Durham that really roll out the red carpet for people. I mean, they put out lights, I don't know what their electric bill is. They even have dedicated radio stations where if you sit in front of their houses, you can listen to a presentation and it's pretty amazing. I'm not certain whether they take them down, I think they may be up year round, and then they just plug them in as though their neighbors don't see them, like in July or August, but there are other houses like us, we put up lights and we love to see it, our neighborhood is decked out and we enjoy that. We also see all the green and red in the malls and the different things, and that's all that kind of surface aspect, but appearances are deceiving.

That's not what Christmas is all about, and we Christians know that. I think when it comes to appearances being deceiving, I think about Christmas presents and disappointments I've had over the years. I'm not gonna share them with you, but even quite recently, have you ever been part of a white elephant gift exchange? Alright, you know exactly what I'm talking about. For those of you that don't know what it is, you take something relatively worthless and put it in a very nice box with wrapping paper and ribbon and all that. What's really fun is when you see little kids who don't know the rules of the game, taking part. And so they frequently go to the largest, most spectacular box, and they'll rip off all of the wrapping paper and they'll open up and find a single shoe inside, or a pair of nail clippers, or some piece of lawn decoration like a gnome or something like that. I don't mean to offend those of you that love lawn gnomes, but those are the kinds of things that tend to show up at white elephant gift exchanges.

And so, appearances are deceiving. Christmas is about far more than that. The real meaning of Christmas, we know as Christians, is about the indescribable gift I just prayed about, about the gift of the only begotten Son of God. The gift of Jesus Christ, and the gift of salvation, the infinite mystery of the God-man, the incarnation of Jesus Christ being fully God, fully man. Christians have wrestled with the theology of the incarnation from the very beginning when we try to understand. Really, Mary perhaps was one of the very first as she held her little baby boy in her arms, and she pondered the words that the angel Gabriel had spoken to her, how he would be both the son of David and the son of God. And it says in Luke 2, that she pondered these things and treasured them in her heart. When Jesus came into the world, it was a scene of amazing simplicity and weakness, and even poverty. Here was this young Jewish couple, so poor that they could not find decent lodging place in which Mary could give birth to her firstborn, there was no room at the inn, perhaps the most famous words ever spoken about an inn, or a hotel. So it led to Joseph and Mary finding a warm, dry place in a cave perhaps, or a barn or some place where animals were stored in the vicinity of Bethlehem. And she brought forth her firstborn and she wrapped him up with swaddling clothes as the scripture says and laid him in a manger. This's just a box filled with feed for animals.

 And so here, the only begotten Son of God was laid in a condition so far beneath the way most newborn babies are treated worldwide. This was a picture of weakness and poverty, and of obscurity. The halls of power around the world did not know anything about it that night. Think about the Roman Emperor who was on the throne of power, ruling over a quarter of the population of the world, he knew that Palestine, Judea was part of his domain, but he wasn't thinking much about it, was by his perspective probably a backwater. The Emperor Caesar Augustus had issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world, and that moved populations around, and so his mandate determined the motions of the Jewish nation as a whole, and of Joseph and Mary in particular. But when Christ was born, Caesar Augustus knew nothing about it. It didn't mean anything to him, at all. The Son of God entered the world as an infant, weak, totally dependent. He needed His mother to wrap Him up in cloths, needed his mother to feed him, needed her husband to protect them both and provide for them. They were hardly the picture of omnipotence, hardly a threat to the thrones of the high and mighty.

And yet from the beginning of his life to the end, Jesus had mighty enemies that hated him and fought against him and opposed him, that took counsel together, enraged against him. And this sermon is to show the heavenly perspective of that earthly opposition, is to lift all of us as believers in Christ up into the councils of the Almighty, into the throne room of God and see all of that opposition to Christ from that heavenly perspective. To hear Almighty God laugh at the opposition is good for us. It's delightful for us to hear that laugh and to understand how deep, and wise, and powerful that laughter of God is in reference to all of his enemies. Appearances can be deceiving when it comes to opposition to the Gospel, it can be seen that the human opposition to Christianity have the upper hand, that they're actually winning. That they're carrying the day, but appearances can be deceiving.

The fact is, Psalm 2 teaches us, that the decree of Almighty God is for the final success of this kingdom of Christ, and nothing can stop it. And he's put his omnipotence behind the spread of the gospel. Psalms 2 tells you how it's going to be with Jesus, the Christ. Almighty God has decreed that he will rule the earth. And Psalms 2 is telling the human race to get with that program. To not fight, to not oppose, to not resist, but rather to find refuge in Christ, and for us to realize the richness of that refuge, and to come into that refuge and find safety in Christ. That's what Psalms 2 all about. So let's walk through it together.  

It begins in Psalms 2, verses 1 through 3 with the nation's raging against God's Son. "Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain, the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed one." That is the Christ, saying, “let us burst their bonds apart, and let us cast away their cords from us."  So it's amazing how the Psalm begins with the rhetorical question, “Why?” It's like, "Why do they do it?" It's nothing but futility. It cannot succeed. So this is heaven asking Earth, "Why?" From the beginning, nations and rulers conspired against the Lord and against his anointed one, conspired against Christ.

You remember that shortly after he was born, Joseph and Mary took Jesus to the temple grounds, and there was an old man there named Simeon, a prophet, who had been waiting for the Lord's Christ. He had been assured by God in his own heart, in his spirit, that he would not die before seeing the Messiah. And now the time had come, and he took the baby Jesus into his arms and he said this, "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel. And to be a sign that will be spoken against. So that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed." In other words, the nations will rage against this baby, the rulers will take counsel against him, they will rage against him. This was immediately, these words were immediately fulfilled by King Herod, Herod the Great. Why was he great? He was great in wealth, he was great in power locally, but not worldwide. He was great because he made big buildings, but he was not a great man, he was an evil man, he was a tyrant, and he was zealous and jealous over his own throne. So much so that he killed his two sons lest they should grow up and topple him from his throne. As a matter of fact, Caesar Augustus heard about this and said of King Herod, "I would rather be Herod's pig than his son." 

It was this very man who conspired to have all the babies born in Bethlehem, all the boy babies that were born in Bethlehem and its vicinity, who were two years old and under slaughtered, lest this baby should rise up and topple him from his throne. But Herod did not realize how impossible it was to kill this baby. How Almighty God, God the omnipotent sheltered Jesus, the baby Jesus with the shadow of his wings. And did enough to keep him safe, didn't need to do any more, just spoke to Joseph in a dream, to tell him to take Mary and the baby and flee to Egypt until the danger had passed, that was all. He didn't send an angelic army, which he could have done. They were there the night he was born, he could have sent, but instead just did enough to keep him alive and that's enough. But it was impossible for Herod the tyrant to kill the baby Jesus.

And so this conspiracy, this rage, this opposition against Christ came from the very beginning of his life. And it went throughout his public ministry, right to the end of his life as well, right to the end of his days. And in his public ministry, throughout his ministry, Jesus had opposition. He had people that rose up against him that actually even conspired to find out how they might kill him. For example, in Matthew chapter 12, Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath and the Jewish leaders that were in opposition then went out and conspired how they should kill Jesus. And so they took counsel together. And so these plots continued day after day throughout the rest of Jesus's life. And culminated, of course, in his trial, in which the Jewish leaders pressured Pontius Pilate, against his will, but conspired together with Pilate to the end that Jesus should be killed, that he would be crucified. It was exactly what these evil leaders had wanted to do throughout Jesus's public ministry. They wanted him dead, and now he was dead. But God raised him from the dead. And within a short amount of time, bold and courageous Christians, followers of the Christ, rose up in his place, filled with his Spirit, and began boldly to preach the gospel to the very same ones who conspired to kill Jesus.

And Acts Chapter 4 tells about how Peter and John boldly said, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." What incredible boldness! Now, at that point, the leaders weren't quite ready to kill them, weren't quite ready to physically attack them or torture them, so they release them. And Peter and John went back to their own people, and they gathered the people together to pray and they quoted the same psalm, Psalms 2. Acts Chapter 4:25-28, they said in their prayer, "You spoke, oh God, by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of your servant, our father, David. Why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed one. Indeed " they prayed, "Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had determined beforehand should happen."

So even in their plotting against Jesus, they were just fulfilling the decree of Almighty God, even the decree in this Psalm. They were doing exactly what the Sovereign God had wanted them to do. So from the beginning of Jesus's earthly life, through to the end, and then after he was ascended and seated at the right hand of God, his followers, the same rage, and the same counseling together, and same plotting has gone on against the Lord and against his anointed one. So it is today. We Christians are aware, here in America of increasing rise of opposition to Christianity. We are learning more and more, and it's I think a good thing for us to know that we are aliens and strangers in this world, this is not our home. Our citizenship is not here, but in Heaven.

And while Christianity has had a comfortable, generally positive relationship with the surrounding culture and with the government for centuries, generally positive, that it seems is a decaying orbit coming to an end. So we can see the aggressive secularization of our culture. I could reach for kind of low-hanging fruit on that and talk about how this or that nativity scene was forbidden in this or that locale. Or the things that Starbucks is or isn't doing with their coffee cups at this time of year. These things are minor. What's worse is the increasing rise of godless or unbelieving world views that are coming with teeth to force Christians to violate their consciences.

I heard recently from a member of our church of, this particular man's mother was forced to sign a document that she would refer to transgender people by their preferred pronouns. And if she didn't, she would lose her job. Well, that's gonna bring people quickly to a fork in the road, isn't it? Imagine in a particular ward of a hospital that cared for anorexics, that you are forced to follow those individuals' delusions and tell them that they could stand to lose a little weight.

And so we are surrounded, we are in enemy territory, and it's going to become more and more difficult for Christians to stand firm. I think back to the early days of the Roman opposition to the gospel, when the Emperor Decius in the year AD 249, forced Christians to burn a pinch of incense to Caesar, and get a paper certificate saying that it had been witnessed, that they'd done it. And they had to say, “Caesar is Lord” when they did it. And that brought people quickly to the fork in the road. And I wonder what kind of difficulties we're going to have, not just in that one issue, but in more and more issues living overtly for Christ. 

But the troubles that we American Christians have are as nothing compared to what our brothers and sisters are facing around the world. Many of our brothers and sisters know exactly what kind of counsel the rulers take against Christ in their country. I think about what happened in October in China, where the government sent bulldozers and backhoes and a large crane in a particular province where Christians were gathered together to worship and to pray and they began breaking the building down while the service was going on. This happened in October. The pastors were arrested and imprisoned for, "gathering people to disturb social order."

And so we see the rulers of that most populous nation on earth gathering together and taking counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed ones. It's been going on for decades in that country. Or you could think of the leaders of Muslim nations that do the same thing and make life utterly miserable for people to cross over from the lie of Islam to the truth of Christianity, and then the laws are against them, they're incarcerated, they lose their freedom, they lose perhaps, even their lives, where their families are even encouraged to hunt them down and kill them and not prosecuted, because that's just part of their interpretation of Islamic law. Or it could be even at a lower level where governments like the Indian government will give a visa to a missionary wife, but not to her husband, and they know very well that that will keep that couple from going back on the field to continue their work.

The government of Russia does the same kind of shenanigans. So those are lower levels of opposition, they're taking counsel together, they're opposing, they're trying to fight. Psalm 2 speaks to all of these situations, all of these circumstances. Behind all of this, we have to see a vast conspiracy. So, you're like, "Wow pastor, I didn't know you're a conspiracist." I actually am. I think there is a deep, dark, intelligent, wicked conspiracy at the highest level, to unify all of these efforts against the Lord and against his anointed one. And you know who's running it? Satan. And he is ruling over the dark opposition to the gospel. Revelation 12 talks about this, how that ancient serpent, the devil, Satan, stood ready to devour the woman and her child, and was unable to do so. So he turned his rage against the believers, the followers, the children of the woman. So it is. Revelation 12. This has been going on, and it continues, and it's going to continue till the end.                                 

Well, God laughs at the rage, and he threatens them with his own rage. Look at Verse 4; "The One enthroned in heaven laughs, the Lord scoffs at them." This is for me an amazingly comforting picture of God. The reaction of all of this conspiracy and opposition is heavenly laughter. A laughter of derision. It is impossible to measure how infinitely above their plots and their power he is. It cannot be measured because it is infinite. AW Tozer in his book ‘The Knowledge of the Holy’. He said this, "Forever God stands apart in light, unapproachable. He is as high above an archangel as he is above a caterpillar. For the gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar is but finite. But the gulf between God and the archangel is infinite. The more we meditate on the infinite gap between creator and creature, the more we'll understand this laugh of derision, God's omnipotence.” God's throne does not experience the slightest tremor at this human opposition. Doesn't tremble at all. He's not alarmed. He's not at a loss. What to do? He just laughs. Now, you can imagine if every human being on the face of the earth were gathered into one vast plane, I don't know if there'd be one plane that would be large enough, but maybe somewhere in Central Asia, so 7.5 billion people, and all of them gathered in one place, and at a certain signal, they all jumped and landed back down on the Earth at the same time. 

Would the Earth crack apart? Would the earth shake and tremble? Would there be tidal waves all over the earth because of that? No, it says in Psalm 104:5 that God set the earth on its foundations. It can never be moved. But you know what something? Hebrews chapter 1 says, that Christ's throne is more eternal than the Earth.  It's more eternal than the Earth. That's what it says in Hebrews 1:10-12. "In the beginning, oh Lord, you laid the foundations of the Earth and the heavens of the work of your hands. They will perish. But you remain. They will all wear out like a garment. Like a robe, you will roll them up, like a garment, they will be changed, but you remain the same, and your years will never end." That's what the psalmist says ultimately to Jesus, that's what the author to Hebrews says ultimately about Christ's throne. It cannot be shaken. All of the nations are as nothing before the sublime majesty of Almighty God. Isaiah 40:15-17 says, “Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket. They're regarded as dust on the scales. He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires, nor all its animals enough for burnt offerings, before Him all the nations are as nothing, they're regarded by Him as worthless and less than nothing.” 

So God's laughter of derision is a measure of how threatened he is? Not at all. But it's more than that. There's a deep cleverness and in a fascinating wisdom to God's laughter at his enemies. What he does is he takes their opposition, specific details of their opposition, and turns it around on them and actually uses specific aspects of how they are seeking to stop the spread of the gospel to actually spread the gospel. The clearest example of this is Tertullian, famous statement, "The blood of martyrs is seed." The blood of martyrs causes more Christians to spring up. You can't fight it by killing the Christians. You just make more Christians when people who until that time were afraid to die, saw men and women who were not afraid to die, and they said, "Whatever those people have, I want. I don't have it, and I want it."

So that's the laughter of God. You dug a hole, you're going to fall into it while I pass by in safety and I'm gonna actually use the aspects of what you have done to spread the gospel. I was speaking to a mission's leader recently, and he was talking about… I think in heaven, we're gonna find how many laughters of God there were in 20 centuries where specific aspects of their plans were turned around and God used them for his glory. We're gonna find out. But there's a remarkable story, so I was speaking to a mission's leader, and he told me about things, great things that are happening in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini came in 1979, very famously took over the American Embassy. It was really a watershed moment in terms of the relationship between the West and Islam. And there's a lot of things that changed then in 1979, from that point on, it's like a hinge of history. But one of the things that happened is many, many Iranian Muslims became disenchanted with Islam and were looking for something, something else, not this, and they were open. And God, in amazing ways, began to infiltrate that country with the gospel, and it goes on to this very day. There's an explosion of Christians, of Christianity in Iran.

Now, what's interesting is they have very significant health care needs, and they're not looking for missionary doctors to come from the United States. No, not at all. There's no way you could get in with a missionary visa into the Islamic Republic of Iran. So they actually strangely have a connection with the communist government of Cuba, and so they have asked for doctors to come from Cuba. Well, maybe you didn't know there's an evangelical revival going on in Cuba too. And God is doing an amazing work in Cuba. And who do you think is lining up to fill those slots, to go from Cuba over to Iran to serve the people of Iran? I'll just leave it to your imagination to figure out who it is that's going. But wouldn't it be amazing? Wouldn't it be the laughter of God for the communist government of Cuba to pay for missionaries to go to the Islamic Republic of Iran? Now, I'm not saying it's happening, but wouldn't it be amazing if it were? 

I'm gonna look forward to that part of our heavenly joy and looking backward at what God did to turn the whole thing around again, and again, and again, that's the laughter of God. Psalms 18:25-26, "To the faithful, you show yourself faithful, to the blameless, you show yourself blameless to the pure, you show yourself pure, but to the crooked, you show yourself shrewd." You wanna be crooked with God, He will be shrewed with you. And Psalms 2 just teaches that, God laughs at the plans and turns them around. God also, however, doesn't just laugh, he also threatens them with his own wrath. Look at verses 4-6 again, "The one enthroned in heaven laughs, the Lord scoffs at them. Then He rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, 'I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.'"

Now, at the end of this Psalm, this threat of God's wrath is made overt, is made plain. You don't have to wonder what he means. It says it. "God will not take the attack on Christ and on His people kindly. He will wait patiently, but at the right time, He will overwhelm all human enemies with His wrath and with His judgment." Psalm 110:1-2, "The Lord says to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, you will rule in the midst of your enemies.'" It's teaching the same thing as Psalm 2.

Now, at the end of the world, I believe, scripture teaches us that the persecution against Christians will reach an almost unbearable crescendo. Jesus said, "Unless those days had been cut short, no one would survive." We're talking about, as I preach to you the Book of Revelation, the reign of the anti-Christ and his hatred of God and of His people. And so the antichrist will establish himself as God, and he will speak words of blasphemy against God, and he will attack the people of God, and he will kill many of them. 

Daniel 7 makes it very plain, what's going to happen. Daniel 7:21-22, it says, "As I watched this horn was waging war against the saints and defeating them" and defeating them, that means killing them, "until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favor of the saints of the Most High and the time came when they, the saints, possessed the kingdom." A few verses later, Daniel 7, 25-26, "The anti-Christ will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws. The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time. But the court will sit," that's the heavenly court, "and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever."

So God is going to pour out his wrath on that final phase of human government, and the second coming of Christ will happen then, and at that point, there will be no refuge for those that up till that moment have rebelled. With the breaking open of the sixth seal in Revelation 6, we see the seeking for refuge, and they don't find it. Listen to what it says, "Then the kings of the Earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave, and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains." What are they seeking? Refuge, refuge, "They called to the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand?’" They're seeking refuge from rocks and mountains and caves, and they will not find it.                                                            

So appearances can be deceiving, right up to the very last moment, it will seem that the anti-Christ forces will be winning, they will have the upper hand, but it is not so. So look at God's decree about his son in verses 7-9, "I will proclaim the decree of the Lord. He said to me, 'You are my son today, I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter. You will dash them to pieces like pottery.’”  So now we are listening to an inter-trinitarian conversation, a conversation between the Father and the Son, between the first person in the Trinity and the second person. Who is telling us about it? Well, first the mouthpiece, David, but he was just speaking by the Spirit. This is really Jesus telling us what his Father told him. Jesus is telling, I want to tell you what my father told me, he made a decree and so God's made an eternal decree about Jesus Christ. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to him. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. The text speaks of a decree that's a settled ruling from a potentate, a law written down. Remember the laws of the Medes and Persians if written down, cannot be changed. This is more secure than that. This is a decision by Almighty God concerning Jesus. It's a settled final decision, a decree. And foundational to this decree is the identity of Jesus of Nazareth as the only begotten Son of God, “You are my son today, I have begotten you.” As the ancient Creed said, begotten, not made. Jesus is not a created being, but eternally existed as the second person of the Trinity. But a significant change happened concerning him, he became what he was not before, which was human.

 Now turning around and we were created in the image of God, that is true, but until that point, he had not been human, he didn't have a body, but he was eternally pre-existent. For John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." But then in John 1:14, it says, "The Word," and here's a key word, "became flesh." So he wasn't flesh before, then he became flesh, and made his dwelling among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

So there was never a time Jesus did not exist. Yet the text says, "Today... Today I have begotten you." What does that mean? Today is a time-bound statement, it's a sequence statement, the Alpha and Omega, first and last, beginning and end. So today, something happened. Like there's yesterday, today, tomorrow. So today, something happened. Didn't happen yesterday. Happened today. So what does it mean? Well, when did it get said? Well it got said at Christ's birth. Hebrews 1:5-6, listen to this, "For to which of the angels did God ever say, 'you are my son today. I have begotten you?", that's Psalms 2. None. God didn't ever say that to an angel, he said it to his son, or again, "I will be his Father and he will be My Son." When did he say this, verse 6. And again, when God brings his first born into the world, he says, "Let all God's angels worship him.”  So that's the today, when Jesus was brought into the world as human, when he was conceived, when he was born, when he became human. Today I've begotten you. 

But then it gets said again at his resurrection. Listen to what Paul said, at Pisidia in Antioch, the synagogue there. So he's preaching the Gospel to the Jews assembled in the synagogue. It's Acts 13:32-34, "We tell you the good news, what God promised our fathers, he has fulfilled for us his children by raising up Jesus from the dead. As it is written in the second Psalm, you are my son, today I have begotten you." God raised him from the dead, never to decay. So he says, "Today, I've begotten you," concerning the resurrection, "into an eternally human, glorified resurrected body."  Both of these moments, his incarnation and his resurrection show the commitment of Almighty God to the second person in the Trinity being human, the Son of Man, and he still is, he will forever be the Son of Man, forever human.

  I'm amazed the number of Christians, I'll ask, “Is Jesus still human?”, or “Does Jesus still have a body?” And they just, they look at each other and they're not sure. Cause I think I have a reputation as being a kind of a tricky Bible teacher, and they're not quite sure what to say. So let me tell you, if I should ever ask... Or anybody asks, "Does Jesus still have a body?" the answer is, yes. Is Jesus still human? Yes. Is he still the Son of Man? Yes, forever. He is human. But there's a decisive act of God to make him human to begin with, a decisive act of God again that he should be raised up in a human resurrection body. And then God gives an invitation to his son. Psalm 2:8-9, he says, "Ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth, your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter. You'll dash them to pieces like pottery." So after Jesus Christ died on the cross as an atonement for our sins, God raised him from the dead. Then God lifted him from the surface of the Earth, moved him through the heavenly realms that we can't even understand and seated him far above all those heavenly realms at his right hand. And he said to him, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a foot stool for your feet." Along with that, he invites him, "Ask of me and I'll... " you know how the kings would say that, "Whatever you want. Even up to half of my kingdom." You know how kings would say that? So, this ruler of the universe, God the Father, Almighty God said to His Son, "Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth, your possession. I'll give them to you."

Well, we don't ever have an overt statement, by the way, Jesus has asked, but he's asked. He has openly asked, and God has granted it to him. And so we get it in the great commission. Jesus came to his disciples after his resurrection and said, "All authority in heaven and earth has been... " what? "given to me." I didn't usurp it, I didn't seize it, I didn't take it. It's been given to me by my Father. And that gives him the right to then build a kingdom. "Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I'm with you always to the very end of the age." So that's the right that He has. 

As they celebrate in Heaven in Revelation 5, after Jesus takes the scroll from the right hand of God, remember that? And they're celebrating wave upon wave of celebration. One of the waves of celebration says this; Revelation 5:9-10, "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain, and with your blood, you purchase people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation." 

We are his plunder, we are his gift, we are part of his inheritance. We are his, we are his. God the Father gave you to Jesus. All that the Father has given me will come to me and I'll raise him up at the last day. You are a love gift from the Father to the Son if you're a Christian, and so you're part of that inheritance that Jesus asked for, and he's gonna get the whole thing, he's gonna get all of the elect, all of them are gonna come. Every one of them are gonna be standing around the throne and they're gonna be wearing white robes, and they're gonna be holding palm branches and saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb."

Now, it says, "He will rule the nations with the rod of his power." He has the power to dash them to pieces like pottery. He is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But at the end of the world, at that crescendo of wickedness, he will dash his enemies to pieces like pottery. The first coming was quiet, silent night, holy night. A little town of Bethlehem. How deep we see thee lie. 

There's a quietness to the coming of Jesus, it won't be that way the second time. It's gonna be like lightning that flashes from one side and rips the heavens across to the other. No one will miss it. It ends everything. And what will happen? Revelation 19 tells us, "I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse whose rider is called faithful and true. And with justice, he judges and makes war. And his eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns, and he has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. And he is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God, and the armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses, and they're dressed in fine linen white and clean. And out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter. [Psalm 2] He treads the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. And on his robe and on his thigh, he has this name written, King of kings and Lord of lords."  Well, God gives us therefore an invitation to come and worship, that's how the Psalms ends. We go through verse 10 through 12, "Therefore you kings, be wise, be warned you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son." 

Christmas is an opportunity to worship. Come and worship. Come and worship, worship Christ, the newborn king. We can come like the angels did that night, and the heavens were open. You see this angelic heavenly hosts, and they're saying, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rest." The shepherds took the counsel of the angel and they went to Bethlehem to come and see what the angel had talked about. And when they had seen him, they went home glorifying God and praising him for what they had seen, which was just what the angel had told them. 

When we think about the Magi, when they finally came, we don't know exactly when, but might have been a year after Jesus' birth, maybe two, no idea. But when they came, they did the same thing. They bowed down and worshipped. And they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, incense and myrrh. It's all about worship. That's what this is about. This is the purpose of Christmas. To call us away from our idols, to call us away from the idols of our hearts, which Christmas, the secular spirit of Christmas panders to and draws from us the idols of our heart.

Christianity, true Christianity causes us to kill our idols to turn away from those things in emptiness and find joy in worship in Christ. That's what the text is calling us to do, to come and worship, but it also gives a warning to the rebels. Look again at verse 10 and following, "Therefore you kings, be wise, be warned you rulers of the Earth, serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you be destroyed in your way for His wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him."

Do you see at the beginning of the Psalm, how the wicked of the earth, the tyrants are taking counsel together? They're seeking advice from one another to what end? How can we stop Christ? How can we shut him down? You think about the Jewish opponents of Jesus, how they would counsel together and share advice on strategies on shutting Jesus down. Or you can imagine Nero, or some of the other tyrant opposers of the Roman emperors, getting their counsel together, "We have a problem, Christianity is growing, how can we shut this down? Or you can imagine Atila the Hun, and it's like he's bumping into Christianity trying to figure out what it is, and he's got counselors, he's like, "What do we do to stop Christ and to stop Christians?" or the viking plundering leaders, the pagans that were coming, "What shall we do with Christianity? What shall we do with Christ?" You can well imagine one of the 20th century, the tyrants there, you can imagine Joseph Stalin getting some counselors together, "What can we do to shut down Christ and Christians?" or Adolf Hitler? Gathering all of his Nazi cronies, "What can we do about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church, and all of their opposition to our Nazi reign? How can we stop Christ? How can we stop Christians?" Or Mao Zedong thinking, "What can I do to humiliate Christ? To crush Christ and to oppose. What can I do?" 

Do you feel like you wish you could, in the spirit of Psalm 2, to just walk in there and say, "Excuse me, I have some advice to give you. Can I give you some counsel? It's good advice. Don't fight Christ. You will lose." You lose. And any specific thing you try to do, God will laugh at it and use it. So let me just tell you, you kings be wise, be warned you rulers of the Earth, serve him with fear and rejoice with trembling. That's what you need to do.

And why? Because the sword of Damocles is hanging over your heads, o kings, that's an ancient story about a man named Damocles that was enamored by the trappings of a king, Dionysius in Syracuse, about four centuries before Cicero wrote about it. And he was like, "Boy, I would love to be a king." It turns out Dionysius was a wicked tyrant and had many people plotting to kill him. And he knew it, so uneasy lay the head that wore that crown, and he got sick of this flatterer, Damocles, coming and saying, "I wish I were king." He's like, "Fine, I'll let you be king. You can lay on this gold couch and I'll put you in royal robes, and I'll anoint you with aromatic resins and you can eat whatever you want." And Damocles enjoyed that for a day, but then he looked up and noticed that there was a razor-sharp sword hanging by a single horse hair over his head, what is that? And he realized at any moment that sword could fall. Now, Dionysius that put it there, was afraid of human assassins as most tyrants are. That's why the praetorian guard is around Caesar, that's... They're afraid of human... That's not what they should fear. Jesus said, "Do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more to you. I'll tell you who to fear. Fear the one who has the power to destroy both soul and body in hell, yes, I tell you, fear him." 

That's where the wrath of God leads. Not to a single sword severing a head or puncturing a heart, not at all, the judgment of God. And look what he says at any moment, his wrath can flare up in a moment. You could have a stroke, you could have a heart attack, you could have a sudden brain fever, you could go out in battle and stay well clear of the battle and surround yourself with the mightiest soldiers in your army, and some Archer will notch an arrow at random and fly it through the air and it'll somehow find a chink in your armor. It's happened before.

So let me just give you some advice. Be wise, you don't know how much longer that you have. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way for his wrath can flare up in a moment. But you know something? That's true of all of us, not just the rulers and the kings of the Earth. That's true of every single one of us. James, chapter 4 makes it plain. “Now listen, you who say today or tomorrow, we'll go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money while you don't even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? It's a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live.’ And do this or that.” 

So it's really a warning to everybody, while you have the time, kiss the Son. While you have the time, believe in him, trust in him. If I could just say it, while you have the time, find refuge in him. Look at verse 12, the final phrase, "Blessed are all who take refuge in Him." The word is poignant, isn't it? It's like a hurricane is coming, and you go to a safe shelter that can survive a hurricane, a tornado is coming, and you go down into that root seller with the iron doors and you're safe from the tornado. It's a life boat when the cruise liner is about to go down in the North Atlantic after having hit an iceberg, it's safety in the face of imminent danger, that's the refuge, and there is no other other than the grace of God, it's the only refuge there is. So find refuge in Jesus, that's ultimately what Christmas is about. It's not about all the trappings and the colors and the paper and the lights. Behind all of that is an offer from Almighty God to give you refuge, refuge in Christ. Close with me in prayer.

Thank you Lord for the time we've had to meditate in your word, thank you for Psalms 2. Thank you for how it tells us the truth. Thank you how it gives us joy that we have been delivered from the real danger that faced us, which was the wrath of God, thank you that it shows us that there is a life of joyful worship waiting for us in heaven and that we can experience and drink in now. That we can serve the Lord with joy and with trembling, that with our tears of thankfulness, we can kiss the Son, and with our faithful sacrificial service, we can kiss the Son. Lord, help us to worship him and find refuge in him. In Jesus name, Amen.

Introduction

This morning as we continue in our study on spiritual gifts, I'm going to zero in on the gifts of prophecy and healing to try to understand those spiritual gifts. As I do, I think about this season of the year, and I think about the Christmas hymns that we sing and how many of them mention fulfilled prophecy in reference to the birth of Christ. One of the clearest is a hymn written by Charles Wesley in 1744, "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus," one of my favorites. And he wrote it with these words, "Come Thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free, from our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee. Israel's strength and consolation, hope of all the earth Thou art. Dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart." Well, why was Jesus long expected by the Jewish nation? Well, it's because God told the Jews through the prophets that He would come and He gave many details of the birth, and the life, and the death and the resurrection of Christ through the prophetic gift. How prophets with the eagle eye of prophecy were able to look down through the long corridors of centuries before they even happened, were able to give us details. A supernatural vision ahead of time, even centuries ahead of time of what the Messiah would be like.

The Gift of Prophecy Distributed To Many

This gift of prophecy was given to many different individuals, at many times in various ways. One example is Balaam, who's a fascinating study in prophecy, and he spoke of the coming of Christ in this powerful visionary kind of language. In Numbers 24:17 he said, "I see Him, but not now. I behold Him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob. A scepter will rise out of Israel." So there's that visionary work of the prophet, how he can see the Messiah who was to come, a star rising up out of Jacob, but He was not near, He was far away. Seven centuries before Christ was born, the same kind of visionary gift was given to the prophet Isaiah and he spoke with these powerful familiar words, Isaiah 9:6, "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders, and He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." These words are sung in Handel's Messiah and in other hymns, and sermons that are preached. Seven centuries before Jesus was born, that level of clarity on the incarnation was given to Isaiah the prophet. At the same time as Isaiah was prophesying, another prophet, Micah, predicted the exact location where Jesus would be born. In Micah 5:2 it says, "But you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, although you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel," listen to this, "Whose origins were from of old, from ancient times." And so the origination of Jesus was before the foundation of the world, in the councils of the Trinity of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

But little by little, God, through the Holy Spirit, paid out some information through the prophets, so that Jesus was long expected. This stunning ability to see the future, this prophetic gift sets Christianity apart from every other religion in the world. God alone has the power to see the future. He's the only one that can do it, He's the only one who knows the future, only God and those to whom God reveals the future and those who believe those revelations.

God makes His boast in Isaiah the prophet over against the false gods, and goddesses, that Israel was wandering after in Isaiah's day. And God challenged those gods to a duel. And the contest would be a prediction of the future. Listen to what He says in Isaiah 41, "Bring in your idols to tell us what is going to happen. Tell us what the former things were so that we may consider them and know their final outcome. Or declare to us the things to come. Tell us what the future holds, so that we may know that you are gods. Do something, whether good or bad, so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear. But you are less than nothing, and your works are utterly worthless. He who chooses you is detestable." In other words, God challenges the gods, the idols, to a duel and He knows they can't succeed.

God’s Sovereignty to Determine the Future

Now the reason that no one but God can foretell the future is that God is sovereign over the future, He's sovereign over everything that happens on planet Earth. And as the Book of Proverbs says, "Many are the purposes of a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." And so, if individuals predict the future and God says, "Yeah, no, it's not going to happen," then it's not going to happen. There's a clear example of this in Isaiah 7, where the kings in the area are conspiring to topple the Davidic seed, the son of David that's on the throne in Jerusalem, and they're making all these plans and schemes, and God says, "It shall not take place, it shall not happen."

Conversely, He says of Himself in Isaiah 10, "The hand of the Lord is stretched out and who can turn it back?" When God decrees to do something, no one can stop Him. That's why God alone knows the future, He also knows the end from the beginning, and the beginning from the end because He is eternal. So what that means is that prophecy and fulfilled prophecies in particular, have always been the centerpiece of our presentation of the Gospel to unbelievers. It's the center of our apologetic, our defense of Christianity. Fulfilled prophecies set Christianity apart from every other religion in the world. There are no Muslim predictions of the future. There are no Buddhist predictions of the future, no Hindu predictions of the future. The cults that tried to predict the future, failed and should have ended that day. I speak of the Jehovah's Witnesses that predicted at different times the end of the world. Didn't happen. I would think that would end it, but it didn't. So the ability to predict the future rests alone with Christianity.

Christianity’s Fulfilled Prophecies

Josh McDowell in his apologetic book, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, speaks of the fulfilled prophecies around the life of Jesus from His birth through His life to His death. There are 61 prophecies that Josh McDowell lists. Sixty-one! The theme of promise fulfillment was central to the way that the apostles presented the Gospel in the synagogues, trying to persuade unbelieving Jews to cross over into faith. Again and again, they would point to the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. They learned this promise fulfillment approach from Jesus Himself. As Jesus began His public ministry in Nazareth, you remember the scene, how the scroll of Isaiah the Prophet was found. He opened up the place in Isaiah 61 where it says, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor," and after reading that prophecy rolled it up and set it aside and sat down. And He said, "Today, in your hearing, this Scripture is fulfilled." Now you can imagine how electrifying that must have been there in Nazareth that Jesus was claiming to be the long-expected Messiah. Promise and fulfillment.

So that's how God has used prophecy in the past to identify Jesus as the Christ, the Savior of the world. Born the son of Abraham, in fulfillment of prophecy. Born the son of David, in fulfillment of prophecy. Crucified with His hands and feet pierced, in fulfillment of prophecy. Raised from the dead on the third day, in fulfillment of prophecy. And since that time, the Gospel has spread from Jerusalem through Judea, Samaria to the ends of the earth, in fulfillment of prophecy. And we still have more prophecies to come, especially the second coming of Christ, so Jesus is still the long-expected Jesus, He's the long-expected Savior. One of the last things Jesus said to us through Scripture is, "Behold, I am coming soon." And so, we've been waiting for 20 centuries, and we still wait for the fulfillment of that prophecy.

Dealing With the Charismatic Gifts

Now, what does all this have to do with spiritual gifts? Well, we've been trying to answer one of the more perplexing questions that faces Evangelicals, and it's been divisive in Evangelicals and it has to do with the sign gifts or the miraculous gifts, some call them the charismatic gifts. And the question is: Are all of the gifts listed, that you heard Topher read about a few minutes ago, that you read about in 1 Corinthians 12, are they all still active today, or have some of them ceased? We zeroed in specifically on five in particular, the gift of prophecy, the gift of healing, the gift of miracles, speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues, these are sometimes called the sign gifts.

Last week I traced out the history of the Pentecostal movement and the charismatic movement, beginning in Topeka, in 1900, Topeka, Kansas, and then in 1906, at the Azusa Street Revival, and we traced out how Pentecostalism, the movement of Pentecostalism grew. And then a subset of that, the Charismatic movement, similar but different in some ways, grew and spread, and we talked about how widespread in the world it has been and it is. Probably at this point, over 600 million Pentecostal plus charismatics in the world. It's hard to be an evangelical at any length of time without bumping into this issue and questions that arise. And so the goal for me here is to do the best I can, as I did last week, in seeking to address that question. The divide in Evangelicalism between cessationists, which are people who believe that the Scripture teaches, and it's clear that these sign gifts have ceased. So they're cessationists. Versus, broadly speaking, continuationists would be the opposite, that those gifts continue. And there are different flavors really of both.

Now last week, we walked carefully through 1 Corinthians 13:8-13, which is the clearest text on the end of the gifts. And it does say that the gifts will end. It says, "Where there are prophecies, they will cease. Where there are tongues, they will be stilled. Where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfection comes, the imperfect is done away with or passes away." “Imperfect” is not a great translation. The “partial,” the “in part” would be a better translation there. And so, we walked through that. And what I sought to do last week is show that this is clearly talking about the Second Coming of Christ, an eternity in which we will see God face-to-face. And that level of knowledge of knowing God face-to-face, that's decisively what Paul's saying, when the gifts will cease. So rather than teaching I think a clear cessationism, it actually points more clearly to continuationism, but that leaves some questions in front of us, and those are some of the questions I want to seek to answer today, some practical questions.

As we address this gift of prophecy, let me just lay out my cards on the table as I've thought about it. This sermon like last week's was a work in progress right until the time I walked up here, so I have no desire like last week to be a fog machine here, pumping out uncertainties and “inclarities”. That's not even a word, "inclarities." Anyway, you know what I mean. What I'm trying to do is help you think through how you would address this scripturally.

Four Convictions Concerning Prophecy

So these are four convictions I have right now about prophecy. Number one, the New Testament points to a kind of prophetic gift that is less authoritative than scripture. That's a key divide between, let's say, me and a cessationist. Number two, I believe there is not sufficient scriptural clarity or evidence to support a hard cessationism, to make the absolute statement, “Prophecy cannot happen today.” I looked at the clearest Scripture that they have 1 Corinthians 13, and I don't think it's clear enough. To be that ardent and clear, I think, is not helpful. Third, this kind of prophetic gift, if it still functioned today, would be very helpful in our lives, both for personal holiness and for the spread of the Gospel. But now hear me clearly, on this fourth point, unless and until, an individual predicts the future and that prediction comes true, I will not know, and I don't think the church can know that that person's a prophet. And that would make me very different than most continuationists. I think it's reasonable to expect a prediction of the future in order to mark someone as a prophet.

The Gift of Prophecy

The Beginning of the Office of Prophet

So let's walk through this, let's talk first about the beginning of the gift of prophecy and where it started in the Old Testament. The first time the word is used, it's used of Abraham, in that rather scandalous encounter he has in Girar, remember when he lied about his wife, said “She's my sister,” not a great moment for Abraham. And the king of Girar wanted to take her as his wife, and God came to him and warned him in a dream, and then said this to him in the dream, "Now return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, he will pray for you, and you will live, but if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all yours will die." So that's the first time and the actually the only time the word prophet appears in the book of Genesis. However, it definitely appears in the Exodus and beyond. And the key moment there, let's skip ahead to the key moment, and that's Mount Sinai.

At Mount Sinai, God descends in fire on the top of Mount Sinai. There's a terrifying earthquake, there is this unearthly supernatural darkness, and God descends in fire on the mountain and begins to speak to the people, and the people are utterly terrified of God's voice. God speaks the Ten Commandments to the people in the hearing of the people. Deuteronomy 5 talked about that moment, Deuteronomy 5:23-31 says this, "When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was ablaze with fire, all the leading men of your tribes and your elders came to me and you said, 'The Lord our God has shown us His glory and His majesty, and we have heard His voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a man can live even if God speaks with him. But now why should we die? This great fire will consume us and we will die if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer. For what mortal man has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire as we have and survived? Go near and listen to all that the Lord our God says, then tell us whatever the Lord our God tells you. We will listen and obey.' The Lord heard you when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me, 'I have heard what this people has said to you. Everything they said was good. Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commandments always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever. Go tell them to return to their tents. But you, stay here with me so that I may give you all the commands decrees and laws you are to teach them to follow in the land I am giving them to possess.'" Well, that is the formal beginning of the office of prophet in the nation of Israel. This is the beginning of the office.

Later in Deuteronomy 18, He makes it clear that that office would continue after Moses was gone. In Deuteronomy 18:15-20, it says, "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers, you must listen to him, for this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, 'Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore or we will die.' The Lord said to me, 'What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account, but a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death."

So that clearly establishes the opening of the office of prophet, and also what the nature of the work was. The prophet would effectively stand spiritually in the presence of God, God would teach the prophet the words to say and the prophet would then deliver them to the people. That was the essence of prophecy. That pattern continued. Throughout the history of Israel, God raised up what He called "My servants, the prophets," and they would come and they basically would press, effectively press the Mosaic covenant onto the consciences and the hearts of the Jewish people and show where they were failing to keep it. That was the centerpiece of their work, although they did other things. And so God would speak, and this prophet would listen.

You see this pattern with the little boy Samuel, remember that when God was raising him up to be a prophet, and he was sleeping in Eli's house and he heard God speaking to him, and he had to be instructed to say these words, "Speak Lord, for your servant is listening." And so that was the essence of the prophecy, and the prophet, the office of prophet. And so, he would hear the word of God and he was like a table waiter, bringing the words that God spoke directly to the people. It says in 1 Samuel 3:19, "The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground.” So he successfully delivered to the people everything that God told him to say. So, again and again, we have these individuals who hear God speak words and then speak those exact words to the people. 

Jeremiah 1:4-7, "The word of the Lord came to me saying, 'Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet, to the nations.' 'Ah, Sovereign Lord,' I said, 'I do not know how to speak, I'm only a child.' But the Lord said to me, 'Do not say I am only a child. You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you to say.'" And then a verse later it says, "Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, 'Now, I have put my words in your mouth.'" So that's the essence of that prophetic gift, was delivering clearly and directly the words of God to the people. And there were a variety of prophetic communications. Hebrews 1:1, which I already quoted, "In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways."

Now, many of the prophets were commanded to write down the things that God had committed to them, though not all. Elijah and Elisha, there's no record of them writing down any of their prophecies. But Jeremiah and Isaiah were commanded to write them down. And so we have the written word coming from this prophetic gift.

How to Identify Prophets: The Fulfillment of Their Words

Now, the key issue for our purpose today is the question of how can we know that this person is a prophet? It was an issue then and it's an issue now. And so, it was raised in Deuteronomy 18:21-22, "You may say to yourselves, 'How can we know when a message 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 in other words, if they make a prediction that does not come true, that is a false prophet. That is a person who has not spoken in the name of the Lord. And so fulfillment of predictions was the marker of the prophet. We see this in Jeremiah's time.

You remember how all of the false prophets were saying to the kings of Judah, that Nebuchadnezzar wouldn't even come? But then he comes, and he takes over most of Judah, and Jeremiah is saying, God is bringing the Babylonians as a judgment. Your only hope is to go out and surrender, which was not very popular with the fighting men on the walls. He looked like a traitor, but he was given the word of the Lord to say. And when it started coming true exactly as Jeremiah had said, he pointed to that and separated himself from the false prophets. He said to the king of Judah, "Where are your prophets who said he wouldn't even come?" The Babylonian king wouldn't even come. There was a false prophet named Hananiah, who predicted that there would be an exile once Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians had come and started to win battles. It's like, "Okay yes, there's going to be an exile but it's going to be really short.” Jeremiah predicted 70 years. And this is what Jeremiah said to Hananiah, the false prophet, "The prophet who prophesies peace will be recognized as one truly sent by the Lord only if his prediction comes true." There it is again, it's the same pattern every time. This is is how we know. Ezekiel 33:33 says the same thing, "When all this comes true, and it surely will," I love how the prophet says that, "When all of this comes true, and it surely will, then they will know that a prophet has been among them."

A Description of Prophets

Alright, so my own description then is an Old Testament prophet is an individual called by the Lord, who is appointed by God to speak His words directly to the people. He would say, "Thus says the Lord," and everything that followed was the word of God directly to the people. The prophets didn't only predict the future, they didn't even mostly predict the future. There was forth-telling, "Thus says the Lord," and He would uncover the sins and the wickedness of the nation. But it inevitably involved some prediction of the future so that the people could know that the individual was a prophet. And so, he would say directly the words of God. To disobey those words was equivalent to disobeying God Himself.

The Yearning of Moses and the Prediction of Joel

Now, Moses in his day, yearned that all of God's people would be prophets. He says that in Numbers 11:29, "I wish that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit on them." Now, Joel predicted, maybe not a universal gift of prophecy, but a widespread expansion of the gift of prophecy in the new covenant. In Joel 2:28-29, it says, "And afterward I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days."

Well, the day of Pentecost came. Jesus had told them to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and as they were assembled there in the Upper Room, 120 of them waiting for the Lord to give His gift, suddenly there was a sound of a terrifying powerful wind, and they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them, and all of them began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them." And a crowd gathered because of the sound of the wind, and because there were many there for the feast of Pentecost, they were all gathered, and so the apostles streamed out into the streets, they had no fear of the Jews at that point, no fear of being arrested, they had a mission to proclaim the Gospel, and so they did. Peter, speaking on behalf of the apostles, preached a message. Now, the people were deriding them, they were mocking them and saying, “They're drunk.” Peter said, "These men are not drunk as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning." I think that's humorous, anyway. "This is that which has been spoken by the prophet Joel."

By the way, someone wrote a book on interpretation of prophecy, This is That,  that's the title of the book. What it is saying is this thing that you're seeing is that which was predicted, it's that promise fulfillment motif. That's exactly what he says, this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, "In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days and they will prophesy."

The Cessationists Understanding of the New Testament Prophets

Now, the cessationists as they look at New Testament prophecy, they effectively say that's what prophecy is and only that, it's scripture-level prophecy. And they rightly say, I agree with them, that the Canon is closed and there is no more scriptural-level prophecy coming. That once the book of Revelation came, that all of that type of perfect revelation which is written down, the perfection of scripture has ended. You remember the end of the Book of Revelation, where these words are written, this is the very end of the Bible pretty much, "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his portion in the Tree of Life and in the holy city, which are described in this book." So he says, this book is a book of prophecy, and you can't add anything to it and you can't take anything away from it. But it's interesting that it's positioned at the end of the last book of the Bible, and so many Christians think that it also is speaking a word in general about adding to or taking away from the Bible, the 66 books of the Bible, saying those days are over. We have the Canon. And I think that's actually not a bad way to look at it.

Now the gift of prophecy was functioning in those days in ways, however, that we don't fully understand. It wasn't just scriptural-level prophecy. The apostles are listed first, then prophets in verse 28, "He gave first of all, apostles, then prophets.” I've tended to see the prophets as the Old Testament prophets, and I don't have any problem with that, but there are clearly New Testament prophets at work in the church at Corinth and in other places. It says in Ephesians 2:20 that the Church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone.

Now cessationist John Stott says this about that, "The simplest knowledge of architectural construction is enough to tell us that once the foundation of a building is laid and the superstructure begins to be built, the foundation cannot be laid again. So in the primary sense of prophets as vehicles of direct and fresh revelation, we must say that this charisma, spiritual gift, is no longer given. There is no longer anyone in the Church who may dare to say, 'the word of the Lord came to me' or 'thus says the Lord.'" I think aspects of what Stott says there are true.

Are There Different Types of New Testament Prophets?

We don't look for scripture-level prophecy anymore, but are there different types of prophecies? Are there different aspects of the gift? This is the point of division between cessationists and continuationists on the gift of prophecy. Wayne Grudem, he's a continuationist, cites a number of examples of the gift of prophecy that's lower than Scripture.

For example, Acts 21:4, some disciples urged Paul through the Spirit, that is by the gift of prophecy, not to go to Jerusalem. But Paul disobeyed and went to Jerusalem anyway. If New Testament prophets spoke with an authority equal to that of Scripture, Paul would not have disobeyed it. So, that's one example. Other examples come in with what we call the weighing of prophecies. Alright, 1 Thessalonians 5, 1 Corinthians 14. 1 Thessalonians 5, it says, verse 19-22, "Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophecies, but test everything. Hold fast to what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.” And then 1 Corinthians 14:29, "Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said." Wayne Grudem says this, "We cannot imagine that an Old Testament prophet like Isaiah would say, 'Listen to what I say and weigh what is said, sort out the good from the bad, what you should accept from what you should not accept.' It's just a different kind of prophetic gift," says Grudem.

There's also other examples of prophecy which I don't really even understand what they're about. For example, 1 Timothy 1:18, it says, "Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you so that by following them, you may fight the good fight of faith." I don't know what prophecies were made about Timothy. I don't know if we would call them scriptural-level prophecies, or what, just something it seems about his teaching ministry or his gift, but just we don't know what it is. Also this one is very interesting to me. Acts 21:9, "Philip had four unmarried daughters who prophesied." I know nothing about those ladies. I don't know what they said. I don't think that their prophecies made it into Scripture, they just had a gift and they used it. So I don't really know. There's just things that we don't know.

Now sometimes the prophets gave direct guidance concerning the Great Commission. Clear example of this is in Acts 13, "In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul," so that is Paul. "While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.' So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus." So I don't think it's too much to say that it was the prophets who spoke under the influence of the Holy Spirit that said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for this missionary work." And so that would be an example of how the prophetic gift would give a clear guidance of ministry and missions that people could do. And that's why I say if it were still to function like that, it'd be very useful or helpful. So, prophesy didn't always function as predictions about the future but a form of communication of the mind of God.

Prophets also have the ability back then, in the church at Corinth, there were various people with the gifts. We would not say they were all speaking at Scriptural-level prophecy, but they just had a gift. And it's interesting, it says, "If an unbeliever or someone who does not understand comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all. And the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, 'God is really among you.'" So there's some aspect of the prophetic gift that was at work in the Church at Corinth, which would uncover and lay bare secrets of hearts so that people are convicted and come to Christ.

An Analysis of the Facts

Now Wayne Grudem has an interesting idea of prophecy which I don't share, but I'll just share it with you. How could someone be a prophet and still speak imperfect words? So he says that God gives a revelation to the prophet, and the prophet then puts them into imperfect human words. So the idea is true, but the articulation is different. I have a hard time accepting that because it seems that the verbal communication has always been of the essence of the gift of prophecy, but that would be a discussion we would have. So, if prophecy does not actually literally contain the word of God for us, word-for-word, then what is it? And how is prophecy different today from let's say preaching or teaching? One of the Puritans, William Perkins, wrote a book called "The Art of prophesying." But you shouldn't go get it, it's probably free online. You can read the PDF and it's like I want to be a prophet. Read it, it's just about preaching, friends. It's how people like me should preach, and so they make it equivalent, prophesying and preaching. I don't think that's helpful. I actually just think prophesying and preaching and teaching are different. Grudem thinks so too, I think they're different.

With preaching and teaching, you're taking the written Word of God that we all have, and you're walking through it, and explaining it through rules of exegesis and theology and applying it to people, that's the gift of preaching and teaching. Prophecy is just "Thus says the Lord," and you say it. Or, according to Grudem, a revelation, and you try to articulate that revelation. Grudem says preaching and teaching is more authoritative than that type of prophesying. Well, let me give you my analysis. I think Grudem brings up some interesting points. I'm not ready to say that prophecy doesn't exist anymore, but I have serious questions. I want to know why it is that many of these continuationists set aside my requirement that the prophet, or prophetess, because God uses women too, needs to predict the future before the Church knows that they are prophets.

It's always been there. There are examples of New Testament predictions. Agabus predicted a famine that would come over the entire Roman world. And like in the days of Joseph, they got ready ahead of time for the famine and set aside stores for it because they believed that Agabus was predicting the future. Why couldn't we require that of prophets today? What ends up happening, I've heard, in some of these churches like Sovereign Grace churches, or some of these other charismatic churches, is that they'll have open mics. And if you want to know what's the application, we're not going to see open mics anytime soon. Just, that's a prediction, but it's not a prophecy, it's just kind of a judgment that I'm making. But what happens in these Sovereign Grace churches, and I had this confirmed even a week ago, I talked to somebody who used to attend there. So you would go up and you would talk to the elder and they would filter it, because they were really trying to follow the New Testament prescriptions. want to weed out anything wacky or strange that would be said. And what ends up happening is the prophet or prophetess just ends up doing scriptural exhortation.

“The Lord is saying to us that He is our Shepherd and that we shall not want, and that he makes us lie down in green…” I'm like, friends if you just want to read Psalm 23, read it. That's not a prophecy. Or to say the Lord wants us to be active in evangelism. Again, I do that as a preacher, but I'm not claiming prophecy. “The Lord is saying to all the members, all the men, the married men in this church, that you are to love your wives as Christ loved the Church and you're to lay yourself down…” It's like, look I actually think that's even harmful to call that prophecy because I don't know that the Spirit is saying, that there's a specific deficiency in the husbands of the church that this is an area of emergency that needs a prophetic word. So it's better to just say the Scripture says this, it's binding on all of our consciences, but don't call it a prophecy.

However, if someone is willing to come along and make a prediction and we mark that person as a prophet, then I think we could listen, if they were to say something like a 21st century version of, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." What is that work? X, Y, and Z. I think that would be powerful if God wants to do that, but He first has to mark the person with a clear prediction. What I call, this is very geeky, but here it is: Independently verifiable prediction of the future that then gets verified. Don't predict something that's going to happen in seven centuries. Because how can we know? It has to be verified by fulfillment. And that's always been the rule.

Prophecy in Church History

Now, has anything like that happened since then? Well, Church history gives us some interesting insights. I want to tell you a story of a Viking raider, that was converted by a prophecy. This is fascinating, this man, his name was Olaf Tryggvason, he lived a thousand years ago, over a thousand years ago, born in the year 963, died in the year 1000. He eventually became king of Norway. He was a viking. Viking was more of a verb, it was like a raider, and he went up and down the coasts of England plundering and killing and doing all the stuff vikings would do. But he was anchored at one point in a place called the Isles of Scilly, that is how you pronounce it, off the West Coast of England. And there was there a Christian hermit who was known to be a prophet. In other words, his reputation as speaking predictions that came true was established. Well Olaf was interested in that. He knew a lot about Christianity, but he was not a Christian. So he decided to test this guy, and he sent one of his tall men to pose as himself to the hermit. The Hermit saw right through that. He said, "You are not the king. And the advice I give you is to be faithful to your king."

Well, the man went back, and then Olaf went in person and sought him out and asked if he, Olaf, would attain a kingdom, a kingdom. The hermit replied with a holy prophecy, "You will become a famous king and work famous deeds, you will bring many men to the true faith and to baptism, and in so doing you'll benefit both yourself and many others. And lest you doubt my answer, let this be taken as a token. When you return to your ships you shall encounter a band of traders, and you will yourself receive a mortal wound, and be borne on your shield to your ship, but you'll recover from this wound within seven days, and you'll be baptized soon thereafter." Now, that's a very clear prediction. Well, when Olaf returned to his ships, the events occurred just as the hermit had foretold, Olaf then believed he was a prophet, Olaf then visited the hermit and asked where did he get the wisdom that he could foretell the future? The hermit said that it was the God of the Christians who alone knew the future and who told him all that he was anxious to know. He told Olaf of the many miracles of God, he shared the Gospel with him clearly, and he persuaded Olaf to be baptized. And Olaf and all his men were baptized there. He went on to be the king of Norway. You can look it up.

The Gifts of Healings

Alright, on the gifts of healings briefly, we don't have much more time. Paul speaks interestingly in verse 8-9, he speaks of the gift of healing, in Verse 9, he says, "to another faith, by the same Spirit, to another, gifts of healings," gifts of healings. All of the English translations make gifts plural, but they all make healing singular. It's odd, it's actually double plural, gifts of healings. Therefore, it could be that they're just different kinds of healings and healing ministries that go on. They're not all of the same sort. Now, for us, you could say, I heard John MacArthur in a sermon on spiritual gifts say, "If I could have one gift I don't have, it would be this gift, the gift of healing." And I think anybody who's been to an ICU, anybody that's been to minister to sick people, hurting people, injured people, you know why he says that. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to lay your hands on somebody and pray for them and have them healed? And that would be a remarkable thing.

Jesus Healing Ministry Unmatched

No one in all of human history, no one, has had the gift of healing like Jesus. The apostles did not have Jesus' level of healing. Huge crowds went to Jesus and He healed everyone of every disease, there was nothing He could not do. And as a matter of fact there were huge crowds because of this healing gift. You understand why. When you're sick and dying, or someone you love is sick, and dying, it's top priority for you to get that addressed. And we see a number of individuals that are urgent to get the healing, like the royal official in John 4, and the Syrophoenician woman, all they want is to be well or have their loved one well. We understand that. Now, here's the thing: Disease and suffering and accidents and pain, all of that leading to death, is part of the fall in Adam, it's part of the final enemy, what Jesus, what Paul calls the final enemy: Death.

Jesus in one sense, banished illness from Palestine for a brief three-year period, but everyone He healed eventually died of something. The gifts of healings, were in some smaller measure committed to the apostles, but they didn't have the same level. Paul left Trophimus sick in Miletus. He gave Timothy counsel about his hurt stomach about not drinking water from a well anymore, but taking wine, so that he wouldn't have these microbes I guess. He didn't heal him, he just said, manage it in this way. Paul himself had a thorn in the flesh, which the Lord chose not to remove. There is in some sense a diminishing of the miraculous gift of healing. However, I don't believe that I can say like an ardent cessationist that there are no miraculous healings anymore. And, frankly, in my 21 years here, I have seen again and again and again, remarkable answers to group prayers.

God Answers Prayers for Healing

It says in James 5:14-15, "Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him, and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise him up." So many of us have had people that we know that have had very serious diagnoses, and are prayed for, and they go back and there's just remarkable evidence of healing and there's no medical explanation, and so we've seen that again and again. Now is that the gift of healing? I'm not up here to say it is or it isn't. Imagine if there were a brother or a sister that just had a heart for sick people and loved to pray for them, and followed James 5 and went and prayed all their life, again and again, sick people and saw many people healed. Certainly it's different than Jesus who never failed to heal somebody, but it's more similar to how the apostles sometimes left people sick. And so, I cannot say, like I'm a kind of a black and white cessationist, that that kind of gift doesn't happen. I am skeptical of public healers like TV-type people, as we all should be, because we've not seen organic diseases healed by those individuals. But I think we have seen, there's many testimonies of organic illnesses healed in answer to group prayer.

And to have a brother or sister that might want to be in those groups again and again, and has seen multiple healings to look over 20 centuries of Church history and say that couldn't happen, I'm not ready to do it. So where does that leave us? I don't know, it leaves me out of time. What I would say is that I cannot go with the cessationist scripturally and say that these gifts have certainly ceased, but I have pretty serious questions about some continuationists and the way specifically the gift of prophecy functions. And so, at least for me, and I'm going to commend it to you, dear church, to require prediction of the future for somebody to be identified as a prophet. And if they won't do that, I'll just welcome them as giving me good, sound, scriptural, Christian exhortation. Does that makes sense? 

Prayer

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank You for the time we've had to study Your word. We thank You for its complexity, its depth, its power. I thank You for the gifts of the Spirit. Lord, as I'm going to say in two weeks, God willing, the ordinary ministry of the Spirit is sufficient to do so many things, and I pray that as in the end we understand spiritual gifts we'd realize that the non-controversial gifts that are going on all the time, that everyone agrees are so powerful and so sufficient to finish the work, but that there may be advancements of the power of the Spirit that we should seek that is often called revival, that we should seek Your face, and ask You would pour out afresh and anew Your Holy Spirit, that we might be empowered to share the Gospel with people who need to hear it so much, and that we be empowered to do all the good works You have for us to do. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Well, the night that Jesus was born, there was an angelic messenger to the shepherds, and they came, the heavens were opened and they saw a heavenly host, and they celebrated peace on earth, good will to men. And now as we look in our current age, we look in our generation, we know this has not come true yet, but we believe that when Christ is done with his redeeming work, we will be in a new heaven and a new earth. And we will be with brothers and sisters that have been redeemed from every tribe, language, people, and nation, very different backgrounds, different socio-economic backgrounds, different ethnic backgrounds, different linguistic backgrounds. But we are going to be in heaven perfectly one as the Father and Son are one. Isn't that incredible? What that means is we're not going to disagree about any theological topic. Not one.

Now, some of you may be wondering why I'm introducing the sermon today, and others, you know exactly why I'm saying these words. That time has not come yet. We're not there yet. But we should yearn for it. We should yearn to totally agree with one another, and be as one with one another as the Father and the Son are one. That should be a goal that we have, that we would be brought, as the scripture says, to perfect unity. And the only way I know that that could ever happen is by the ministry of the Word and by the power of the Spirit.

So this morning, we're going to begin to look at the issue of sign gifts, the charismatic issue, Pentecostal issue. We're going to try as best we can to understand these issues biblically. I guarantee that when I get done, you'll still have questions. I still have questions, but I think the best thing we can do as we make our way through 1 Corinthians is to address this head-on and try to understand it. And for, me this morning, it begins with a history lesson. In 1900, a woman named Agnes Ozman enrolled in a newly-established Bible College in Topeka, Kansas, the Bethel Bible college, and during that fall, the instructor, a Bible... A Methodist holiness pastor named Charles Fox Parham directed the students to catalog from the Book of Acts every mention of the Holy Spirit and his activities. And as they did this cataloguing, consensus emerged on two points. Outward manifestations always accompany the Spirit's activity, first.

Secondly, speaking in tongues is the outward sign, the proof, of what they call the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Well, Professor Param then announced a watch night service for the transition from 1900-1901, and on January 1st, the early hours of January 1st, Param placed his hands at Agnes Ozman at her request, praying that she would receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Witnesses then reported that for the next three days, Agnes spoke and wrote only in Chinese, just as in Acts 2, at the feast of Pentecost, the miraculous tongue reported in Topeka was a known existing human language, foreign to the speaker.

Now, I told Daphne about this this morning, we're driving in, she said, "How do we know that she spoke Chinese? Were there any real Chinese speakers there?" I know that that kind of thing could never happen here in our church if it weren't true. We would immediately have some native speakers of Chinese that could find out if it's true, but I just don't know. I wasn't there. And you see, what this charismatic issue brings you into is start to question reports you hear from the field. This is intrinsic to the investigation. But at any rate, that's the testimony, and she never spoke Chinese again after those three days.

A second pivotal event in this whole history occurred when African-American holiness turned Pentecostal, Pastor William J. Seymour established his ministry at Azusa Street in Los Angeles to preach. Seymour witnessed the outbreak of a revival on April 9th, 1906 that not cease for three years. And this included miraculous gifts that just erupted, especially speaking in tongues, and it began pumping out Pentecostal Evangelist missionaries and ministers, not just in the United States, but worldwide. So the defining theological distinctive of Pentecostalism was distilled at Topeka in 1900, the baptism of the Spirit manifested by speaking in tongues, and then the launching pad of what would become a worldwide movement, Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement, happened from Azusa Street.

Now, the spread of Pentecostal Christians and charismatic Christians worldwide has been staggering, and in the 20th century, it's coming three waves on into the 21st century. First wave there at Azusa Street, second phase in the '60s and '70s, a charismatic renewal then, and the third wave in the mid-'80s, continuing through to today. Now, in 1985, Fuller Seminary Professor C. Peter Wagner, who is a church growth expert, showed that Pentecostal and charismatic churches up to that point, 1985, were experiencing a growth that had been unprecedented in the history of the church. This is what Wagner wrote: "While back in 1945, Pentecostals and charismatics who count only 16 million members worldwide, by 1975, they had grown to 96 million, and only 10 years later, 1985, they numbered an astounding 247 million worldwide." Wagner says, "I'm not aware of any non-political, non-militaristic, voluntary association which has grown at that rate in all of human history."

In 1985, 247 million represented 5% of the world's population. By 2011, the Pew forum did a research on the Pentecostal and charismatic movement worldwide, they estimated that there were at that point, 2011, 279 million Pentecostal Christians and 305 million charismatic Christians in the world, a total of almost 600 million people. That represents 8% of the world population in 2011, and 27% of all those that self-designate as Christian. This is a very significant movement worldwide. However, the explosive spread of Pentecostals and charismatics has not been without controversy or opposition and serious questions within the Christian world. Many have spoken strongly against this movement as deficient theologically or practically. In 2007, for example, the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention ruled that anyone who prayed in a private prayer language could not be appointed as a missionary of the SBC. That was extremely controversial, and that policy was removed in 2015, but it shows how divisive the charismatic issue has been.

Now, let me say just because a movement is massive and numeric worldwide doesn't make it right. Honestly, a number of the churches, many of the churches and the Christians that are charismatic in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, are also infected with the prosperity gospel which is a false teaching. And that's spreading, it seems, almost as fast in some of those regions. So, we still have to evaluate it. Just because there's massive numbers doesn't make it right. But it's still something we need to address.

So, as we walk through our study in 1 Corinthians 12, and we look at the topic of spiritual gifts, we come to very turbulent waters. But we must sail straight ahead, because you would notice if I skipped it, I'm sure. And so we're going to forge ahead and hope that the boat doesn't capsize, I trust that it won't, but we need to move ahead and do the best that we can to understand the scriptures as they're written, and our current context.

And 1 Corinthians has already brought us through many controversial issues. The divisiveness within the Corinthian church, we see that today, there's still division in the church, it's sad. It will not happen in heaven, but it's still there today, and so this relates to even the things I've been talking about today. But we also have discussed the carnal Christian doctrine, we've talked about church discipline, sexual immorality, homosexuality, divorce and remarriage, meat sacrifice to idols, controversies concerning women, the role of women, gender, head coverings, the Lord's supper, and now we come to charismatic gifts. And so, for me, it seems wise for any young pastor to wait on preaching expository sermons to 1 Corinthians until he's been at his church for a while. Just some advice to any of you that are listening by way of podcast or radio. It's good to be at a church for 20-plus years and for the church to be as wonderful as you folks are to be able to sail through turbulent waters.

So we need to look at this. And so, the question that's in front of us simply is, Have some of the spiritual gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12 ceased, or are they all still operating today? That's the simple question that's in front of us. So, Wayne Grudem puts it that way: "Are all the gifts mentioned in the New Testament valid for use in the church today?" So look again at 1 Corinthians 12: 8-10. It says, "To one, there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom; to another, the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit; to another, faith, by the same Spirit; to another, gifts of healing, by that one Spirit; to another, miraculous powers; to another, prophecy; to another, distinguishing between spirits; to another, speaking in different kinds of tongues; and to still another, the interpretation of tongues." So that's just right there in the text, as you read it.

And then if you go to the end of the chapter, verse 28, it says, "And in the church, God has appointed, first of all, apostles; second, prophets; third, teachers; then workers of miracles also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gift of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues." So any careful reader of that who's in probably a normal evangelical church would be led to ask this question: Are all these skill is still operating today? To many Christians, it seems that some of these gifts have ceased, specifically miracles, the gift of miracles, not miracles themselves, but the spiritual gift of working miracles; the spiritual gift of healing, not miraculous healings per se, but individuals that are able to heal people; speaking in tongues, that is foreign languages; the interpretation of tongues, being able to listen and to speak and translate that tongue, never having studied, each side of that equation, never having studied the language; and then prophecy. These are what are sometimes called the miraculous gifts or sign gifts, and they are a source of a great deal of controversy in the Christian world.

Now, most Christians numerically, just simply, most Christians, have never experienced these sign gifts. They have gone through their whole Christian lives, they never experienced them, and that's actually true, for the most part, in Western church history as far as we know. It's not unheard of, and charismatic scholars are able to circle and find some moments along in the history. But for the most part, most Christians make it through their lives not experiencing these sign gifts. And so Evangelicals who read the Bible end up being divided. Inerrantists who believe all scriptures' God-breathed and want to deal properly with every scripture, they end up divided on this.

Some evangelicals believe that all of the gifts listed here are still operating today, and they would be called charismatics or perhaps continuationists. We have to handle multi-syllable words today, okay? So continuationists are those that believe that gifts continue like they did back in those days in the 1st century. So maybe continuationists could be a subset of charismatics, or it may be the same, depends how you look at it.

Some evangelicals would say, "Absolutely not. The gift have ceased," and so they're called cessationists. They believe that these sign gifts were only for the apostolic era, and they have absolutely ceased. Then there is a bunch of middle people, which probably includes a lot of you who, are in the middle and have never really studied this very much. You're aware of it, you've been a Christian long enough, you're aware of charismatic Christians, maybe even been to some of those churches or had some of those experiences. You would not consider yourself either one, and within that large kind of middle group of Evangelicals, you would have people that would characterize themselves, if they think about it, as open but cautious. So you're not ready to shut the whole thing down, but there are so many excesses, you don't necessarily want to just get swept along. Open but cautious. Then there would be in that middle group, others that would call themselves open but skeptical. So, there's your whole spectrum, dear friends: From charismatics/continuationists through open but cautious people, through open but skeptical people, all the way to cessationists.

Now, let me just say, by way of my own personal journey and where I've been on this topic, two of my greatest, most impactful mentors in ministry disagree on this issue. What do you do then? Alright? John McArthur has been in the pulpit for 50 years. I learned sequential exposition, which is my basic pulpit strategy, from him. I think it's remarkable that anyone could be doing what he's done from the pulpit as long as he's done it, for 50 years. He is an ardent cessationist. As a matter of fact, in 2013, he wrote a book, and there was a conference connected with it, called Strange Fire, in which he likens the charismatic worship and charismatic gifts to the alien fire, the strange fire, offered by Nadab and Abihu. He focuses overwhelmingly on excesses and bizarre aspects of the charismatic movement and shows how harmful they are. In his book, Strange Fire, he does have, Chapter 12, a letter to continuationist friends that he has, who he respects their theology, but he tries to show that charismatic, it's hard to dabble in it, that the excesses are intrinsic to the movement. So that's an ardent, strong cessationist position.

On the other side of the equation in terms of my mentors is John Piper, who wrote a book called Desiring God and who... I think it's the single most influential book in my life in terms of Christian motivation: Why it is we do what we do. And he is a tremendous Bible teacher. And let me just pause and say, if you know anything about John McArthur and John Piper, any issue on which they disagree, you're in trouble. That's hard. And so, you're a... What's a pastor like me to do? But John Piper believes... He's a continuationist and believes all the gifts are still operating, and along with him are many other names that are involved in Gospel Coalition and all that, whose views on scripture I respect, like Don Carson, D. A. Carson, and Wayne Grudem. So, there it is. So you're saying, "What are you, pastor?" Well, listen to the sermon, and then you'll know more of the level of confusion that I have on this topic.

So, someone once said, "A mist in the pulpit is a fog in the pew," so, this is like a fog machine today. I don't know. I'm not trying for that. I would like a stronger, more clear word, but I'm going to do my best. I'll say that fundamentally, though, this is always my procedure. Romans 4:3. Romans 4:3. What does the scripture say? We have to start there. And here, I'm going to say it very plainly: I do not find cessationism in the scripture. If I'm going to find it, I have to find it other places. In other words, I'm not convinced by John McCarthy's arguments. But that doesn't make me a continuationist or a charismatic. It just means you have to do better than that, for me, biblically. And I'll show you why.

The central text that cessationists point to is 1 Corinthians 13. So turn there, if you would, it's probably in the same page or further down, or maybe you have to turn one page, but not two, don't turn two pages. 1 Corinthians 13:8-13. "Love never fails, but where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now, we see but a poor reflection, as in a mirror, then we shall see face-to-face. Now, I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. Now, these three remain: Faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

Well, cessationists point to this passage as proof that the sign gifts cease. They say, "When the perfect comes, the imperfect passes away," and that refers to the New Testament canon. Now, this is a very strong and important issue for us. We have to be solid on this biblically and doctrinally. Tim Challies, who was writing about this, he said, "Here's the trouble: If the continuationists are right, then cessationists are calling good evil, and saying what God is doing is from Satan. And on the other hand, if the cessationists are right, then the continuists are calling evil good, and saying what is from Satan is from God." Well, those are extreme ways of looking at it, therefore, we have to be certain that we have scripture under our feet.

And as I look at 1 Corinthians 13, I think it actually goes the other way from the cessationist position. I'll try to show you why. The cessationists are saying that the gifts ceased when the New Testament was completed, and that's what Paul means by "when the perfect comes." And so the Word of God is perfect, it's an inerrant, perfect record of prophecy, of apostolic ministry, and so that's the perfect, and when that comes, then the gifts cease. Tom Schreiner says, "This is the only, even close to clear, cessationist passage in the New Testament." So this is it. All the rest of this cessationist arguments are made more thematically, looking at when miracles come or what prophecy is, those kinds of themes. And parenthetically, I'm going to address prophecy next week. There's just too much work to do in one sermon, so, I'm just going to defer prophecy as a topic to next week. Please hear me clearly. I didn't say I'm prophesying next week; I said I'm going to address the topic of prophesying next week.

Alright, so let's approach 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 properly. What is the context? What is the point of the passage? Well, it's set right in the middle of three chapters on spiritual gifts, so it's part of the spiritual gift topic. Just like meat sacrifice to idols, Paul doesn't hurry through it; he takes his time and gives three chapters on each. And so, as he unfolds the way spiritual gifts function in the body, 1 Corinthians 12, and then in chapter 14, he continues the spiritual gifts on special problems connected with tongues and prophecy, in the middle, we've got the love chapter. And I know that we hear it so often at weddings and all that, but it really is a very strong statement on the function of love in the body of Christ. But it's nestled in the language of spiritual gift. "If I speak with the tongues of men and of idols, but I have not love... If I have to give of prophecy, and if I can fathom all mysteries, and if I have a faith that can move mountains," those are all spiritual gifts. And so, 1 Corinthians 13 in this home setting is talking about spiritual gifts. And what's the point?

What Is the Point of 1 Corinthians 13?

Well, he's trying to adjust what's defective in the Corinthians' attitude and demeanor and approach as they use their spiritual gifts. What he's saying is love is much more important than the spiritual gifts, and turned it around, the spiritual gifts serve love, they're here to work love in the body of Christ, and they're here to work unity and the building up of the body of Christ to full maturity. And so if there's no love, then the gifts have no purpose, they're actually damaging the work. That's what he's saying. And one of the clinching arguments that he makes is that the gifts are temporary, but love is eternal. The gifts are temporary, but love is eternal. So it clearly says that the spiritual gifts will cease. The question is when.

So, look at verses 8 through 10, "where there are prophecies, they will cease," couldn't be clearer. That's a cessationist statement. "Where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial," is a better translation, not imperfect but the partial, that which is of the part, "disappears," or passes away. So the spiritual gifts are for building up the body. Now, there's two different kind of images of the church of Christ, one of them is architectural, and the other is biological. A building, a body, both of them are helpful images. In Ephesians 2, we have the image of the structure, the architecture of the church rising. So, keep that more architectural image in your mind. So imagine a mansion being built out in that kind of a remote location. I picture it out in Wyoming, overlooking the Grand Teton. So fix that in your mind. And a river going through it, and the mountains snow-capped in the distance, and there it is. What a beautiful sight. But it's somewhat off the grid, or it's a little bit far from the grid, and so, in order for the workers to work there, they have to have gas-powered generators to run their power tools and their pneumatic devices, and to have lights in darker places in the building as it rises. And they need Porta-Potties. You know why, I don't need to say any more, alright? They might... The construction crew might need a food truck to come by. You see all these at construction sites. Look, the gas-powered generators and the Porta-Potties and the food trucks at construction sites are all temporary. You could add scaffolding, but I like the gas-powered generator as a picture of spiritual gifts. So they're temporary necessities, God uses them to build the body, but at some point, they are going to be done. They're going to finish. Paul, especially as he makes the argument that the gifts will cease, zeros in a knowledge, talks about knowing, knowing in part. Why does he do this? Well, it has to do with the essential aspect of salvation, being knowing God.

Jesus said in John 17:3: "Now, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom thou was sent." And so the idea here is that salvation at its core is a deep, rich, full, complete knowledge of God. And so that's why I think Paul zeros in on knowledge, in verse 9 and 10, "We know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, then the partial disappears." So, what he says, then, is our knowledge of God and of Christ is only partial and incomplete here in this life. That's what he's saying. Much is missing, but there will come a day that we will know God fully as He has known us fully and richly and completely. That's what he's saying. And so therefore, he actually makes an incredible statement here, if I could push the language a little bit. He says all of these gifts are like baby talk compared to how we're going to be talking in heaven. It's like baby talk.

What do I mean by that? Look at verse 11. "When I was a child, I talk like a child, thought like a child, reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish things behind me." That's an interesting analogy. "Paul, what are you talking about?" He's saying, "What I'm saying is your knowledge of God is like that right now." It's really amazing, when you think about it. It's not disparaging the ministry of the Word, not at all, but this is what we have. This is what we've got now. You got exegesis and preaching and teaching and nouns and verbs and syntax and theology and all that. Someday, your knowledge of God is going to be infinitely greater than that, immeasurably greater than that. So this baby talk includes all of the gifts, but I think especially the word-based gifts, like I just said, speaking in tongues, prophesying. That's the only two he mentions here at the end of 1 Corinthians 13, but also, I would say teaching, preaching, all of those aspects, all of that contribute to our in-part knowledge. But then when the perfect comes, the imperfect goes away.

Now, what is this perfect knowledge? What are we talking about? Verse 12: "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face-to-face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." So, until the perfect comes, we need the gifts. Well, what is that perfect that's coming? Well, hear are your two options on today's topic: It's when the New Testament comes, or when Jesus comes. Those are basically your two options. When the New Testament's completed, then the imperfect knowledge passes away, and then we will be perfect in knowledge. Or when Jesus comes, then the imperfect passes away, and then we will be perfect in knowledge. Those are the two options.

And it's clear that Paul links the passing away of the gift, it's not an option, they actually will pass away. And not just will they pass away, that's when they will pass away. You see, it ends up a double-edged sword. We'll talk about this, but this is not a cessationist passage for me; it's saying they will continue until this moment happens. When the perfect comes, then the partial disappears. That's when it passes away. So, Paul is, I think it should be clear to you, talking about the second coming of Christ, and not the completion of the New Testament. Why is that? Because of this face-to-face language. Remember how Moses wanted to see God face-to-face? And God on the mountain told him, "No man can see me and live." Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God." We can't handle that face-to-face, full revelation of the glory of God. No one John has ever seen God at any time.

But we're told in 1 John 3 that when he returns, when he comes, we will become like him, we will be made like him for we shall see him as he is. This is what's known as the beatific vision, actually seeing God face-to-face. And at that moment, we will know him as he has known us. Now, don't misunderstand that. We will never know God completely and perfectly. Everything we know about God in heaven will be true and accurate, but there's always going to be more to learn. That's the book I'm writing on heaven, that's what I'm saying. You will be forever learning God. And that's pretty exciting, isn't it? I mean, just think about that, just think about what you're in store for forever. God is going to be pouring his glory unto you. And you'd be like, "God, do you have any more to show?" "I have infinitely more to show you."

But what he is saying is that our knowledge of him will take a quantum leap when we see Him face-to-face. And that's at the second coming of Christ. An earlier verse, I think, confirms that this is what Paul is thinking. Don't turn there, but just listen. 1 Corinthians 1:7 says, "Therefore, you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly await for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed." Well, no one wonders what that's talking about; that's the second coming of Christ. In other words, you have the spiritual gifts until then.

The Cessationists’ Use of this to Prove Cessationism Fails

Therefore, I believe the cessationists used 1 Corinthians 13 to prove that the sign gifts have ended with the completion of the New Testament canon fails. They say that the perfect is the completement of the New Testament canon. I don't deny that the New Testament canon is a perfect revelation of the Word of God. I don't deny that. That's not the point. The point is is that the perfect or the complete knowledge of God that 1 Corinthians 13 is talking about, that's the issue. And I say it's not. The infinite upgrade that we Christians are going to get at the Second Coming when we see face-to-face, that's what Paul is talking about. And you won't need baby talk then. You won't need sermons. I'll be retired, long retired by then. And you won't need me, because like the Scripture says, We will all be taught by God. We will all be taught directly by God. Now, that's exciting, isn't it? In the meantime, we get spiritual gifts.

Now, Martyn Lloyd Jones says this about that interpretation, cessationist interpretation: "What this means, then, is that you and I, who have the scriptures open to us, know much more than the Apostle Paul did of God's truth. It means that we are altogether superior even to the apostles themselves, including the Apostle Paul. It means that we are now in a position in which we know fully even as we are known fully by God. Indeed, there is only one word to describe such a view, and it is 'nonsense.'" Well, that's Lloyd Jones, he's just being strong, like he does. But I think that is just not... Let's put it more gently. It's not healthy exegesis on this passage. This is talking about the second coming of Christ, not about the ending of spiritual gifts.

So, what this means, then, if you work it through logically, we have to look at the now-then language. Now-then. There's a strong now-then, now-then, now-then. So what that means is now, we have this; then, it ends, and we have that. And so it's actually pretty clear in the text. Now, we have the spiritual gifts; then, when Christ returns, they will cease. And so the logic would be, "And not until then." And not until then. So, it even culminates with that. It's remarkable, the wonderful, good things we have now, but then, everything becomes much better. Now, we have faith, hope, and love. But of those three, only one of them will go through into eternity. Faith, you don't need anymore when you see him with your own eyes. It will be done. Your faith will become sight. And you don't need to hope anymore, as Paul says in Romans 8, "Who hopes for what already has?" And when we have what he comes to give us, we won't need hope anymore. You'll be there. But you'll still have love forever in heaven.

So that clinches Paul's arguments that the gifts are temporary, but then, the second coming to Christ, when faith and hope are fulfilled and Christ comes, you'll still have love. So make sure whatever you do with your spiritual gifts, do it in love. Does that make sense? So that's how I think 1 Corinthians 13 should be understood.

Now, there are other cessationist arguments, thematic arguments. For example, one argument is that the temporary sign gifts, miracles, healings, tongues, interpretation in tongues, had the unique purpose of identifying the apostles in their apostolic authority so that the surrounding people would know, New Testament, they would know who the apostles were and that they should listen to them. There's little doubt that that is true, that that happened, that the miracles vindicated the authority of the speaker. It's clear to prove that in the Book of Acts. But is that the only reason for these miracles? I would say not. I would say some... Let's just keep it simple. Sometimes a miracle just gave a display of God's compassion and mercy and tender love. Jesus frequently did that when, just out of compassion, he would heal someone. He moved with compassion. He said, "I'm willing, be healed." So we can't say that's the only reason for the gifts.

Furthermore, and this is a key issue between cessationists and continuationists, is the cessationists tend to make everything all the same kind of thing, like Old Testament prophecy is exactly the same as New Testament, the New Testament gift of prophecy in the churches. Exactly the same, such that in the Old Testament days, if someone is proved to be a false prophet, they must be stoned to death. Conversely, though, if they're a true prophet, you must follow them, as though you're following the actual Word of God. Whereas continuationists say, "Yeah, but there seems to be a lower operating on the gift of prophecy in which prophets are evaluating each other, and if you don't make the evaluation, it doesn't make you a false prophet; it just means that particular utterance was not an excellent utterance," or something like that. So that's how the continuationists argue, we'll talk more about prophecy next week. Prophecy is a very difficult topic.

But to say they're all the same, the same thing with the gift of healing, which is plural, gifts of healings, double plural. It's really interesting, we'll talk about that next week too. But to say that it's all at the Jesus level or the apostolic level, I don't know, necessarily always, what the Holy Spirit calls a gift of healing. I believe that miracles happened probably every day in answer to prayer. We've had numbers of people who have had very bad diagnoses from very reputable hospitals, who the people of God gathered and prayed, and within a short amount of time, much to the amazement of their doctors, the people are healed of that malady. It's happened multiple times. And I think it happens a lot. Would I call that a miracle? I would. But does that make it a gift of healing? I wouldn't say so. It seems like that traveled from place to place with the person. However, why couldn't it be that there would be a certain lower level of the gift of healing in which people just pray continually for sick people, and they've seen remarkable healings again and again? Who am I to say that's not the gift of healing intended in 1 Corinthians 12? What I'm saying is we lack knowledge to flatten everything out and say it's all the same. But again, that's another cessationist argument.

Another is on fakes. Come on, let's be honest. We've heard of fakes. Ever heard of Benny Hinn? Alright, it's been proven that it's a scam. He actually puts armed guards around his stage, not to protect him from whackos that want to kill him, but to protect him from genuinely sick people who want to be healed. And he's not the only fraudulent worker of these kinds of things. The movement is rife with these kinds of things, like Kenneth Copeland and others. Worldwide; it's not just in the US. However, there is a logical problem with that as well. I think we need to be aware of these excesses and see how it works and think about it, et cetera, but it'd be like saying because there's false teaching, we should throw out the gift of teaching. It's maybe the quintessential example of throwing out a baby with the bath water. Just because there are excesses and bizarre things doesn't mean that the whole thing is not valid. You can't argue on that sense. What you have to do is separate the one from the other.

Just an aside, theologically, a lot of those that are ardently against, that are cessationists, ardently against, are dispensational in their theology, and almost all of them believe in the ministry of the two witnesses. And the two witnesses, they all believe, and I do, too, that they will come during the rain of the anti-Christ at the end of the world. It's clearly stated in Revelation 11:3 that they prophesy and do miracles. But they would say they're a special case.

Alright, so, "What are you, pastor?" I'm almost to the end of my sermon, that's what I am. What I am is I don't believe that the cessationists' use of 1 Corinthians 13 is the best interpretation of that passage. Therefore, I believe they don't have scripture under their feet, and they have to make more anecdotal and historical arguments rather than biblical arguments. It doesn't mean they're wrong, because as in the head-covering passage, I think it's right to look at what happens in all the other churches. And so the fact that the overwhelming majority of us have never experienced these gifts, I think, is noteworthy. So we still have a lot of work in front of us. So, the question that maybe in your mind is, "Well, if the gifts do continue, why don't we see them here?" It depends what you mean by "here." If you mean like here at First Baptist Durham, that's one thing. I think in general, it just depends where you are. If you're in certain places, you have seen them. You may not even have participated in them, but you have seen them.

I remember my Gordon-Conwell Church History professor, a godly man named William Nigel Kerr, I love that man, he's gone on to be with the Lord, he said, "You know, I actually do believe that these things happen, but I always seem to be in the other room when they occur."

That's a gentle way to put it. So, two possible reasons, and I think we need to upload both of them. First is the spirit is sovereign and does whatever he wants with the spiritual gifts. So you could be a continuationist and still think that for his own reasons, the Spirit chooses to shut certain ministries down in certain areas for his own purposes and uses them in other places. Who are we to say he can't do that? So if you're an ardent cessationist, you will say, "I do not believe that anyone can legitimately speak a language that they haven't learned yet," that just goes so far beyond scripture. If you don't have a scripture under your feet to make that assertion, it's better to not make it. And then to say, "I know for a fact that can't happen." Well, why doesn't it happen? It may be that the Spirit is not choosing to do that kind of work in that geographic locality in that stretch of church history.

Look at verse 11, it says, 1 Corinthians 12:11... Back in 1 Corinthians 12, sorry, verse 11. It says, "All of these," these spiritual gifts, "are the work of one and the same Spirit, and He gives them to each one as he determines." So who are we to say, even if you are a charismatic or a continuationist, that the spirit must do X, Y, and Z in every location? That's some of the problem with Pentecostal theology, where they say that when you receive the baptism in the Spirit, you will inevitably speak in tongues, which is not biblical, either. John 3:8, Jesus said, "The wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you can't tell where it comes from or where it goes." So it is with everyone born in the Spirit, and so it is, I think, worldwide what about the Spirit chooses to do in different places. That's one of the two explanations of why we don't see these kinds of gifts here, wherever here is for you.

The second is it's possible that we are quenching the Spirit, that through sinful unbelief, some things that the Spirit would work in our midst, he is not working, because we don't think he can or will or should, and so we don't seek them and we don't pursue them in prayer. We are shut to them, and so therefore, we, in some sense, have quenched the Spirit. Where does that come from? 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22 says, "Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. But test everything, hold fast what is good and abstain from every form of evil." So that's where the "quenching the Spirit" concept comes from. So it's like dousing the Spirit's fire. So we, in the affluent and educated in scientific West, tend to be pretty closed to spiritual explanations for things. We tend to almost despise them with what's called the God of the gaps theory. Things we can't explain by science, we bring God in for that. But it's amazing how less and less can we not explain by science. We can explain pretty much everything. We probably might even get to the point of explaining why the wind blows where it wishes. And so there are no mysteries left: Science can explain everything.

Well, we can see how unbelieving such an attitude would be. We don't want to come to it that way, telling God what he can and can't do, and so, we don't want to quench the Spirit. We tend to be too skeptical of the supernatural. And that especially comes when we hear stories from the mission field and we tend to doubt brothers and sisters, look them in the eye, and effectively say, "What you're telling me happened didn't happen." That's an awkward moment in the body of Christ. So that becomes difficult and challenging.

So are there dangers to studying this? Well, I hope not. But anyway, I think there are. All I could do is continue going on in 1 Corinthians. But yes, there are dangers, there are dangers on each side. We should not imagine that the cessationists have no dangers or the continuationists have no dangers. Like Tim Challies said, the cessationists are saying, could be saying, that something that is actually from God is from the devil, and that would be wrong, to miss out on a blessing. The flip side is if we're not discerning, if we're not testing the spirits, we could be doing the exact opposite, saying that some things from the Lord... Something from Satan is actually from the Lord. So there are dangers no matter what. But we just have to be faithful to the scripture, to study, to ask God to lead us into all truth.

Tim Challies said this: "Continuationists do not believe in a dead Bible. And cessationists do not believe in a dead spirit." So let's not lob grenades at each other. They're actually... You could be a cessationist and have an ardent doctrine and experience with the Holy Spirit, in the more what we call more normal ways, the normal ministries of the Spirit. And you pray in the Spirit, and you witness in the Spirit, you preach in the Spirit, and you do marriage in the Spirit. And I'm going to talk about that, God willing, in a couple of weeks, on the difference between the baptism of the Spirit and the filling with the Spirit. And so you can have a beautiful, Spirit-filled life, and be a cessationist.

Conversely, just because you're a continuationist or charismatic doesn't mean that you have a defective view of scripture. So we have to be careful. Wayne Grudem says this in his theology: "It can be argued that those in the charismatic and Pentecostal camps and those in the cessationists camp, which is primarily reformed dispensational Christians, really need each other." Reformed and dispensational Christians, we need each other. "They would do well to appreciate each other more. The Pentecostals and charismatics tend to have more practical experience in the use of spiritual gifts and in the vitality of worship that cessationists could benefit from, if they're willing to learn and to listen. On the other hand, reformed and dispensational groups have traditionally been very strong in understanding Christian doctrine, and in deep accurate understanding of the teaching of scripture, charismatic and Pentecostal groups could learn much from them, if they're willing to listen and to learn. But it certainly is not helpful to the church as a whole for both sides to think they can learn nothing from the other and that they can gain no benefit from fellowship with each other."

Alright, so as I finish this sermon, for me, I just want to step back and do an application that has to with a bigger issue than just this. First and foremost, if you're a non-Christian and you're here today hearing this, this might be probably confusing to you, you might wonder, "What in the world is this even talking about?", or you might know exactly, but still the Lord brought you here for a different purpose. And the different purposes that you would hear that God sent his Son into the world, which we celebrate at Christmastime, he sent his Son into the world, God in the flesh, to live a sinless life and to die on the cross for your sins. And you may have come in here today wrestling with sin, maybe even feeling enslaved to sin, burning to be free, but don't know how to be set free from sin and guilt. Maybe you're afraid to die, afraid of judgment. Maybe you're not. But you know you're outside Christ. Well, I would say that you didn't come here to hear about charismatic gifts; you came here to hear the gospel, and this is it. Christ died for sinners, and he was raised from the dead on the third day. And all you need to do is believe in him, and you can walk out of here a free man or woman, a free boy or girl.

Secondly, for you who are Christians and are here in this overall sermon series, this is an important detail, it's something we need to work through, but larger, the question is, Are you using your spiritual gifts that you do know you have? And if you don't know that you have spiritual gifts, then I would urge you to discover what they are. Get busy in practical ministries. Discover your gifts, and develop them, and then deploy them for the Glory of God. Close with me in prayer.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Luke 24:44-53. The main subject of the sermon is the sacrifices of God's people that lead to the accomplishment of the Great Commission.

Turn in your Bibles to Luke 24. And as I mentioned in my prayer, this is the time of year that we focus on unreached people groups, on missions. We have something called The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering named after a woman named Charlotte Moon, shortened to Lottie Moon, who was a missionary that served in China for many years, 39 years. She ran a school for girls in Tengzhou and also in Pingdu, and she burned with a strong passion to reach girls, those girls for Christ and women, to bring them to faith in Christ and anyone that she could talk to about the gospel. She regularly baked fresh cookies, and the aroma, as it would waft from where she lived, from the kitchen would be attractive to people. You talk about the aroma of Christ, it was initially the aroma of cookies and it brought people in. But as she would share those cookies, she would also share with whoever partook share the gospel. 

She was especially known for writing moving and passionate letters to Baptists in the US to support missions. That more people would go out as missionaries, that those that didn't go would support with more money, and her letters home detailed China's hunger for truth and the struggle of so few missionaries taking the gospel to almost half a billion at that point, Chinese, in her day. And so she pleaded for more workers and for more money, and she once wrote home to what was called the Foreign Mission Board at that point, "Please say to the new missionaries that are coming that they are coming to a life of hardship, responsibility, and constant self-denial.” A life of sacrifice, disease, turmoil, lack of co-workers threatened to undo Lottie's work but she gave herself consistently to the work of the Lord, and she worked with others to help lay a foundation for a church of Christians in China that is really uncounted. We don't have any idea how many Chinese Christians there are, but we will know on Judgment Day what her labors, her sacrifices, and that of many others have done in the lives of the Chinese. 

She died as a direct result of her self-denying, self-sacrificial life, as there was a famine in that part of China at that point, and she denied her own food to the point where it was beyond help as people knew that she was dying, but they knew it too late. The Woman's Missionary Union started The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering in 1918 to honor her sacrifices and to move Southern Baptists to similar sacrifices for the sake of the gospel. The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering makes up more than half of the annual budget of the International Mission Board, so every dollar that we give to The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering goes directly overseas to winning lost people.

 Now, FBC's goal this year is $150,000. And it's our desire that every man, woman, and child, as a member of this church or involved in this church should weigh carefully what God is calling him or her to do, that we would pray about it, think about it, what level of sacrifice. It's easy... It's kind of out of sight, out of mind. It's easy for us to forget about missionaries, and it's easy for us to forget about people like we just saw in the video, who have no access to the gospel. They're living in countries where it's very, very hard to hear of Christ and we are called on to be people of faith. Who see invisible things and they press on our minds, we see not only those folks who are in different parts of the world, but we see ahead in time to what Judgment Day is going to be like, and we yearn that people be made ready to stand before God, having been cleansed from their sins through faith in the blood of Christ.

And so, our desire is to focus, and what I wanna do is root this Great Commission in the Scripture that you just heard Bob read for us, that we would understand that this is not some new thing that was thrown together, but it's been going on not just for 2000 years, but even before that, as Jesus says in Luke 24, it was founded on the Old Testament Scriptures. And so we're gonna walk through that today, and I want you to see how it's rooted in Scripture, and to understand the sacrifice, the central sacrifice of Jesus Christ, it's the center of the gospel. But then the lesser sacrifices that are essential to the spread of the gospel that our brothers and sisters have done who are willing to suffer and deprive themselves and go through difficulties so that lost people may hear of the gospel. And then thirdly, that each of us would weigh our own involvement in that and see what God is calling us to do.

So let's zero in this morning as we begin on the central sacrifice of the Great Commission, the death of Jesus Christ. Now, the Great Commission is found in five different places at the end of each of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; each has their own version of the Great Commission. So he gave it multiple times slightly different language, and then again in the Book of Acts, that the disciples are responsible to move out from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth with the gospel. But we're gonna look at Luke 24 and look at verses 44-47, “And he said to them, This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled, that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms. Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, This is what is written, that Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” 

So the centerpiece of the Great Commission, the centerpiece of the gospel is the death of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. Now, picture in your mind this powerful poignant scene there in the upper room, Christ had died on the cross, the third day he came to life again. The women had just come back from the empty tomb. And they had declared it to be empty, they said that they had had an encounter with the resurrected Christ, and Jesus had told them to go to report to his brothers what they had seen and that he was risen, and they did so. The upper room where they were meeting together was the place where Jesus had had the last supper with his disciples just days before that. And so they were there in the Upper Room in Jerusalem with a tiny church, and now they were assembled there in fear and bewilderment. John's Gospel tells us that they were in there with the doors locked for fear of the Jews. So they were afraid of dying, they were afraid of being arrested, they were afraid of suffering the same faith that Jesus had being crucified.

Now, in Luke's Gospel, the reaction is emotional and powerful. Look at verses 36-43. “Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you’, but they were startled and frightened, thinking that they saw a ghost. He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled? Why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet, it is I myself. Touch me and see. A ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see, I have’. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, ‘Do you have anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and ate it in their presence.” So Jesus is offering them what Luke tells us in the Book of Acts, in Acts chapter 1, many convincing proofs that he was alive. And why did he have to do this? Because they couldn't seem to believe their eyes. It was too good to be true. You ever heard that expression before? It's just too good to be true. 

You realize how essentially pessimistic that is. I mean, anything really good can't be true, but that's effectively what the text says. They could not believe it for joy. I mean, joy means it can't be true. “Friends, let me tell you something. Beyond your wildest dreams, God is gonna lavishly bless you for eternity in the new heaven and new earth. It's going to be greater than anything you can possibly imagine. In one sense, you could say the whole thing is turned around, it's too good not to be true. That's how good God is.”

 But they couldn't believe it, and so he's got to give them all these convincing proofs. People just don't die and come to life again. It just doesn't happen. When somebody's dead, they stay dead. And so he's got to do all these things. He says, Look at my wounds, touch me and see, look at my hands, look at my feet. Do you have anything here to eat? So he eats some broiled fish. All of this physicality to prove that he had really physically been raised from the dead. That's the centerpiece. His death and his resurrection from the dead is the centerpiece of the gospel.

And then Jesus explains all of this and roots it in the prophetic writings. He roots it in Scripture. And why is that? Because none of us can touch him and see. We don't get to watch him chew and swallow broiled fish. We don't get to put our fingers in the nail marks. We're going to get it from Scripture or we're not gonna get it at all. And what Jesus shows us is that the Scripture's predated his birth. These things have been predicted, they'd been written about in the Law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms. This was not new, any new thing, but the Lord had told ahead of time what he would do. Look at Verse 44, he said, “This is what I told you while I was still with you, everything must be fulfilled about me that is written in the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms.” 

Now, without the direct work of almighty God on their minds and on yours and mine, we'll never believe it. We'll never believe it. Our hearts are so hardened in sin. We are so far from God. We are so, so corrupted and twisted, but because of our sins and the sins of the people we live around, it's hard for us to believe God's Word. We need him to work directly on our hardened hearts. And so look what it says in verse 45, what a marvelous verse. “Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.”  I think that's something we should pray about as we have our quiet times, don't you think? As we go before the Lord and we open up the Bible, say, O God, through your Holy Spirit, would you just open my mind that I might understand the Scriptures? Help me to see what's written here so it's not just some empty words that don't mean anything to me. He opened their minds, and isn't it marvelous that he has that kind of power? 

He actually has access to your mind, he has access to your heart, and he can open it up to his working through the Word of God. And so, he then roots his atonement in Scripture. Look at verse 46, “This is what is written, that Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.”  So all of this thing had been predicted in Scripture, God had planned it before the foundation of the world, but he had begun to pay out the truth little by little, right from the beginning in the Garden of Eden, how the serpent came and deceived Adam and Eve, and God cursed the serpent. And in Genesis 3:15, he said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you'll bruise his heel.” And so that was the prediction of how Jesus, by his death, would crush Satan who held the power of death. Genesis 3:15, that's right from the beginning, and then right after that comes the animal sacrificial system. Even that same day, as their eyes are open, they realized they were naked, God clothed them with animal skins so that in the next chapter, Abel began offering animal sacrifice. And so throughout the Old Testament, we have animals sacrifice, the blood of bulls and goats and sheep offered under the command of God, but all of them as a picture of Christ's blood sacrifice on the cross. And the lessons are very plain and clear. All sin deserves the death penalty. The death penalty can be paid by a substitute, but the substitute can't be an animal. It's just symbolic. Those were the lessons of the animal sacrificial system, but it was all written there in the Law of Moses. 

And we have the story, of course, of the Exodus. Remember the 10 dreadful plagues that persuaded Pharaoh to let the Jewish people go out of bondage into the freedom of the promised land? And the last plague was the most dreadful, the most terrible, the plague on the firstborn. And God commanded the Jewish people that they should sacrifice the Passover Lamb, they should kill the lamb and paint its blood on the doorpost and on the lintel of their doors, and the angel of death would see the blood and pass over and would not bring the righteous judgment of God on the sinners inside that house. For all have sinned, the Jews had sinned too, but God had provided for an atoning sacrifice. 

And so that taught a very important lesson, and it's important for the Great Commission, that our salvation comes in two basic steps: Redemption accomplished and applied. The redemption is accomplished by the blood sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world once for all, never to be repeated. Never needs to be repeated. That's why it's different than the animal sacrifices that had to be repeated endlessly year after year. But Jesus once for all died in our place. That's redemption accomplished, and Jesus said, It is finished, and that's it. Nothing more needed.

But then step two, the blood has to be spiritually painted on individual sinners, the redemption has to be applied, and that happens by the Great Commission, it happens by evangelism and missions, by people who have the message of the gospel traveling, it might be just across the office, it might be across the street in evangelism, or it could be to the ends of the earth in missions, and take that message of the gospel and apply it so that people hear it and believe, and the blood gets spiritually applied to us and we are forgiven of our sins. And he said All of that was predicted in the Law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms.

You heard the text that Jason read, Isaiah 53, “All we like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him, on Christ, the iniquity of us all.”  That's written seven centuries before Jesus was born. So Jesus lays out these Scriptures for them. Everything that was planned and then written about in the Scriptures had to be fulfilled. And so that is the deliverance of the world from sin, the shedding of the blood of Christ once for all, and then the application of that message to the Great Commission. And the Great Commission stated plainly, look at verse 46-48, he told them, “This is what is written, that Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

So Christ has entrusted to his disciples the proclamation of the gospel message. Look carefully at the words, repentance, and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations. There is one Savior, one redeemer, the Christ whose blood alone atones for sin, but this one message of the one redemption has to be taken to distant parts of the earth. And Jesus says, You are witnesses of these things. Now, witnesses, they were eyewitnesses. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was there in the upper room with the early church. And I think a lot of that information we get that we... This time of year, as we read in Luke chapter 2 about the birth of Jesus probably came humanly speaking through Mary, as she shared the experiences that she had as a virgin, bringing the only begotten Son of God, fully man, fully God into this world. You're witnesses of these things, of how he lived a sinless life among them, and how he did great signs and wonders. There was no healing he could not do, there was no... Nothing too difficult for him.

He gave great displays of power like stilling the storm and feeding the 5000, all these incredible miracles. You are witnesses of these things. You saw them with your own eyes, and you saw me die on the cross, you saw me dead, and you saw me now, you're seeing me now physically raised from the dead. You are witnesses of these things. These facts are essential to the gospel, and repentance and forgiveness of sins proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem. Oh, what glorious good news that is for all of us. All of us, if we repent of our sins, turn away from darkness, turn away from wickedness and turn to God; if we repent of our sins, forgiveness of sins will be ours through faith in Christ. Not by works, but by simple faith. That's the gospel, and that message will be preached in his name to the ends of the earth. That's the Great Commission. 

Now, the Great Commission was written in the Old Testament, not just that Christ would die, but that the message would be carried by messengers from Jerusalem through Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. That was predicted too. From the original call of Abraham, where God says, I will bless those who bless you. I'll curse whoever curses you, and through your offspring, all peoples on earth will be blessed. Peoples means nations. So from the calling of the Jewish nation, God had intended to bless all nations on earth. And then Psalm 2 in verse 8, “Where God the Father says to the Son, Ask of me and I'll give you the nations as your inheritance. The ends of the earth, your possession.” That's in the Psalms.

And then at the end of Isaiah 66. I love this verse. This is one of these Great Commission verses. Listen to this, Isaiah 66:19, "I will set a sign among them, and I will send some of those who survive," some of the remnants, "to the nations, to Tarshish," that's in Spain, "to the Libyans," North Africa and Lydians, Central Asia, famous as archers, to Tubal and Greece. And listen to this, "to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. And they will proclaim my glory among the nations." Isaiah 66:19, the Great Commission was written. Jesus said, "This is what is written, repentance and forgiveness of sins we preached to the ends of the earth."

So only as this gospel is proclaimed can people in those distant lands, like we saw in that video, hear the Gospel message and believe. But the power of the Great Commission always has been the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. We wouldn't have moved... As a church, we would not have moved out of the upper room if it weren't for the power of the Holy Spirit. Even after seeing evidence of Jesus's conquest of death, a week later, they're still in the upper room with the doors locked. And Jesus said, "You must stay in Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high. You're gonna receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. Again and again, our brothers and sisters that have stepped out in faith and have traveled through the centuries to distant lands to share the gospel have testified it was only by the compulsion of the spirit in their hearts that they left behind their friends and family and went to dangerous places. 

The Spirit moved them. Now, you may say, "I don't feel like I'm called to be a missionary." Maybe you're not. Not many are called to actually go to cross-cultural settings and do that, not many, but some. But we are, all of us, called to travel from point A to point B. Like I said, it could be across an office to an unsaved co-worker. And you may feel, "I don't think I can do that." Well, it's the same feeling. It's the same fear. It's the same Holy Spirit that enables us, driven and compelled by love to share the Gospel with people. You receive power, and you'll be my witnesses. Since that time, it's been a river of sacrifice. Brothers and sisters have been willing to lay it on the line to take the Gospel from Jerusalem, through Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. They've been willing to sacrifice. 

It's amazing, Jesus was a prophet. He made predictions. And he said, "This thing here, 120 in the upper room, is not gonna stay here. It's going to go to the ends of the earth." Now, a prophet has to be vindicated by his predictions coming true. Well, that prediction has famously come true. There is not a political nation on earth represented at the United Nations in which there is not a church of Jesus Christ with people assembling to meet and worship Christ. There are hundreds of millions of Christians spread all over the Earth. His words have come true. It's not done yet, but His words have come true. His prediction has happened. In every generation, the Holy Spirit sees to it that Jesus's name is the most famous human name on earth. There is no more famous human being than Jesus in every generation. The Holy Spirit sees to it. Better than any PR department getting the name of some rock star out, that fades like grass within two or three generations. Every generation, Jesus is the greatest name because the Holy Spirit sees to it. This has happened.

Now, when I look at the prediction of the distant islands, I thought, "I wonder what the most distant island is." So bear with me for the next few moments as I Googled, "Where is the farthest place from Jerusalem on planet Earth?" Remember, it's a globe, so if you go around too far, it goes back the other way. So I've asked numbers of friends. Some of them said "LA" for a lot of reasons. Others, "Alaska," different things. Well, are you ready? The most distant island on planet Earth are the Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific. The Pitcairn, you say, "What is that?" Have you ever heard of "Mutiny on the Bounty"? It was a movie. And some mutineers went and they overthrew Captain Bligh, and they took over. And they knew that they were gonna get hunted down by the British Navy, and so they were looking for someplace.

They stumbled upon some uncharted island about 1500 miles southeast of Tahiti. It is 11,305 miles from Jerusalem. Now, you'd say, "Well, that doesn't count, Pastor, there were no people there when they landed." But they landed there, and they had some battles within themselves. There was some murder that took place. And the few that were left repented of their sins and started reading the Bible and set up a flourishing, strong Christian community that's still there. And a whaler came 18 years later, just saw this uncharted island, went ashore to see if there's any water, and found a church and Christians there praising God.

You just say, "Alright, but that was inhabited. What about any habited islands?" Yes, New Zealand is the farthest inhabited island. And the history of the Gospel in New Zealand is fascinating. How it was first discovered by an explorer named Tasman, and he eventually gave his name to Tasmania. And he prayed over those islands, that God's purpose would be done there. James Cook came over a century, more a century and a half later, prayed about the same prayer. Eventually, God sent some missionaries. And they took on the fierce Maori people, who were war-like cannibals, and won many of them to faith in Christ. A marvelous story. And so you have Christ's church there in Auckland and those areas. That's as far as it gets from Jerusalem. And God's Word has been fulfilled.

Now, in every generation, the church has advanced the Gospel at very high cost. It's been a trail of blood, brothers, and sisters, a trail of blood. And Paul saw it coming. It was already happening in his own life. In Colossians, Chapter 1, Verse 24 and 25, he said, "Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of His body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the Word of God in its fullness." That's my commission. And he's fulfilling it by writing the letter to the Colossians. But he had not been there. He didn't plant that church. And he said, "I rejoice in what was suffered by the men and women that did come with the message of the Gospel. And they suffered, and I rejoice in that suffering. And I'm filling up in my flesh what's lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of His body." 

What does that mean? Careful of blasphemy here. There's nothing lacking in redemption accomplished. It was accomplished once for all. But what's lacking is the second step, it has to be applied. And that takes suffering. And Paul says, "I rejoice in that suffering. I rejoice in it."  

Now, the Gospel spread. Initially, the persecutors were unbelieving Jews who had not yet crossed over to faith in Christ, and so they kick people out of their synagogues, and they wouldn't buy and sell from them. They arrested them, even beat some of them. Read about it in the Book of Acts. But then the Romans took over and began persecuting. And for a couple of centuries, there was on and off persecution by the Roman emperors and by the Roman authorities. Even spilling our brothers' and sisters' blood in the sands of the Colosseum until at last that ended with Constantine's conversion, hope it was genuine, in 312. And Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. 

Remarkable proof of the spread of the Gospel. Whether he was genuinely converted or not, he saw it at least politically expedient to declare himself a Christian. Incredible, in a very short amount of time. But the Gospel didn't stop there. It continued to spread among the barbarian tribes, tribes of Germania. They're terrifying, militaristic. And missionaries went out and were willing to suffer and even die to bring those Germanic-speaking people to faith in Christ. And up to the islands of what we call the British Isles, Britannia, and again, the fierce peaks in the Scottish Highlands, being willing to take on courageously tribal chieftains that would have and were ready to slaughter them. But they won many of them to Christ. This has been going on in every generation.As it says in John 12:24, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself a single seed. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit."  

And so that has been the principle, Christians willing to lay down their lives, willing to die for the spread of the gospel. Now, for me, I love missionary hero stories. I just love reading about people like Lottie Moon or others. I especially like stories I haven't heard. So that's hard to Google. "Stories Andy Davis hasn't heard yet on missions" came up empty. But there is one book I was reading recently of a number of missionaries I had never heard of. And one of them, amazingly, was a man named James Gilmore in the 19th century, who was a missionary to Mongolia. 

 I really believe we just saw mission work among the Mongolians. They just said Central Asia, they didn't say exactly, but those yurts are Mongolian style. And I wonder if those brothers and sisters are from Mongolia. I don't know for sure, but I know this, that James Gilmore, a Scottish missionary to Mongolia, suffered as much as any, just the physical deprivations of working in such a hostile land. The land itself is vast. It's about the size of the American West. And this man just went on foot, sometimes walking, hiking up to 40 miles a day on foot. He originally began as a missionary in China, but then went into the northern regions, to the Mongolians. And they're very spread out. They're herdsmen, and they move around. Their yurts, their tents travel. 

And so he went from place to place. It's a cold land. Sometimes the temperatures plummet as low as 40 degrees below zero. He endured long spells of hunger and thirst on his treks. His target people, the Mongolians, dwelled in filthy, vermin-infested yurts. They were very nasty places. And he would go in there, and he would share the Gospel. He would seek to win them from animism and Buddhism, Lamaistic Buddhism. And they were very... A lot of them struggled with drunkenness, with violence, with thievery. And as he would witness to them, he would do rudimentary medical care, basic medical things like extracting bad teeth and other things like that. He was not a trained medical worker, but he knew some basic things, and people would come and he would care for them. And he would share simple Bible stories and the simple life of Jesus, His death on the cross, His resurrection. 

And he was there for four years of diligent sacrificial labor, James Gilmore. In 1874, he could not count a single convert, and he went beyond that. There was not even a single person that he felt was interested in the Gospel. Imagine doing that kind of work for four years. But he was concerned that no Mongolian he ever talked to did not come to faith in Christ because of a lack of clear, passionate proclamation of the Gospel. That's what he said. He wanted to be certain no Mongolian would be justified in pitching into us for not pitching into them more savagely. Listen to that, pitching into them savagely, for not, in fact, taking them by the cuff of the neck and dragging them into the kingdom. 

Sounds a little like a frustrated missionary after a while, but sharing the Gospel, it's like, "I'm gonna drag you into the kingdom." But there's no physical place to go. It has to be by hearing and believing. And after four years, no response. He left for a short time and then came back in 1884. And he finally won his first convert. He was in a dirty Mongolian tent. There was a fire in the center of the tent. There's generally smoke in there, but this was unusually bad because an outsider came in and started stirring up the smoldering log, filling the yurt with noxious smoke. And so he was getting as low as he could to just get some air in the tent. But then out of the cloud... He couldn't even see the man. Out of the cloud, this man spoke, "I have for months been a learner of Jesus Christ, and now I am ready to trust Him."

Gilmore said of that moment, "The place was as beautiful to me as the gate of heaven, and the words of the confession of Christ from out of that cloud of smoke were as inspiring to me as if they had been spoken by an angel from out of the cloud of glory." They left the yurt. They walked together for 23 miles, talking about Christian theology. You have a 23-mile walk with a man, what are you gonna tell him? So he did basic Christian follow-up. They hugged each other. They knelt together and prayed. And then as far as I know, James Gilmore never saw that man again. Gilmore continued to travel in native fashion. He walked everywhere. He ate porridge. He lived on equivalent of about six cents a day. During one eight-month stretch, he preached to almost 24,000 people, sold 3000 Christian books, saw about 6000 patients with rudimentary medical treatments, distributed 4500 tracks, traveled almost 1900 miles, spent about $200 on himself for his own needs, and reported that in all of that, only two individuals came to faith in Christ. 

So as I look at that, I think, "Pastor, couldn't you have chosen a more triumphant story?" There are many more triumphant stories, but do you not see the grace of God in that? His relentless commitment to share even if he doesn't get the response. That's all we're called to do. You can't grab someone by the scruff of the neck and drag them into the kingdom, but we can, at great cost, be willing to take the message to them. He reminds me of what it says in that hall of faith in Hebrews 11:37-38, "They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated. The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground."

Now, I believe when we get to heaven, we're going to celebrate brothers and sisters that sacrifice like Lottie Moon and like James Gilmore. We're gonna celebrate them. And you have, and so do I, a massive education waiting for you on the history of missions. And you're not gonna be bored at all because I really believe God's gonna not just tell you about it, but show it to you. And you're gonna get to know them, these heroes, and all of them are going to testify that whatever glory they have for their sacrificial service belongs to Christ. And they're going to lay their crowns before Jesus.

As I was doing leaves a couple of days ago, I was thinking about these hero stories and brothers and sisters and the honor that's gonna come in heaven to them. But I was also thinking about that song "God and God Alone" by Steve Green. And I was thinking, "All the glory goes to him." And these heroes and heroines are gonna say that. They're gonna cast their crowns, all of them, before the Lord. And I thought about that scene in Revelation, chapter 5, where the scroll is in the right hand of God Almighty. He sits on the throne. And a search is made in heaven and earth and under the Earth, and no one is found who is worthy to take the scroll and open its seals, except Jesus. 

And so we're gonna celebrate and honor the sacrifices that were made. We're going to rightly celebrate them. We're gonna learn. We're not gonna feel jealous of them. We're gonna honor them, even if they are greater sacrifices than our own. And many of them will be greater than our own. And they'll have a greater place of glory than we do. But all glory goes to Christ, so there is no one like him, and his alone is the glory of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He alone had the right to take the scroll and open its seals.

Now, I read other stories, and they're exciting. You wanna hear some of them? Come to me afterwards, and I'll tell you more. One particular man in Japan left during the period in the middle of the 19th century, when it was illegal for Japanese to leave Japan. They couldn't leave their own country. He had come across the track, had become a Christian. He wanted to get theologically trained. His name is Joseph Nisima. He was in the bottom of a boat that was a junk, that was traveling to China, and he hid under some ropes. And he eventually went to Andover Seminary, right near where I went to seminary, was theologically trained, went back to Japan and set up a school for boys, and led hundreds of Japanese boys to faith in Christ. I can't wait to meet him. I was a missionary, my wife and I were missionaries in Japan. And it's hard work there, very slow, not a lot of converts.

Then there's George Mackay, who worked in Formosa, now known as Taiwan, among some headhunters who collected the heads of their victims. This guy went up into the mountainous regions of Formosa, Taiwan, and shared the Gospel in tents in which their heads strung together, all around there. And they liked him because, like James Gilmore, he was good at extracting bad teeth. So that's very painful, and so he's able to pull it out and alleviate their pain, they're willing to listen to the gospel. And he led a number of them to faith in Christ. So those were sacrifices that have been made. People that are willing to go into dangerous places and share the gospel. The question that's in front of us now, this month and really year-round, not just because of the Lottie Moon Christmas offering, but because we're Christians, because we read the Scripture, we see it. We can feel what it was like to be in the upper room. What are we called to do?     

And it always must begin with prayer. Start by presenting yourself as a living sacrifice and saying, "Lord, what am I to do for unreached people groups? What involvement do you want me to have?"  One of the benefits we have of being in this church is we have a number of friends that are serving amongst unreached people groups right now. If you wanna know their names, come to any of the elders or church members, we'll tell you who they are and what people groups they're working with. You can pray for them. And in this day and age, we can even stay in contact with them and ask how we can pray for them this week. The home fellowships have adopted missionaries. Be faithful in praying for them. Find out what their needs are, so we can be praying and lifting them up. You know how Paul says that we should join our brothers and sisters that are in prison as if we were in prison with them. Well, I think the same mentality, we can join people in their struggles for missions as if we are fellow missionaries with them through prayer. 

Secondly, financial giving. I'm very well aware that a couple of weeks ago, I urged you to consider your involvement in the More than a Building campaign, and that continues to be a need. We borrowed money, and we're going to pay it back at interest. The sooner you can give, the less money and interest we'll pay. It'll be better for the Kingdom. And that's still true, but I think we have enough bandwidth, don't we, to also think about missions. We have enough bandwidth to say, "There's that, but there's also unreached people groups." And we have the chance, as Southern Baptists, to give money directly to brothers and sisters that are gonna go and serve into the distant most parts of the earth. We can share through them financially in giving. So just go before the Lord and say, "Lord, what do you want me to give to unreached people group missions?"

And then finally, go. So what does this mean? It means look for opportunities to go. We have a mission trip going to Taiwan. I don't know if there are any openings on that, but we're gonna be regularly going overseas on short-term mission trips. But there may be some of you that God may be calling. No matter what stage of life you're in, it's amazing how many opportunities there are, how many pathways there are to go and serve overseas. One family, the Hausons, were sitting in pews just like you folks. He had a successful consulting business, consulting job, and was doing very well, but God called him out of that to go do business missions in North Africa. And he's serving now. I talk to him every other week and get prayer requests from him. God called him out of a situation just like you guys are in, sitting there in the pew, to serve in cross-cultural missions. So what is God calling you to do? What will you be glad that you did when you get to Judgment Day? What will you be eternally glad that you did in heaven? What can we celebrate for the glory of God? What sacrifices are you willing to make?

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the Word of God. We thank you for what it does in our hearts and our minds. Thank you for how the Great Commission is a timeless work. It is something that you planned before the foundation of the world, that Christ would be slain for the elect. From before the foundation of the world, that plan was made. And now, the call on us, that central sacrifice has been once for all made, now you're calling us to other sacrifices, that the gospel might be applied to those who, right now, as I speak, are not yet Christians. And so I pray, O Lord, that you would please call us to willing, cheerful sacrifice for the spread of the gospel. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 12, we're continuing our study in 1 Corinthians, and looking at the issue of spiritual gifts. And as I've thought about this sermon, and thinking about what God is doing and has done through spiritual gifts, what He will continue to do, my mind was led to one of the most amazing statements that God ever makes about the human race in the scriptures, really quite remarkable. It's in Genesis 11:6, during the construction of the tower of Babel, there God says, " If as one people speaking one language they have begun to do this, then nothing they propose to do will be impossible for them." That's really an amazing statement, isn't it? And it shows the power, one of the most powerful things on the face of the earth is human cooperation, people created in the image of God, remarkably gifted intellectually, mentally, physically, pulling together, communicating together and working for one common goal, one common purpose.

Now that force, that power has been used for good or ill throughout human history. It's not always good when people do that. There in the tower of Babel, they were motivated by arrogance, by a God-defying pride. And so it is so often with the great empires of human history, people have come together around a national identity and around a charismatic leader and have moved out to conquer and to build empires for as a testimony to the arrogance and pride of their race, of their nation, and of their leader. But often in secular history, it's been used for good. We think about people working together do incredible projects like the Transcontinental Railway or the Panama Canal. This summer we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon.

And as I was reading about that, just being a geeky engineering kind of guy, I was all into that. I just love reading about those kind of things. So some of you don't, so bear with me. But as I was reading that, I couldn't believe it, 400,000 people worked on that project. Think about the kind of talents to be able to organize such a disparate work crew and pull them together to achieve that goal that President Kennedy had set of putting a man on the moon, and bringing him safely back to earth. You think about all the people, the gifted physicists, cosmologists, mathematicians, material scientists, inventing new sciences along the way. Computer programming was in its absolute nascent state at the beginning and through the decade of the '60s, developed whole new ways of programming. And all the way down to hourly workers who did things in these factories or other things, truck drivers, seamstresses, other people that worked together to put that crew on the moon and bring them back safely.

So I think about that and then I think about how puny that achievement is compared to what it is we're talking about here with spiritual gifts. That the Lord has in every generation for 20 centuries assembled a wide array of people, gifted them in a diverse marvelous sort of way, and no two individuals alike, people can have the same gift but different versions or flavors of that gift, and causing them to work together for one common goal, one common purpose. And that's a remarkable thing, that's what we're looking at here when it comes to spiritual gifts, and it's exciting, isn't it? It's exciting for you to realize that once you've come to faith in Christ all your sins are forgiven. You have received what there is to get in this world, what is it that overcomes the world? Even our faith, you can't do any better than justification, forgiveness with God.

Once you've received that gift and you're going to heaven when you die, what then shall we do, how shall we live? And part of the answer is our spiritual gift ministry, we are called on to identify our spiritual gifts to learn about them, to not be ignorant about them. And then to develop those gifts and deploy them, to use them. And so Paul has been talking to the Corinthians and we are learning 20 centuries later through the timeless word of God. Look at verse 1, now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant. And so it begins with the teaching ministry like this, what I'm doing now, been doing for a number of weeks, so that you learn what spiritual gifts are. And Paul wanted to instruct the Corinthians about what the gifts were so they wouldn't be ignorant, they would be aware. But that's not enough, they have to go beyond education, spiritual education, to actual application, to obedience.

Special Abilities Given for Spiritual Ministry

Now over the last number of weeks I've given this definition of spiritual gifts, I'll read it again. Spiritual gifts are special abilities given by the triune God to individual Christians for spiritual ministries that build up the body of Christ. So a simple definition that I've been giving after giving that longer definition every week has been special abilities for spiritual ministry. So that's what we're talking about here. Now, Paul's point here is that there is one body, there's this one work, there's not a bunch of disparate projects going on. There is one grand, glorious overarching work being done by God in this world, the one body of Christ, and He uses individuals, every single redeemed child of God, son or daughter of the living God is included. Look at verse 7, "Now to each one of us, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good." To each one. No one is left out, everyone has a role to play.

But he also wants us to realize that we shouldn't be esteeming one category of gift over the other, so that there's this arrogance like a higher class like a spiritual aristocracy. And then the flip side of that people feeling inferior, if they don't have that gift, they're not included. And a lot of that was going on, there was a definite arrogance among the Corinthian people concerning these gifts. We'll get to a lot of that in chapter 14 with the gift of tongues and prophecy and things like that, but there was arrogance, and so he wants there neither to be arrogance nor inferiority, an inferiority complex, which leads you to do nothing. But he wants every individual to realize that is the same Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity, the same Spirit works every gift. So there's a beautiful unity of purpose.

Look at verses 8-11, "To one there is given through the Spirit, the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit. To another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit and He gives them to each one just as He determines." So there is a marvelous supernatural unity of working of the Spirit in all of these diverse gifts. That's a beautiful thing.

Now the purpose is the building of the one body, the ultimate purpose of the gifts. In Ephesians 4, it says, "So that the body of Christ may be built up, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." We are all of us to be rescued from the dominion of Satan, the dominion of darkness, rescued out of a dark kingdom, through justification, through believing in Jesus, all of your sins, past, present, and future can be forgiven, are forgiven. And then having been rescued, built up through sanctification, through discipleship, through progressive, putting sin to death, through growth until we are conformed to Christ, the final stage of salvation being glorification at the second coming of Christ, and our death. And then at the second coming of Christ, in stages, the glorification of the soul, the glorification of the body until in the end, finally, all of God's people are perfected, conformed to Christ.

He uses spiritual gifts for that. That's the ultimate goal of all of this. And so as I was praying about this message I just want to say I just... I'm so thankful for the fact that week after week we have visitors that come to this church, we have people that others invite, and I feel a responsibility, a central responsibility, in preaching, to be certain that every individual person who walks in here knows how his or her sins can be forgiven. You know how you can be rescued from hell and brought to Heaven, how you can be saved through faith in Jesus Christ. We're coming into a season beyond, beyond Thanksgiving of Christmas and the celebration of the giving of Jesus, and Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He came to rescue the perishing. And so if you are lost, you're here, most important thing that you need to know is not about spiritual gifts. It's about the salvation of your soul, that you would not lose your soul on Judgment Day, but be rescued, and all you need to do is call on the name of the Lord, "Lord Jesus," and you will be saved, you'll be forgiven.

But Paul says that the spiritual gifts as a whole, are all working together toward that end. You heard about that with the Liberty Street ministry and the Caring Center and other ministries, there are so many gifts operating but we get the chance to interact with lost people and share the gospel with them as Robert said, the desire is that they would come to faith, that the children and their parents would come to faith. Others of them have already come to faith, they've been Christians for a while, but we want to help them in their salvation and their walk with Christ, they're part of churches and they're growing, but we want to contribute and help them walk with Christ. So spiritual gifts are given for that purpose. The final perfection of the body of Christ in Heaven, and we all get to play a role, isn't that exciting?

And so what I want to do now for the rest of the sermon is so unwieldy and so impossible, but what I want to do is walk through 18 spiritual gifts and describe them briefly. Now, some of you are mathematically mind, you're like... You're looking at your watch, you're doing some math, you're like, "We going to be here a while."

Even more challenging is, I want to talk about some of the gifts in two weeks. Next week, God willing, I'm going to preach a sermon connected to Lottie Moon and to missions, unreached people group missions. So I'll be doing that next week, God willing, but two weeks we're going to return to spiritual gifts, and I'm going to talk about gifts that have been controversial in our day and age, gifts that through the charismatic movement, the Pentecostal movement, people have questions about. And you probably had some questions as you were hearing the Scripture read. Maybe you didn't. Which would make me wonder about you, but you're looking at that. It's like... What was that one? What about... I don't know about that, what about that? And so what I want to do is walk through it. Now, I know it's going to be long, but I hope it'll be helpful, my desire is to be very practical to describe how each of these gifts might function in our body or in your life. So it's basically the rest of the sermon is just application, explanation of the gift practically as best I can. And then an application.

And so, we're going to begin at verse 28, because Paul interestingly sequences three of the gifts. I don't really know why, but look what he says in Verse 28, "And in the church, God has appointed first of all, apostles, second prophets, third teachers," and then he stops the numbering and then there's just a list. "Then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, those speak in different kinds of tongues." So I'm going to start with apostles, or the gift of an apostle. But before I do, I want to say the list of 18 spiritual gifts is not meant to peg you and so you say, "That's it." I think it's good to have the general heading so you can have a sense of what you might be, but I believe in an array and a complexity and a combination of gifts, like Meredith said, that gift package that she perceived in her own life there at the Caring Center.

And so there's not just one thing but a combination of these things and I don't believe that the 18 is even an exhaustive list. There are some that we could conceive of that aren't listed in Ephesians, in 1 Peter, in Romans and here in 1 Corinthians, that could be spiritual gifts as well. God isn't boxing Himself in. So we're going to look at now. In two weeks, I'm going to talk about the gift of, the issue of cessationism, of sign gifts, of tongues, prophecies, miracles, all of that in two weeks. So pray for me to figure that out between now and then. I have my own thoughts. You probably have your own thoughts. But we're going to defer all of that till next week. I am not going to do much. I'll do a little bit of whether I think this gift is operating today or not, but we're going to just defer all of that, I'm just going to describe it as it was operating in Paul's day.

Okay, so let's begin with the gift of apostles or the apostles, the church, God has appointed first of all, apostles, so the apostles were men called and chosen by Christ, who were, according to Ephesians 2, in some amazing way, humanly speaking, the foundation of the church, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. The word literally means sent one, apostello in the Greek means 'sent out'. So you could imagine someone who is sent out as an official messenger of a king or an empire, somewhat like an ambassador of one nation to another. So like the ambassador of the United States to Saudi Arabia, or to France or something like that, an ambassador.

Now, Jesus Christ chose 12 men and designated them apostles in His life. The Synoptic Gospels talk about that. Mark chapter 3 pictures Jesus and tells us that He spent all night in prayer, and then comes down and chooses the 12 and designates them as apostles. Now, the apostles were eyewitnesses of Jesus' physical ministry on earth, they were with Him. They spent time with Him, they ate with Him. They listened to Him teach, they saw His facial expression as He interacted with people. They were there and they were trained especially by Him. And this is especially important, the idea of eyewitnesses to Christ because after Christ had died on the cross, was raised from the dead, spent 40 days with His disciples, and was brought up to heaven, the church assembled in Acts Chapter 1, Judas had hanged himself after betraying Christ leaving his office open, and so the church wanted to fill his empty office and described the criteria for filling it. And they were praying that God would raise up someone who had been with Jesus from the time that John the Baptist began his ministry until the time that Jesus was taken up from them. For they said, "One of these must be a witness with us, of His resurrection."

So therefore, I think the idea with the apostle is one, a strong sense of eyewitness to Christ. And so John in writing 1 John chapter 1, verse 1 says this, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes," that's eyewitness, "which we have looked at and our hands have touched, this we proclaim concerning the word of life." So you can see how that apostolic eyewitness to Jesus and that testimony was essential to the beginning of the church, the foundation of the church, so the church there cast lots, and replaced Judas with Matthias. And so that issue of being eyewitness. Now some Christians today believe this office continues. So whenever you... They just zero in on the word sent one. So, anyone sent out to do a ministry like a missionary, let's say, or a church planter. In other Christian traditions, they'll have an apostolic church, that kind of thing. Others believe that gifts stopped with the death of the Apostle John on the island of Patmos, he apparently by tradition, the final eyewitness of Jesus, and there's been no apostle since then. I would... That's where I lean. There are no apostles today, not in that sense.

Alright. Secondly, prophets. And the gift of prophecy, so he mentions prophets at the end and then says, he speaks of the gift of prophecy in verse 10. Alright, so this is the ability to speak a word directly from God, so that you can say Thus says the Lord and what comes next is the word of the Lord, an immediate direct revelation. Now this gift must be distinguished I think from teaching and preaching and from just the unfolding of Scripture which I'll get to in just a moment, but it's an immediate revelation of a word from the Lord. Now, the most well-known or famous type of prophecy is prediction. The ability to predict the future, and I think that's vital. And in my analysis of the gift, I believe that this office also has ceased, but whether it has or not, I think it's right for the church to expect a validation of the gift by a prediction of the future that comes true. So we'll talk about that in two weeks. Meanwhile you can chew on that, and come back around the back of the church and say, "Well, I don't think so," but anyway, we'll have interesting debates. So the debate doesn't happen during the sermon, just so you know that, okay, it's other times.

Thirdly, teachers. So, next on the list are teachers. Now, in Ephesians in the list, we got apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. There, he combines the teaching gift with the pastoral gift, pastor teachers, or sometimes they think they're different, pastors and teachers, etcetera. So, I'll defer evangelists for just a moment, and just get to keep to Paul's list because he says, third teachers. So any man who would be an elder must be able to teach, but that does not mean that all teachers are elders. There are many teachers, both men and women that have the gift of teaching who are not elders. I do believe as we've said that women are not to teach other men, but they can teach other women and children, but they definitely have the gift of teaching. And there are many... Many who have the gift of teaching and use that gift will never be elders, they'll never be pastors.

So it's just the ability to take the written Word of God and through sound exegesis, principles of exegesis, rightly divide the word of truth, 2 Timothy 2:15, get accurate theologically accurate truth from the written word of God, explain them clearly to people so that they understand them and apply them to their lives so that they obey them. That's the gift of teaching.

Fourth, evangelists. Now the numbering from now on is just mine. Alright Paul, gives one, two, three, and then no more numbering. So this is just a numbering that I have and there's nothing to it, it's just so I can not lose my way in my sermon. But the fourth is evangelists. Now some question whether Apostle, prophet, evangelist is a gift or an office or a role, I understand all that, but just the gift of evangelism would be behind being an evangelist. Now, I believe that every Christian is called on to be a witness to Christ. We are all of us to share the Gospel with people in our lives.

So there are certain responsibilities in the Christian life that are common to all Christians, such as giving but that doesn't mean you have the gift of giving. Evangelism doesn't mean you have the gift of evangelism, etcetera. The primary way we know this is the gift of faith, which I'll talk about in a few minutes, but the gift of faith is clearly an identifiable thing. But all Christians have faith or they're not Christians, we're justified by faith. And so there is a unique zeroing in on a responsibility with the gift of evangelism, and cause it to flourish.

So I would say the gift of evangelism, is the... Is the ability to explain the gospel clearly to lost people to have a heart for that, a passion for that. It never leaves your mind. Everywhere you go, you think about it, always thinking about the lost. Along with that is the ability to perhaps train other Christians who don't necessarily have the gift of evangelism, and how they can be evangelistically active in their workplaces or with their families. These gift of evangelists write tracks and training methods and books and all that, and mobilize the church toward evangelism. They have a fiery desire to see lost people saved, they never stop thinking about it. A subset of this, I think, is the gift of being a missionary in which you have that same zeal, but you add to it a flourishing in a cross-cultural setting. Where you are in another culture than your own, you've learned another language and you are zealous for winning the lost in another culture. So that's how I differentiate between evangelism and missions, but it's essentially the same gift with an additional aspect added to it, the cross-cultural aspect.

Now there have been some incredible evangelists throughout church history. I love... If I could have any gift other than the one I have, it'd be this one. Because I yearn to see lost people saved. That's not my gift. It is my responsibility to share the gospel, but I think about George Whitfield who had such an incredible preaching gift in terms of evangelism, he was always after the new birth, seeking to win lost people. And it wasn't just preaching to thousands, which he did with almost, I would say greater power than any one I know in church history. But he also had a zeal for personal evangelism. It was he that said this... And it's something that has stuck with me since the first time I read it, "God forbid that I should travel one quarter of an hour with anyone without sharing the gospel of Christ." Wow.

So wear that on you for the rest of your life. "God forbid that I should travel a quarter of an hour." So, that has led me to all kinds of airplane evangelism, which is my favorite kind because they have nowhere to go. I mean, just the captive audience, I love that. Talk to them about Christ. Philip was called an evangelist. Zealous for the winning of the lost, it was he that chased down the Ethiopian eunuch in the desert and shared Christ with him and brought him to faith in Christ. I think about DL Moody who was a great preacher, revivalist evangelistic preacher in the 19th century, but also that commitment to personal evangelism, he made a vow that he would never go to bed on any given day without having shared the gospel with somebody.

And you can imagine how busy he was, and there'd be days in which he did not have a chance, setting up, let's say a crusade or some other thing, and he would just about to go to bed, and the Holy Spirit would remind them and he'd get up there in the city and go out and find somebody out in the street, share the Gospel with him. DL Moody. Or think about Billy Graham. I think one of the most incredible evangelistic preachers in church history, I would urge you to Google a picture. Billy Graham in Times Square, September 1, 1957, he preached to thousands and thousands, set up a platform on 42nd Street and Broadway, and you'll never see that again I think in church history. New York City, Times Square thousands and thousands, uncounted thousands listening to Billy Graham preach the gospel. And so that's a gift of evangelism.

Fifth, let's go back down to verse 8. The message or the utterance or the word of wisdom. Now, let me just stop and say, with this and the next one word of knowledge, I don't know for sure what these are. You don't have any other corroborating New Testament scriptures that show it in action. It's just right here. So all you've got are the words, what could it be, word of wisdom, word of knowledge, and you're trying to figure out what it is. So it could be, in some way, the ability to speak the message of wisdom, to speak God's supernatural wisdom into a situation. Now when I think about biblical wisdom, I think of the Book of Proverbs, and I think about rubber meets the road. How you spend your money, how you spend your time, what you do with your mouth, how you are in your family. So that's the Book of wisdom, wisdom literature, how you think about suffering in life.

So I wonder if this might be related to the gift of counseling or the role of counseling where you're able to listen to how people are going through things in their life and just speak God's wisdom, and the ultimate wisdom is Christ and Him crucified, to take that gospel, make it central to your counseling, and just help people who are suffering. Think about suffering. In James chapter 1, it says, "Count it pure joy whenever you go through trials of any kind," but then it says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God." Putting the two together, sometimes you're in the middle of suffering and you need some wisdom. And the question that sufferers always ask is, "Why is this happening to me?" And it could be that a gifted person can come along as a counselor, having been through some suffering just like you, and able to bring some eternal perspective in the suffering. But again, I don't know for certain what Paul meant by word of wisdom.

Then there's word or message of knowledge. Verse 8. Some people think that this may be a supernatural insight into a situation or into a person. Like remember how Jesus in John chapter 4 is talking to the Samaritan woman, and He knew things about her that He had no way of knowing. He knew that she'd been married five times, she'd had five husbands, and the man she's now with is not her husband. Well, that moved the needle. So, some people think that's what word of knowledge is. In charismatic circles and Pentecostal circles, some people think this goes into a ministry where you are able to discern what a person should do in their lives. Which has been troubling for many. It's a little creepy but it might be true. I don't know, like I said, I don't know for certain what this gift is, but I have a book, it's on my desk, right now, I pulled it out and I looked at it. It's one of my favorite book titles, "God told me to tell you."

That's the book title. And it's about the word of knowledge ministry in some charismatic churches, and it has the creepiest looking guy. And he's got this look on his face and it's, "God told me to tell you who you're supposed to marry." Wow, etcetera. However, I wonder sometimes… There was a woman named Kim years ago, in a church that I was part of, and there was a mission trip and she... And you've heard this, many of you've heard this story before, but she confronted me with my care-free attitude about whether I should go on that mission trip or not. She didn't tell me God told me to tell you, but kind of like God told me to tell you to pray about it. And she never used that word, but I wonder if that's how this gift might function.

Alright, seventh, the gift of faith, Verse 9. As I mentioned a moment ago, all Christians have faith. If you don't have faith, you're not a Christian. So, we're justified by faith. So that's true, but this is a gift of faith. So what does that mean? So again, we don't know for certain what Paul meant by the gift of faith, but we just try to see scripturally how does faith function in the Christian life beyond just saving faith? I believe, as I've mentioned before, faith is the eyesight of the soul, by which we can see invisible spiritual realities, past, present, and future. I also think about Jesus' statement about faith, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, Move from here to there, and it'll move. And that may be close to what Paul's thinking about because in 1 Corinthians 13, the next chapter, he said, "If I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love," etcetera. Remember.

You could think about mountain-moving faith. I think that would apply to a local church ministry or a mission agency. When you see overwhelming obstacles, and it doesn't daunt you at all, God can do it. So this could be related to visionary leadership where you can see through something that no one is doing, some ministry that no one is doing like Hudson Taylor. The ability to see the inland regions not being reached with the gospel and thought about a faith-based mission, to step out in faith. And his spiritual secret was God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply. So, he didn't have money for dozens of missionaries that would go out to the Inland regions of China, but that began the era of faith-based missions. And George Müller did the same thing at the exact same time, 19th century, trusting God to meet the needs of, in the end, over 10,000 orphans.

And he just exemplified I think the gift of faith, though he denied having the gift. But the ability to see the need, to look at the word of God and trust God's word, his life verse for caring for the orphans was Psalm 81:10, where it said, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, open wide your mouth and I will fill it." He took that promise or that statement, that promise, and applied it to the orphans he was caring for, prayed food into their mouths, into their bellies. And just again and again raised money by faith, so that faith-based mission. So the ability to see a ministry that no one's doing, to see beyond the obstacles, to have that mountain-moving faith and to see what God can do. I think about Caleb's attitude where Caleb's like... With Joshua and Caleb, remember? And they're looking at all the obstacles, they're looking at the walls up to the sky and Caleb is like, "We can do this." And so that ability to just trust God to overcome obstacles.

Alright, number eight: Gifts of healing. Now, this is going to be very significant in my analysis about cessationism in two weeks. I believe the gift of healing, as listed here is the ability to miraculously heal people, to pray for them, lay hands on them and they are miraculously healed. I do not think this applies to the scientific procedure of medicine such as going to medical school, learning surgical techniques, learning nursing techniques, learning pharmacology things like that. That's not the gift. The gift here is what we saw working in the Book of Acts, where Peter and John healed that lame beggar. Where they asked in Acts 4, Stretch out your hand, to heal, miraculous healings, where you have lots of miracles being done by the apostles. Where paralytics can walk, this gift... Now what I believe, and I'll say this in two weeks, but what I believe is that miraculous healings happen probably every day, as godly people gather around sick people, and ask God to heal this or that person and God frequently does. And does it in such an amazing way that medical science really has no answer.

So, I believe miracles like that happen, but that's different than the gift of healing. Do you not see? That gift travels with the person, it goes from place to place with the person, everywhere that person goes, they lay hands on them and people get healed. And now there are a lot of people that claim that power, we'll analyze all that in two weeks. So come back in two weeks.

Alright. And I think the next one, number 9, miraculous powers, in verse 10 is just like that. So I don't have anything different to say about that. We'll talk about that. The ability to work miracles.

Alright, number 10: Distinguishing between spirits. This gift seems to be in my opinion, closely tied to the gift of prophecy. 1 John 4:1, John writes, "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." The testing of the spirits is tied directly to prophecy there. So as the gift of prophecy was functioning after a prophetic utterance in the congregation, it was vital for someone with the gift of distinguishing between spirits to identify whether the utterance that was just heard was demonic or by the Spirit of God. Now, in 2 Corinthians 11:4, Paul says that Satan has the ability to masquerade as an angel of light, so we shouldn't be surprised if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. So you need the ability to discern. And I think that's necessary today, the ability to discern.

Analogy I've used in the past, back in the days of the Caesars, there would be a slave that would be assigned to Caesar's household who was Caesar's food taste tester. Which is problematic for me in that I think every human life is equally precious, but here's this slave willing to die for Caesar. And so his job would be to eat some of the stew or some of the whatever. Because one of the favorite techniques within Caesar's household was poisoning. And so you're sampling to see if there's any poison in it. I think that's the way it is with testing the prophecies, testing the spirits, see if there's any poison in it. So that's that discerning spirit, that ability to discern false doctrine, and I think that's essential to even to today.

Alright, number 11, speaking in tongues. I actually just have nothing to say about that one. So let's just move on. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Actually there's an entire chapter on this coming. Chapter 14 tongues and prophecy. And so we'll have a lot to say. Let me just define it in my understanding, the word tongue as we tend to use it, it's archaic. In the KJV, it means languages. It's important that we understand we're talking about a definable language with a vocabulary and a grammatical structure, we're not talking about gibberish or repeating endlessly of phrases, we're talking about a definable, recognizable language that could be understood. Alright. But is spoken fluently by the person with the gift of tongues who has never studied that gift. Again, like it's miraculous healing. So when we were missionaries in Japan, I proved I did not have the gift of tongues. Alright, in that regard. I had to study Japanese. Many others have been on the mission field and have had to study the receptor language as well. Alright, so that's not we're talking about. We're talking about the instantaneous ability to speak a language you haven't studied.

Interpretation of tongues would be the mirror image gift, the ability to hear another language and understand it clearly, and then perhaps even translate it into the language of the people that are assembled there for worship. That's the interpretation of tongues. They go together. We have much to say about this and we'll get to it later.

Now, verse 28 gives us this gift of helps. Romans 12:7 speaks of serving, "If anyone serves..." This may be one of the most important gifts that I want you to focus on in our time today. This is a general gift. The word literally means to take a burden, to lay hold of something for someone, so you can picture taking a burden off someone. So somebody's... They've got too much luggage going through and they're trying to get to their car and somebody comes along and say, "Here, let me help you with that." And so you take some of the luggage and whatever, and you lighten that person's burden.

So this is a very generalistic gift of wanting to help, wanting to help. Doesn't require special training, it just requires a heart of service, a serving heart. Why do I think this is important? Well, as I was studying for one of these body sermons or the spiritual gift sermons a couple of weeks ago, I was amazed to find out facts about the human body. I was amazed that there are 200 different kinds of cells in the human body. I thought there would be more than that. But 37 trillion, over 37 trillion cells in the average human body. Who would count them? Whose job would that be? But as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, 80% of them are red blood cells. Isn't that incredible? 80% of the cells in your body are red blood cells.

Now, I can't make a similar statement about the gift of helps, but I wonder, if an overwhelming majority of the spiritual gift ministry is just the simple gift of helps. So what does it look like? Well, anything that you could do to help the church fulfill its mission. Anything you could do to help an outreach succeed. Anything that you could do with your physical body, with your being there. And you think about what Robert was talking about Liberty Street, I'm sure they could use people with the gift of helps. Don't need to be a specialist. So setting up and decorating a room for a reception. Helping a fellow church member pack and move. Some of you are like, "Amen, if you want to know, we are moving this week, come and talk to me." I could say names. Cooking meals for shut-ins, or families that have just had babies, or just being the computer whiz to set up the Meal Baby app so that people can do that more easily. Cleaning up fellowship hall after a men's breakfast or setting up the fellowship hall before the breakfast or doing both. Cleaning out the church van after the youth retreat. The things you learn...

Ordering or printing off evangelistic tracks for an Outreach that's happening on Saturday. Making coffee for the whole church, week after week, and you folks are some of the coffee drinkingest people, I've ever known. It's amazing. Putting together care packages for missionaries or doing Operation Christmas Child, setting all that up, running the sound system so that people can hear the musicians or hear the sermon being preached. You think about those with the gift of mercy frequently lead out in caring for disaster stricken communities, where there's been an earthquake, right? Hurricane. Think about Baptist men that go out, many of them just have the gift of helps. What can I do? Well, you can do this, you can do that, you can do that, you can drive a truck to the dump and get rid of stuff that we're clearing the site. That's just the gift of help. So, in churches around the world, so many unheralded servants do thankless tasks that never get noted. Mowing the lawn, cleaning toilets, painting, just different things that churches do. They can't afford to pay for that, they just come together for a work day.

Now, Jesus said, The greatest among us are those that serve. And so I wonder if you are like, "I have no idea what my gift is," what I would say is just find some ways to just start serving and do it a lot. And it could be that you might live the rest of your life that way. And now I say to you, you don't need to wonder what your gift is. God is using you to build the church.

Alright, 13th government leadership, administration. Verse 28, also Romans 12:8. This is the ability to lead. The word is... The Greek word is connected to piloting a ship, so like a helmsman, you put your hand on the steering wheel and you're able to steer it. So this is a gift of leadership. And there are different forms of this as well. You could have visionary leaders that see a whole new direction of ministry to go in. Alright, those are visionary and they're able to... To mobilize people to go in that direction. Then you've got those with the gift of administration that figure out the time-energy-money aspects of that visionary direction. Thank God for those with the gift of administration. They are detail oriented people that figure out what needs to be done to make it all happen.

So those are different types of the gift of leadership and there are many biblical examples. I think about Nehemiah who goes around Jerusalem with the walls, pile of rubble, he's riding on his mount. I think maybe a donkey or something like that, around the walls at night, and then gathers everyone together, all the remnant together, and says, "This is what we're going to do. We're going to build a wall." And he's just got that powerful leadership persona where they say We can do this, and then he assigns to each one's different sections of the wall, and it gets done. It's incredible. Visionary leadership. Or you think about Jethro, Moses' father in law. Remember how Moses was sitting there from early morning to late at night, hearing court cases? Two million people, any chance they didn't get along with one another? And there he is sitting on a seat judging cases, and Jethro comes along and said, "What are you doing?" "Well, the people need me," it's like, "Can I give you some advice and may God be with you? Why don't you organize some gifted men who can take the easier cases and assign them groups of 50, groups of 10, groups of 100 by their abilities?" And he set up this whole structure to take the burden off Moses and off the people so that things ran smoothly. So that's the gift of administration.

14th, the gift of encouragement. This is in Romans 12:8, it's related to the Greek word parakaleo, paraklete, the Holy Spirit, one called alongside to help. So, gift of encouragement is just the ability to come alongside somebody and speak words of hope to that person. Or words of exhortation. I make a strong distinction between exhortation and encouragement. I generally think of encouragement as, "You're doing this good thing, keep doing it, you guys are doing great. God is using you, keep doing it." Exhortation is, "This is what you should be doing. Now, let's get going." Both of those, I think, are part of the gift. So people with the gift of encouragement, write letters to missionaries or emails or get on Skype and they just perk people up because you just love being around them. Think about Barnabas. That was a nickname, his actual name was Joseph, he was a Levite from Cyprus. But he was called son of encouragement. Because every time you're around him, you get encouraged.

By the way, the gift of discouragement is not a gift. Alright, just so you know, I just want to say that. Every time I'm around that person, I feel depressed. That is not a spiritual gift. So this is the opposite. Every time around them, I feel less depressed, I feel more hope-filled, more encouraged. This can happen in the halls. You can make phone calls to encourage people, you can write notes, just coming alongside and everyone feels strengthened when that person's there. Barnabas was like that. Don't you want to be a Barnabas? But that's the gift of encouragement.

Now the gift of giving. It's like we were waiting for this one, Pastor. Alright. Every Christian has a responsibility to give. This is in Romans 12:8. The Greek word there, however, has a prefix that could be literally translated super givers. So everyone should give, but there are some super givers and this is their spiritual gift. And it doesn't necessarily have to do with how much money they give. It has to do with their demeanor, the wiring of their lives, the way they think about their business, the way they arrange... Everything they do is so that they can give more. And I mean money. I'm not zeroing in on time and energy. I mean, they give money and money is useful. I think about RG LeTourneau, who I've talked about before, who is a businessman, who started a massive earth moving company. We're talking about those huge, huge trucks. The kind where I saw this, I was going into Charleston, South Carolina, and I saw a truck dedicated to moving a single tire. I've never seen such a big tire in all my life. It was this 18-wheeler moving a single tire. I was like, "What is on the other side of that mission?"

A truck, the size of... RG LeTourneau invented a lot of those and built them, he was instrumental in what happened after D-day in World War II, the machines that came in and built harbors. Earth moving. He was one of the most remarkable givers in church history. He wanted to be a pastor, he was interested in pastoral ministry, but somebody said, You don't have to be a pastor, you can use your business, your business knowledge to serve the Lord. And so he did, and he actually kind of pioneered talking about the reverse tithe. If you're wealthy enough that you can do this, you live on 10% of what you make, give 90% away. And so he used this analogy from his own earth moving company, he said, you know, "As soon as the money comes in from the Lord, I shovel it out, but God has a bigger shovel." Isn't that great? He just keeps shoveling money my way and he just used it to build up his own local church Christian Ministries, missionary societies. Just giving the gift of giving.

Now the gift of mercy 17th, the gift of mercy. Again, Romans 12:8. And Robert mentioned this, I think, or Meredith both of them, I think are involved in Mercy ministry. And what that has to do with is the ability to see human suffering and seek to alleviate it. Mercy has to do with suffering. And so this is again, Baptist men do a lot of alleviation of suffering, but we can do it right here in our community and it's the ability to say, "I want... I'm going toward people who are suffering and I want to alleviate that suffering." You can see how ministry of the poor and needy, the Durham Rescue Mission, other types of street ministries that are tied toward homeless people, anything connected with poverty. Anything connected with alleviating human suffering is a Mercy ministry, it's a tremendous platform for the Gospel. People frequently are stripped of pride, they're stripped of illusions about life, and they're ready to hear the Gospel, and so we see medical missionaries that have the gift of mercy, people who use their gifts to alleviate suffering.

And then 17th, the gift of hospitality. This is 1 Peter 4:9 and 10. It says, "Offer hospitality to one another." I love this, "without grumbling." Isn't that great? Here's a guess. I think if you're continually grumbling, you probably don't have the gift of hospitality, just a thought. But all of us are called then to be hospitable. But we were talking about this in our home fellowship a few weeks ago. I think it was Chris McCulloh that said, "You know, when you go to someone's house, and you're offered hospitality, you're going to spend the night, you expect clean linen okay, but somebody with the gift of hospitality there's a mint on the pillow." Does that make sense? It's just, there's a sense in which the people have gone above and beyond what it takes to host you. And you almost feel like you, the guest, are doing them a favor to come and be in their home. I can't tell you what an incredible blessing it is for you to be eating my food.

But it's that gift of hospitality. Our Home Fellowship Ministry is based on this ministry. And so I know Andy Wynn, as he puts this thing together, year after year, we count on people who have this gift, who are willing to open their homes and have a bunch of people come in and share. So those are the 18 that I wanted to go through. I don't know if you were to come up and say to me, "Pastor what's my gift?" I couldn't answer. The Holy Spirit knows, the Holy Spirit's the one that's equipped you. So, discover what your gifts are, develop them and deploy them for the Glory of God. Let's close in prayer.

Please open your bibles to Ephesians Chapter 4, we're going to be looking this morning. I've not turned away from 1 Corinthians 12, not at all. You could think of this as a sermon within a sermon series, but we're in the middle of a section of 1 Corinthians 12, in which the Apostle Paul has turned the attention of the Corinthians that he's writing to spiritual gifts, and He wants them to understand the spiritual gift ministries that they should all be involved in.

One of the most powerful analogies that Paul uses for The church is that of the body of Christ, and so he uses that image, that picture of the body in 1 Corinthians 12:12, he says, "The body is a unit though it is made up of many parts, and though all its parts are many, they form one body so it is with Christ, you have that body analogy. Paul uses the same analogy in Romans 12:4-6, He says "Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, So in Christ we who are many form one body and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts according to the grace given us."

So in both of those places he uses the body image, the body analogy. There is a staggering complexity and diversity to the human body. We have some of the best doctors in the world as members of our church and they can tell you far more than I can about biology, about anatomy, But I think you know what I mean. When I say we have a multiple systems that work together to keep us alive, and enable us to do the things that God wants us to do. And that those systems are incredibly complex And they are diverse. And so, it's right that the psalm has said, I praise you Lord, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made, your works are wonderful. I know that full Well. I don't think we could ever if we had 10 lifetimes to be able to study everything concerning the human body and all that God did, all the wisdom that God put into the various systems of the body. You think about the skeletal system which is the structure on which all of it is built.

The strong structure and the marvelous aspects of that system or the muscular system, that enables the body to move, the nervous system, which dictates how that motion should happen, the brain, which is part of the nervous system sending out signals, causing the body to move. And the nerves being able to transmit those signals from the brain down to the muscles to cause them to expand or contract so that we can move in this world, the body's digestive system, which I hope you will not be thinking about over the next 45 minutes or half hour or something like that.

I'm sure you'll get enough nutrients to live today and to eat but the body takes in nutrients and the digestive system is able to process those. The respiratory system by which we take in air and then expel carbon dioxide. And then the circulatory system. I didn't realize this, but 80% of the cells of the body, are red blood cells. Did you know that? That's incredible. 80%, they're tiny. And if you put all of the red blood cells together it'll go around the earth four times, and yet You have a lot of blood and those blood cells deliver air to all of the other cells that need to keep it alive, deliver nutrients and also take waste products away. And so all of these systems are working together, a marvelous diversity and complexity and an incredible unity.

And as I look at that, as Paul uses that in two places as an analogy for the church of Jesus Christ, this idea of unity and diversity, the body is arranged by God, with wisdom, and different functions and so the Apostle says In Christ we who are many form one body and we have different functions, but all of them Work together to do what the Lord wants us to do Which is to fulfill the Great Commission. We are called on in this world to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that Christ has commanded. That is the work of the church. And so as the body comes together with Christ, the head, as the body comes together, we are working in different ways to fulfill that Great Commission, which is a salvation of lost people, they're building up to full maturity in Christ, that's what the body is for. So spiritual gifts have enabled the church to move out from the upper room, there in Jerusalem where Jesus had the Last Supper and where he came after his death on the cross.

And his resurrection from the dead, though the doors were locked for fear of the Jews, he came and stood in their midst, and showed them the evidence of his crucifixion, He showed them the wounds in his hands and his side, And he promised the gift of the Holy Spirit and He dispatched them, that they should go from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth and spiritual gifts, have enabled the gospel, the church, of Jesus Christ to move out from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth.

As the apostles of Jesus Christ led the way as they taught the doctrine of the New Covenant, As apostles and prophets gave the word of God to the people of God and his evangelists moved out and took that message of the Gospel and traveled geographically, over deserts and through forests. And across oceans to distant coast lands, and brought the Gospel and people heard the message and some of those people believed And local churches were planted. And pastor teachers established the doctrine of Christ there and taught the people and built them up and taught them to obey everything that Chris had commanded. And then within that community, people with different gifts rose up and enabled those local churches to do various ministries that God had called them to do in those localities. The spiritual gifts have enabled the Great Commission to continue.

we are trying to learn what spiritual gifts are. And that same as last week, also this, I want to take the concept of spiritual gift and root it on solid doctrine. That We would understand biblically What spiritual gifts are, God willing Next week, I'm going to talk very practically about how different types of gifts function, what they are, what the gift of administration would look like, what the gift of hospitality looks like, what the gift of faith would look like. Talk about those things. In subsequent messages, I'm going to address some of the more controversial aspects of the spiritual gifts. I know some of you are really excited about that. Tongues, interpretation, prophecy, miracles, all of those things. And when I get all that figured out, I'll preach it to you. Alright, in the mean time, I'm going to keep studying and I've got a little time, but we're going to study details. And our desire again is to call obedience out of the disciples of Christ.

That each one of you in obedience to this teaching on spiritual gifts, each one of you would be able to say, very clearly, not only what your gifts are, But what is your pattern of ministry that's tied to your spiritual gifts, That's our desire.

Just to review where we went last week before we get to Ephesians 4, 1 Corinthians 12:1, Paul says, "Now about spiritual gifts, brothers. I do not want you to be ignorant." So he calls them their spirituals. It's an interesting word, but that which comes from the spiritual realm, those things that are spiritual. So we're not looking for physical talents, all that kind of thing, that's a different matter. There's sometimes overlap with physical talents, but these are spiritual gifts, they come from the spiritual realm. They're ministered by the Holy Spirit.

He also uses the word charisma gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:4, also in Romans 12:6, same word, he uses the word ministries diakonon, which is services or patterns of service. The idea of us serving one another, Washing each other's feet, Helping each other to grow. Also in verse 6 of 1 Corinthians 12 he uses the word activities and energema, you get the word energy coming from that, so there's this powerful acting so different words are used to talk about spiritual gifts. Again, pointing to diversity.

Definition of Spiritual Gifts

Now, I gave a definition last week of spiritual gifts, spiritual gifts are special abilities given by the triune God to Christians, to individual Christians, to enable them to do specific spiritual ministries to build up the church of Jesus Christ. Let me say that again. Spiritual gifts are special abilities given by the triune God to individual Christians to enable them to do specific spiritual ministries to build up the church of Jesus Christ.

So boiling it all down to something simple, special abilities given for spiritual ministry. That's what we're talking about. Paul's desire and teaching is that they would not be ignorant about their spiritual gifts because they are essential to God's saving purpose for his people we spent some time last week, I am not going to spend hardly any time this time on the context in Corinth but it was a mess. We have seen from the very beginning of our study in 1 Corinthians how this is a dysfunctional church. They had every gift, they were lavishly gifted, everything they needed to do the ministries God wanted them to do there in Corinth were there, but there were so many problems. They were a dysfunctional church. A part of it came from their pagan background, and so he talks about that in 1 Corinthians 12: 2 and 3, by way of review, He says, you know that when you were pagans, somehow or other, you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the spirit of God says, Jesus be cursed or Jesus is a curse.

So from their pagan backgrounds, there was a sense of supernatural frenzy or mania that would come on priests and priestesses at certain cult centers, at Temple centers and all that. And the crazier these people would behave. The more they felt they were touched by the divine. Well, some of those same weird practices were coming now into the Christian Church and there was clearly, Paul didn't say, it but there he says it back in Chapter 10. There's a demonic influence there as even individuals or one individual maybe said Jesus is cursed and that's just a demonic utterance.

Instead, we need to understand the spiritual gifts are part of the overall ministry of the third person, of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit causing the church to come together on the deity of Jesus Christ. And that by the Holy Spirit of God, we say Jesus is Lord, that means he is God, he is our Lord. And so the Spirit works powerfully in us to make that confession. And I mentioned last week, every one of you who are genuinely born again, you are Christians, you have been moved by the Spirit to make that confession Jesus is Lord. And so we talked about that last time. Now, I said there are four main sections of teaching on spiritual gifts. We're in the middle of one in 1 Corinthians 12. We're going to return to it in our Continuing Studies. Last week, we took a break also and went over to Romans 12:1-8, and we walked through that, not going to go through that at all today.

But Romans 12:1-8 is almost a step-by-step sense of guidance on how you can discover and develop and use your spiritual gifts. But this morning, we're going to digress over to Ephesians 4, and look at verses 7-16, and then we're going to have a very brief time at the end in 1 Peter 4.

So let's look at Ephesians 4:7-16. Here again what you just heard, Brian our brother read to you, Ephesians 4:7-16. "But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says: "When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men."  (What does "he ascended" mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers,  to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up  until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."

1) Unity in Diversity

Alright, so let's just walk through some lessons and I've outlined them there in your bulletin, so we can just go step by step. It begins with the concept of unity and diversity. Unity and diversity. And so you get a sense with the reading that Brian did, We're starting right in the middle of a thought in Ephesians 4 With the word But. So that's an odd place to start, but I just want... I think it's rather striking, As Paul is going, the word but means I'm saying something contrasted to what I just said. I'm going in a different direction now.

And so what is the contrast? Well, if you were to look in Ephesians Chapter 4, in the verses that precede this, you would see that Paul talks about the unity, there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is over all and through all and in all, But to each one of us grace has been given, so we've got that incredible overwhelming teaching on unity. It is the great mystery of the Body of Christ, our unity in him. We're going to talk about this in a few weeks talking about the baptism of the Spirit. But I believe that it happens at conversion and in 1 Corinthians 12, it is by one spirit, we have been baptized into one body, and so that we come from very diverse backgrounds.

Once you hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ that he died on the cross For your sins and that He was raised from the dead. And that all you need to do is trust in Him, And you cry out to Him to save you, you call on the name of the Lord Jesus to be saved, you will receive immediately the gift, the greatest gift of forgiveness of sins, justification through faith alone, apart from works and at that moment, you are baptized by the Spirit into that one body. It doesn't matter Our diverse backgrounds. We come from different racial backgrounds, economic backgrounds, academic backgrounds, all different kinds of things that make us different.

But in Christ, we're one. And our unity is exactly like that of the Trinity. Different persons, different centers of being, but a mysterious perfect unity. But Unity doesn't mean uniformity. We have different functions to play in the body of Christ, And so that we are all one, and we're part of one body. There is a beautiful diversity in the spiritual gifts. So that's what the word but means.

2) Universality in Gifting

Secondly, there is a universality of gifting. Each and every Christian is given a spiritual gift package. Every one of us is gifted. And so this cuts off any sense that you might be able to say I don't have a spiritual gift, I don't have a ministry That God's calling me to. That's not true. We have different roles to play. Now, in the Corinthian setting, there was a tendency to idolize certain leaders up front, teachers, especially. "I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Cephas…" So you've got these upfront leader types that There could be like a cult of personality around them and that could lead individuals, not them, I would hope, but others like them with teaching gifts, preaching gifts, of prophetic gifts, to be arrogant And to think I don't need you. And we'll talk about that later in 1 Corinthians 12. The hand can't say to the... The eye can't say to the ear, I don't need you, but it could also on the other side, say if I don't have that gift, I don't have anything to offer.

If I'm not an up-front Well-known leader in the church, I don't really have anything significant to give. That just isn't true. Every one of us, it says, "But to each one of us grace has been given, and so we all have a spiritual gift ministry," And so, we should not think as Romans 12 says, too highly of ourselves, but we shouldn't think too lowly of ourselves either, that I have nothing to offer. To each one of us. Grace has been given.

3) Spiritual Gifts Are Called “Grace from God”

Thirdly, spiritual gifts are called grace from God. It says, in Verse 7 there, Ephesians 4:7, but to each one of us, grace has been given, and I mentioned this last week, and I think I can't get enough to think about all the lavish gifts of grace that God has given to each one of us, and some are greater than others. The greatest gifts are the gifts of salvation. As I just mentioned, the gift of forgiveness of sins, of adoption, as sons and daughters, Of the living God, the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the gift of heaven, the fact that when we die, we're going to go to heaven when we die, and spend eternity in a place without death or mourning, or crying, or pain. These are gifts given to all Christians equally, but there are lavish gifts that he gives beyond those things. And Paul calls it grace, but to each one of us, grace has been given, and so we have a gift from God, it is a gift to be able to serve Christ with our spiritual gifts and it's a gift to us, so that we don't waste our lives in frivolous pursuits. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 9-10, he says, "I am the least of the apostles, and I do not even deserve to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God, but by the grace of God, I am what I am, And his grace to me was not without effect, No, I work harder than all of them, yet, not I, but the grace of God that was with me."

So Paul understands his role as apostle to the gentiles was a gift of God's grace to him. But I would say the exact same thing, no matter how well-known or how upfront or how famous or how obscure You may be in your service to Christ, any role you play Through the Holy Spirit is Grace to you, God has given you grace to enable you to serve Him. And to store up treasure in Heaven, and to build up the body of Christ. So it's every spiritual gift is called grace from God.

4) Spiritual Gifts Are Measured Out by Christ

Forth, spiritual gifts are measured out by Christ. Look, again, in Ephesians 4:7, "But to each one of us grace has been given, as Christ apportioned it or as it says in the Greek according to the measure of Christ." The metron of Christ, there's a metric, there's a measuring going out here of your spiritual gifts. So this is really quite a remarkable aspect of the spiritual gift ministry, we believe in expanding it beyond Christ to the Father and the Spirit, the Father and the Son and the Spirit have considered you individually. The father and the son and the spirit have pondered you, if you could use that kind of human speaking, they have considered you The Father, the Son, and the Spirit, God has considered you and has measured out to you a spiritual gift package.

And that's quite remarkable when you think about that. I love what the Psalmist says in Psalm 139, "How precious concerning me are your thoughts, would be one way to translate it. Let's stick with that, how precious concerning me are your thoughts O God, how vast the sum of them. Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand" in the sea shore. So God has many thoughts about you. And part of that is your spiritual gift package, he has arranged and arrayed out and measured out your gifts. And so what that means is we have different definable gifts under certain headings like preaching and teaching, evangelism, giving, administration, different things, leadership, faith, mercy, different gifts.

But in that group of Christians, people have varying levels of those gifts. I could never equate my preaching gifts to that of some of the great preachers of history that I've studied, the zeal and the evangelistic power of a George Whitfield, Lavish gift of grace to Him and to all who heard him. Charles Spurgeon had a gift of eloquence and fiery logic that has been unequal I think, in the history of the pulpit. But beyond preaching and teaching, there are other gifts. You think about people with gifts of courageous mercy like Corrie Ten Boom and her family, the willingness to take in the Jews and protect them from the Nazis and their gift of mercy, greater than perhaps any of us who might have a similar gift.

And so the Lord gives out gifts at different levels. And then apportions a scope of ministry based on the gifting. And it's so very wise what God has done. But what this does is it cuts off any arrogance or pride or any sense of humiliation saying I don't have that level of gift therefore I shouldn't give it etcetera. There are some very faithful preachers of the word who many of us have never heard of all over the world, Who are doing the ministry in the scope that God intended for them to do. And are being faithful to do that ministry, week after week. So Also other brothers and sisters are ministering to the poor and needy, They're serving in ways that we will not hear until Judgment Day and beyond. And so God measures those things out according to his wisdom.

5) Spiritual Gifts Are Blood-Bought, Part of the Atoning Work of Christ

Fifthly, spiritual gifts Are blood bought, they're part of the atoning work of Christ, every gift that we received, every good and perfect gift that James talks about, comes down from the Father but also, I would add, is blood bought. Every single gift that you have was paid for by the atoning work of Christ. So you see that movement of Christ leaving heaven, coming down to earth in the incarnation, Living his sinless life, doing miracles, teaching amazing teachings, but especially dying as a substitute on the cross, shedding his blood for sinners like you and me, being buried, on the third day, raised to life, and then ascending Through the heavenly realms, going up to the throne of God, seated at the right hand of Almighty God, He receives from the Father the promised holy spirit and pours out the gifts of the spirit on the day of Pentecost and beyond.

So all of that is tied to the atoning work of Christ, it comes to us through Jesus. So look at it in verses 8 through 10. This is why it says when he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men. What does "He ascended" mean? Except he also descended to the lower Earthly regions. He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe. That's a very interesting quote of scripture, I'm not going to go into details here. But Paul is quoting a Psalm, and then reverses it. In the Psalm, In the Old Testament, it says He received gift from man, but Paul says he also gave gifts, too. And so the idea here is of a triumphal procession of a conquering General, who has conquered a hostile region and has won all this plunder and as he goes through the streets of the capital city, he's throwing out plunder to all of the citizens.

And so Jesus says, He ascends and he goes up and receives from the Father, the Holy Spirit, He pours out these gifts of God's grace. So all of our spiritual gifts are blood bought and part of the atonement.

6) The Word of God Primes the Pump for All Ministry:

Sixth, the Word of God primes the pump for every spiritual gift ministry. The word of God primes the pump for every spiritual gift ministry. What do I mean by primes The pump? Well, have any of you ever used a siphon? Maybe you don't know what a siphon is, but it's a hose and you use it to move a liquid from one container to one that's lower. And you can do this by sucking on the hose and causing the hose then to fill with water, and then putting it at a lower place, it'll just flow. As long as that's unbroken it will just flow it'll empty a tank. It's really quite a remarkable thing. Parenthetically, don't do it with gasoline, alright? Don't ever do that. People have tried this, gasoline is poison, don't do that, but as you're sucking on that, it causes this hose to fill up with the liquid and then it just causes this whole thing to flow. And so it is with the ministry of the Word, the ministry of the word starts everything.

Everything in the Christian life begins with the ministry of the Word. So look at verses 11 and 12. It was He, Christ, who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers to prepare God's people for works of service. So you see the link there, between verse 11 and verse 12, these five gifted individuals prepare God's people for the works of service that are tied to spiritual gifts. But if you look at the list of those five gifted individuals: Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastor teachers, sometimes they combine it, Pastor teacher, or pastors and teachers, they all have one thing that unifies them and that is the ministry of the Word of God. Apostles and prophets received the word originally from God, and gave us the scripture, the inerrant Word of God, was ministered to us by the apostles and by the prophets, and is now written down for us to read.

Evangelists, as I said, took the message geographically around the world, from Jerusalem through Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. Pastor teachers then settle in as second generation church workers and take the New Covenant doctrines and establish them in the life of those local churches. And as that word of God is ministered, then the Saints, the servants of the church are prepared to do their works of service. That's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:1, "Now about spirituals, about spiritual gifts, brothers. I do not want you to be ignorant." If they don't understand the doctrine of spiritual gifts, they will be ignorant, they will not be able to do their ministry, and so it starts everything. The ministry of the Word of God primes the pump for all of the other ministries in the church.

7) Spiritual Gifts result in Works of Service

Alright, Seventh. I'm losing track of my numbers here, I'm so sorry. Seven. Spiritual gifts result in works of service. It says to prepare God's people for works of service, So all of the things that we do in spiritual gift ministry, you're putting yourself at the service of another brother or sister in Christ. You're serving them. A number of people have asked me before. Do you ever get nervous preaching? I get nervous every week. It is not a normal thing for me to stand in front of 500 people and talk. Alright, it's the kind of thing that I was like, "Why do I do this week after week, and have this kind of feeling in the pit of my stomach and all this sort of stuff? But there's one thing that always the Holy Spirit reminds me of, it's When Jesus was restoring Peter after he denied him three times, he said to him, effectively three times, Feed my sheep. Feed them. You're not the issue, Andy, your feelings don't matter. What matters is they need food. Our faith needs food every week, every day, so that we will continue to believe in Jesus.

And so the Food of faith is The word of God. So my call is to serve you so that you can continue in your salvation, as Paul says in 1 Timothy 4, So that I can save both myself and my hearers by the ministry of the Word, and so that's... But the same thing goes to the ministries that we heard about, kids ministry, that Josh was talking about. And Kristen, do week after week, and I see ministry, all of that is service. We're serving people. We're washing feet.

We're ministering to needs, hospitality. This evening, we're going to have home fellowship ministry, and there's going to be a flow of spiritual gifts. It's amazing. All over this region, members of FBC are going to use their gift of hospitality, others will use their gift of teaching, others will use their gift of prayer and other things, and we're going to be serving one another. Do you see it right there in the text, Verse 12, for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.

8) The Ultimate Goal of spiritual gifts is the Full Maturity of the Body of Christ

Eighth. The ultimate goal of all spiritual gift ministry is the full maturity of the body of Christ. Look what it says. Verse 12: "To prepare God's people for works of service, the body of Christ may be built up, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, and become mature, attaining to the whole measure, the fullness of Christ, then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching, and by the cunning and craftiness of men and their deceitful scheming. Instead speaking the truth in love, We will, in all things, grow up into Him who is the head that is Christ."

So, the goal of our salvation is conformity to Christ, that he might be, that we'd be conformed to the Son of God, that He might be the first born among many brothers. That's Romans Chapter Eight. So, we having been rescued from sin and wickedness, and corruption are brought through salvation to total conformity in Christ, The spiritual gifts. And the works of service, tend toward the end to full maturity in Christ. That's what we're doing. Our goal is that elect people would be rescued from darkness, Satan's kingdom, through evangelism, Brought over into the church through water baptism, and then trained, taught to obey everything Christ has commanded, surrounded by encouraging brothers and sisters who pray for them, people who give financially to support ministries that are surrounding them as well, all of those gifts tend toward the end That we would all speak the truth in love, and we will be built up into total conformity to Christ.

9) Every Spiritual Gift is Essential to that Final Goal

And then finally, every spiritual gift is essential to that final goal, but those gifts must be used. They don't do any good on the shelf or in the closet. Look at verse 16, From him, the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. So here's the point. Brothers and sisters. The point is that you have a spiritual gift package If you're a Christian. You Perhaps already have a very definable ministry and as much work as you possibly could do. And so continue to do that ministry, be faithful, Keep on doing it.

Others of you may be among those who could say, "I don't actually know what my spiritual gift is. And for you, I would urge you to follow the steps in Romans 12 that I went through, listen to last's week sermon and go step-by-step, present your body as a living sacrifice, make certain that there's no closet sin in your life, you're holy and pleasing in God, don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, be in God's word, learning what the spiritual gifts are, learning what kind of ministries are. Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is. Don't think too highly of yourself. Don't be arrogant.

I was thinking about this today. I think this is true, you doctors or nurses can correct me, but wouldn't you say that there's no single cell in the entire body that's essential to the body to continue to live? I was thinking about this. If that cell dies, it's going to be replaced by another one Just like it. Frankly, that goes on all the time. And you're like, "Well, wait a minute, there's some cells that are... " it's like Yeah, but there's a lot of other of those cells. You are not indispensable to the body of Christ, but that doesn't mean you don't have a role to play. And so the Lord says, "Don't think too highly of yourself, but don't think too lowly either. Identify your spiritual gift and then simply if your gift is X, then do X. If it's Y then do Y. Be involved in spiritual gift ministry.

I Want do 1 Peter 4:11, And then we'll close in prayer. 1 Peter 4:11. "If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things, God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory and the power forever and ever." That's a great verse, and it gives us two main headings for spiritual gift ministry. Speaking and serving. I love that.

If anyone speaks, do it as though you're speaking God's words. Flow is ultimately from the Scripture, but you're speaking the very Oracles, the very words of God. Have a seriousness about your speaking ministry. What are speaking ministries? Well, obviously preaching and teaching, but also encouragement. Gifts of leadership have to be done with speaking. So they're speaking gifts, and then there are serving gifts, such as I mentioned, hospitality and mercy, they're just gifts of service, helps, sometimes called. Do all kinds of behind the scenes ministries that no one ever sees but they're vital to the life of the church. Speaking and serving, whatever your ministry is, whatever your gift is, have an identifiable ministry, invest yourself fully in it. And do it. Alright, now let's close in prayer.

Amen. So turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 12, we resume our study. As we move through this incredible epistle, we come to the beginning of an extensive study that we will do, if the Lord wills, on spiritual gifts. And I've got to tell you how excited I am just to be back here. I just love this church, I love being here and I missed you. I know it's hard to believe, I would rather be here than on vacation. And so at the end of vacation, I'm always excited to get back. But I'm especially excited to be able to begin teaching you on spiritual gifts. It's an incredibly important topic. My desire is to use the faithful unfolding of the Word of God to strengthen each of you to do your spiritual gift ministry.

I fear that some of you are not doing any spiritual gift ministry at all. Others are being very faithful and energetic and diligent in it and everything in between, and I know therefore the Word of God can minister to make those that are already being fruitful and are serving faithfully even more energetic, even more skillful in their service. But also to call those that, up to this point, have not been using their spiritual gifts and not ministering into a pattern of faithful service. And you'll be delighted you did on Judgment Day.

Now, as I'm thinking about the idea of spiritual gifts, so many analogies come into my mind. And this morning, I was thinking about how much my family has enjoyed traveling to Williamsburg in Virginia and to see skillful craftsmen who do different tasks. And I love all of the things that they do. I love the leather workers, the gunsmith, the potters, all that. But I especially love the joiners or the cabinet makers, those that work with wood, because I fancy myself a woodworker from time to time. They would laugh if they saw the things that I've made and especially my power tools, because they use just those hand-made tools, those hand tools. There were no power tools back in the Colonial Era.

And so I remember standing, looking at the cabinet maker as he was working with a piece of walnut and he was shaping and carving a leg for, I think, a table, and it had some kind of a claw with a ball, and he was just using just different tools to shape the foot and the ball. And so he had saws, and he had chisels, and he had planes, and the chisels in particular, he had like 10 or 15 different sizes and shapes. The thing that I was really impressed with was how orderly they were. They were all laid out. I don't work like that. I have a very disorderly approach. As soon as I'm done with a tool, I kinda drop it and move to the next one and then, where's my screwdriver? I don't know where it is.

But this individual, as soon as he used something, he would put it back in its place. And he had an array of files of different sizes and different coarseness or fineness, and just that skill to be able to pick up that tool and use it. So I want you to have that image in your mind, that the Lord has made each of us a tool for a specific purpose. That we are tools in the hands of a master craftsman, Almighty God. And that He picks up individuals and uses them in a very specific way to achieve a specific end, and He does that through them again and again. That you are tools in the hands of Almighty God, crafted and fitted for a specific purpose. Get that picture in your mind.

And I also want you to step back and see how incredibly gracious this is of God, to use you this way. This is just part of the lavish grace of God in the Gospel, isn't it? How it says in Ephesians 2:8 and 9, "For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast." And so we have been justified. We've been forgiven of all of our sins by the sovereign grace of God contrary to what we deserve, as the psalmist says that truly he does not treat us as our sins deserve, Amen? And He has covered all of our sins by the blood of Christ, by simple faith, not by works.

But then, Ephesians 2:10 goes on to say something very important for how we should live the rest of our lives once we've received the forgiveness of sins. Once we've been justified by faith, apart from works, we have a lifetime of good works to do. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that He has prepared in advance, that we should walk in them." So God. In an amazing, sovereign, complex, providential way, has a pathway of good works laying out in front of each of you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, in front of each of you, that He has prepared in advance and He wants you to walk in them. But the other side is true as well. He prepares you in advance to do them.

And what you're going to find in that pathway of good works is that some of them are just general Christian good works, things that we're all called to do as Christians. They're not unique to any one class of Christian, all of us are to have quiet times, all of us are to read the Bible and pray. We're to speak biblical truth to one another, encourage one another. We are to offer hospitality, open our homes and have people in our homes. We are to give financially. We are to give our tithes and our offerings to the service of the Lord, all of us have those kinds of gifts, we are to share the Gospel, all of us have the responsibility of evangelism.

And so, the just general good works that God prepares, but then what you're going to find with spiritual gifts is that God's going to organize a large percentage of your good works along a certain pattern. It's not going to be all of your good works, but a large percentage of them are going to be done in line... Lined up with your spiritual gift package, your spiritual gift, your special abilities, and He wants it that way. He wants you to specialize and focus and develop your abilities in that area. Long, long time ago in my Christian life, I learned that mine was to be teaching and preaching the Word, and so it took a lot of time to prepare for that, to go to seminary, to sit at the feet of great teachers in the past, living and dead, to learn from them their theology and their pattern of ministry and get myself ready for this calling, and I'm continuing to learn how to preach and teach. I'll never stop, there's no end.

But so it is with other people, that they have the ability to discover their spiritual gifts, and then to develop them. To get better and better at them over time and then to deploy them, use them. And so that's the pattern that I want you to keep in mind over the next number of weeks as we study spiritual gifts. Now as we do, we need to see how gracious God is to us in this. He has delivered you from wasting your life. Isn't that marvelous? He has delivered you from spending the rest of your days here on Earth in futility. Doing things that will be dust in the wind, chaff on a threshing floor, steam or the early morning mist that blows away. He's delivered you from wasting your time. Think about how gracious that is. He did not have to do that.

But unbelievers that we're surrounded with all the time, they are wasting their lives on things that will not matter, they have no eternal consequence. They are building careers and accumulating wealth, and they're advancing in secular patterns and paths that we know are going to be chaff on Judgment Day. The Scripture says in Isaiah 40, "All flesh is grass, and all their glory is like the flower of the field, the grass withers, and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God stands forever." We are delivered from being chaff, and being grass that will be burned up on Judgment Day.

Also the Book of Ecclesiastes speaks of the vanity, the futility of people who live apart from God, who live a life as if there is no resurrection from the dead, as if this life is all there is, they're wasting their lives. As it says in Ecclesiastes 1:14, it says, "I have seen all things that are done under the sun, all of them are meaningless, a chasing after wind." But we have been delivered from that, we have been delivered from vanity, we have been delivered from a meaningless existence, a chasing after the wind. Instead, the Lord has prepared in advance a bunch of good works, a pattern of good works, and He wants you to walk in them, and you will be delighted on Judgment Day that you did them.

And that's exciting, isn't it? It's exciting for me to look at your faces, to see you with the eyes of faith, and to see you not only what you will be, radiant and glorious, shining like the sun in the kingdom of your Father, that is what you will be, brothers and sisters, but also see you as what you are right now. Already redeemed, already adopted, and already tools or instruments in the hands of a sovereign God to be used, and that's exciting. So my task, my calling, is to get you ready for good works. And as you do those good works, the body of Christ will build up. We're going to talk more about that from Ephesians 4 next week. There's so much to say.

So let's begin and just say, "Alright, what are we talking about? What are spiritual gifts?" Look at verse 1, "Now, about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant." So Paul is zeroing in on the next issue, the next topic, the Greek word here is "spirituals," literally "spirituals" which in the Greek understanding of that word "that which has its origin in the spirit, those things that come from the spirit," that's what he's discussed. But he uses other words, in verse 4, he uses the word "charisma," which is related to the word for gift, like a gift. Grace, the word grace is related to that, we see that same word in Romans, Romans 12:6. Also verse 5, he uses the word "diakonon" or ministries. So, you have ministries, services, patterns of service.

And then verse six has the word "energama," Greek word "energama," like for energetic. That would be translated "activities, workings, effects." So there's just a lot of different words to describe this issue, this idea of spiritual gifts. So let me give you a definition that I wrote, just something to try to pull together these various concepts.

Spiritual gifts are special abilities given by the triune God to Christians to enable them to do specific spiritual ministries to build up the body of Christ, or the church of Christ.

Let me read that again. Spiritual gifts are special abilities given by the triune God to Christians to enable them to do specific spiritual ministries to build up the church of Jesus Christ. So special abilities given for spiritual ministry, does that make sense? That's just keep it simple.

So for me, in the 10 years I served as a mechanical engineer, my mechanical engineering was not a spiritual gift. It's the way I earned a living, etcetera, but it didn't build up the body of Christ. Instead, we see other words that are given that give us a sense of what they are. They are essentially spiritual and they're used for building other human beings up, winning them out of darkness into the light of Christ through evangelism, and then building them up in sanctification. That's what gifts are for, the spiritual gifts are all about.

Essential to God’s Saving Purpose for His People

Now, Paul's desire here in verse 1 is that they would not be ignorant about spiritual gifts. And so here again, we see the primacy of the teaching ministry in everything. Everything starts with the ministry of the Word of God. You need to know what spiritual gifts are in order to do them, in order to follow them, and so he doesn't want them to be ignorant. He wants to teach the Corinthian church about spiritual gifts. And this is essential to God's saving purpose for His people, spiritual gifts are essential to His plan of salvation. They're not tangential. He wants to include us, the redeemed, in His work of redemption. He has actual roles for us to play. Before the foundation of the world, God ordained that His elect would be saved from sin and brought into the perfect unity of the Body of Christ, eternally one with Him and with each other in heaven, that's His eternal saving plan. But He also ordained that that salvation should be a process, justification, sanctification, glorification. We talked about that many times, and that each Christian should play a vital role in other people being saved. God planned all of this out before the foundation of the world, it's very exciting. And so spiritual gifts are given to each and every Christian, and the working of these gifts is essential to His eternal plan to save, and ultimately glorify, the elect.

So that's what spiritual gifts are all about, we have a role to play. Now, Paul's desire in writing these words centuries ago is that the Corinthian church should not be ignorant about spiritual gifts. It's essential that they understand these gifts properly and use them properly, and he's going to be teaching about spiritual gifts for three full chapters. So Paul doesn't do anything half-hearted or halfway. So we're going to get three chapters, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, 13 and 14 all have, as a centerpiece, the idea of the proper ministry of spiritual gifts, and it was the Holy Spirit's intention that Paul's letter to this one badly dysfunctional church, so long ago, should help us in so many ways. And so he wanted this instruction preserved through the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, and so every generation of churches, since that original first century, has been able to learn from what Paul said to the Corinthian church about spiritual gifts.

So my desire, as I've said, is that each one of you members of First Baptist Church should have a spiritual gift ministry that you do consistently and regularly. That you're able to identify it, to articulate it, you know what it is, and you do it. That we would not have any come, listen and leave members at First Baptist Church, that's my desire. My desire is that we would blow apart the standard 80-20 split that you have in most local churches, where 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. And so instead, you have a bunch of people who really don't do anything to contribute to the spiritual vitality and growth of the church, and that is the tendency. So instead, we want to see the Lord use the ministry of the word, power of the Holy Spirit, to mobilize Christians to patterns of service. That's what we want to see.

Now, when we talk about a spiritual gift, it's a bit of a misnomer. I think each of us have a spiritual gift package, a spiritual gift package. So, I don't know, it's... Different times, I've gone to speak at different gracious churches and they've left a package of gifts for me with fruit, and a jar of jelly, and crackers and all kinds of things, but I thought, "That's not a good image." So you're saying, "Well then, why did you mention it, pastor?" I don't know, but it's just this image that I have of a basket of good things. Another pastor used an analogy of a painter's palette, and I like that. You think about one of those Dutch masters, like Rembrandt, and you can picture him with a flat surface with this little thumb hole, I always picture his thumb up through the center. Maybe that's how... I don't know, I'm not a painter. But he's there in his painter's smock, with his cute painter's cap. I don't know if Rembrandt had all that going on.

But as he was painting the painting, he would have an array of, not primary colors, but just initial colors, let's say eight or 10 of them. And then a central area where he would mix three or four of those together to get the skin color he was looking for, maybe the ruddy cheeks of a young girl, or maybe the more pallid, grayish expression of a man dying in bed, or the shiny silver of a sword, something like that, and he knew which colors to blend to get that... Get what he was looking for, that was part of the gift of being a painter. So in the same way, the Lord, through the Holy Spirit, arranges your personality and your experiences and what He put in you originally, and your experiences, all that together in a unique way to do a specific pattern of ministry that is recognizable, and there's a certain number of words that are given to those, such as administration, hospitality, evangelism, teaching, leadership, giving. There's a certain number of those and we know what those are. That makes sense, but how you do that is going to be unique to you.

And so, I think of that in terms of a spiritual gift package. So for me, my calling is to be senior pastor of First Baptist Church here, and so my primary function is preaching the Word on Sunday mornings, but I also teach in other settings. In each of those settings, there's a different kind of dynamic, so it'll be a different way of preparing, but I also do counseling. I also do certain special functions like funerals, weddings. I also give visionary leadership to the elders along with others that have that kind of a gift, to see where, what direction we should be going in the next five or 10 years, and a variety of lesser functions that fit being a pastor. And so, for me, that's the array, and some of those gifts or abilities I have more pronounced than others, but there's this package or array for me. So it is for each one of you, you have an array of abilities that are going to fit into a pattern of ministry that God's going to use to build His church.

Every Christian Has Spiritual Gifts

Now, the key thing that we need to understand here, I think this is one of the things that prompted Paul to write, number of things that prompted him. We'll talk about the Corinthian context in a moment. But he wanted every one of the Christians in that church to know that he or she had a spiritual gift package, a spiritual gift ministry. Every single person. So look at verse 7, "Now to each one of you, to each one, the manifestation of the spirit is given for the common good." So there is no one example, no one can say, "I don't have a spiritual gift ministry." Yes you do, if you're a Christian, you have a spiritual gift package and a ministry connected to that package that the Lord wants you to do. We see the same thing in Ephesians 4:7, "But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.

Alright, let's talk now about the Corinthian context. And it wasn't good, friends, it was not good. What a mess. What a bunch of dysfunctional people coming together in complete mayhem. And that's about what was going on. And we see this in so many areas. They were very gifted. In 1 Corinthians 1:7 it says, "You do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed." Nothing was missing from that local church, everything they needed to do the mission and the ministry God wanted them to do there in Corinth was there. You do not lack any spiritual gift. But they were severely dysfunctional. And we've seen this at so many levels, remember in chapters 1 through 3, we have the discussion of their factions and divisions. And they're following the great leaders, "I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Cephas..." And they had all that.

There was carnality and immaturity, spiritual immaturity in them. There was worldliness that we see in Chapter 4 where they wanted to fit in with their pagan neighbors and to be esteemed by them, and treated like kings and to become wealthy in Corinthian society. They had those yearnings and those desires, there was a need for church discipline because there was sexual immorality, and they needed to do discipline but they weren't doing it, chapter 5. And then they were suing one another, there were lawsuits going on in the Corinthian church. And there was sexual immorality, fornication, adultery, homosexuality, different sexual sins that were going on, and there was all kind of sexual corruption in the Corinthian church, there were problems with marriage, misunderstandings about the gift of singleness, various issues he has to address in chapter 7. And then for three chapters, we walk through the problems with meat sacrificed to idols, paganism, idolatry, all of those things. And then Chapter 11, we talked about the issue of gender and authority, and there were women it seems, that were taking inappropriate leadership in their assembly together and not submitting to the male leadership in the church.

And then there were massive problems with the Lord's Supper. They were getting drunk on communion wine, and gorging themselves, and others were getting nothing. And so there was all of this dysfunction, and man, you're going to see the same thing with spiritual gifts. There is disorder, there is pride, there is lack of love. So let's talk about pride first. They esteemed the showy gifts the most, the upfront gifts, the gift of prophecy, the gift of tongues, the upfront showy gifts. And they esteemed those that had those, and they did not esteem the more behind the scenes gifts like the gifts of service and helps. And so what that meant was there was this bifurcation, the haves and have-nots on spiritual gifts, where you have those that are the dramatic leaders, and they were going in for ecstasies, we'll get into all that in a moment, but they were very dramatic in their gifts, and everyone else was saying, "Well, I guess I don't have a role, I guess I don't belong to the body, I guess I don't fit in." And so there was for the have-nots, a feeling, "I didn't have a role to play." So there was that issue of pride, there was also a lack of love, they didn't seem to understand that gifts were to serve love horizontally, love from one to another.

And so he talks about spiritual gift, "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but have not love…if I have the gift of prophecy… if I give all that I have to the poor… [all these are spiritual gifts] but if I have not love, I gain nothing." Spiritual gifts are temporary, all of them are temporary. In heaven, none of the gifts will be going on, you won't need them, you will see God face to face, and you won't need the working of the spiritual gifts. But we need them now. We need to understand in heaven there'll be love but in heaven there will not be spiritual gifts. And then there was just the problem with prophecy and tongues, and he devotes a whole chapter to that, because of the disorder. People were prophesying at the same time as each other. Cacophony, noise. And they were arrogant about it, belligerent. They were just... One prophet is speaking and the other one just starts speaking, and they would say, "I can't help it, the Spirit came upon me." Paul says, "You can help it." And so he's going to address all of that kind of mayhem, but look up at Chapter 14 for a minute and see the kind of disorder that's going on.

Disorder in Public Worship

One verse that... As I was saying about the disorder, because you had speaking in tongues languages, some of them they were claiming, I think, even heavenly tongues. But in any case, there wasn't translation going on and Paul addressed that from the perspective of the outsider coming in. Look at Verse 23, 14:23. He says, "If the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and some who do not understand or some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you're out of your minds?" That's a bad look for the church. You don't want unbelievers coming in from the outside saying, "You are all out of your minds." Or then, look a few verses later, verses 29 through 33, he gives rules about prophecy. "Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said, and if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop." Just basic manners here. "The first speaker should stop, for you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged." And then he says, "The spirits of the prophets are subject to the control of the prophets." In other words, I don't want to hear that you couldn't help yourself, the Spirit came upon you. The Spirit does not produce bad manners. And so if the prophecy comes to you, you're able to wait, wait your turn.

But again, I'm just bringing this out to talk about the level of disorder. Again, Verse 33, "For God is not a God of disorder but of peace." And then again in Verse 40, "Everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way." So you get the idea here, it's just mayhem, it's chaos, and that's a problem.

Pagan Spirituality

So let's go back now as we look at Chapter 12. And in verse 2 and 3, we have some verses that might be a little difficult for us to understand, what does it even mean? Why does he talk about that? I don't know why we go there. After talking about spiritual gifts we go to verse 2 and 3. But in order to understand verse 2 and 3, I think we need to understand the background of pagan spirituality that was going on there in Corinth. The Greek religions were based on supernatural experiences led by men and women, priests and prophetesses who were taken over or priestesses that were taken over by the deities, they believed in incarnations a lot, they believed that Zeus and Hera and other gods and goddesses could take over human bodies, they believed in this kind of thing. And they would manifest themselves by the bizarre behavior of the human vessel.

These people would become temporarily insane. They would act in other worldly ways, they would act in ecstasies characterized by ecstatic utterances. This meant that they were spiritual, they were in spiritual union with the god or goddess that they were I guess channeling in some way. Take for example, the Oracle at Delphi, a woman that predicted the future, is well-known in Greek ancient history. She was a supernaturally gifted prophetess who would be inhabited by the deity and enabled to utter ecstatic phrases which people had to then unravel and figure out to understand the prediction about your life. Now, the wilder a person behaved, the more they seemed to have been touched by the deity, by the god or goddess. As a matter of fact, the absence of rational thought was a big part of this ecstasy, that their babbling and uttering and out of their minds actually was proof of their spirituality. Socrates in his work, Phaedrus, extols the blessing of divinely inspired mania. Listen to this, "The greatest of blessings comes to us through madness when it is sent as a gift of the gods."

Madness, divine madness. So a man or woman could seek this mania by appealing to the gods and goddesses, by ritual prayers, by song, by dance, by frenzied music. And they would go into trances and other worldly mania by wild bizarre behavior. And these trances were essentially irrational, irrational utterances. Now, these views it seems have been brought into the church by some members of the church. Some of the Corinthian church were acting like this, it seems to explain the level of disorder and chaos that was happening in their corporate worship time. The wilder and more ecstatic the person was, the more spiritual they were. Paul has to reign all this in, pull it in. Because he believes that this kind of disorder is ultimately demonic. There's a demonic background to their pagan religion, their pagan idolatry, and these behaviors as well. If you were to go back to 1 Corinthians 10:20, remember he says, "The sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God. And I do not want you to be participants with demons."

Demonic Heresy

So look at verse 2 and 3, it seems very plainly that some persons in the Corinthian assembly were being led astray in this pagan manner by demons to make demonic utterances. Verse 2 and 3. "You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other, you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, Jesus be cursed." So the term that Paul uses, "influenced or led astray" shows that old pattern of worship in which the mind is taken over, dominated by the demonic, and you're let astray almost like a captive, like you're a kidnapped captive. Say, look, that's not what the Holy Spirit does, Holy Spirit empowers and lifts up your personality in your mind and works within the good mind that God gave you or created, He's not overwhelming that but using it. But these individuals were led astray. And so they were enslaved, they were wrapped up in invisible spiritual chains by demons and let astray. So that's what you used to do in your old pagan worship, led astray to mute idols. But the demonic force behind this ecstatic pagan worship would actually make individuals say blasphemies, "Jesus be cursed," or "Jesus is accursed." It seems best to think that that actually happened in a Corinthian worship service. This is clearly a demonic utterance, this is not what spirituals is all about. It's not what should be going on.

And so in this Corinthian horribly disordered worship service in which all of these spiritual things are going on, tongues that are not being translated, prophecies that are going one on top of the other, and it's all this chaos, someone up and says, "Jesus be cursed." And so Paul has to address it. He said, "Let's get this straight. All we want is spirit-led worship, and no one speaking by the Spirit can ever say, "Jesus be cursed." Let's just draw the line right there. Satan and his demons are infiltrating trying to get people to say things that are going to be confusing and destructive to the health of the church.

The Confession "Jesus Is Lord" is From the Holy Spirit

Conversely, when the Holy Spirit moves, He produces worship for Jesus as Lord of all. Look again at Verse 3. "Therefore I tell you, that no one who's speaking by the Spirit of God says, Jesus be cursed, and no one can say, Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit." Isn't that a marvelous verse? You realize that's required for you to be saved? You have to confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord." And believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. If you're a Christian, you've made that confession, you can make it right now, "Jesus is Lord." What Paul says, you cannot do that apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.

So you owe your salvation as much to the third person of the Trinity as you do the second. You owe your salvation as much to the Holy Spirit as you do to Jesus who died for you, because you would not think anything of His blood, or Jesus or his resurrection, if the Spirit hadn't moved you to say, "Jesus is Lord." Hallelujah for the ministry of the Holy Spirit in each of us. But then in worship, as we come together, we're saying it again and again in a lot of different ways, "Jesus is Lord, He's Lord of all." We praise Him as the Lord, that means as God, we worship Him as God. And the Spirit's active and moving causing us to worship. Well, that's what's going on. But He does this not by ecstasies and bizarre chaotic behavior, He does it by working through our rational processes so we think right doctrine. But that's not enough, is it? It's not enough to think right thoughts. He then sends a heavenly fire, so that those thoughts become kindled in passionate worship.

You remember the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and they were so depressed as they're walking with the resurrected Lord, and they didn't know it was Him. But they're so depressed and so discouraged. And so Jesus... They didn't know it was Him, but He began to open up the Scriptures and to show them and prove from the prophets and from the Psalms that the Christ had to suffer and after that go into His glory. And then He sat down and broke bread with them, and then their eyes were opened and He disappeared. And remember what they said, "Were not our hearts burning within us when He opened the word to us." That's good worship, isn't it? It's rational process and right doctrine, that then has a heavenly fire through the Holy Spirit. We are ignited. We come alive and our hearts are burning within us based on the truth. That's what Jesus told the Samaritan woman, was worship in spirit and truth, not Holy Spirit there, but your own spirit together moved by the Holy Spirit. Our spirits are kindled based on truth, that's good worship.

 So let me stop and ask each one of you, has this happened to you? Has your spirit been moved by the Holy Spirit to say Jesus is Lord? Do you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead? Do you know that you're a sinner, that without Jesus, you would have no hope of surviving Judgment Day, do you know that? And have you called on the name of the Lord for your own salvation? Have you asked Him to save you? Are you a Christian? That's what I'll ask. It's more important than anything I could ever teach you about spiritual gifts. And if so, I'm glad you're here today to come and hear the Gospel, and to know you don't have to know any advanced doctrine, you just have to know that God sent His Son for sinners like you and me, and He died in your place to take away your guilt, and all you have to do is call on Him. God raised Him from the dead and He will raise you up too.

Alright, having said all that by way of introduction, let's talk about more teaching on spiritual gifts. And there are three key passages on spiritual gifts, and we don't have time to go through all of them, but I wanna give you another cross-reference today. Turn in your Bibles to Romans Chapter 12. We're going to look at verses 1 through 8 briefly. Try to understand there the teaching on spiritual gifts that Paul gives to the Roman Church. So I think 1 Corinthians 12 plus Romans 12, these are the two passages, you understand that, and Ephesians 4, which we'll look at next week. You get those three key passages I think you'll understand spiritual gifts.

Alright, Romans 12:1-8, listen to the text, it says, "Therefore I urge you brothers in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing and perfect will. For by the grace given to me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts according to the grace given us. If one's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to the faith, if it is serving, let him serve, if it is teaching, let him teach. If it is encouraging, let him encourage. If it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously, if it is leadership, let him govern diligently, if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully."

It's a key text on spiritual gifts. We don't have time to go into all the details, but he says, "Therefore in view of God's mercies." Friends, that's 11 chapters of the Gospel. Romans 1 through 11. And in view of all of the sovereign grace of God in Christ in the Gospel, in view of all that, how then shall we live our lives? He gives them five chapters of application. And what's amazing about that? He basically begins with spiritual gifts. In view of God's mercies, what should you do? You should live a pattern of service to God with these spiritual gifts, that's Romans 12:1-8. But step by step, he tells you how to do it, it's just very beautiful just as he goes through it. So let's go step by step, first begin by presenting your body as a living sacrifice to God. What that means is, offer your physical self, your time, your energy here on earth to God every moment to serve Him. Begin that, consecration. "I am yours to command, I'm yours, I want to serve you." So present your body as a living sacrifice. Then it says, "Holy and pleasing to God." Make certain that there's no secret sin in your life that's going to twist your mind and skew your lifestyle.

Holy and pleasing to God, present your body, make your body pleasing, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship, understand that. And do not be conformed to this world, don't think about your life in this world the way worldlings do, the way non-Christians do, don't think that your time and your energy and your money are yours to spend as you see fit. Think about your life in this world as a Christian person should, as a member of the body of Christ. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that is by the ministry of the Word, daily quiet times, Sunday morning worship, listening to good exposition of the Scripture, whatever other resources you want to use for Bible intake, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Let God's Word come and flow through you, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And then in this translation I'm using, it says you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is for you, His good, pleasing and perfect will. You'll be able to find out what your spiritual gift package is, and then what your lifestyle ministry should be based on that.

You'll be able to test and approve what God's will is for you, His good, pleasing and perfect will. "For," verse 3, "By the grace given to me," Paul is talking about his own spiritual gift, he's an apostle of the Gentiles, and a writer of Scripture. You aren't, just so you know. But he was a writer of Scripture, He's saying, "By the grace given to me by my gift, I want to talk to you about your gifts. And I want to begin by saying, Do not think too highly of yourself." That is so important, don't be arrogant. Don't think, "God is so lucky to have me." I said to a men's retreat I was just speaking at, I said, "You just need to understand God doesn't need you at all." I'm not trying to be insulting, but He does not need your service, He didn't need you to create the universe. Look what He did. Alright, did very well without you. He doesn't need you but He can use you. So don't think too highly of yourself. But on the other side, and I'm going to reach... Don't turn there, but in 1 Corinthians 12, he says to parts of the body, if the ear should say because I'm not an eye, I don't belong to the body, don't do that either. Don't think too lowly of yourself say, If I'm not one of those up front leader types, if I don't have the gift of prophecy or tongues, I'm nothing." Don't think that either, don't think too lowly of yourself, not too highly not too lowly, but think about yourself with sober judgment.

So evaluate yourself. Now this is the next step, think about yourself. You're like, "What? Pastor I thought we weren't supposed to think about... " You are supposed to think about yourself when it comes to spiritual gifts. Who are you? What do you like to do in service to Christ? What do you enjoy? Like Eric Liddell, he said, "When I run I feel this pleasure." When you do that spiritual ministry, what causes you to feel the pleasure of God like the wind blowing in your sails? What do you flourish at not merely function at? I like those words. Spiritual gift's about flourishing, not merely functioning. So what do you flourish at? Like a sail boat, and there's a prevailing wind, when you set the sails, and you go run before the wind, what is that for you? Is it hospitality? Is it giving? Is it administration or leadership? Is it prayer? Is it evangelism, what is it? Is it teaching the Word? So think about yourself with sober judgment. I want to bring in also in Hebrews 10, it said, "Get your brothers and sister to think about you too. Let them consider how they may spur you on toward love and good deeds."

Many a person has been diverted early in their life, well diverted, from thinking they had the gift of preaching let's say when they didn't, thank God they were diverted early on. You don't want to waste the people's time if you think you have the gift of singing and you don't. I remember John MacArthur's worship leader said, "One of my task is to protect the congregation from bad singing." So throughout, they have a huge church out there and they do a lot of auditions. "I have the gift of... "Yeah, no you don't." Alright, but that's necessary, why? So you don't waste your time in that direction and you go instead in the direction God is gifted you, has gifted you to do. So think of yourself with sober judgment. And then for the rest of the section, he basically says, "Whatever your gift is, do it and do it a lot." Now, how you do it matters, that's what 1 Corinthians 13 is all about, it has to be done in love. But if your gift is serving, then do it cheerfully, if it's giving, then give generously, if it's leadership, do it diligently. There's different adverbs used, but it matters how you do it, but just do it, do it a lot.

That's Romans 12:1-8. Now, next week we'll look at Ephesians 4:7-16, and we'll talk more about that. I want to say briefly about the Trinity, and we'll talk more about that next week, but look at verses 4-6, "There are different kinds of gifts but the same spirit, there are different kinds of service but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working but the same God works all of them in all people." Isn't that exciting? That's the Trinity, the Spirit, the Lord Jesus and God the Father together, give you your gift, that's exciting. The Triune God has considered you and has gifted you and prepared you. And why?

Well, it says in verse 7 plainly, for the common good. "To each one, the manifestation of the spirit is given for the common good." So we'll continue our study in this next week. I would just urge, begin with Romans 12 and just walk through it, it's almost step-by-step guidance on how to do this. Pray, offer your body to God to serve Him and say, "Lord, I don't know what my spiritual gift ministry should be. I want to know what it is, lead me and guide me." Close with me in prayer.

I'd like to ask that you turn in your Bible to the text that Richard just read for us. As we continue in our study in 1 Corinthians, we reach 1 Corinthians 11:17-34. We come, I think, here to the second most famous part of this epistle probably superseded only by the love chapter which is coming up, God willing, in a few number of weeks before, it's 1 Corinthians 13. But if you've been in church any length of time, you've heard some of this passage again and again whenever we celebrated the Lord's Supper. Look at verses 23-25. They'll be very familiar to you. "The Lord Jesus on the night He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, 'This is My body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.' In the same way after supper, He took the cup saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood. Do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of Me.'"

This is one of the two ordinances the Lord established for the local church to do until He returned, ordinances linked to the word "ordain," something He established or set up, baptism being the one we just saw a few minutes ago. The Lord's Supper we celebrated last week. And so in this section in 1 Corinthians, Paul addresses some serious excesses and problems that the Corinthian, the dysfunctional Corinthian church, was having concerning this ordinance. But in so doing as he addresses problems they're having, he gives a timeless word that's gone out over 20 centuries now of church life of how every generation of Christian should understand and partake in the Lord's Supper. And so it's just very powerful for us this morning to look at it.

What's amazing to me is that there's been actually centuries of division and strife and conflict over a meal that was established to unite. I remember years ago, I read a book on The Lord's Supper, a doctrinal book on it, and it was entitled The Meal That Unites, but then it had a question mark in the title. So it'd be read like this: The Meal That Unites? And so, it was intended that way, but it's been very, a very divisive issue, and it's right here in the text.

Look at Verse 18. He talks about the divisions. "I hear that when you come together as a church there are divisions among you and to some extent I believe it." As we saw from the beginning of this book a long time ago, 1 Corinthians Chapter 1, this is one of the big problems that made this church dysfunctional: Factions and divisions. "I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Cephas." These divisions.

Amazingly though, division over the Lord's Supper went back to the very night it was instituted. In one of the most shameful displays among the apostles as they were gathered there for The Last Supper with Jesus, they were arguing amongst themselves as to which of them was the greatest. I can't imagine in the years that followed Christ's death and resurrection, ascension, how much they must have looked back on that with shame, arguing about which of them of the apostles was the greatest. I think this was the triggering moment that led to the washing of the feet as Jesus washed their feet to show them who the greatest was. It was Jesus, and then anyone who would act like that. And so... But in every generation in the church, there's been factions and divisions and even over the Lord's Supper. So I want to give you a little theological and historical background to some of that.

It really kind of exploded around the time of the Reformation when Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the door to the Wittenberg Castle, it began the Reformation, Protestant Reformation.

View #1: The Roman Catholic view: Transubstantiation

One of the battlegrounds early on between Protestants and Catholics was over the Lord's Supper, what the Roman Catholic Church called the Mass. At the center of Roman Catholic theology and Roman Catholic spirituality is the Mass, their weekly observance of the Lord's Supper, and at the center of the Mass is their view of transubstantiation. It's a big word. They actually believe that the bread and the wine become, in a mystical sense, the actual body and blood of Jesus. Now, the word transubstantiation doesn't come from theology, it doesn't come from the Bible, it comes from the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who taught that everything in the universe has both a substance and an essential nature, philosophically understood, and then what they called accidents.

It's a different way than you would hear that word ordinarily, but it means the way that thing interacts with the five-sense world, namely what it looks like, what it sounds like, what it smells like, what it tastes like, what it feels like. So those are the substance and accidents. This is Aristotelian philosophy. Well, Catholic theologians that basically sat at the feet for centuries of Aristotle as saying he was the greatest human teacher, put that together with their understanding of real presence of the actual body and blood of Jesus being at the Lord's Supper, and the center of that was Jesus' statement, "This is my body." And they said, "Aristotle can give us some insights on how that could be," that what happens in the mystery of transubstantiation is the substances change of the bread and the wine, but the accidents aren't changed.

And so you actually have the real body and blood of Jesus, but it just tastes like bread and wine. But it's a mystery and it's to be accepted by faith. It's a matter of Roman Catholic dogma, and so it was unchallenged in the Western world for centuries until the Reformation. Now they taught that only an ordained Roman Catholic priest could perform this mystery, and that was the centerpiece of the Mass. He would hold the bread up and the altar boys would ring the bells. I used to be an altar boy. I was raised Roman Catholic in Eastern Massachusetts, and so I was trained to ring the bell. They never told me why.

That's a big part of the Roman Catholic Church. They don't tell you why, they just tell you what to do. And so the people for centuries really had no idea about the theology of transubstantiation. They just came when they were told and did what they were told, etcetera, and this is how they were saved, and if you turned your back on the Mass, you're turning your back on your salvation, your soul. This was essential to salvation. The worst part of this theology, however, was as the priest would hold it up, he would say, "This is my body," in Latin, never translated. Most of the people there didn't speak it, "Hoc est corpus meum." If it was said fast enough, the people out there heard something like hocus-pocus.

That's actually where that word comes from. It's like, "What did he do?" "I don't know. It's hocus-pocus." But then it is actually the change that happens and the bell gets rung. That's when it occurs. It becomes the actual body and blood of Jesus. But here's the worst part: The sacrilege of the Mass was that the priest was actually offering Jesus up to God on behalf of the people there. It was what they called a perpetual bloodless sacrifice repeated forever and ever at the Mass. And so in that way, Jesus was sacrificed again and again. I remember when I was converted to evangelical faith and started reading the Book of Hebrews and I saw that He was sacrificed once for all, I said, "What is this?" And I looked back at my experience at the Mass and repudiated it. Well, that's the center of Roman Catholic theology.

View #2: Martin Luther’s "Consubstantiation"

Along comes Martin Luther and he brings us the second view, what's generally called the Lutheran view of consubstantiation. Luther was an Augustinian monk who was trained to be a priest, and the high point of his training was the ability, once he was ordained, to perform the miracle of transubstantiation. This is before he was converted to evangelical faith, and he had such a trembling reverence over that moment that as he lifted up the cup and it became the body, or the blood of Jesus, he was literally physically trembling, and drops fell on the white table cloth and it was a shameful failure on his part. But that was the reverence he had for the Lord's Supper.

And he never lost his sense of that reverence or his belief in real presence. What he rejected was the idea that the Greek philosopher Aristotle should be brought in to help explain it. He believed in real presence fervently, he just denied transubstantiation. He just said that the body and blood of Jesus is there with and by and under and around the bread but in a mysterious way that we can never understand. That's the Lutheran view of consubstantiation.

View #3: Ulrich Zwingli’s “Bare Memorial” View

The third view came with another reformer, a Swiss reformer, a man named, Huldrych Zwingli. There'll be a quiz after worship today on all this. Huldrych Zwingli was also trained to be a priest. He was in Zurich, Switzerland almost about the same time as Luther, just began reading the Greek New Testament and started stripping away everything from the Sunday morning experience that wasn't simply clearly taught in the New Testament.

And so reformed or Zwinglian Worship was extremely austere, very simple, and he looked at the Mass, rejected it completely, rejected real presence, almost effectively rejected the Lord's Supper, reduced it to what he called a bare memorial, nothing mystical going on here. It's just helpful to help you remember. And he reduced it down to the point where it was celebrated as few as two times a year in Zurich. So that's the third view, the bare memorial view. Now in 1530, Luther and his entourage, and Zwingli and his entourage, got together at a place called Marburg, tried to work this thing through. It was a miserable failure. It was a disaster, two very strong-willed men. Luther writes the words, "This is my body" in chalk on a wooden table and keeps pounding the table, and Zwingli was not having any of it.

And it got so bad between the two men that Luther said right to his face, "You and I are of a different spirit," meaning, "I don't think you're born again." So it was really pretty tragic on the meal that unites, should have been united, but they had a very different view.

View #4: Calvin’s “Spiritual Presence” View

The fourth view, the one that I hold and I would espouse to you, was taught I think clearest at that time by a Reformer named John Calvin. Now John Calvin was a Frenchman who fled for his life from France when Lutheran and Protestant doctrine started taking hold. He was a little bit younger than Luther, came along as a second generation Reformer, ended up in Geneva, Switzerland. He rejected real presence but he had a fervent sense of the holiness of the Lord's Supper, the seriousness of it, as a matter of fact so much so that when a faction in the church called the Libertines, who lived profligate, immoral lives and were excommunicated by the church, rightly so for their sins, tried very boldly and brazenly to come and partake in the Lord's Supper, this little Frenchman, John Calvin, went out and physically stood in the way and put his arms around the elements lest they be defiled by clear unbelievers who wanted to partake in the Lord's Supper.

That's how fervently he believed, but what he taught was what I would call a spiritual presence view, a spiritual presence. And the idea is that as you partake hearing the words of Scripture, hearing the words of institution, as you partake, based on your faith in Christ, His death, His resurrection, and based on the imminent, immediate activity of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, you can have an encounter with the living God over the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, but it's just going to be in proportion to your faith. It's similar to a sermon. If by faith you hear and the Spirit's active, you can have an encounter with the living God or not. It just depends on your faith. But the Holy Spirit is there and active, and I personally expect, I expect to meet with the Lord at the Lord's Supper. I expect it. I look forward to it.

I have the privilege of sitting in a chair here while the elements are passed out and to look out over this congregation, to look in your faces and to think, "You know, I'm going to get to spend eternity with you." And I look forward to that. But meanwhile, we have this. So let's do this together. It's powerful. So for me, I think we should reject three of those views. I think the common evangelical interaction with the Lord's Supper is Zwingli's mere memorial, bare memorial view. The reason you know that it's frequently relegated to a Sunday evening service less than quarterly and you could be a member in good standing and go perhaps even years if you don't have a habit of going to the Sunday evening service, with taking the Lord's Supper. We, the elders of this church, believe that partaking in the Lord's Supper is an essential part of healthy membership of this church.

But I wanna go beyond that. I want you, when you do, to expect to meet with the living God by faith, not because the bread and the wine are actually the body and the blood. That's not needed, and it's contrary I think to Scripture. So that's some theological background.

Now, let's look at the Corinthian background and their dysfunctionality. Is it strange for us to just thank God how messed up that church was because it gave us 1 Corinthians so we could work through it? God in His wisdom allowed them to be that messed up so that Paul could remedy so many of the ills in that church because He knew that 20 centuries of Christian church would need to hear this. And so we come to the Lord's Supper. Now the context there is actually going back to the Old Covenant.

Jesus on that final night that He had with his disciples before His suffering and death, was performing a Jewish ritual, the Passover meal. And you know about this story, how the Lord in His sovereign power brought Israel out of Egypt, out of bondage to Egypt by means of a mighty hand and outstretched arm, and that was on display through the 10 plagues, the dreadful plagues that ravaged the land of Egypt, and the last one was the worst: The plague on the firstborn. And God had warned Pharaoh, "I command you... Israel is my firstborn son. I command you to let my son go but you wouldn't, so I'm going to kill your firstborn son."

And He said that right from the beginning. It's amazing. And that was the 10th plague, the plague connected with the Passover, and what God commanded the Israelites to do that night in order that their firstborn would not die, because they were sinners too, is He commanded them to be inside houses and within the houses that the Passover lamb would be slaughtered, its blood would be poured out and then it would be painted on the doorpost and the lintels by a hyssop branch, and the angel of death would see that blood and pass over that house and no one would be harmed. Again, teaching that lesson of animal sacrifice that all sin deserves the death penalty. The death penalty can be paid by a substitute. Now the substitute is only symbolically an animal.

And so Jesus gathered together because the Lord commanded through Moses that the Jews do this again and again every year and that they would remember what God had done in the past at the time of the Passover and it was a lasting ordinance. Jesus that night transformed the Passover forever. This has become for us the Christian Passover, and the reason, as Jesus said, "Take and eat, this is My body," and then took a cup of wine and gave thanks and offered it saying in Matthew 26:27-28, "Drink from it, all of you. This is My blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." Essential to this transformation of the Passover from the Old Covenant and the New Covenant is the change of the covenants, the fact that the Old Covenant with the death, the physical death of Jesus, has become obsolete. Never again will God accept the blood of animals. It's done, finished, as the author to Hebrews made it plain. Obsolete is the word he uses.

And Jesus knowing that very well, established the New Covenant. "This is my blood of the covenant." This is the essence of the New Covenant, the blood of Jesus, because the author to Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 10:4, "It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." It was only ever symbolic. It was all pointing ahead to that once for all final sacrifice offered by the Son of God on the cross, His blood shed for us. And so Jesus fulfilled the imagery of the Passover by His death on the cross as John the Baptist predicted, I think, when he pointed to Him and said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." The time of the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus met with Moses and Elijah there and He was transformed before them and His face became radiant, His clothes became white, and in Luke 9:31, it says that He was talking to Moses and Elijah about the exodus He was about to work. That's the real exodus, isn't it? That's the real escape of we who are enslaved to sin out of bondage to sin into the promised land of salvation, used the word "exodus" and He paid for that exodus by His blood. Alright, so that's the Jewish backdrop.

Now, let's look at the facts of the Lord's Supper. Look at verse 23 through 26 again, "For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you. The Lord Jesus on the night He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, 'This is My body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.' In the same way, after supper He took the cup saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood, do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of Me.' For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes."

So, let's just walk through this and try to understand it. He begins by saying, Paul does, that he received from the Lord what he also passed on concerning the Lord's Supper. This is very much like the direct revelation he claims in Galatians chapter 1, saying, "No one taught me the gospel, but it was revealed to me from heaven by God directly." And so Jesus wasn't there, he wasn't one of the original 12 apostles, he didn't get to see it, so the Lord gave him a special revelation of the facts of the Lord's Supper. "What I received from the Lord, I passed on to you." And he passed it on to them, this is the work of the Apostle. The apostolic work, like the work of a prophet, is a relay race of truth. And so the Lord, through the Holy Spirit, gives it to the human author of Scripture, or to the apostle, and he passes it on to the people. And so he did to the Corinthians when he preached the gospel there.

Verse 23, it says, "The Lord Jesus... " He emphasizes the lordship. Whenever you see the word "Lord" in the New Testament, associated with Jesus, it's affirming and teaching the deity of Jesus Christ. He is Lord. "The Lord Jesus", he says, "On the night He was betrayed... " This reminds us of the wicked actions of Judas Iscariot, who Jesus said, "Have I not chosen you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?" He knew exactly who Judas was, there was no doubt in His mind. But still the betrayal was powerful and genuine and real. As it said in John 13:18, Jesus said, "This is to fulfill the Scripture. He who has shared My bread with Me has lifted up his heel against Me." So a sense of direct betrayal of a friendship. And this is, I think, a warning to us all. We should have an acute sense of betraying Jesus when we sin. We should have a strong sense of it. It should be very personal that we're sinning not against a law engraved in tablets of stone, but we're sinning against someone, who on Judgment Day, will look you in the eye and ask you to give an account for it. We should have a very strong sense of the personal side of sin. "On the night He was betrayed,"

Verse 24, "Took bread, and when He had given thanks... " The Greek word here for giving thanks is Eucharsteo, from which we get the word Eucharist. It's just a transliteration of the Greek word. "He gave thanks." Now this was Jesus' regular habit. At the feeding of the 5000, do you remember? He took the bread and He looked up to Heaven and gave thanks. I think this was such a known gesture that when He did it after His resurrection with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus... Remember, He shared a meal with them? And He took the bread, and He broke it, and gave thanks. They knew right away. They didn't know who He was until then, it was hidden from them. At that moment, through that gesture, they knew it was Jesus. And He looks up to His Father as if to say, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights", like James will say later. And so He took bread and He gave thanks. And so, the ultimate gift here, the body and the blood of Jesus, came down from Heaven as a gift from the Father. He gave thanks. And then He broke it. The breaking of the bread symbolizes the death of Jesus on the cross, just like the blood does, the wine does. So, the breaking there, that Jesus' body was broken on the cross.

However, it's important to note, as John does in his gospel, not a single one of His bones was broken, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, not a bone will be broken. And so the Passover lamb, no bones were broken, but His body is broken for us. And then Jesus' words, "This is My body which is for you, do this in remembrance of Me." This is the giving of the body. I'm giving Myself to you. The Father is giving Me for you. I think about Romans 8:32, which says, "He who did not..." He the Father, God the Father, "Did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all." I can't even begin to put words to what that means. Romans 8:32 is a measure of the Father's priorities, a sense of worth and value. There is His only begotten Son, and there's everything else in the universe, and they don't even compare in the Father's affection. The Father's love for Jesus, it's incalculably strong, powerful, and He gave up His only begotten Son for you. And Jesus gave Himself for you.

John chapter 6, He says in Verse 51, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever, This bread is My flesh which I will give for the life of the world…" Once for all, He gave of His flesh so that we might live forever. Then He says, "Do this in remembrance of Me." This is a commandment, and we who want to be obedient, this is what we do. "Do this in remembrance of Me." The words carved into the communion tables around the world in every native language, there it is. "Do this in remembrance of Me." And so we desire to be obedient and do it.

But it also says something about us, doesn't it? And that is simply, we tend to forget. We tend to forget. Look at the Jews. The Passover was established and all that, all these things were established, but then the psalmist in Psalm 78:40-43 says this, "How often they rebelled against Him in the desert and grieved Him in the wasteland. They did not remember His power, the day He redeemed them from the oppressor, the day He displayed His miraculous signs in Egypt." They didn't remember. Now, lest you Christians think you're any better than the Jews of old were, you're not. We forget too. And so, this meal was ordained so that we would not forget what Jesus did for us. "Do this in remembrance of Me."

Then Verse 25, "In the same way, after supper, He took the cup…" The second element to the Lord's Supper, established at the same time. Jesus, with His hands holding it, Jesus with His voice speaking it, His eyes looking in their eyes, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood." This new covenant alone is what saves sinners. As we sang earlier, "What can wash away my sin?" Nothing but the blood of the new covenant. Shed once for all, but by this blood we are forgiven. The blood of animals could never cleanse us from sin, but the blood of Jesus Christ poured out once for all is infinitely effective, infinitely greater than all your sins. Do not imagine you can say to Almighty God that your sins are greater than the blood that was shed by His only begotten Son. It's just not true. Your sins are small, His mercy is great by comparison.

Now, our sins are many and they are mighty, I understand that. But the provision of grace through the blood of Christ is infinite. And He said, "Do this whenever you drink it." So the drinking of the cup, like the eating of the bread, means a full participation in Jesus. The actual chewing and swallowing... The bread does you no nutritional benefit, I'm just talking bread in general, unless you chew it and swallow it. So also the drink does you no benefit at all if it stays outside your body. This is a metaphor of personal participation in the death of Jesus by faith.

I remember years ago, I saw a movie about the life of Jesus, called Jesus of Nazareth. Been one of my favorites. And it's about six hours long, dear friends. That's why they show it on the networks on two nights during Easter week. You've probably seen it before, made in the 1970s. Roman Catholic director. But really, mostly, I think, faithful to the Scriptures, it stuck to the Scripture. And they zero in on the character of Mary Magdalene, and she is a woman with a past, a sinful past. And she's hopeless, she's crushed by her sin, feels totally guilty, but then hears about Jesus and little by little is drawn into His ministry, into His life. And she's portrayed in the movie as actually partaking in the feeding of the 5000. And she's quite distant from Jesus, but she can see Him. And then little by little, as everyone around is just hungry and people are... No one's going anywhere, it's hot, and she doesn't know why they're there. And then suddenly in her hands is some fresh, delicious, bread. I always picture it as hot, like fresh from the baker's oven, as only Jesus could do. Like when He changed the water to wine, it's like this is high quality wine. Read about it in John 2.

So this is excellent bread. And in the movie as she holds it and begins to chew it, she just starts to weep. "There is someone for me. There's a savior for me. There's a possibility of forgiveness for me", as she's chewing and swallowing, So no, I don't believe in real presence, but I believe in that kind of an idea that comes as you're chewing and swallowing, as you're drinking the cup. It's like I am personally connected with Jesus in His death and His resurrection. And He said, "Do it in remembrance of Me." So it goes to that memory, again. We have to think back, we have to look back at the history and know that "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins." So as you look at that at the grape juice that we use, and it's sparkling, and it's roughly the color of blood, and you look down and it's like, "The cost was infinite, the cost was high for my salvation." So we think of the painful death of Jesus, the Son of God, for us. And I think we should be moved, perhaps, even to tears by this. Feel it, feel what it costs. Because the more you meditate on that I think you will grow in your hatred of sin, your desire to be pure and holy, to keep the baptismal promise that you heard Bethany make, that we all made. That, "I promise, by the Holy Spirit, to walk in holiness and newness of life."

Verse 26, "Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death." There is a preaching element to this acted out ordinance. I think the words have to be spoken, which I'm doing right now, the words of institution read. There's a basic explanation. I'm going much more in detail now than usual. But whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death. So unbelievers coming from the outside in, if they understand what's going on, if they get an explanation, they will see acted out the Gospel. And then He says, "Until He comes." So there's a forward-looking aspect here. We're going to do this until the second coming of Jesus. So we're looking ahead to the coming kingdom when you are going to sit... If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you're going to sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and a multitude greater than anyone could count from every tribe, language, people, and nation. You're going to sit in fellowship with brothers and sisters.

You're going to look them in the eye, and you're going to say, "How great is the Lord in His mercy to us?" And you're going to enjoy that fellowship. And what will you ask Abraham? What questions do you have for him? "What was it like when... " Something like that. But what an incredible time of fellowship. And Jesus was thinking about it because He said, "I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine again until that day I drink it anew with you in my Father's Kingdom." The mysteries, the physical supernatural mysteries of that, are beyond my ability to comprehend. I don't know what "drink it anew with you" means, but it's going to be awesome. So we look ahead to that.

Alright, that's the doctrine that comes through it. Now, let's talk, sadly, about the abuse. What were the Corinthians doing that needed such correction? Look at verse 27. He says, "Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord." The Corinthian Church, the Corinthians, some Corinthians, were sinning greatly against this ordinance. They were actually guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. So you see the sacredness and the seriousness by what Paul's saying here. Well, how were they abusing it? Well, certainly there are factions and divisions. The fact that they were not one with each other, they didn't seem to love each other. Their prideful arrogance was harming them. We're going to see in the next few chapters on spiritual gifts that they were very arrogant about their spiritual gifts, and they were vaunting themselves over the others, and saying, "I don't need you," and all this kind of thing. So there was that kind of pride.

And Paul says, "Look, there have to be differences and distinctions among you. We're not all the same. There are different gifts, there are different genders." We just talked about that the last two weeks. Men and women have different roles in the life of the church.  There have to be differences among you. But not like this, not the factions and divisions and strife and conflict. But they were going so far in their prideful demeanor toward each other they were actually gouging themselves on communion bread and getting drunk... Some of them were getting drunk on communion wine. Look at verse 20 and 21. "When you come together it's not the Lord's Supper you eat, for as you eat each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk." Paul says, "You don't seem to understand what this is for. Don't you have homes to eat and drink in? Don't you have a good dinner when you get home from church? You're not here to fill your bellies." And it seems some of the bullies and the dominant ones were wealthy and privileged, maybe, in the community. And so they were jockeying for position and gorging themselves and leaving nothing for the poorer members of the church.

So Paul gives a shocking revelation here of the Lord's discipline, something that I think they would not have any way of knowing if Paul didn't tell them. Look at Verse 27. "Therefore, whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord." Verse 28-30. "A person ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord, eats and drinks judgment on himself." Judgment. Verse 30. "That is why many among you are weak, and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep…" That means been killed by the Lord. Because he says, "That is why you have fallen asleep." There's a connection. Some of you have died. So if anyone eats the Lord's Supper arrogantly, or flippantly, or irreverently, or even perhaps as an unbeliever, they're guilty of sinning against the body and blood of Christ, and they're liable for judgment, which God may or may not pour out. He is merciful, gracious, and patient. But in this context, some of the Corinthians had died.

Now, I don't know that they knew why they died, but now they did once Paul said it, and he doesn't say who it is. This teaches us something about the Lord's discipline. Hebrews 12 says that the Lord disciplines everyone He accepts as a son or daughter. And if He doesn't discipline, you're actually not one of His children. And that discipline can go so far as to remove you out of this world. But it also could include before that being weak and sick. And here it's tied to the Lord's Supper, but it's actually connected to all aspects of discipline. So the fact that the Lord does that in connection with the Lord's Supper ought to move us to see how sacred and serious the Lord's Supper is.

Alright, so the sacred observance of the Lord's Supper. How then should we properly partake? Well, first, make certain that you're a Christian. Make certain that you're born again. You've heard the gospel many times. Bethany did a great job, so I thank you, so now I don't need to do it. The basic facts of the gospel you've heard. All you need to do to know that your sins are forgiven is to trust in Jesus. No works will be accepted, no works welcome. We're justified, we're forgiven, by faith. Make certain that you're born again before you partake in the Lord's Supper. We also, as Baptists, believe you should testify to it by water baptism. We believe that the Lord's Supper is a church ordinance, so we would not recommend individuals... Like two good friends in Christ watching a beautiful sunset, and one of them hits the other and says, "Hey, let's do the Lord's Supper, let's... " Look, don't do that. Pray together, sing a song, but not the Lord's Supper. The Lord's supper is a local church ordinance.

And so that's why we do something called "fence the table." And what we do is we make certain to say words to the effect of, "Be certain that you're born again, that you've testified to it by water baptism," and we do it here in the context of a local church as Sunday morning worship.

Secondly, be serious about the Lord's Supper, take this seriously. But also be joyful. "Well, Pastor, how can I be seriously joyful?" Well, the whole Christian life is about serious joy. It's a serious thing, we're talking about Almighty God, we're talking about the fact that Almighty God is for you and not against you. There's your serious joy. So be serious about the Lord's Supper, come to it reverently, come to it seriously. And come to it joyfully expectantly, that God is going to bless you as you partake. Thirdly, examine yourself before you partake. Ask the Lord, say, "Show me if there's any sin in my life." "Search me, O God, and know me." Psalm 139:23-24. Do that. Before you partake, close your eyes, bow your head. Say, "Lord, show me. Is there anything that I'm not dealing with? Any sin in my life I've not addressed? Anything I've not confessed?" And resolve to address it.

Don't fail to partake. I heard a story years ago of a Scottish pastor. This is in the 1800s, and he was ministering the Lord's Supper, and he knew his flock, he knew this community. And there was a young woman there who had been in some sin and she was just broken by what was going on in her life. And she would not reach out her hand to take the Lord's Supper. And he said with the greatest tenderness, he leaned over and said quietly to her, "Take it, Lassie, it's for sinners." So all you need to do is examine yourself and resolve to put the sin to death, and then partake, because it's for sinners. But examine yourself. And then if there's a sin pattern in your life... This is a strong text here, apart from the Lord's Supper, on the Lord's discipline. If you want to avert being weak and sick or perhaps even falling asleep because of sin, that means dying. If you want to avert that, then get busy on yourself. Judge yourself.

Jesus used the metaphor of your right hand caused you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. Don't make the Lord cut off your right hand, you cut it off. Elders aren't going to do that, that's not our job. It's your job. You examine yourself. If there's a sin pattern in your life, address it. Deal with it vigorously. And if you do, the Lord won't have to do it. But if the Lord does do it and you are among those that are weak or sick, then just thank God that He's treating you like a son or daughter and He's not casting you off. Because He doesn't want you to go to hell. He doesn't want you to share in the judgment of the world, as Paul says here in the text.

And then finally, as you come to the Lord's Supper, remember your brothers and sisters as you do. We're told right in the text to wait for each other, look around, don't go ahead. I'll never forget my first Protestant Lord's Supper. It was at Grace Chapel in Lexington. And in the Catholic tradition when you go up, you go up to the priest, you get the bread, you eat it. It's linked to the transubstantiation because they don't want you to carry it back to your pew or something like that. But there I was in my first Protestant Mass, I called it, I had no idea. And along comes the bread, and what do you think I did with it as soon as I got it? The only one of a thousand people in that congregation that was done right away. It was later that I read this text where it said, "Wait for each other." I was like, "Sorry, Lord. Cover me." But we hold and we wait and we partake together. But you do that because you're mindful of the fact that you're part of a body of Christ worldwide. Close with me in prayer.

Please turn in your Bibles now to the text that you just heard Nathan read, 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. Now we're in the middle of a section in which Paul is addressing a variety of problems with public worship and the next sermon that I'm going to preach next week is going to be on the Lord supper, which we're going to actually celebrate today. And then after that comes, three chapters on spiritual gifts. And as I've been preparing those sermons. I've been just drawn in by the delightful ordering of the body, the physical body, and how Paul uses that as analogy for spiritual gifts, and how it says in 1 Corinthians 12, how God has arranged the parts of the body each of them, just as He wanted it to be. And how beautiful that is and how we should delight in what God has made us to be in terms of spiritual gifts and we should not think of ourselves inferior to another if we don't have that gift. We shouldn't say, "Well, because I'm not this or that I'm not a part of the body." Neither should others feel superior, because they have maybe upfront, or show your gifts that they would have any sense that I don't need you. The hand can't say to the foot, I don't need you but that God has in a beautiful, and marvelous way arranged each part of the body just as He wanted it to be.

Now I don't want to steal the thunder of those terms. I'm excited to preach those as the time comes. But I want to just take that idea and bring it over to the issue in front of us today, that we began last week. And that is the issue of the proper roles of men and women in the life of the church. And that we should have that same sense of delight and a welcoming of what God has done, how God has arranged the body just as He wanted it to be. And that we should have a sense of humility, and a sense of wonder and delight in the roles of men and women in the life of the church. And we really need this, don't we?

We are a gender confused, culture. And friends it's getting worse. I was reading how in one public school system, in another state, how at the elementary school level the teachers were strongly dissuaded even forbidden from saying boys and girls, dividing the class into boys and... I grew up with that, boys and girls. But instead, divide them up into whether you like summer or winter better, or whether purple is your favorite color, or such and such. And so any divisions you would make would not be along gender lines. And we've seen lots of evidence of this in our culture. How confused we are in gender. Friends, God is not confused about male and female He's never been, never will be. And we Christians should not be either. We should delight in men and women as such. Now, as we come to the second week to this, last week, I deferred all of the heavy lifting to this week. So we've got a lot of verses to go through and explain that you just heard Nathan read. There may have been, may have been possibly some questions that popped into your mind as you heard those verses read. There have been questions that have popped into my mind even as I heard those verses read. But I alone among all of you have to get up here and talk about it. So pray for me, as I've already prayed for myself, that I do not say anything, amiss or something that would be hindering to the body of Christ.

Let me just lay my cards on the table as I did last week. I think that this passage teaches a timeless trans-cultural principle of male leadership in the church, in the home, that's worked out in different cultures in different ways. And that the head coverings issue was one of those cultural ways. And that hair length and head coverings is not the timeless trans-cultural principle Paul's getting at, but male leadership is.

Now, as I talked to the guys this morning, we were praying together for the service I said, "I think logically, I think there's three ways we can deal with this passage and only three." This is what I do, I'm an engineer, I think in these kinds of ways. Alright, so we got this logical, you got three choices here. Choice number one, Paul was wrong. And we don't have to do anything he says, anything he wrote. He lived 2000 years ago, he was a this, he was a that he was a sexist, he was a whatever. We don't have to do anything. That's what the world, the unbelieving world does with this text. Set it aside, it's not relevant for us today.

Option number two, let's say, in my ordering, would be the one I gave you. That there's a trans-cultural principle of male leadership in the church that's worked out in different settings, in different ways. That would include women that do believe that they should wear physical head coverings, as many of our sisters do around the world, but most do not. And so, there's going to be cultural out-workings. And there was some culture outworkings there in Corinth, but that's not what he's saying is normative around the world.

Or option number three, that actually Paul is making that normative around the world, and he really does want women to wear literal physical head coverings in every setting. Those are your three options.

And so, as I've worked it through, I feel that the second is the best way to approach this text. The first one is devastating. At that point it just swallows the whole Bible alive. Because once you admit of a certain error, possibility of a human perspective that's wrong, then you've got that 1% of the Bible is not inspired 99% inspired. You'll find that 1% grows up like a boa constrictor to swallow the entire Bible. Wherever the Bible crosses you, wherever the Bible challenges you, wherever the Bible comes at you in a way you don't like, it might be part of that 1%, and you start finding it moving quickly to 2% and then 5% and practically wherever you have difficulty you can use that argument. Probably, this is not the word of God. Instead for me, I have been, all my Christian life, in awe of the Bible. I have been overwhelmed by its consistency, its unity, its beauty, its perfection. And just because I do honestly have trouble understanding all the details of this text, does not mean I desire to throw the whole thing out. Instead, I just want to say, "Lord, when I get to heaven, I'll... " I don't think the first thing I'm going to talk to Paul about is head coverings and hair length, but who knows at some point maybe it'll come up in our heavenly conversation. So let's go ahead and look by way of review, where we've been last week, and then let's go as best as we can through the details.

So Paul is addressing public worship, he's addressing various issues in the life of the church. He's gotten to this issue of male and female roles in the life of the church, and in corporate worship. He begins in Verse 2 by commending the Corinthians for remembering him in everything, meaning remembering his authority as an apostle. Not just said, "I'm so glad you have pleasant memories of me," But who he was. He was the church planner, he was their father in the faith. And not only that, for remembering everything, he passed on to them, from God. So the idea is that Paul was speaking not the words of men but as it actually is the word of God, as he says in Thessalonians. So he praises them for being obedient to his teaching. But then he has to address this issue of gender roles in the life of the church, the proper place of women.

Jesus’ Elevation of Women

Now we've talked last time about how Greco-Roman society did not have a high esteem of women and it really was Christianity and specifically Jesus Christ in the way He addressed women, the way He dealt with women, the way He elevated women, the way He embraced, that they would sit under His teaching as a disciple would and drinking in as Mary did while Martha was preparing the dinner. And Jesus said that she has chosen the better portion and it will not be taken from her. So that women should drink in doctrine and the way He zealously went after the Samaritan woman at the well, and yearned to save her and bring her to salvation. How God then used her to bring that whole village to come and talk to Christ. He elevated the role of women. Equally created in the image of God, equally redeemed by the blood of Christ, equally adopted into the family of God as sons and daughters of the living God, equally heirs of heaven, the same heavenly reward, equally gifted by the Spirit. Equally indwelt by the Spirit of adoption, equally, gifted by the Spirit, all of these things.

However, it seems that some of the women might have been going too far. There were nascent forms of feminism, even in the first century, that can be shown in Greco-Roman society. And it seems that while women were equal in all these other things, there still was the need for establishing male leadership in the church and in the home. And so that's what he's addressing here. And so he doesn't want there to be disorder, he doesn't want outsiders coming in, as we'll see in the teaching on prophecy in 1 Corinthians 14. He doesn't want outsiders coming in and seeing mayhem, speaking in tongues and no one's interpreting, and so, how that looks. So he wants everything to be done decently in good order. And there's a biblical, an ordering from God. And so for us, this is a matter of godly order, it is absolutely not a matter of intrinsic worth or value.

It's never been that way. And even though that's what opponents would slanderously charge the church for teaching this, that you're teaching that men are inherently worth more, intrinsically better or more valuable. That is absolutely not the case and we said that last week, but I'll say it more in a moment. But as you look at it, just elders within the church, leaders within the church are not intrinsically worth more than non-elders. Like most of the men in the church will never be elders, but the elders are not intrinsically worth more or more valuable than those that are not elders. This is just a matter of role within the life of the church.

Same thing with parents and children. God is in no way saying that parents are intrinsically worth more than their children because He commands the children, to obey them in the Lord. And the same thing in the husband-wife relationship. Paul is in no way saying because the husband is the head of the wife and the wife should submit as the church submits to Christ (as Ephesians 5 teaches), that that husbands are intrinsically worth more in God's sight than women. Our modern day egalitarianism and feminism and concerns about authority, and power, that Ben was praying about very well, appreciate that prayer. That the struggles we have with that and also the tyranny that people have used of abusing authority, and equal rights of focus that we have very much in our time, makes it very hard to see this timeless trans-cultural principle well. Tends to fight it, tends to resist it, and to question it.

The Principle Restated

So look again at Verse 3, the principle restated. "I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ and the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." And so we saw last week that the word head means authority, one authority over, not source here. The context here would imply authority. And so, when it says, the head of every man is Christ, that establishes the very thing he said openly in the great commission, in Matthew 28. "All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me…" Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords, He is the ruler of all human beings. And specifically in the context here, all men. And so it's best not to see this as the ESV does within marriage, the head of every wife is her husband etcetera. Because that twists the grammar a bit you have to put a possessive in there, which isn't there in the Greek. And plus Paul here is not directly talking about marriage, I think he's talking about bigger than marriages within the life of the church. And so he's including marriage, but also male leadership in the church, the elders and the teachers and the leaders in the church should be men and not women. And so that works out in terms of practical roles, as he says very clearly in 1 Timothy 2:12-13 says, "I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man, she must be silent for Adam was formed first then Eve."

So he's saying the elders, the teachers, the preachers, the leaders in the church, publicly, should be men. Paul is saying, therefore that a person's gender actually does matter when it comes to roles played in the church and in the home. God has ordained male leadership in the home first and in the church second, and that that principle is timeless and in all cultures, and it originates from creation. And there are aspects of it that we see in the Trinity, because it says the head of Christ is God. This is the final step of Paul's principle here, Jesus Christ, though completely equal with the Father, He is in very nature God, in His essence, God, He willingly subordinated Himself to the Father, and functionally. He obeyed His Father every moment of His physical life, on Earth, no doubt about that, He didn't even speak a word unless the Father commanded Him to speak it. He came down from Heaven, He said not to do His own will, but to do the will of God. And He obeyed Him, even to the point of death, on a cross. And so clearly in His life, right to death on the cross and in His resurrection, He obeyed His father. But there are indications that He was obeying His Father before He entered the world. Because He knew very well, He entered the world, He knew what He was doing and He was doing it in submission to the eternal command of the Father. And so for all eternity, from eternity past until He was incarnate, He knew He would submit to the Father.

And then the verb tense here is not past, not the head of Christ was God when He was on Earth, but is God, and He is up in heaven now. And so, though some pushback and concerned with eternal subordination within the Trinity, I understand the concerns, yet we are saying and asserting that Jesus is in every way, equal to the Father in terms of His deity. But there's a functional subordination and that's essential to the argument here. There is no inferiority between Jesus and the Father. None at all. But He is in very nature, God. And so there's nothing demeaning. So that's the timeless principle. Male leadership in the church, and the home.

But now we have to see and walk through in detail how he applies it and it has to do with this issue of head coverings and his discussion of hair. So, let's look at verses 4-6, "Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered, dishonors his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered, dishonors her head. It is just as though her head were shaved. If a woman does not cover her head she should have her hair cut off. And if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or shaved off, she should cover her head."

Focus: the Public Display of the Timeless Principle

So the focus here I think is the public display, of the trans-cultural timeless principle. How does it appear, how does it get shown in life? Paul wants this order clearly on display in their public worship and in their home. So if an outsider walks in, he wants it to be clear that men are leading the church. And that women are in glad submission to this God ordained structure. Now, the question we have to ask here is, what is the adornment that Paul has in mind. What's he talking about? And in this there's a lot of discussion. I think there are two basic possibilities. First is some kind of physical head covering, some kind of cloth of some sort, a prayer shawl. You could picture it like a shawl. Or he's objecting to hair, a specific hair style among the women that some of the women it seems were wearing their hair down, when the normal culturally accepted standard would be for her to tie it up in a knot or a bun and put it on top of her head. And so what he wants is for women to do that, those are the two possibilities for what he's talking about here.

However, even though there are certain arguments for it being just hair that we're just talking about hair style and putting hair up on the top of the head, I think he's talking about an actual cloth, a shawl of some sort. He says that he wants the men to pray with their heads uncovered. But if Paul, were talking about hair, that would require complete baldness, on the part of all you men. And some of you guys are really surprisingly, in love with your hair, I've found. It's quite remarkable. So you would not want your hair all shaved off. So that doesn't really fit. It seems like he's talking about some additional thing beyond the hair. Alright, one of the points about a woman is that if a woman wore her hair long it should be suspected of being a prostitute. And so he's saying if you have your hair down, there's a certain shamefulness to that. And so have the hair up. But even despite that, I think he's talking about some kind of cloth. Also in these verses, it seems like he's talking about something additional to put on, the covering, the word covering in verse 6 and 7, and verse 13 implies something other than hair.

Well, either way, no matter what he's talking about, he's arguing for women to adorn themselves in Corinth in a certain way that lines up with the timeless principle, we just gave in Verse 3. He wants them to dress like that or carry themselves like that. So you can see male headship, male leadership and then women submission, in submission. The principle is timeless, but the specific outworking in each culture is going to be different. In every culture in the world, there are certain customs having to do with appearance, of men and women. That includes hair style, that includes cosmetics, jewelry, all kinds of things that mark men out differently than women. And so the principle here is that men should clearly be men and leading the church and women should be clearly women and in submission to Godly leadership.

The Timeless Principle Applied to Men

Alright, then he takes that principle, and applies it to the men. Verse 4, "Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered, dishonors his head." So for a man to pray or prophesy with, let's say a prayer shawl, if he were to have a shawl on while he's praying, it would be disgraceful. Paul specifically said he would disgrace his head by wearing a prayer shawl like a woman. What does that mean that he dishonors his head? Well, it could be he's just dishonoring himself. Like your blood be on your own heads, you're dishonoring yourself if you act like a woman, that's possible. Or it could be referring to his head, being Christ. That he's dishonoring Jesus. And that relationship between Christ and him as head. Either way, he is dishonoring his head.

The Timeless Principle Applied to Women

Then he applies it to women. Look at verse 5 and 6, "Every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered, dishonors her head, it is just as though her head were shaved. If a woman does not cover her head she should have her hair cut off, and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head."

So there's this discussion here about both the covering which I think is a piece of cloth and the hair and that's where things get confusing, but I think to some degree he's saying if you're not going to wear a prayer shawl you should go the whole way and have your hair cut off entirely and you wouldn't do that. So therefore, I'm arguing that you also have the head covering or the shawl. And again, he's saying that if she doesn't follow this principle she is dishonoring her head. Again, the same type of thing, either she's bringing dishonor to herself or she's dishonoring the relationship she should have to godly male leadership in the church. Either way, it is a dishonoring thing, and she should not do it. So it would be just as dishonorable as if she had shaved her head which would be for her I think in that culture and even more vigorous step toward masculinity. She's taking a strong step saying, "I am clearly identifying as a man at that point," if she had her hair entirely shaved off.

Alright, now the next thing he does is He roots this principle in glory Verses 7 through 10. "A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head." So he begins by saying, a man is the image and glory of God, he expands his reason here for the issue of image and glory. He is in no way saying here that man and not woman is the image and glory of God. That is clearly not true. Paul knew very well that God created man in His image, and the image of God, He created him, male and female, He created them. And so both male and female are clearly in the image of God. Genesis 1:27. Furthermore, Christ in eternity when redemption is done will make both the man and the woman every bit as radiant and glorious shining like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. So they're going to shine, both of them, in eternal glory in heaven. Paul knows that better than anyone else. So then, what does this mean?

Well, I think man is the image and glory of God, means that both male and female, but he's zeroing in on men here in particular. Both male and female are the greatest display of the glory of God made in physical creation. It's the crowning achievement of God's physical creation. The greatest thing that came out of God creating in the physical universe was man. It's His crowning achievement, it's His masterpiece. And so again, we're not saying that God is not glorified by a soaring eagle, or a powerful bear or a swimming dolphin. All of those things bring a kind of glory to God and He is glorified in all of those, but the greatest glory is in humanity in man, both male and female. The crowning achievement, the greatest thing that ever came out of the mouth of God in the physical world, I think that's what he means here.

Therefore take that same idea to woman is the glory of man. What is the greatest thing that ever physically came out of a man, not any of his works, but woman. I think that's what he's saying. The crowning achievement of man, when he talk about something that came out of a man is a woman. Now, of course, we're talking about that unique moment never to be repeated again in redemptive history in which the first woman came out of a part of the body of the first man. So you remember how it went back in Genesis 2:18, God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone." So there was a time that Adam was alone. And that's very important in this whole argument that the man was formed first and there was a time he was alone that there was no woman.

But God said it is not good for the man, I think we could think of it as, to remain alone. We need a woman. That was always part of the plan. And so He said, "I will make a helper suitable for him," Genesis 2:18. Then he brings all these animals to the man to see what he would name him but no helper suitable was found among the animals. So Genesis 2:21-23, it says, "So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed the place with flesh, then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man and brought her to the man, the man said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman for she was taken out of man.'" So that's the idea, the most glorious thing that ever came out of a man is woman.

Now, that moment we know is never repeated again. It's utterly unique in redemptive history, but it is significant and it's written down in Genesis Chapter 2. So we would know that it happened. Frankly, if we didn't have Genesis 2, we would assume just from Genesis 1 that man and woman were created, that the man and woman were created exactly at the same time which God could have done but God in His wisdom chose to have a period of time in which the man was alone. So Paul re-states the principle here: A man ought not to cover his head because as he exercises authority in the home and in the church he is acting in the pattern established when God made Adam first and then Eve for a time. And He gave him the responsibility of naming the animals and gave him the responsibility of naming her. He actually names her twice before the fall and after the fall, he names her woman, before the fall and he names her Eve, because she would become the mother of all living after the fall.

A male Leadership then is established by this creation order, therefore a man should not adorn himself like a woman when he prays. That's the logic here, because of the ordering that he says. In like manner, a woman should accept her submissive role as God establishing creation by covering her head. This harkens back to the created order and delighting in her existence as the glory of man, the most glorious thing that ever came out of man.

The Timeless Significance of the Original Pattern

Now in verse 8 and 9, we see the timeless significance of this original pattern, "For man did not come from woman but woman from man." Verse 9, "Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man." So the original order matters. It matters that Adam was alone for a while and then Eve came. It establishes the reason why men should lead in the home and in the church as Paul goes to, quoting 1 Timothy 2:11, "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man, she must be silent." Why, Paul? "For Adam was formed first then Eve." And so, that creation order matters to Paul, therefore, to God. And so we see it that way, that ordering that time in which Adam was alone, and then Eve.

But Paul goes beyond that to remind us of the statement of to some degree in relation to the man, the woman's job description in Genesis 2:18, "I will make a helper suitable for him." A helper suitable for him. So the word helper is well connected with Paul's concept here. "Man, was not created for a woman," Paul says, "But woman for man." Helper is behind that language. I'm here for you, means I'm here to help you. Imagine and I do this analogy in premarital counseling, but imagine, let's say my wife were making a big meal for an event and she is working hard, and I come in and I say, "How are you doing?" "I'm fine. Alright." I say to her, "Do you need some help?" And she says, "Yes I would love some help." And I say, "Great." And while she's not looking, I take a bunch of spices and dump it into the pot where she's been working for the last 45 minutes. Friends, that is a bad idea. That is not helpful. Instead I should say, "What do you need me to do?"

So there's a sense of a leadership in that task and then a helper that comes to say, "How can I enable that task to go on? How can I be lubricant in that to get it to happen?" So here's how it applies to men and women. Let's take a young unmarried man who is interested in being married and a young woman who is interested in him. He should have a mission in life. He should have, somewhere he's going and I don't just mean a vocation or a good job that'll pay. I mean as a Christian. He should know what God wants him to do in this world. He should understand what his spiritual gifts are, and his calling along the line and have a mission in his life and then she has to decide whether she wants to be a helper suitable for that mission. That goes back to the original statement in Genesis 2:18, and I think he explained somewhat of this statement for man was not made for woman, but woman for man.

What that means, then, is that the role of leadership in the mission of the church and in the mission of the family falls to the men, to the man in the family. And that the woman her delight would be to help that mission come about. Now, this does not mean that a single woman, a woman like Paul talks about in 1 Corinthian 7 called to singleness, should not have for herself a mission in life, she should. She should have a way she's using her gifts. You could go back and look at 1 Corinthian 7, she says, "I am consecrated to the Lord, and everything I give, I give to the Lord. There are women like that." However even a woman like that will do her ministry in the context of a healthy, we hope a healthy local church in which men are leading. And so there's still the need for even a single woman to submit to male leadership at least in the life of the church.

The Perplexing Mention of Angels

Then Paul interestingly mentions angels. I thought to myself this morning, "How in the world am I getting through all these verses?" And you all are waiting for this moment. What do the angels have to do with anything?  Well, I'm going to do my best to tell you. I don't know for sure this is what Paul means, and because of the angels, but I'll give it a shot. Look at verse 10, "For this reason and because of the angels, the woman ought to have authority on her head or a sign of authority on her head." Alright, so what do angels have to do with it? Angels, we're told in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 14, are ministering servants or spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation. So they are out and about friends. I don't need to freak you out but they're here. They're here in corporate worship, they're invisible servants, they're here to serve God's people and minister to them as they are going to inherit salvation.

Secondly, there's clear biblical evidence that angels are active even in worship. That they're active even in the advancing of the Gospel. It was angels that mediated the Word of God to prophets in the Old Testament, and to the apostles, in the New Testament for example, in the Book of Revelation, Revelation 1:1, was given to John by an angel. And so angels deliver the Word of God.

Furthermore, it seems that angels deliver prayers up to God. In Revelation 8: 4, it talks about an angel that gives up the smoke of incense together with the prayers of the saints. So, angels are active when it comes to worship. Beyond this angels are perfectly submissive to God-ordained authority, they're very submissive beings. They, when Jesus says, "May your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." He's talking at least about Angelic obedience, they perfectly obey and there's structure within the angels. We have a glimpse of this with the word Archangel. An Archangel's literally a ruler angel. So it means other angels who are not archangels submit to their authority as they submit to the authority of God. And so angels are very submissive beings.

It's remarkable that even the Archangel Michael didn't dispute with Satan over the body of Moses. He respected Satan's authority at some level. It's a mysterious passage. But it's there in Jude. He has a respect for authority, he just said, "The Lord rebuke you," and buried Moses. It's very interesting there, but these false teachers that second Peter and Jude talks about despise authority, they're arrogant toward authority, but Angels aren't. So they're very submissive to authority, they take it very seriously and here's the kicker, angels seem to evaluate human behavior. They are not our judge, but they do evaluate. And we get that in the book of Revelation, when the angel is pouring out judgement on Earth, and He's saying, "You are right, our Lord for doing this, turning water into blood, for they shed the blood of your servants and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve." Angels are saying that.

So putting it all together, Angels are here, they're watching, they care about authority and they would not delight in a throwing off of God-ordained authority. That's what I get out of "Because of the angels."

So, verses 11 and 12, we see the beautiful balance that God intends between men and women. "In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born a woman, but everything comes from God." Just a beautiful balancing statement and it's given me the whole just the whole demeanor and attitude that I have about this topic. And that is, it's a delightful thing for a man to be a man, and it's a delightful thing for a woman to be a woman, and we should delight in all of that, God knows what He's doing. And He has created a beautiful interdependence and so I think Paul gives this balancing statement through the Holy Spirit, so that men will not run amok either. He didn't want the women to run amok with their freedom and equality and so he puts an ordering here but he doesn't want the men to act tyrannical and boastful and arrogant toward the women.

And so he's pulling them in, he wants them to work together. We can't do this task alone. Men and women have to work together, and he makes an argument here from origins in verse 12, "As woman came from man," the first woman came from the body of man. But that was a unique one-off, never to be repeated again. From then on Paul says, "Every single man that's ever walked on Earth, got his body from a woman, namely his mother." And so at conception, and birth every man gets his body from a woman. So if you go that beyond that, to just look at the family a godly man who wants to be a father of children and raise them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, has to have a godly wife to do it. And the two of them come together, there's no way when God says it's not good for the man to be alone, He had already said, part of the plan was, "Be fruitful and multiply." Friends you can't do that alone. And so there's this beautiful interdependence. Beyond that, we have to see the strategic power and importance of the relationship. I think specifically between a mother and a growing child. I think categorically, there is no more influential person on planet Earth than a Christian mother who raises their children in the Gospel.

It is the most significant influence because she is teaching her sons and daughters, not only the so-called, mother tongue but she's teaching them the Gospel from an early age. And I think we'll find in heaven just the staggering number of elect people that were brought to faith in Christ in part through the influence of a godly mother. And so there is a beautiful interdependence here between men and women. So, this Biology is clear that we cannot procreate alone neither the man nor the woman can but we need each other in far deeper ways and this, it's hard for me to even put words to it, but let's just put it this way. Men and women are different and they just approach things differently. I've been learning that for 31 years. Well, longer than that, but I am learning we just have different perspectives and both of those perspectives are beneficial and helpful.

Obviously both can be tainted with sin, I know that but there is a woman's perspective that's beneficial and a godly husband should seek to get his godly wife's perspective. There's a woman's instinct about things, and a sense of things. It's not errant but there's a benefit and a value to it, there's just a perspective that godly male leaders in a church should seek input and wisdom from godly women in the church. So there's a beautiful what we call complementarianism, a complementing of men and women working together, and that's what we get out of verse 11 and 12.

Everything Comes from God

Now, verse 12 he says everything comes from God, it is a wonderful thing for a man to be a man, because that's what God wants. And it's a wonderful thing for a woman to be a woman, because that's what God wanted her to be from conception. The man was to be a man and the woman, a woman and God wants this. So all of this comes from God and it's a beautiful thing. It is Satan that is viciously attacking this concept of gender in our culture. It is he who in every generation has fostered the battle of the sexes and has fanned in the flame discontent in the hearts of one or the other and arguing in conflict. That's what Satan does. God produces peace and unity and beauty, in what He has ordered. So everything comes from God.

Now verses 13-15, these are some of the hardest verses for me to interpret. And we're just about out of time, here, so I don't know. Maybe we should go ahead and go to the Lord's Supper. No, I'm going to go ahead and do it. I may never have a chance to explain hair length again. Friends, I have never thought so much about hair length in all my life. I mean, I'm a guy, I don't think about hair length. I sometimes need to be reminded to get my hair cut. I don't always think of it. I was thinking in geek terms too, engineering terms, like worldwide, if a person's hair is one foot or longer, what are the odds she is a woman worldwide? It's not a 100%. We know that. Forget it, that's not helpful. Let's just move on.

Verse 13-15, "Judge for yourselves is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him. But that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory. For long hair is given to her as a covering." Paul is arguing here, from nature, what nature teaches, that's what makes the verse so difficult. So as I've wondered how does nature teach you about hair length? Ponder that with me. What do you learn from nature about hair length? Hair length is inevitably an individual choice and frequently culturally informed choice for the most part. No, not for the most part. All babies come into the world with remarkably short hair, have you noticed, or no hair. And so at some point, it grows also we are aware of special cases, sometimes medical conditions like cancer and all that caused both men and women entirely to lose their hair, they're no less feminine, and no less masculine. So trying to work through what nature teaches here. The best I can do is to say from Romans Chapter 1, that men who are sexually inflamed toward other men is contrary to nature and women sexually inflamed toward other women is contrary to nature, that aspect has to do with reproduction. Nature teaches us that men and women are different. That's what I learned from nature. Hair length seems to be a personal choice and a cultural choice that at best lines up with those differences and often lines up with those differences.

Now, our gender confused culture is blurring a lot of those distinctions. More and more you can see people out in society that you look at them and you honestly, I'm talking about adults, you honestly don't know if they're male or female. And I think in many cases, it's an intentional choice, it's a look, it's an appearance and it's a blurring and I think that's almost the very thing Paul's getting at here. He wants men to be visibly clearly men and women to be visibly clearly men because nature teaches you that there are differences. That's the best I can make of it. I think with longer hair, I think it is the tendency that those with long hair are women worldwide, generally.

But that doesn't mean that women can't have, and I've had a number of women talk to me about how long hair is hard to care for and it's better to have short hair and all that. Do what you want. Again, I've said this is a timeless principle that gets worked out with personal choice and culture, all over the world. So I'm not saying that there's any mandating of hair length here. This is the very thing that makes the passage difficult, because Paul seems to be very adamant on this point. And again, you go back at that point to one of the three options, you either throw the whole thing out, but then you're challenging all the scripture where you say look this is a personal choice to be making, cultural expectations where Paul is actually making normative statements not just about head coverings but about hair length worldwide.

And as we go to the final verse, verse 16, he says, "If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice nor do the churches of God." So, Paul actually says, "You don't get around like I do, oh Corinthians, but let me tell you all over the world, this is what we're doing." And he's going to make the same argument later. Now, here's why, when I look at the three options, I reject the third option because for the most part the church has rejected this third option. If you go, and I've been to local churches all over the world very, very few of the women wear head coverings. And so it seems that God has worked this out providentially that He is not demanding a normative physical head covering for all women in all time but He is ordering men to lead in local churches. So this is the norm worldwide. But he also warns the church about being contentious. So, contentiousness comes up as I said a moment ago from the devil and a desire to fight against it, and to challenge it, and all that, it's not from God. If you have legitimate questions about the text, friends, I do too. At some point if you ask more and more details, I'm going to say, "I don't know." But I do believe that this pattern of male leadership is well established.

So what applications can we take for this as we finish? Well first, as I said last week, what you believe about head coverings, what you believe about hair length will not save your soul. The most important thing I can do every week, is tell lost people how their sins can be forgiven and how they can spend eternity with God in heaven. And so, just to nestle with in what we've been saying sinners like you and me are saved because Jesus submitted to His Father's command, to go to the cross. It's because He came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. He died on the cross so rebels like us and we are all rebels, we all challenge authority, we have a problem with authority, especially God's authority. Jesus submitted to His father, died in our place that we might have eternal life. So come to Christ. Trust in Him, look to Him to save your soul. And cry out to Him, "Say, I have been a rebel, I have been a sinner, I need a savior." And Jesus is that Savior.

Now, if you are a believer, you've come to faith in Christ. Just understand where we're at, understand the attack on gender that's going on in society, and let's resist it. Perhaps no society in Church history has so needed to hear this suddenly controversial teaching on the significance of gender as us. Satan's attack on gender is widespread and pervasive. They actually say now, that if you declare your newborn infants gender at birth, it's a boy, it's a girl that's a form of child abuse. I think it's exciting point of news. I actually knew it before my wife did a split second before she did. In every case, and I was excited to be able to tell obviously, our relatives were first and foremost, concerned about Christy's health and the baby's health. But then there's that question. And I remember standing and looking through the glass of the nursery and seeing all of these bundles of joy and they were marked pink or blue.

You know the cards are pink or blue. I don't know where we're going friends in our weird culture. I really don't. I am... Fear for it. I think transgenderism is a form of mental illness similar to anorexia nervosa. They're very similar in which you have a faulty self-image that in the case of anorexia, will literally kill you, and people know to get around that person and say, "You need to eat, you need good nutrition." They know to say that anorexics. But when it comes to gender dysphoria people are surrounding and encouraging and exhorting and enabling that. No, gender matters. Males are males. Females are females. And we need to just continue to tell our culture the truth. And it's going to take courage to do it. Concerning the head coverings, the desire that we have in this church is to have men clearly lead, for men to preach, for men to be leaders, to be leaders on Sunday mornings. Whether we do every detail exactly the right way I don't know, but I do believe that when an outsider comes in, they should see men in a Godly leadership role. And so we desire that.

Thirdly, embrace masculinity. Delight in it. And embrace femininity. For you as a man, definitely embrace that and raise your boys to be men who'll one day take leadership, perhaps in a home, and in a church, and raise your daughters to be feminine women, and don't shrink back from that but the delight in it, see the delight and the beauty in all of this. And then finally, let's delight in our more significant equality of the genders, as I've listed many times equally in the image of God, equally redeemed by faith in Christ and totally forgiven, equally adopted into the family of God. Equally indwelt by the Holy Spirit, equally gifted by the spirit to do significant works that are indispensable to the life of the church and equally going to Heaven when we die. Close with me in prayer.

And I'd like to ask that you turn in your Bibles to the text that Darcy just read as we continue our study in 1 Corinthians. We've come now to this passage, 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. Now, this week I was talking to someone about the Word of God, and I was thinking about the marvels of the Word of God, the written Word of God, and how incredible it is. And one of the great gifts of grace to me in my life has been that this is my portion, that I get to study God's Word continually, I get to drink it in, I get to marvel at it, and to teach it, and this is an incredible grace to me. But as I was talking to this individual, I was thinking about some conflicting images of the Word of God, and one of them comes from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount where he says, "Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rains came, and the streams rose, and the wind blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock."

So Jesus likens his words, indeed, the entire Word of God, to a rock. And the image there is immovability, unchangeability. It's not like the sand that's going to be changing all the time, but it is unchanging, it's rock-like You have that image, but then in Hebrews chapter four, we're told that the Word of God is living and active. Living and active. How do you put those images together? How do you put together the image of immutability, the rock solid aspect of the Word of God, together with the fact that it's living and active, it's a living, active, rock? And that's the thing that's just such a marvel to me, as we come to the Word of God we are reading the same words that great, great, great grandparents were reading. They've never changed, or they're in every generation. And that we can build our lives on this unchanging rock, that gives me a sense of peace and certitude.

The fact that as I get up here today and on this text... And it is a challenging text, we're going to talk about that. But to realize that this text has read the same for 2000 years. It never changes. And so we can drink in this Word of God, we can feed on it, as Jesus said. Another image of the Word of God is that it's food. "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." And so, for me, as I study the word and as I teach it, I realize everything asserted in the Word of God is true, and good food for us. And we should delight in feeding on it. And then it never changes. Jesus said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." So this includes controversial passages like the one that you just heard read. And I bet you're saying, "No, that's not a controversial passage." Dear friends, now that is a controversial passage. We're talking this week and next week, God willing, on head coverings for women.

And so maybe you've lived in a different place, or maybe your head's been in the sand or something like that, you're not aware of how controversial this might be. But I'm telling you, even... And perhaps especially when the text is controversial, this is where we need to understand what good food this is and how much we need to hear it. Our age, the age we live in, is inherently unstable. There's a mental, emotional, spiritual instability in the worldview of our age. I don't think that's uniquely true for us. It's true in every generation. But in Ephesian 4:14 Paul talks about people who are tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching, and by the cunning and craftiness of men and their deceitful scheming. So that's that picture of instability really like building your house on sand. And that's what we're surrounded by, terrible instability.

But just because the world, our time, the culture out there, is challenging something that's taught in the Word of God, doesn't mean we should abandon it, not at all. If anything we should study it all the more, and cling to it all the more, because it's exactly here that we need to drink in and to feed on God's word. From the beginning Satan has challenged God's word, from the beginning in the Garden of Eden, as the serpent, Satan, was testing, was tempting Eve, and Adam was just standing there quietly right next to her. But he says, "Did God really say?" And so he raises questions, he questions the Word of God. "Is that really what it says?" And then in that same encounter, he openly contradicts God's word. "You will not surely die." That is a lie. And so that's what Satan's been doing. And so in every generation Satan questions the Word of God, contradicts the Word of God, twists the Word of God, uses certain aspects of it like he did right there. He said, "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God..." That's actually all true, but he is lying through the truth. That's what cults do, frequently, take some true aspect and twist it and use it. So we have to be aware of it, and we need to hold steadfastly to the Word of God.

Now admittedly, as I've already mentioned, this is a very challenging passage. There are challenges for us in our culture with this text. In general, our culture struggles with authority. And I don't think, again, that's unique to us as Americans. But we do struggle submitting to God-ordained authority. That's a problem, and all human beings have it. Also, our culture has uniquely, and it's developed much in my lifetime, an attack on the significance of gender, what it means to be a man or a woman, what is intrinsic in gender. I don't need to trace out comprehensively and in great detail the rise of feminism in the West or in American history, but it's clearly part of the landscape, the mental landscape of our day, and we have to be aware of it.

And it's relevant, and it connects with the text we're looking at today. Recently, recent history for us began in the 19th century with the Women's Suffrage Movement, started in 1840, it seems, with an effort to gain the vote for women. And it was consummated with the 19th Amendment on August 26, 1920, winning the vote for the constitutional right to vote for women. The Women's Movement from 1920 to, let's say, the early 1960s was more or less dormant, not much changes happen. But with the turbulent decade of the '70s came a great deal of protest, a lot of unrest, and part of that was the so-called Women's Lib Movement that happened. In 1963, an author named Betty Friedan wrote a book called "The Feminine Mystique", and in that book she addresses a number of things.

But one of them was the great un-mentioned issue for women in America today is a gross dissatisfaction with the standard roles of wife, mother, homemaker, that many women in those roles were deeply dissatisfied with their role, so she said. And some perhaps were dissatisfied before reading her book, and some were very dissatisfied after reading her book, but it was a seminal work. Along with that, there started to grow a hostility in some members of the Women's Liberation Movement, or The Women's Movement, which was an us versus them feel, a hostility toward men. Along with that in the '60s was the '60's Sexual Revolution where sexual morals were being openly challenged and pushed on. And so along with that came a union of feminism and the Women's Movement with the issue of abortion. And so women wanted to be able to walk away from a sexual encounter... There's this breaking down of all sexual mores and all that. But the ability of a woman to walk away like a man can from a sexual encounter, and abortion became almost like a central plank in the Women's Movement.

Although the Suffragettes, the women leaders at the turn of the century, from the 19th to the 20th century were universally what we would call pro-life and thought that abortion just gave men an out, and could walk away, but it changed radically by the end of the '60s. Along with this, more extreme forms came in terms of the embracing of homosexuality, of lesbianism, etcetera. If gender doesn't matter in terms of vote or property ownership or education or jobs, why should matter at all? Why should it matter at all? And so in the sexual encounters, freedom so that the gender itself didn't matter in any way, shape, or form. And the most recent version of this has come with the transgender movement, which has pushed our nation almost to the point of irrationality in some issues, bizarre places, where the idea of sex, as biologically defined, is asserted two types, male, female.

But gender is more personally felt or identified with, etcetera, it's a transient thing, and it comes and goes. I perceive in all of this, as we have to look back as Christians, biblically, a concerted satanic attack on the significance of gender, something that God established from the very beginning of the human race. In Genesis 1:27 it says, "So God created man in his image, in the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them."

The Challenges of the Meritocracy

Along with that, other aspects of our culture, one of them is what I would call the American meritocracy. And the idea here is that we are the land of opportunity. As the Declaration of Independence said, that, "All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights…" Including "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This was in contrast to the aristocratic system in England where what mattered the most was who your father was, and what order, what birth order, if you were the first son or the second son, etcetera. And so all of that kind of system. And so for us in America, we said, "The perks of our land, the perks of our culture, such as power and money and property and pleasures and all of that, goes to those who deserve them, and who can earn them." And so, you can rise from a dirt floor log cabin to be President of the United States, as Abraham Lincoln did. It's the land of opportunity. Well, the darker side of the meritocracy is the not-so-subtle message that you're worth as a human being is tied intrinsically to what you can achieve, such as what you could put on a resume.

And so the more you can achieve, the more accomplishments in education or in business or whatever, the more important person you are. Conversely, if you're not able to achieve much, you're not worth much, you don't earn much, and you're not worth much as a person. So anyone who can achieve much is worth much, people who can't achieve much aren't worth much. So therefore, any restriction on women, frequently called the glass ceiling in the corporate structure, whatever, is a restriction on their essential worth as human beings, that they're not worth as much as human beings. And so when they hear this text and other biblical restrictions, gender-based restrictions on women, they see it as teaching an inherent superiority of men to women. And so that's why this topic is frequently met with anger, a great deal of anger.

So for us as Christians, we have to realize our intrinsic worth and value comes from being created in the image of God. And the absolute equality of the sexes in that is clearly taught, right from the beginning. And for us as Christians, also our intrinsic worth and value comes from the fact that Jesus, the Son of God, died on the cross for us, and shed his blood that our sins might be forgiven. And that is equally true of men and women. And we find also our intrinsic worth and value comes as Christians from being adopted into the family of God, fully by grace, that we are called the children of God, and that's equally for men and women. And that we're going to the same heaven that none of us deserves, and we're going to be wearing white robes, and around that throne, and we're going to be celebrating the greatness of God in saving us. And that's absolutely equal between men and women. That's where we find our worth and value, not in what you can achieve, not in your works.

Actually what we're going to do when we get to heaven... We'll be rewarded for our good works by grace, but our standing in heaven does not depend on any of those things, but on the grace of God. So all of this, this topic, head coverings for women, gender-based differentiation of roles in the home and in the church, is lumped frequently with slavery and other type issues to disprove the Bible itself. The Bible itself is an archaic word. And it's coupled frequently with evolution and evolutionary view of thought life, that we have evolved beyond the Bible. We've gotten beyond these things, and we could really tell those people back then a thing or two. So we've gotten beyond the scripture. And so, people make this kind of argument, that as we look at gender-based roles and slavery that the Bible itself is obsolete, archaic, it's worthy of being scorned.

A Challenging Text

Now, on top of all of that, friends, we have some exegetical challenges in the text. Have you noticed? Were you listening? As we walk through verses 2-16, you must see that some texts are harder than others. And really understanding what Paul meant, line by line, is hard to do in some places, easier to do in others. There are some challenges in this. My methodology is sequential exposition. Sequential means you take the next chapter, the next text. This is the next one. I didn't get up this morning and say, "You know what I really want to preach on? Head coverings. Been looking forward to this for months. Finally, a chance to preach on head coverings." Not at all. It's just the next text. Frankly, if I can be honest, this text protects me from my own cowardice. You probably know what I mean. It's just the next passage Also, exposition means, What does it mean? Lift it up and follow the patterns and try to understand what it's really teaching, and therein lies the challenge. What kinds of challenges await us? Well, verse three, and we'll deal with this today. I'm planning, God willing, on two sermons on this. But verse three, What does the word head mean in verse three? We're going to talk about that today.

Along with that, can we identify, can we trace out what kind of adornment Paul is talking about for women? Is it a veil? Is it a prayer shawl? What is it? What are we talking about? In what sense in verse seven, is the woman the glory of man? What does that mean? How do we understand the woman is the glory of man? What does Paul mean when he says in verse 10, "A woman out to have a sign of authority on her head"? What does that mean? What does, in that same verse, verse 10, "Because of the angels" mean? And finally, in verse 14, What does, "The very nature of things" tell you about all this? What do all of those things mean? So this is like a cliff hanger. Come back next week and I'll do my best to walk through it.

We're not dealing with most of those exegetical questions today, but the general principle. Now, along with this comes the difficulty in general of bridging the gap from an ancient text written two millennia ago, to our present day, 21st century America. How can we do that? And however difficult these challenges are, it's well worth the effort. This is what we need to do. For all scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training, and righteousness.

What Does it Mean to Be a Man or a Woman?

We need to understand what this is. And especially because, in my opinion, our culture has gone crazy on the issue of gender. And I said this a number of years ago, something I read from John Piper and Wayne Grudem's book, "Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood". One of the key issues is when a 12-year-old son asks his dad, "What does it mean, dad, for me to be a man and not a woman?" That's a key moment. What is masculinity? What does it mean for me to be a man?

Or conversely, a woman. If she were to... A young woman, ask her mother, "Mom, What does it mean for me to be a woman and not a man?" Our culture has zero answer to that question, or those questions. Actually, they're trying to sweep it away so that it doesn't mean anything particularly to be a man or a woman. For me, what I want to do is I want to find out. I've already traced out the significant ways we're exactly equal, but I'm also interested in the ways that God's made us different, and how much we really need each other. And I can't put words to it. I can't put words to the differences between men and women, but there are differences. And for us to delight in them, and for a young man to delight in being a young man, a man, as such, and be glad that he's a man. And for a woman to delight in being a woman, because she's a... To delight in that, and for us as a church in a very healthy way to delight in each other as such. Now that seems to me to be biblical health on this. So let me lay my cards on the table. What do I think this text... What's going on in this text? What I think is happening is there is a timeless trans-cultural principle given in verse three, and that is the headship of men, in the church and in the home. That is timeless, it's trans-cultural, it's rooted in the Trinity, and we're going to talk about that today. Along with that comes temporary cultural expressions of that timeless principle.

And so, in every culture there's going to be a way for that principle of male headship, of male leadership, to be displayed especially in corporate worship. But those will change from place to place. So I am not advocating that women go out and buy anything for next week for a church, I'm not advocating. I understand that some of our sisters in Christ really strongly believe in that and do that, and I respect their views. But I do not think that there's a timeless trans-cultural physical thing that women need to wear on their heads, or that it even necessarily has anything to do with the length of hair. Although we'll get into all that next week, so putting all that to next week, but we'll talk about that, God willing.

So, now, let's walk through it, in verse two, Paul begins with praise for the Corinthians, "I praise you for remembering me in everything, and for holding to the teachings just as I passed them on to you." So let's set this in context, always we want to set it in context. Paul is writing to the Corinthian church that he among others, helped plant. This church, tremendously gifted but very dysfunctional, series of problems, I'm not going to walk through them cause I've done it just about every week, week after week.

But lots and lots of dysfunctionality in the Corinthian church. Factions, divisions, pride, scandalous sin, lawsuits among believers, sexual immorality of the worst kind, issues with marriage. And then for three chapters, the problem of paganism, meat sacrifice to idols and idolatry, all of that. Now, Paul is addressing problems in corporate worship, public worship. So he's going to deal with the issue of women in public worship, women's role in public worship in the first half of Chapter 11, then problems with the Lord's supper in the second half of Chapter 11. And then for three chapters, 1 Corinthians 12, 13 and 14, problems with spiritual gifts, and how they function, especially in corporate worship, especially tongues and prophecy. And so that's where we're heading over the next number of weeks and months. Yet, actually, despite all of that dysfunctionality, despite all of those problems, he actually praises and encourages them here, "I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding on to the teaching just as I passed them on to you." He praises them.

And so this is a marvelous thing. You know the idea of remembering, it's like, "You remember that I am an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not just anybody, with some opinion, that I actually am passing things on to you, that I receive from God." Now the center piece of that is he uses the exact same language in 1 Corinthians 15, and that he says, "For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures... " top priority, he's praising the Corinthians for holding on to the gospel, which he passed on to them, and not just the gospel, but lesser important teachings as well.

The gospel is of first importance, but these other teachings, they're holding on to as well. So they're recognizing his authority, his right to speak the word of God to them, and He praises them for that. And this is a vital pastoral principle. It's so important that those in leadership: Pastors, and also parents, fathers, speak words of encouragement and not just be... We've heard of those fathers that you can never please them. They never say a word of encouragement, they just keep the pressure on all the time. Paul wasn't like that, he was just a loving spiritual father and he's constantly trying to find ways to encourage the people he's working with. And if any church was a mess, let's be honest, it was this Corinthian church, and yet he's praising them. So I think that's a beautiful principle.

But now, Paul has to deal with and address the issue of women in corporate worship, and so he's got to address that, and he does that here in verse three. "Now, I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." So this is, I believe, a timeless trans-cultural principle that he's laying out here. So we begin right away by asking this key question, what does the word head mean here? How do we understand this word head? Some of you will know what a battle ground that question has been and how much back and forth there is on this issue of the word head.

Some feminists who come to this text, find some uses of the word kephalē, which is the Greek word for head meaning source, like the head of a river, it's where everything comes from: The source or origin. I think that the goal is probably pretty transparently to get away from a question of authority. And so the idea here is that Paul is not talking about authority at all, he's just talking about the origination. But, while the word does occasionally mean source, as in the head of a river, whenever Paul's talking about interpersonal relationships and he does it many times, he uses the word head many times, it's inevitably a picture of authority. And the clearest of this is at the end of Ephesians Chapter 1.

Christ is the Head of Every Man

Listen to what Paul says about the Lord Jesus Christ: "God raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that could be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way." There is zero doubt that Paul was talking about the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ there, over everything, over the rulers and authorities and powers, the demons, over human kings and princes, over everything. God raised Jesus from the dead, and seated Him.

Now, note, Christ's headship there in Ephesians 1, is not to dominate it or strip it bare or be tyrannical over it, not at all, but rather to serve the church, to protect it, to care for it, nurture it, and bring it to perfection. So, he rules over everything, for that purpose, for the benefit of the church. A lot of the problem that we have with authority is the way that sinners have wrongly wielded that authority, tyrannically to indulge their own fleshly drives and desires. We've seen that again and again. Alright, so that's the first statement. Christ is the head of every man. Look at Verse three, "I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ," again the issue here is authority. Paul establishes the authority of Jesus Christ over every man. Now this is an incredible statement here. Jesus says in the great commission, "All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me."

This... The authority of Jesus is over every human being, over every man, specifically here, men, but over every human being that will be made very clear at the second coming of Christ. Read about it in Revelation 19, when He comes back and on him is written the words King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and he has a sword coming out of His mouth, with which to strike down the nations, he is the coming king and right after that he is going to gather all the nations before Him. He will sit on a throne in Heavenly glory, and He will separate all the nations, he will separate all the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he's going to put the sheep on his right, and the goats on his left.

He has that kingly authority, he is the king, he's the head over every man and He will judge them, and He will say to those on his right, the sheep, "Come you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world." And he has the right to do that. And he also has the right to say to those on his left, the unbelievers, the goats, "Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." He is given that right to be the judge of all the Earth. He is the head of every man, and this awesome picture of judgment day, I think is what I have in mind when I hear these incredible words that Paul says in Philippians Chapter 2, that because Jesus was willing to die and even the death on the cross, because of that, "God exalted him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and earth, under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the father." So that's what I get out of, "I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ," whether they recognize it or not.

The Head of Woman is Man

Now the second step I think is the point that he's making here. He is not talking generally about Christ's headship over everything, or even the third point that we'll talk about in a moment, but specifically male-female relationship in the church, and specifically I think in corporate worship. The head of every woman is man. Let me read it again, verse three, "I want you to realize the head of every man is Christ and the head of woman is man."

The head of woman is man. Now, if the word head means authority over as we've been asserting, this teaching has to do with the leadership of men over women. Now in the ESV, which many of you probably have, there's a different translation here than the one that you saw read. There, it's acknowledge that the word translated man, can also be translated husband, and the word translated woman can be translated wife. And so, the ESV decided to go with a marriage assertion here which is clearly taught in Ephesians 5 that a wife should submit to her own husband as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, and it's just openly asserted. So they went there and brought it to this particular verse, "And so the head of a wife is her husband." However, while that's true, and I think part of what Paul has in mind here, in 1 Corinthians 11, but not all of it, it doesn't really fit the context here.

First of all, you have to add an additional word. The head of a woman is her husband. That possessive is just not there in the Greek. So there's more of a general kind of universal assertion being made. Furthermore, if you keep reading the ESV translation, you'll see that they can't be consistent at some point they're going to have to flip back over to men. Like when it talks about where the woman came from that she came out of etcetera, well, I don't know about you, wives, but I don't think you came out of your husband. So just as you walk through that, I think that was a one-off just at the very beginning with Adam and Eve, you know what I'm talking about. That was an unusual moment. And Paul's going to talk about that, but I just don't think they can be consistent in the way they translate it. It just doesn't fit. It's larger to see a general relationship between the sexes here in the church and also in the Christian home. And so it's a pattern, I think a general pattern of male leadership. We're also looking at corporate worship and life in the church publicly. Look at Verse 4 and 5, "Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, and every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head."

So we're talking about general male leadership in the church and in the home. And indeed, throughout the Bible, you see a consistent pattern of male leadership, of kings and military leaders and all that. As a matter of fact, in the entire 66 books of the Bible, there's only one godly and seemingly God-ordained woman leader over men in the entire Bible and that's Deborah in the Book of Judges. And anyone who's read the book of Judges knows it's an odd book with lots of odd things happening. So it's almost like the quintessential exception that proves the rule. Other than that, there are none. So, it's just a consistent pattern of male-leadership throughout the Bible. But here I think Paul's mind is on the church and in the home.

Now, modern people under the influence of feminism have acknowledged that was true back then, but said it's just archaic patriarchy and sexism that again, that evolutionary view we have now grown past, we've grown beyond. Now we have to realize how male dominated the Greco-Roman world indeed was, and that the Gospel came with a liberating force over women. The equalities that I've already talked about, which go to the basis of the gospel, equally in the image of God, equally fallen into sin and in need of a savior, equally redeemed by faith in the blood of Christ, equally adopted as sons and daughters of the living God, equally indwelt by the Holy Spirit, listen to this, equally gifted by the spirit to do certain things in the life of the body, equally going to heaven and equally spending eternity in Heaven.

All of those things were radical for the Greco-Roman world, radical. And they go back to the way Jesus himself taught women. A number of weeks ago, I said, I think it's important for us as Christians, all of us to have the exact same view of scripture that Jesus did. Amen? Well, I think the same is true of this issue. We should have the same view of men and women that Jesus did. And if we have that, we're going to be fine. Jesus elevated women in ways that were radical in his day. He wanted... Remember Martha and Mary, remember how Mary was getting busy doing all the cooking remember? And where was Mary? Sitting at the feet of Jesus, in the posture of a disciple, drinking in his doctrine, and Jesus upheld that she has chosen the better portion and it will not be taken from her, she was drinking in the Word of God.

And you look at the intensity of Jesus' interest in winning a Samaritan woman to Christ, and what she... The effect she had in her community. He went after her and wanted her and rescued her from darkness through the Gospel. So there's that elevation. Yet, it's important to note that in choosing out 12 leaders for the future of his church, he chose out 12 men. 12 for 12 it's not like he didn't know that there were qualified women or any of that, it's just he chose men to lead, and that's clearly what he did. Again, don't think Jesus was hindered or hampered by cultural norms. You know Jesus he is not hindered or hampered by anything he wanted to do. Look how He dealt with Sabbath regulations and how he dealt... He was bold and courageous, he said it how he wanted it to be. And so we should have the same view. He cherished women as women, men as men, and he established men in leadership while elevating women, in the ways we've said.

Now in Corinth, I believe, that the women began using their spiritual gifts: Prophecy, tongues, other things, very freely especially in corporate worship and it seemed like they were going off the rails. And we're going to see this in the teaching on spiritual gifts, in Chapters 12 through 14, that there was a tremendous amount of disorder in public worship in Corinth. We're going to talk about that, and I think this was part of it. So Paul wants to deal with gender-based roles in the corporate life of the church.

So men and women are equal in these vital areas, but still there are roles and the establishment of male leadership and a clear evidencing on Sunday morning of that male leadership is what Paul has in mind. When an outsider walked in, it should be very clear that men are leading, that's what he wants to talk about. And we'll talk about that also with prophecy.

The Head of Christ is God

But lest anyone should think that this headship and submission is in any way demeaning, he gives this final headship statement, look at the end of Verse 3, I'll read the whole thing again, "Now, I want you to realize the head of every man is Christ, and the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." Now, here we are swimming in some of the deepest theology we will ever swim in.

Here, we come into the theology of the Trinity and the functional subordination of Jesus, the Son of God, to the father in the Trinity. It's amazing the amount of debates that have been even over this one. The fact of the matter is I believe that the Bible teaches that the Son, the second person of the Trinity, has always in some sense, submitted to the leadership of His Father from eternity past, through His incarnation, right now and on into eternity future. Not everyone holds this but I think this is true. Now, the key thing here is the Father commands and Jesus obeys. And that's never reversed.

It's never the case that it's Jesus' turn to command and then the father obeys, it's never that way. The Father commands, Jesus obeys, even to the cost of His life. So what we have to understand the father made a plan from before the foundation of the world, to redeem sinners by the blood of His only begotten Son. This plan was set in the mind of God before time began. This is taught in a number of places, but in 1 Peter 1:19-20, it speaks of, "The precious blood of Christ" with which we were redeemed, he was "a lamb without blemish or defect chosen from before the foundation of the world." What does that mean? It means that Jesus before he was incarnate knew all along that some day he was going to obey his father and die on the cross.

So that means all of that time, he was in submission to the Father's plan knowing what it was before he entered the world. And furthermore, He entered the world to obey his father. As "the son of man," his favorite title for himself, "I want to show you how to obey God because you don't seem to know how to do it." And so he is a role model of submission to God, and He says, in John 6 verse 38 and 39, "For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of Him who sent me." Do you hear how radical that is, "I have come down to submit to my father." "And this is the will of Him who sent me that I shall lose none of all that has given me, but raise them up on the last day." Jesus goes beyond that to say, every moment of his life was lived in submission to His Father's will.

He says, "I do nothing on my own, but I speak just what the father has taught me." Sometimes, I think Jesus' extended prayer times at night or His quiet times in the morning were basically the father telling him what to say that day: "This woman is going to come, this man is going to come, this is what I want you to say." Jesus, I don't think would descend from that. "Everything I say the father told me to say." And then He said this, "I always do what pleases Him." Oh, how sweet is that? "Every moment of my life, I seek to please my Father." In Gethsemane, when the cup metaphorically was there of wrath poured out that he was going to drink on the cross, He said, "Not my will, but yours be done." "I'll drink the cup."

Jesus' willing death on the cross is the highest display of his obedience to the Father's will. He says in John 14:31, "The world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what the Father has commanded me to do." Even his own resurrection was done in submission to the Father's will. He said in John 10:18, "No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord." In other words, no one can kill me if I don't want to be killed, no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord, I have the authority to lay it down and I have the authority to take it back up again. This command I received from my Father. At every moment, even his own resurrection, he did an obedience to His Father, from beginning to end.

Now, turn over, if you would, one page maybe, or it's on the same page in your Bible, to 1 Corinthians 15, and this is goes on into eternity, future. 1 Corinthians 15:24-28, it says, "Then the end will come, when Christ, hands over the Kingdom to God the Father after He has destroyed all dominion, authority and power, for He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death, for He has put everything under his feet." Now, when it says that everything has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God Himself, who put everything under Christ.

When He has done this, verse 28, "Then the Son Himself will be made subject to Him who put everything under Him, so that God may be all in all." That's the end of salvation, that's the end of the work of everything, where Jesus packages up the universe and hands it back to the Father in submission to Him, isn't that awesome? This is an eternal submission to the kingship of God. And when we get to heaven, we're going to be in concentric circles around the throne of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. Now the key point here is that in all of this, the Son is exactly equal to the father in essence as God. This is key to everything. Jesus is equally God to the father: Equally wise, equally powerful, equally worthy of worship, equally worthy of glory, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. That we would honor Him, He is worthy of worship, all of these things.

Now let me stop and tell you a little story. Yesterday, I hope I don't mind... Calvin I don't mind... You don't mind me telling you this story. Yesterday we were having a Bible study, Calvin and I, came a knock on the door. Interesting, we don't get many visitors, not unannounced, you probably don't either these days. Anyway, so I go to the carport and who's there but a well-dressed man and woman, Jehovah's Witnesses. Here we go. I happened to have a Bible literally, physically in my hand. He looked down and said, "It looks like you're ready for our visit." I'm like, "Sure come on in." and I did, they came in and it's like... But I wanted... Fair warning, I said, "I want you to know who I am and what we're about to do here, okay? Don't be deceived.

I'm a Southern Baptist pastor, I love the Lord Jesus Christ, I consider you to be in great spiritual danger and I want to talk to you, and we had about a 45-minute conversation. "Fundamental issue," I said, "My biggest problem with the Watchtower is that you're polytheists, you believe in two Gods. You believe in God with a big G, Yahweh, Jehovah God, and you also believe in Jesus, a creature, a created being, who is afforded the title little g-god, that is two and I'm just going to call that polytheism." The Bible is fiercely monotheistic. You cannot overstate how passionately committed Jehovah God, Yahweh, God is, to letting the universe know there is no one like Him, no one. There's an infinite gap between God the creator and every creature.

It's the problem I have with the Watchtower, with the Jehovah's Witnesses. I want... Just rest assured, he didn't convert me. I'm still a Baptist preacher, I'm not a Jehovah's Witness. But I did warn him at the end, John 8:24, "Jesus said, "I told you that you would die in your sins;  if you do not believe that I am… you will die in your sins." They have to believe that Jesus is the I AM that spoke to Moses out of the flames of the burning bush, He is God. The only way to make sense of that, friends, is the Trinity: One God, three persons, co-equal, co-eternal.

And therefore the subordination of the Son to the father is completely functional. It's not essential, the father is not essentially greater than the Son, He is greater in that he's the one that gives the commands, it's a functional subordination but he is equally God. The radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of God is Jesus, and if you've seen him, you've seen the Father. The beauty of this. Therefore, the headship of man over woman should not be offensive. It does not teach an ontological essential superiority of men to women, not at all. Women can be and often are every bit as intelligent as men or more so, every bit as inspirational as leaders, every bit as gifted in the Spirit or more so, none of that would change the headship of men in the church and in the home.

It's something that God set up for order and for His glory. Now we're going to talk about practical aspects of this next week, God willing. We're going to walk through all of the head covering aspects and the hair aspects and do the best we can. But I believe that this leadership of men in the church, so that men should be elders in the church and not women, that men should be the teachers and preachers in the Church and not women, is not in any way meant by God, by Jesus or by Paul to be demeaning to women. It's just a functional role that we play, and it's the order that God wants and it's timeless. However, there are cultural expressions of that that we're going to get into God willing, next week.

So what applications can we make for this? Well, first, just stand in awe of the infinitely deep truths we've just looked at. Stand in awe. I don't fully understand the Trinity, I never will. But just stand in awe at the level of submission of Jesus to His Father. We find our salvation in that. The fact that he was willing to become obedient to death, even death on a cross, although he was God in very nature God, He didn't consider equality with God something to grasp but He made himself nothing so that we can be saved. And we're going to spend eternity worshipping Jesus as God. Equally worthy of worship, we'll spend eternity. So, just stand in awe of that.

Secondly, understand the basic nature of our rebellious hearts. We just fight authority. It's just in us, it's part of the carnal mind, men and women alike, we fight it. Whoever God sets up... God-ordain authority, we tend to resist and rebel. Here's the thing, we find our salvation in this beautiful invitation Jesus made, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." That yoke is His kingly authority, his right to command. He said, "If you will just bow your neck and put it under my yoke, you will find rest for your souls. Serve me, love me.

And now I just want to invite you if you came here this morning, as an unbeliever, and you heard that text read and you're like, "Why am I here?" Well, I think you may be here for just this moment. Jesus is reaching out and offering you forgiveness of all of your rebellions against God's authority in your life that you've shown by breaking his laws for years. He is willing to forgive you and cover all of your sins through His blood. Just trust in Him, all you have to do is call on him, but as you call on Him, realize you're calling on him as King. He is master and he will say, "Take my yoke upon you, submit to my leadership and you'll find rest for your souls."

Now for us we're going to learn more about this God willing next week. There are roles, gender-based roles, in the church and in the home. Men are to be godly Christ-like leaders, heads, over their wives and wives are to submit to them as Ephesians 5 says plainly. In the church, we also believe that, that the role of teaching and preaching is given to men as he makes very plain in 1 Timothy 2, verse 12, he says, "I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man, she must be silent, for Adam was formed first then Eve." So this is a timeless creation order but it's not in any way demeaning, it's not saying that women can't articulate Christian doctrine with great power and clarity, it's just how God wants it to be.

And so for us to fit into that pattern and then finally to delight, to absolutely delight in the uniqueness and difference of men and women we've got to hold up this banner. It's getting bizarre in our culture, we need to say it is a delightful thing for women to be women, and for men to be men. Close with me in prayer.