One day this week I was driving into work in
the morning and as I did so I looked down at
my gas gauge and I noticed that the indicator
was getting close to the red zone. And so I said
well I should stop and get gas but I think I'm
going to wait until lunch and I'll get it then.
By the time lunch came my plans had changed.
I was going out taking somebody with me. I didn't
want to inconvenience this person and stop and
get gas so I thought to myself well I won't get
it now. I'll wait till I go out to my appointment
in West Minneapolis this afternoon. But you know
how afternoons get. Things got real busy. I got
piled up, and then I was already late for my
appointment, so I thought to myself, well, I'm
just going to try to go in the fumes, I guess,
and I will go to that appointment, and as soon
as I get out of that appointment, I will stop
and get some gas. I got to the appointment. And
I noticed as I parked that there's not a gas
station in sight anywhere. And when I got out
of the appointment, I got in the car and I got
on Highway 100 going north, looking for gas stations.
There wasn't a gas station in sight. And so I
thought to myself, look, if I stay on Highway
100, I know the traffic gets worse up there north
where the stoplights are. And I don't want to
risk getting stopped on Highway 100 without gas.
And so I decided I would get on 394 and go into
Minneapolis. Because that would be faster. This
is my logic. And I knew the traffic would be
going out from downtown. I'm going in. And so
I would be sure to find a gas station. So I pulled
off on the 394 only to find that here's one of
these entrances that has the two stoplights,
one car at a time. And it's already backed up
two blocks. And it's about 15 seconds between
cars. So I'm starting off my car now, in between
every time I move up. Shut the car off, start
it up, move ahead, shut it off. You know how
that goes. Finally it was my turn, and I thought,
now I'm set, I'm going to just ease it up into
fifth gear, you know, and just kind of coast
into downtown. And I thought I was home free
until I went about a half a mile, and it was
bumper to bumper traffic going in. And the right
lane that I had to exit onto 94 was just two
miles back. And so here I am again, sitting,
advancing slowly. You know how it is, heavy traffic
like that. And I kept looking at the gas gauge
and the indicators going further and further
and further down into the red zone. The little
light comes on. Now when the light comes on,
it will flash for a while. When it comes on,
pay attention, right? It is on. So I'm trying
to figure out what to do, and there's an exit,
a Hennepin Avenue exit, and I thought, I'm going
to get off, so at least I don't get stranded
on the interstate without gas. That's embarrassing.
So I got off, and I thought, I'll find a gas
station here in Minneapolis. So I got onto Hennepin
Avenue, but it was 5 .30 in the afternoon. Have
you ever been on Hennepin Avenue at 5 .30 in
the afternoon? There were 13 ,353 cars in front
of me, and that doesn't count all the rest of
them. There are semi -trucks, there are buses,
not just buses, the double things, you know,
that block traffic. And the traffic is just going
real slow and my indicator just slipping further
and further and further until it was almost to
the point I could see black between the indicator
and the red zone. And I kept thinking, I am going
to run out of gas. There's no way to get out
of this traffic. And finally I see this bridge
across the river on Hennepin. I thought, I've
got to make that bridge. And so I made the bridge.
The traffic opened up. On the other side of that
bridge, there is not a gas station. There is
not a gas station in downtown Minneapolis. There
is not a gas station on Hennepin Avenue on the
north side of that bridge. But I knew where there
was one. And so I turned right on University
and headed toward 35. And by the grace of God,
I made it. I mean, literally, it was running
on fumes. I've never put that much gas in my
car in the five years I've owned it. And I remembered
something my mother always said, put first things
first. I should have gotten gassed earlier in
the day. The Apostle Paul is telling us in 1
Corinthians 14, put first things first. That's
a simple principle. But it takes work to make
that principle a habit of life. Setting and then
maintaining right priorities is one of the most
important disciplines of a well -lived life.
A friend of mine in ministry likes to say, the
main thing is to keep the main thing the main
thing. Now he's right, isn't he? And you have
to keep at it. The main thing is to keep the
main thing the main thing. The fact is that all
of us live according to a set of priorities,
whether we stop to think about them or not, whether
they reflect our confessed values or not, we
all live by some set of priorities. In fact,
those priorities that we practice reveal what
we truly value, don't they? Now for Christians,
it's important, it's crucial that our priorities
reflect biblical values that please and honor
the Lord. That was not the case in Corinth, however.
They were living out wrong priorities. For example,
as Paul deals with here in this chapter, they
esteemed certain spiritual gifts over others.
And that was okay, except that they chose the
wrong ones to elevate. They chose the sensational
gifts that appealed to their carnal attitudes.
One such gift was that of speaking in tongues.
And so the purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate
the inferiority of tongues as compared to other
spiritual gifts, and to especially prophecy,
and then to exhort the Corinthians to reorder
their priorities. Now we need to take a time
out for a moment. We're going to talk today and
next week about the gift of tongues. Was this
a legitimate gift? The answer, of course, is
absolutely. It was a legitimate gift. Paul never
tells them that this was a wrong thing for them
to do. He simply says they're placing the wrong
emphasis on it. The first occurrence of tongues,
of the speaking in tongues, occurred at Pentecost.
And as we're going to see next week in particular,
its first occurrence relates directly to its
purpose in the early church. But understand that
Paul does accept this as a legitimate gift of
the Holy Spirit, an expression of his life in
the church. But there's a second question in
our timeout that we want to talk about, and that
is, What was this experience? What was the speaking
in tongues? Well, it seems consistent with the
language of the Apostle Paul that he is using
the word glosa, the word tongues here, in referring
to a human language that the speaker had not
learned. That seems further underscored by what
he says in our text today in verses 9 and 10
about languages. Paul uses the word glosa here
a number of times and a few other times in his
writings. Whenever he uses it, he always gave
it the same meaning. It was a human language
that the speaker had not learned. Now there was
an experience that was common in that day in
the pagan groups, in the mystical religions,
of speaking an ecstatic kind of language. An
ecstatic speech that was indecipherable. And
it may be that some of the people in Corinth
had plugged into that. But if that's the case,
Paul doesn't make that clear in this chapter.
It seems to me that he's talking about, rather,
the experience that was legitimate of the Holy
Spirit of being able to speak in human languages
that the speakers had never learned. Now, Paul
was a lover of the local church. He spent his
whole life planting churches and establishing
them throughout the Roman Empire, at least after
he got saved. Paul knew the importance of the
fellowship, and he knew what was important in
the fellowships. Paul knew the first things that
needed to be put first. Paul knew the main things
that needed to be kept, the main things in the
church. He knew what the biblical priorities
were and he knew that biblical priorities grow
healthy churches. You and I need to realize that
too. Biblical priorities grow healthy churches.
You can grow a congregation, you can grow a crowd
using lots of different gimmicks and ideas and
teachings. But you can't build a healthy church
apart from biblical priorities. That's why it's
so important for us to understand what those
biblical priorities are. Today I want to urge
you to commit yourself to the biblical priorities
for this community of believers. Will you do
that? I hope that you will. Paul explains to
us the first biblical priority in verse 1, in
the very first sentence, which is really two
words, where he says, pursue love. And so we
have the priority of love. Now this picks up
the theme from chapter 12 verse 31, where he
says, earnestly desire the greater gifts. I show
you still a more excellent way to live. And then
in chapter 13, he goes on this wonderful digression
about love. But now he comes back to his mainstream
thought and he says, now pursue love, yet desire
earnestly the spiritual gifts. You see how that
knits together with verse 31? He begins by telling
us that priority number one in the church is
love. Love. And he says we are to pursue it.
This word pursue is an intense word. It means
to follow after. It means to hunt down. And in
a negative sense, even to persecute. For example,
Paul says, I am the least of the apostles who
am not fit to be called an apostle because I
persecuted the church of God. The word persecute
there means hunt down. It's this word. In a negative
sense. Paul was intense. about persecuting the
church. He uses the same word in a more positive
sense in Philippians 3, 14 when he says, I press
onward toward the goal for the prize of the upward
call of God in Christ Jesus. I press toward the
goal. Here's the same word. I pursue it, he says.
I give myself to this. And what he says here
is that priority number one in the church is
to make it a life habit to intensely pursue love
in our relationships. We are to be people who
are characterized by selflessness in living and
in giving. Just imagine for a moment, imagine
a whole church that really makes this priority
number one, where every member of the church
sets this as the goal, to live a life of love.
How would you describe a church like that? How
would you describe a small church like that?
How would you describe a cell group like that?
I can give you the answer very clearly. It would
be this. This people of God is patient. This
people of God is kind. This people of God is
not jealous. This people of God does not brag
and is not arrogant. This people of God does
not act unbecomingly. It doesn't seek its own.
They're not easily provoked. They do not take
into account a wrong suffered. This church does
not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices
in the truth. This cell group, this small church,
bears all things. It believes all things. It
hopes all things. This people of God endures
all things. That's what it would be like. Wouldn't
it be wonderful to be a part of a group that
really set this as priority number one? Now we
can't do that for everybody else, but we can
do it for ourselves. This priority of love ought
to be one that every Christian seeks to place
in his life and within his local church. We should
ask ourselves questions like, what initiative
would love have me to take today? Now sometimes
we look at love as though it's rather benign
and passive. And it'll just happen. And when
it happens, it happens. That isn't the way Paul
sees it. He says, you've got to seek after it.
You've got to pursue it. You've got to grab a
hold of it and put it in place. And so we have
to ask ourselves, what initiative does love want
me to take towards someone today? Or? What would
love insist that I refrain from doing anymore?
Who around me needs the gift of love? Am I willing
to include others in my circle of friends? Am
I showing God's love to those who are different
than me? When a group of Christians become so
ingrown and enthralled with each other that they
can't reach out to somebody else, they've lost
sight of this priority and have fallen into carnal
living. When a small church gets to the point
that it says, oh, we don't really want new people,
we like each other, And that small church doesn't
go out of its way to greet and to welcome and
to embrace new people. It's lost sight of this
priority to pursue love. When a cell group gets
to the point of saying, hey, you know, we've
gotten so deep and we've learned to love each
other so well, we don't want new people coming
in. They've lost it. They have lost it. Never
ought we to get to the point that we can't reach
out and pursue someone else in love. This idea
is so fundamental, is so badly needed in our
churches. Some people say, but I don't like what
happened. I wasn't consulted about it. But love
does not seek its own. It doesn't care if it's
not consulted. It doesn't take into account a
wrong. Even a wrong, a legitimate wrong, it doesn't
take it into account. It forgets about it. Oh,
but this is our space. This is my chair. This
is the pew we've always sat in. Is that love?
Love doesn't seek its own chair. It's willing
to give that chair to somebody else. It's willing
to let somebody else use that room if they need
it. But these are the kinds of things that even
we Christians justify. These are the kinds of
statements that we commonly accept. as being,
well, that's okay. That's just his personality.
That's just their thing. Love doesn't put up
with that. Love pursues the well -being of the
other at personal cost. And Paul calls us here
to pursue love, priority number one in the church.
Priority number two, is what he says next in
verse 1. It is the priority of prophecy or proclamation.
Notice he says, yet desire earnestly spiritual
gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.
To desire earnestly here is a command to the
whole church body. Literally it means to boil
over with desires, the idea of being zealous
for something. To covet it, in a negative sense,
He says here that you and I are to make it a
life habit to set spiritual gifts as important
but prophecy above them all. Now remember he's
writing to us as a community, as a church. And
he's saying that as a congregation we are to
exalt the proclamation of God's Word. The idea
of prophecy is not so much foretelling as it
is forthcoming. telling, speaking forth the divine
message of God. It's basically equivalent to
what we call preaching or teaching. It is the
exposition and then the powerful application
of the Word of God. Paul says here that none
of the gifts should be exalted above prophecy,
the proclamation of God's Word. That is the priority.
And yet, you know, there are things that we today
tend to put before the exposition of God's Word.
One of the big ones is fellowship. Folks, fellowship
is important. We all need to connect with other
people. And yet I hear sometimes a strain that
comes around that says, we don't really want
to emphasize teaching in our group. We just want
to fellowship together. Does that sound familiar
to any of you? The Apostle Paul says that nothing's
to be subservient to the proclamation of the
Word of God. On the other hand, there are those
who say, would you please stop emphasizing the
Bible and doctrine and just talk about practical
application. Just give me the how -to's. How
do I solve the problems of my marriage and of
my life and my family and my work and my money?
How do I solve my problems? Folks, I want to
tell you something. This is going to be heresy
to some people. The exposition of the Word of
God comes before its application. Please understand,
I believe in applying the Bible to life. It needs
to be relevant down where we live. But have you
ever noticed that the Apostle Paul, whenever
he wrote to the churches, always talked about
doctrine first and then applied it to life? Let's
not get into the trap that is so common in our
narcissistic culture as to think, I want only
the how -to's. leave the doctrine out. We must
have the doctrine. It must be expounded. God's
teaching must be brought to us so that we understand
God and we understand ourselves and the world
and then, and then, importantly, we can apply
it to our lives. And there are places today where
the sensational gifts are exalted before the
preaching of God's Word, above the preaching
of God's Word. There are places where entertainment
is more important than the proclamation of God's
Word. It's amazing how many Christians say, well,
I don't know which service I'm going to go to
today because I want to get out in time to see
the Vikings. I'm going to go to one service today.
I'm going to skip Sunday school because I don't
want to miss the Vikings play at noon. Stop and
think about that for a moment. Has entertainment
become a god to you? Whether it be in a film
or it be on an athletic field, is entertainment
more important to you than the priority of God's
word? What orders our lives? What is it that
determines what we do first or second or third?
Is it entertainment? And there are places today
where you hear social justice talked about rather
than the Word of God. Or there are other places
where you hear political activism as the main
theme of the church rather than the exposition.
of the Word of God, the proclamation of divine
revelation. That's why this is so important for
us to talk about. Because we live in a day when
there are many things put before the Word of
God. No wonder Paul said to Timothy, 1900 years
ago, I solemnly charge you in the presence of
God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the
living and the dead and by his appearing in his
kingdom. Preach the Word. Be ready in season
and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with
great patience and instruction. For, he says,
the time will come when they, the hearers, will
not endure sound doctrine. They will put up with
it. But wanting to have their ears tickled, they
accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance
to their own desires and will turn away their
ears from the truth and will be turned aside
to myths." If that was happening in the first
century, just think where it's at today at the
end of the 20th century. This generation wants
its problems solved. It doesn't really care that
much about doctrine. And what we need today is
the proclamation of the Word of God applied to
our lives in a relevant fashion. But it begins
with the proclamation of the Word. Well, that
brings us to the final priority, and that is
the priority of edification of verses 2 through
12. As you allow your eyes to go down through
those verses, notice how many times the word
edify or some form of it is used. To edify means
to build a house. It means to build up the church,
figuratively. What is it that edifies the church,
anyway? Well, Paul says in this text, tongues
do not, unless they're interpreted. He gives
five reasons. Verse 2, he says, only God knows
then what is said. If a person speaks in tongues
without interpretation. Only God knows what is
said. Verse four, only the speaker himself is
edified because he feels himself being used by
God. Number three, verse six, he says there's
no mutual benefit in the church unless they're
interpreted. Number four, he says the words have
no significance. It's like speaking into the
air. Verse nine, And the fifth reason that tongues
do not edify the church without interpretation
is that it makes the family like foreigners,
like barbarians to one another. We can't understand
each other. Verse 11. Tongues do not edify without
interpretation, he says, but the proclamation
of the word of God does edify. And it exhorts.
And it comforts. So make it a priority. Now,
why does it do this? Why does the word edify?
For the simple reason that it's intelligible.
To proclaim what God says, everybody can hear
that, everybody can understand what God is saying.
He says a music instrument is not pleasing unless
it's played meaningfully, verse 7. Furthermore,
a war trumpet, in verse 8, is useless unless
the sound is distinct and certain to the troops.
So he says you need the clear proclamation of
the word of God for an intelligible message from
God. And so what is his conclusion? Look at verse
12 where he sums it up. You also seek to abound
for the edification of the church to build it
up. Now Paul's love for the church reflects the
love that Jesus had for the church. Where Jesus
loved the church and gave himself for it today
our attitude is the church has to fit into my
schedule Whatever the church does had better
be convenient if I'm going to be involved in
it How unlike Paul and how unlike Jesus who actually
gave his life for the church How can I build
up Jesus' church in love. I want to suggest very
quickly five ways. They don't come out of this
text, but they come out of the New Testament
in its warp and woof. You and I can build up
the church, first of all, by joining its membership.
As a believer in the Lord, you say, well where
does the Bible command me to be a member? Nowhere
that I can find. It simply assumes that that's
the normal thing we will do. Just as the Bible
does not anywhere defend the existence of God,
it simply assumes the existence of God. So likewise,
when it comes to membership in the church, the
Bible assumes that a Christian will be a member
of the church, a member of the body. It is an
assumption. Every one of us ought to be a member
of a church somewhere. I didn't say an attender.
I said a member, one who has committed himself.
to the church and has placed himself under the
teaching and the discipline of the church. That's
God's plan, every one of us. That's how we build
the church. Number two, by investing in its ministry.
By investing in its ministry. By giving freely
and generously and seeing that we're not simply
giving to a man or to a man's program. We are
giving to God and to God's work in the world.
We need to see our giving that way. Thirdly,
by protecting its harmony. By doing everything
within our own power to see if the church is
of one mind. Folks, I want to tell you something.
This is going to make some of you mad. We've
had more division and more gossip in this church
in the last few months than any time since I've
been a pastor. And some of you have allowed that
to happen. If we are going to build this church,
then we have to ourselves stop gossiping and
we have to confront people who are gossiping.
A lie can go around the world seven times before
truth gets out the gate. And some of us have
promoted that. Some of us have to look after
where there's division in the church and confront
it. If we're going to build the church, it means
that we protect its harmony. And we take it upon
ourselves, it's not somebody else's job, it's
my job, to see that the body is held together
in oneness. Number four, by praying for its maturity.
By interceding before God, getting on our knees
and praying in the direction of its mission.
And number five, by promoting its growth. Its
growth downward and upward and outward. Its growth
in every dimension. The Bible makes no distinction
between growth of maturity and growth in numbers.
That is a false distinction. Where the church
is growing in maturity and growing in the Lord,
it will be reaching out to new people. And therefore
we need to promote the growth of the church.
have a mindset that values growth. So what's
important in the church? Priority number one,
love for others. Priority number two, proclaim
the word. Priority number three, edify the church.
Do everything that I can to build up the church.
And when we do that, the church can be healthy
because we're following biblical priorities.
News commentator Dan Rather has a way of keeping
his professional objectives in mind. He says
that he has three slips of paper, one in his
pocket, one on his desk at work, and one in his
billfold. And on that piece of paper is the simple
question, is what you are doing now helping the
broadcast? I would probably answer his question
a little differently than he does. But I would
like to take that question in closing and just
apply it to me and to you, and to ask ourselves,
is what I am doing now reflecting God's priorities?
Is the way that I am living reflecting God's
priorities? And if not, If not, then we need
to put first things first. God help us to do
that, let's pray. Now Father, I pray that by
the Holy Spirit you will simply bring our hearts
and our wills to a point of yieldedness and openness
to hear your message. And I pray that you will
show us what it means to have your priorities
in our lives. And show us the benefit of that.
Show us that it's for our own good that we live
that way. Lord, I pray that this week your priorities
will be more visible, more apparent in our lives
than perhaps they've been this last week. In
Jesus' name, amen. Well, may we live out God's
priorities this week. Thank you for being with
us in worship today. If you're visiting, please
come to the reception area in the back where
I'll be and some of our other staff and elders
so that we can greet you personally. Will you
do that? God bless you as you go. I hope that
you've had a good day already and that your day
will continue to be blessed by the Lord. We're
dismissed.