Main idea: Love others by using your gifts to build them up.
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Before we read, let me just remind you so I'm just I look at the passage that we're in. And if you're never been here with us or never been to the Bible, I'm going to read words and you're gonna go I don't understand what's going on. So I want to just briefly give you a highlight the Apostle Paul's talking about two gifts that were given during the time of the apostles to bring the Gospel to new people prophecy and tongues. Tongues was a holy spirit, learned language, like the Holy Spirit taught a person how to speak in a foreign language without them having to learn it, which would be pretty handy. Is it hard for anybody to learn a language in here? Yeah, really hard. Yeah. So hard. You don't try sometimes. But our Ukrainian brothers and sisters have been doing that that's that's very encouraging. Well, where did that come from? Why is it so hard? Well, after Adam and Eve sinned, God cursed the ground, made it hard, made it hard, and we work hard, we die. And then God gave humanity a shot again at serving him after the time of Noah and they were to be fruitful, multiply fill the earth. But they decided in Genesis 11, not to do that. All the people stayed together. And they wanted to build this massive monument to themselves so that they could stand equal with God. And God scattered those peoples and confused their languages. That's why it's hard to learn a foreign language. That's why we need language translators. That's why somebody has said it. People had to work very hard to give you a good translation in English because of the curse at Babel. What God did after the resurrection of Jesus after He died for our sin after he rose from the dead, is he sent his spirit and empowered some people with a supernatural ability to speak the gospel speak praises of God, the gospel of God, in languages that were in the audience, there's a profound thing that God did to show two things, a judgment on unbelieving Jews who were still not ready to hear the Messiah, and as a blessing to Gentiles to say, I'm coming for you. God is saying, I'm coming for you. I love you. I want you to trust me. And isn't that good news. So that was going on at the time, the church in Corinth, the church in Corinth, thought, well, which one's better? Prophecy or tongues. And then they had a division over it, which was really silly to even have that, but they did nonetheless. And they were in a competition and Paul has been addressing that issue. Okay, not stand for the reading of God's Word. First Corinthians 1413 through 25. And you'll you'll see now why this is an important thing. During that apostolic age, it would have been helpful if tongues were spoken and interpreted. But what if it weren't? Here's our question. Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue foreign language, should pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit. But I will pray with my mind also. I will sing praise with my spirit. But I will sing with my mind also. Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider Say amen to your Thanksgiving, and when he does not know what you're when he does not know what you're saying? For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not built being built up. I think God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. Nevertheless, in church, I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue. Brothers. Do not be children in your thinking, be infants in evil, but in your thinking, be mature. In the Lord is written by people of strange tongues, and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people? And even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord. Thus, tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign, not for unbelievers, but for believers, if therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders are unbelievers, enter will they not say that you are out of your minds? I thought prophesy and an unbeliever outsider enters, he is convicted by all he is called to account by all the secret of his heart are disclosed and so for Falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. This is the word of the Lord. God we, we pray that You would help us understand this word by the power of your Holy Spirit. Lord Jesus, we thank you that after you died for our sin and rose, you sent the Holy Spirit and Holy Spirit we are thank thankful and we thank You that You indwell us and empower us and they've given us gifts, to serve each other and glorify you. That's what we want to do. Teach us how to apply these truths over issues that aren't in front of us today about this prophecy and tongues speaking. Help us understand how we use our gifts, to build up to encourage and to comfort each other in the Gospel, and in our hope. Father, I pray that you would be at work in our, in our world, I think of the ongoing war in Ukraine and our brothers and sisters. Some have emigrated, but some have just had to flee. And so here they are, continued to give them a place of refuge here, but we pray that you would be at work using the power of your gospel, in Ukraine, in Russia, around the world, any place where there's conflict like Gaza or Israel, we pray that you would be pouring out the grace of your gospel and rescuing many. And Father, we pray for our own five minutes circle this this area we've been praying this, this 40,000 People that live here, probably 36 37,000 of them aren't in a church today. And we want to, we want to reach them. And I pray that you would use the churches around I just think of on garland, we have City Church, and we have the gathering place. And cross division, we have Christ Church. And I pray that you would use faithful preaching of your word to make faithful people who testify to the gospel, and that we would all take the time to bring the gospel to those who don't have it. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. number of years ago, Nathan Thiry introduced for us a new game called crokinole. It's a round wooden board, and it has a hole in the middle, some circles, and you flick discs into the middle and you score points by getting as close to the middle as you can, if you get it in the middle hole, 25 points, middle circle, 1510, and five and so on. It's fun, because the competitive part is you get to flick a disk, and then somebody, somebody has to hit one of yours. Like that's the rules, like you have to hit somebody else's disk and try to make it to the middle at the same time. It's a great game. And it's kind of mindless, so you can talk, you can fellowship, you can do all kinds of things. So it's a great game that we like to play at our house. I bring that up, because we're going to use this idea of scoring points and thinking about good reasoning and motives with this question. Why are you here today? Why are you here today? There's lots of reasons you get nine discs, and we're going to rank your reasons. Why are you here today? Well, my parents brought me I mean, kids 10 points, you came with your parents. It's not nothing is good. I'm glad you came. Parents 25 points, great job. You should bring your kids so they can hear the gospel. So you can worship together. Why are you here today? Well, to worship God 25 points. It's a great answer to worship. It's good for me. Well, I mean, it is good for you. 15 points. To improve my standing with a girl I'm interested in. One of our single gal said zero points. I'm like, Well, five points. At least you know, you should be pursuing a girl that's pursuing the Lord. To build others up and be built up 25 points. It's a good one. To make business contacts, zero points off the board to demonstrate to the unbelievers who show up with us what Christianity is about 25 points. It's a great motivation to earn points with God and get into heaven. Zero points off the board. Remember we're diagnosing motives, not merits, not merits. We're trying to earn our way in. We have to trust God for that. In the church of Corinth, we find a large number of people thinking that the reason that they A gathered was worth 25 points, but God was giving it a zero.
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They wanted to increase their sense of self importance. They wanted to feel better about themselves, they, they were trying to find a place where they could increase their pecking order in culture and society to feel superior. And all of these were zeroes. Paul says that the main reason that we gather is love, love for God love for each other. We see these things unfold as we've been going through First Corinthians First Corinthians 620, for instance, makes this incredible statement, you were bought with a price that is the blood of Christ. So glorify God in your body. One of the chief ways we glorify God is by loving others. Remember, in First Corinthians 13, verses one through three, we get the summary effect. Anything minus love is nothing, or everything minus love is nothing. Love is the critical factor. And the main point of the chapter we're now on is about loving people. The big idea, you got notes, straightforward, we're going to probably use the same big idea next week two, we need to love others by using your gifts to build them up. We love others to us by using our gifts to build them up. Like Jesus, who was not here for self interest, who did not come because for self interest came to serve. We we reduce self and we absorb ourselves into the lives of others. We don't we don't just live one life. As a community of believers, we live 1000 lives connected to other believers. We want to see this in chapter 14. And we want to I want you to show you this as we've been going through First Corinthians 1213 and 14 the lookup at First Corinthians 1225. He's talking about the various members of the church being given different gifts to the church. And he says in verse 25, that there may be no division in the body but that the members may have the same care for one another. You can see that there's a setting aside of self and getting caught up or joining ourselves with the others. There's a mutual care. Verse 31, it says, I will show you a more excellent way. And in chapter 13, we find that the more excellent way is love 13 Eight the more excellent way says Love never ends. And we find at the very end that the greatest of these is love. We jump into 14 He so he says again Pursue love. Okay, how do we pursue love says that you would use your gifts to build up the church, verse five, that the church may be built up. The church means the members of an assembly of believers who together make the body of Christ. You are if you are a believer, and Assemblyman Assemblywoman. In other words, you're part of a community. And you go out and you represent Christ as a member of the assembly, but you don't have any real identity apart from assembling from time to time, like you're part of a community in the body of Christ. And you have all been gifted to serve the body. So look around. I know it's awkward. You look around the look around, you're sitting near a set of people. If you're regular, you probably recognize many. You walked through the side door you walked through the foyer there were greeters. You there. There were people you see often, and there are people who are new to you, you dropped off your kids, to teachers and helpers. Did you consciously and prayerfully think about the role God has given you in building them up. seems true for your growth group. Have you thoughtfully and carefully thought about the role you have in building them up? We've talked a lot about gifts in the last weeks. And lots of you're interested in what your gifts are, and you should be. But what Paul is going to talk about today's is focusing prayerfully thoughtfully and maturely about how to build others up. God will be glorified, you will truly love. Paul's in the middle of a section, where there's this debate about what is the supreme gift in a local church. Once as an apostle, he's not there, so that gift is gone. So there are prophets and people who speak in languages that get translated and, and of course, speaking in a foreign language is really impressive. If it gets translated, so the tongue speakers were saying, I think, you know, we're, we're the ones who are pretty impressive. A lot of the people in the church thought so to like, Look, if we're gonna have something on a Sunday worship, when we gather, we want the people who are speaking in languages, because that's amazing. Well, what if you don't understand it? I don't know. But it's amazing. And pulsing, no, you have to you have to be built up, whatever your gift is. It needs to be here to build others up. If you don't speak it, it's not helpful. That's the setting that we don't have that setting. We don't have preachers who get up and preach in a foreign language with nobody to hear. We don't do that. We don't even have profits, what we have is the scripture. But in the middle of it, he gives these invaluable insights about how we go about using our gifts, we should pray, we should be thoughtful, we should be mature about doing those. And that's essentially our form as we go through. Tongs passed off the scene at the end of a pallet apostolic age prophecy passed off the scenes shortly after that as we have scriptures now. They provide valuable, valuable insights. So we're going to take a look at three of them first, pray that God would help you build others up and not alienate them. The point of a Spirit given gift is to build others up. And if it's not readily apparent to you how you use your gift. Go to God about it, pray about it. That was the case with tongues. The apostle Paul said yeah, there are tongue speakers. You know, you have the gift. He says, Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret you want to build up you don't want to alienate them. They don't understand that actually makes you strangers. He said the previous verses. So this supernatural Spirit given ability to speak in a foreign language wasn't helpful. Now, what was the content of it? Well, just like prophecy, it's the content that praises God. Thanks, God. Praise to God calls God's people to faithfulness, it comforts. It builds up, it encourages, if it's translated. But if it's if it's not interpreted, it's not how so person knew they had this is how all the gifts work. So how do you understand your gifts? Here's how I would just say it's very, very simply, you keep reading your Bible, in order to know God and apply it. God's word is changing you. You pray, forgiveness when you've sinned, praises when God's done good things to you to obey, like you're you're in your you're hearing from God, God's hearing from you, you're acting in obedience, and you're eager to serve. So you see a need, and you're gonna have an impulse to respond to the need. There's an impulse that comes, that impulse is from the Holy Spirit, and likely that's the shape of your gift. So you see a need in faith Bible Church world, there's one universal answer for just about any trouble. What is it? Do you need a meal? Just had a baby need a meal? somebody's sick need a meal? Somebody won first prize at the fair need a meal
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have this well, can we have a serving church and we have a lot of great cooks. But that's true of you. When you see a need if you're a wisdom person, you're like, oh, how can I give this person wisdom? If you're a teacher? How can I explain something if you're like you act on those impulses, those are given by the Holy Spirit. This is but they're not always what's needed right now. How do I know what's needed? Oh, I Need to pray it should be part. Of course that's true. When you know your gifts. It's true of me as I prepare messages I'm praying. In the middle of the week I'm praying through the week I'm praying, as I study, I pray just before I pray a lot, I pray a lot. And I know that's my gift, because I want this to be a benefit. And so it should be However, God has shaped your gift. It's obvious that they needed to do it here in Corinth because if nobody could hear understand the language, it wasn't going to help. It's not always clear what to do. So pray, pray. First, pray that you would use your gift, not alienate people. Second, use your gift intelligently, not thoughtlessly, not thoughtlessly. You want to use your gift intelligently so others understand and benefit from what you do. Verse 14, for I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful not now track with me you are made of spirit and material, immaterial and material, spirit or soul, body, mind, brain material and immaterial. There's always been a tendency to want to make those separate. There's the spiritual part of me. And there's the physical part of me. But that's not how God made you. God made you as a unified whole. So the Holy Spirit, like the spiritual part of us is what directly and easily connects to God who was spirit. Now we connect with him physically, too. But we have spiritual parts because God has spirit. And we have physical parts. So here's what he's saying, What am I to do, I will pray with my spirit. But I will pray with my mind. Also, there was this idea in Corinth, and it still exists in many ways. Today that I have this stuff that the Spirit does, and you know, here I am, I'm just kind of, you know, giving my thoughts in the spirit impulse. And I'm ready to act like this. This, I can't control it. That's not what he's saying. The prophets of the Old Testament prophets in the New Testament, the prophets who were in local churches, felt the impulse of God moving in them to act, and they use their minds to speak and act. This is what he's saying. So here you are an interpreter, I will pray with my mind. Also, we find out that tongue speaking involves a handful of things prayer, singing praises giving Thanksgiving. And when it's and also preaching a message, so to speak a minute, a small message, which became prophecy, tongues interpreted equals prophecy, with the wow factor of that was just spoken in a foreign language.
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So whether you sing, he's just sing with my spirit, I will sing with my mind also. Verse 16, otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of outsider say amen. To your Thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? Now the word outsider can be translated as Inquirer. This is somebody who knows something about Christianity and is showing up and as the story of acts unfold, the apostles went to as many cities in the Roman Empire as they could Some went to the Parthian Empire, but the first thing they did is showed up at a synagogue because God was announcing that Messiah had come to his people. But if people in the synagogue didn't believe, then, if the elite rulers of that synagogue didn't believe, then the apostles had to go and take the people who are believers outside. Now here's what it was always happening in synagogues, there were always Greeks, from different countries, always listening in learning, they were called the God fears. Well, some of those heard the gospel message, and they showed up at the Christian Church, the new assembly, and they believed and they trusted Christ, so they have a little bit of knowledge of Judaism. And they're used to a Jewish worship service where they're scripture reading and prayer to which the common response in the audience is Amen. Meaning That's true. That's true. And they weren't even believers yet, but they knew the truth. So imagine they show up to church. They're not yet converted. They know a little bit. They're interested in the Messiah. And they come in and somebody stands up and speaks a foreign language that they didn't know. And nobody translates, how are they going to be helped? He doesn't know what you're saying, for 16 This is for you, maybe giving thanks well enough. But the other person is not being built up. So here comes a great guiding principle for all of our gifts. If it was true for this miraculous gift, it's going to be true for the less miraculous gift, we have to kind of the coats on us because it's very, still very Spirit controlled. He is actively working. We all have to work at our communication, our Christianese one comedian ran a bit on the various Christianese like, you know, we're at youth camp, we're gonna love on those kids. You know, we're gonna we're just loving on kids here in our children's ministry. And we're like saying, Stop Loving on kids. You can love kids. But don't love on him. I mean, that sounds creepy. Like, that's not how I mean it. Okay. That's how other people hear your Christianese. It's words that other people don't understand. All of us have to work at that I have part of my preaching prep team, there are people who work on my Christianese, which is very helpful. And he says this, because he wants them to use the gift if they had it. I think God that I speak in tongues more than all of you see that? I think God that I speak in tongues more than all of you, as Paul saying that he speaks in a private prayer language. And he doesn't often. I mean, many scholars, notable scholars justify that view. But the answer is no. If we if we stay in our context, if you pop back to 12, seven, he talks about the Holy Spirit giving different people a manifestation of the Spirit. This is verse seven for the common good. So the idea of private prayer language is still not really here. How does Paul speak in tongues more than everybody else? Well, he's a traveling apostle and missionary going from place to place so some would have understood him in the synagogue but he will also be evangelizing and God would sometimes give him a language of a listener and his evangelism and his counsel. He probably spoken many languages in a supernatural way, which was a powerful sign. The powerful sign he says, but when we come together as the assembly, I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue 10,000 Seems spectacular. That tongue but I would rather instruct. I know it says five words with my mind, Dan, you're saying more than five words. But couldn't we have the whole sermon over and beyond home watching a soccer match? I'm because that's what's left right now. Soccer. Football's over. So his point is, it's better to speak in simple understandable words, than this gift. That means that all spiritual gifts Now, here's the takeaway, all spiritual gifts are subject to the one who's using them. If you have a spiritual gift, you are not a passive person, who suddenly the Holy Spirit jumps inside of and you are just, you know, the marionette needing to act, you're not that person. What do we call a passive person? Who is indwelt by a spirit who has no control over what what do we call that person? demon possessed. That person's demon possessed. When there are horror movies about this kind of thing, little girls getting demon possessed. Like I don't even want to see the commercial. So he's not talking about that. He's saying that if you have a spiritual gift of whatever kind and you could, it could be helped. It could be compassion. It could be mercy. It could be leadership. It could be generosity. That's the list in Romans five or Romans 12, five through eight dots, those lists you, you use your mind, you think about how it's helpful. Your goal isn't to feel better because you did something or said something. Your goal is to be helpful. I remember the first time being asked to preach at seminary chapel. So I was asked to preach a chapel and you That was a real privilege. All my professors were there. Do you imagine that that was easy? It was terrifying. I was very nervous. I wanted to really get it right. I didn't want my professors to think I did wrong. But I had to pray and pray and pray that God would help me be a blessing. And not worry too much about myself. And you know, that's, that's anytime you use your gift and a new area and a new way with new people. There's that inner drive to like, they're thinking a lot about me. Like it's way over inflated, you just gotta pray it down. Lord, help me not think about myself. Let me think about being clear helped me be helpful. Let me be loving. And then you think, how do I do that? What are my thoughts? That's the speaking side, the doing sides very much the same. What's really helpful? Not every need at Faith Bible Church needs a meal might need you to show up, might need you to hang out, might need your full laundry. It might need something more practical might just need prayer. What can I do for you? You could pray? That's great, infinite power of God in your situation? That's a good answer. Thoughtful goal is not to feel better, because you did something. And if you ever have you ever had that happen? Where a needs come? You felt really strong about it. You felt really bad that somebody's suffering or hurting? And does I have to do something. So you do something. And then you go, Oh, could I just couldn't not do something? Again, it was about you needing to do something. So pulsating. Think so pray, think. And if you don't know what to do, one of the best ways to think is to ask other people for their wisdom. I don't know what to think. Ask other people for wisdom. Because the goal isn't feeling better because you did something or you used your gift, but that you were actually helpful. You want to actually be helpful. Which leads us to number three, grow up in your thinking. Don't be childish. She's got these pairings here. Pray, think grow up. First 20. Brothers Do not be children in your thinking. When it's time to think like a grown up about your spiritual gift. Be infants in evil. Like if you want to be immature about something don't know how to send a lot. Like don't experience a lot of like that. That's something we're really excited about is a junior high kid or high school kid who's getting baptized, who doesn't have a ton of baggage. We're thrilled with that. You're thrilled with that. If you have baggage, praise God, he saved sinners. This is the infancy and evil but in your thinking, be mature.
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Be mature, be grown up and it's the word that's the it's the same idea as complete when the when the complete comes or the perfect comes. It's the grown up. It's the mature so you want to be mature. And so what does Paul do to help us mature and think properly he gets a scripture. Look at verse 21, says, Look, let me help you understand what this gift is for. In the Lord is written by people of strange tongues, and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people and even then they will not listen to me says the Lord. Now now Paul's quoting and you can just look at your notes. If you have side notes in your paper Bible. There's usually some cross references, the cross references here point to Isaiah 28. And to Deuteronomy 28. He says the law because Isaiah is applying the law, from Deuteronomy to Israel. So here's the scene back then let's jump back from their town even farther back to their town. Isaiah was a prophet who came to challenge God's people who are in idolatry. And at a point in time, Judah and Israel were both worshipping other gods and not worshiping the God who saved them and made them and held them. And he urged them to repent before judgment came before a discipline Hand of God would come. And in Isaiah 28, the leaders and the people of Israel and Judah said, Isaiah, your message is too simple. It's too childish. They mocked him, saying that his simple message of repentance was beneath them. And God said back Oh, yeah, this is what Isaiah is doing. I'm going to bring a Syria to capture you a foreign nation is going to come in, they worship foreign gods. They're going to capture you, they're going to carry you off into exile. And what you think is the babble of a foreign language is actually going to be a sign of mind judgment on you. You won't listen to me Fine, I won't I won't be intelligible anymore. But you'll know what I'm saying. Because the foreign language speakers now dominate you
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the reason why God gave tongues in that New Testament era, as the gospel went first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles, was to show the Jews. If you won't listen, I'm gonna go to another people to sign up judgment. Thus, verse 22, tongues are a sign of judgment not for believers. But for unbelievers while prophecy, the word sign, theirs is a sign the sign is not actually an original again, you could just see your paper notes or electronic notes that that's not there. He says, tongues are a sign of judgment for believers. But for unbelievers while prophecy is not for unbelievers, but for believers, that is that the message is understandable. It's prompted by god it's understandable it builds up encourages and comforts. That's that's the three words we keep learning as we look back up at verse three. That's what you should do build up encouraging comfort. So let's consider some applications, mature applications. First, what would build up believers? You've already been told to pray you've already been told to think. So what I need to do needs to build up believers. So think less about how you're doing and more about who you're doing it for? What you're doing it for. It's, it's for them. To consider what would build them up Second, consider what would alienate an unbeliever. And he jumps into some for instance, cases, he has to for instance, cases and remember the context there's this battle between prophecy and tongues, which one's better says okay, let's, let's just play this out. If therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, he says, that's just a for instance, it's not gonna happen based on chapter 12. But if you're really worried about tongues, being the world's best gift, let's imagine everybody could do it. And outsiders now we add unbelievers, people who are not inquires, who have some background, they have no background, if outsiders or unbelievers enter will they not say that you're out of your minds? This is crazy. Everybody's speaking in these foreign languages and nobody understands what's going on. And they think it's great. This is crazy. I'm out of here. This is This is bizarre.
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Unbeliev what he's saying this this is this is how immature they were. They thought it was just really important to use the gift. But he's saying you don't get it. If you use these languages, and nobody understands a and inquire or an unbeliever who might have been interested in Jesus is now no longer interested in Jesus. You are actually becoming part of the instrument of their rejection of the gospel. That should not be for a believer. It should not be you who's doing that. Unbelievers already think that the message of the cross is foolishness. Greeks could not stomach the thought of following A crucified Messiah. They didn't believe in resurrection from the dead. Many thought and still think Well, I'm not that bad to be judged by God. Those are all legitimate things if if people aren't ready to hear that they might reject Christ. But that's the kind of crazy you want to be called crazy. Because you knew you're a sinner. And that Jesus has saved you. And you have eternal life. I mean, there's a there's we heard a bunch of 90s and 2000 songs. There's like there's a 90 song for that. What would people do? They found out I was a some of you know, Jesus freak. Thank you. Somebody said it out loud and they were proud of it. I loved the worship this morning because it was the tooth out late 90s 2000s I didn't know how it would be so emotional. You know, I know people in the 60s and 70s like they get emotional when old hymns are brought back. Like I gotta move. tional with 2000 songs, what's wrong with me? So great. But I'm back to this on topic
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there are reasons for people to reject you. And that's if you're boldly and clearly proclaiming Christ and they don't want it. That's that's the thing you would want. Don't let the way you're serving how you're serving, the way you're thinking what you're saying, be the thing that pushes them, don't let your pride be the thing that pushes them away. Third, consider what it would call an unbeliever to faith and repentance after hearing the message of God's grace, and he's focused in on the worship service. This is a very important verse to me this this set here, this is what I pray for out of our services, that what we do together and a unified heart and a unified mind, with our whole hearts would so arrest a visitor that they would say, Oh, God is here. Isn't that what you want? First 24 says but all Paul prophesied for the sake of argument. And an unbeliever outsider enters his convicted by all he is called to account by all that's because the word of the gospel is loud and clear and intelligible. Remember the gospel if you're if you're new, and I'm talking about the gospel, let's just say what the content of these messages would be. It would be that Christ has come to save sinners from the wrath of God and make them His people. God is ready to pour out wrath because this world is rebellious against them, and they ruin his other people. He is ready to pour out wrath, but Christ has come to save. If you are here, and you have not called on the Lord to be saved from God's just wrath from your sin and its effects. I would urge you to do that. But that would be the content here. That's just what we sing about, isn't it? We sing the songs about the amazing grace of God to save sinners. So the new person, the Enquirer, the outsider, the unbeliever would be convicted and called to account by all. And what would that response be? His hurt secrets would be disclosed. Because somebody said, I know everything about you, I know everything about you. It's because God knew everything about and now it comes to his mind comes to her mind. And she would be moved to realize, does everybody in this room know I'm a sinner? Yes, we all know you're a sinner. We all do. Because we all were, and we still battle with sin. So falling on his face, he will worship God. This is verse 25. and declare that God is really among you. That's, that's faith and repentance, right? Their faith and repentance. Isn't that what you want every believer to experience? Isn't that what you want every unbeliever to experience and that's what I pray for. Acts chapter two opens this way, says day by day is 242. They were attending the temple together, breaking bread, receiving their food with cloud and generous hearts. They were paying attention to the apostles teaching, breaking your bread, fellowship, prayer, and then they shared lives together. Verse 47, says this, as these believers are doing this Praising God and having favor with all the people. So the praise of God was on their lips, the Lord added to their number day by day, those who are being saved. This is what we want. So let's just make it really practical about this service that you come for. What do you do? Pray for your personal interactions that you're going to have before you come. So there's a set of people that you sit with. And you tend to sit the same places with the same people. So you're getting to know those people. And you know, when anybody new shows up, like you're not one of my people, I want to make you one of my people. How are you here's my name. Pray for the personal interactions that you're going to have. Pray that you would truly understand and truly be a blessing to the people you interact with. So take the time to ask them questions. See what's going on in their life and interact with them. Make a plan with someone you do know and someone you don't know every week like just make it a plan. You know, if you're if you're married with a family, we're gonna make it a plan. We're going to try to act interact with some people, we're going to make it intentional.
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No, one of our mature saints comes ready every week to share something that stood out in his Bible reading in the week. A great example. Then use your mind, use your mind, engage, connect, practically show up early. And that's when the new people who are with us come because they don't yet have friends out there. So they're not dragging it. But try to commit to coming early. This is when you get a chance to greet people. Ask them about their life, get to know them, share your heart with them. Then when it comes time, we call to worship. We're hearing God's word we're singing, think about singing. I mean, even here, I find it convicting that he says, If I sing, I sing with my mind. If you ever drifted, and singing, I pray with my mind. Sing loudly, joyfully with a focus mind you remember, style is next to irrelevant. Be a Christian, who is really worshiping. You don't have to love the style. But you have to love the Savior. You have to love the style, but you have to love the Savior. So just sing out whatever the style is. Listen to the message and the scripture readings attentively. Be ready to share what was impactful, you know, unbelievers and your children. Your children can see, they can see you fall asleep. They can see you scrolling, checking out Dan's way past his five words. Start reading something else. Texting. I mean, they can all see it. I can see it. And they can see whether you care enough to work hard to follow along. You are actually speaking to the people around you by how you're participating in gathering, whether it's your growth group, whether it's here, whether it's in the foyer. God really is among us. He is really here, is he not? We don't have to act like it's true. It's true. It's true. But for people who are unaccustomed to seeing God at work and hearing God's word, you show them you show them why did you come this morning? Why did you come this morning
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this idea of us not living one life for ourselves, but 1000 and other people comes from BB Warfield.
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Linda has been reading a really impactful book and she's going through Ruth are part of the women's Ruth Bible study called a loving life by Paul Miller. And it's the story of Ruth unpacked this is in the last chapter. It was so impactful, she had to read it to me. So therefore I have to read it to you. I have my research assistant. Listen to this. BB Warfield is significant for a particular reason. BB Warfield got married on his honeymoon. They're about to go on their honeymoon and they're standing at the train station and his wife is struck by lightning. And it left her an invalid her whole life. This is a man who's had to have love a wife and a pretty unique way. He wrote this about Christ's self giving, says he did not cultivate self, even his divine self. He took no account of self. He was not led into the recesses of his own soul to brood morbidly over his own needs. He was led by his love for others into the world, to forget himself in the needs of others, to sacrifice self once for all upon the altar of sympathy. Same care, you may have the same care so that's the word. Self sacrifice brought Christ into the world and self sacrifice will lead us His followers not away from but into the midst of men. Wherever men suffer there will we be to comfort wherever men strive there will we be to help wherever men fail there will we be to uplift wherever men succeed there we will be to rejoice. Self sacrifice means not indifference to our times and our fellows. It means absorption in them. It means forgetfulness of self. In others. It means entering into air bromance hopes and fears and longings and despairs it means many, many sightedness of spirit and multi form activity multiplicity of sympathies. It means richness of development. It means not that we should live one life, but 1000 lives, binding ourselves to 1000 souls by the filaments of so loving a sympathy that their lives become ours. Same care. So be prayerful, be thoughtful, be mature, and enter into others lives. Father, we look at this word and are grateful. We are grateful that you brought up such an interesting set of topics about prophecy and tongues to reveal so intimately what the heart behind using all gifts should look like. And you didn't make it hard, but you did make it so that we would depend on you. And I pray that we would. We are so easily wrapped up in self now I pray that You would help us learn how to properly set self aside when it comes time to gather and love and care for people and yes indeed we need to be loved to. We have things that are for our best that we can only get from you through your people. Help that flow naturally, in mutual concern, love and affection. We ask this in Christ's name, Amen.
Dr. Dan Jarms is teaching pastor and team leader at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at TMS Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, gardening, brick oven cooking.
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