5^th Sunday after Epiphany – February 7, 2010

1 Corinthians 14:12b-20 - Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church. ¹³ For this reason anyone who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret what he says. ¹⁴ For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. ¹⁵ So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind. ¹⁶ If you are praising God with your spirit, how can one who finds himself among those who do not understand say “Amen” to your thanksgiving, since he does not know what you are saying? ¹⁷ You may be giving thanks well enough, but the other man is not edified. ¹⁸ I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. ¹⁹ But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue. ²⁰ Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.

For the past 3 weeks we have taken up the topic of spiritual gifts. Today we do so one more time. But perhaps some of you are thinking, “Isn’t that a little much?” “Aren’t we just beating a dead horse?” “Enough already!” The Apostle Paul didn’t think that way, though, as he spent three entire chapters dedicated to the subject. In fact, the Holy Spirit didn’t think that way, since he gave Paul these words to write. And if God doesn’t think this is overkill, if he doesn’t think it is too much, neither should we. Listen joyfully then. Listen eagerly, as God teaches us the purpose in using our gifts.

One could rightly say that the lessons for the last three weeks have all been working their way toward the emphasis found in the words before us this morning. (Perhaps too, as a side note, this stresses another reason why worshiping regularly each Sunday is of such great value: to be able to follow the progression of thought from week to week. How sad when the line of thought in worship is interrupted because we aren’t in worship when we could be?) So consider our journey so far through these chapters of 1 Corinthians. Three weeks ago we prayed that God would energize us to use our spiritual gifts, because, as Paul wrote, each of us has been given at least one: “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given” (1 Corinthians 12:7). The following week God reminded us how much we need each other. He told us that in the same way body part works together to produce a properly functioning body, so each part of Christ’s body – that’s you and me and every Christian – needs to use our spiritual gifts together to produce a properly functioning body of Christ. To sit in the bleachers and be spectators only hurts the body. Finally, last week we heard about love – the driving force behind the “how” in use our gifts. Today we see the purpose. “Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church.”

It’s not hard to pick up on Paul’s emphasis is it? “Try to excel in gifts that build up the church.” In fact, peppered throughout these chapters on spiritual gifts Paul has repeatedly been saying that the number one purpose in the use of spiritual gifts is for the spiritual benefit of all. It is what he was implying when he wrote, “But eagerly desire the greater gifts” (1 Corinthians 12:31). It is what he meant when he said that each one is given a spiritual gift “for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7). Yes, the goal when using our gifts is for the edification, the spiritual, faith building of people. He explains this even further in his subsequent words.

“For this reason anyone who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret what he says. ¹⁴ For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. ¹⁵ So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind.” Now, this is the fourth time in the last four weeks that our sermon lesson has made mention of speaking in tongues. Tongue speaking was the ability to speak in a language which the speaker had never learned. You may recall that on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit empowered the apostles to speak in languages they had never learned, but languages which were native to the many people present in Jerusalem. We see that this gift was found among the Corinthian congregation. But it also appeared that those who had this gift flaunted it. They acted as though it was a better gift, perhaps thinking they were more important or spiritual. Maybe they made those who didn’t have it feel inferior. And maybe those who didn’t have it were occupying all their time trying to figure out how to get it.

But Paul had something to say about this. He wanted them to ask themselves, “What’s all the fuss?” If you can’t understand what you are saying, how much value is there in it? Sure, you might be emotionally stirred, but how is your mind benefitted? Are you being spiritually built up? Then he tells them, worship is best when it engages both spirit and mind.

And that’s something we can take home with us. We probably don’t have anyone hollering to speak in tongues in the congregation, but perhaps there are some who aren’t a big fan of the worship service. Why all this “boring” liturgy that’s hundreds of years old? Why so many songs? Or why these songs? Why all these different readings? How long do you expect me to listen to a sermon? But we aren’t here for entertainment, but to be built up, and that happens only when we are in the Word.

These words of Paul also speak to those church-bodies who say that in order to be a true, Spirit-filled Christian you need to speak in tongues. Or that a church is only authentic if it speaks in tongues. Paul’s words regarding the unimportance of tongues puts that thought to rest. As did his words from last week’s lesson, “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled” (1 Corinthians 13:8).

But there was something else that concerned Paul too. He continues, “If you are praising God with your spirit, how can one who finds himself among those who do not understand say “Amen” to your thanksgiving, since he does not know what you are saying? ¹⁷ You may be giving thanks well enough, but the other man is not edified. ¹⁸ I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. ¹⁹ But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue. What benefit is there for a fellow Christian if they cannot understand what you are saying? If gifts are given for the common good, for the purpose of building up, and are to be used in love, then what was going on was an unacceptable situation.

That’s why Paul says it’s better to speak 5 intelligent, understandable words rather than thousands of words spoken in a tongue no one can understand. He’s speaking about the gift prophecy, of which he spoke earlier in this chapter. Listen to what he said, “Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy…everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort…he who prophecies edifies the church” (1 Corinthians 14:1,3,4). This spiritual gift does not require special revelation from God. When any Christian brings words of encouragement or comfort, words based on the Word of God to another Christian, he is using the gift of prophecy, and that builds up.

So, how are you benefiting your fellow Christian? Are we using our spiritual gifts to build up? Are we using our spiritual gifts at all? Those are questions that these words of God lead us to ask ourselves, and the honest answers are probably not going to flatter anyone. Because what we might find is that while we don’t have a bunch of Christian’s struggling to childishly show off their gifts, we may very well have Christian’s struggling to get out the door faster than the next person so they don’t have to use their gifts. The Corinthian Christians should have felt guilty after reading these words. So should we!

So often we think that what we do here, as a believer, is all about me. Oh, it’s true that the individual is here to be fed by God’s holy Word; to receive the desperately needed medicine for a soul sick with sin. But that isn’t all. We are also here for one another, and in more ways than just to say hi or too keep people from feeling foolish for being the only ones in church. We are here to serve others with our gifts. To build each other up as we strengthen each other’s faith through the Word of God. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a group of fellow believers willing to visit the shut-ins and share a devotion with them for mutual edification? Where are the Christians to help minister to the teens? How will the children be taught if more Sunday School teachers cannot be found? Couldn’t more proclaim God’s message in song, or be involved with displaying it in art? Who will say yes when asked to help shepherd those who are irregular in their worship life?

And no, I haven’t forgotten that you called me, your pastor, to publicly serve you with the gospel and to administer the keys. I haven’t forgotten that I have a responsibility that God has given to me as well. But having called me to serve you publicly doesn’t mean that all of a sudden you have stopped being the priest’s that God made you, “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9). Membership in the Holy Christian Church is more than just showing up in a visible Christian congregation once and a while to hear God’s Word. It is also being active with God’s Word and your spiritual gifts – for the benefit of others.

And while the problems of sin that we face here may have a different shade of black to them, the answer to removing them and moving on from them remains the same. At the beginning of his letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote, “It is because of him [God] that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. ³¹ Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord”(1 Corinthians 1:29,30). Paul wanted his readers to remember to whom they belonged and what that meant. God wants us to remember that today too.

We sit here today as Christians, that is, followers of Christ. Individual people who believe and trust that on that terrible, cruel object of torture which is the cross, Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, shed his blood and gave his life as a ransom for our sins. We come here as people who recognize our hopeless situation caused by our many sins, but who believe that the Word of God is the very Word of life that has the answer – and we are never disappointed. For that Word, again and again, points us to Jesus Christ, who was our perfect substitute and is our continuous mediator before the throne of God on our behalf. We are people who believe and know that Christ is our righteousness and our holiness and our way to eternal life.

But we are these people only because God was willing to give us his Son; only because Jesus was willing to give up his life; and only because of the gracious and powerful working of the Holy Spirit. It is God who conceived and work out the only way for his justice to be satisfied. It is Jesus who took away our sins. It is the Holy Spirit who works that faith in us to believe. Oh the joy, the motivation, the comfort, the peace, that is ours in knowing that on the cross Christ took what should have been ours and won for us what we didn’t deserve.

But in case these words at the beginning of the letter had slipped the Corinthian’s mind by this time, Paul launches, in the next chapter, into his great resurrection chapter. How fitting! Talk about motivation for the proper use of gifts! Christ has won the victory; your faith is not in vain; sin has been removed; death has been defeated; Satan has been crushed; hell has been averted. Those words are for us too. We need them just as badly. So bask in the meaning they have for you, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” ⁵⁵“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” ⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:54-57).

Fellow believers, it is time for us to put childish ways behind us that use gifts for self-praise or shy away from using them at all. It’s time to start being adults and use our spiritual gifts for the purposes God intended. “Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58). Amen.