Excellence in the Church

paul gives these details and he's saying "Hey we can have a worship service that is exciting with emotion." But people can be like "Why are they so joyful why are they so smiley why do they act like they want to be here and weren't dragged to be here?" Because we want others to understand this love we have for [Music] him now when I say that and I say invite friends I say share the gospel here's what we want to do at Cross Church is we want when we say go share your faith with some with people we want to equip you to do that when we tell you to invite people to our church we want to be a church that you want to invite your friends to and sometimes the biggest hesitation when you say to share a post or give an invite card is be like well is people are going to think my church is weird and maybe in the back of your mind you you picture something like this when you invite your friend to church oh it gets better [Music] we need to bring this back i don't have Oh look at that little Here we go now if you saw me at the daddy daughter dance you know I have moves like that all right [Music] oh I don't even know what that's called uh I don't think that's the floss or the Oh man yes you thought that was a video of me didn't you all right but here's let's be real is sometimes we think that church can be a weird place listen when we invite lost people and people far from God and they've never experienced church they see reals like that circling around social media like Brian going to your church cuz I don't know if it's going to be like that right and sometimes when we come to this and this is really relevant for what we're going to see in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 is Paul is going to talk about how do we create a church that we want to invite people to how do we create a church that is excellent and excellence is a weird word when we come to the church and we come to services with inside this but here's kind of where we're going to operate off in ch 1 Corinthians chapter 14 actually the very last verse and we're going to hit through all 40 verses today so buckle up okay i told the band to cut some songs in case we need to but in 1 Corinthians 40 this is what Paul writes he says "But everything is to be done decently and in order." Paul today is going to give us a blueprint he's going to give us a road map on how do we make sure inside the church that there are things done in an excellent manner what does the Bible say about excellence and how it kind of coincides with how we operate and how we use our gifting and how we use the wiring that God has given us and when we come here to worship how do we make sure it's done in the right way and not just throwing out what we have and as we get into our text today and if you haven't already flipped there we'll be in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 but what Paul is going to show us today and what we're going to break down is three reasons why the church should be excellent three reasons why the church should be excellent and now let me just kind of quell some like feelings that might be inside you is maybe when you hear that I think the first thing that can pop up in our head is that feels a little corporate it feels a little business model like like uh I don't know if I like the idea of excellence in kind of making sure that everything every te is uh crossed and every eye is dotted and I don't know if like that business model works inside the church but what we're going to see today is actually these are biblical models and biblical principles that are rooted in truth and how they kind of move into our church and here's the first reason why the church should be excellent that we're going to explore today is church excellence exalts God today is is Palm Sunday today is the day that we we read through this passage earlier in our service and we prayed through this passage of Jesus kind of marching in on a donkey into Jerusalem and the people waving palm branches because they were recognizing the king had come but here's what I love about the Palm Sunday story is a little line at the beginning of it that Jesus tells he sends his disciples into town and he says "Go and find a donkey." And he says "But he gives him description." He says "Make sure this cult has never been ridden." And you see the reason for that is Jesus had details on his mind and those details were important that he said "Hey it needs to shape out like this i need you to follow my instructions to a tea." And the reason is because those details were important for fulfilling prophecy that Jesus came there for and today as we see that this details led to this exalting God through his entrance into the city in the same way Paul tells the Corinthians that excellence and how they conduct their worship services matters because it exalts God let's start our journey through chapter 14 starting in verse one and look how Paul starts to build this case he he starts here and he says "Pursue love and desire spiritual gifts and especially that you may prophesy for the person who speaks in a tongue is not speaking to people but to God since no one understands him he speaks mysteries in the spirit." Verse three on the other hand the person who prophesies speaks to the people for their strengthening their encouragement and their consolation the person who speaks in a tongue builds himself up but the person who prophesies builds up the church he says "I wish all of you spoke in tongues but even more that you prophesies." The person who prophesies is greater than the person who speaks in tongues unless he interprets so that the church may be built up here's our first thing as we start to start to dig into the minds here and dissect this text a little bit is Paul shows us that church excellence it exalts God but the first part of this he shows is that it reflects God's character you see Paul here is saying that prophecy and another way actually that you could define prophecy in this section would be clear teaching that he says this clear teaching is important because it exalts God more than tongues without interpretation and here's why he says it because it reflects God's communicative nature here's what we mean by that is our God is not a God of confusion our God is a God who wants us to understand who he is my one-year-old daughter uh she is starting to babble and and I swear she has said dada okay I told my wife and she didn't believe me but actually my mother-in-law witnessed it and I'm like that happened okay and we think we she said mama and then when we tell her to repeat it she just looks at it she's like I ain't your trained monkey like I said it once I don't need to say it again but she's getting there but then my 3-year-old Arlo he's a great talker but he's also a toddler and you think I talk fast just meet Arlo okay and and he talks fast half the time I can't understand him and he speaks in his toddler like accent and he'll like say all these things i'm like "What?" And then he says it again really fast i'm like "What?" And then I bring over my 8-year-old daughter Ari i'm like interpreter can you see what he's saying here and then she's like he says this i was like I don't think that's what he said okay but when I do understand him there's nothing more warming to your heart as a parent when you understand your kids and when they can communicate with you their needs and here what Paul is telling us is that God reflects himself into our worship experience he reflects himself into our church when we reflect his character by being communicating in a way that people can understand it's funny if you actually just look at the New Testament the New Testament was written in Greek and and there was a time period as we were translating Greek texts kind of around the 14th to about 16th century where we didn't understand the type of Greek cuz if you put the New Testament up against Plato or Socrates and classical Greek it's not the same type of language it's written differently different words different ways so there was actually this belief with inside historical literacy and even inside the church that the New Testament was written and they used to use this term holy spirit Greek that was this advanced type of Greek that was given by the Holy Spirit and it was different by everything else what ended up changing the definition of that is there was a discovery where they found an ancient trash can full of just a bunch of sheets and as they went through those sheets they found grocery lists they found work orders and it was the same Greek the Bible was written in what we ended up discovering was called coin a Greek which was common Greek and you see God as the New Testament was written he wrote it in a language that the common person could understand and what Paul is getting the Corinthian church to understand is our church services we should reflect his nature and talk in a language that people understand so we know what the gospel is and can communicate it with the world around us and he continues on this idea that we need to be understood by all but then he kind of dives into this a little more starting in verse six he says this so now brothers and sisters if I come to you speaking in tongues how will I benefit you unless I speak to you with a revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching he says verse 7 even lifeless instruments that produce sounds whether flute or harp if they don't make a distinction in the notes how will what is played on the flute or harp be recognized he says "In fact if the bugle makes an unclear sound how will it prepare for battle in the same way unless you use your tongue for intelligible speech how will what is spoken be known?" Man we could preach a whole sermon on that if you use your tongue for saying things that are smart and people understand like that's important i don't think we do that enough right he says "For you will be speaking into the air." Verse 10 "There are doubtless many different kinds of languages in the world none is without meaning therefore if you do not know the meaning of the language I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker will be a foreigner to me verse 12 so also since you are zealous for spiritual gifts seek to excel in building up the church paul says that when we're excellent in the church it exalts God and we do this when we reflect his nature by communicating the way that God communicates to us but it also we see the second part of this is it reinforces God's clarity you see Paul uses several illustrations here he kind of talks about musical instruments that make sounds that are just nonsense and don't sound good he talks about trumpets that call to battle but there are specific calls for battle there are specific calls for peace there are specific calls to get ready for battle in all of these examples he uses to make the point that unclear communication dishonors the clarity of God's revelation that when we are to be unclear we say this in our staff is to be unkind and here Paul says you need to be clear in how you're communicating to one another but also how you're communicating to your culture of who our God is but then he gives another powerful word in verse 12 he says the reason to do this he says because you are zealous for spiritual spiritual gifts he says seek to excel in building up the church the word excel here is key because Paul isn't saying just do your best right he said not just like try your hardest and it will be right instead he doesn't say try to be pretty good instead he's saying strive for excellence because it reflects God's glory here's the problem I think that sometimes we run into the church is we prioritize excellence in so many parts of our lives is we want to be excellent when we're at work and that's a great thing we want to be excellent inside our families and that's a great thing we want our kids to be excellent in sports and live out all our failed childhood dreams but then we come to church be like it's all right if I just show up it's all right if I show up like once a month or twice a month it's okay if I'm not that involved if I just am there and present and leaving my butt mark on a chair that's enough and Paul's like "No no no no we strive to excel in building up the church you are the church if we are not building up each other then it is not being built up by me or our staff alone it is built up by the body of the church." Which leads to the second reason that the church should be excellent that Paul gets into is not only does it glorify does it exalt God but church excellence edifies the church go back to Palm Sunday and Jesus gives distinct instructions make sure you get this colt make sure you get this donkey make sure he's never been ridden and then they put their coats on him they get them all ready as Luke's account shows and they get Jesus on that donkey and as Jesus is riding in and it was important that it was a donkey cuz if Jesus came in on a war horse the message he was sending is we're going to war but when he rides in on a donkey he's saying we're in a time of peace cuz the victory is already won but as he's doing all those details line up then breaks out and the people said this and we read it earlier in our services blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord that as they saw Jesus as all those details were in line all of the sudden the church was crying out the church was being built up before their very eyes and Paul continues to elaborate on this of how does this church excellent how does it edify how does it build up the church and he picks this up in verse 13 and he says this "Therefore the person who speaks in a tongue should pray that he can interpret for if I pray in a tongue my spirit prays but my understanding is unfruitful what then what's the point of it he says I will pray with the spirit and I will so pray with my understanding i will sing praise with the spirit and I will also sing praise with my understanding here's what Paul is saying he's like going back to that clarity we need to understand what we're saying to our God it is not just an emotion but there is reason there is logic that goes behind it verse 16 he says "Otherwise if you praise with the spirit how will the outsider say amen at your giving of thanks since he does not know what you are saying for you may very well be giving thanks but the other person is not being built up." He says "I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you." Verse 19 yet in the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding in order to teach others also than 10,000 words in a tongue here we see that church excellence edifies the church and in the first way that Paul shows us it does this in the manner that it engages us in worship paul gives these details and he's saying "Hey we can have a worship service that is exciting with emotion it can almost be chaotic as people are like "Why are they waving their hands?" If you go to more charismatic churches is "Why are they speaking languages I don't understand?" And even in here you know we're Baptist so we barely raise our hands we definitely don't speak in tongues right so you're like that's we're like we're free from that but people can be like why are they so joyful why are they so smiley why do they act like they want to be here and weren't dragged to be here and Paul is saying because when you're clear about who your God is that's why we say when we pray the ABCs of prayer one of those is clarity is we pray clear to our God because we want others to understand this love we have for him and he drops this little line in verse 19 he says that five intelligible words are better than 10,000 unintelligible ones you know I I got to give my kids a lot of direction kyle said he has four kids i got four kids too and Jessica has four kids josh only has two kids so um he has like a couple years to have two more kids or he has to move off of our staff that's the That's the rule uh just kidding that's not true but when I talk to my kids I have found out over the years that I have to be very clear and like even if I say to do something and then immediately say and then do that they didn't hear any of the directions because I just confused them by giving them two directions instead of just one so I've had to find I got to be super clear when I talk to them and and when you talk to your kids like I could use big impressive words like if I really try my vocabulary gets pretty decent and and I read a lot of books so my vocabulary gets bigger but if I'm trying to impress my kids with my vocabulary it's going to be a nightmare so what it turns into is usually I use simple words like don't touch that don't hit that don't lick that that's an important one right i could tell my kids and instead of saying those little phrases I could say "Hey you need to demonstrate the immoral tendencies of your primal heart that lead to your socially inappropriate behavior." I wrote that chat JBT didn't even write that okay that was all me but it would be insane and Paul here is saying that excellence in church is not about impressing people it's not about making yourself look good but it's about being clear about being kind and about building up the church and the brothers and sisters around us and when we do that we engage them in worship both in our mind and our heart and our spirit and Paul builds on this in verse 20 as he keeps going and he says again "Brothers and sisters." I love how he has brothers and sisters over this like he gives them a lot of hard truth and he's like "Brothers and sisters like church family I love you you guys are idiots church family I love you." Like that's how he's talking to the church in Corinth over and over again verse 20 he says "Brothers and sisters don't be childish in your thinking but be infants in regard to evil an adult in your thinking." I love that it is be as innocent as a child but as sharp as an adult is what he's saying here intellectually verse 21 he says "As written in the law I will speak to this people by people of other tongues in by the lips of foreigners and even then they will not listen to me says the Lord." Speaking in tongues then is intended as a sign not for believers but for unbelievers while prophecy is not for unbelievers but for believers verse 23 if therefore the whole church assembles together and all are speaking in tongues and people who are outsiders for un or unbelievers come in will they not say that you are out of your minds if we're doing choreographed dances on stage will unbelievers not come in and say you are out of your mind but verse 24 but if you are prophesizing clear teaching and some unbeliever or outsider comes in he is convicted by all because he hears the clear teaching of God and he is called to account by all oh the secrets of his heart will be revealed because of the preaching and the teaching and the showing of God's word and as a result he will fall face down and worship God proclaiming God is really among you you see Paul shows us that church excellence it it builds the church when it engages the church body in worship but also when it embraces our maturity he he says this in your thinking be like adults don't be like child like children but be adults and and he's telling us that when we have an orderly worship service an orderly worship in our personal lives that it reflects the mature character of God's people and Paul here is being very clear he's telling the church that they need to grow up he's saying that you need to act like adults you need to have worship services that reflect the grown-up nature of our God th this past week uh in my Bible group we were talking about and we're going through 1 Corinthians 13 that we preached last week and in the chapter on love and and our group I love our group were 18 to 30 year olds i'm not but they are um and and unmarried so we joke because one couple's dating and was talking about marriage and I'm like as soon as you get married you know you're getting kicked out right because we only have singles in this group maybe maybe not um but as we were talking and and these are all Jenzers so they use language I don't understand they're hipper and cooler than I am and I asked them the question is "What do you think is the struggle with your generation at large culturally not growing up?" And we had this discussion of just like all these things holding us back all these things in this next generation just refusing to commit refusing to all of a sudden dive in and say I do to say I do to a job and a spouse and to children and actually commit themselves and Paul here is saying the same happens inside the church eventually we just need to grow up and we need to be involved and we need to be active and we need to be building up the church family around us and in that he points out something fascinating he says that we need to do this because we are a witness to the outside world he says 'When unbelievers come into a disorderly service he says they think we're insane if we don't look like we know what we're doing and we look like we're crazy he says "But when they come in to an orderly excellent service of people truly engaging in worship that's genuine that's not fake that's not impressing people but is an outflow of our lives." All of the sudden he says "These people they look and say they must know a legitimate God." Which leads to the last part of this as Paul walks through and he says that church excellence it exalts our God church excellence it edifies the church but lastly church excellence evangelizes the lost i love on Palm Sunday as Jesus gets on the donkey as he marches in as the people are putting down palm branches and they're worshiping and shouting that this is the Lord and they're saying that he has come to bring us salvation he has come to bring us peace and they are worshiping him everyone loved it except for those pesky Pharisees and they took Jesus aside and they're like "You got to fix this." He said 'These guys are speaking blasphemy that they did not know yet but the response of Jesus he says 'I tell you if they were to keep silence the stones would cry out you see our excellence in worship isn't optional well what what Paul tells us what Jesus tells us if we don't worship God in an excellent in an overflowing of our life manner then the creation the rocks the animals and everything else around us will cry out to our God but God has chosen to use the church as the first line of defense to do that and here Paul jumps in in verse 26 and we're going to speed through like I told you it's a lot of passage but in this last point starting in verse 26 he says this "The last enemy to be abolished." Oh I'm going to 15 already i'm so excited for Easter all right he says "What then brothers and sisters?" He uses language again he's he's encouraging them as he's correcting them he said "Whenever you come together each one has a hymn a teaching a revelation a tongue or an interpretation everything is to be done for building up." He said "If anyone speaks in a tongue there are to be only two or at most three each turn and let someone interpret but if there is no interpreter that person is to keep silent in the church and speak to himself in God." He says "Two or three prophets should speak and the others should evaluate but if something has been revealed to another person sitting there the first prophet should be silent for you can all prophesy one by one so that everyone may learn and everyone may be encouraged and the prophet spirits are subject to the prophets." And he says this "Since God is not a God of disorder but of peace," we're going to stop right there and and let me break this down for you a second what Paul is saying when we talk about how does church excellence evangelize the lost is that when we do this it creates an environment inside our church you see this is a difficult section to interpret and piece together and as you probably heard that you're like "What in the world is he talking about?" But Paul is giving very specific instructions about how many people should speak in church and what order they should speak and how others should respond to that teaching and and a lot of this was contextualized to that church in Corenth but why does he give all these details and he gives these details because he says in verse 33 for God is not a God of disorder but of peace this past week uh I had to go to a doctor's appointment to refill a prescription and as I went in there they scheduled me at the wrong office so I I I went to Sun City and then the other one was in Glendale and I had specifically asked them to transfer me to the one that's closer here now and we're going back and forth then they made it a TEDoc appointment then as I'm waiting in the waiting room for the TEDoc in the waiting room in a virtual waiting room all right can you wrap your head around that they call me and say "We need to see you in person." I'm like "Okay." They're like "Can you make it here right now?" I'm like "No I got another meeting I got to go to." And then they gave me the runaround and it was all this nonsense and crazy and then I made someone mad and I think they literally kicked me out of their like not out of the office but out of their practice okay like luckily this was all over the phone so they didn't see my making Jesus known hat as this was all going down i was very cordial I promise but through that whole process it was like the worst environment ever and and like they're like "Well didn't you get our notice about that?" I'm like "No when I get your emails they say null and then I go to log on and it says error." They're like "Oh yeah that's a normal problem we have." Like I think that's kind of a big deal right like we can't communicate and through this whole process it was really rough and it was a little frustrating at the end of it but as I thought about it I was like well what environment are we setting on our church campuses do we create an environment on our campus and through our services where excellence speaks volumes about the God we serve here at Cross Church here's what we strive to do and I hope you see this in our worship service is we start with a text and say all that matter what matters more than anything else is the text we are preaching through and then we build out our service and we have three goals is we want to praise we want to sing through a text we want to pray through a text and then we want to preach through a text so that we can live go out and then practice that text in the world and you see there is order there is excellence there is prayer and thought that goes into this because we want to encounter God to reach our community in the greatest possible way but Paul keeps going as we pick up in the second half of verse 33 and he says that as in all the churches of the saints and again this is contextualized i don't have time to go through this but we also did preach on this in chapter 11 that we need to read this lens through he says the women should be silent in the churches for they are not permitted to speak but they're to submit themselves as the law also says they had problems with people leading them astray so this was contextualized to the church at Corinth and go read chapter 11 more and see our sermon for that on that commentary but verse 35 he said if they want to learn something let them go ask their husbands at home since disgraceful for women to speak in the church he said or did the word of God originate from you or did it come to you only verse 37 he says if anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual he should recognize that what I write to you is the Lord's command paul's saying "The Holy Spirit is helping me pen this letter." He said "If anyone ignores this he will be ignored." So then my brothers and sisters be eager to prophesy to teach clearly and do not forbid speaking in tongues but verse 40 as he wraps up everything and where we started with in this he says here "But everything is to be done decently and in order." Here's the last thing we see as Paul walks through why church excellence is so important in our services that that it exalts God that it builds up and edifies the church that it evangelizes the lost and evangelized the lost by creating an environment but also by cultivating a hospitable culture and Paul here concludes with very specific instructions about order in the church and and he says this and these details matter because he says "Hey God is not a god of disorder but of peace." And he leaves them with that last line but everything you should do is to be done decently and in order and when we come to this and we ask like how do we start to apply this here's what is so important is excellence in church worship provides a clear witness to the unbelievers around us when we have excellence in our services excellence on our campuses excellence in our personal lives here's what we're telling the world around us that our God is worth our best we're telling the world around us that our God is a God of order not of chaos our culture is a culture of chaos that we say "Our God cares about the details in life." And one of those things our God cares about is the details of you and as we get to this and kind of coming full circle in this that when we ask what is our biblical answer at the beginning of what does the Bible say about excellence what does the Bible say of how can we be excellent why is this so important is it here is our answer from our text church excellence leads to kingdom expansion you see when we pursue excellence in our worship in our teaching and how we organize our services and how we welcome people it's not about looking good ourselves but it's about showing the world around us how great our God is and here I think at times this can be intimidating because we look at our personal lives we're like "But man my life's pretty messed up i have a lot of issues." And we maybe feel like I had to put on this facade like I'm perfect like I got it all together and that's not at all what Paul is saying instead he's saying "Hey come with your best to show that our God is worthy of our best of be like the people on that first Palm Sunday who had their palm branches waving because the Lord of Lords the King of Kings was marching in and he was worth our worship and worth showing and sharing with the world around us that he has come." And when we talk about this here at Cross Church this is the type of church we want to be and this is the type of church we want to build that you feel equipped to share your faith and you feel comfortable and you feel excited about inviting your friends your neighbors your co-workers here you see we've been talking this whole year as we've gone through the book of Corinthians that if we want to be a church that reaches our culture we need to show them there's life change in our hearts and we said what does that practically look like well it looks like a church that is spiritually hungry nothing is more depressing than when you go into a church and be like "These people don't want to be here these people look like they're checking a box off their week they look like they have to be here cuz their spouse drugged them or because it's something they feel obligated to do but when you come into a place and there's a passion burning inside there is a feeling like there is something to have and you were just craving God to infiltrate your life that changes everything a church that is spiritually hungry but also a church that is radically humble it's a big difference when you meet people who don't care just about building up their own kingdoms don't care just about having the look right on the outside but care about how do can we be generous and loving towards the people around us and lastly to be a church that is uncomfortably hospitable one that says "I'm not going to just sit in my kingdom in my house i'm not just going to sit back and make sure my life is all figured out and I have no road bumps but it's easy it's nice it's comfortable but I'm going to go invite my neighbors even the weird ones to church i'm going to go love my coworker that might drive me crazy sometimes but I know they need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and when we start getting outside our bubble when we start building a church together as the body that shows these three things in our culture we're going to see how that church excellence leads to God's kingdom be expanded leads to people be having Jesus made known in their lives and how it changes everything around us my challenge to you church as we are less than one week from our Easter services kicking off that you invite people that you share your faith and that you give your all and showing our God how he is worthy of our excellence let's pray to our amazing and excellent God this morning [Music]