"Building Up the Church" (1 Corinthians 14:12b-20)

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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

“Since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church (1 Corinthians 14:12b).

 

For everyone who attended the adult Bible Study on 1 Corinthians, you know that the Corinthian Church was a deeply troubled congregation. They had a lot of problems. And one of those problems was a sense of superiority on the part of some of the flock of this church. Some thought of themselves as better than others. And in particular, today St. Paul is talking about speaking in tongues.

 

Evidently, those who spoke in tongues were convinced that they were better than those who could not speak in tongues. The tongue speakers were convinced that they had an increased value over the non-tongue speakers. This was causing conflict within the church as they were not building up the body of Christ.

 

And even today, there are some Christian churches that teach that if you do not have the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues then you haven’t truly been baptized. But the thing is, St. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote previously that there are many spiritual gifts, and none is greater than the other. He wrote: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone” (1 Corinthians 12:4-6). 

 

Paul tells of spiritual gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, speaking in tongues, and interpretation of tongues. Paul goes on teaching that just as the body is one and has many members, all the members are one body with Christ.

 

But for some reason, many in the Church in Corinth were hung up on speaking in tongues. In fact, many of the tongue-speakers may have been “showing off” their spiritual gift as many others in the congregation could make no sense of what was being said.

 

As wonderful of a spiritual gift as tongues may be, speaking in tongues does not edify, or build up the church since tongues are not intelligible to others without an interpreter. A tongue speaker prays, sings, blesses and gives thanks to God well enough, but if there is no one to interpret, those utterances are merely “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1). So, if there is no interpretation, then the tongue speaking is worthless. It’s just filling the church with noise. It isn’t edifying the church. It isn’t building up the body of Christ.

 

“Nevertheless,” Paul writes, “in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue” (1 Corinthians 14:19). So, a short time of instruction is much better than a longer time of confusion with tongues.

 

Now, speaking in tongues is clearly not a pressing issue at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church. I haven’t heard of any utterances here that need to be interpreted, but we should follow St. Paul’s advice in always striving in building up the body of Christ, the church. So, how do we do that? How do we build up the church?

 

Unfortunately, our attempts in building up the church often leads to confusion and disunity. As some focus on this and some focus on that and before long, we become like Corinth in this situation with so much conflict. So, how do we build up the church? Well, we can’t. You see, Christ alone builds up the church and we receive His instruction. He builds us up. He instructs us. So, where does Christ build up the church? Well, He does it in many ways. But let’s focus on the primary way He builds up the church!

 

The primary way Jesus builds up the church is through worship. In Corinth, worshipers speaking in tongues failed to build up the others present. They thought they had to do something. They wanted to impress each other by their worship. Now, what they forgot and what Paul was leading them toward is that true worship isn’t about impressing each other. 

 

You see, Jesus is more interested in serving you than what you can do for Him. And this is why church services are arranged as they are. The goal of the church service is not to serve God, to thank Him and praise Him. Now, all those things do happen, but that is not the real reason God gathers His people. The goal is for Him to serve us. 

 

Paul’s goal for Corinth and for us is for everyone to understand the Lord’s truth spoken to them. This is why we have our services in the vernacular, so that we are able to understand the words in our worship service.

 

In speaking of the worship service, we call it “Divine Service,” which comes from the German word “Gottesdienst.” That word “Gottesdienst” confesses what is actually going on as the Church gathers together week after week. Week after week, Jesus gathers His people to serve them. He gathers us around His Means of Grace. Our whole service is for instructing and forming us into the Word of God.

 

We begin with Confession and Absolution. We confess our sins to God our Father and with repentant hearts, we receive the forgiveness Jesus won for us upon the cross. Being absolved of our sins of thought, word, and deed against God and our neighbor, we then praise Him as we say the Introit, which is a selected psalm. The word “Introit” comes from Latin meaning “enter,” since this is when the pastor would traditionally enter the chancel.

 

The service then moves from praise to a request for mercy from God in the Kyrie. “Kyrie eleison” comes from the Greek phrase meaning “Lord have mercy.” This prayer for divine mercy is not only a corporate confession, but an individual confession as we stand before God.

 

And when God’s people ask for His mercy, His response should not be doubted as He always answers the cries of His people. In recognition of His mercy, we again offer thanks and praise as we sing the hymn of praise known as the Gloria in Excelsis which means “Glory be to God on high.” Another hymn of praise is “This is the Feast.”

 

From there, we hear God’s Word in the Scripture readings and later proclaimed in the sermon as you are hearing right now. Preaching is central to Christian worship. Sin is revealed through God’s Law (Romans 3:20), and deliverance is revealed in the Gospel (Romans 1:16-17). And not every sermon will follow the first, Law and then Gospel structure, but both are always present and distinguished in sermons. Along with the proclamation of judgment and deliverance, the sermon is to also instruct the hearer, you, in Christian living (Titus 2:1-13). The forgiveness of sins that is delivered in the Gospel equips God’s people for good works for their neighbor. Also, the sermon is the place for catechesis. So, I am called by Christ to teach and equip you in Christian doctrine. So, along with promoting true doctrine, I am also to rebuke false doctrine, especially in a day when false teaching is so prominent in this fallen world.

 

Upon hearing God’s Word preached, the comfortable are afflicted and the afflicted are comforted, and so with King David we ask for clean hearts in the offertory. The thing is, we cannot clean our own hearts. So, again, God serves us by restoring our hearts.

 

But prior to the offertory, we give thanks to God for His gracious provision by confessing our trust in Him by providing an offering to the church. By offering up the money He has given us, we confess that we are giving thanks to the One who has provided the offering to us and trust that He will continue to provide. Those offerings allow the church to pay for expenses, missionary efforts and other worthwhile aspects of the church, including preparing for a new furnace.

 

Following the Offertory, we bring our prayer petitions before God. We pray for the whole Church of God in Christ Jesus and for all people according to their needs. We pray for the congregation and the broader community. We pray for the sick. We pray for all those in authority. We pray that God’s will would be done.

 

And then God continues to serve us through the Service of the Sacrament where we change our focus from the lectern and pulpit to the altar. We now prepare ourselves for the reception of Christ’s true body and blood under bread and wine. We now focus on the altar, where Christ’s gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation are given. In the Service of the Sacrament, we give thanksgiving to God along with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. Heaven and earth are joined at this table.

 

Following the reception of Christ’s true body and blood given to us for our salvation, we join Simeon as we sing the Nunc Dimittis. We can now depart in peace with our sins forgiven by grace through faith in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

 

In this Divine Service, we have peaks and valleys. God instructs us as we receive His grace at each peak, and we come to repentant hearts at each valley. But we always end each Divine Service receiving His grace. So, the real role of the Christian is to be served by Him with His gifts of forgiveness and mercy, which He delivers through His Church in the Divine Service, so that the Christian is free to serve their neighbor. 

 

Here, God serves us His Word of forgiveness, earned when Jesus served us by dying for us. God serves us, giving us new birth in Holy Baptism. God serves us, feeding our faith with His own body and blood under bread and wine. God serves us and He loves us. God serves us, setting us free to love Him, setting us free to serve the ones He has given to us, our neighbor. Here, God serves us by strengthening your faith as He builds up the church. Amen.

 

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

 keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.  

+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +

Sermon for Epiphany 5: "Building Up the Body of Christ" (1 Corinthians 14:12b-20)

 

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! 

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

[Intro: The Issue in Corinth]

The Corinthian church was a deeply troubled congregation. At the start of his letter, the Holy Spirit guides Paul into writing, “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers” (1 Corinthians 1:10-11).

One of the most troubling aspects of the church in Corinth was a sense of superiority on the part of some members of the church.

Typically, the distractions at the Corinthian church came from the worldliness outside the church. You see, the city of Corinth was a very large city with a population of nearly a million people. And like any large city then and now, comes many distractions. Added to this is the fact that Corinth was a port city. In fact, it had ports on each end of the city. Being a major port city, this brought commerce, but it also brought with it much sin.

Corinth was a city of wealth, a city of luxury, but what it was most known for was that it was a city of immorality. Corinth was a city well known for sexual immorality and drunkenness.

But Paul is not writing here about the distractions coming from the outside. Here, Paul is writing about the distractions that are coming from within the church in Corinth.

The issue here is that divisions are mounting within the church in Corinth as outsiders cannot understand what is being said – and many of the faithful at the church are also unable to understand.

Evidently, those who spoke in tongues were convinced that they were better than those who could not speak in tongues. They believed they had an increased value over the non-tongue speakers. Paul’s point is that if no person is able to interpret the tongues, then you are not building up the church. The speaking of tongues may be beneficial to the one speaking in tongues, but to everyone else, it just sounds like pure nonsense. If there is no interpretation, then the tongue speaking is worthless. It isn’t edifying the church. It isn’t building up the body of Christ.

In a similar way, often our sinful nature leads us to want more when it comes to the Sunday Divine Service. Sometimes, we focus on our feelings, instead of being satisfied in receiving the gifts that God gives us.

Today on this Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, the Triune God is leading us not to focus on ourselves, but instead on Jesus as He leads us in building up His Body, the Church.

[Understanding the Good News]

Back during the time of the Reformation, there was confusion within the church of the Holy Roman Empire – of what is now known as Germany. You see, throughout their daily life, they would speak German, but when they entered church, they would hear the Mass in Latin. Some understood parts of the service, but most people did not understand much at all. The issue here was understanding.

Martin Luther was also frustrated with this. So, as part of the Reformation, he created the Divine Service to be spoken in the language of the vernacular, the language of the people. With his reforms, the people spoke the liturgy in German, the people sung the hymns in German, the people heard the Scripture readings in German, and they heard the Scripture interpreted in the sermon in German. At last, these people could say “Amen” and know what they were agreeing to.

This is the issue at hand in Corinth, many within the church were saying “Amen,” but they didn’t know what they were agreeing to. With this being the case, the church in Corinth was not being built up.

Foundational to Paul’s whole discussion about tongues and worship in the church is that Christ is the head of the Church. Christ’s own head bore the crown of thorns in His passion. Christ’s own head bowed down in death – His atoning death on the cross. Christ’s own head was lifted up in His bodily resurrection. Christ’s own head received the crown of glory as He bodily ascended back to heaven.

Christ is now our head of all things in heaven and on earth. He is the head of His body, the Church, in a rule of grace, love, and forgiveness. This means that the Church is to live together and seek to build itself up as one caring and unified body.

This, we need to hear and understand! Even today, as we correspond using the English language, we still need someone to interpret God’s inerrant Word. There are times when we become distracted in the Divine Service, as we think about lunch, afternoon plans, or something catches our eyes or ears that end up distracting us. And even if we pay the closest attention, we may still not understand what we just heard spoken in the Old Testament, Epistle, and Gospel lessons. This is why we have a time of interpretation, known as the sermon. In the sermon, we hear God’s Word interpreted through preaching.

Still, even then, our minds may wander, but when we have questions about God’s Word, we know who to ask – God’s called and ordained pastor.

But besides listening to the pastor, how do we build up the church? Well, instead of trying to impress people by how much we may know, try building each other up through teaching and catechesis. Through group Bible studies, we build each other up. Through attending the Divine Service faithfully together, we build each other up.

From this, the Holy Spirit gives us the ability to instruct others. We speak in a way that others can learn. Paul says to the Corinthian church and to us: “I want to speak of Christ and His sufferings, death, and resurrection for the salvation of souls, so they can hear this message.” So, when we instruct others on who Jesus is and why He matters, we become fishers of men. By sharing the love of Christ, we build up the church!

You see, it is through the good news of God’s truth that builds up the church. This is why Luther put together his Small and Large Catechisms, where he taught God’s six chief parts – The Ten Commandments, The Creed, The Lord’s Prayer, The Sacrament of Holy Baptism, Confession, and The Sacrament of the Altar. There, in the catechisms, Luther interprets what each Chief Part means, so all may know God’s Law and Gospel. And, with each section of the catechisms, Luther confirms God’s truth with an “Amen” by saying “This is most certainly true.”

There, Luther places Christ’s net, so that every follower of Christ would know the proper teachings of the one true Christian faith and be able to share God’s love with others.

Since we all have been bought and paid for by Christ, through His death and bodily resurrection, we ought to learn and take to heart all that God has done for us by bringing us peace. So, as His new creation, we strive to excel in building up the Church.

God teaches us to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16).

You see, God desires worship that enables “Amen.” God desires worship that catechizes the confused. God desires all divisions to cease. God desires that His Church be built up as the Body of Christ.

Paul raises some sharp questions not only about the practices of the Corinthian church, but also about the church’s life in any age. Unclear, confusing, or noncommunicative speech in the church fails to edify the church.

For us this day, we are to always recall that through Baptism, we “are the body of Christ, and individually members of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27). In other words, Christ is our head, and we are His body, the Church.

As the Head, Christ leads us to forgive one another as He has forgiven us. Here, in the Divine Service, He shows His love for us through His Means of Grace – Word and Sacrament – as He strengthens our faith and forgives our sins. He leads us away from a self-centered life as we care for the needs of others. He, alone, unites us as His body as He builds us up! Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep you hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.

T SOLI DEO GLORIA T