This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day three together of our look at 1 Corinthians 11. We're going to look
at verses 17 to 22 today. We've gotten through the first couple of days of
looking at that passage.

It's difficult to understand in terms of the culture and the example that Paul
was giving and the arguments that he was making, but the truth is very clear. In
worship I have to give up some of my freedoms. I have to humble myself because
I'm worshiping with others.

Because I'm worshiping with others, one of the key attitudes in worship is my
attitude towards others. There's a second key attitude to outstanding worship
that begins in verse 17. And the second attitude is you have to appreciate your
differences without creating divisions.

It's one of the keys to healthy worship. And Paul talks about the struggles they
were having with that in verses 17 to 19. He says this, "In the following
directives I have no praise for you.

For your meetings do more harm than good. " In the first place, I hear that when
you come together as a church, there are divisions among you. And to some
extent, I believe it.

No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God's
approval. So Paul talks about the divisions that were in the church. Now he ends
by saying there have to be differences, but there should be no divisions.

The differences that he's talking about here are the gifts that we're going to
look at beginning in chapter 12 this next week. And he says you have to see
who's approved. The approval is the approval to lead and to teach based on their
gifts and their experiences.

So Paul says obviously there are differences amongst us, but that does not mean
there have to be divisions. They had allowed their differences to become
divisions, and it was destroying their worship services. In fact, Paul says your
worship services are doing more harm than good.

If you really want to kill a worship service, all you need to do is be divided
against another Christian. That's when it starts to do more harm than good.
First in your heart, and then like cancer, it spreads to the heart of everyone
in the church.

How can you tell? How can you tell if there's that kind of division in your
heart toward another believer? I think one of the simple tests is, is there
anyone with whom you could not sit down and pray individually?

If as I said that a name, a face came to mind, I'd never sit down and pray with
them because of what they did, what they said, whatever. Is there someone with
whom you could not sit down and pray individually? Someone in your church,
someone who's a fellow believer.

The unforgiveness and bitterness that gets into our hearts sometimes, because we
hurt each other, because we're human beings, and we're living together as a
family as Christians. If I allow that unforgiveness and bitterness to grow, it
not only destroys my personal worship, but also begins to destroy the worship of
the entire church. You see, we think we can divide out our personal divisions
and keep them away from our worship.

When we try to divide out our divisions, we end up multiplying the problem,
because when you hide it, it just grows and grows and grows, and it pops out
here and it pops out there, and people see a look here and a look there, and an
unwillingness to talk here, and a walking the other way there, and it just
begins to eat away at the worship of the church. This is because worship is a
part of life, and you can't really worship unless you bring all of your life to
the front door. Divisions hinder that.

Worship is essentially a relationship experience, and you cannot properly relate
to God if you're divided with man. 1 John talks about this again and again and
again. If you say you love God, but you hate your fellow believer, you're lying
to yourself.

It's just that simple. So what do you do? What do you do if you're divided with
another believer?

Well, in Matthew 5, 23 to 24, Jesus makes the direction quite clear. You go to
him. You go to him.

Now, the way you go to somebody with whom you have a division is very important.
You don't go blaming. A lot of people will go and they'll say, "I want to let
you know I have something against you.

In fact, I want to really tell you, you've really, really hurt me. In fact, the
thing that you did to me was awful. It was horrible.

I want you to know that I can't believe that you would do something like that. "
And as you're trying to apologize to him, actually what's happening is you're
just creating a deeper and deeper division. You got to work it through in your
heart, and then go to the person and say, "Hey, I know we may never agree on the
circumstances of this, but you're my brother in Christ.

You're my sister in Christ. And I want to let you know, I want to be able to
pray with you, and I want you to know I'm praying for you. " Solving a division
with another believer does not mean you have to solve the problem.

You may solve the problem. You may not solve the problem. That's not always the
issue.

You do need to solve the relationship. Now, solving the relationship does not
mean you have to trust the other person. It doesn't even mean you have to be
your best friend.

You have to spend tons of time with them. It does mean that you get it right.
Now, if they know that you have something against them, you go to them and you
make it right.

If they don't know, if it's just in your heart, you don't need to go to them.
I've had people do this to me sometimes. They'll come and they'll say, "I want
to let you know, I don't know if you knew this, I've had something against you
for years.

" And I'm thinking, "I had no idea. " And it's some maybe little thing that
happened a long time ago, and all of a sudden now it's brought into the
forefront, and it's a blaming moment rather than a forgiving moment. If it's
just something that's in your heart and they don't know about it, then you solve
it between you and the Lord.

If they know about it, then you solve it between the two of you, realizing you
don't have to solve the problem, but you have to solve the relationship. Why is
that so important? Because the Corinthians were divided.

They began to act selfishly. That's what happens every time. Divisions cause us
to focus on our own needs, and unity causes us to focus on others' needs.

That's true for a church. If I'm in unity with the church and I focus on the
needs of those around me and the needs of the community, if a church is divided,
everybody starts to focus just on their own needs. I want this in the worship
service.

I need this in the worship service. I'm not getting noticed here. And not only
do we not focus on the needs of one another in the church, we stop focusing on
the needs around us in the community.

That's true for a church. It's also true for a marriage, by the way. When
there's division in a marriage, people start focusing just on their own needs,
and that just creates deeper and deeper and deeper division.

You've got to find a point of unity. Not a perfection of unity, just a point of
unity to start with. And when you find that point of unity, you build on that.

Because out of that, you begin to serve each other. You focus on the other
person's need, and that's the key to a healthy relationship in Christ. They were
struggling with this.

Paul talks about it beginning in verse 20. He says to them, "When you come
together, is it not the Lord's Supper that you eat? For as you eat, each of you
goes ahead without waiting for anybody else.

One remains hungry, another gets drunk. Don't you have homes to eat and drink
in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?

What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? Certainly not.

" Now, in these verses, Paul is really bringing out a third key to outstanding
worship. Not only is it realizing I have to give up freedoms in order to meet
other people's needs. Not only is it realizing that I have to let go of
divisions while recognizing our differences.

But there's a third key to outstanding worship, and that is you need to see
yourself as part of a body. And you need to see the needs of others as more
important than your own. The Corinthians were worshipping, and they included
something that some people call an agape feast, a love feast, a time of
celebration, but it had turned into a time of self-centeredness.

What was supposed to be the Lord's Supper had become their supper. And me first,
I'm going to get first in line and become their call to worship. And the result
was one had too much and the other had not enough.

Self-centeredness had made its way into their worship. How does this work for
us? It's pretty obvious that you cannot center upon yourself and upon Christ at
the same time.

Self-centeredness and worship just don't fit into the same package, same
practice in our lives. But what about us? How does this work in our lives?

How can we be self-centered today? It might not be so obvious as it was there. I
haven't seen any pushing and shoving in the Lord's Supper line, "Hey, I got to
be first.

" Or people running ahead saying, "I got to get the elements of the Lord's
Supper first. " I don't see that happening. So how does this make its way into
our lives?

The attitude can still creep in. One of the things you have to watch out for is
what I call the minds. When something becomes mine and not ours.

When it becomes my church and not our church. This is my church because I was
here at the beginning. This is my church because of how much I've sacrificed.

This is my church because of whatever. So we're going to do it my way. It can
even be a little thing like my place to sit.

Or is this our place to worship? You walk into a worship service. You usually
sit five rows back, three seats in.

That's where the two of you sit every week. You walk in and there's somebody
sitting in your seat. That's my seat.

So you got to watch out for the minds. This is our place to worship. It can even
go to something that I hear sometimes when people say, "This is my Bible.

" This is God's word to us. Sometimes you hear people say something like, "Well,
my Bible says. .

. " I can't say it in the moment, but I always want to say, "I think it's our
Bible. I think God wrote it to all of us.

" When someone says, "My Bible," they're trying to make a point, but actually
they're focusing in a self-centered way that destroys worship in the end. It's
God's word to us. It's God's place for us to worship.

It's God's people coming together. So what about you? What about me?

I can get all caught up in the cultural differences between now and then and
veils and all the things that they were going through. I can get all caught up
in the fact that, "Well, I'd never do something like the Corinthians did and
push my way into the front of the line. " I can get caught up in them or I can
listen to what the Lord has to say to me.

Where is it that you need to commit yourself to a new attitude to enable a
deeper worship in your life and the life of those around you? It may be letting
go of what you know you're free to do in order to worship with others. It may be
letting go of a bitterness in order to take up a forgiveness.

It may be letting go of yourself in order to begin serving others in a certain
way. It may be letting go of some little thing that you want or maybe a big
thing that you want in your mind in order to promote worship together. Where do
you need to commit yourself to a new attitude, a new heart?

What's God saying to you about this? Jesus speak to us. We realize that we can
get selfish.

We realize we can be divided. We realize we can get caught up in little things
and miss the big thing. So we need you.

We need your spirit to speak to us. Both for our own worship and the worship of
those around us, speak to us right now. What do I need to let go of?

What do I need to grab onto? How do I need to trust you? Speak to our hearts
through your spirit, we pray, Jesus.

We ask this in your name, amen. Tomorrow, Paul is going to talk to us about the
importance of the Lord's Supper in our worship.