This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to day two of our look at 1 Corinthians chapter 14. We're going to focus
on verses 6 to 19 today, a good chunk of verses that have to do with what
happens in worship and how we build each other up, the edification principle.
And yesterday we looked at the questions that Paul asks in this chapter, the
first two of four, who are you speaking to?

Is it just for you? Is it also for others? Who are you building up?

Is it just for you? Is it also for others? And now he asks a third question.

And you can tell he's coming to the same point with each of these questions. Is
it just about you or is it also about us? The third question he asks in verses 6
to 12, 6 to 13 actually, is what good do you do for others?

What good are you doing for others in what's happening in worship? Listen to
these verses. Now, brothers, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good
will I be to you?

Unless I bring some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction,
even in the case of lifeless things that make sounds such as the flute or harp,
how will anyone know what tune is being played unless there's a distinction in
the tones? Again, if the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready
for battle? So it is with you.

Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what
you're saying? You will just be speaking into the air. Undoubtedly, there are
all sorts of languages in the world, yet none of them is without meaning.

If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner
to the speaker and he's a foreigner to me. So it is with you. Since you are
eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church.

For this reason, anyone who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret
what he says. Paul walks through this and he says it's all about what good is
happening in the lives of people in the church. If I speak in tongues, Paul
says, what good am I doing for you?

And he gives a couple of examples. He says, for example, a musical instrument.
If I play a musical instrument and there's no distinction in the tones, you
can't recognize what's happening.

What profit if a flute or a harp, you can't understand the notes. What if a
bugle call isn't clear? Nobody knows what to do.

Nobody knows what direction to go. Or he says, another example is a foreigner,
somebody who has a different language. If I go into a church and they're
speaking in a language that I don't know, I may think it's a beautiful worship
service.

I may see the beauty in it, but life change can't happen. I can't hear God's
direction in it. I need someone to interpret for me.

Now in that day they had, and we still have sometimes in worship services today,
people who interpret it for them. Somebody would speak in tongues and somebody
would say this is what was just said. Oftentimes in churches today, instead of
that happening, people just read straight from the word of God.

The whole idea of interpreting from a tongue that was spoken was to hear from
God. Well, they didn't always have the New Testament like we do. And so while I
understand the use of the gift of tongue sometimes in parts of the world today,
the truth of the matter is I think most of us would rather hear somebody read
the word of God.

We'd rather hear directly from God and know that's his word and then think about
how do I live that out? That's what does good in our lives. Paul is saying if I
don't know the meaning in a worship service, if somehow we're speaking and I
don't understand what you're saying, we're actually speaking as foreigners, not
as people who are in fellowship with each other.

Now that's true with the gift of tongues. It could also be true with using a
language that somebody doesn't understand. If someone's coming to my church and
they speak Spanish and nobody speaks Spanish and we don't make sure that Spanish
is spoken somewhere so somebody can hear that word, then we're speaking as
foreigners in that Or if someone comes to the church and I use such high
sounding doctrinal words so I can look smart but it causes them to totally miss
God's word and God's will because they don't understand what I'm saying.

I'm speaking as a foreigner to them. Paul is saying here, whatever you do, seek
the growth of the church, the building up of the church. Seek what good we can
do for each other.

And in verse 6 he even makes a list of the good we can do for each other. He
says it needs to be about revelation and knowledge and prophecy and a word of
instruction. What a great list.

Revelation is showing God for who he is. Knowledge is understanding the things
of God, what he says in his word. Prophecy, we just read about it.

It's building up. It's the comfort. It's the encouragement that comes from God's
word.

A word of instruction is how do I live that into my life? Here's what you do in
your marriage. Here's what you do in your family.

Here's how you speak in better ways to each other, instructing somebody in what
to do. God's word has all of that for us. And God's word is meant to bring that
into our lives.

So Paul is saying if you're excited about speaking gifts to those in Corinth,
pray for one of these because that's what does good for others in the church.
The question again in worship isn't what does good for me, but what does good
for others because that's what's happening when we come together to worship. And
the Corinthians were struggling with this.

We struggle with it sometimes too. It's all about me and it's not about us when
we get together to worship. So he says what good do you do for others?

And then he has a fourth question. The fourth question he asks under this
edification principle is a little bit more philosophical. It goes more to how we
think and what we do.

He's really asking the question beginning in verse 14, "With what do you speak?
" To those who are speaking in tongues, to those who are prophesying, he's
asking, "With what? Out of what do you speak?

" Listen to these verses. Verses 14 down to verse 19. "For if I pray in a
tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.

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.

" 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? He doesn't know
what you're saying. You may be giving thanks well enough, but the other man is
not edified.

"I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you, but in the church,
I'd rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than 10,000 words in
a tongue. " Paul's pretty clear here. He says, "What are you speaking out of?

" He talks about mind and spirit. When he talks about spirit here, he's not
talking about Holy Spirit. He's talking about your spirit, your soul, what's
happening with you.

He says, "If I pray in a tongue, it's just my spirit. " So something spiritual
happens, and that's good, but my mind is unfruitful. My mind is not connected.

So God is ministering to me spiritually, but he says in public worship, we need
to get both the mind and the spirit involved. If we don't, he says, you're being
ministered to spiritually, but the person who's standing beside you can't say,
"Amen" to it because they don't know what's going on. They don't understand.

You're giving thanks to God, but the other person isn't built up because they
don't know what you're saying. So in proper worship, Paul is saying here, you've
got to have the spirit and the mind. When you pray, when you sing, when you give
thanks, you have to have both.

Sometimes we fall off on the other side of this, and all we have is the mind
involved. People come and they want to worship, and all they do is connect
logically to God. They try to think it through philosophically, and it's all
about just the mind.

When you sing a song, if it's just thinking about what the words mean in a
sentence, you're totally missing it. It also has to be about your spirit. How
could God encourage me?

How does God lift up my soul? What does God want to do in my life? When I'm
worshiping God, Paul is saying, both the spirit and the mind need to be
involved.

Now that's important for me individually, but that's not his argument here. His
statement here is it's important not just individually, but when you get both
the spirit and mind involved, it's absolutely important for that person who's
worshiping with you because now they can understand what you're saying. Now they
can understand what you're saying.

Now they can understand what's going on in your life. These are verses that are
all about not tongues and prophecy and spiritual gifts. They're applying the
truths of tongues and prophecy and spiritual gifts to the way that we worship.

So the question we have to keep coming back to each day of this week is how am I
worshiping right now? When you worship, is it all spirit? You just come in and
it's all emotion, but you don't really think about what God's word means or how
you can apply it to your life or what it's going to mean in your life this next
week.

It's just a one-hour emotional experience for you. That's one way that just your
spirit's involved. Or when you worship, is it just your mind involved?

You just come in and it's just considering and logic and what facts can I add to
the other facts that I have about Christianity? Or is it both? Most of us, we
tend to sort of lean one way or the other.

Some of us are more emotional and we have more of our spirit involved in
worship. Some of us are more cognitive. We have more of our mind involved in
worship.

Christian growth is having both involved in worship. So let's pray right now.
Let's ask God to grow us in this area of our lives in our worship.

Lord, help me to worship you with my spirit and with my mind. Heart, soul, mind
and strength given to you in worship. Lord, I don't want it just to be about
logic and facts, what I can learn about you, but I also don't want it just to be
about emotion and feelings, how I feel about you.

I want to put the two together. I want to experience the beauty of a depth of
love for you. And that's where they come together with love.

So Lord, I pray that in worship, you would strengthen me and strengthen those
around me to love you more and more and to love those who are around us more and
more, to bring these two together through your power. We pray this together in
Jesus' name. Amen.

Tomorrow we're going to look at a second principle together for evaluating what
we do in public worship.