The Local Christendom Podcast with Aaron Ventura

Sermon: How To Govern The Church (Titus 1:1-5)

How To Govern The ChurchSunday, June 22nd, 2025Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WATitus 1:1–5
Prayer
Father, we thank you for manifesting your Word through preaching, and as we now hear Your Word proclaimed, we ask that you would subdue us by Your sweet mercy, rule us by your awesome power, and teach us by Your Holy Spirit of Truth, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
If you have ever tried to plant a garden, you know that it is not enough to just toss some seed in the soil and then come back three months later to a beautiful and abundant harvest. Ever since Adam’s sin in God’s garden, our lot has been that of Genesis 3:17-18 where God says to man, “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.”
Because of our sin, fruit no longer comes easily. This is true in the natural world, and it is also true in the supernatural world.
In proof of this consider Galatians 5:22-23, where Paul says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
Now ask yourself, does that supernatural fruit come easily and without effort? Do you find it easy to be gentle with obstinate and dishonest people? Do you find it easy to be joyful when your car breaks down, or when a steady stream of medical bills continue to arrive in the mail? Do you find it easy to be patient when you have a migraine, and a fussy baby, and you still have to cook dinner for your ungrateful husband?
We all know the answer is No, fruit of the spirit does not come easy. And Paul himself acknowledges this by saying in the very next verse (vs. 24), “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
That is to say, if you are the hard ground where you want a fruitful garden to grow, you have to constantly tend the soil of your heart by crucifying selfish and sinful desires. You have to pull up bad habits at the root. You have to mow down and burn the thorns and the thistles, and only after that soil has been prepared are you ready in the words of James 1:21 to, “receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.”
Jesus himself speak of the Word preached as seed that falls into many different kinds of soil. But it is only in the soil that has been made ready and fertile by grace, that any true and lasting fruit comes forth.
Now this morning we are beginning Paul’s letter to Titus. And the whole purpose of this letter is to instruct the church in how she can become a fruitful and pleasant garden for God.
The Apostle Paul had worked hard to plant the church on the Island of Crete, but he did not have time to ordain and test elders, organize the leadership, and give the church the protection and teaching she would need to become a healthy garden for years to come.
And therefore, he leaves behind his coworker Titus, “to set in order the things that are wanting (lacking) and ordain elders in every city.”
So just as after you prepare the soil and plant the seed, you still need to water and tend, guard and keep your garden from birds and pests, weeds and disease, so also it is in the church. And in God’s Garden elders are His appointed gardeners.
Yes, every individual Christian is responsible to tend and keep his own soul, but because we are often irresponsible and inexperienced, God commands that certain qualified men, keep watch, oversee, and protect His garden.
And so this letter from Paul to Titus, which is ultimately a letter from Christ to His church, are detailed instructions in how the church is to be governed.
And because many people do not like to be governed, Paul has written to Titus in the form of an open letter. So that as Titus is making changes, rebuking heretics, installing qualified pastors, and telling everyone else in the church how they must live in accord with Christ, they all can see and hear that Titus is not just making things up on the fly. Titus is not being legalistic or arbitrary in what he commands, he is simply commanding what God has commanded.
And so as we study this letter in the months to come, we are all going to receive some very pointed and at times uncomfortably specific instructions. And it will be good for us!
This letter to Titus is one of the most practical letters in the New Testament. Luther calls it “an epitome and summary of Paul’s wordier epistles.” And William Tyndale says that “in this letter is contained all that is needful for a Christian to know.”
For in it, Paul teaches us both good doctrine, true theology, and how to live a holy life.
We might say that a major theme of this book is the marriage of truth with practice, right doctrine with good living.
He is going to tell us how pastors must conduct themselves, and then how older men, older women, younger women, and younger men must behave, at the same connecting good behavior with the grace of the gospel.
So with that by way of introduction, let us consider these opening verses together.
Outline of the Text
In verses 1-3 Paul establishes his authority as descending from God through Christ to himself (that is the hierarchy).
In verses 4-5 Paul communicates that authority to Titus and explains the reason/cause for leaving him in Crete.
Verse 1
1Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness;
Paul identifies himself first as a servant of God.
What is a servant? A servant is someone who lives not for their own sake but for someone else’s sake. A servant does not do his own will and desire, he does the will and desire of his superior.
And therefore, a servant of God is a person who lives entirely for God. He has relinquished his will and says with the Lord Jesus, “Not my will, but yours be done (Luke 22:42).” Can you say that?
Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” Can you say that? If not, then you are not yet a servant of God.
A good servant from love does the will of his master. And this is who Paul is.
Next, he identifies himself as “an apostle of Jesus Christ.”
What is an apostle? An apostle is the highest human authority in the church,and he is appointed directly and personally by Jesus Christ, and therefore has authority with Christ to lay the foundation of the church.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, “According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
So Apostles are founders of the church who preach Christ as the cornerstone. And then on top of that foundation they charge lesser men, like Timothy and Titus, pastors and teachers, to build on that foundation taking heed how they build.
How should Titus build?
Paul models for Titus how to wield divine authority. He says it is, “according to the faith of God’s elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness;”
That is to say, his ministry is in harmony with and for the sake of teaching and protecting God’s people. Titus must water, weed, and guard the faith of God’s elect.
This includes both the act of faith, and the content/articles of faith.
The act of faith is simply believing whatever God has spoken and acknowledging it as true. This faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God (Rom. 10:17), and therefore the word of God must be proclaimed.
The articles of faith are the guiding first principles which every true Christian holds in his heart (some more explicitly and some more implicitly). This is the contents of our faith, sometimes called “the faith of Jesus Christ,” (Gal. 3:22-25) and Paul’s apostleship and Titus’ ministry in Crete was to be in accord with this faith, keeping in step with the gospel.
Moreover, the sign that the true gospel has been preached and believed, is that godliness follows from it. This is what he means by, “the acknowledging of the truth which is after (kata/according to) godliness.”
He says essentially the same thing in 1 Timothy 1:5, “Now the end/telos of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.”
In other words, pure doctrine should lead to pure living. Your acknowledgment of Christ’s lordship should lead to Christ-like treatment of others, which is charity.
And as Jesus says in Matthew 7:20, “by their fruits ye shall know them.”
This leads us to verse 2 where Paul states the objective/purpose for Christ calling him as an apostle.
Verse 2
2In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;
Paul was given divine authority, not for his own ego or puffing up, but in order to lead the Gentiles from darkness to light.
It says in Acts 13:46-48, “Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said [to the envious Jews], “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; but since you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us [quoting Isaiah 49:6]: ‘I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, That you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ” Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.”
So the fact that Christ ascended and gave to the church a government: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (Eph. 4:11), was all in hope of eternal life.
Paul says in Romans 8:24, “For we are saved by hope.”
And in Romans 5:5, “Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
And so when the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is proclaimed, we believe in hope that his resurrection is our resurrection. “Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming” (1 Cor. 15:23).
Further we do hope that our sins which are many shall not be counted against us. But having been justified by faith we have peace with God in this life, and the next. Therefore,we hope for eternal life because God, who cannot lie, promised this before the world began.
What does this mean?
It means that before Genesis 1:1, before God created the heavens and the earth, He had you in mind and He wanted you. The Father set his love upon you in His Son, and the Spirit together with Father and Son chose to write your name in The Book of Life never to be blotted out. And then having predestined you for salvation, the world was spoken into existence.
This is how Paul can say in Ephesians 1:4-6, “He hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”
What makes you acceptable to God? It is that you are found in His beloved Son. And this brings us to verse 3 which explains how the elect are united to the Son. How does this promise of God in eternity past become known to the saints such that we can believe?
Verse 3
But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Saviour;
This word preached (logos) can refer either to the Divine Word, the person of Christ, the eternal Word made flesh. Or it can refer to the word about Christ Jesus which is the good news of forgiveness in Him.
Whatever the case, this Word is made known through preaching, and that preaching of the Word was given to Paul by “the commandment of God our Saviour.”
Meaning, this religion we call Christianity, is not of human invention. It is the result of the Creator God commanding apostles and preachers to declare forgiveness in Christ with divine authority. Jesus Christ is Lord, and salvation is found by faith in Him.
Peter says in Acts 4:12, “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
And as the Philippian Jailer asked in Acts 16:30-31, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved? They said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.”
This is the preaching of the Word that God commanded. And if God commanded it, no man can stop it.
Paul writes in 2 Timothy 2:9, that while the world may lockup and chain the him in prison, “the word of God is not bound.”
Even the Pharisee Gamaliel knew this was true. For he tells the Jews in Acts 5:38-39, “Refrain from these men [referring to the apostles], and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest ye even be found to fight against God.”
Here we are 2,000 years later, and Paul was right, and Gamaliel was right. Many enemies have tried to overthrow Christ, to fight against God, but they have not succeeded. Yes, there have been setbacks, yes, the church stumbles at times and needs to be reformed, but Jesus has promised that the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church.
And so if we are His people, the sheep of his pasture, the garden in which he walks and resides, then we can be assured of His love and protection, His discipline and care. And the way Christ manifests that care is by calling and equipping elders to be his shepherds, his servants, his tenants, his gardeners who carry the water can (or a hose) and a pruning knife.
And so we find in verses 4-5 that this job is assigned to Titus. To exercise apostolic authority in finding those men who can do that work faithfully.
Verse 4
4To Titus, mine own son after the common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.
By this salutation Paul hands to Titus a three-fold shield in the Trinity.
Grace, mercy and peace are all effects of the Holy Spirit.
God the Father is the author and source of these graces.
And of course, the Lord Jesus Christ is the one we call Savior.
Paul also adds that Titus is his own son after the common faith, because unlike Timothy who was circumcised, he says in Galatians 2:3, “But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.”
And so if there was any doubt about the unity of faith between Jews and Gentiles, Paul goes out of his way to emphasize this is a common/catholic faith. There is only “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Eph. 4:5-6).
Therefore, the faith that Paul preaches is the same faith Titus preaches, and this is the same faith of all God’s elect.
Finally in verse 5, he explains the cause for Titus being in Crete.
Verse 5
5For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee:
Next week we will dedicate a full sermon to this one verse because it describes what we call Presbyterian church government. But for now I want you to observe just one thing, and that is: see how important church government is to Paul, and therefore to Christ.
According to this verse, a church without a qualified pastor that is answerable to a plurality of fellow pastors, is a church that is wanting/lacking/deficient. And this was such a big deal to Paul, that he left Titus, his own son in the faith, there in Crete until that work was accomplished.
It was not enough to simply evangelize and start a church. It was essential to ordain qualified elders/presbyters to guard and keep it.
Because what is the church? It is God’s most precious possession. It is His temple, His sanctuary, His bride, His glory, His new garden of Eden.
Conclusion
God so loves the church, and every member within it, that He has prescribed in His Word how he wants it to be governed and who he wants to govern it. We’ll see in future weeks that he commands a plurality of qualified men, a pastor together with what we call ruling elders, who tend and keep, water and weed God’s garden, so that it will be fruitful.
Jesus speaks of this government in the parable of tenants where the Jewish elders who kill him, are kicked out and replaced by faithful tenants.
Jesus says in Matthew 21:40-41, “When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants [who killed the owner’s son]?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”
Those new tenants are the apostles and their successors. And as elders and ministers of Christ we want you to be fruitful for your sake and God’s sake. Because the one who owns you, wants that spiritual fruit in every season.
And so I close with words of the Lord Jesus who tells us you exactly how to become fruitful. He says in John 15:4, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”
May God grant you to abide by faith in Jesus, with hope for eternal life, and with genuine love for all the saints. IN the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: The Holy Trinity Pt. 3 - Faith Seeking Understanding

The Holy Trinity Pt. 3 – Faith Seeking UnderstandingSunday, June 15th, 2025Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WADeuteronomy 29:29
Prayer
Father, we thank you for the mystery of our salvation, the mystery of who You are as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As we seek now to understand just a small fragment of that mystery by studying the Scriptures, we ask for light to dispel the darkness of ignorance and sin. For we believe what the Lord Jesus taught saying, ‘blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’ Grant us such purity and reverence for Your Word now, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
For the last two Sundays, we have been attempting to climb the most difficult mountain in all of Christian doctrine. That is, the mystery of the Holy Trinity. How is God One, and yet Three in One? How are the three divine persons really distinct, and yet each the One Divine Essence. This has been our study and meditation for the last two weeks, and this morning since it is Trinity Sunday we shall have one more attempt at grasping this truth.
Now whenever you are attempting something difficult and strenuous, it is helpful to remind yourself why you are doing this hard thing in the first place.
I remember long ago sitting in my high school calculus class and wondering why am I here? How is calculus going to help me get a job? What do derivatives have to do with my life?
And because I did not have Professor O’Dell as my teacher, I dropped out of calculus, only to have to retake it later in college (even then I think I got a C).
I imagine most of us in this room have a similar story, perhaps not with math but in some other area of life.
If we don’t see or understand the reason why, the purpose of doing a hard thing, we are tempted to give up, or we never even try. And sadly, that is how a lot of people approach their relationship with God.
They think that God is so high up there, and I am so low down here, the Bible is such a long and big book, and my attention span and memory is so short, therefore it would be either pride or presumption, folly or fruitless to attempt to try to really get to know Him.
And indeed, there are many dangers to avoid if you want to know God. God himself warns of approaching Him without fear and reverence and humility.
And yet, that high and glorious God has come down to us in Jesus Christ so that we might know him and have a real living personal relationship with him. Moreover, he has come down and sent the Holy Spirit into our very hearts. He has bequeathed to the church the Scriptures through which He invites us, nay commands us, to search him out and know Him.
It says in Psalm 105:4, “Seek the Lord, and his strength: Seek his face evermore.”
And in Jeremiah 29:13, “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”
Paul prays for the church in Colossians 1:10, “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.”
Why do people climb mountains? Why do people attempt hard, dangerous, and difficult things? They do it for the glory. For the views from the top. If they are virtuous, for the formation of character.
Even those who only do it for the thrill or the excitement or the vanity of social media have made a value judgment, that the risk is worth the reward, the pain is worth the payoff, the sacrifice is worth the investment.
And so for good and biblical reasons it is most appropriate to liken the hard work of increasing in our knowledge of God (as Paul prays that we do) to the climbing up a mountain.
When God created Adam and Eve, he placed them in a garden on a mountain from which four rivers flowed down. And we call the fall into sin a Fall, in part because we fell down that mountain of the knowledge of God and lost our intimate friendship with Him.
And so later, when by grace God reveals his name to Moses (see Exodus 3, and Exodus 33), he reveals His name on a mountain. When God reveals His law and will to Israel, He does so from the mountain. When God commands a temple to be built for worship, he commands it to be built on a mountain. Where does Christ go to reveal his glory to Peter, James, and John? The mount of transfiguration. And most importantly, where was Jesus Christ crucified? From where did Jesus commission the apostles to baptize in the Triune Name? On a mountain.
So this idea of ascending the mountain of God is a motif that runs from Genesis to Revelation. It acknowledges that we as sinners have fallen from grace, we are way down here in the valley of the shadow of death, and yet God by His grace calls us back to Himself. And therefore, this ascent to God is a most fitting theme to make your own, to explain the journey of your life.
What is your autobiography? It is carrying a cross in Jesus’ footsteps, following him from one place to another. From the place that Jesus first loved you and converted you, to the place where you shall behold him on the mountaintop face to face.
Summary: So returning to that initial question of why do a hard thing? Why climb the mountain of trying to know and understand God? Well, it should be for no other reason than that you love and value the God that came down and rescued you. You believe what Jesus says in John 17:3, that eternal life consists in knowing the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent, and have no greater desire than that.
And so this morning I want you to think of this sermon as a kind of group hike to the basecamp of Mount Rainier. I am going to give you two important rules (as your guide) so that you don’t die along the way, and then we’ll apply these two rules to a most important text on the Trinity, John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Rule #1 – Deuteronomy 29:29
The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
First observe that God makes us to distinguish two kinds of things.
There are secret things, and there are revealed things.
Secret things are for God, revealed things are for us and our children.
And so when it comes to knowing God, we need to remember where God Himself has set the boundaries, and then we need to to respect and honor those boundaries and not trespass beyond them.
Amongst the many secret things are the particulars of the final judgment, who God predestined for salvation and who God leaves to their just punishment. It is not for you or I to know and judge the unseen thoughts and deeds of men. We refer that decision to the Creator, and with fear and trembling seek mercy for ourselves.
Jesus says to Peter when he inquires about John’s destiny, “What is that to you? You follow me.”
And then Peter having learned his lesson says in 2 Peter 1:10, “Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall.”
In other words, instead of tying yourself in knots and doubts about whether you are predestined or not, attend to what God has revealed, which is for you to make your calling and election sure by adding virtue to your faith (2 Peter 1:5).
Remember the whole purpose for which God has made things known. It is for us to do, to obey, to observe, to follow. And part of following Jesus is trusting that if He wanted you to know something, He would have told you in His Word. Moreover, if you are not presently obeying the things He has already revealed, why do you think knowing hidden things is going to help you?
Too often we deceive ourselves into thinking that more and new knowledge will help us, when what we actually need is to just do and practice what we already have been told. Confess your sins, forgive one another, love your neighbor as yourself, etc.
So that’s Rule #1. If God has not revealed it, you ought not to pry, you ought not ask (who are you O man to question God?). But if God has revealed it, then we must make it our own possession, pass it on to our children, and observe it with all our heart.
Now amongst those things that God has revealed, He has told us that in this life we cannot know what the Divine Essence is (what God is essentially in Himself), we can only know what He is not by some creaturely analogies about Him. And this brings us to Rule #2.
Rule #2 – God is always greater than what your mind can grasp.
It says in Job 36:26, “Behold, God is great, and we know him not, Neither can the number of his years be searched out.”
And in Psalm 145:3, “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; And his greatness is unsearchable.”
You and I cannot grasp eternity, the finite cannot comprehend the infinite.
God says in Isaiah 55:8-9, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are my ways higher than your ways, And my thoughts than your thoughts.”
So whatever likeness or similitude there is between us and God, there is always an ever-greater dissimilitude.
Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:16, “He alone hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see.”
And in Romans 11:33, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!”
God is far greater than you presently think He is. And even when the Bible tells us something like God is love or God is good, even that falls short of the love and goodness that God actually is, because you and I have never met anyone or anything whose very being and essence is love and goodness.
What in us is a quality added to our being, that we are good sometimes and loving sometimes, is in God essentially and supereminently.
This is why Jesus says in Luke 18:19, “No one is good but One, that is, God.” That is, God has goodness in an infinitely higher mode. What we call good down here is only an analogy to God’s all surpassing goodness up there.
Paul says likewise about love in Ephesians 3:19-20, I pray that you may “know the love of Christ, which surpasseth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”
Notice, the love of Christ, the love that is God and His power to do, far surpasses our knowledge. And therefore, whenever we say any creaturely perfection of God (like God is love or goodness or unity or power), remember that God’s mode of having those things far exceeds what we can comprehend.
Just as a worm in the mud cannot understand human love or romance, or the joys of marriage, or even what a human being is, because a worm has no eyes or ability to reason, just so, the distance between God and us is even greater than that.
Compared to God, we are as blind worms in the mud. And yet God speaks to worms in Isaiah 41:14, “Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, And thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.”
How has God helped us? He became a man in Christ. And so if you can imagine becoming a worm to help worms, that is less than the distance God crossed to become man. And it is that distance between Creator and creature that makes the incarnation of the Son of God, the Word made flesh, into the most unfathomable act of grace and self-giving. Can you believe God did that!?
Would you become a worm for worm’s sake? God became a man for man’s salvation.
One of the signs that you are starting to make progress in your knowledge of God is that you start to empty yourself out for others.
You think, If God has poured out his life to love and forgive me, when I was still a sinner, then I must certainly give my life for others; even if they don’t appreciate it or ever say thank you. In fact, it is an honor to be poured out like a drink offering upon the altar, to be identified with Christ and his sufferings.
And so the truth abouts God’s greatness and the distance He crossed to come and get us, should move us to great acts of devotion towards Him, which then spill over into the lives of others. How can we every repay such abundant grace?
The Apostle John says in 1 John 4:20-21, “If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.”
And so loving each other is part of climbing the mountain with Jesus. Some people are hard to love. But look in the mirror, you are hard to love, and yet Jesus loves you. This is the gospel. That God so loved us, that He sent His only begotten Son. Not because we were lovely, on the contrary we were anything but. And yet He came down to change us and make us worthy of being united to Him.
“He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?”
And this brings us to our third and final part of the sermon which is, How can you know and love what you cannot see?
Part #3 – Faith Seeking Understanding
The answer to this question is by faith seeking understanding.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:7, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”
And in Hebrews 11:3, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”
Now let’s now apply this principle of faith seeking to understand who God is as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
According to our first rule, is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit a secret thing, or is it a truth He has revealed?
Obviously, we must answer that God has revealed this truth to us in Christ, and the Apostles recorded this truth for us in the New Testament. Therefore, we must believe this truth to be saved, and we ought to seek some understanding insofar as God’s Word has made this mystery known.
At the same time, we must remember Rule #2, that God is always greater than our minds can comprehend. And therefore, if we want to understand how there are three distinct persons in God and yet all the One God, we are going to need some creaturely analogy to help us see what is similar to God, while also acknowledging that ever-greater dissimilitude. That is the move that keeps us out of heresy while also giving us some imperfect analogical understanding of who it is we love.
This brings us to John 1:1, a verse that all of us believe and most are familiar with but is hard to understand. So let’s try by faith.
John 1:1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
First observe that there is both a distinction and an identity between the Word and God. Two distinct subjects, and yet both identified with each other. How can this be?
John has given us a clue by using this word Word (in Greek logos). He wants us to think about what a Word is because that is the analogy He is going to develop in his Gospel to describe three distinct persons who are all the One God.
So what is a word?
There is the external word that is spoken by our mouth and heard with the ears. But what do our external words reflect within us?
Our external words reflect some idea or concept or definition in our mind which we then communicate to others. And so before any external word comes out of our mouth, there is first some interior word that proceeds from our mind, and which we say is conceived/begotten by our intellect.
For example, if you are walking down the street and see a dog, and you look closely and identify that this dog is a Golden Retriever, what you have just done is conceived a definition in your mind by an act of understanding. And we call that definition that proceeds from an act of understanding an interior word, or the word of the heart.
Put another way, this is you talking to yourself in your head.
And it is that internal word conceived in your mind that is the beginning for John’s analogy about the Trinity.
So let’s develop this analogy further and see how it is both similar and dissimilar to the Word in God.
1. Both our word and God’s Word are invisible and immaterial. You cannot see God, and I cannot see your thoughts. You cannot touch God, I cannot touch your thoughts.
2. Both our word and God’s Word proceed from some principle. For us it is our intellect from which an interior word is generated, and in God the principle is the Father from whom this Word proceeds.
BTW: The name of that internal procession from the Father is called Generation, or as John 3:16 calls Jesus, “the only begotten Son.” That begetting of the Son internal to God is like your intellect begetting an interior word.
3. Both our word and God’s Word are really distinct from their principle.
The definition you conceive in your mind is a concept really distinct from yourself, and yet it is also inside of yourself.
And likewise, the Word conceived in the mind of God is really distinct and yet also internal to God.
So thus far we have an analogy for a Word that is internal, invisible, immaterial, proceeds from a principle, and is really distinct from that principle. What is left then is to find an analogy for how that Word is also of the same nature as that Principle, because John says, “the Word was God.”
Here is where we start to notice some major dissimilarities between the word in us, and the Word in God.
So to understand this, start by thinking in your mind about yourself. Who are you? What are you? Do you fully understand yourself? Can you comprehend your own essence and being, your body and soul, your unique personality such that in one word you can define and explain who you are? Can you generate an exhaustive concept of yourself (a definition) that fully expresses to others your entire being? No. But God can.
Whereas we need many words to express who we are because our knowledge of ourselves is so imperfect and fragmented, God on the other hand understands Himself perfectlyand all in one single and eternal act of understanding.
And from that perfect comprehension of His own essence, proceeds a Word that perfectly expresses that essence, so much so that it is the Divine Essence.
This is what John means when he says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” There is a real distinction of persons, and a real identify of essence.
One of the most fundamental rules of theology is the maxim whatever is in God is God. So perfections that are distinct powers and accidental qualities in us, like knowing, willing, wisdom and beauty, are in God all the one divine essence. There are no real distinction in God, only a real distinction between the three persons.
So if there is anything internal to God, like a Word in the Beginning with the Father, that Word must necessarily be the Divine Essence itself. This is how we speak of both a real distinction between persons while also affirming a real identify of essence. The relations we call Father, Son, and Spirit just are the Divine Essence, and distinct only from one another (by mutual opposition).
Conclusion
What makes the truth about this Word in God that is God even more amazing, is what John tells us about this Word in the verses that follow.
He goes on to say in verses 9-14, that this Word is also a Light, “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”
The more you know and understand the greatness of God, the more you will be amazed and humbled and moved to worship by the Incarnation of that God.
So will you receive this grace and truth from the Eternal Word made flesh? For he invites you to follow him all the way up the mountain, and He promises that the views are worth it. You shall see the glory of God, and live.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: The Holy Trinity Pt. 2 - Filioque

The Holy Trinity Pt. 2 – FilioqueSunday, June 8th, 2025Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WAJohn 20:19–23
Prayer
Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus who has power to forgive sins. And we thank you on this Pentecost Sunday for the Holy Spirit, who was given to the apostles and their successors so that the church today may bind and loose, remit and retain, as ministers of Christ on earth. We ask for your blessing now as we approach and contemplate the highest of all mysteries, who you are in yourself. Teach us now by the Spirit of Truth, in the name of Jesus, and Amen.
Introduction
Every Lord’s Day in our worship service, after we confess our sins, we arise and confess our common faith. This is an important act of worship, because it says in Romans 10:9-10, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
And so from the earliest days of the Apostolic Church, it became necessary to confess the Lord Jesus, his full divinity, his perfect humanity, his death and resurrection for sinners, Jew and Gentile alike. It was necessary to confess these truths in such a way that no false Jesus or false gospel could be understood.
We find in Scripture itself various creed-like statements. Romans 10:9-10 is one example. Another is what Paul writes in 1 Timothy 3:16, “Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.”
You can hear the creed-like rhythm of that confession of faith.
So creeds became necessary in the church for two main reasons.
1) To protect and preserve the truth, and 2) to more quickly and understandably propagate the truth. Especially in a time before everyone had a personal copy of the Bible!
The earliest heresies in the church said that Jesus was either a created being and therefore not equal to the Father in divinity (what became later known as Arianism), or that he was not really a human being with a nature like ours (we call this Gnosticism or Docetism), or that the Son and Spirit were just God the Father wearing different masks, no real distinction in persons (Sabellianism).
So even in the New Testament we find various heresies popping up that need to be refuted (much of the New Testament is written to refute such errors). And as time went on, new heresies arose that required new refutations, new articulations of the common faith once received.
So the creeds did not invent or create new doctrines, they were meant to clarify and make explicit what the Word of God had always taught. The purpose of creeds is to make explicit what is implicit, that is, logically contained within that simple confession that Jesus is Lord.
And so while it might seem trivial or routine to some that we confess the Nicene Creed every Lord’s Day, it is actually a matter of salvation or damnation that we believe and confess rightly the true Jesus and none other. Because only the true Jesus can save.
Now this morning we are in part 2 of a short series on The Holy Trinity, and because it is Pentecost Sunday, I want to consider more closely the person of the Holy Spirit. Who He is, and what He does. And so the outline of my sermon is as follows.
Outline
First, I will give you a brief history lesson on what is called the Filioque controversy, which is about answering the question, Who is the Holy Spirit as unique Divine Person?
Second, we’ll consider, How is the Holy Spirit’s procession from Father and Son reflected in the life of the church?
So 1) Who is the Holy Spirit? And 2) How is the Holy Spirit manifest in the church?
#1 – A Church History Lesson
The year is 589 AD. And a church council has been called in Toledo, Spain to address the rise of Arianism and Sabellianism amongst the Spanish Goths.
Recall that Arianism teaches that Jesus is not consubstantial (of the same nature) with the Father, and it therefore introduced subordination and difference of essence within the Godhead and divided/destroyed the unity of the Trinity. Arianism was the long archenemy of true Christian faith and the reason for which the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), and the Council of Constantinople (381) had convened and written the Nicene Creed. These creeds where in large part written to exclude and refute Arianism, and later Sabellianism.
Now at this Third Council of Toledo (589), the newly converted Spanish king, King Reccared, said that the Holy Spirit is not only from the Father, but is a Patre Filioque, from the Father and the Son. And this was a doctrine that had long been taught in the Latin West, most famously by St. Augustine and later in the Athanasian Creed. However, it had never been confessed as part of the Nicene Creed.
This idea that the Holy Spirit is not only from the Father but also Filioque, from the Son, was a way of expressing two important realities: 1) the full divinity of the Son together with the Father, which rejects Arianism, and 2) the distinct identity of the Son and Spirit as really distinct persons within the Godhood, which rejects Sabellianism. We find this doctrine defended from many places of Scripture.
For example, Jesus says in John 15:26, “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.”
And then also in John 16:15, “All things that the Father hath are mine.” And so if the Holy Spirit is from the Father, He by good and necessary consequence has to also be from the Son. Because the only real distinction between Father and Son are their distinct relations of origin. The Father is from none, and the Son is from the Father, and nothing else is really distinct between them than that.
There are what we call many rational distinctions, many ways of attributing to the Father certain actions in history, but remember because God is One, those distinctions are only in our mind and manner of speaking, they are not in God as He is in Himself.
Aside: This difference between what is really distinct within God, and what is only rationally distinct in our minds, is one of the most important distinctions in all of theology. If you get this confused, you will certainly be dividing the Godhead into different parts or turning the Trinity into three different beings.
So recall what we said last week, there is no real distinction between the Three Persons and the One Essence, the Three Persons are the One Essence. The only real distinction in God is in how the Persons are distinct in origin. The Father from none. The Son from the Father. And the Spirit from the Father and the Son. In everything else they are the One God acting inseparably.
Returning to our history lesson. Following St. Augustine and other church fathers, King Recarred used this idea of Filioque to make more explicit the truth contained within the Nicene Creed. However, the emphasis on this doctrine eventually led to a number of churches adding ex Patre Filioque (and the Son) into their recitation of the creed in their worship services. And that’s where major problems start to develop.
Up to this point in Christendom, the church was united in their confession of the Nicene Creed, both the Latin West and the Greek-speaking East. Moreover, it was agreed upon at the Council of Ephesus (431) that no one church could make additions or changes to the Creed without consent and agreement of the other churches, that is by the mechanism of an ecumenical council.
So even though the Filioque was a true doctrine and held by theologians in both East and West, still it was a violation of church law to tamper with the creed. Creeds were by definition ecumenical (representative of what the only holy catholic apostolic church believed and confessed).
Fast forward a couple hundred years and King Charlemagne (Emperor from 768-814 AD) comes to power. And under Charlemagne and what we call the Carolingian Renaissance, Pope Leo of Rome tried to crack down on the use of the Filioque in reciting the Nicene Creed, but the Frankish church basically ignored the Pope’s command and continued to recite it anyway. Especially in their missionary work to the Slavs.
Fast forward another 200 years and this conflict comes to a head in 1054 with what now call The Great Schism between East and West. And what this schism revolved around was amongst other things, Papal Authority, and whether the Filioque is true.
The Eastern Church, what we today call the Eastern Orthodox, rejected the Pope’s claim to universal sovereignty. However unfortunately, because the Filioque was a prime example of the Pope throwing his weight around, many looked upon this doctrine as suspect, if not outright heretical. So to this day, now almost 1,000 years later, the Eastern Church (of which there are some 200+ million Christians) still rejects Papal Supremacy, and largely rejects the Filioque.
Now where we do as Reformed Protestants fit in? Well because the Reformation grew out of the Latin West, the reformers agreed with the East on rejecting the Pope’s supremacy, however, we received and inherited the Western version of the Nicene Creed which has the Filioque added to it. And because this doctrine is thoroughly biblical and logically necessary to distinguish the three persons while maintaining their unity, the Reformed Church to this day confesses and teaches Filioque as the faith once received from Christ and the Apostles.
So that’s the very short version of how we came to recite every Lord’s Day this version of the Nicene Creed, and not the Eastern version. Because we trace our roots back to Christ and the Apostles through the Latin-Western tradition.
Now someone might wonder, what is the relevance of all this apparent doctrinal and ecclesiastical hairsplitting?
Well for starters, the fact that you are here today at a Reformed Presbyterian Church and not a Roman Catholic church hangs on this question of whether the Bishop of Rope has universal jurisdiction over the church. We hold that the Scripture teaches no such thing, while Rome insists on the Pope’s supremacy.
Secondarily, when it comes to the essentials of the Christian faith, what you must believe to be saved, the creeds of the church are why you take for granted that Jesus is fully God and fully man, and that He is equal to the Father in divinity, and the Holy Spirit is a fully divine person. The creeds act as guardrails to keep your soul from falling into errors and falsehood that would destroy it. And so the stakes cannot really get any higher.
We remember that warning from St. Augustine in his book on the Trinity, “in no other subject is error more dangerous, or inquiry more laborious, or the discovery of truth more profitable.”
What is at stake in the Filioque controversy is not only the unity of the church and the proper form of church government, but also whether the Trinity is a logical contradiction, or as we believe a coherent mystery of faith. Many people today think of the Trinity as an illogical mixture of Oneness and Threeness. But that is not what we believe. We believe in a real distinction of persons between Father, Son, and Spirit, and a oneness of Essence which each person fully is. There is nothing contradictory in the doctrine of the Trinity.
And so if knowing the One true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent is eternal life (John 17:3), then no truth is more foundational than the Trinity. Moreover, no truth is more pleasant to contemplate than who God is in Himself.
This brings us to our second question which is…
#2 – How is the Filioque reflected in the life of the church?
Or to put it another way, How is the Holy Spirit’s procession from the Son manifest? To answer this, I want to give you 5 ways the Holy Spirit effects our salvation.
1. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Sonship.
It says in Romans 8:14-16, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”
Notice the Trinitarian pattern of our redemption. The Father sends the Son into the world, the Son sends the Spirit at Pentecost, the Spirit indwells us and makes us adopted sons of God, and then the eternal Son of God leads us (now his brothers) back to His Father.
The internal processions of God are revealed in the external missions of Son and Spirit into the world. And the purpose of those missions is to gather us up into one body in Christ and bring us back to God. There is a coming forth and returning to pattern to our salvation, and that pattern is a participation in God’s Trinitarian life! Our perfection consists in returning to God our source.
Paul says earlier in Romans 8:9, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”
So notice who the Holy Spirit is said to be. He is both the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, and if you do not have that Spirit, you do not belong to Him. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit that makes us sons of God.
2. The Holy Spirit is sent at Pentecost to reprove the world.
Jesus says in John 16:7-11, prophesying of Pentecost, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they believe not on me; Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.
So the Son sends the Spirit into the world to reprove and convert it.
The Spirit will bear witness through the preaching of the apostles that:
1. It is sin to refuse to believe in Jesus.
2. That Jesus is the righteous one who makes us righteous.
3. That Jesus has cast down the devil, so no longer does the prince of this world hold sway.
The Son sends the Spirit to testify to the truth. And the way the Spirit testifies is through the apostles, through Christian preachers, through the lives of holy saints who have been made holy and righteous by the Spirit of the Son.
When we get down on our knees every Sunday and silently confess our sins, it is the Holy Spirit who searches our hearts and convicts us concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment.
This is why we pray in confession the words of Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; And renew a right spirit within me.”
We call the Spirit of the Son Holy Spirit because he makes us holy in an invisible/spiritual way. The spirit cleanses us by moving us to confess our sins and forsake them.
David goes on in Psalm 51:11-13 to describe some of the other effects of the Holy Spirit, “Cast me not away from thy presence; And take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; And uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; And sinners shall be converted unto thee.”
This brings us to a third and fourth way the Holy Spirit effects our salvation.
3. The Holy Spirit fills us with joy.
Jesus says to his disciples in John 16:22, “And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”
What is that joy but the Holy Spirit, who even after Jesus returns to heaven sustains the disciples. This is what we find in the book of Acts.
It says in Acts 5:41-42, after the apostles are beaten in Jerusalem, “And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.”
Joy-filled Christians cannot help but speak and testify of what Jesus has done for them. And yet because we so often forget the joy of our miraculous conversion, we have to pray again and again Psalm 51:11, “restore to me the joy of thy salvation.”
It says in Acts 13:52, right after Paul and Barnabas were beaten and kicked out Antioch in Pisidia, “And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost.”
Because the Spirit lifts our mind to hope in God and in our future resurrection, and in blissful life in a new heavens and new earth, we possess joy even here amidst a world of sorrows.
It is the Spirit who gives us certainty and assurance of God’s promises, that in this life our Father gives us only good things, and at death it only gets better. This is where joy is found.
4. The Holy Spirit fills us with freedom.
After asking God to restore to us the joy of our salvation, David prays, “and uphold me with thy free spirit.”
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:17, “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
And Paul says in Galatians 5:1, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
Sin is always seeking to enslave us. Sin is always trying to turn us into either legalists or lawbreakers. But Paul says in Galatians 5:4-6, “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.”
The world promises freedom while itself being enslaved. But Christ offers true freedom which is none other than faith working by love, this is the freedom the Spirit works within us.
In this life Christians have a free will to either obey God or disobey Him. However, this freedom is less than the perfect freedom we shall enjoy in heaven. For when we see God face to face, our desire will be so satisfied, our intellect so flooded with God’s beauty, that sin will become impossible, unthinkable, undoable, un-willable. And yet heaven is not a loss of free will, but the gaining of perfect liberty. Heaven is where we acquire the freedom to have and enjoy what is actually our greatest good, namely God.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, and there alone, is freedom.
Fifth and finally..
5. The Holy Spirit fills us with peace.
Jesus says in our sermon text, John 20:21-22, “Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”
Peace is the consummation of a life lived in the spirit. And how do you experience this supernatural peace?
It says in Isaiah 26:3, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on thee: Because he trusteth in thee.”
And Paul says in Romans 8:6, “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”
Again, notice the Holy Spirit makes us to mind, to think upon God.
St. Augustine says, “contemplation is the reward of faith.” And what is contemplation? It is the act of gazing upon truth with delight.
And so Jesus sends the Holy Spirit, he breathes upon the disciples, to make them contemplate Christ when he is no longer physically present. Because it is by the Spirit’s indwelling, that Christ the Son, together with Father, the whole Trinity of Persons makes us into their home. And where God lives and dwells, there we find peace in every season.
And so I close with words of Romans 15:13, “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: CKA Graduation 2025 - The Man As City

CKA Graduation 2025Friday, June 6th, 2025Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WAProverbs 25:28
Prayer
Father, we thank you for the end of one chapter, and the beginning of another, and as these two graduates, these two young men, go forth into the world we ask you to protect them, to preserve them, and to prosper them in every way. We ask for your blessing upon the ministry of Your Word now, and we ask it in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
As we just heard from Proverbs 25:28, every person is like a city. And this evening the question I want to pose for all of us, but especially to Ezra and Chapman is, What kind of city are you? What kind of city are you becoming? What kind of city do you want to become?
According to King Solomon, if you lack self-control, if you cannot rule your own spirit, your passions, your body, your mind, then you are like a city broken down and without walls. You are a city in ruins. A city easily invaded and overcome by others.
However, on the flipside, this also means that if you can control your spirit, if you are learning to bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit which includes self-control, then imagine what you can become?
You can become a great and magnificent city, with high and majestic walls. Or as Jesus says in Matthew 5:14, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.”
So what kind of city are you? A city of darkness and decay, or a city of light and refuge?
Regardless of what you think yourself presently to be, I am just going to assume that everyone here has room to grow in their ability to rule their own spirit.
Whether because of our own sin, or weakness, or ignorance, all of us have walls in need of repair, gates in need of mending. All of us have areas in our city where we lack self-control and need to be built up into mature manhood in Christ.
For example, the Apostle James warns of how difficult it is to rule your own tongue. We might liken the tongue to the media outlet or newspaper of your city. He says in James 3:2, “For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.” And then he says a little later in verses 7-8, “For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”
Jesus says in Matthew 12:34-35, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.”
So if you want to rule the tongue, first you have to rule the heart, you have to bring into the gates of your city good things (truth!), and then store them up in the treasure house of your memory, so that when you speak only good things come out.
Good words, good things, the good life, starts with receiving the Spirit of God, the spirit of Christ, so that you can rule well your own spirit.
And so this evening I want to briefly develop this idea of the person as a city, and I want to offer you three qualities of a great city, that you ought to pattern your life after, especially in this next season of life.
#1 – A Great City Is A Place of Productive Work
It says in Proverbs 12:24, “The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: But the slothful shall be under tribute.”
And in Proverbs 22:29 it says, “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; He shall not stand before mean men.”
Notice what Solomon presents as the path to success.
It is not a short and quick path for one, in fact it is usually a long path that can at times feel monotonous, and yet which Scripture extols under the virtue of diligence.
What is diligence? It is doing the right thing with a good attitude, day in and day out, especially when you do not feel like it.
Diligence is that long obedience in the same direction. It is the grinding work of a young ox, who bears the yoke in his youth and yet plows in hope.
Hope is the virtue that inspires the virtue of diligence, and without hope, people procrastinate, they suffer from analysis paralysis, or sometimes they give up entirely and become sluggards. And so if you want to cultivate diligence and a productive city, you must start by cultivating hope in God.
God is the one who holds your life in His hands, and He wants you to be ambitious. He wants you to aspire to great things that will honor Him.
Sloppy work does not honor God. Half-hearted effort does not honor God. Never taking a risk does not honor God.
Hope on the other hand trusts God and then is decisive. Hope seeks out wise counsel, hears good advice, and then makes a decision and owns the consequences.
Hope remembers Proverbs 24:15, “For a righteous man may fall seven times, but rises again.”
So imagine within your city there is a central park, you could name it Hope. And what this next season of life is mainly about is planting trees, sowing seeds, pulling weeds, and doing that all of that in hope that it is God who gives the growth.
It says in Proverbs 24:27, “Prepare your outside work, Make it fit for yourself in the field; And afterward build your house.”
Meaning, there is a right order in which to do things. Before you get married, before you have children, before you build a household, there is a bunch of outside work in the field calling your name. Preparations need to be made.
That might look like working a bunch of odd jobs, it might look like going to college, but whatever you choose to do, do it in faith. Your work now is a work to prepare your city to accommodate others one day, especially a wife and children.
Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:6, “The hardworking farmer must be first to partake of the crops.”
And so remember, trees don’t bear fruit 15 minutes after they are planted. These things take time. And it is the diligent hand, the man diligent in his business that will stand before kings.
More importantly, you are going to stand before the King of kings and give an account for your work.And so heed the words of Colossians 3:23-23, “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.”
Aspire to become the kind of city where all your work is unto the Lord.
#2 – A Great City Has Guards At The Gate
It says in 2 Chronicles 23:19, speaking of God’s city, “And [the king] set the porters at the gates of the house of the Lord, that none which was unclean in any thing should enter in.”
And likewise of that heavenly city New Jerusalem we read in Revelation 21:27, “But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie.”
What are the gates of your city? They are your five senses. They are how you interact and engage with the world.
What then is the guard? It is your spirit. Your mind/reason is like the porter, the gatekeeper, who has to assess and judge what to let in and what to keep out.
And so the health of your city, the air quality of your soul, is dependent upon this judgment. Are you going to indulge the flesh, and make provision for the flesh, and the lust of the eyes? Or will you pray with David in Psalm 119:37, “Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; And quicken thou me in thy way.” Will you pray with Solomon the words of Proverbs 30:8, “Remove far from me vanity and lies.” What does Jesus teach us to pray, “lead us not into temptation.”
And so resolve today, resolve now, to let no unclean thing enter and occupy your soul. Moreover, cast out the impure thoughts and imaginings that defile your conscience.
It says Jude 1:23, “hate even the garment defiled by the flesh.”
And Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:22, “Flee youthful lusts: but pursue righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”
If you would become a great and holy city, you must pursue this “with them that call on the Lord out of pure heart.” That means choose your friends carefully. That means, turn off the garbage that is social media, worldly music, movies and shows that tempt you to sin.
If it is not entering in to build up your city, then it is coming to erode and sap your strength. Do not let them in.
#3 – A Great City Has Christ At The Center
It says of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 22:1-2, “And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
Who is enthroned in your heart? Who owns your affections? If you are the governor, who is the emperor of your city?
At the heart of every fruitful city is the throne of God and of the Lamb. And from His throne flows down pure water, clear as crystal, to make your central park fruitful in every season. This is how what you plant grows.
Notice there are a variety of fruits, twelve different kinds. Meaning, God wants you to be fruitful in more ways than one. He wants you to bear new and different fruit in different seasons.
But notice what is common to all this fruitfulness is that the throne of God and of the Lamb is its source.
Jesus says in John 15:5, “without me ye can do nothing.”
And in John 7:38 he says, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” And in the next verse it says this water is the Holy Spirit.
So you can do nothing good unless Christ is with you. And so make knowing Christ, obeying Christ, and loving Christ your highest ambition, your greatest aspiration. This is what it means to have Christ as the center of your city.
Jesus puts it this way in Matthew 6:33, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
God knows you need a job. God knows you need an education. God knows what you need before you ask Him. And so heed the words of your heavenly father who says in Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.”
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.

Sermon: The Holy Trinity Pt. 1 - Trinity Within Me (John 14:15-17)

The Holy Trinity Pt. 1 – Trinity Within MeSunday, June 1st, 2025Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WAJohn 14:15–17
Prayer
O God, we thank you for fashioning us in your image, and that through reflection upon your image within us, we may come to understand in some very partial and imperfect way who you are as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so as we undertake this task now, of faith seeking understanding, give us light and life and grace, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
When you first became a Christian and received the washing of baptism for the forgiveness of your sins, whether you knew it or not, you were born again into the very life of the Trinity. Ever since that day, when the name of God was spoken over you, in accord with what Jesus says in Matthew 28:19, “baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” from that day onward the Trinity of Persons came into you and made you their own.
The Apostle Paul says to those naughty Corinthians who were baptized and yet committing grievous sins, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? (1 Cor. 6:19).
Jesus says here in John 14:17 that the Spirit, “dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
He says later in John 17, “I do not pray for these alone [referring to his disciples], but also for those who will believe in Me through their word [that’s us!]; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me…I in them, and You in Me” (John 17:20-21, 23).
Have you wondered, what in the world does that mean? What does it mean for the One God to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and then for that Trinity of persons to indwell our soul? Christ in us, the Spirit in us, the Father who is in the Son within us. How does all this work?
This is a little bit like asking, How does breathing keep you alive?
We are all breathing. We all know how to breathe, but very few of us could draw an accurate diagram of the lungs, or explain how oxygen and carbon dioxide get exchanged, or how the autonomic nervous system makes us to inhale and exhale even when we are asleep.
Explaining how breathing keeps us alive can be done, but it requires some work, some study and exploration of the human body, it requires you to learn a specialized vocabulary so you can identify different organs, and muscles, and chemical compounds. This is similar to becoming personally acquainted with the Holy Trinity.
If there are unbelieving scientists who have dedicated their whole life to studying the human body, how much more should believing Christians give at least a little portion of their life, to knowing the God in whom we live and move and have our being? Even the very Trinity with us.
It is a good and wonderful thing to study God’s creation, especially the human person. We are complex and fascinating creatures! But it is far greater and more glorious task to know the Creator and Maker Himself. If human beings are as intricate and glorious and mysterious as we are, how much more the one who designed it all?
It says in Jeremiah 9:23-24, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me.”
Jesus says similarly in John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
Understanding and knowing God is the highest of all human pursuits. So much so that Jesus says it is eternal life to know Him.
And so if God is the supreme source and object of all human happiness, the very end for which we were created, and if He has revealed Himself in Christ and His Word, how can we not count all things as loss for the surpassing worth/value of knowing Jesus Christ our Lord? (Phil. 3:8).
This is the reason and the motivation for the hard work of our faith seeking understanding. Of believing the Word of God and then trying to understand that Word we already believe and breathe.
The Church Father St. Augustine says at the beginning of his treatise On the Trinity, “in no other subject is error more dangerous, or inquiry more laborious, or the discovery of truth more profitable.” In other words, if you want to know God, it is going to cost you something, indeed cost you everything, but the cost is worth it.
Or Jesus says in Matthew 13:44, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” The Trinity is like the treasure hidden in a field you already own. It’s yours, you are the field!
And so lest those words from St. Augustine daunt us or discourage us from trying to explore this great treasure, I want to remind you that if you are a Christian, you have already been breathing Trinitarian oxygen from the moment you were born again. From the moment the Holy Spirit opened your eyes to trust Jesus to justify your soul, you became a Trinitarian Christian, even if you still cannot draw an accurate diagram of the Trinity.
It is not our ability to explain the mystery that saves us, it is the believing, the breathing, the confession of that mystery that effects our salvation.
Paul says in Romans 10:10, “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
So when you confessed Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, what were you doing? You were breathing and speaking the Holy Trinity.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:3, “no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.”
And so my goal for us in this series of sermons on The Holy Trinity, is simply to help us become a little more aware of the spiritual oxygen that has been giving us life. Or, if you do not yet know God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, perhaps you might inhale this breath of life for the very first time.
So with that as our goal, this morning I want to introduce this reality that is The Trinity, by considering these three verses in John 14. And I want us to consider these verses with an eye to what is distinct and unique about each person in God.
So the outline of our sermon is answering three questions.
Outline
What is unique to the Father?
What is unique to the Son?
What is unique to the Holy Spirit?
Q#1 – What is unique to the Father?
Notice first that Jesus directs his prayer to the Father.
According to his humanity, the Son who is God and who answers prayer, teaches us who are human to direct our prayers to the Father.
As man Jesus prays to the Father, but as God Jesus answers prayer with the Father.
What then does Jesus say the Father will do in response to his prayer? He shall give another Comforter.
Now if we were to gather up the rest of Jesus’ teaching about the Father (especially in John’s gospel), we would learn that the Father is the one who sends the son. And because of this sending of the Son, the Father is sometimes called by various names such as, Principle, Source, Author, Fountain, Head, etc. And what we mean by all those names is nothing else but that the Father is that from which another proceeds.
The Father is Principle of the Son, not as Cause to Effect, but only as Begetting the Son all that the Father has. And what does the Father have? The Divine Essence, Deity.
So when we call God Father, or Principle, or Fountain, we are not making the Son lesser or different in nature in any way.
The only distinction between Father and Son is that the Father begets the Son, and the Son is begotten from the Father, nothing else! Any other image or symbolic name must be reduced to that. There is no inequality, no hierarchy of power, the only order between them is that of relation of origin.
If you look at the picture on the back of the bulletin, this is represented visually by the Procession called “Generation,” from which we name two different Relations, 1) Paternity and 2) Filiation, Fatherhood and Sonship.
In God there are only two Processions, from whence we speak of 4 Relations, and from those 4 Relations we distinguish 3 Persons. More on that in a future sermon.
Summary: So we call God Father of the Son, and even Principle of the whole Deity, but without importing any inequality, or any difference of nature, or any real priority of being between Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all together eternally the One God.
And so returning to our question, What is unique to the Father? Jesus says He is: Giver of the Comforter, and Sender of the Son.
And so we might say (by appropriation), it is the Father’s unique personal property to be Generous, to be a Giver, to overflow and abound with goodness.
To speak improperly but still truly we could say that the Father cannot help himself, He just “has to” bestow lavish and wonderful things upon those He loves. He can’t help himself; it is His very nature as Father to give.
Isn’t this how Scripture speaks elsewhere of a good father’s character? Think of Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son and how the father runs to his son with rejoicing and showers him with gifts, a ring, new clothes, and then throws him a party. Is that the portrait of God as Father that you have in your mind? Because that is much closer to reality than the stern and frowning face God that too many people have.
Or consider James 1:17, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”
Observe, not only is the Father said to be the source of every gift, He is an unchangeable and unceasing source of perfect goodness (“no variableness, neither shadow of turning”).
Yes, there may be dark and brooding clouds over your life, sin and suffering that obscures your vision of what is true, but behind that storm is always and ever the shining face of a Good and Generous Father, who is pure unchangeable love.
Don’t you want to have that God as your Father? Don’t you want to have assurance that behind all your pain is a Father who permits no evil to touch you unless it works for your good? A Father who permits no evil to take place in this world unless it magnifies His grace. A Father who permits no temptation to ensnare us without providing a way of escape. Because that is what the Fatherpromises to those who love Him (Rom. 8:28).
So what mental image do you have of the Father? And does it match what Jesus tells us about Him?
What we learn from Jesus here, is that the Father is the one to pray to, and the one to go to for help. The Father is like the Missionary Hub, the Central Headquarters, from which all Divine Comfort shall be sent. He sends the Son, and He sends the Spirit. He is the sender and source of the two divine missions that save the world.
That is who we are addressing in prayer, when we say, “Our Father, who art in heaven.” And if it is the Father’s unique property to be Principle, to be the Source from whence even the other uncreated Divine Persons proceed, of course He is also the giver of every good and every perfect gift we receive. And so this should be motivation for us to pray. Our Father wants to answer.
St. Augustine says in another work on prayer, “Our good Lord often does not give us what we wish, because it would really be what we do not wish for.” In other words, Our Father knows better than us what is good, and when we ask for something that is actually good for us, He will certainly and always give it.
Or as Psalm 84:11 puts it, “No good thing will He withhold From those who walk uprightly.
That is the Father, do you know Him?
Q#2 – What is unique to the Son?
To start with the obvious, the Son is Jesus Christ. And unlike the Father and the Spirit, the Son alone has joined a human nature to His Divine Person.
Moreover, we observe in these verses that the Son is the one teaching. Jesus says, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Jesus speaks with God-like authority.
And earlier in John 14:1 he says, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.”
And then he says to Phillip, “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me” (John 14:10-11).
So notice there is both equality and distinction between Father and Son, they are both God in whom Jesus tells them to believe, they both indwell one another, and yet Jesus says, “the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me.”
And so the fact that Jesus is the one teaching and speaking what the Father tells him, from this visible ministry is reflected what Jesus is invisibly according to His divine nature, namely the Son, Word, and Image who proceeds from the Father. These names, Son, Word, and Image are the unique/proper names of the Son.
This is of course how John’s Gospel began, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
The book of Hebrews begins likewise by emphasizing the Son as Word and Image of the Father. “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” (Hebrews 1:1-3).
Because Jesus is Son, Word, and Image, he can say to Phillip, “if have seen me, you have seen the Father.” That is, if you have seen the Son’s divine nature, you have seen the Father’s divine nature also, because it is identical. We are both the one God.
So to give you a human example for comparison. Imagine there were two perfectly identical twins, who had not the tiniest feature or freckle to distinguish one from the other. Even their voices sounded exactly the same. You could truly say that if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen the other, no visible difference between them.
However, the Father and the Son are an even more perfect unity than that, for while human twins nature (humanity), they are also two different beings with two distinct existences. This is not so with God. The Father and the Son are distinct persons who have One Existence, One Being, One Undivided Essence. We say God’s essence is His existence, and this the Father, Son, and Spirit have together as One.
The only real distinction in God is by opposition of relation. The persons are not distinct from God, they are God. The persons are only distinct from one another in their relations of origin. The Father is from none. The Son is from the Father. And the Spirit is from Father and Son together as one principle.
Summary: So what is unique to the Son?
He alone became incarnate, to die and rise for our salvation. He alone has joined a human nature to His Divine Person.
But what is unique to Him as a Divine Person?
He is the Son of the Father. The Father is His eternal origin. He is the Word the Father has spoken, and the perfect Image of what the Father is. Their essence is One.
Q#3 – What is unique to the Holy Spirit?
Next week we will explore this in much greater depth, but for now just observe that Jesus calls the Spirit by the names Comforter and Spirit of Truth. We also learn from Jesus that the Spirit is sent from both Father and the Son.
Jesus says a few verses later in verse 26, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”
And then in John 15:26, “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.”
So whereas the Son is begotten from the Father (proceeding by Generation), what is unique to the Holy Spirit is that his eternal origin is by way of procession (or what we call “common spiration) from Two Divine Persons, Father and Son.
For this reason the Spirit is sometimes called the “love bond” or “breath” of Father and Son. He is portrayed at Jesus’ baptism as a dove descending from Father to Son. Other images of the Spirit we find are that of wind and fire and healing oil. The Spirit is the joy and delight of Father and Son, and therefore the unique personal names of the Holy Spirit are Love and Gift.
Here in our text, we will focus on this name of the Spirit which in Greek is παράκλητος (Paraclete), and is translated as Comforter or Helper, or Advocate.
The idea here is that the Spirit is going to help and comfort and advocate for the disciples when Jesus is no longer physically present. The Spirit is the spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Father and Son, and he will animate and move the disciples to accomplish God’s will.
We also learn from these names Comforter and Spirit of Truth how God likes to help us and console us.
Conclusion
So let us conclude with a few reflections on how the Holy Spirit helps us in our daily life as Christians. And this is a place where knowing the Holy Spirit is a lot like becoming conscious of your own breathing. You usually recognize His presence only after He has worked in you, or when you are sinning and feel his absence. So three ways the Spirit helps us:
1. The Holy Spirit helps us by moving us to pray.
Whether from habit or routine, or from some sudden and urgent need, whenever we are moved to pray, it is the Holy Spirit who has moved us to pray.
Paul says in Romans 8:28, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness,” and in Ephesians 6:18,“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit.”
So a life of prayer is a life lived in the Holy Spirit, and this is why Paul says, “pray without ceasing” and don’t quench the Holy Spirit.”
2. The Holy Spirit is the internal teacher of truth.
There are many external teachers of truth, among which are pastors, teachers, theologians, books, and even Scripture itself. But what makes that external hearing of the Word real and true inside our hearts, is the Holy Spirit teaching us.
Jesus says to his disciples in John 16:13, “when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.”
And in Romans 8:16 it says, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”
And 1 Corinthians 2:12-13, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”
So whenever you read the Bible (the external teacher), and understand what it says, that internal process of judging what is true and what is false, is a work of the Holy Spirit leading your spirit into truth.
The same Spirit who inspired the written word of God, is the one makes that word to come alive within us. So to be full of the Spirit is to be full of the Spirit’s Word, to know the truth.
So the Spirit helps us to pray, and the spirit consoles us with truth, and then third and most importantly…
3. The Holy Spirit moves us to love.
And it is this movement to love God and keep His commandments, and to prefer spiritual things to worldly things that most reveals the Trinity Dwelling Within Us.
It says in 1 John 3:23-24, “And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.”
And so if you love Jesus, you love him because He first loved you, and He gave you the Holy Spirit to help you love Him in return.
And so the most evident sign of the Trinity alive within us is a heart that is alive with love. The world does not know this, and the world cannot produce this, only the Trinity within us can.
St. Gregory the Great once said, “the Holy Spirit inflames everything he fills with a desire for invisible things. And because worldly hearts love only visible things, the world does not receive him, because it does not rise to the love of what is invisible. For worldly minds, the more they widen themselves with their desires, the more they narrow the core of their hearts to the Spirit.”
So what do you most desire? Visible things, or invisible things? Sensible goods or spiritual goods?
If you are full of the Holy Spirit, then you have already beheld by faith the supreme object of your affections. For as David in the Spirit declares, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides You” (Ps. 73:25).
May God grant this to be the yearning of your heart, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: The Divine Liturgy Pt. 7 - Tongues & Interpretation

The Divine Liturgy Pt. 7 – Tongues & InterpretationSunday, May 25th, 2025Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA1 Corinthians 14:1-40
Prayer
O Holy Father we ask that you would now cleanse our tongues and lips from every impurity. Remove far from us vanity and lies, that we might become valiant for the truth on earth. We ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
For the last two weeks we have been studying the topic of Charismatic Grace. And thus far we have seen from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, that God has given some measure of Charismatic Grace to every person that is united to Jesus Christ, and then each of us are called to steward that grace, our gifts, for the building up of Christ’s body.
We said that a good way to identify our gifts is by looking for where our Desire, our Ability, and the Needs of others all align. Because as members together of one another, our gifts are not given primarily for our own personal benefit, but rather for other people’s benefit (for the common good).
So while Sanctifying Grace is given by God for our own individual salvation, Gratuitous/Charismatic Grace is given to bring other people to salvation.
And this is why in between 1 Corinthians 12 and our text of 1 Corinthians 14, the Apostle Paul dedicates an entire chapter to extolling the spiritual gift that is superior to all others, the best gift, which is charity, or supernatural love.
Charity is that most special love which comes down from God, leads us up to God, unites us to God, and makes us to desire God for everyone else. God is THE GIFT we want to share.
So charity is one of those gifts from the Holy Spirit that is both a Sanctifying Grace to us personally, but it is also the grace that is given to inform, guide, and animate all our lesser gifts.
So while we have been studying the importance of the gifts of Prophecy, and this morning Tongues, we must not forget that these charismatic gifts are a temporary means to an eternal end, whereas Charity is both a means and an end in and of itself. Charity is the best gift to pursue.
This is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:1-2, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” And then he says a little later in verses 8-10, “Charity never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.”
Meaning, when we see God face to face, when that perfect vision of God comes, there will be no need for prophecy, or tongues, or preaching, or miracles, or apostles, or evangelists. Because we will have arrived at God who is our destination and First Love. And the charity which unites us to God in this life, will continue to unite us to God in the next. So even faith and hope will pass away, but charity/supernatural love shall remain.
Paul says something very similar about the importance of physical exercise in comparison with spiritual exercise in 1 Timothy 4:8, “For bodily exercise profits a little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.”
Summary: So in this life we are to be up early busy in God’s gymnasium, cultivating and exercising our spiritual gifts, our virtues, and most of all love which makes us God-like (godly). If love for God and loving people for the sake of God is what your whole life is aimed it (if that is the reason for your existence), then you will know how to use and steward lesser gifts, like prophesy, tongues, or whatever other gifts you may have.
So with all that by way of review and introduction, let us now consider the gifts of Tongues and Interpretation.
Outline
So there are three questions I want to answer in this sermon:
Q1. What is speaking in tongues?
Q2. What is interpretation?
Q3. In what sense are these gifts operative today?
Q#1 – What is speaking in tongues?
As we saw with the gift of prophesy, to speak in tongues can refer to multiple and different activities. And if we survey the Scriptures, we discover there are two main senses in which someone can be said to speak in a tongue. One is supernatural, the other can be merely natural.
1. First as a supernatural gift is what we find at Pentecost in Acts 2. There, the disciples suddenly and miraculously are able to speak in foreign languages.
Let me read to you verses 1-11 of Acts 2 and notice as I read that these are all real human languages they are speaking which other people can understand and interpret. “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.”
Observe, this is a sudden and miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit, where without any previous study, these Galilean disciples can now speak in the native tongues of other Jews who had been scattered across the empire for the last 700 years (since the exile and diaspora). And because of that scattering, most did not know Hebrew, some of them knew Greek, but each of them was born and raised speaking their own local dialects, whether Aramaic, Persian, Babylonian, Latin, etc.
Observe also the content of what they speak. They hear these disciples speaking the wonderful works of God. The gift of tongues makes you to testify of the gospel and grace of Christ.
Summary: The gift of tongues in the most proper sense is the supernatural ability to speak a new foreign language, without previous study, and the content of what you speak in that language is the wonderful works of God, Christ and His gospel.
Pentecost is of course a fulfillment of what Jesus promised to his disciples in Mark 16, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature… In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues.”
So the whole reason for God giving the disciples this miraculous gift, is so that they can preach the gospel to the ends of the earth as quickly as possible. Christ by His divine power overcomes the natural language barrier between his unlearned Galilean fishermen disciples, and the rest of the known world.
The language barrier that once separated and divided all the nations at Babel (and was a mercy to prevent them from uniting in an evil cause), is not obliterated into everyone speaking one language (Hebrew/Greek/etc.), but rather God gathers in every nation, tribe, and tongue, and sanctifies them.
This is God’s pattern in redemption. He remakes us by using our natural materials. He is the potter; we are the clay. God breathes supernatural life into our soul so that we become pleasing to Him.
So that’s the first and most proper sense in which speaking in tongues is a supernatural gift. You can suddenly speak a new foreign language.
2. And then there is a second and much broader sense in which the Bible describes speaking in tongues, and that is what we find here in 1 Corinthians 14. Here, the Apostle expands the definition of tongues to include anything that is spoken without understanding.
To speak in a tongue is to say anything that is not understood, either by you, or the person hearing, or both.
So notice this definition of tongues can include someone using their supernatural gift of tongues, but it extends to anyone saying anything that is not understood.
We gather this definition from what the Apostle Paul says in verses 9-11, “Except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air. There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification. Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me.”
Notice the example Paul gives is of himself hypothetically talking to someone that does not speak the same language as him. They are trying to have a conversation, but they are as barbarians to each other. Perhaps you have experienced this if you have ever traveled to a foreign country.
We find further on in verses 23-24 that to speak in a tongue includes even speaking to someone in the same language but using words or concepts that they do not understand. He refers to two kinds of hearers there, 1) the unlearned (ἰδιώτης) and, 2) the unbeliever.
So the principle is that wherever there is a deficiency or lack of understanding, there the person speaking is as one who speaks in a foreign tongue (whether supernaturally or naturally). And where there is this lack of understanding, the church is not edified.
To illustrate this point, let’s say you received from God the sudden and miraculous ability to speak Hebrew and understand Hebrew. And because the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, you can now talk and think and dream in Hebrew like the prophet Isaiah. However, just because you can speak your native tongue, English, and this new language Hebrew, that does not do you any good if the church you are visiting only knows Spanish.
Yes, you have the gift of tongues, and yes you are edified when you speak and pray to God in Hebrew, but that does not do the Spanish-speaking church any good. Which is why Paul says in verse 13, “Therefore let him who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret.”
So that was the situation in Corinth. You have multiple churches within the Corinthian church/presbytery, with a bunch of prophets, pastors, teaching, and saints who have these diverse gifts, and also different native tongues within the congregation. And so you have to choose how to conduct a worship service that is decent and with good order in this multi-linguistic environment. Which language are we going to use?
Moreover, Scripture itself was written in three different languages Hebrew, Greek, plus a few sections in Aramaic, and so even reading and hearing Paul’s letter to them probably needed translation to some of those who did not speak Greek.
We see in Acts 21:37 that not everyone spoke Greek in the ancient world, for the soldier questions Paul as to whether he can speak Greek.
Or remember how Pontius Pilate wrote The King of the Jews above Jesus head in three different languages. Because some could speak only Hebrew/Aramaic, some only Greek, some only Latin, etc. And that is normal in large cities even today, they are international hubs, and Corinth was one of these hubs in the ancient world being a port city on the Mediterranean.
So that’s the situation in Corinth that Paul is addressing, a multi-linguistic church that also has the supernatural gift of tongues. And if you have ever visited a church that worships in language foreign to you, you know that the language used in worship is a big deal for whether you can be edified or not. You might be able to catch certain words like Amen, or Hallelujah, but beyond that, you don’t know what you are saying Amen to.
This is what Paul is referring to in verses 14-16 when he says, “For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. Otherwise, if you bless with the spirit, how will he who occupies the place of the unlearned say “Amen” at your giving of thanks, since he does not understand what you say?”
So while tongues is a great and supernatural gift, unless the person you are speaking to understands what is said, they are not built up.
This applies in a similar way for speaking words that you yourself don’t understand. For example, there are Psalms we sing in worship, and passages of Scripture that we hear and read in English, and when we pray and sing our spirit (will) is active, we are saying the words, but unless we understand the Scriptures, our mind (intellect) is unfruitful.
So this is where words are good, reading and speaking and memorizing the Scriptures are good activities, even if you don’t yet understand what you are hearing or saying or praying. That’s where we all start as baby Christians.
But Paul says don’t stay there, “Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.”
And so what grows us up into mature Christians is hearing God’s Word, from people who can speak with understanding. People who have the gift of interpretation of prophecy, and can explain the Word to us our who are less learned.
The great and sad irony of the modern Pentecostal redefinition of tongues into a personal prayer language that neither you nor anyone else can understand, is that everyone in the church already speaks English. And then they introduce confusion, by telling people, you are only “spirit-filled” if you can start speaking in gibberish. And then you go to a prayer meeting to “speak in tongues,” and then someone comes up and pretends to interpret by praying in English.
And I say pretend, because nobody has ever taken two Charismatics who claim to have the gift of interpretation, and one person who claims to have the gift of tongues, put the two interpreters in separate rooms, and have them right down what the person speaking in tongues is saying, and then compare their interpretations.
Paul says in verse 10, “There are, it may be, so many kinds of languages in the world, and none of them is without signification.” Meaning, if it is really the gift of tongues, then it can be consistently translated by someone else. There is a grammar and syntax and a lexicon we can use. But no such lexicon exists for those claim these gifts.
And so while many in these churches are simply ignorant and well intentioned, it does great spiritual harm to people to tell them they are not really full of the Holy Spirit, unless they can speak in a language no one can understand.
That whole practice is properly speaking non-sensical and it is exactly contrary to what Paul teaches in this chapter.
G.K. Chesterton, who was alive when Modern Pentecostalism was just beginning (early 20th century, Azusa Street Revival was 1906-1915), said of his era more generally, “The eighteenth Century thought itself to be the age of reason; the nineteenth century thought itself to be the age of common sense while the twentieth century can only think of itself as the age of uncommon nonsense.” In many ways he spoke truly.
Summary: There are two kinds of speaking in tongues that we find in Scripture. One is a supernatural ability to speak a new foreign language, and the other is saying anything to anyone that they do not understand.
And this brings us to the need for the gift of interpretation.
Q#2 – What is the gift of interpretation?
This is a much simpler gift to define, because it is what it sounds like. The gift of interpretation is the supernatural ability to interpret, understand, and translate from one language to another.
Paul says in verses 27-28, “If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret. But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God.”
So in Corinth there were people who had the gift of tongues, but not the gift of interpretation. And if they had the gift of tongues and the gift of interpretation, then they would be functioning like a prophet, speaking and explaining to others the Word of God.
This is why Paul begins this chapter by saying, “I wish you all spoke with tongues, but even more that you prophesied; for he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues, unless indeed he interprets, that the church may receive edification” (vs. 5).
So tongues + interpretation cashes out to prophecy and as Paul says in verse 3, “He who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men.”
So when you think of the gift of interpretation, just think of being able to translate from one language to another, or from something hard to understand to something easy to understand. That is a great gift that Paul wants them to have.
Q#3 – In what sense are these gifts operative today?
To answer this, we want to distinguish the way the Bible distinguishes, and that is between sudden and extraordinary gifts of the spirit, like we see at Pentecost in Acts 2, and then the more ordinary and natural gifts that we have also from God to speak, communicate, translate, and give understanding to others.
As for the extraordinary and sudden gift of being able to speak or understand a new foreign language, I am not personally aware of anyone who has received this gift today, but I don’t know every Christian, and I have heard stories from others about missionaries being able to communicate in seemingly miraculous ways.
So as with the gifts of miracles and healing, you don’t ever want to tell God what He cannot do. And God has not said in His Word that miracles or healing, or tongues and interpretation were only for the apostolic age, or only until Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, or only until the Canon was closed. Some have tried to argue for each of those positions, but I don’t think they stand up to scrutiny.
What the Bible does tell us is that the Apostles and Prophets (in the proper sense) were a one time and unique phenomena that laid the foundation of the church, and miraculous signs accompanied their ministry to confirm their divine authority.
It says in Acts 5:12-13, “And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomon’s Porch. Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly.”
Paul says in Ephesians 2:20 of the church, “And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.”
And then he says in 1 Corinthians 3:11, “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
So the outpouring of the spirit at Pentecost was a unique event to help lay the foundation for the church, and you only lay a foundation once. That foundation was laid 2000 years ago, and today we are now building upon it, trying to grow up into mature manhood in Christ.
And so we might ask ourselves, what is more miraculous? What brings more glory to God? That you can suddenly speak a new language, or that you are patient and kind to people who are rude to you.
Jesus says in Matthew 12:39, “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.” And so we need to be careful to make God’s priorities our priorities, and it brings glory to God when you work the miracle of charity, of loving people who are not naturally lovely.
Now there is I think a more ordinary sense in which these spiritual gifts are operative today. And that is in the many Christians who are working to translate the Bible from Greek and from Hebrew, or from English, into languages that do not currently have the Scriptures in their native tongue.
According to Wycliffe Bible Translators, there are 7,396 known languages in the world.
756 of those languages have the whole Bible in their native tongue.
Another 3,000 have either the New Testament or some other portions of Scripture that have been translated.
The people who are doing this painstaking, difficult, and sometimes dangerous work, are using their God-given gifts to study, learn, and translate between languages, so that every tongue can speak the wonderful works of God.
So it is in this more ordinary sense that tongues and interpretation are being used today.
Conclusion
The incarnation and death of the Son of God is the greatest act of charity the world will ever know. And God did this because He wants to communicate with us, and he knows we are hard of hearing. He knows we are ignorant and unlearned, and as Jesus says to Nicodemus in John 3, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?”
And so Jesus did by His actions, what our words struggle to express. And as John says at the very end of his gospel, “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.”
So behold upon the cross the death of Christ for sinners. Behold the empty tomb that justifies the ungodly. For that is the content, the message and the wonderful work of God that purchases our salvation. And may every tongue confess this truth, to the glory of God the Father.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.

Sermon: The Divine Liturgy Pt. 6 - Prophets & Prophecy (1 Corinthians 14)

The Divine Liturgy Pt. 6 – Prophets & ProphecySunday, May 18th, 2025Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA1 Corinthians 14:1-40
Prayer
Father, we ask now that by the preaching of Your Word, we may grow up together in maturity, thoroughly equipped for every good work. We ask for Your Holy Spirit to enlighten the eyes of our understanding, and we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
Last week we considered the gift of Charismatic Grace, and we observed that all Christians who are united to Christ Jesus, receive from Him some spiritual gift (or gifts), which are intended to build up (edify) Christ’s body, the church.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:7, “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.”
And in Ephesians 4:7, “But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”
And again in 1 Peter 4:10 it says, “As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”
And so we learned that all of us have some spiritual gift to steward for the good of others, and we can try to identify our gift (or gifts) by asking: Where does our Desire, our Ability, and the Needs of others all line up?
Where does my 1) Desire to bless others, 2) my Ability to bless others, and 3) the Need for someone to blessed all find harmony? Because that is where spiritual gifts most frequently reside.
God has so designed the body to function as a diversity within unity, as distinct members with different functions who are all united together for the common good. This is what Christian community should look like.
And so Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians 13 to describe that bond of unity, which is supernatural love, also known as charity.
Unlike natural and ordinary love which even unbelievers have for themselves and their children, charity has God as for its object and loves other people for the sake of God. Charity is supernatural love in that we receive it from above as a gift of grace, and by it we can are able to love people who are not naturally loveable.
And this is why Paul says that charity is the best of all spiritual gifts, and without it all the other charismatic graces profit us nothing.
He says in 1 Corinthians 13:2-3, “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not charity, it profits me nothing.” And then he concludes his exaltation of love in verse 13 by saying, “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
So where there is supernatural love animating our spiritual gifts, there you will find peace, order, and unity. But where there is envy, pride, and selfish desire, there you will find confusion, disputing, and every evil work (James 3:16).
So Paul is writing to correct and instruct the Corinthian presbytery, the churches in Corinth, in how to use their spiritual gifts. And having established the primacy and superiority of love as the best gift, he then dedicates all of chapter 14 to explaining how the gifts of prophecy and tongues are to be used in the church.
And so this morning will consider the gift of prophecy, and then next week we’ll consider the gift of tongues. And we will not actually spend very much time in 1 Corinthians 14 this morning because we need to do quite a lot background work in other parts of Scripture before we can rightly interpret it. So this sermon will be setting the stage for addressing tongues and other spiritual gifts next week.
Outline
So there are three questions I want to answer in this sermon:
Q1. What is a prophet?
Q2. How is a true prophet distinguished from a false prophet?
Q3. In what sense if any may someone be called a prophet today?
Q#1 – What is a prophet?
We read in 1 Samuel 9:9, “(Formerly in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he spoke thus: ‘Come, let us go to the seer’; for he who is now called a prophet was formerly called a seer.)”
So the Bible itself gives us an origin story for why prophets are called prophets. And it was because they had a supernatural ability to see, with sight being a metaphor for knowing.
So a seer receives divine inspiration that lifts up the eyes of the mind, and then they receive divine revelation to understand what they saw.
And so a seer was a person with knowledge (intellectual sight) of things divine. And thus, before they were called prophets they were called by this action of seeing, they were seers.
Now what exactly did these seers see? When we study the writings of the prophets (whether Moses, or David, or Isaiah), we discover that there are two unique senses in which they have supernatural sight.
1. They can see events far off in the future that only God could know and reveal (e.g. the destruction of Jerusalem, the virgin birth, the kingdom of God, etc.).
2. And/or they can see truths that surpass the powers of human reason to know (things like how the unity of the divine essence is Triune, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or how the Son of God would become incarnate, the hypostatic union, or the plan of salvation, etc.).
So knowledge of future events and/or knowledge of things that surpass human reason are the basis for which seers/prophets get their name.
DEFINITION: A prophet in the widest and most basic sense is someone who receives from God supernatural knowledge. And then usually that knowledge is preached or taught and communicated to others for their edification, and in some special cases, that knowledge is written down such that it became what we now call Scripture.
Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”
And it says in 2 Peter 1:19-21, “We have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”
Summarize: What is a prophet? A prophet is someone who sees/knows things by supernatural revelation. They do not speak from their own personal/private opinion but are mouth pieces for God. This is why they usually begin their prophecies with some form of, “Thus saith the Lord.” Or, “the word of the Lord came to me.” Or, “Hear now what the Lord says.”
So a prophet speaks as an ambassador and messenger of heaven. And insofar as he prophesies, He is inspired and infallible, but insofar as he speaks not in the spirit, he is just another man and can err.
For example, David was an inspired prophet who wrote many Psalms, but that did not make his decrees as a king infallible, and in fact he often sinned and sinned grievously despite being a prophet. The same could be said for Solomon who also wrote Scripture but fell into idolatry. So it possible for a man to be a true prophet, and also fall into grievous sin, and yet that sin does not nullify the truth of what he spoke by divine inspiration.
This brings us to question 2.
Q#2 – How then is a true prophet distinguished from a false prophet?
Answer: God himself gives various tests to determine a prophet’s authenticity.
In the New Testament we have Jesus saying in Matthew 7:15-16, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.”
And the Apostle John says in 1 John 2:22, “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”
So here are two initial criteria to judge the true from the false: 1) they have fruit of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc.), and 2) they acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ and eternal Son from the Father.
By those two criteria, are excluded a bunch of false religions (like modern Judaism, Islam, atheism, secularism, etc.), and many sub-Christian cults like Mormons, Jehovah’s witnesses, oneness Pentecostals, and other heretical sects that claim to be Christian but are not.
Moreover, we have also in Deuteronomy two others tests for whether a prophet is true or false.
We heard earlier in the service from Deuteronomy 18:21-22 which says, “And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’—when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.”
And then earlier in Deuteronomy 13:1-5 it says, “If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods’—which you have not known—‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage, to entice you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall put away the evil from your midst.”
So those are the tests for a prophet’s authenticity:
1. Does what he prophesies come to pass like he said it would? If not, false prophet. And by that criterion alone hundreds and thousands of so-called prophets, TV preachers, and charlatans are excluded. Do not listen to them.
Now if what they foretell does come to pass like they said it would, still there is a second test.
2. Does he speak of and lead you to the one true God (Jesus the Christ) or does he entice you immorality, or to worship other gods?
Only the person who can both tell the future accurately and leads you to the one true God are true prophets. The rest are liars or deceivers or presumptuous and according to the Law of God, worthy of execution, “purge out the evil from your midst.”
Notice how seriously God punishes false prophets. Under the law of Moses, it was a criminal act, a civil crime worthy of the death penalty to speak lies in the name of the Lord.
Listen to what God says to Ezekiel in Ezekiel 13, “Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to those who prophesy out of their own heart, ‘Hear the word of the Lord!’ ” Thus says the Lord God: “Woe to the foolish prophets, who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing!” They have envisioned futility and false divination, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord!’ But the Lord has not sent them; yet they hope that the word may be confirmed. Have you not seen a futile vision, and have you not spoken false divination? You say, ‘The Lord says,’ but I have not spoken.” Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Because you have spoken nonsense and envisioned lies, therefore I am indeed against you,” says the Lord God. “My hand will be against the prophets who envision futility and who divine lies; they shall not be in the assembly of My people, nor be written in the record of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter into the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord God.”
So the irony is that these false prophets are receiving from Ezekiel true prophecy, and the true prophecy is that they are false and going to be punished for their lies.
So there are true prophets like Ezekiel with morally upright lives, there are true prophets like David and Solomon who sometimes fall into grievous sin, there are false prophets who are evil and speaks lies, and then there is this other category of people who are also called prophets, but they don’t write Scripture, some of them aren’t even believers, and yet they are called prophets in some analogous and derivative sense. And this brings us to our third question which is…
Q#3 – In what sense if any may someone be called a prophet today?
If you were to lookup every single instance of the word prophet and prophecy in the Bible, and then organized and categorized all those instances, you would discover that there are four main senses in which someone may be called a prophet. And we distinguish them according to 4 qualities. A prophet in the truest and fullest sense has all 4 of these qualities, but some are called prophets who only possess one or two of these qualities. So what exactly are those qualities? As we have seen already:
1. A prophet receives Supernatural Revelation.
2. A prophet is given Understanding of that revelation.
3. A prophet Communicates/Speaks that knowledge to others.
4. A prophet Works Signs or Miracles to confirm that God has spoken through them.
To give some you some examples of this range of people called prophets in the Bible, let’s start with someone who has all four of these qualities, namely Moses.
God himself distinguishes Moses from other lesser prophets by saying to Aaron and Miriam (who were challenging Moses authority), “Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” (Numbers 12:6-8).
And then the book of Deuteronomy concludes with this later postscript about Moses saying, “And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, In all the signs and the wonders, which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, And in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses shewed in the sight of all Israel.” (Deut. 34:10-12).
So Moses is what we would call a capital P Prophet. He is the greatest of the prophets before Christ, and He possesses all four of these qualities in great measure.
1. Moses received Supernatural Revelation directly from God, which we now call Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Moses received, wrote, and edited the first books of Scripture.
2. He was given understanding of that revelation such that the Lord Jesus could say in John 5:46, “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.” In other words, Moses understood he was writing about Christ.
3. Moses had courage to communicate God’s Word to Pharoah, to Israel, to many people who did not actually want to hear what God had to say.
4. Moses worked many signs and wonders and miracles as Egypt was destroyed, the red sea was parted, food came from heaven, water came from the rock.
Now if Moses as greatest of the prophets has all four qualities, consider some men who are also called prophets, but lacked some of those qualities.
Take some of the minor prophets for example, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Habakkuk, or even John the Baptist. These were men who received divine revelation, understood what they saw and preached it to others, but performed no miracles.
Or take Joseph, who also worked no miracles, but he was given a special ability to interpret/understand other peoples’ dreams and then foretell the future. It says in Genesis 41:16, “So Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, ‘It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace.’”
Daniel likewise was a prophet who did not work miracles, but was given visions and dreams, some which he could interpret, and some which he could not.
He says in Daniel 8:27, “I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it” and in Daniel 12:8, “I heard, but I understood not.”
Or to take a more strange example consider the prophet Nebuchadnezzar. He is the proud and unbelieving king of Babylon. He has dreams and visions he cannot interpret. But God turns him into a beast for a time, converts him, and then he authors a chapter of Scripture describing his conversion and giving glory to God. Daniel chapter 4.
Summary: There are prophets who just see things but don’t understand. There are prophets who do understand but don’t see things in a vision of dream. There are prophets who write Scripture and there are many prophets who don’t. All Scripture is inspired prophecy, but not all prophecy becomes Scripture.
And if that was not complicated enough, you then have at the bottom of the barrel people who are called prophets but only derivatively or by distant analogy. These prophets have only 1 quality and it is that they speak divine truth (often without understanding what they are saying).
These are people like King Saul, Balaam, (we might also add Balaam’s donkey), Caiaphas the High Priest.
It says in John 11:49-51, “And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation.”
So notice, the Bible calls one of the men who wanted Jesus dead, a prophet.
Balaam likewise was a man who had no love for the Lord, he was a prophet for hire and was hired by Balak King of Moab to curse Israel. However, God made Balaam to prophesy truth, blessing, and the coming of Christ which Moses then wrote down and included in Scripture (see Numbers 22-24).
And then you have King Saul, who even in the midst of hunting down David to kill him becomes a prophet. It says in 1 Samuel 19:22-24, “Saul asked, Where are Samuel and David? And one said, Behold, they be at Naioth in Ramah. And he went thither to Naioth in Ramah: and the Spirit of God was upon him also, and he went on, and prophesied, until he came to Naioth in Ramah. And he stripped off his clothes also, and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. Wherefore they say, Is Saul also among the prophets?”
Summary: Not all prophets are created equal. There are capital P Prophets and there are lower case p prophets. Some are called and ordained to the office of Prophet, like Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. And then some like Caiaphas, or Balaam, prophesy truth, but as Jesus says in Matthew 7:22-23, “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
So this difference of degree and gradation of prophets and prophecy helps explain what we find in 1 Corinthians and the rest of the New Testament.
And so to answer our question directly, “In what sense if any may someone be called a prophet today?”
To this we may answer there are two senses in which someone may be called a prophet today, and both are by way of analogy and participation, and not by identity. If you forgot what an analogy is, it is naming one thing by way of likeness to another.
The Bible does this all the time, even with a name like God/Elohim. Elohim in Hebrew is grammatically plural, but in English we translate it in the singular as God when God is the one speaking or acting. But there are many places where Elohim refers to created beings like angels, or kings, or judges in Israel. The Bible calls all of them Elohim, with God being the true and proper Elohim, and then angels and men only by analogy or participation.
So what are the two senses in which someone may be called a prophet by analogy/participation today?
1. All Christians may be called prophets by analogy inasmuch as they speak the Word of God to others. Just as Scripture calls many people prophets who only speak the Word of God just so we may call those prophets who have received the Scriptures, speak the Scriptures, sing the Scriptures, and pray the Scriptures.
To this we could also add that every Sunday all the saints prophesy when we recite together the Nicene Creed. For in it we foretell future events, “He shall come again, with glory, to judge both the living and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end,” and “I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” When we confess that we foretell the future truly!
It is in this broad sense of prophetic inspiration that Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:3, “no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.” And Moses speaks of the new covenant age when he says in Numbers 11:29, “TOh, that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!”
When you speak of Jesus as the Scriptures speaks of Jesus (as Lord and Christ, and future judge of the world), you are speaking in the Holy Spirit the very Word of God, and in that sense all Christian who recite God’s Word are in that moment infallible prophets.
2. The second sense in which someone may be called a prophet by analogy is as someone who possesses the spiritual gift of interpreting, explaining, and preaching the Word of God to others.
And this is the sense in which Paul is describing prophets and the gift of prophecy in 1 Corinthians 14.
We know this because earlier in 1 Corinthians 11:5, he says, “But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head.” But then in 1 Corinthians 14:34, he says, “Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says.”
So how is it that a woman can pray and prophesy in church and has to wear a headcovering when she does, but she is also not permitted to speak? Is Paul contradicting himself? No. He is just using prophecy in the same two senses I just listed.
A woman prays and prophesies with everyone else as she participates in the singing of psalms, the responsive reading of Scripture, the praying of Scripture, and so forth. Woman is a coheir together with man in Christ (1 Peter 3:7). But what she is forbidden to do is exercise the office of a public prophet who preaches in the church.
For as Paul says also in 1 Timothy 2:11-12, “Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.”
And Paul knows that some people will think he is being too patriarchal or chauvinistic, so right after he prohibits women prophesying as public teachers, he says in 1 Corinthians 14:37, “If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord.”
So if a woman today wants to claim to be a pastor or preacher or prophet, Paul says, then let her acknowledge what the Lord has commanded, because if she was a true prophet, she would know better.
These are hard words for our egalitarian age to hear, and yet these are the words of the Lord, His inspired and infallible commands.
Conclusion
The Apostle John who was the last and final capital P Prophet to author Scripture records in Revelation 19:10 that, “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” And so while we might be tempted to take offense that women are not allowed to exercise the gift of prophecy in the church, remember what the whole point of this gift is for. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:3, it is for edification, exhortation, and consolation.
By hearing about the person of Jesus we are edified. He is our cornerstone.
By hearing his instructions in morals and how to order our life we receive exhortation.
And by hearing his promises that he will never leave us or forsake us and is preparing a place for us in His Father’s house, we receive heavenly consolation.
And so I close with the words of Romans 15:4-6, “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And Amen.

Sermon: The Divine Liturgy Pt. 5 - Charismatic Grace

The Divine Liturgy Pt. 5 – Charismatic GraceSunday, May 11th, 2025Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA1 Corinthians 12:1–31
Prayer
O Father, we praise You for Your Son, and for His mystical body into which we have been baptized. We praise you because Your church is fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous are thy works, and that our soul knows very well. Remove from us now all sin and ignorance, grant to us knowledge and virtue, that we might be good stewards of your grace, for we ask this all in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
Children, I have a true story to tell you. When I was little, maybe 7 or 8 years old. I went to church with my parents, and I was sitting in the pew, just like you are right now, listening to the pastor talk. When all of a sudden, the pastor tore a page out of his Bible, crumpled it up, put it in his mouth, and then ate it! Now is that crazy? I think it’s crazy. I thought it was crazy back then, and I still think it is crazy today. And yet, sometimes God tells His prophets and apostles to do crazy things.
The prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 3:1) and the Apostle John (Rev. 10:9) were both told to eat the word of God while they were in a vision. And so while they did not literally have to eat a scroll or a book, what they did have to do was understand and digest and become one with God’s Word so that they could preach it to others.
Now there were other times when the prophets did have to literally/really do some uncomfortable things. And that was their special job and assignment from God. For example:
Isaiah had to walk naked (at least partially naked) and barefoot as a sign of warning and judgment (Isaiah 20). It says in Isaiah 20:2-4, “At the same time spake the Lord by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, And put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. And the Lord said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot Three years for a sign and wonder Upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia; So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, Young and old, naked and barefoot, Even with their buttocks uncovered, To the shame of Egypt.”
So sometimes, God tells the prophet to do something crazy in order to get his message across. Isaiah’s nakedness was a sign of future judgment upon Egypt, and a warning not to trust Egypt and their nakedness, but to trust God instead.
Likewise, God told the Prophet Ezekiel to shave the hair off his head and his beard and then burn it. And this was to be a sign of God’s fiery judgment on Jerusalem (Ezekiel 5). Ezekiel also had to lay on his left side for 390 days, and then lay on his right side for 40 days, as a sign of the siege warfare to come upon Israel and Judah (Ezekiel 4).
The Prophet Jeremiah had to take off his undergarment (his loincloth or girdle) and hide it in the hole of a rock. And then after many days, God said to him, “Arise, go to Euphrates, and take the girdle from thence, which I commanded thee to hide there. Then I went to Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it: and, behold, the girdle was marred, it was profitable for nothing. Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Thus saith the Lord, After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing” (Jer. 13:6-13).
So sometimes God tells his prophets to do crazy things, but He always has a good reason for doing so. The Bible says that God is love (1 John 4:8), and that He desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). Therefore, in addition to the grace that sanctifies us, and makes us into Christians, God also gives to his saints another kind of grace, a grace that we call charismatic grace, which is given to lead other people to repentance and salvation.
The Old Testament Prophets are just one example of such extraordinarily gifted saints, and what we find in the New Testament and in our text of 1 Corinthians 12, is that God has given a measure of grace to everyone that is a member of Christ’s body. This charismatic grace often goes by the name of spiritual gifts, and it is those gifts that shall be our focus this morning.
And so as we conclude our series on the The Divine Liturgy, our study of worship, I want us to consider three questions that arise from 1 Corinthians 12 which is all about charismatic grace.
Outline
Q1. What is charismatic grace (or the charismatic gifts)?
Q2. How does God intend for our different gifts to work together?
Q3. How can you identify and steward the particular gifts that God has given to you?
Q#1 – What is charismatic grace (or the charismatic gifts)?
Note first the purpose for which Paul is writing 1 Corinthians 12 (and the chapters that follow). He says in verse 1, “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.”
Meaning, although the Corinthian church already had and were using spiritual gifts, still they were ignorant of God’s intention and purpose for bestowing them. And therefore because of their ignorance and immaturity, they were actually abusing and misusing the gifts of the Holy Spirit. What God had given to build up and unite them, was being used to destroy and divide them.
So Paul is writing to reform the Corinthian church’s use and understanding of the spiritual gifts.
Now where do we get this word charismatic from?
Well, our English words charisma and charismatic come directly from the Greek word “χάρισμα,” and its plural form, “χαρισμάτων.”
In Greek, Χάρισμα signifies a gift freely given, or a favor that is bestowed.
For example, in verse 4 of our text, Paul says, “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.” And there the Greek word for gifts is just this plural form of charisma, χαρισμάτων.
So when we use this phrase charismatic grace, or charismatic gifts, we are emphasizing the gratuitous or gracious nature of the gift that was given (it is gracious grace). And indeed, our English word for grace is how we translate the Greek word χάρις in the New Testament.
For example, in John 1:16 it says of Christ, “And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.” In Greek it says, “καὶ χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος.” So if your name is Karen, or Karis, those are both derived from this Greek word for grace.
So when we say charismatic grace, or as Paul says in verse 4, the χαρισμάτων from the Spirit (Πνεῦμα), spiritual gifts, we are emphasizing that this is a grace given over and above the grace of salvation that we all received at conversion.
Now what exactly is grace? Grace at the most basic level is God’s action in man that leads to salvation. And what we see from Paul in verses 4-6 is that while grace is one in essence since it comes from the One God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, still there are a diversity of effects that result from receiving this one grace.
And so unlike the grace/gift of faith, which is common to all the elect, and without which none can please God (Heb. 11:6), the grace of which Paul is speaking here is not given to everyone. These are gratuitous gifts that are given over and above what is necessary for own salvation.
Indeed, the whole purpose of these gifts is not primarily to benefit us, but rather to benefit and build up others. Charismatic grace has an outward focus on the common good of the whole body, whereas the Corinthians were using them to show off and distinguish themselves in pride.
Paul describes this outward focus in verses 4-7, “Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.”
That phrase, “profit withal” is just King James for “the common good.”
To Summarize: There is one grace of the Holy Spirit even as there is One God from which all blessings flow. However, we distinguish this one grace according to the diversity of its effects. For example:
All believers receive the same and common grace of faith to believe on the Lord Jesus, and so we call that Sanctifying/Saving Grace. Grace that saves us as individuals.
Charismatic Grace on the other hand is grace given over and above Sanctifying Grace, and it is given to lead other people to salvation and to build up Christ’s body.
Sanctifying Grace saves us, Charismatic Grace is used by God to save others.
And so Paul wants the Corinthians (and us) to acknowledge this common unity of source, this unity of grace’s essence as coming from the same Holy Spirit, even though on the ground and in the church and in each person, the effects of grace can often look very different. This is a feature of grace and not a bug.
And so he goes on in verses 8-11 to describe that diversity within unity, how grace is one in essence but diverse in its effects. And this leads us to question 2.
Q#2 – How does God intend for our different gifts to work together?
In verses 8-11 he describes some of the different charismatic gifts. And then in verses 12-27 he develops this analogy (this picture) of the church as Christ’s body. And so the way God intends for us to use our diversity of gifts, is just like how the body is one but is composed of many different and essential parts (ears, eyes, nose, feet, etc.). And then after he gives this analogy of the body, he describes in verses 28-31 the hierarchy and order of how God has arranged the body, first apostles, then prophets, then teachers, and so forth.
And so while we don’t have to time to explain this whole chapter, I want us to look at just some of the charismatic gifts in verses 8-11 so we can understand their purpose and function in the body. And note, this is just a partial list, not a comprehensive list, and we know this because in Romans 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4 we find other gifts mentioned.
So starting in verse 8 Paul says, “For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom.”
This word of wisdom (λόγος σοφίας) refers to the ability to teach others supernatural truths (the Trinity, the Incarnation, the sacraments, things that are above reason).
Jesus speaks of this gift in Luke 21:15 when he says to the apostles, “For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.”
And the Apostle Paul who was preeminent in this gift amongst the apostles says in 1 Corinthians 2:6-7, “Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory.”
So this word of wisdom is the supernatural ability to persuade others and explain to the saints (especially the mature), the highest form of wisdom: namely knowledge of God, or as we call it today theology. The theologian is the one gifted with this word of wisdom.
He then says also in verse 8, “to another the word of knowledge [is given] by the same Spirit.”
This word of knowledge (λόγος γνώσεως) most likely refers to knowledge of created things, or what we might call natural revelation.
Calvin comments on this verse saying, “Let us then take knowledge as meaning ordinary information, and wisdom, as including revelations that are of a more secret and sublime order.”
St. Augustine likewise says, “Wisdom refers to the knowledge of divine things, and knowledge to human science.”
So the person with the word of knowledge can deploy their knowledge of creation to lead people to knowledge of the Creator. This might be the Christian biologist, the Christian historian, the Christian philosopher, grammarian, novelist, artist, musician, chemist, etc. who has a special gift of communicating, teaching, and persuading others using knowledge they might have acquired from decades of careful study.
To use an Old Testament idea, this is the Israelites spoiling the Egyptians. God takes the good things that Egypt had acquired but then purifies and sanctifies those natural gifts for use in His Holy Tabernacle.
For example, Paul prior to his conversion, was the most zealous and learned of all Pharisees, a certified genius. And when God converted Paul, he did not wipe and erase his memory or remove his zeal, instead he gave him these gifts of wisdom and knowledge and then sent him back out to use his learning and zeal in service of the Christians he formerly persecuted. This is God’s way of redeeming and using even our old life in service of His glory. To some he gives the word of knowledge.
Next in verse 9 he says, “To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit.”
Here the gift of faith is not saving faith which is common to all Christians but is either the ability to teach and “contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3), or alternatively it is the gift of extraordinary faith by which signs, wonders, and answers to prayer are accomplished.
We might think of Jesus words to the woman in Matthew 15:28 where he says, “O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”
Or we might think of Elijah, of which James 5:16 says, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
And of Joshua who had faith to tell the sun to stand still. It says in Joshua 10:12-13, “Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; And thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, Until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies.”
And so to some in the church God gives this extraordinary faith, faith that believes God for great and mighty things, things which give glory not to the person, but to God.
Now the rest of the gifts listed here are mostly straightforward, so I will not explain all of them.
The gift of healing is the special ability to heal. Both Peter and Paul possessed this gift (Acts 3, Acts 5:16, Acts 28).
In verse 10 it says, “To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues.”
And what I want you to notice is that contrary to many Pentecostal and Charismatic churches, who insist that all believers need a “second blessing” to speak in tongues, this special ability to speak in other languages is not given to all believers.
Paul says this very explicitly in verses 29-30, “Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?” These are rhetorical questions wherein the answer to each of them is No!
It is good to desire these gifts, and indeed we are encouraged to desire them. But remember that God is the one who distributes to each according his ability, to each a measure of grace. And this leads us to our third and final question which is…
Q3. How can you identify and steward the particular gifts that God has given to you?
First of all, note that if you belong to the body of Christ, if you have been baptized (1 Cor. 12:13), the Bible says that you have received some measure of charismatic grace. It might be a tiny measure, or a great measure, but it is a measure, nonetheless. Every Christian has some gift to use in service of the body.
In 1 Peter 4:10 it says, “As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”
In Jesus’ Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:15 it says, the master gave to his servants, “each according to his ability.”
And so in the Old Testament, the prophets received more than anyone this charismatic grace, and often it came with the burden and duty of doing crazy things for God, usually resulting in persecution and/or martyrdom.
So if you want to be gifted in an extraordinary way, there’s a good chance you are also going to suffer in an extraordinary way. This is the testimony of Christ who had the fullness of the spirit and all the gifts, and it is the testimony of the apostles who in the New Testament received extraordinary gifts and were therefore set first in the hierarchy of the church.
And so while God does call and equip certain men for the ordained offices of Pastor, Ruling Elder, and Deacon, still the officers in the church are not the whole body, they are members just like you with a unique gift and ministry assigned to them. We all need one another and will have to give an account to Christ for how we stewarded His grace.
And so how do you identify your spiritual gifts? Or we might say, how do you get in touch with your charismatic side?
Well, there are three questions you can use to take inventory. And they revolve around Desire, Need, and Ability.
1. What good do I desire to do for others?
2. What are the needs of others that I tend to notice?
3. What ability do I have to meet those needs?
And when the answer to all three of those questions are in harmony, there is a good chance you have discovered your spiritual gift.
Let me give you a few examples of how this might play out.
Let’s say you have a desire to make things beautiful. And you notice that this church is not the most beautiful building in Centralia. And so you notice there is a need for beauty at Christ Covenant Church, and while you would like to worship in a beautiful cathedral with stained glass windows, you don’t have $20 million to spare. But what you do have are some flowers in your garden. And so you cut some flowers, put them in a vase, and bring them to church.
What spiritual gift is that? We would probably say that is the spiritual gift of hospitality, or generosity. And if you are ever unsure about what to call your spiritual gift, Paul dedicates a whole chapter (1 Corinthains 13) to the best of all spiritual gifts which is charity.
So if you are not sure what to call your gift, read 1 Corinthians 13 and see if it meets the rubric there for charity. Charity is the gift that God intended to actually animate and inform all the other gifts. Paul goes so far as to say, “without charity I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2). And elsewhere he says, even our faith works by love (Gal. 5:6).
To give you another example. Let’s say you have a heart for the downcast, for the hurting. You want there to be more joy and life and peace in the church. Moreover, you have walked with the Lord through many hard trials of your own, and like Job, have seen the good end God intends for all his saints. And so when someone in the church has a baby that dies, or receives a terminal cancer diagnosis, or is just having hard time at work, or in their marriage. You have the ability to come alongside them, and as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:4, “comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
You are the person with the gift of encouragement. You are like Barnabas, whose name means “son of consolation” (Acts 4:36).
A final example, consider the men who volunteer in the sound booth every Sunday. They have a desire for the church to be able to hear the sermon, hear the prayers and singing, and Scripture reading. That’s a good desire and we all have that need, some of us being harder at hearing than others. And while none of these men have a master’s degree in audio engineering, they are willing to learn, willing to try, willing to serve, and it is that willingness to come early and sit at the booth, that is a great gift to all of us. They are special set of ears for the body.
Conclusion
Not everyone is called to be a prophet and to do crazy things for God. And for that we can be thankful that God has given extraordinary charismatic grace to some for our benefit and example.
But we must not overlook that we also have received grace upon grace. We are members of the same body, who are united to the same Head of the Church, the Lord Jesus, and we have received from the same Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son some measure of grace of which we must be good stewards.
So ask yourself those three questions: Where does your desire, the need, and your abilities line up? And then start to cultivate those gifts, desire more gifts, and as it says in 1 Peter 4:8-10, “And above all things have fervent charity for one another, for charity will cover a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”
May God grant us this charity to build each other up in love, even as Christ has loved us, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.