Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20010415.htm

1 CORINTHIANS: MINISTERING TO BELIEVERS WITH DEEP PAGAN BACKGROUNDS
Part XXVI: The Worship Service Pattern God Desires
(1 Corinthians 14:26-40)
  1. Introduction
    1. Some church worship services "shine" with much emphases on music and "creative" programming while other groups do not load up with as much fanfare. One may wonder if there is a Biblical directive on a worship service's focus, if there is a central purpose in the meeting itself that God wants us to have!
    2. 1 Corinthians 14:26-40 gives us insight on what God wants as our focus in our church worship services, and that insight affects what we do, when and how we perform it in our worship services as follows:
  2. The Worship Service Pattern God Desires, 1 Corinthians 14:26-40.
    1. The goal of a church service from God's view is that His people to be spiritually edified, 1 Cor. 14:26d.
    2. Now, spiritual edification from God's perspective involves one's MIND responding affirmatively to God's Bible truth that results in expressions of worship, 1 Corinthians 14:19, 24-25.
    3. To achieve such spiritual edification, Paul revealed practical guidelines for worship services, 14:26-40:
      1. Guideline One - The worship service should not contain so many musical numbers, addresses or anything else that the mind is distracted from interacting with God's Bible's truths, 14:26a, 19.
      2. Guideline Two - When the Word of God is taught or preached, it must be done using practical guidelines that maximize the hearers' minds interacting with the Bible's truths (as follows):
        1. Only one party should speak even God's Word at a time, 1 Corinthians 14:27c, 30-31.
        2. There should be only 3 communicators total with each spiritual gift, 14:27, 29. Thus, the congregation can assimilate God's truth by not being bombarded with too much speaking.
        3. All communication should be made clear and simple so every mind can understand and apply it, 14:27d. (The true gift of tongues needed to be interpreted for all to understand God's message.)
        4. In the case when the true gift of tongues or existed in the Early Church, failure for there to be an interpreter of the human language present required the speaker to avoid speaking, but to minister to himself and to God the content he would otherwise need to share with others, 1 Corinthians 14:28.
        5. Any speaker led of God will yet be able to control his speech; if he could not control his spiritual gift's expression, he was not speaking by the Holy Spirit's power, cf. 1 Corinthians 14:32.
      3. Guideline Three - Women are to refrain or be withheld from leading in the services, 1 Cor. 14:34-35:
        1. Even a woman gifted with the true gift of tongues or of prophecy (cf. Acts 21:8-9) was not to use that gift in the worship service, but outside the worship service in Biblical submission to her role as a woman before the Lord, 1 Corinthians 14:34 with 1 Timothy 2:12-15.
        2. Were a Christian woman to have a question about what she witnessed in a service, she was to ask her husband at home (or the speaker in private as her marital state would logistically require) so he could either answer or trace down the correct answer for her edification, 1 Corinthians 14:35.
        3. [There exist logical qualifications to this: women missionaries in accord with Acts 14:27-28 may report on their missionary works, or women in the church ministries can report or announce their functions in a "Nepaug Focus" or teach children in a "Children's Conversation" providing they do not exercise administrative or teaching leadership over men in violation of 1 Timothy 2:12-15.]
        4. Guideline Four - What Biblical truth is presented in music or addresses must agree with the revealed body of truth in Scripture, 1 Cor. 14:36-37; Romans 12:6; 1 Peter 4:11.
        5. Guideline Five - All things must be done in a fitting, orderly manner to relax God's people so they might learn and apply the truth to which they are exposed, 1 Cor. 14:40; James 3:1-2, 17-18 NIV.
Lesson: The worship service format must make the presentation, application and response to God's Word the core of its ministry. As such, we need to formulate our worship services to keep that focus primary, whether it deals with how many lead, who leads, how they lead and when in the service.

Application: God allows for a wide variety of ministrations in a worship service that help in the application of God's truth to the body. However, these should always be kept as mere EXPRESSIONS of man's RESPONSE to God's truth applied to the heart, and that means keeping the ministry of the Word of God the primary focus in the church's worship service.