The sermon, based on 1 Corinthians 16:15-18, emphasizes the church as a 'heavenly ecosystem' designed for the salvation, sanctification, and multiplication of God's people. It stresses the importance of unity within the church as described by Paul in Ephesians, depicting the church as one body with Christ as the head. The speaker highlights the role of mature, servant-hearted saints, using the household of Stephanus as an example of those who have devoted themselves to the ministry of the saints. The congregation is encouraged to recognize, imitate, and submit to such individuals for their wisdom and leadership. The sermon also underscores the value of personal interactions within the church community, urging both older and younger members to learn from one another through fellowship and mutual support. The speaker calls on the congregation to live lives that exemplify Christian maturity, serving as examples for others to follow, and encourages the use of biographies and church history to learn from past saints.

I bring you greetings from the Covenant Bible Church of Hid Night, North Carolina, where I pastor about three hours west of here. For those of you who don't know, our churches have partnered together for a few years now in the work in Malawi. I've been able to travel over there several times with your pastor, and I have been greatly helped and blessed in many ways. Not just spiritually and as a pastor, but also just navigating airports. I've told several already that if it weren't for Jason, I would probably still be lost in the corner of a foreign airport right now because he is a man who can navigate his way through chaos very well.

And so I appreciate him. Our church has prayed for your church many times over the years at our prayer meetings and we would appreciate if y'all would continue to pray for us. I know that you have before. Please keep praying for us. If you've been a part of a church very long at all, you know exactly how to pray for us because our needs are probably for the most part the same as yours.

And so as you would pray for yourselves, pray for us and we'll continue to pray for you. There truly is nothing new under the sun, and that goes for the life of churches like ours. So we appreciate that, and we're thankful for the friendship that we have. It's for that reason, that commonality that churches have with one another that I think and I trust and I pray that this message will be helpful for you all this morning as it was for our congregation just a few weeks ago. This is a re-preach for me.

A lot of times I try to come up with something new, but this was a blessing to our church, and so I'm hoping that it will be for you all as well. So if you will go ahead and turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 16, and that'll be our sermon passage, and I'll read it, and I'll read it and then I'll pray and then we'll jump in together. The Apostle Paul writes, I urge you brethren, sorry this is verses 15 through 18, I don't think I said that. 1 Corinthians 16, 15 through 18. I urge you brethren, you know the household of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the ministry of the saints.

That you also submit to such, and to everyone who works and labors with us. I'm glad about the coming of Stephanus, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, for what was lacking on your part they supplied, for they refreshed my spirit and yours. Therefore acknowledge such men." This is the Word of God. Let's pray together. Our Father, we come into your presence again as has already been said so very thankful that you would give us your Word and we pray now that you would guide us into it, that you would give us understanding, that you would show us more of your goodness and your willing condescension to mere creatures and that you would make a way for us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ even as you use the very people that you place into your church.

So teach us today. Lift our eyes to see the glories of Christ and what He has done and is doing in His church, and we pray that you would do that for your glory, and we pray these things in the name of Christ. Amen. Amen. Well, this subject that we're going to talk about is most broadly the church, ecclesiology, but I want to situate the exposition of this passage in that sort of broader theology of the church, what the church is, where the church has come from, who we are as the church and how it operates.

So if you can imagine a little mama bird, she makes a little nest and then eventually brings some eggs or gives birth to eggs and laser eggs in her nest. We're going to create a nest of, very briefly, that theology of the church, and then I'm going to couch the exposition down inside of that, and hopefully You'll see why that's important in just a minute. Most of us would recognize the language of a passage like Ephesians 4, where Paul is describing the unity of the church and he uses the word one repeatedly. We are one body joined together by one Spirit with one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. And you say, what is Paul's point?

Well, because he says one numerous times, you know, his point is we're one. The church is one body. Primarily there we're thinking in categories of what we would call the universal church, the way God sees it. He sees one united body, and then later on he says that this church is to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ. So Paul's painting a picture of the church as one body with one head.

So he wants you to picture an anatomical man with a body and a head. Christ is that head. The metaphor I think is pretty clear and sometimes we might think that that Paul's language there in Ephesians 4 just sort of came out of nowhere, but if you're paying attention all the way back in Ephesians chapter 2, Paul had already been sort of hinting at this picture using a different metaphor. He says in chapter 2, now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace, who has made us both one. There he's talking about Jews and Gentiles being brought into this one body, and then the Lord, Paul says, has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility that's between Jew and Gentile that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two so making peace that he might reconcile us both to God in one body." Hopefully you see I'm trying to emphasize this language.

One body, one head, one man, one body. This new man, this one body, He then goes on to say as he switches the metaphor out of nowhere, it's built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure, he doesn't say body, he says structure is being joined together, it grows into a holy temple in the Lord. Say, Paul is it a body or is it a temple? He said, yeah. He's mixing metaphors here and you can see there with that language, if you're paying attention, how these go together.

In chapter 2, it's a temple that's joined together like a construction project growing together into a building. In chapter 4 it's a body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped. When each part is working properly, Christ makes the body grow. So he's saying you got these things, either it's a temple or a body, and they've got many parts, but all these parts are joined together, and the part of the point of their being joined together is that they grow up to maturity and form something. One illustration is a temple, one illustration is a man, but it's describing the same thing.

It's the church joined and held together, working together, growing together to maturity. Now what brings all of this together? What is the thing that Paul goes to that says, here's what sparks this whole project and forms the one body? Well, just very quickly, chapter 2 verse 13 He mentions the blood of Christ. Chapter 2 verse 16, He mentions the cross of Christ.

And then chapter 4, it's the Spirit of Christ. How does the church come together? Well, it's by the blood that Christ poured out on the cross for us, and then him sending forth his spirit to apply that work to us, making us new creatures and bringing us into this new body. That's sort of the ground of the church. That's how it begins.

Jesus came into the world to save sinners, satisfied divine righteousness in his life, he pacified divine justice in his death, he's raised again for our justification. If I use that language and I talk about the cross and the blood of Christ. Our minds, we recognize that is gospel language. This is gospel, but if I say ecclesiology, sometimes we don't see the church and the ministry of the church as a part of the same good news. The reality is Christ is doing more for His people than just washing us of our sins, regenerating us, justifying us, and then somehow we enter into heaven someday.

Actually, all the way up until we breathe our last breath, he's created this thing, this organism, to make sure that we get everything we need from justification to our last breath and we enter into his presence, and that thing is called the church. And that is a good news, I would say a gospel gift that Christ has given to his church for our good. Another aspect of the gospel, this is the point that we often forget, is what God promised to do to us now that we are His. The gospel is not just what gets us saved, and you all know this, it's what we have to have all the time throughout our Christian life, and one of the good news blessings is the church. He promises to bring his people into the church and he promises to give his spirit to his people and to minister to his people through the church.

All we're talking about is what God has said He would do and what He does by His Spirit. I've not told you to do anything yet. That would be law. I'm just talking about gospel right now. He said He would do it, which is good news.

He uses His church. That's the point that I want you to have in your mind as we move into this passage. One of the means that God uses to keep us is His church in the New Testament. We see God saves people and He gathers them into churches. He doesn't just bring us near to Himself, He brings us near to one another, and then He doesn't just immediately work in us, but He works through us also immediately through one another in the church.

So the church then becomes this heavenly ecosystem on earth that is designed for the salvation and the sanctification and the multiplication of God's people, and that is especially in this local visible expression like you have here. It is an amazing gift of God's grace that he would give you not only his Son, but then he would give you the mystical body, the mystical Christ as it were, the church to keep you and to help you, to help all of us through the Christian life. It's an amazing gift, and that is even true for a church like Corinth. If you've read 1st Corinthians or 2nd Corinthians, you know that Corinth had a lot of problems. Corinth is these letters are not the letters that you typically go to to say, here's how you do things in church.

These are letters that you go to to say, hey this is this is probably what we shouldn't be doing. They were what we might call a church in trouble. And I won't go all through all of the issues, but Paul has at this point spent essentially 15 chapters addressing all kinds of issues and in our day there would be a lot of people who would say with that many problems in a church I'm out. That church is in trouble. I'm out.

Paul doesn't say, hey, the church is in trouble, you better get out. He says, the church is in trouble, but it's not over. A church in trouble is not no church. A church in trouble is just a church. Our confession says, right, even the purest churches under heaven are subject to mixture and error.

So he says essentially here as he closes the letter, he's saying it's not over for Corinth and this church. There are, we learn here, a handful of faithful saints, and these faithful ones turn out to be an immense gospel blessing to this struggling church. Fifteen chapters or so talking about all the people who have been trouble, now he's going to list a few people who are very important and needful for this young church. We're reminded here that one of the greatest blessings that God gives to us in the church is godly, gifted saints, and we're reminded of the obligation that we all have to take advantage of God's people. Hopefully you understand as we'll go that language, taking advantage of God's people.

So verse 15, Paul begins by using this language, I urge you, and with that translation you can hear the seriousness of what he's trying to convey to them. And you might ask, why the urgency? Why are you urging this? Well, in the two previous verses, Paul had said, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong, let all that you do be done in love." That's the ESV, that's what we typically use. Hopefully that's not confusing.

But just to summarize, and I would argue that those two verses, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong, let all that you do be done in love. I would argue that is the sum total of the entirety of Christian faith and activity and virtue in the world. That's one of those summary charges that if you just do that, You're good. We go wrong because we stop doing that. But at this point, we might ask, what if every person in this church, which was a church in trouble, came up with their very own self-tailored definitions of watchfulness, of firmness, of courage, of love.

What if they did like many moderns would do and they would say, well for me, being watchful is like this. And they'd fill in the blank with their own opinions and somebody else would say, well for my family, standing firm in the faith looks like this. And then another family comes along and they say, well, in my household, I'm going to teach my family that doing everything in love looks like this. And everybody just came up with all their own opinions about what all of that meant. Well, that wouldn't work very well.

They would still be a mess. So the obvious question is, well Paul, what does this look like? You're not here. Timothy's not here yet. Apollo's is not ready to come.

You've been talking for a long time about all of these issues in the church. What does this even look like? He's saying here it's really important that as you go about verses 13 and 14 you get this. I urge you. And then there's a break and I think a lot of our English translations do this.

They have that elongated hyphen. It's like a break in the thought, and he introduces us to some of the members of the church. You know the household of Stephanus, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the ministry of the saints or the service of the saints. So here we meet, this is amazing, the first Christians ever in this part of the world. Nobody was a Christian and then there were some Christians.

Who were the first ones? This household. Very first Christians. Pretty impressive. They had been Christians the longest.

What do we know about them? They have devoted themselves to the ministry or the service of the saints. They have assigned to themselves the place of service. They had become self-appointed need-meters and people-helpers. You know what a need-meter is, right?

Somebody that meets people's needs. They said, we're going to serve people. We're going to serve the saints in the church. My property where I live butts up right against some pretty large apple and peach orchards. And I've noticed that when peaches and apples are in season, it is the branch with the most fruit that is hanging the lowest.

Very often they'll be on the ground. Is there something wrong with that branch because it is so low? No, it's that low because it has so much fruit. What Paul's pointing out here is that very often it is the most mature saints, that those who are overflowing with the most fruit of the Spirit, who have taken the lowest place of service. It's not those who want to stand out head and shoulders above all the rest to be seen and heard and noticed and recognized.

Long tenured saints know that the place of preeminence is the place of service, and that's patterned by who? Our Lord who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. And therefore, Jesus would say, whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all." That's a description of the household of Stephanus. They had been saints the longest and they had devoted themselves to the service of the church. So Paul breaks into his exhortation and he calls attention to these mature Christ-like servants in the church.

I urge you, " he says. You know that household. You know how they are. And then he comes back in verse 16 and he gives the charge. Submit to such and to every fellow worker and laborer or everyone who works and labors with us.

That word submit, same word that's used in Ephesians 5 when it talks about a wife's submission to her husband. It means to be under the authority or to be under the rank of another, and it's interesting because it's related to the term translated devoted in verse 15, So it almost sounds, you can almost read it like this, that household of Stephanas, they have positioned them themselves as servants. You position yourself under them and follow their lead. That's the picture. He urges the whole church to take note of this faithful, seasoned household of Christians who are devoted to serving others, and he says, follow them.

Submit to such. And that such is helpful because that tells us that it's not just them, they weren't the only ones. That's a way of saying submit to all the people like this. People that are doing this, those are the ones you want to follow. And then he adds to that every fellow worker and laborer, which usually refers to those who are at work in the gospel ministry, those who are working and laboring with us, Paul says.

So he urges the Corinthians to look at the mature, servant-hearted saints and ministers among them and submit themselves to their leadership and their direction and their guidance. And then he goes into verse 17, he names some more folks. I rejoice at the coming, or I am glad about the coming of Stephanus and Fortunatus and Achaicus. He's happy about these men who had come to visit him more than likely as messengers of the church to see to his needs. He says, For what was lacking on your part they supplied, for they refreshed my spirit and yours.

In other words, while he couldn't be with the whole congregation, these men as representatives of the congregation came and represented the church to him. And that was a great blessing to him and an encouragement to him. Now why does he mention these men? Because he's going to give a similar charge in verse 18, Therefore acknowledge such men. That is, take note of them, mark them as worthy of honor, regard them, esteem them.

Matthew Henry describing this type of person, he says that they, quote, cannot easily be overvalued. In other words, he would say, you probably can't esteem these men too highly. It would be hard to esteem them too much. And he goes on to say, it is a venerable character which those bear who serve the saints and labor hard to help the success of the gospel, whose countenance and encourage the faithful ministers of Christ and endeavor to promote their usefulness. Such should be had in honorable esteem." Again, it's not just the ministers.

It's those also who countenance and encourage and promote ministers and the ministry. It's men like this who would say, we've already heard about the household of Stephanus, who he would stand up and say, if you need somebody to go, I'll go. We've got two men, we need a third. How about you, Stephanus? Well, I've got my wife here, I've got my kids here, more than likely.

I've got a whole household, but I'll go. I'll represent the church in that way. I'll minister to Paul in that way. These types of people who stand ready to be commissioned and represent the church on official errands, all such people, he says, give recognition to them. Acknowledge such men.

So that's the exposition. All is not lost in Corinth. It's not over. Paul doesn't say write Iqbal across the door and lock it up and put chains on it. He says, you've got a faithful few.

Keep your eyes on them. Watch them. Locate the mature, servant-hearted saints and follow them. Imitate them. So, the church, it's not just a gathering, it's not just a meeting, it's not just an event, it's not just a worship service.

I think some of you have notes there if you're taking them. Here's kind of the big picture that I think we see here is Christ's blood-bought church is a heavenly ecosystem on earth, perfectly designed for the salvation, sanctification, and multiplication of God's people. I can say it faster if you need me to. I'll say it again. Christ's blood-bought church is a heavenly ecosystem on earth, perfectly designed for the salvation, sanctification, and multiplication of God's people.

It's a place where all of us receive A large portion of what we need for life and godliness in the world for growth and maturity, it's where the lost are converted through gospel preaching. It's where young and old receive their necessary food, where the immature can receive gracious reproofs because if they go out into the world they're not going to receive grace at all. It's where mature saints can be encouraged because very often after you've been walking the Lord for 40 or 50 or 60 years your knees begin to get weak and you begin to be tired and your shoulders begin to droop And so the young in the church can come and encourage them and tell them, hey, don't stop now. Don't drop your shoulders, stand up straight and keep going. People are watching.

It's where new converts can watch and learn from older saints. It's where older saints planted in the house of God can continue to bear fruit even in old age. The church is where older men can lovingly urge younger men to be self-controlled. Where older women can teach what is good and train the young women to love their husbands and children because they're definitely not getting it outside the church. It's where those who are weak in faith can be welcomed, but not to quarrel over opinions, Romans 14.

It's where those who are strong in the church have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak. Where the mature set the believers an example in speech and in conduct and love and faith and purity. The churches where a young man may not rebuke an older man but he may encourage him as he would a father. Younger men as brothers where older women can be encouraged as mothers and younger women as sisters. The church is like a spiritual habitat where we are all given the things that we need to grow up into Him who is the head into Christ.

We can observe those who are further along in grace and submit to them, and by that I mean follow their lead, esteem them highly, and imitate them. And Paul even tells us what kind of people to look for. Those who are first in conversion and first in service, those who have been saved the longest and who serve the most. And very often, as it ought to be the case, those are going to go hand-in-hand. We often have a wrong view of what Christian maturity looks like.

It's not in book deals, it's not in conferences, it's not in podcasts, it's not in frequent flyer miles, it very often is quiet, unseen, selfless service to the body of Christ. That's Christian maturity. So look for those people and then he tells us the most efficient way to benefit from them, the most efficient way to take advantage of them, submit to them, acknowledge them, take note of them. Our egalitarian age would like to say that we ought not to recognize anybody over anyone else. No one is greater or lesser.

There is no superior or inferior. No one is further along than anybody else. We're all the same. But that's just not how the Bible talks about the world that we live in. God's Word says there are actually some who are more mature, they're more advanced, and they're worthy of esteem and honor.

There are men and women in your church that God has gifted who are just because of that more useful in a broad sense than others. And It is these that we should submit ourselves to by recognizing their gifts and their usefulness and imitating them, following them. And that's what I mean by take advantage of your brothers and sisters. They're a great gift to you. Don't ignore it.

Don't look away. Don't pretend like, well, we don't want to go that far. We might exalt them too high. We don't want to create a celebrity culture in the church. So let's not recognize or know anybody.

He's not saying that. He's saying the opposite. Calvin commenting here says, if we wish to secure the welfare of the church, let us always take care that honor be conferred upon the good. If you want the church to be healthy and strong and to continue on, then recognize the stuff that's good. Don't penalize the good.

Recognize it. Acknowledge it. Subsidize the good. Penalize that which is bad. Don't call what's bad good because then we celebrate what's wrong.

Honor the good. Recognize it. Note it. Imitate it. Call attention to it.

Of Epaphroditus who nearly died in service to the church. Paul says honor such men. Philippians 2.29. Honor men like this who give and give and give very often even to their own detriment at times for the church. That's another problem we have is we've seen men in history who have maybe they've gone too far, they've at the cost of family or the cost of marriage, cost of children, they've gone too far and we've swung almost all the way to another extreme where we say, if it costs you anything, don't do it.

Is it going to be maybe kind of hard? Well then you better not do it because we don't want to sacrifice. No, sometimes the need of the day requires that you sacrifice something. It's going to cost you, in other words, and in a path for diet is even his own health. But Paul says, honor such men.

Value them highly. Treat them as precious. Let them be distinguished as special in Christ's church. Later on, Philippians 3.17, keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. Keep your eyes on them.

Why does he say that? Oh, well it's because They didn't have TVs back then. They watched people for entertainment. Well, no, he's saying watch them so that you can imitate them. You can follow their pattern.

Philippians 4.9, what you've learned and received and heard and seen in me. Practice these things. He doesn't just say, well, read the Gospels. No, he says, you've seen it in me. It's all together to the Thessalonians.

1 Thessalonians 5, 12, and 13, we ask you brothers to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Think high thoughts of them in love. Don't entertain low thoughts. Don't entertain evil thoughts. Don't entertain suspicious thoughts.

You cannot love someone you're suspicious of. Think highly of them. Esteem them highly. Why? Because they're brilliant?

Because everything that they do is perfect? Because they're just so doggone lovable and cuddly all the time? No! Esteem them highly in love for their works sake, because what they're doing is essential for your souls and for the souls of your family and your children and potentially your children's children value them because of what they're doing. So we see the Apostle Paul had no issue, he does it all the time, he had no issue exhorting the saints in these churches to look around, identify those among you who are conducting themselves with godly, mature piety and service, and imitate them.

Follow them. And that's exactly what he's commanding here. The main idea there on your notes is just that there are men and women in your church that God has gifted. It is these who we should submit ourselves to, recognizing their gifts and usefulness and imitating their example. And again, we don't think of giftedness merely in terms of the way the world might value certain official gifts.

It's not just the ministers, although it is them primarily and preeminently, but it's not just them. It's such as them all people who would do this. And I think this is one of the most underused, underappreciated gifts that Christ has given to us in the church. It's just the people. Just look down.

How simple is that, right? Look down the row. At our church we have pews. Look down the pew, turn around and look at the faces, and note who's been a believer the longest, who's actively serving, who's clearly given to the service of the church. Okay, just do what they do.

Follow them. But it goes unused. It goes underappreciated. I'll give you two reasons why I think that it's underused or underappreciated. The first one is that most of us who are younger were just too prideful to admit that we could learn from somebody who's really just a lot like us, just older and they've been at it longer.

That proverb, a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and amongst his own people. That proves true in every little church. Well, I don't know if anybody in my church could be an example, but boy, I got a list of people on Instagram that I learn from all the time, or YouTube. I learn from them all the time. And I'm not saying we shouldn't do that, but it's almost a pride thing.

I'll learn from this one but not that one. Why? Well because he just lives two minutes down the road. What could he teach me? When we ought to say, you know what, he just lives two minutes down the road.

He's a lot more like you than you realize. He could probably teach you a lot more than these other people that live a thousand miles away who you'll never meet. He's in your world. He's living. He's walking in your shoes.

That's the one you're going to learn from. So very often it comes from pride in those of us who are younger, but I think very often a second reason it goes underappreciated is because there are older saints who just don't take the initiative and don't invite this type of imitation. And I think this is another one of those extremes when you have the more mature and maybe extremely humble servants of the church, they're the ones who are so quick to say, oh no no no no no I can't do that. No no no no no I don't have anything to pass along. Don't look at me, I'm just serving.

Well you shouldn't do that. Just let people follow. Maybe they feel like they have nothing to offer. A lot of times those who've walked with the Lord the longest, they might begin to get this attitude that they've paid their dues and that it's their time to relax. The irony is that we've walked with the Lord for 40 or 50 years and in the grand scheme we've finally gotten to the place of optimum usefulness and then we say well I'm just going to take a break I paid my dues.

No, no now's the time you kick it in gear. Now's the time you're most useful. Now's the time when the young ones can really learn from you and most of us we're moving into our 40s and we're thinking I have no idea what to do. I don't know what I'm doing. Can somebody who's 50 tell me what to do?

So to make this ecosystem work properly, there has to be activity from both directions. There have to be those older, mature saints who are ready and willing to help the younger ones and just acknowledge they're watching, they're learning, but there also has to be the younger saints who will humble themselves and just be ready and willing to be taught and to recognize that I don't have to pull up a screen to be discipled. I've got living human beings in my church. Now I'll add this, I wasn't sure if I should add it, but he already mentioned biographies, so I want to add this. The church has been on the earth for close to 2, 000 years now at this point.

So we have almost 20 centuries of saints that we can learn from in the form of Christian history and Christian biographies and autobiographies. We can learn from their godliness and their counsel. And I would press that. I'm one of those people that would almost argue we have a biblical obligation to read biographies and study church history. When Paul says be subject to such as these, recognize such, acknowledge such, he's saying everybody like this.

Not just the household of Stephanus. None of us would read this and say, well, I don't know Stephanus, so I guess this doesn't apply to me. We would say, well, no, Stephanus represents a type of person, a such. Well, we still have suches, such as in here, but we also have 20 centuries of suches, books and history that we can learn from them. History is full of fellow workers and laborers in the gospel ministry, and we should humble ourselves in order to learn from them and imitate whatever in them is worthy of imitation.

Develop that discernment where you're able to pick up a biography and know don't imitate the stuff that's not biblical. Hopefully we're all there. If it's a sin, if they committed a sin, which by the way they all did, if they committed a sin, don't imitate that part. They're not going to put that in the footnotes, but I'll just go ahead and tell you. Don't imitate that part.

If they did bad stuff, don't imitate that stuff. If they believe something that you believe is unbiblical, don't believe that stuff. But all of the stuff that's good and godly and biblical, Imitate it. It's yours. Use it.

Worthy of imitation. Does this foolishly set us up to idolize men or create a celebrity culture within Christianity? I would say certainly not. If we do that, that's our fault. That's our own sin.

We can't derive that from here, because all that the Apostle is saying at this point is make use of the gifts God has provided. To use God's gifts in the way that God intended for God's glory is not idolatry. That's just wisdom. That's common sense. Do some people take it too far?

Sure they do. Again, there's the footnote. Don't do that. Do the good stuff. Don't do the bad stuff.

If somebody goes off to an extreme, well, don't do that. But that doesn't mean you have to, just because you're honoring and recognizing those in your congregation or elsewhere. Calvin puts this in perspective again. He says, and this is what we're actually doing, God manifests Himself to us when He shows us the gifts of His Spirit. Hence, if we would not appear to be despisers of God, let us voluntarily submit ourselves to those on whom God has conferred superior gifts." So there are some who would say, well I don't want to follow a man.

I'm not a man follower. I just follow the Lord. I just follow God. Calvin would say, well actually you're despising God if you take that view because God has put His Spirit in men and He's given gifts to men, and He wants us to watch them and imitate them and learn from them. If we would be good stewards of God's gifts, then we need to use the gifts that He's given.

We need to take advantage of God's people. It's God's goodness to condescend to the use of mortal men as conduits of His grace, and let us see it. If he wanted to, he could call every one of us to the foot of Mount Sinai on the first day of every week and cause us to shake and shiver in our shoes and run away in fear and say, now be holy. And he would have every right, but he hasn't done that. He's not changed.

So we do come before Him with reverence and fear. But He's condescended not only to give us His Son, but to give us other people that we can learn from. We can look at them and talk to them, and when they talk back, we don't say, don't let her talk to me again or I'm gonna die, because that's how they responded when God spoke. But we can see them face-to-face and learn from them. It's a merciful condescension and all these gifts are bestowed upon men by the risen Christ through the indwelling Spirit.

Here's what we have to understand. When the triune God would manifest His power to us and by that power transform us, One of the most common ways that he does that is through common interactions with common people in everyday life and in everyday church life. Do we have special times along with with God and in prayer and in scripture reading and meditation? I hope that we do, but if you're like me, if you're counting on that to run on for a week or even for a day, you're running on fumes a lot of times because that's very special. That doesn't come very often.

It comes through the normal use of regular people, and if we ignore this, again, we prove ourselves to be despisers of God. Very often, it's because we overestimate our own gifts and abilities that we won't look at and learn from others, Which ironically, it's not the one who learns from others, who is the idolater. It's usually the one who refuses to because they see themselves as the standard. They say, I can't learn from anybody else. I've already arrived.

Spurgeon has that famous quote that concludes by saying, whoever will not use the brains of other men shows that he himself has no brains. If we won't learn from other people, what are we doing? We're not thinking straight. That's what he's saying. If you won't look at other people and learn from them, you're not thinking straight.

Something's wrong. The Apostle Paul would unashamedly say, be imitators of me as I am of Christ. Is that celebrity Christianity? No, That's imitation of Christ as Christ manifests His grace and gifts in people. God would have us take advantage of His people in this way.

Well, let me give you three points of application and we'll be finished. The first is don't miss out on the blessing of personal interaction. Don't miss out on the blessing of personal interaction. Our church also has a fellowship meal every Lord's Day, and we have an evening service, so guess what we get after the evening service? Leftovers.

So we actually have two meals. And I try to remind our people very often that this is, it's not just a convenience. It's not just that we're a hangout church and others are not hangout churches. No, it's theological. It's biblical.

The Bible, I think pretty clearly and history, sets a precedent that when the saints got together on the first day of every week they shared a meal together. It's theological. There's an intention and a purpose behind it. And I tell our folks it's a part of our Sabbath liturgy. It's what we do.

Don't run off, make use of it. Don't miss out on that blessing. There's a reason for it, but to make use of it, we have to be intentional with it. Be intentional with the things you talk about. I think we would argue, confessionally, Isaiah 58 does this as well, that on the Lord's Day our conversation should not just be shooting the breeze about whatever comes into our minds, but we ought to aim for fruitful, edifying, soul-enriching and helpful conversations.

Well the fellowship meals and things like that are a perfect time for that. Go hunt down people, ask them questions and just let them talk. That could be if you're doing a 1A application. A lot of people just need to hear this, let them talk. Just stop talking and let them talk and just listen.

Chatting about the weather or a busy work week is usually not what we need on the Lord's Day. Don't miss out on that blessing of personal interaction. Number two, think of ways to take advantage of other saints. Just think of ways. Don't put all of this...you young ones, I consider myself still fairly young.

I'm not 40 yet. So don't put all of this on the older ones. Say, well if they would step up and do their job they would lead me but nobody will lead me so I'll just sit and pout in the corner. No, we can't do that. You need to be thinking, what are some areas where I need to grow?

Where do I need instruction? Where do I need help? It could be theological. It could be very practical. You might have a four-year-old and you never had a four-year-old before.

And you're thinking on Thursday, what do you do with a four-year-old in this scenario? Well, write that down and think about in your mind, is there somebody in my church who has a seven-year-old? Now, I don't have any college degrees, but I guarantee that every seven-year-old at one time was four. So if a parent has raised a six-year-old and a five-year-old to seven, they raised a four-year-old. So go ask them.

But keep a list of things like that. Think about somebody in your church that could be helpful. Maybe it's somebody, it's not somebody that's ever up here. They're never up here. Maybe pick those out specifically.

I'm gonna go ask somebody that maybe nobody has ever asked and see what they say and let them talk. If you can't think of anyone, ask your pastor. We pastors, we love to hand you off to other people. You don't have anybody in mind, come ask me. Or come ask Jason.

And he'll tell you somebody. I do this with our folks all the time. They'll ask me something. They'll call me something. I'll say, you need to talk to so and so.

Call so and so. He's been there. He's done this. He's lived through that. Talk to him.

We're not Bible answer men. We're not life answer men. We don't have every answer. And also, we want to foster that, and I know your pastor does the same, wants to foster that in the congregation. Think of ways to take advantage of other saints.

It has to be an intentional act of the mind. And then thirdly, we all should aim to live so as to be useful to the saints. We ought to seek to grow in wisdom and knowledge and discernment. We ought to study and pray for wisdom. One of the things you find out if you read older writers is, man, those men, they just paid attention to society.

They paid attention to how the hearts and minds of men worked. They paid attention to their own hearts. They watched how sin and temptation, that whole interplay in their souls and the souls of others, blessing and gifts. They just watched and they thought about how God works in the world in people, and then when they would begin to write and give wisdom, it just flowed from them. And you think, was this guy reading my mind?

How did he know it's because he paid attention? We all have to develop that skill of paying attention to how the world works, how our hearts work, how our affections work, how temptations work, how sin works, and build in yourself a set of commentaries that in your mind it is the works of so-and-so, and it's got your name on it. And it's just wisdom and advice and things that you've drawn from the scriptures that you've learned as you've paid attention to how your soul works so that you can then help other people, but that takes effort as well. It doesn't just download into our minds. Build a catalog of useful godly wisdom that you can share.

Learn how to open to the text of Scripture and say, you ever thought about how this might apply to your life? A passage of Scripture like this is always fun to me because if I just said open your Bible to 1st Corinthians 16, 15 through 18. Now read it out loud. Now tell me what do you learn there? It might take a second.

This is not one of those passages that you're like, oh yeah, that text. Spurgeon probably don't have a morning and evening on this text. It's not one of those gospel-rich, forefront-of-your-mind texts that we say, there's where I need to go. But you can glean things from these passages of Scripture to give to other people, but you need to live so that you can be useful. Aim at that.

Another one is, at the end of that same heading, living to be useful is live a life that other people can see and imitate. Live a life that other people can see. That is, live before other people. Be hospitable. Invite others over.

Let them see you live. I'm an Appalachian. We don't like people coming down the driveway right. We you know a car drives by and we all turn and look. That's just a tendency that we have historically, you know, it's just like be careful for those people.

They would rather just be left alone, leave them in the holler, they like it dark, don't bother them, let them be. Well, as Christians we can't be like that. We have to open up the gate from time to time and say, why don't you all come over to our house and watch us live. That's useful. That's helpful.

That's very simple. But you have to live so that other people can see you and they can learn how to imitate you. Aim to live a life that will lead other people to say, perhaps even as they stand over your grave one of these days, they'll be able to say, you know, I learned a lot from her. I learned a lot from him. I watched them.

I asked him questions, and he helped me. I was sanctified. I was made more like Christ because of that person and their life. Why would we want to do that? Well, I think that's the kind of life that God has purchased for us with the blood of His Son.

He didn't buy for us a salvation and a life that just hides off in the darkness and leaves everyone else to their own devices to just figure out how to do it. No, He bought us. He shed His blood for us on the cross. He brought us near to God, but also to other people and He's knit us together so that, again Ephesians 4, when each part is working properly it builds the whole body up. We are grown up or matured into Christ the Head.

So if you need more motivation for this, let it be that. Christ, the suffering servant, buying your soul with His blood, but also buying the soul of your brother or sister. He wants to see them sanctified just as you, and He wants to use you for them and them for you. So aim to live a life that is useful. Let's pray together.

Our Father, we ask that you would take the things that we have read, the things that have been said, and that you would make a real, useful, effectual application of them. I pray for this congregation that your power and your spirit would be evident among them. I pray for their pastor that you would give him the strength that he needs to labor amongst this people. We pray that you would help those especially who have devoted themselves already to the service of the Saints, that you would help them to see the majesty that comes with being a servant in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. If David himself would rather be a doorkeeper than in the house of God as he knew it, how much more should we long to be even doorkeepers in this New Testament house?

Build us up in the most holy faith, we pray in Jesus name, Amen.