One Anothers #7: "Edify One Another” Series

Here Paul is talking about the confusion and chaos that resulted with the misuse of the sign gifts, but there are other applications for us as well.

Some people believe that organization quenches the Holy Spirit. I agree that you can organize the Holy Spirit right out of your services, but in these verses, we see that organization and order and preparation are important.

Illus. – I’ve been in some country churches where people are called out of the congregation on the spot to sing specials. Singers get up and say, “Well, bless God, we ain’t practiced none, but ya’ll pray for us anyhows, okay?” Then they sing with no preparation—AND THEY SOUND LIKE IT TOO! The Bible says “Let all things be done for edification.”

Illus. – I think worship leaders should be sensitive to when the Lord wants to change things up in worship, but I appreciate the hard work that our worship teams put into putting together coherent song sets, and how they practice diligently and how they come to church prepared to do things decently and in order so that we are all edified and built up in the faith.

Illus. – I appreciate the preparation our KIDS church teachers do for their classes. They could just get up and spout off whatever comes into their heads, and say they were just letting God speak through them. This may sound spiritual, but how much MORE spiritual it is to wrestle with the lesson during the week and to study it all out and to try to organize the material in a fashion where his students can get the most out of the lesson and be blessed and edified. How much better to do things decently and in order for edification.

Illus. – I remember a preacher who used to just get up and “let her rip” on whatever came to his mind any time he got up to preach. He spiritualized his method, saying that he never prepared his sermons, but just followed the leadership of the Holy Spirit. It sounded spiritual, but to blame the lousy preaching I heard every time I heard him preach on the Holy Spirit was an insult to God’s people!

Let me ask you a question: Don’t you think the Lord could just as well give a preacher or a teacher what to say during the week? Don’t you think that with preparation and study, he might be able to present a more cogent, more forceful presentation of God’s Word in times of prayer and meditation and study than off the cuff? Isn’t God’s Word too important to handle carelessly and casually and lazily?

Did you know that an average sermon, if it’s the first time I’ve preached it, takes me a minimum of 12-16 hours to pray over, and then prepare, and then pray over it some more, and then wrestle with it and massage it until I can say only what the Lord wants me to say and not add a bunch of fluff and junk? And a sermon I’ve preached before still takes 4-6 hours to update it, adapt it to a different group with different needs in a different time, or do a study sheet or a PowerPoint if I’ve not prepared one before for that sermon, and the prayer involved in the whole process. I think that’s doing things decently and in order to edify and build up God’s people.