1 Corinthians Chapter 14:4-5

Can we all be, you know, encouraged at the same time?

No, not usually. So what do we do? Well then, now we're part of a body where maybe when you're going through a tough week, somebody else is having a great week, and they can encourage you and pray for you. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the Senior Pastor of the Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. We're all responsible for strengthening the church, encouraging one another and comforting one another. Pastor David McGee discusses the importance of being involved in a local fellowship today as he continues in 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Before we join Pastor David, we want to let you know about an outreach opportunity that could bring hope to countless prisoners. This month, Cross the Bridge is teaming with men and women like yourself in order to provide Pastor David's devotional book, Cross the Bridge Every Day, to inmates. When you call today and help support the ministry with a gift of $25 or more, we'll send you a book and also provide one to a prisoner in need. To take part in this important outreach, call 877-458-5508. That's 877-458-5508.

Or go online to crossthebridge.com. Now here's David McGee with his teaching, Bodybuilding. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 14, and let's jump in there. Verse 4 says, he who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. So it's kind of interesting because right off here, verse 4, he's talking about this balance of being personally edified or built up or encouraged, and we should be, and also building up the church, which we should be. There's a balance between those two things. You know, we're talking about exercise, and exercise is good, but you know, if you over exercise, it will kill you.

Eating is good, but if you overeat, it could kill you. The question is a question of balance, if you will, of balance between personally being edified and edifying the church. And notice as we go through here, Paul never says don't use the gifts.

He says use them in a balanced, balanced way. And on the New Living Translation, this verse says a person who speaks in tongues is strengthened personally, but one who speaks a word of prophecy strengthens the entire church. So the Bible says that if somebody speaks in tongue, if you have that gift, this unknown prayer language or heavenly language or whatever title you want to give it, that it personally edifies you spiritually, but that it really doesn't do anything for the body.

Now Paul doesn't say that's absolutely wrong. You don't need personal edification because you do, but he says there's a balance between personal edification and strengthening the body. Again, we need each personally to be edified, to be built up. And you know, at first, when we first become a Christian, we're really dependent upon other people a lot. We're dependent upon other people to hear the gospel.

I mean, it's probably, there's a rare testimony that somebody just opened the Bible, read it, and got saved, but most of us, there was somebody there that told us the good news, that shared it with us, and God used them. And then if that person stuck around, then we would ask them questions, hey, what does this mean, and what does this verse mean, and what does that verse mean? But over time, what happens is we begin to read the Bible, we begin to understand the Bible, and we're not as dependent on other people. Now, when you get towards that, let's understand there's a responsibility, and we need to be careful. You know, as a church, God keeps speaking these four words, grow up and build up, grow up and build up.

And here's what I mean by that. You know, if you've been here for months or years, part of what you need to be doing is looking, not just going, well, who's, I need somebody to disciple me, I need somebody taking care of me, it's all about me. You need to be saying, you know, where's somebody else I can disciple? Who's around that I can disciple? See, because you get to a certain level spiritually, and gang, you'll stop growing if you don't start pouring out to other people. Amen.

And we need to be careful, because yes, I want you to be careful with you being built up and out of five. That's why I want you in the Bible every day. That's why we send out these email devotionals. We call them e-votionals.

We'll mail them to you. Why? Because I understand you need personal education every day, but also as you grow, look to build up the body, and look to build up others. And this is what Paul's saying here.

He's saying, look, there's a balance here of being built up personally and building up others. Why? Because the body, and this is an amazing thing, the body of Christ, indestructible, needs building up.

Well, why is that? What is the body of Christ? It's you and me, and we're people. And even the strongest spiritual person sometimes needs encouragement and needs building up. Amen. I mean, sometimes you're just, you're beat up, and it's amazing. When you're beat up and feeling down, you need to be here. Now, that's not your first inclination. When you get beat up or anxious or depressed, your first move is to pull back from church. Don't do it. That's a strategy of the enemy.

Why? Because he knows if you come here, you're gonna be encouraged. You're gonna walk through the door, and somebody's gonna say, man, it's so good to see you. And that right there can lift your countenance, having somebody encourage you. And we all need encouragement. I need encouragement. Of course, we need to seek our encouragement first and foremost in God, because there will be times when nobody else is around. And when you need that encouragement, you go to the throne.

You don't go to the phone. Amen. So we're the church. The body is made up of people. People need encouragement, so the body needs encouragement. So whose responsibility is it to build up the body and encourage the body? Well, it should be just the senior pastor. He's a professional Christian. We all pay him to be spiritual. That's who's supposed to encourage all of us. No, the body itself is supposed to encourage the body.

Now, this is so cool. You know why? Because have you ever been really bummed out or down or freaked out or whatever? And then you take the time and make the effort to encourage somebody else.

And interestingly, what happens? You get encouraged. So as you encourage other people, you are encouraged and built up and lifted up. So some of you that are walking around discouraged, let me encourage you to encourage others and watch what happens.

Because you can't get into this little self-pity vicious cycle. Nobody encourages me. Nobody encourages me.

Nobody encourages me. But you don't encourage anybody else, and you continue that cycle. And let's and let's understand that we're all responsible for this building up of the body.

As a matter of fact, that's the first life lesson. We are all responsible for strengthening the church, encouraging one another, and comforting one another. We are all responsible for strengthening the church, encouraging one another, and comforting one another. When I say that, don't feel like you're burdened and, oh my goodness, now I got something else to do.

No, no, friend, this is so easy. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons I share, you know, I just shared about people getting saved and people viewing the live stream. I shared about these folks, lost loved ones getting saved. Why did I do that? To encourage you.

See, somebody else simply getting saved, asking God to forgive them of their sins encourages you and I. There's this cycle of encouragement, of us strengthening each other, of us comforting one another. And of course, let's understand, there's the flip side of discouraging one another, of making each other anxious, of not comforting one another. Have you ever thought about how easy it is to freak somebody else out? You know, I told my kids earlier, because, you know, kids are kids. They love freaking each other out. You know, I mean, I was watching my kids one day and Ashley was in this building phase where she was building blocks and Johnny was in this destructive phase, you know, and so she's building stuff, he's hammering that all down.

And I went to Johnny, I said, Johnny, look, man, you know, freaking your sister out, that's not really a gift. I know it might be fun from time to time, but what you really need to work and cultivate is a gift of settling her when she gets anxious, of encouraging her when she's discouraged. That's a gift that God wants to use throughout your life with everybody you come in contact with.

Amen. So this is a gift we all need to cultivate to encourage each other and to be passionate about what we do. Because, gang, if you're not passionate about telling somebody about the gospel, telling somebody about the good news, they're not going to be interested. If you're not passionate about inviting them to church, they're not going to be interested. You know, if your invitation to church goes something like this, listen, I go to this church and it's too big, the music's too loud, he talks too long, but I don't know, you want to go? No, no, I think I'm good. No, seriously, you can come and get, you know, the joy of the Lord or whatever. It looks like you cornered the market on the joy, dude, I don't know if I could stand that much joy. Or if your invitation is like, man, you ought to come to this place, it's awesome, God is doing such an incredible work, people are getting saved and being a disciple and we're learning the Bible, you want to come?

Well, okay. You see, you get caught up in that, amen? And actually the word, do you realize, when we talk about passion, we talk about enthusiasm, do you realize the word enthusiasm, where it comes from? Enthusiasm is from the Greek entau theos. It literally means being filled with God.

Theos means God, entheos, enthused is being filled with God. So we should be filled with God, we should be enthusiastic, we should be encouraged. Now, can we all be encouraged at the same time?

No, not usually. So what do we do? Well, then now we're part of a body, where maybe when you're going through a tough week, somebody else is having a great week and they can encourage you and pray for you. And this verse does remind us that we need to be concerned about both being personally edified and edifying the body. Number one, being personally edified or built up is another thing that we say, or building up the church. Because God's plan ultimately is that you do both, is that you're personally built up and then you also build up the body. Because part of this discipleship of following the Lord is not being completely consumed with self, but being concerned about others.

Not being consumed with self, but concerned about others. You know, I've had to learn that as a pastor. You know, there is a balance. If every time I read, and I'm in danger of doing, you know, when I read the Bible and I find something cool, I go, oh, got to go tell them this. And occasionally God will say to me, that's not for them, that's for you. Oh, okay. See, because there is the balance in ministry, sometimes you can focus too much on edifying the body and it ends up to be a train wreck in your personal life.

I mean, not my life, I've heard stories of other people's life that have this issue. So you want to be sure that both are going on, that you're being personally edifying courage and you're edifying and encouraging the body. You're listening to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. We'll be back to the teaching in just a moment. This month, we're focusing on prison ministry, and I have the chance to sit down with Pastor David. Pastor, what is Cross the Bridge prison ministry all about?

Cross the Bridge prison ministry is consistent with Cross the Bridge itself. We believe that we need to share an effective presentation of the gospel, to invite people to have a relationship with the Lord, and then for those who do have a relationship with the Lord, that we would teach them the Word of God, to equip them to walk in that life, that abundant life that Jesus talks about. Pastor, we know that sharing the Word of God is always important to you. And why is it so important to get God's Word into the prisons as well? Our prison system is built around trying to change the lives of people who've made bad decisions. And yet you can't change a life without changing the heart. And that's where God's Word and God's Spirit are so powerful. They can change a life.

They can change your heart. We can share the Word of God with somebody. You can help send us into the prisons to share the plan of salvation, see that prisoner get saved, and then begin to disciple him and teach him the Word of God so that when he gets out, he is different than when he came in.

Thank you for sharing, Pastor. If you're listening and agree with David about our need to help those in prison, we would love to hear from you. You can call 877-458-5508. That's 877-458-5508. And when you give $25 or more, we'll send you a copy of Cross the Bridge every day. Not only that, but we'll match your gift by sending another copy of David's devotional to an inmate in need. Also, your gift of $200 or more will provide a case of 10 books that will be used to help change lives for eternity. Again, that number is 877-458-5508.

Or go online to crossthebridge.com. Now, let's return to Pastor David's teaching. Now, verse 5. You know, sir, for some of you that really struggle with this unknown tongue stuff, you're really going to have a hard time with this verse. Paul, verse 5, I wish you all spoke with tongues.

Oh, man. That's kind of vague, isn't it? Now, does Paul mean he wishes that we all spoke more foreign languages?

No. You really, you can't. Don't twist the Scriptures to make them mean what you want them to mean. Just read them and understand what they're talking about. But let's understand, in the Corinthian church, what were they doing? They were focused on self. They were focused too much on this gift of tongues.

And that can happen. It happens in some churches today. They're way too focused on the gift of tongues.

The service, you know, is this big parade of people standing up and speaking in tongues and interrupting a pastor and doing all this and do. I don't believe that's scriptural. As a matter of fact, in this chapter, Paul's trying to give us the balance of what's supposed to be going on. And let's read on in verse 5. 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 he interprets, unless indeed he interprets that the church may receive edification. Now we encourage the small groups, if somebody feels like they got a verse to share or word from God or maybe even this gift of tongues, and then somebody else has the interpretation, that's valid.

But outside of that, this unknown tongue is used for personal prayer language and really is not appropriate for public display, if you will. And in verse 5, it says, prophecy is greater. Now again, what is prophecy? Prophecy is speaking to people on behalf of God, okay, interceding is speaking to God on behalf of people. So when I'm up here teaching, in essence, I am prophesying, okay.

I'm not necessarily telling you the future, but I'm speaking on behalf of God to people. And this verse says, that is greater than this display of an unknown language or a tongue, okay. That's why we don't allow interruptions during the service because God's Spirit is using me, speaking through me to you. So if somebody stood up in the middle of service and tried to give an unknown language or a tongue, we would, one of the leaders would say, hey, listen, that's not appropriate.

Why? God doesn't interrupt himself. If he's speaking through me, he's speaking through me. And later on, Paul in this chapter says, look, if somebody comes in and you got all this stuff going on, unbelievers are going to think you're crazy. I've been to those churches where I would invite an unbeliever, pandemonium would, would, you know, break out.

And I didn't even want to look at the guy, you know, because I knew I'd look over and he'd be, can we leave now? So Paul 2,000 years said, look, it was happening. The Corinthian church is still happening today, but let's understand too. What was it? What was at the heart of the Corinthian church?

What was the real issue? You know, if you think about it, it's interesting. They were being spiritually selfish. Is that possible? Yeah, it is. Because while I just encourage you to be built up personally, encouraged and spend time with the Lord every day, you can get to a place where you're spiritually selfish.

Well, what does that look like? Well, if you weigh every event and every day by how it affects you spiritually, then you may have crossed the line into being spiritually selfish. Let's understand that if I want to be personally edified or, you know, I could spend days on end in prayer and days on end just reading the Bible and never coming up here and teaching it. And I would be really built up. What would be missing?

I wouldn't be building the body up. And so when you start to look at every function of the church of how it affects me, you've probably, if you've hadn't crossed the line, you're flirting with that spiritually selfish line. We've been teaching the word. Some people have been here for years.

They're learning the word and it's so important to begin to grow up and begin caring for others and not be totally consumed with being personally spiritually edified. Because see, here's what'll happen. If you do that, and I've used this analogy before, but, you know, it's like a birdbath. A birdbath received water in but never pours it back out. What does a birdbath end up looking like? Green, slimy, stinky, nasty? I don't want you spiritually to look like that birdbath.

I want you to look like a stream that's poured into and then it pours out. And what happens is if you become too spiritually selfish, it'll boomerang on you and you'll wind up dry as a bone spiritually. Now what happens at that point? Do people repent and say, oh my goodness, I've become consumed with self? No, to be honest, a lot of times they start looking around and blaming other people. What's because of this? What's because of that? That's because he's not doing this or she's not doing that or he said this or she said that.

When they really needed to come to a point to realize, you know what, it's not about me anymore. And again, I was talking about building others up because when you build up the church and you're part of the church, guess what happens? You're built up.

So it's not like I'm saying everybody needs to sacrificially always be building up the church because if you're part of the church and you're building up the church, guess what happens? Again, God has arranged it in such a way that you're built up as you encourage and you encourage others. Again, I'm using encourage and what does that mean? Well, in means to fill with courage. When I encourage you, I'm filling you with courage. When you encourage me, you're filling me with courage.

Why is that so important? Because a lot of the rest of the world is trying to discourage you in your spiritual faith. They're trying to tear you down from following Jesus. You know what I'm talking about.

Some of your family, some of your friends, some of your coworkers. And maybe that's not this diabolical thing of wanting to strip your faith from you. It's just what happens because they don't believe like you do. So you got all these people gathered around you trying to tear you down and bum you out and then you got the body of Christ which is a place where we should be built up. Another couple words that you'll see in this chapter a lot is edify or exhort.

And you'll hear me just define that simply as to build up, to build up. And we're talking, and again, talking about prophesying and again, we think of prophesying as predicting future events but it's really one that delivers and teaches God's word under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. And when somebody is speaking on behalf of God, you always want to look at what they're saying, compare it back to scripture, that's important. To discern, the Bible talks about discerning whether somebody, if somebody's speaking on behalf of God, what they're saying is valid and that's, you know, I'm always encouraging you guys to dig in the scripture, make sure what I'm saying is solid.

And of course, one of the blessings of going verse by verse is, you know, I'm just, it's impossible to drift very far. And I'm not saying that I'm the only one here that can prophesy. We're all supposed to speak to others on behalf of God.

Anytime that you share the good news, guess what you're doing? You're speaking to somebody else on behalf of God. That doesn't mean that you begin to quiver or shake or have some kind of strange experience. It means we are all supposed to be speaking to other people on behalf of God. And that's, that's prophecy. And again, when it speaks in tongues, I know some people can get really uncomfortable with the subject, don't. When you begin to get anxious about something, that's, that's not God usually.

I mean, God may, you know, if you're going into a dangerous situation, may, you know, trigger that warning light. But the Bible talks about this in many places. In 1 Corinthians 13, verse 8, it went through it. It's talking about how more important love is, more important than tongues and prophecy.

Love 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. Again, as we went through that chapter, we talked about the fact that doesn't mean that prophecies or tongues or knowledge is not for the church today.

It just means love is more important. And then when we're in heaven, those, these other things that are kind of in part will be done away with. Friends, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that He died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask Him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name. Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. Continue to increase within our prisons. Our distribution of Pastor David's book, Cross the Bridge Every Day, has been making a significant impact for Jesus with prisoners. And you can help continue that outreach by calling today. When you call today with a gift of $25 or more, we will send you David McGee's devotional book and then match your gift by sending a copy to a prisoner in need. And if you're able to give a gift of $200 or more, we will send a case of 10 books to inmates who are without hope. Help us reach those in prison. Call today at 877-458-5508.

That's 877-458-5508. Or go online to crossthebridge.com. Also, if you're not able to make it to your home church this Sunday, why not join us for our live stream at 9 and 1130 Eastern. Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our live stream link. There you can watch Pastor David teach from his home church, The Bridge, in Kernersville, North Carolina. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening. We hope you'll join us next time as we continue to cross the bridge.