1 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 12 to 27.

If you have a Bible and want to turn there with me. 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 12 to 27, continuing on here in the book of Corinthians. 1 Corinthians, I don’t know if you like old western movies or not. Every once in a while you’ll catch one on one of those channels. It’s just old movies and it’s like John Wayne style movies. They’re fun to watch. It was like yesterday’s Marvel. Because that was a superhero. But it’s this guy who… This gun-slinging champ and he can ride into town on a horse and all by himself. What can he do? He can take out all the bad guys. He can shoot them all up and he saves the day and he wins the girl. And he’s a lone ranger and he requires only himself to get the job done. That’s like every western movie ever. I think that we like watching them. They’re entertaining. But the truth is, it’s not… It’s not realistic when we think about the way God has made us.

When we think about certainly what it means to be a Christian. What it means to follow Jesus. The last thing that any of us are, are lone rangers. The last thing any of us can do is make it on our own. We need one another. It’s not an optional thing. It’s God’s plan for us. As we pursue Jesus, it is to be interwoven with the body of Christ. And so this sermon is kind of like part two last week about the spiritual gifts and why God gives spiritual gifts. We learned He gives those to us, what? For the common good of the church. So Paul drives down a little deeper to talk about why it is we need one another. And he draws out here for us… The reality that we’re just like a body. We’re going to walk through that. And next week, Paul really has the climax of that reality when he talks about love. When we realize that love is the way. And in Jesus, we love one another. So this week, I want to consider with you, what does it really mean that you and I as Christians are the body of Christ? And we need to be in that body if we’re going to be maintained as Christians and persevere. We’re going to be here as Christians.

Paul says in verse 12, For just as the body is one and has many members, when all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

For in one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body. Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, all were made to drink of one Spirit. So Paul uses this illustration that we can all identify with. Because if you’re here, you have a body. None of us are just floating spirits. I was born, but I didn’t get a body. I came out just a spirit floating around. We all have bodies. And you can learn it in the most basic anatomy class when you’re a kid. Bodies are complex. You know, the right is connected to the however that song goes. It’s like this skeleton that’s all connected together. And you’ve got this nervous system and muscles and organs and eyes and ears. And the body is just complex. You have a great variety of parts to it. Yet you know it. And even as a child, you know that your body, even though it’s got all these parts, it’s just one thing.

My two-year-old daughter knows this because if she bumps her itty-bitty pinky toe, the world falls apart and she comes to you. Why? Because it’s her itty-bitty pinky toe and it hurts. Or if she bumps her head, it hurts. She knows that all of her little parts are part of one.

And we could say, well, of course, Paul, that’s basic. That’s simple. Of course, we all know that the body is made. That’s a step of all this stuff. But what Paul does is he makes, I think, really a startling claim. And here’s his claim. He says that just as you have physical bodies and they’ve got all these parts and you’re one, he says the exact same thing is the case with Jesus and His body.

Not at all referring to Jesus’ physical body, though Jesus had a physical body. He’s talking about this wonder, this mystery of the spiritual body. It’s not the body of Christ. It’s you. It’s me. If we’re Christians, we’re in Jesus. We’re members of Christ’s body. You and I have been saved into Jesus.

He says in verse 13, why? He says, for in one spirit, we were all baptized into one body. So when someone turns from their sin, and we sang about that in so many songs, and they turn to Christ, and they play saving faith in Jesus, the first thing that a believer is to do is to be baptized. You go under the water and you come up.

Because outwardly, as your physical flesh is clean and made new, so in the very same way, inwardly, you are brought up to spiritual life. Spiritual life. But I want to ask you, what’s spiritual life? Spiritual life. Spiritual life. Because there’s not someone among mankind who has any spiritual life in him except Jesus.

Because of the fall of Adam and Eve, you and I are all what? Spiritually dead. So there is no better Chad. Like, God, can you resurrect my dead, spiritually dead self, you know, to a better version of Chad? There is no better version of Chad. There’s only Jesus.

Jesus is the only man. Who had spiritual life. Who never gave in to sin. Who fulfilled God’s perfect law and obedience. Jesus alone on the cross carried the weight of sin and death. And he fulfilled God’s law in giving the law what it demanded, which was blood for sin. So when Jesus died, the law of God got what it wanted. And so when Jesus was resurrected from the grave, he was resurrected new. New, alive, over sin and over death. Death and sin had no claim on him anymore. So you see, if it’s going to be so that you or I somehow could be considered spiritually alive,

somehow you and I must be considered one with, joined to Jesus. And this is the problem, I think, a lot of times with the way we think about what it means to be a Christian. We think, God gave me. He gave me the gift of salvation. Like, I trusted in Jesus to save me and now I’m saved. Well, kind of, yeah. But to say it more explicit, when you got saved, when you received your salvation, what you received, what you were given was God himself.

The Bible says that you were put in Jesus. You’re considered now one with Christ. Paul says in Galatians 2, verse 20, I have been crucified. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but it’s Christ who lives in me. In the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So how could it be then that you and I have spiritual life unless it is so that it is the power and the presence of Jesus alive in me? So when I stand before God Almighty, I don’t want God Almighty to see Chad. Any version. Any version of him. Because any and every version of Chad does not come up to God’s standard. I must be considered one with Jesus. That’s what it means to truly be saved.

Jesus famously has said, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life.

And so Paul really stacks mystery upon mystery. Wonder upon wonder when he says all have been baptized into Jesus. Oh, that means it doesn’t matter if you were a Jew or Gentile. It doesn’t matter your ethnicity. It doesn’t matter your social status. It doesn’t matter your skin color. It doesn’t matter how many sins you’ve committed or what you’ve done wrong. Jesus offers spiritual life to any and everyone to come in and have. Have a seat at his table to be considered one with him. That’s amazing because you and I, as as fallen human beings, we like to size people up. We like to size people up off of merit, size them up off of how much money they got, size people up off of skin color, size them up off of personality, all kinds of things. And yet and yet Paul is saying to you in the body of Christ, there’s this unique, amazing thing that none of you are worthy to be there. None of you are qualified. You’re not worthy to be there. Yet any and all of you, if you would cry out to Jesus for salvation, you could be considered one with the body of Christ. That’s an amazing truth.

No one can say, of course, I’m here. Of course, I deserve to be a Christian. Of course, I deserve to be saved. It’s just not the case. And, you know, we could say, well, maybe God would just let me be a sweep in his house, or maybe God would let me, you know, just hang out at his house, hang out at the gate in heaven. And the amazing thing is he draws all of us in the same as beloved children. That’s God’s love in making us one with his son, Jesus.

So, friends, recall the weightiness, the burden of your sin before you came to Christ. Not to drag you down in shame and guilt.

But if you were to remember just how unworthy you were to receive salvation and you were to be saved, if you got it by God’s grace, it would energize you, one, to live for Jesus.

Two, to see others the way God sees them, which is what it means to be in the body of Christ. It is to see a diverse multiplicity of people with different skin color, background, all that stuff, and see them and love them the way that God sees them and God loves them. Because when I stop seeing that Jesus and Jesus alone has saved me from myself and my sin, I start to do the religion thing. Like, I start to try to please God. I start to try to, you know, I’m going to pray hard for God. I’m going to serve for God. I’m going to do all this stuff. And all it is, it’s me and my flesh trying to make God happy. And I always fail Him. But when I step back and go, no, only Jesus has made God happy. And I only have life in God. And I’m only approved before God because of who Jesus is and what Jesus did. Then I have power and freedom to go and live for God. So, friends, to be reacquainted with your sin, to be reminded of the life of Jesus at work in you.

But also remember your sins so you see people as God sees them, that you cherish them as God sees them. That all of us sit at the Lord’s table because He’s loving and gracious to all of mankind.

All of mankind. You know, you’re, you are, we are stuck with one another. We’re stuck with one another forever.

And I think the great, one of the great challenges and growth areas for a Christian is to love that. Is to look to your right and your left and say, these are the people I’m going to spend eternity with because God has invited us all into His family. And it’s an amazing, it’s an amazing thought. So I say it a lot of times to us because I want it to really be rooted in our hearts. To be a church, is to be a Christ-centered community. We’re a bunch of diverse, mixed up bunch of people from all over the place with different diversities, ethnicities, backgrounds, whatever. But the commonality is this, Jesus has invited us in. Thus, we have a seat at the table. Thus, we are part of the body. And if we can’t get that, we can’t get anything else in the Christian life because the rest of this passage, it’s all about how we should work together well in harmony and function as the body of Christ to do the works of the kingdom. So if we can’t love the different parts of the body the way that we ought, we’re never going to be able to serve together as the body of Christ. This is what Paul goes on to say.

D.L. Moody once said, there are two ways of being united. One is by being frozen together and the other is by being melted together.

And I think, I think there’s such a difference there, isn’t there? Because when we’re melted together, we’re really one. We’re intertwined. We are together in a way that we couldn’t be otherwise.

So, verse 14, he goes on to kind of, no pun intended, flesh this out a little bit more. So one, we’ve been saved into the body. Two, each of us are necessary, necessary members of the body strategically put there by God. Okay? So everyone is a necessary member of the body and wherever you are in the body, God has strategically put you right where you are. Verse 14. For the body does not consist of one member, but of many. If the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body. That would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, because I’m not an eye, I do not belong to the body. That would not make it any less part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? And if the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as He chose.

If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. And I think it’s almost patronizing at this point. Like, Paul, why are you giving us a kindergarten lesson in the makeup of the body? Of course, one giant ear would be silly. That would not make a body. That would just be one giant ear. He says, well, the foot says, well, if I’m not a hand, then I’m not a part of the body. Why does the foot feel this way about the hand? I don’t know. He doesn’t like being in a shoe all day. He doesn’t like to be in the dust all day. He’s down below carrying the weight of the whole body all day. The hand gets to, you know, grab and touch and be used in all kinds of ways that the foot doesn’t. And so the ear could think, well, the eyes, it gets to see. It gets a place right on the face. And I like that. And because I’m not that, I must not really be a valid, member of the body. But he says that’s silly. And it’s not only silly, it would be incredibly dysfunctional and unuseful. Because whatever the hand was to do, it couldn’t get there if the feet wouldn’t take it there. So every part needs the other part to function the way that it’s supposed to function. It’s an interdependence in the physical body. And again, I don’t think Paul’s saying this because he’s like, hey, do y’all know you have ears and you hear with those and you have eyes and you see with those. He’s saying it because I think you and I are so dull that we often look past the spiritual realities that we need to grasp. That being the church, the body of Christ should be that unconsciously interwoven. It should be that unconsciously harmonious. It should be that, that unconsciously functional and effective. But it’s not that way. Because we don’t see it the way we should see it.

But he reminds us in verse 18, whatever you are, wherever you are, whatever gifts and talents you have, you are such because God in His wisdom, God in His purposes made you such. God made you just as you are with your giftings. He didn’t short you. He didn’t give you too much. God gave you exactly what you need to play your role in the body of Christ.

And again, I think if we go back to, whoa, I got saved. That’s amazing. Like, I’ll be atoned now. I don’t care. I get to be called a part of the body of Christ. That’s amazing. So again, when we keep Jesus in view, we lose kind of this very prideful attitude maybe about how we want to be seen and how we want to be seen. We want to be perceived in life.

So again, God is the one who’s choosing where we are. And if we think about it a little deeper, I want you to think about it like this. When we think little of our giftings, when we think little of who we are, when we think little of what we can offer the local church, we’re thinking very little of what it means to build up the body of Jesus. We’re thinking very little of God’s wisdom and designs and purposes for the church.

Just to give you a quick run-through of spiritual gifts that we’ve talked about and have talked about. We talked about last week tongues, prophecy, miracles, healing, wisdom helps. Then there’s service. There’s administration. There’s teaching. There’s healing. There’s faith. There’s exhortation. There’s generosity. There’s leadership. There’s a multitude. Paul says here there’s all these gifts and like we talked about last week, it’s not like your superpower and my superpower. I think we have shades of these gifts to be the body members we need to be in the seasons we’re in, in the church we’re in. And so when I say no, I don’t want to do that. I’m saying no, I don’t care about Jesus’ body being built up. I don’t care about Christ’s kingdom being advanced. Because I want to be seen in a certain way. I want to be perceived in a certain way.

And, you know, it’s true. I think pastors are just as bad at this as anybody. Like, how come my church isn’t as big as his church?

Maybe he’s a little bit better of a preacher than I am. How come he’s got a book deal and nobody offered me a book deal? So no one’s free from comparing, you know, yourself against other people and trying to come out on top. But what is it? It’s a loss of vision that I exist for Jesus. I mean, if Jesus tells me to do backflips because it’s for his glory, guess what I’m doing until he comes? Backflips down the street. Now, I don’t think he would tell you to do that. I don’t know why that would be useful. But you get my point. If it’s for Jesus, I should be able to do anything joyfully and be satisfied in it because it’s a task for Jesus. It’s a task for Jesus. The thing about diabetes, you know, people have type 1 diabetes. Can you see? Can you see insulin? Like, no. Do you think about insulin on a daily basis? No. Ask a diabetic if they need insulin, if that matters to them, something that seems so irrelevant and unimportant to you. It matters a lot for health and survival.

So I want to ask you questions based off that text. Do you show up to church to be seen or to see? Do you see the needs both in service and in the needs of the lives of the people around you? And are you meeting them? Are you anxious to compare yourself with other people? Or are you anxious to find roles to serve in? Are you anxious to find people to love and help? Do you give your all and best to Jesus because Jesus gave his all and best to you on the cross?

And I think it’s fair to ask, well, what are my gifts? I think you can read through spiritual gifts and kind of go like, oh, yeah, I think that’s me. And probably your spouse or your best friend could help you figure that out and go, that’s not you. You’re not that, believe me. You know, so I don’t, but again, going back to last week, I don’t think spiritual gifts are so static. Like, I have the gift of administration. Here’s an administrative need. There, I’m done. Like, it’s just, it’s kind of a shade of just the needs in church. And here’s the thing. God’s wisdom is much bigger than all of us, right? And here’s what I really believe. If you and I lived with the proper mentality, the mind and the heart, just say, God, whatever, I’ll do it. You know, it’s funny. God has a way of connecting you and your gifts with the thing you need to be doing and the person you need to be leading. So it’s not so much like, are you or aren’t you going to be able to figure out your spiritual gift and then use it in just the right way? That’s not, it’s not like, it’s not like a game you got to figure out. It’s just saying, God, here I am. And God, here I am. God’s really good about putting the things you need to be doing for him right in front of your face. The question is, again, are you looking for it? Are you looking for it? So again, we can talk about that in terms of serving, you know, children’s ministry. We have needs and hospitality team. You could just ask to make up a ministry because you’ve got this great idea about something you’d love to see happen. I mean, there’s all kinds of things and reasons why we could be serving and using our gifts in the church. Let me tell you that there are people that need to be disciples. There’s some of you that you’ve been in the faith for years and years and you’ve been a Christian for years and you’ve never walked up to somebody and said, hey, can we start meeting on whatever morning? I just want to walk through a book of the Bible with you. Hey, what do you think about getting together and just praying together? Hey, I’d love to just spend a season of life shaping you, growing you. Friend, use yourself. Use who God’s made you to be to build up other believers. It’s not about you alone being built up. Churches are only strong when we consider them. We consider it that way.

So there’s that. You are necessary. The body part, you are. But here’s what Paul goes on to say. He goes on to say, you need all the other body parts for your welfare and for your benefit and for your health and for your perseverance. Verse 21.

The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet. I have no need of you. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor. And our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care

for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice

together.

So we’re kind of back to the anatomy thing again here.

The eye,

as honored as it is, cannot say to the hand, I don’t need you. The head can’t say to the feet, I don’t need you. It’s painfully obvious. And that’s the point. But do you grasp the spiritual reality of it? And it is this. You cannot follow Jesus alone. You can’t. And I think Paul gets a big old 12-gauge shotgun and he blows a hole in people that want, private religion.

My faith is private. My faith is private. I worship God in my own way. People like to say that anymore. Nuh-uh.

Paul says, you’ve got to be in a church and you’ve got to be relying on other people helping you and serving you. And you’ve got to be confessing sin to them. And you need them if you’re going to survive and persevere as a Christian. The otherness, the community of Christ, it’s a keeping grace. I want you to see the local church as a keeping grace. God doesn’t say, well, here are all these people that gather to pursue me and you can or can’t live in that if you want. No. We go back to this so many times. We go back so many times and we do the 59-1 and others.

Love, help, correct, pray, teach, you know, all these things. Admonish. Bear one of the burdens. Why does he say all that? Because Paul demands if you said yes to Jesus, you just the same said yes to the local church and you need the church. The wisdom of it is all the way back in Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes chapter 4, verse 9.

The wisdom writer says two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. No. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?

And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not quickly broken. So there you have it. All the way back in Ecclesiastes. The wisdom of God in giving us the body is that we can be kept by the help of one another. So why wouldn’t I want to do that? Well, pride. And I don’t think that’s like just a guy thing. Like I can figure things out for myself. Maybe it is to a degree. But again, if we’re looking to Jesus, I’ll go, hold on. I couldn’t save myself. I sure can’t keep myself. I need people in my life praying for me. I need people in my life serving me. I need people in my life keeping me accountable. Like I need to be taught. Like I need to be built up. And I think on the other side of it is, you know, vulnerability. Like we don’t like to like have to admit that we got problems. Guess what? You got problems. And so do I. And God oftentimes wants to address your problems and your hangups

through others in your life in the church. And again, there’s wisdom in who we talk to and how we talk to them. There’s wisdom. And how we build one another up. So I want to say to you that the local church is supposed to be, I think, not I think, I know, the one place where solidarity, what it looks like to be unified is most visible. And oftentimes it’s the last place on the earth where you would look to see unity. We could probably all tell horror stories of churches we’ve heard of or maybe a church you’ve been a part of in the past where there was some horrible division or split or something like that.

But if I see a bad example of a thing, I’m not going to throw it out. I’m going to say, you know what? This is Jesus’s instruction and I’m going to pursue it because this is Jesus’s way and there’s life and loving and building up one another. It’s a spiritual necessity.

So there’s meaningfulness, church, I want to say to you in being served and being corrected and being taught and all the things that we do, all the giftings of those people around you, that’s God’s grace to you and for you and that can’t be overstated. Have humility. Well, I don’t know if we, like that word sounds nice, but I don’t know if we all want to have it. Have humility. Submit yourself to other people. Let someone lead you.

Let someone teach you. Let someone pray for you. Let someone carry your burdens with you. That’s what it means to be a family. You know, when Jesus’ mother and brothers were coming to get Him, He said, Hey, Jesus, your mother and brother are coming to get you. And Jesus said, He sounds like He’s, you know, being mean. He’s not. But He says, Who are my mother and who are my brothers?

Who’s my mother and who’s my brother? And Jesus’ point is this. He wasn’t trying to, you know, condescend His blood family. He was simply saying, as I’ve heard it say, obedience is thicker than blood. The people of God should have that special place in my life where they know me and like I depend on them as much as perhaps some of them depend on me.

Friends, we have sin struggles. We have spiritual battles. We have physical trials of a variety of time. We have life circumstances that are just tough. God does not want you to walk alone. We need one another to pursue Christ.

So again, can we say that this is optional? Can we say that this is optional? No. I don’t think we can say it’s optional. I think we can say it’s biblical and it’s what God requires and longs for us for our own good. For our own good as we pursue Jesus.

In verse 27,

He says, Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. You know, it’s funny because we read those illustrations like it’s comical to think about my hand throwing a revolt and trying to be its own thing apart from the body, right? Imagine your feet trying to leave you like it’s silly because it can’t do that. That’s the point. It’s different than when we talk about the spiritual body of Christ because you as the spiritual hand or foot or whatever, you can. You can revolt and you can cause a lot of problems and you can prevent the body from being all that God calls it to be. So yes, absolutely. Friends, we are interwoven. We are melted together as the body of Christ. But as an individual member of it, you must make the conscious decision to do it. And I cannot do that for you. You must desire to obey Jesus. And here’s the thing. I think a lot of times we run out of steam for it. Let’s be honest. We run out of love for the body of Christ.

I can. Pastors do run out of love for their own sheep.

But here’s the good news. It’s not about how much love I have to give. It’s not about how much love you have to give. It’s about loving the church and being faithful because Jesus asked me to. I don’t have enough love for you. But as I look to Jesus, oh, that’s right. Jesus, you’ve called me to this and love flows from you through me. You’ve called me to them and His love flows from Him to you, through you, to others. So it’s Jesus who fills all in all. So absolutely not. We cannot do it in our own steam. If you want to see how long you can be in the local church on your own steam, you’re going to be out the door in about three Sundays. Okay? Because it’s hard. It’s hard to walk with a group of people over a length of time. And again, I’m young. I’m, you know, comparatively to other pastors, I’m only 32 years old and I’ve been in ministry for the last 12 years or so and I kind of grew up under a father in ministry and people can be nasty. People can be ugly and you will always find a reason to say, bye, I don’t need to put up with this. And people say bye to you. Just the same. It happens. It happens. So what I’m saying to you is this. If we would continually look to Jesus, we would find in Jesus the love that we need, to forgive one another, to bear with one another, and we would find the love to persevere with one another so that we can be the hands and feet we need to be to one another. And as you persevere in life in the local church, where we do that thing Paul says you do in Ephesians, you grow up to be a mature body. You grow up to be a mature body. You know, why do we talk about growing pains in children? Because they have them. You don’t meet like an 84-year-old person with growing pains. They’re done. They’ve grown. You have growing pains on your way up. And so it’s the same way, friends. Until we’re in glory, there’s going to be growing pains. The question is, do you love Jesus and His kingdom and His body enough to say, Jesus, because you’ve saved me and you’ve given me life, my life belongs to you, I’m going to do this for you. And you will bring us all to completion because you said you would. Because you said you would. And that’s where you’ve got to hang it on the end of the day on Jesus. So let’s love one another. Let’s follow Jesus together. Let’s be the Christ-centered community He’s called us to be.