The Body of Christ
1 The Body Of Christ
1 Corinthians 12.4-
4There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.
5There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.
6There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.
7Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.
All these gifts and ministries and the way they all work together are given to many different people by one Spirit and He chooses who gets what and how they, each individual, uses what they are given, to accomplish the goal that He has, so that all can benefit.
These are some of the gifts;
8To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit,
9to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit,
10to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues.
This is not an exhaustive list here in 1 Corinthians, in Romans and also Ephesians and 1Peter we find more examples of these gifts
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Serving
Teaching
Encouragement
Giving
Leadership
Mercy
Knowledge
Evangelism
11All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.
· One Spirit working all these things through separate individuals for one specific goal.
12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
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I. You are part of the Body
· When you be come a Christian you become part of the body of Christ
· Paul is writing to a specific church and tells them they are part of a local body
· You as a Christian are to be part of a local Body of believers.
Romans 12 so, in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
Though we are separate individuals we are all connected, in Christ, as one body for a specific goal.
II. You are placed in the body
Different people have different gifts and responsibilities in the Church.
God is the one who placed each of us where we are within the body.
If we are led by the spirit we don’t get to decide what we will or will not do in the body of Christ.
God is the one who equips us not ourselves and it is He who decides and gives us our assignments.
God has a specific mission for this Church so you are not here by accident, You are in this body of
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believers with Christ as the head for a very specific reason.
This means;
III. You are needed in this Church Body
No church is complete without all it’s members and no church is healthy without all it’s members functioning properly.
Say your kidneys aren’t working; you are then placed on dialysis. When that happens the rest of your body gets weak because not all of the parts are functioning properly
What’s true of the physical body is also true of the body of Christ.
When all of the members of Cabool Christian Church are not functioning the way God has called and equipped them, then this body will not function as God intended.
A man called a pastor’s office at a church one day to inquire into membership in the church. He stated that he would not be able to get involved or anything, but he felt it was important to have some religious affiliation. The pastor advised this man that the church he pastored might not be the best fit for him, but he knew of a place
where he would fit in quite nicely.
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The man asked about a phone number, but the pastor only gave him an address. On Sunday morning, the gentleman followed the directions and pulled up into the yard of a dilapidated building. The roof was falling in, the doors were locked, and vines were growing into the windows.
This gentleman called the pastor and told him that he had given him the wrong directions. "Oh no," the pastor replied. "Not at all. That is the place. That church has a membership roll filled with people who did not want to get involved or committed. That is what will always happen to a church whose members do not care about its success."
See how important it is that you take a part in this body?
This Church is not an organization
We are an organism, living breathing and as is true with any organism all of its parts are important and needed.
IV. You are to serve in the body
Romans 12.3-83For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 4Just as each of us has one body with many members,
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and these members do not all have the same function, 5so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
We are not given gifts and equipped by God to sit on the sidelines. God has equipped each one you to serve. You, no matter who you are have a ministry and a mission to serve in this local body of Christ we call Cabool Christian Church.
V. You must resist disease
Remember we are not an organization, we are an organism, and like any organism the church can get sick.
1 Corinthians 12.
14Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of
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the body. 16And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
21The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
In this passage Paul mentions two diseases that attack the body.
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A. Envy
. 15If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.
On of the diseases that attack this body is envy.
That is when you want to be someone or do something that God didn’t build or equip you to do. You want to do this job or that one because maybe you think it is more important or gets more recognition.
There are two ways envy can be shown
The immature believers in Corinth were doing this, in apparent humility they were saying “I don’t have---Spiritual Gift so I’m not important or a vital part of the body or “my Gift is second rate so why participate”
This attitude is not one that reflects humility, it is self centered and undermines God’s wisdom in giving you the gift He wants you to have.
There is another way of envying. At least the Corinthians realized what gifts they had. Others in the Body try to force their way into working in a position that they are not gifted in.
And the envy is shown by, demanding your own way and causing dissention and trouble enough to make others completely disgusted with you and let you play your own game-by yourself.
Or frequent pouting and demanding your own way or else you will pick up your ball and go home. Either way you will wind up all by yourself effectively severing yourself from the body because you are trying to work in a way that God does not have you made for.
B. Despising
21The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,
Another disease is despising. This is when you act like you don’t need other Christians. It’s when you believe they are unimportant because they don’t have your position, your gift, or your responsibilities. Or maybe you are so stuck on yourself that you don’t even recognize the other gifts and walk around with an attitude that if everyone isn’t doing what I feel is important then they shouldn’t consider themselves a part of this body.
The sad part about this attitude is it is held by those who have at least enough maturity to realize where God wants them and what they are to be doing but they forget that as in verse 6 it is God who works all things in all persons, they fail to realize as in verse 24
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….. God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
Eugene Peterson says it this way
The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don't, the parts we see and the parts we don't. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.
There is one more very common problem with this living breathing body of Christ and that is self amputation. This isn’t necessarily done on purpose; it is usually something that happens over time.
This self amputee is the one who may be seen occasionally here in the Church on Sunday. He may have at one time made a commitment to Christ and been obedient to Him in baptism, but the story ends there. And this is a huge problem,
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by not being an active working part of the Church you have cut yourself off you may show up with a smile even, but there is nothing you do to back up what you first believed, James says faith without works is dead. And a man who calls himself a believer and has no action to show for it is dead as well, and simply creates an oozing wound where God wants him to be. When this happens it is a shame for that individual, but not only for them, for the rest of the body as well, if you were placed here by God for a reason and you refuse to obey Him by playing your part in this, you have now become just like the failing kidneys that cause the rest of the body to grow weak. You must realize that you are needed.
I love good chili
Especially Jordan’s
It has all the right ingredients.
Meat
Onions
Tomatoes
Jalapeños
Spices
Corn
Black beans
And salt
Now even though each ingredient by itself is good to me in certain amounts. It takes putting them all together in the right order and the right
measurements to make great chili. Each ingredient has a part in it. If you made it without even one of the ingredients it would not be the same, in the same way if you used all the ingredients and swapped the amount of each one it could be disastrous. How much more complex do you think this Body of Christ is?
This church needs each one of you, no matter how old or young, you each have a very important roll as this body of believers.
And in order to fulfill what God has planned for us we each need to take a part.