Church Members Function

Introduction:

A single young lady who has been struggling to pay bills has recently been informed that her insurance has dropped her policy because of her newly diagnosed medical condition. She eventually signs with another insurance company but is dropped two months later due to her pre-existing condition. This happens with one insurance company after another. She eventually asks her church for some help. The pastors and elders consider how to help her during their monthly meeting. They decide to cut her a one-time check of $500. The remainder of the meeting they focus on how to raise $35,000 to install a stained glass window behind the baptistry.

A young youth minister begins his first ministry in a local church as he begins attending Seminary to be trained for the ministry. He puts his heart and soul into it, trying to balance good teaching and building relationships through various activities with the youth. One day, he accidently finds numerous notes addressed to the elders from parents, complaining that the youth minister does nothing with their children. He doesn’t play enough games with them. He isn’t meeting “their needs.” His teaching is bad, and the kids don’t like it. The youth minister resigns the following Sunday and determines never to be a youth minister again.

It is instances like these that lead many to never enter a local church’s doors again.

I’ve heard stories, and you have probably too, that have led many to leave the church and never come back. A visitor who enters a church for the first time and is chastised for bringing a cup of coffee into the sanctuary. A mother who is looked at sideways because her child begins to cry during the sermon. A person is avoided because he has a peculiar odor.

Thom Rainer in his book I am a Church Member indicates that between 2004 and 2010, 9/10 churches in America are declining.

Cooperative Election Study illustration

Church Attendance Study by Generation illustration

Gen Z Nones Illustration

There may be, and most likely are, numerous reasons for this. But we, as the church, have to look at ourselves too.

Rainer: “I am suggesting that congregations across America are weak because many of us church members have lost the biblical understanding of what it means to be a part of the body of Christ.” (p. 5)

We have lost why we are here, why we are the church.

Also, in connection to this, I would add that the American church has lost what the purpose is of the church.

Unfortunately, too many have the idea that church membership is something akin to membership in a country club and thus think it is here to please and serve them individually.

“This is my church, so you have to play the music just the way I want it.”

“Look pastor, you need to remember who pays your salary.”

“If you don’t do this program, I’ll withhold my check to the church.”

“I’ve been a member of this church for over thirty years, so I have a right to get what I want.”

“This church doesn’t do what I like, so I’m going leave.”

“I don’t pay good money to this church to listen to sermons that long.” Rainer, Thom S.. I Am a Church Member (p. 10). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

We need to revisit what we, as church members, are

1. The Church as a Body (12:12-14)

The Body Metaphor (v.12)

1 Corinthians 12:12 ESV

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

One body, multiple members/parts; Jesus as head throughout Scripture

Romans 12:3–5 ESV

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

Ephesians 1:22–23 ESV

And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Body Illustration: 1 Corinthians 6:19

1 Corinthians 6:19 ESV

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,

Becoming a Member of the Body (v.13-14)

1 Corinthians 12:13–14 ESV

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many.

This is how we become part of the body.

2. The Body with Functional Members (12:15-26)

Every Member has a Function (v.15-24)

(1) See descriptions in this text: nose, eyes, ears, etc.

1 Corinthians 12:15–24 ESV

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 am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 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. 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,

“With a country club membership you pay others to do the work for you. With church membership, everyone has a role or function.” Rainer, Thom S.. I Am a Church Member (p. 12). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

(2) See 1 Corinthians 12:28-30

1 Corinthians 12:28–30 ESV

And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?

We ought not think that one gift is better than another.

Also, we ought not think that we have a gift that we do not and think we are experts outside our giftedness. In humility, we ought to accept others’ giftedness. We function with the gifts God has given us while others function with their gifts.

Romans 12:3 (ESV)

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

“Without faith none of the gifts can be exercised, and faith is the standard whereby they are to be estimated. If we take this with full seriousness, seeing God as the sole author of the gifts and ourselves as totally dependent on him for them all, it is unlikely that we will be arrogant. Humility proceeds from genuine faith. There is another thought here. When we see that God is the giver of all the gifts and that faith is the measure, we will not deny our own gifts either. Being sober-minded means recognizing what God has given us and being zealous in its use as well as humble.”

Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press, 1988), 438.

Every Member functions from Love and Care (v.25-26)

1 Corinthians 12:25–26 ESV

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.

There is to be unity in diversity.

(1) Love and care so we may be united, no division (v.25)

(2) 12:31 - chapter 13: Love

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 ESV

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Every Member functions through Service

Matthew 20:20–28 ESV

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

To begin, service can be painful. Reason: we must kill the Self. The essence of all sin and rebellion against God is pride, making ourselves the center of the universe.

As Harry Blamires writes in his book The Christian Mind: “In the Christian moral system the key sin is pride—that perversion of the will by which the self is asserted as the centre of the universe” (p.89)

“We are not merely imperfect creatures who must be improved: we are . . . rebels who must lay down our arms. . . . The question why our cure should be painful, is that to render back the will which we have so long claimed for our own, is in itself, wherever and however it is done, a grievous pain. . . . However often we think we have broken the rebellious self we shall still find it alive. That this process cannot be without pain is sufficiently witnessed by the very history of the word ‘Mortification.’” CS Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Illustration: Eustace in Voyage of the Dawn Treader