Epiphany - 4 - Celebrating Teamwork

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

1 Corinthians 12:12–31 NIV

12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If 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? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 28 And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? 31 Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. And yet I will show you the most excellent way.

1/26/2025

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Standard

Opening Prayer:

In you, O Lord our God, we find our joy, for through your law and your prophets you formed a people in mercy and freedom, in justice and righteousness. Pour your Spirit on us today, that we who are Christ’s body may bear the good news of your ancient promises to all who seek you. Amen.

Celebrating Teamwork

Deceptively Simple

The most beautiful things in life are deceptively simple.

Diamonds are not much more than lumps of coal that some of you could find in your backyard. But this coal is pressed together in specific ways over long periods of time and then cut by master gem cutters, turning them into objects of beauty, with tremendous strength, the ability to cut almost anything, and incredible value.

Rainbows are nothing more than light going through water. Yet they create a supernatural sense of beauty after a storm or arching across waterfalls. We marvel at the brilliance of their color and count ourselves blessed to be able to see them whenever they appear and paint beauty across the sky.

The majesty of the Sun, moon, and stars have inspired us throughout time. Although they are simply rocks and burning balls of gas floating in the void, they light our world, bring us warmth, and make all life on earth possible. These are simple things, but the connections between them are unfathomable.

Last week, we learned from Paul in his letter to the Corinthians that you and I may be simple creatures with a short list of gifts. But God, in his infinite wisdom, crafts us together and creates something incredibly beautiful, enormously powerful, and of infinite value. Today, as we finish chapter 12, Paul continues this grand illustration, giving us some specific direction on what it means in our lives that we are grafted together as the body of Christ and empowered by his Holy Spirit. God calls us to love and serve him together in harmony.

Many Parts

The body of Christ has many parts.

Did you ever read Aesop’s fables as a child? They are ancient Greek stories from before the time of Jesus. We treat them as children’s literature, and they were used to teach values and virtues in Ancient Greece. The stories are filled with animals who behave like people and exemplify our best and worst characteristics. Stories like The Tortoise in the Hare teach us the value of hard work over natural talent and persistence over laziness. Aesop also wrote some lesser-known fables about human body parts talking to one another and debating which part was most important.

Every part of the body is important. It takes all types. You learn this truth as a child and see it live out daily. A team is greater than the sum of its parts, and two heads are better than one. You probably have a dozen other examples of that same lesson.

Paul wrote this to the Corinthians because it is true, but it is not easy to live it out. We’ve been taught all our lives that all people are created equal, and our nation was founded on that truth, but when it comes to practice, some people are more equal than others. We develop layers, classes, and status levels of people around us. And that’s not all bad. We are not all the same, nor are we supposed to be. God created us differently, each with a unique role in our family of faith.

We’ve been taking attendance by name for about a year now because it’s more helpful than counting numbers. If we just look at numbers and I go missing for a week, but someone else brings a friend, the number stays the same, and nobody notices that I’m gone. That’s not how it is in the body of Christ. We are more than a number. We are uniquely valuable.

Our little family has grown in some significant ways in the past couple of years that are not always noticeable. We host Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts in our church building every week, and some of them attend our services. When that group gathers, they can fill half of the fellowship hall at North just by themselves. Some of them belong to other churches, and some do not. But we have a unique relationship with them, and God works through them to help make us who we are.

We’ve also been developing our third campus. No, I’m not talking about another church building, I’m talking about Eastgate Manor. It’s more than just another place. We offer a worship service once a month. It’s a group of people we’ve come to know by name, and that we could probably start taking attendance by name when we gather together. We do so much more than just go and give them a quick Bible devotion. We take Bethel Church to them.

We try to sing some of the songs they know, at least for those who have ever been part of a church. Some have not. But I have the Bethel choir with me every third Friday of the month, and we often teach them new hymns or praise songs along with the older ones, and they get such a kick out of being included in our fellowship. We pray for their prayer requests. Some get shared with our prayer team on Monday evenings. They’ve been praying for some of our prayer requests, too. Some belong to other churches, and some will start telling people they belong with us. I’m waiting for the day we figure out how to have an epic Bethel family game night at our third campus with our brothers and sisters there.

And that does not even count (or name) the 30 or so youth we often see at the Powerhouse each month.

One Body

We also have about a dozen homebound church family members who are connected to us through phone calls, visits, watching our services online, and cards and gifts we send them—at least, that’s what we do. They pray for us. Many of them have given to us for decades so that we can enjoy a place of worship that they can no longer attend. They still have ministry gifts and can share them with us and our community.

We are one body with many parts and many gifts working together to serve God in our community. It seems like a grand idea to try to get everybody altogether in the same place and call it fellowship. We filled our larger sanctuary nicely for our Christmas Eve service, and, you guessed it, we took attendance by name. Most of those visitors we had with us were not members of other churches. They were part of our church family. We wouldn’t fit in our largest space if we brought the whole family together and included everyone. When you bring in the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts in their families, when you bring in our homebound, and if we brought in the 50 some residents at Eastgate, our third campus, we would be standing room only, and it would be uncomfortable, and it wouldn’t feel like our nice small church anymore.

There’s a bigger problem, though. It has been a year and a half, and I’ve almost learned the names of everyone from our first and second services on Sunday mornings. There are a couple of the visiting grandkids that I sometimes have to defer to Bekah to get their names right. However, I only know a handful of the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts, and barely any of their family members come to our church every week. I know our homebound members, but since we only go to Eastgate once a month, I struggle to remember their names. If we got everybody together in the same place, it wouldn’t feel like family. It would feel like being in a big room with strangers that I felt I should know.

If that’s the experience I want to call a fellowship, I can find that at the grocery store. Among the other strangers from town, I always run into at least one person I know there. But I don’t want people to come to our church or any of our functions and feel the way they feel out shopping for groceries. We’re supposed to be something different.

To do that, we have to see everyone else around us—not just those sitting next to us. We must learn to see the people who wish they could be with us but cannot. We have to see the people who have so much going on in their lives right now that they cannot show up, smile, and look shiny and new when inside. They are just broken, so they don’t show up at all.

We can say there’s no division among us and that we all get along like one big family. But the proof of that does not come from a lack of conflict or disagreement among us. Paul tells us that the proof comes when we rejoice with those who rejoice, and we weep with those who weep because when one part of the body suffers, the whole body suffers, and one part of the body rejoices, the whole body rejoices. And brothers and sisters, that is messy. But God is doing that work in us.

I’ve shared with two other groups now that I’ve encountered a lot of suffering among our Church family in these past months and weeks. But every phone call and visit with ends with the same line. They tell me that as bad as they have it, they know other people have it worse. People, in our own church family. Then, they name them and ask how they are doing. And we pray for them. Our church family is going through some tough times. But we are all working hard to ensure that no one is going through it alone.

Our little part of the body of Christ is facing challenges, but some of these are growth pains. God is working and moving and shaping us. He’s excited about what he did through us yesterday. But that was yesterday. Today is a new day. His mercy, his grace, his love for us, and his plans for us are new each morning. He’s knit us together as a team, as a family, as his body, even right here in Daviess County, in a way greater than we may never see ourselves. And He’s doing that because you and I don’t have the faith to believe he will do through us what he says He will do. God wants nothing less than the redemption of the entire world. He will leave no person unturned. Not just saved from hell, but redeemed and transformed, our wrongs made right, and our relationships with God and each other infused with his power to overcome the sin and darkness all around us.

The Best is Yet to Come

When God created the heavens and the earth, he called each thing He created “good.” When He finished, He looked at all of it together and called it “very good.” But the best is yet to come.

The spiritual gifts are good. When we come together as the body of Christ and surrender those gifts to God, we begin to see one another with fresh eyes, and in new ways through our prayers, phone calls, text messages, and the cards we send. When we begin to live into those gifts as Christ’s body together in his family, under his name, which long outlasts our own name, that is very good. That is the better way to be.

But the best is yet to come, and we’re not ready to hear it this week. This week, we have work to do: identify our gifts and grow in them. Then, we need to follow God‘s guidance and learn how to use them as a Church family together, suffering with those who suffer and rejoicing with those who rejoice. He may lead us to learn the names and stories of some people who have been part of the family for a while now that you may not know. We may need to venture out to the fringes of our family and invite some of those folks on the edge in just a little deeper. If you manage to do all of that by next weekend, come back and we will learn from Paul about the best way of all.

Closing Prayer

Lord, as King David and his son Solomon wrote in our scriptures, you are so much greater than us, and your ways are far beyond us. We are amazed every day that you see us and know who we are. We rejoice in how you make us new each day as individuals. We could fill a dozen books with stories of what you’ve done in our lives. And then you lead us together and make us one with each other just as you draw us into that close relationship with you. And you give us all together one story. Deceptively simple, and incredibly beautiful, the way only you could do. We want to spend our days learning that story and learning how to share it with others even as we discover our own stories flow from and flow right back into that one story. Lord teach us the meaning of redemption, not just in our minds, but in our hearts, our eyes, our ears, and our hands and feet... so that in our willingness to surrender to you, your redemption might flow through every part of your body. In Jesus name, amen.