3.1.32 7.6.2025 The Church is a Body, Jesus is the Head 1 Corinthians 12.23-27, Ephesians 4.11-16

Series Overview:Jesus and His Church

We are the Church.

This congregation has been in Grayville for 185 years.

We have met in different structures

on different streets.

All with the purpose of bearing witness to our Lord Jesus.

Jesus Himself founded the Church by

calling,

and training His disciples

and then sending them as Apostles.

He describes His church using

parable,

analogy,

and

comparison.

For the next several weeks we will consider the Church. We will examine what Scripture says and try to adjust our reality to the Biblical expectation.

Start:

Entice: Today we consider the truth that the

the Church is an organism.

Specifically, the church is

The Body of Jesus.

Individually we are the various members of that body with  Jesus as the head. Let’s settle the lordship issue first.

Ephesians 5:23 ESV

23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.

Jesus is in charge.

It is His Church.

His idea.

His project.

Today we consider how it is His body. 

Engage: The body is a great analogy because each of us has a body. This example works because the various ways the NT describes this phenomenon are readily understood in our own flesh. It’s still a good idea, a necessary idea to break down some of the details so we are clear on how the Lord relates to His body. 

Expand: This particular analogy is predominantly Pauls. He returns to it again and again as various local circumstances threaten to tear apart various congregations. Sometimes the issues were internal, other times external.

One of Paul’s continuing emphases was

“We’re in this together.” 

Excite: I am a Church guy.

Without the Body,

Christ is without witness.

Without the Body,

the Spirit is disembodied.

With the Body Jesus continues to work through us, His local inspirited body. 

Explore:

Jesus leads, configures, and enables His Body to serve. 

Expand: The body expresses

Body of Sermon:

1 Unity. 

1.1 Participating in Christ.

1 Corinthians 10:16–17 (ESV) 16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

1.2 Partners in Christ.

Romans 12:4–5 ESV

4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

The body expresses 

2 Diversity.

1 Corinthians 12:12–27 ESV

12 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. 13 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. 14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 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. 16 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. 17 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? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 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.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 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, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

2.1 Wholistic.

2.2 Complex.

2.3 Systemic.

(one suffers, all suffer).

The body expresses—or should express—

3 Maturity.

Ephesians 4:11–16 ESV

11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

3.1 We need proportionate growth.

3.2 We need predictable growth.

3.3 We need purposeful growth

(The body built in by love)

Shut Down

The genesis of this series was a course of theology I taught last summer at Camp. I began by focusing on Christology, and continued with discussions of Ecclesiology—the theology of the Church.

I believe now what I believed then and the current trends in the broader Christian community are not encouraging. Too many incoherent, self-serving, un-biblical, heretical voices are dominating too many conversations about the contemporary Church.

There are many secondary and tertiary doctrines we need to study. The primary doctrines are simple. Because, if we are wrong about Jesus, or wrong about the Church little else matters. We’ve just spent more than half the year listening to the voice of Jesus. It is right and good for the Church of Jesus to be reminded that we are intimately connected to Jesus.

Today’s focus is elementary and essential. Jesus has a body and we are it. His resurrected remains may be in heaven but by His Spirit He indwells and enables His Body to continue His work.

Is the Church important? Yes.

Is it necessary? Yes. 

Is it essential? Yes.

These are really silly questions.

Think of the flannel graph of your youth.

Can you imagine the stories of Jesus with only a body-less head representing Jesus?

How absurd, awkward, even frightening that would be.

The Kingdom is not a place for amputees. We need full body to celebrate Jesus head of the Church.