One United Body
Practical Church (1 Corinthians) • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
Announcements
Good morning. Welcome to Southern Hills Baptist Church. Thank you for joining us today.
If you are a first-time guest with us, you will find a Connection Card in the pew rack in front of you. We would appreciate it if you would fill that out and place it in the offering plate. That gives us a record of your visit and allows us the opportunity of reaching out to you this week to answer any questions that you might have.
Online giving is available at our website, southernhillsbc.com. By clicking on GIVE, it will take you to our giving page where you can easily give by electronic check or credit card. You can also give during our offertory time or in the box at the info table. If you are a guest, please know that we do not expect you to give. Our members and regular attenders provide for the ministry of the church.
The mission of SHBC “is to seek holiness as we covenant together as a faithful local body of Christ and to engage in the Great Commission by making disciples in our homes, our communities, and around the world.”
See bulletin for Calendar Updates
If you are a guest with us, know that this is our weekly Family Worship service. Our children will remain with us for the entire service. We do have a nursery available for children under 4 just down the hall if you would like to use it.
Please stand as I read our Call to Worship.
Call To Worship
Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name;
make known his deeds among the peoples!
Sing to him, sing praises to him;
tell of all his wondrous works!
Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!
Opening Hymn
Scripture & Prayer: Dave Kincaid
Song #1
Missions Minute: Moses and Beth Mivedor
Today, our Missions Minute is about Moses and Beth Mivedor. Like the Olsens and the Armstrongs—who we spoke about this past month—Moses and Beth are missionaries with the International Mission Board. Their post is in Western Africa. For many years, they have faithfully served with their family in rural Senegal. At the end of 2025, they accepted a post for a regional position that oversees both rural Senegal as well as The Gambia.
They rotated home in November of 2025, intending to be stateside for graduations in the Spring and return prior to the Summer. However, due to a couple of health issues, Moses and Beth have not been medically cleared to return. They hope to be cleared by the end of the year, which will allow them to return to their new post in The Gambia in January.
Please keep their family in prayer as their kids continue college stateside and as they prepare to return to the field. Moses continues to meet with and encourage the Senegalese pastors through online meetings. They are also asking for prayer for Moses as he travels for 6 weeks to Togo, Senegal, and The Gambia this Fall.
Offering & Prayer
Song #2 (Mighty Name of Jesus)
Lord’s Supper
Please be seated.
(beat)
The Name of Jesus is surely mighty. By His Name, people are healed, demons are exorcized, and many are reconciled in relationship with the Father. By His work, His Name is above every other name. For He has been made the King of kings and Lord of lords.
But His human story didn’t start that way. While He was part of the eternal God-head, He stepped down from glory and condescended to be born in human frailty. Like us, Jesus was subjected to the temptations that come with a sin nature. But unlike us, He fully denied temptation by the power of the Holy Spirit.
He lived a sinless life and died on our behalf, paying the penalty of death for our sin. He carried that sin to the grave, but left it there when He rose again. And in that moment, Jesus conquered both sin and death—a victory that He now shares with us.
This coming Saturday is All Hallows Eve, what Americans know as Halloween. Millions around the globe will leave their homes to celebrate the culture of death that has come as the consequence of sin. But we, as those who bear the Name of Christ, celebrate His victory over that death instead. You see, eternal death is no longer a forgone conclusion for humanity. For in His death, we find life.
We’re going to continue our reading about Jesus from the book of John. Today we will continue in chapter 12:
Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
At this time, I am going to have our ushers come forward. If you are a follower of Jesus, in that you have accepted Him as Savior, bowed to Him as King, and been baptized in obedience to His commandment, we invite you to participate with us. In just a moment, we will pass the plates. Please take a piece of bread and a cup and hold it until we take together.
Pass
Instruction from Jesus: Read 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Prayer of Blessing on bread and cup
Song #3
Pastoral Prayer
World -
Country-
State-
City-
SHBC-
Introduction
If you have your bibles with you this morning, please turn with me to the book of 1 Corinthians.
Last week, we saw Paul began a new section of his letter, writing to the troubled church in Corinth. It seems that they were a local church full of spiritual giftedness, and yet they were choosing to use their giftedness to raise their own status within the church and within the community.
In the beginning of chapter 12, Paul explains to them that this is abuse of their spiritual gifts because the gifts have been given to them by the Holy Spirit for the common good—both for their brothers and sisters in the local church, as well as for the good of the lost around them. Their gifts originate from one source alone—God. And He has given these gifts to the local church body for a purpose.
As a reminder of that purpose, Jesus has designed His church to be His agent in the restoration of goodness to the world.
Church members have been made ministers of reconciliation to reclaim creation for its Creator. And because of that, God gives His children gifts to aid them in that mission.
Whether gifts of service, love, faith, wisdom, healing, or tongues, all of these gifts come by one Spirit, for one purpose, and all for the glory of God.
That purpose is wrapped up in both mission and status. The mission is the expansion of the church in reclaiming all of creation for Christ. The status is the collective holiness of the church.
This week, Paul will lean into the status of the local church, specifically in helping the Corinthian believers that they are called by Christ to be ONE UNITED BODY.
[TITLE SLIDE]
Over the centuries, and especially in the Western world, the understanding of holiness as a community has been de-emphasized in favor of the need to seek holiness individually. This need for individuality and autonomy is ingrained in Western culture, and specifically in the Unites States.
Here, we are raised to value freedom above all else. We push back on governmental control and are always questioning every authority. And while these are not necessarily bad things, they lead to poor habits when we carry these same practices into the church.
You see, God does not value individuality in the same way that we do. Yes, you were specially and specifically designed by an Almighty Creator as an individual human imager down to the last cell in your body. He designed you to be exactly the way you are, whether you are on board with that or not.
But, He has also designed you to be in community. Encoded in our DNA is a desire—an innate need—for community.
And His designed community for you is the local church of Jesus Christ.
We are individually called to be holy by being shaped into the image of Jesus. But that shaping—which comes by the Holy Spirit through our faithful practices—happens more in community than it does on our own. We, as the church, are becoming God’s holy assembly together.
And this is not just a request, but a requirement for every local church body. For a church without holiness ceases to be a church.
This was the struggle for the church in Laodicea. In Revelation 3, Jesus has John send them a letter saying:
“ ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing,” not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.
Jesus tells this local church to buy from Him “gold refined by fire” and “white garments.” These are items that represent holiness.
Lukewarm churches are no longer churches for they lack the desire for holiness. And the failure to renew their desire for holiness will result in Jesus removing their lampstand permanently and turning them over to the consequences of their sin.
You see, the church has a mission, and it cannot be effective unless it is first holy.
And further, a divided church can never become holy.
They must learn to be one body, united in Christ.
Turn with me to our passage for this morning. 1 Corinthians chapter 12, starting in verse 12:
[MAIN PASSAGE SLIDE x10]
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. (/) 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. 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, 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.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
The church is an interesting place. I challenge you to find one other organization on earth that can take people from every culture, with different religious backgrounds, of all socio-economic statuses, and varying languages, who can come together in unity.
It can only be done when all of its members are willing to sacrifice their individuality for the body. And here, Paul is trying to help the Corinthian believers understand this call and the need to look outside of themselves and to the local church. God has gathered these individuals into the local church and gifted them for a reason.
[POINT 1 SLIDE]
Gathered and Gifted (vv 12-17)
Some of them are Jews. Some are Gentiles. Some come from the elite Roman class. Others have been poor all of their lives. Some speak Hebrew. Some speak Latin. Some were Yahwists. Some were agnostic. Some were pagans.
And yet God has gathered them all together for a common purpose. And then, He has given them gifts—not because they deserve gifts, but because He loves them and wants to aid them in their mission.
Look back with me to verses 12-17:
[PASSAGE SLIDE x5]
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. (/) 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. 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?
In 1776, representatives of all 13 American colonies came together to sign a document declaring independence from Britain. Even those of you who failed history class in High School remember this. But you likely haven’t heard that in the meeting of the Second Continental Congress, there was also a motto that was proposed to be the rallying cry for Americans.
That motto was a saying in Latin, and it was found on the title page of a monthly published magazine in London for decades prior to 1776. At the bottom of the title page, next to the Latin saying was a picture of a hand holding a bouquet of different flowers. And the saying was: E Pluribus Unum—Out of many, One. The flowers represented men from all walks of life, coming together for a common purpose.
The 13 colonies had found a common purpose: the desire for independence. And they were united by a common enemy—that of a tyrannical King, freely abusing his position by interfering with their ability to live and thrive. These colonists had trauma-bonded over their abuse by an unaffectionate and absent leader.
And so, they came together for a common purpose. The colonies had united themselves as a confederation of states. Their representatives came from different backgrounds. Some were British born, others American. Some grew up entitled, others had to earn their title. They were Anglican, and Catholic, and Protestant, and many were Deists. Different men drawn together by common purpose.
E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, One.
Like the bouquet of flowers, they were different, but they were not divided. They were held together by an ideal.
And in our passage, Paul is calling the Corinthians to this same ideal—the difference being that instead of being united by a common enemy, the church should be united by a common Lord.
He uses the human body as his illustration for the church, saying that “all the members of the body, though many, are one body.”
It doesn’t matter your background—Jew, Greek, slave, free. “All were made to drink of one Spirit.” Every member of the church has been called by God and He has gathered each of them to Himself in the local church. Like a master architect, He has shaped and fitted together each individual to make a whole. The church is His designed and purposeful assembly—His community intentionally crafted for holiness and mission.
And Paul makes clear that the body is strengthened by its differences. For when we are all submitted to King Jesus, our differences become an asset rather than a cause for division.
Together, a holy and united church can reach further into the lost world as they focus on the mission.
And God gives good gifts to each body part for the benefit of the whole. Each past plays a role in the function of the body. Whether you are a foot, or a hand, or an ear, or an eye, each is equally valuable to body. And the variety of gifts, as given to the church members by the Holy Spirit, should draw us together.
For as Paul will make clear in chapters 13 and 14, what good is the ability to speak in tongues if there is no one to interpret? What good is the ability to teach with wisdom if I never open my mouth? What good is the gift of healing if I hide in my home and never encounter the world? What good is any gift at all if it is not exercised properly and with love?
This is the lesson that the Corinthians need to learn.
They are so enraptured with their spiritual gifts that they are using them to promote themselves. And it is causing more division rather than drawing them together in unity. Instead, they need to understand that God created them to fit together as a body like a jigsaw puzzle. They need to remember that their focus should be on King Jesus, the one who is assembling the puzzle through His Spirit.
And they must meditate on the fact that God has gathered and gifted them to be missionaries, both individually and collectively. He has called them and brought them together into the church and, through the Holy Spirit, He is bringing their lives into order.
[POINT 2 SLIDE]
Ordered by God (vv 18-25)
For 6 days, God brought His creation into order. But I want you to note that, on the 7th day—when He rested—He was not finished. Instead, He invited humanity to help in ordering creation. Adam was given the opportunity to create names for the other physical creatures. And the first couple is told to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.”
Ultimately, it was Adam’s job to bring his own family into order and then spread that order from the borders of Eden to the ends of the earth.
But, in the fall of humanity into sin, we seem to have forgotten our call to finish ordering God’s creation. And so, as we are called into reconciliation with God through Jesus, and gathered by Him into the church, He begins using the Holy Spirit to remind us of our human mandate—our original mission as humans: to have dominion over the earth.
Look with me to verse 18:
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.
The Most-High Creator God has labored intentionally to design you in a specific way. And because He knows you better than you know yourself, He has placed you in a particular place and within a particular context to help you be the person He designed you to be. And within His church, He has purposely placed specific people around you for your own spiritual growth and for the strength of the whole body.
It is not an accident that you are here today. God has called you and brought you here so that you could be restored and retrofitted for the mission that He has given to His church.
He chose you to be a key member of the body of Christ and He is ordering your life by those around you in the church and by His Holy Spirit.
God designed you—quirks and all—to be a integral part of reconciling people to Him through Christ and restoring creation.
Verse 19:
[PASSAGE SLIDE x4]
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.
Every part of the body is needed. In fact, Paul says that “the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.”
In 1871, Charles Darwin published a book call The Descent of Man. In it, the evolutionist Darwin theorized that the human appendix was a useless organ, left over from thousands of years ago when humans were plant-eating mammals. He claimed that it was just a leftover from evolutionary processes and that it no longer served any purpose in the bodies of human beings.
For over 130 years, this theory was printed in medical textbooks as fact rather than theory. It was assumed that since people could live seemingly normal lives after having their appendix removed, that it served no purpose. So, the easy solution for an inflamed appendix was simply to remove it.
But in 2007, scientists discovered that the human appendix was an important part of both the digestive and the immune systems. Without getting into detail, your appendix not only helps to keep you from getting sick, but is crucial in helping you recover from illness. It is important for your gut health, and every year we are finding more and more that tells us that gut health may be the key to human wellness.
Since these findings in 2007, appendectomies have steadily declined and are rarely considered elective for non-emergency cases.
This may be you. Maybe you are the church’s appendix. You might have thought that you were useless to the church and it’s mission.
(beat)
But maybe you are more important to the health of the church than you think…
Maybe you are vital the the church’s immune system.
Maybe the church grows stronger because they need to provide you with more encouragement and support.
Maybe you are indispensable and the church can’t grow without you.
Even the weakest of church members is important to the body because God has placed you there for a reason…
Verse 24:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE]
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.
God has composed the body like a master composer. He has written the music and put together the orchestra. And when every instrument is in tune and playing its part, the music of the church is a masterpiece.
And even the smallest of the instruments play an essential part in the symphony. For every piece contributes to the health and the unity of the body. As the conductor leads, all of the instruments come together as one. Not 82 instruments trying to play a song together, but one united song so unified that you can’t pick out a single instrument…
Every piece of the body is vital to the church. And every piece must come into order in unity with one another.
[POINT 3 SLIDE]
A United Body (vv 26-27)
For just as a team is only “as strong as it’s weakest member,” so the church body is in need of the smallest of organs.
Think about how your body works naturally. If you get a cut or an infection, the body rushes blood supply to get it oxygen and it creates heat and swelling to protect and heal the damaged part of the body. And if the injury or illness is serious enough, it will shut down the body to force you to rest as it restores the injured parts.
Do we do that in the church? When one of our members are injured, do we rally to them with love and support and encouragement?
Do we weep with them in their pain?
Do we care for them and their families in their time of need?
Paul says that we should. Look to verses 26 and 27 as we close.
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
If one part of the body suffers, we all suffer.
If one part of the body rejoices, we all rejoice.
Over the last two years, we have lost 17 members of our church body. These saints have preceded us into eternity. Each loss hurts. We ache at the loss of vital parts of the body: elders, grandparents, servants, encouragers, prayer-warriors.
(I think I have officiated more funerals in the last two years than I attended in the 43 years prior.) I am so tired of funerals… And yet, it our sorrow, God draws closer together as a church family.
But we have also experienced healing and reasons for rejoicing. God has brought others to join our church body and strengthen us. Every year our pews grow more full. Our young married couples are having babies and our nursery is growing. We have added another full-time Pastor and his family. Our youth group is growing. We are reaching more adults in our Life Groups. Last Wednesday, we had record attendance for our kids in Awana. And we are intentionally engaging in discipleship and the raising up of leaders so that we can plant new churches and rescue dying ones.
Recently, we celebrated our 65th anniversary as a church—the first Southern Baptist church planted in NW Iowa.
We have so many reasons for rejoicing. And we do it together.
And through our rejoicing, God draws us closer together as a church family.
Paul tells the Philippian church to “rejoice in the Lord always.” But in its context, He means that they should rejoice even in trial and difficulty; that even when they are anxious and frustrated with each other, they should rejoice.
Why?
Because even in their suffering, they are not alone. The Spirit of God indwells them and they have a family in the local church to love and support them.
(beat)
If there is one thing I know about the hearts of lazy Christians, it is that they love memory verses more than they love the Word itself. They will spend hours over their lifetime remembering John 3:16, but they would rather eat sand than have to read through Leviticus.
One of these verses they love to memorize is Philippians 4:13. It gives them hope and confidence. You see it everywhere. Sports stars love to put it on their eye black or quote it after the game. Most of you know it. Say it with me, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
That means that I can lead the winning touchdown drive, or run into a burning building, or rip a telephone book in half, or win the sales competition at work, right???
No.
If we are keeping the verse in context, Paul is talking to the Philippians about suffering.
Let us look at the passage in context. Paul writes this:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE x3]
I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content. (/) I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (/)
Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble.
The Philippians cared for Paul by sharing in his trouble.
They didn’t just pray for him in his suffering, but learned to suffer with him.
Less than a year after the church in Corinth receives 1 Corinthians, Paul writes them another letter. And in that letter—which we know as 2 Corinthians—Paul lays out a Christian theology of suffering. This idea—that not only will every Christian encounter suffering in their life, but that it is needed because, through it, the Holy Spirit will shape them into the person that He wants them to be: someone useful for the mission of the church.
And even corporately, God is shaping His church through suffering, molding them into the image of Jesus—making them holy and equipping them for the mission by the work and care of His Spirit and His under-shepherds.
In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul says this:
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
“We are always being given over to death for” the sake of Christ and His kingdom. And in our suffering, in our dying to the flesh, we are being made—both individually and corporately—into the holy people of God who manifest Christ in and to creation.
And so, suffering does not crush us, but through our church family and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are refined by it. And when we see God carry us through it by His Spirit and His church, we learn—like Paul—to become content in all circumstances. For then, we will know that we “can do all things by Christ who strengthens” us.
As Paul begins closing his letter in 2 Corinthians, he says this:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE]
For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Let us learn to be content in our weakness, in our hardships, in our anxieties and our tears and in our funerals…
(beat)
For we know that, through them, it is Christ who strengthens us. For when we are weak, we become strong. And all by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are drawn together as One United Body.
For our good and for the Glory of God, let us learn to “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”
Because that is what family does…
Application
Church member, God is drawing you together with the body. He has shaped you for a purpose within that body.
Have you learned to be content with the way that He has created you?
Will you use your place and the gifts that He has given you to unite and strengthen the body and bring Him glory?
Maybe you are here this morning and have not yet committed to the local church body. God has carefully crafted you the be an integral part of a local church family. Will you be obedient to His call and submit in covenant with one of His faithful local churches? For surely, there is a local church body that needs you. If you are interested in pursuing that here with us, our Elders would love to talk with you after service.
God is drawing us together as a united body for the work of expanding His kingdom. Are you being obedient to Him?
Are you contributing to the mission of His church out of the thankfulness of your heart?
Submit your life fully to King Jesus this morning and learn to be content in all circumstances.
[PREVIEW SLIDE]
Invitation
Maybe you are here this morning and you feel far from God.
Maybe you don’t have a place where you feel that you belong.
God has specially designed you for a task. And He has sent His Son Jesus to redeem you for that task.
He calls you this morning to believe that Jesus has come to save you and to repent of your sin and follow the King.
If you are interested in learning what that looks like, I would love to talk with you more about that after service today.
CLOSE IN PRAYER
CLOSING HYMN
Tom & Sally Boyd- Present for Membership
CONGREGATIONAL BLESSING
