One Suffers, We all Suffer

One College, Many Leaders

Which of you came in here thinking that this message was going to be about you?

Like did you think that I was going to preach something that was going to convict you specifically?

Well you’re wrong. I like to adopt my Texan “y’all” and recognize that this is a message we should lean into as a whole group. There are no application points for you to do alone. This isn’t a message for you, this is a message for us.

Many of you know a little bit about my medical condition. I am the guy with a great beard. Whoops, did I say that out loud? I meant I am the guy with the 9 food allergies. Many of you have seen the thick and thin of this experience. I didn’t have these food allergies my whole life. Throughout high school I felt sick and depressed. My body felt like it was falling apart inside. I had no idea what was happening to me. When I went to the doctor the first time, she said that she simply could not diagnose the symptoms that I was having and sent me away with heartburn medication. It only put a bandaid on the issue. 4 years later, in my second year here, I got incredibly sick and couldn’t even leave my bed for a few days. I kept drinking tons of orange juice thinking that it would help my immune system and yet nothing was getting better, not even medicine was helping. So, i go into the doctor and share my experience. I thought that I was lactose intolerant, so asked for them to check if that was the reason why I was sick. They ran a blood test and tested for allergies. I am sitting there a week and a half after my doctor’s appointment in suspense. I don’t know what is wrong with me and I am desperate to know. I get a phone call with the 316 area code, so I pick up. the cheerful nurse on the other end begins to explain in a happy tone that my blood test came back with some good results. “Well Brody, you’re not lactose intolerant at all!” I responded cheerfully “Wow! that’s a relief!” and my mind began to wonder, “So, then what is wrong with me.” and before I could ask she said “But.. we did have some other things come back on the test and it shows that you are allergic to Wheat, Corn, Soy, Rice, Yeast, Orange, Tomatoes, Strawberries, and Peanuts” and my mind couldn’t understand what she was saying, what do you mean? I thought that she just listed her grocery list for the day and I somehow got mixed into the conversation. But then it hit me, no Brody, you have allergies. and as I chuckled and laughed thinking it was a joke,

Problem:

Background Problem: As Human Beings, we are built up by stories and images throughout our lives. You have some of them without knowing it. These stories shape us whether they’re meanings were right or wrong. The Tortoise and the Hare, Slow and steady wins the race. David and Goliath, with God all things are possible. Some of my favorites are movies, like karate kid and Rocky. They’re underdogs that had no chance until they gave it their all and overcame.

This has been true throughout all of history. The way that we think, the things that we do, and the way that we do them are all shaped around stories we have allowed to shape our lives and images that we have allowed to be foundations of truth in us. Paul specifically speaks to this part of our humanity when he writes one of the first letters to the Corinthian Church, the letter we call 1 Corinthians. Paul had spent a year and a half living among these church plants and gatherings in the huge city of Corinth on the Peninsula of modern day Greece. He recognized living with them that there were stories and images that shaped their realities, but they were not the right stories. They were pictures , commercials, and instagram adds of self-promotion and sensual pleasures. They lived in a city that one message was sung through the streets, “Status, Power, and Sex”. But here came Paul singing a different song, presenting a different picture, rattling the cages of sleeping dogs. Moving from the flashing signs and tweets of “you do you” “Do what makes you happy” “Love looks different for everyone” “Money is Power” came a beaten man teaching “Love others above yourself” bearing an image of a heavy, unattractive cross. You see Paul speaks to the Corinthian’s hearts and beyond to our hearts as well. He reorientates our attention and our desires with the story we call the gospel and the image we call the cross. The very real and violent love story of the gospel reshapes our whole world. It reshapes the way that we see one another.

English Standard Version Chapter 12

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.

(What do they need to know) Explain:

Like a Body we are all one with each other. Now we get that, don’t we? We say it all the time, but what do we do? We function as individuals. We have individual Conversions, Individual encounters with God, individual baptisms, (this one is an oxymoron) individual Communion. We may know that we are the Body of Christ, but what does that mean? what does it mean that we are baptized into one body? and Drink of one Spirit?

(How would they best understand it) Illustrate:

(What does it mean for their lives)Apply:

2.

English Standard Version Chapter 12

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?

(What do they need to know) Explain: You cannot say that you are not important

God chose you!

Illustrate:

Apply:

3.

English Standard Version Chapter 12

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.

(What do they need to know) Explain:

No one can say that someone else isn’t important

Illustrate:

The starving of the stomach

Apply:

Support one another

Conclusion

Vision: What would it look like for MCC to be a unified body

Challenge:

God wants Manhattan Christian College to be united as a body