IF WE ARE THE BODY

Introduction

-{1 Corinthians}

-I don’t get sick too often, but when I do, I can’t function very well. Part of it might be I’m a guy and there’s the joke about us being babies when we’re sick. Part of it might be medicines that I take that make me loopier than normal. Part of it is just the distraction of not feeling well.

~Like, this past week, I had a cold or allergies or sinuses and it developed into bronchitis (I was COVID negative), and it was just a long week of not functioning properly. It’s a miracle that I got anything done.

-And just like I don’t function right when my body is not healthy, the church doesn’t function right when the body is not healthy.

~In the passage that we are looking at today, Paul uses the analogy of the church being the body of Christ. And there are certain aspects that need to be in place for the church to function so that it is healthy and is working according to what Christ created it to be. Because only when it is healthy will the church be able to move forward with the gospel ministry as intended.

-As we consider what it means for the church to be the body of Christ, I pray that we as a church seek to be healthy as described in the Bible and fulfill our functions of gospel proclamation and Kingdom growth. I want Harvest to be a healthy church so it can function as intended.

READ 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

-What do we learn about the church as the body of Christ and what it means to be healthy and functioning:

1) The unity and diversity of members

-Paul likens the church to the body. We could say that Christ is the head—the one that gives the signals and commands to the rest of the body, giving it its orders and its direction.

-Paul first emphasizes that there is one body—focusing in on the unity of the church. This is true for the universal church in that all believers over all of time make up the one people of Christ—His one body. But it is also true of the local assembly of the church. We at Harvest Baptist Church are the body of Christ together.

-Now, every person just has one body. You are not a head connected to multiple bodies, and neither are you a body with multiple heads. The same is true of Christ and the church. There is (and ever only will be) one head, and that is Christ. He is King of kings, Lord of lords, and He alone has authority over the church.

~But there is only one body—Christ has one church, and we are a manifestation of that. We are joined together by one Spirit.

-Paul talks about the fact that we were baptized into one body—this is not speaking of water baptism, but the baptism of the Holy Spirit. When we believe in Christ and receive the Holy Spirit, through that Spirit we are united with all other believers. So, we are united in one, and Paul warns against there being any division in the body—a warning for anyone wanting to cause division in the body.

-But Paul then recognizes that this unity is made up of a diversity. It was only through Jesus that God was able to take people from all different backgrounds and make them one people. When you come to Christ you don’t lose your identity, you don’t lose your uniqueness, but your uniqueness is blended in with other people’s uniqueness to make a unity out of diversity.

-Paul mentions that race and ethnicity don’t separate the body. The body is made of Jew and Gentile—different races and backgrounds. He mentions that the body is made of all different types of socio-economic statuses—whether someone was a slave or if someone was free, rich or poor, part of the elite or not. The church is made up of all sorts of different types of people under one head, just as a body is made up of all sorts of different organs and members, but they work together for the good of the whole. And if a church is going to be healthy we need to seek that diversity under the unity of Christ.

-Scot McKnight wrote a passage in his book A Fellowship of Differents to show how the diversity of the early church might give us a map about what a healthy church might look like today. He wrote:

So if we want to get the church right, we have to learn to see it as a salad in a bowl, made the Right Way of course. For a good salad is a fellowship of different tastes, all mixed together with the olive oil accentuating the taste of each. The earliest Christian churches were made up of folks from all over the social map, but they formed a fellowship of “different tastes,” a mixed salad of the best kind.

A recent study by a British scholar has concluded that if the apostle Paul’s house churches were composed of about thirty people, this would have been their approximate make-up:

a craftworker in whose home they met, along with his wife, children, a couple of male

slaves, a female domestic slave, and dependent relatives

some tenants, with families and slaves and dependents,

also living in the same home in rented rooms some family members of a householder who himself does not participate in the house church

couple of slaves whose owners do not attend

Some freed slaves who do not participate in the church

a couple of homeless people

a few migrant workers renting small rooms in the home

Add to this mix some Jewish folks and a perhaps an enslaved prostitute and we see how many “different tastes” were in a typical house church in Rome: men and women, citizens and freed slaves and slaves (who had no legal rights), Jews and Gentiles, people from all moral walks of life, and perhaps, most notably, people from elite classes all the way down the social scale perhaps to homeless people.

-A healthy church will be a conglomerate of the diversity of the community. We can’t only seek to hang out with people who are just like us. Christians in our community come in all sorts of kinds and shapes and sizes and colors, and we ought to be a reflection of that diversity under the unity of Christ. The people who need Jesus come in all sorts of kinds and shapes and sizes and colors, and we endeavor to reach them all. Just like a body has its different parts, the church has its different parts as well, but we are all one. This is a healthy, functioning body. And then Paul goes on to emphasize:

2) The importance of every member

-The unity of the church is made up of the diversity of the members, just like a body has all different parts that have all different types of functions. And so, Paul continues the analogy of the different body parts referring to different church members, and he emphasizes that just as each part of the body is important for the whole body, so each member of the church is important to the church. And Paul says that the parts of the body (the members of the church) need to avoid one of two extremes in how they view their importance to the rest of the body.

-One extreme is to think that because God gifted you as He has and made you as He has and didn’t gift you and make you like somebody else, that you’re unimportant or that you’re flawed or that there is something wrong with you. It’s a warning of either being envious about how God has made somebody else or looking down upon the way that God has made you.

-He gives the example of a foot who thinks that because he or she isn’t a hand that they are unimportant or have less to contribute to the body. Or there is the example of the ear who thinks that because he or she isn’t an eye that they are unimportant or have less to contribute to the body. As the cliché goes, that’s stinkin thinkin!

~God knows what He is doing in gifting and making people/members/parts because He knows the importance that they have to the whole. The whole body could not function properly without all the parts in their place working as they are made.

-If both feet decide that because they don’t have the functions of the hand so they’re just going to have a pity party and not do anything; if they stop functioning it adversely affects the rest of the body. Or if the ears decide that since they don’t have the gifting of the eye that they’re just going to have a pity part and not do anything; if they stop functioning it adversely affects the rest of the body. Every part is important.

-There is a reason that God gifts and makes people the way that He does because they all work together for the body to have its different functions.

~Paul uses examples that what if the body was just made up of one part, how ridiculous that would be. If the whole body were an eye, you’d lose hearing (as well as everything else). If the body were just one giant eyeball, yeah it might see, but it couldn’t hear without the ears and you couldn’t move around without the feet and you couldn’t talk to anyone without a mouth. And frankly, one giant eyeball is what monster movies are made of.

~Or what if the body was one giant ear. You’d have this ear just laying around doing nothing but hearing. It couldn’t smell the roses. It couldn’t walk up to the roses to smell it. That’d be just weird

-The point he is making is that God does not gift everybody the same way in the church otherwise the church would lose all its function. You can’t become envious or jealous about someone else’s gifting and look down on your gifting because God made you the way He made you because you are needed for the church to function properly. If all members had a single gift there would be no body, it’d just be a social club for that gift.

-But then Paul warns against the other extreme, and that is arrogance. One member cannot look down on another member because their gifting is different just like a part of the body cannot look down on another part of the body because they do something different.

~A eye can’t say to the hand I have no need of you, because it does need the hands if it wants the body to grab hold of something that it sees. The head can’t say to the feet I have no need of you because otherwise the head couldn’t get to where it wanted to go without the feet.

~You cannot think that you are so important that everybody else is somehow expendable. There is no one who is expendable in the body of Christ. You are needed and you are cherished. And you need everyone else doing what they are gifted for in order for you to use your gift properly.

-You know what, there are gifts and functions that are more visible than others. You might have a gift that has you doing what you do in the background. But the people with the more visible gifts wouldn’t be able to do what they do without the people in the background doing what they do. Sure, I might be the guy that preaches and teaches, but I can’t do what I do without each and every one of you doing what you do. And I do not take that for granted. I am appreciative of you and your gifts.

-Paul likens it to hidden parts of the body and says that the hidden parts get the greater honor because they keep the visible parts going. Just because you don’t see the heart doesn’t mean its less important, because I guarantee you that if the heart stops doing what it’s made for the rest of the parts of the body won’t be able to do anything.

-Just because someone has a gifting from God that is hidden or unnoticed doesn’t lessen the importance, because if the hidden gifts don’t do what they do, the visible gifts can’t do what they do.

~So, don’t think that the way God made you and gifted you is unimportant, and don’t think that others who are gifted and made different from you are unimportant. Every member of the church is needed, necessary, and important.

3) The ministry work of every member

-In v. 27 he reemphasizes that you all are the body, and individually members of it, and then he goes into talking about different roles and different gifts.

-In a sense this is a reemphasis of what came before this passage in vv. 1-11 where he talks about God giving the different gifts.

-He first talks about roles within the church. Again, just like the listing of gifts prior, this is merely a small sample of the possibilities, but every member, every body part, has a role to fill. Sure, some are apostles, some are prophets, some are teachers, some are miracle workers, some are healers, (and there are numerous roles other than those), but the parts, the members, all have a role to fill.

-So, there are roles that he mentions, but then he continues with listing gifts. Again, these are merely examples, just like he gave examples in vv. 1-11.

-And he again emphasizes that not everybody has the same role and not everybody has the same gift. Just like parts of the body, member have certain gifts and certain roles to fulfill in using those gifts. And so the key is to find out how God has gifted you and then finding the role that best lets you use your gift. God has given you a passion or directed your heart toward something, so we want to find your gift and the role that directs your energies toward your passion. This is your ministry, and each of you have a ministry.

-So, I mentioned last week (and if you didn’t hear the sermon last week you can see it on our YouTube channel or listen to it on Podcast) that we want to help you find your part in the body. On the welcome center tables in both the foyer and welcome area are spiritual gift assessments that I’d like you to take and find your gifting. Attached is a form to list your gifts and passions. There are collection baskets for finished assessments on both welcome center tables and two up here on the front pew. You can fold them up and put them in there.

~You can also access the assessment online and access an online assessment report, there are links found on the website and in our newsletter.

-Because ideally, we want to assist you in finding your ministry within the church because you all are functioning parts of this body. I guarantee you there is not a spiritual gift of pew sitting. Physically you might not be able to do certain things, but there is always a place for your gifting somewhere because you are an important part of the body. It’s just going to take us some time in creating ministry teams that are needed functions within the church and matching people to those teams. But imagine every part of the body functioning as made—that is a healthy body.

-That doesn’t mean that you can’t help in functions and events that aren’t directly matched with your gifts. It might not be your ministry, but that doesn’t mean you can’t help. I made mention of the need for people in the nursery. There is no spiritual gift of nursery, so you volunteer and help anyway because the church needs you.

~I mentioned my gifts are teaching, knowledge, and prophecy with passion for the Word of God and biblical worldview development. Having a gift of prophecy probably means I’m not a good fit for permanent children’s ministry. With the gift of prophecy I’d just be standing there constantly thinking: if this isn’t proof of original sin and total depravity, I don’t know what is.

~But that doesn’t mean I don’t love children, because I do, I play with them all the time. That doesn’t mean I don’t help in children’s events, because I do. I’m the VBS hype man. I worked the registration desk at Trunk or Treat. That means you, no matter your gifting, can volunteer for those events as well. But ideally, you have a gift, and you have a passion, and you have a role, and we want to focus your spiritual energies in ministries that God made you for.

Conclusion

-That’s having a healthy body. So, maybe need to assess ourselves as a church body, asking some questions given by Casting Crowns:

If we are the body Why aren't his arms reaching? Why aren't his hands healing? Why aren't his words teaching? And if we are the body Why aren't his feet going? Why is his love not showing them there is a way?

-We will reach and heal and teach and go and love if we are a healthy, functioning body.

~Christian, come to the altar and pray for God to show you your gifting and open up a door of ministry that He has for you.

~If you have been a regular attender but haven’t yet officially joined our body as a church member, make that commitment, come and join the church.

~But maybe you aren’t part of the body of Christ because you haven’t trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior…