Living As the One Body of Christ

Celebrating the Wider Body of Christ

Yesterday, I had the great privilege, with my wife Bobbi, of attending the dedication of the new worship facility at Community First Church of God in Homeland, CA. Pastor Mike Gratzke with his wife Kim have served the church there for more than 10 years.

I have worshipped there with them, shared stories of God’s grace and spent some time doing workshops there. Many of the people in that congregation I have known for a long time. You see, on April 30, 2016, the night before Easter Sunday, an arsonist set alight the church sanctuary. The small Sunday School wing, and the offices that were in a separate modular building escaped the flames, as the Fire Department came out and people of that community also came out to grieve the loss for the congregation.

Can you imagine what it would have felt like for you to come to worship on an Easter Sunday morning and find that there is almost nothing left but a pile of ashes?

That first Easter Sunday without their building, this church that was found in Homeland 65 years before, was invited in to their neighbor church across the highway. And then, only one week later, they began to worship together in a large tent that was erected for the church.

One week after the fire, two things that were consecrated, or set apart, to the Lord for their worship were also brought into the tent. They were the only two things that really survived:

First was The Wooden Cross, much like this on on our stage. Blackened but intact after the fire’s attempt to destroy this important icon of most every Christian’s worship, it still stood as everything fell down around it.

Second was the pulpit Bible. A large Bible, like we often display in our entryway, the Bible’s cover was charred and all the edges of the pages were singed, ringed with fire, but not a single word of that Holy Bible was lost to the fire.

Both the cross and the Bible are on display in the entryway of the Community First Church of God in Homeland. And of those who attended, Pastor Bob Bixler, who is Patty’s dad, Pastor Cassandra Garrett, who often fills in for me here, Pastor David Winn, who is the Regional Pastor and Executive Director of the Church of God in Southern California represented part of the wider body of the Church of God.

There were more pastors and leaders from the larger community who were there. Pentecostals and Baptists and Independent churches, Messianic Jewish Christian Rabbis, and community supporters. There were some homeless and some helpless, but none who were hopeless, for the Community First Church of God in Homeland has proved to that community that God loves them through the church.

It was a marvelous time to worship together, to hear the testimonies of God’s grace, and to know that God is still at work there, through the local Body of Christ.

One of the most precious of the stories comes from the very night the church was burning. As Pastor Mike Gratzke was there, surrounded by many who came not just to watch the fire but to shed tears of grief, a mother and her son were near the Pastor. They didn’t go to that church, but they came to share the deep sense of loss.

The young boy said something to his mother, and she nodded at him. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a few coins that he had. He reached out to Pastor Gratzke, put those coins in his had, and said, “This is to help you build the church again.”

That was the first gift for reconstruction. And those same coins, a quarter, a dime and four pennies, 39 cents, God has multiplied to over $1,000,000.00. There have been many struggles, unscrupulous contractors who cheated the church, and continued challenges with zoning, building, design, parking, and on and on. But today it stands dedicated to the ministry of the Champion of Love, the Lord Jesus Christ in Homeland.

I have a strange connection to the time of that arson fire in Homeland.

It was 3 1/2 weeks after the fire that burned down the old building where the church met in Homeland that I was standing on this very stage confronting evil in the form of a man whose life was so taken by his methamphetamine addiction that the only active spirit within him was demonic. I was hit and my face broken, with so many left-over effects that at this moment I am in the last 6 months of treatment with invisalign braces. So when I finish these and have my final reevaluation, It will have been 6 years and a few weeks.

Do you know how much time I was taken out of the service to the body of the church? Because of the help of so many, I was out of the pulpit for 8 weeks, but able to be present in worship and prayer without so many weeks completely absent. Another few weeks after another surgery, but mostly on regular schedules and vacation times. Why didn’t I quit ministry a little early? I was nearly 64 years old, and could have taken an early retirement. Some asked me if I would keep the church doors locked when I did Bible studies after that. Guess what? Satan doesn’t get to decide the schedule. God is in charge of my safety. God is in charge of his church.

God’s Gifts are Good for All

Have there been blips and blunders and missed opportunities? Certainly so. And likely my fault. But God is faithful, we serve God’s church, the Body of Christ in this place, and God has made his called ministers an important part of his body.

Today I want to share about the Body of Christ as it is described in 1 Corinthians 12. There is so much here that informs us of our importance to each other and what the purpose of the body of Christ is. The first 11 verses are about the way that God distributes the the Spirit Gifts within the church.

I am not going to spend any time on the spiritual gifts themselves today, because I want to focus on the Body of Christ, and how it is supposed to work, by God’s good design. The spiritual gifts that Paul talks about are descriptive of the way that God gives the whole collection of the saved and every local congregation of the church what is needed for its success. The different kinds of gifts are briefly described.

The key verse in this first paragraph is verse 7:

1 Corinthians 12:7 CSB

7 A manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good:

That word “manifestation is one we use all the time, I know. In fact, some of you probably used it at breakfast this morning, or getting ready for church. Right? No? Well, maybe we need a little more understanding of that word, then.

If you had been talking about the signs of a COVID infection or pneumonia, you might have talked about symptoms. But you could have used the word “manifestation” because that word means, more or less “the evidence of something you cannot see.” So if you have problems with taking tests, breaking out in a sweat on a test day could be a manifestation of your fear of tests. So, the manifestation of the Spirit would be something that we can see at work or a skill or an evidence of the Spirit. It would have actually been easier if I would have just gone to a couple simpler translations first:

12:7 ERV Something from the Spirit can be seen in each person. The Spirit gives this to each one to help others.

12:7 GNT The Spirit's presence is shown in some way in each person for the good of all.

So, every Christian is given something from the Spirit’s presence, even if you don’t recognize what it is that God has given you, and the most important part is the very end of the verse:

“For the good of all” in GNT, “For the common good” in the CSB, and “to help the others” in the ERV.

The point is this: Every Christian is useful to every other Christian, if they are applying the gifts of God for the good of everyone, or we can say for the good of the church. That’s an important thing to remember. For the good of the church means for the good of the Body of Christ. When God is the one who is at work in the church, it is for the good of the church, the Body of Christ.

The Spirit Forms Us Into One

1 Corinthians 12:12 CSB

12 For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body—so also is Christ.

The Body of Christ Is One Complete Body

1 Corinthians 12:13–14 CSB

13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all given one Spirit to drink. 14 Indeed, the body is not one part but many.

Every Part Belongs

1 Corinthians 12:15–16 CSB

15 If the foot should say, “Because I’m not a hand, I don’t belong to the body,” it is not for that reason any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I’m not an eye, I don’t belong to the body,” it is not for that reason any less a part of the body.

Every Part Is Needed

1 Corinthians 12:17 CSB

17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?

The Body of Christ Is A Complex Body

1 Corinthians 12:18–20 CSB

18 But as it is, God has arranged each one of the parts in the body just as he wanted. 19 And if they were all the same part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The Body Needs Every Part

1 Corinthians 12:21–22 CSB

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” Or again, the head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that are weaker are indispensable.

Even the Hidden Parts Are Honored

1 Cor 12:23-24a “23 And those parts of the body that we consider less honorable, we clothe these with greater honor, and our unrespectable parts are treated with greater respect, 24 which our respectable parts do not need.”

God Builds the Body of Christ

1 Cor 12:24b-25 “24b Instead, God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the less honorable, 25 so that there would be no division in the body, but that the members would have the same concern for each other.”

Division Comes From Self-ness

1 Corinthians 12:25 CSB

25 so that there would be no division in the body, but that the members would have the same concern for each other.

Division is a Breakdown of Love

Love Cares for the Members of the Body

1 Corinthians 12:26 CSB

26 So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

“Y’all” and You Are the Body of Christ

1 Corinthians 12:27 CSB

27 Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it.

That means All of You and Each of You at the same

God Gifts the Church What It Needs

1 Corinthians 12:28 CSB

28 And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, next miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, leading, various kinds of tongues.

Sometimes the Answer is No.

1 Corinthians 12:29–30 CSB

29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all do miracles? 30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?

Where is Your Heart?

1Cor 12:31 “But desire the greater gifts.”

The Greater Gifts Are the Gifts God Has For You Alone For the Good of God’s Church