Untitled Sermon (16)

I want to consider the Body of Christ as being missional as found in chapter seven of “A Light to the Nations”. As the metaphor of the Body of Christ is specific to Paul’s writing. I want to talk about what Goheen discussed around this topic. In that he said that their was two signifigant ways that the “body of Christ” represents the the relationship of the churches relationship to Christ. He says the first is this “we are in Christ: “in Christ we, though many, form one body” and the second is “Chris is the head of the body”. I want to think about this in an opposite way perhaps than Goheen did. I want to consider first, Christ as the head of the church. One thought that came to my head qhile reading through this chapter was the relevance of Christ being head in our own individual life sin order to be head within the church. I have often heard the term that we cannot teach something in which we do not live out in our own life. In order to go a touch deeper into this thought i began to think how the lack of vision and direction in many churches have fallen because the life's of each individual have not allowed God to be head in their life. In placing this into the hands of our own life it needs to be considered that if God is not the head in our life we could perhaps hold the Body of christ back. Though I wouldn’t give us that much power as individuals, if combined with the possible growth of this virus throughout the individual body we will fail as a body. Perhaps this could be thought of as the weakest link of a chain. It doesn’t make the rest of the chain useless, but could certainly hold it back. Jesus has to stand as the overall authority in our own life in order to stand in overall authority of the Body of Christ. The other thought that Goheen had mentioned was that in Christ we form one body in playing this off of the the other point, we form a team. the truth of a team is that we build each other up to strengthen the Body of Christ. We are stronger together not alone, yet, churches live with constant lack of communication and a desire to work alone. I have heard pastors and youth pastors say “it is just easier if I do it myself” but the truth is that in itself hinders the body of Christ. One pastor whom I heard speak this week said “If our church is truly a success we will be small, with only a few members”. His logic in this was legitimate in that he has a goal to send missionaries, church planters, pastors, worship leaders, lay people and more into the world to do God’s work. If the church is truly acting as the Body of Christ, we not only begin to see it in our own body but we see it beyond our own body. This has a direct relation to church planting. When the Body is the Body they simply send. they send people into the world who have a desire and a heart for the Lord. They send people who have sound theology, an ability to share the gospel and heart to see the nations hear the word.