Everyone is Invited
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Let me encourage you, if you have not been involved in Pray for Me over the past 6 years I’d really encourage you to be part of it this year. I actually may talk to Pastor John to try to include it as a requirement for membership. No I’m kidding but if you are a member here there probably isn’t a better way to get connected to a few other people in our church. You’ll be connected to a student but also in a group with a could other adults, and all of you will be praying for that one student during the school year. Last week when I was sharing with our student leaders who are moving into leading discipleship groups with our teenagers, I reminded them, hey you don’t need to be a bible scholar to do this, just read through the Scriptures with our students and talk with them about it. You don’t need to be a prayer warrior to be part of this, it’s for everyone. And I actually think it could be a good action step in responding to our text this morning.
If you’ve been with us for the past few weeks we’ve been looking at Scriptures all related around this idea of community. And there are a few different ways we’ve been challenged this series to develop in community, and I’m sure many of you have desired to move to a place where you can be connected to others believers. I know that’s the case, I’ve spoken with some of you about that. Maybe you’ve felt a stirring in your heart to be involved in a small group or want to join a team and start serving with other believers. I hope that desire that has been ignited does not fade, please continue to pursue that. We’ve also spent some time looking at how people in the church relate to one another and that’s how we’re going to finish this morning as we study through 1 Corinthians 12:21-26.
As you’re turning there, let me give you the briefest summary I can on the book of 1 Corinthians. Paul started this church in Corinth and he’s writing them because he needs to address a few problems that have been mounting up. Some are doctrinal issues but most of the issues he’s trying to address is how the people are related to one another. There is a lot of factions in the church and he’s instructing them how they can break free from them in order to invite everyone into true worship.
The title of today’s sermon is Everyone is Invited and we’re going to read the way that Paul instructs us as a church, a community of believers, to treat one another in the hopes that we can develop the type of unity God expects from his church.
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.
Open in prayer
I want you to think about the common interactions you have on Sunday morning when you get to church. For many of us we tend to have conversations with the same people week after week. Those are the good elements of community we’ve been describing these past few weeks, and you need those, it’s important to have that group of people that you do life together with. But these verses are specifically about the body of believers. And I know you love your small group, and those are your people, but that is not the body. The body is everyone here, those who have made a personal declaration to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior desiring to live for him above all else. The connections we have to the few cannot prohibit us from being connected to the whole. Let’s read through this text to see some of the ways we should be pursuing others.
Let’s begin in verse 1 Cor 12:21
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.”
Paul is comparing the Spiritual body of believers, the church, to our physical body. There are a couple different ways church is described in the NT, it’s either the Global church, anyone who has put their trust in Christ is part of the body of Christ, but it’s also used in the context of the local church as well. So it’s probably appropriate to have both these in mind as you think about this metaphor Paul is using. We’re part of Christ’s body at the moment of salvation and we can be active participants in Christ’s body through the local church.
Through that lens why would a part of our body ever say I don’t need that. Our eye won’t say I don’t need that hand, our head won’t say I don’t need the foot. It’s ridiculous to think our body responding in that way and yet we’re perfectly comfortable saying that of someone else in church. I think often we do this in a more passive way, we’ll say something like, well me and that person are just going to agree to disagree. I’m just going to avoid having conversations with that person. I don’t need to get along I only see them once a week. And plus we have two services so if I just go to the other service then I’ll never see them.
That is not the answer, because these verses are not describing how we can tolerate other Christians. They are revealing that for true worship and church health we NEED one another.
Let’s keep reading because verses 22-24 explain some of the reason why Paul is writing.
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,
One of the things that was happening in the Corinth church was they were elevating certain gifts above others, so if you elevate one gift above another gift, what’s naturally going to happen is you are going to elevate certain people over others. If you elevate a certain gift and a person has that gift you’re going to say, wow that person is valuable and important. So Paul pushes back against that thought and he writes these words that are somewhat awkwardly translated into English. There are a couple ways to make sense of this analogy;
Think just for a second about all the parts in your body. How often do you think about your heart? or your kidneys? Unless something is wrong with them we don’t really think about them. We know logically that those parts are indispensable, as Paul says in verse 22, but we don’t show the same attention or care or concern that we do for other parts of the body.
Then he says, our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty. He’s talking about clothing here. . We have parts of our bodies that are less attractive or less honorable than other parts so we simply cover them up, thus giving them greater respect.
Can you see the connection Paul is trying to make between our physical bodies and the body of Christ, the church? If we instead read this from the perspective of the church we see that there are people that are doing things behind the scenes and that those people are indispensable. God is elevating them with honor.
Throughout the book of 1 Corinthians Paul is speaking often to those who are in leadership, and I think there is an emphasis here in this passage for those of us who have spiritual gifts that place us up front. If you are placed in a position where your gifting is viewed by others you can have this tendency to think more highly of yourself than you should. Everytime I preach I really do appreciate when people come up and tell me they were encouraged by the message but I always have to run that through the filter of all the people that worked together behind the scenes that maybe don’t get all the credit.
There are people serving coffee who provide something that can help you feel welcomed into this environment and to get there you pass smiling faces welcoming you in. You dropped your kids off with trusted adults and really haven’t thought about how they are doing and it allows you to focus on what God is teaching you from his word. You can hear me just right and there no distractions in the sound or the lighting. Someone adjusted the temperature in the room so you can be comfortable. I didn’t do any of those things. We have people doing all those things. If you are leading in an area of ministry and your gifting pushes you into the spotlight it’s essential to remember how much is happening behind the scenes.
In Romans 12:3 we read,
Romans 12:3 (ESV)
3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
If you were to keep reading in Romans 12 you would see similar language about the church and how we are to function as one, each person using their gift to serve others. And here in verse 3 he’s instructing us on what our mindset should be as we consider ourselves. This is what humility is. It’s one thing to hear the commands to be humble, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. But how are we supposed to be humble? This is one clear way that brings about the humility that God requires, accepting everyone and welcoming everyone in the same way he has.
I actually had to apologize to someone this week because I was giving them a hard time, although they kind of deserve it, and I told them that. But, it was easy in a casual moment of joking around to elevate myself as more important, and I had to tell them, these were the verses I was reading through so I’m sorry. I’m not more valuable than you are.
Maybe you are one of those people serving behind the scenes, and if that’s you here’s the message I want you to hear, you are extremely valuable. I like the language Paul uses in verse 22, he says those who seem weaker. For people who are utilizing their spiritual gifting, there is no one who is doing something more valuable than someone else. That may be the case in the corporate world, the CEO may have more value than the intern, but that’s not the case in the church.
We like to play board games in our house and it’s been fun as the kids have gotten older playing different style games that are a little more challenging. I think I’ll be content if I never have to play another game of chutes and ladders. That game is the absolute worse. Yeah see some people know what I’m talking about. If you didn’t react strongly to that it’s just because you don’t remember how brutal that game is. Anyway there are several games that we’ve played over the years with friends or when family is in town and over the past couple years we’ve started to get some of the junior versions of those games. It’s like the adult version but the rules are changed a little bit so kids can play. I wonder if sometimes the church does the same thing, we create this junior version of church and only welcome them into the real function of the church once they hit a certain age. Years ago I heard something that stuck with me, there is no junior version of the Holy Spirit.
Whether we think someone is too young, too immature, or even not gifted enough I want to challenge us to remember we are all completely reliant on the same Holy Spirit. Both of my two older kids have made professions of faith in their life, although we go through days where I’m like, you still sinning a lot, you sure you know Jesus?
But with a true profession of Christ comes the Holy Spirit. And I have to remind myself that the same Spirit that resides in me is the one who resides in them. In Mark 10:13-16
Mark 10:13–16 (ESV)
13 And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” 16 And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.
Jesus’ disciples were shooing away the children, and Jesus welcomed them in. They thought let us push aside the weak so we can welcome those who are strong. And when Jesus rebuked them he said, “this is who my kingdom belongs to.”
I tell the teenagers in our church all the time that they don’t get a free pass because they’re young. Society may exclude them from certain things and they’ll have this mindset that, I’ll start taking them seriously when they are adults, but that kind of thing shouldn’t happen in the church. The contributions that every person is making in this church is irreplaceable. And we know that’s true because God set it up like that.
Let’s keep reading.
In verse 1 Cor. 12:24
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,
it says, God composed the body. That word actually mean that God mixed it all together, he stirred it up. God assembled everyone here for a purpose. God did not bring you to this church by accident, he mixed you in because you have something to provide. This is the reason why we expect all our members to be serving. We cannot possibly do everything God desires for our church unless everyone is part of it. If everyone is not part of it, we’re going to be missing something.
God mixed everyone together for this purpose, verse 25 1 Cor. 12:25
25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.
Thinking about this from a human perspective it makes no sense. I’d think if we want to get a group of people and not have any division it’d make sense to gather up a bunch of people who were the same. That would make the most sense. If these people agree on everything there won’t be anything to argue about. But what God does is he mixes together all these people with differing backgrounds and then he gifts them with different gifts and he does it for the purpose of unity.
How does that provide unity? Well, I believe what God expects to happen is that we will eventually be pushed to this place where we say, I don’t think I can accomplish this on my own, I need other people gathered up next to me so I can accomplish what God wants.
When I was growing up I played a lot of different sports and one of the more frustrating sports for me to play was baseball. It wasn’t even the heat or the bugs that really annoyed me, although those weren’t that pleasant either, and it wasn’t even that hitting a baseball was one of the more challenging things to do in all the sports I played. For me what was frustrating is being competitive and knowing that there are times when you simply have to rely on someone else. You could get a hit every time you get to the plate and make several amazing plays in the field and still lose by 10 runs. But I also remember times when the person least likely to do something amazing stepped up to the plate and got a big hit when we needed it most. And we were able to celebrate and I’m recalling those moments and thinking, that’s what it should be like in the church. We should be continually celebrating, because we’re not playing in a game where we may win or lose, Christ has already given us the victory, we should be constantly lifting one another up in praise. And that is actually what Paul writes as we conclude this section of the text.
Look back to the end of verse 25 and verse 26 1 Cor. 12:25-26
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.
I typically like to take verse like this and use them as a simple test to determine whether or not we’re being obedient to the commands that have been outlined. Members should have the same care for one another. If one is suffering, others suffer with it, if one is rejoicing, others rejoice with it.
Here’s what I’d suggest you do for examination here this morning, ask yourself, does this reflect how I relate to the body? Maybe first we need to ask, do I even know who is part of the body? If you are a member we’d love to get you a list of the membership so you know, these are all the people who are part of our body, this is the group of people that I need walking alongside me so I can be obedient to God’s commands.
Maybe some of you are experiencing suffering. If that’s the case I hope you are allowing others to walk with you. We’ve had members in the past hurt because they’ve felt alone in their suffering, but often we aren’t aware of all the pain people are experiencing. I hope if you are walking through a difficult season that you are sharing that struggle with those in the church, please let us know.
Others of you may be experiencing great joy. Have you noticed that when you have really great news or something really amazing happens, it doesn’t really mean a whole lot if there’s no one to share that with? Here’s the attitude we should be developing, sharing genuine expressions of joy when something good happens for others in this church. Let’s set aside jealous or envious thoughts, pushing past I wis something that would happen for me to, I hope God brings them even greater joy.
How can we respond? A few questions to consider..
Am I contributing to the body? Am I utilizing my gift in some way? If not, grab that green card and fill it out and say hey I want to serve somewhere.
Am I weeping with someone right now? There’s people in our body who are hurting, are you feeling that hurt? You stub your toe walking to the bathroom at 1am and your whole body is now awake and alert. The suffering of that little toe is felt everywhere. If you are not feeling the hurt you should be walking toward closer connection.
Am I rejoicing with someone right now? There are lots of people celebrating but the only way we can learn about those is if we actively pursue those conversations.