1 Corinthians 12 12 thru 31

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1 “The Body of Christ,” 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 (August 3, 2014) 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. 14

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? 20 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. 27

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way. PRAY We are working our way through the book of 1 Corinthians on Sunday mornings at Grace, we are finishing up chapter twelve this morning. Lord willing we will finish 1 Corinthians at the end of September, so just eight more Sundays. In our text for this morning we’re looking at how Paul compares the church to the human body. In fact, this analogy for the church was so powerful in Paul’s mind that he actually says, down in verse 27, that “you are the body of Christ.” And as I hope we’ll see the church, the people of God, as a body, with Christ as the head, is a very instructive (though not perfect, as we’ll see later in the sermon) analogy to teach us what it means to be a part of the church of the living God. Three things: first, the emotional component of the body of Christ. Second, the equipping component of the body of Christ. Third, the entrance to the body of Christ. We’ll look at © 2014 J.D. Shaw

2 what being part of the body of Christ means emotionally, as it pertains to equipping people, and how you enter in. First, the emotional component to the body of Christ. Let’s read verse 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. The English word “members” has lost all of its power in attempting to translate the Greek in verse 12. When we think of “members,” we think of our individual membership into a social club or fraternity or some other organization, where you pay your dues and you get certain privileges that come along with it. That’s not what Paul means – literally, he’s talking about the human body. We he says “members” what Paul really means is limbs and organs. When you become a Christian, we you are brought into the people of God, you become connected to all the other Christians the way a hand is connected to a foot on a human body. The way an eye is connected to an ear. What can that tell us? First, it tells us that if you are a Christian, you must know that you are now radically included, radically integrated, into the church. You are now connected to other Christians in a radical, permanent, and powerful way. In other words, when you become a Christian you are no longer alone. Our modern world is wonderful in so many ways, but one of the big downfalls of modern American society has been the collapse of any sense of community in our country. Thirteen years ago or so Robert Putnam wrote a fascinating book on this topic entitled Bowling Alone, and in it he demonstrated how disconnected modern Americans are from their neighbors. Americans once had a very deep sense of community, with deep religious and civic connections to lots of people in their hometowns, but now we are becoming more and more individualized, we’re spending more and more time at work and less time enjoying the company of other people outside of work, and the result is loneliness. When it comes to friendships, all the data out there supports that the number of friends modern Americans report having have dropped dramatically over the last sixty years. Whereas once it was common for an American to say he or she had four or five other adults with whom they could regularly discuss serious issues, that number has dropped to two on average And the number of people who report they have no one to talk to has tripled over the last thirty years. There is an epidemic of loneliness in America, it’s true in Oxford, and the problem in Oxford will only be exacerbated this fall when the newest freshman class reports to Ole Miss. Do you have any idea how many disconnected, lonely, hurting freshmen will be in Oxford in a few months? The loneliest I think I’ve ever felt in my life was my first semester of college. These kids will feel as if they have no one to talk to, no one here who cares about them at all.

© 2014 J.D. Shaw

3 But Paul says that if you are a Christian, you are radically connected to other Christians, organically connected to them – like the hand is to the foot – because you are a part of the body of Christ. The hand can never be lonely, the hand can never excluded, from the rest of the body, because there is an organic connection between it and the rest of the body. This connection is immediate and it’s radical because as a Christian you never stop being a part of the body of Christ. And even if you have to give up relationships in order to become a Christian – even if your current family and friends reject you because you’ve become a Christian – Jesus says it doesn’t matter. At one point in the gospel of Luke Peter goes up to Jesus and says, “You know, Jesus, we have left everything to follow you.” And Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, 30 who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.” Luke 18:29-30. And your connection to the body of Christ is permanent, and this is one of the ways the analogy of the church to a human body begins to break down if you press it too far. Can a hand ever be severed from the rest of the body? Yes, you can lose your hand, your foot, your eye. But Jesus says that will never happen to you in the body of Christ. Once you’re in, once you’re a part of the church, nothing can ever take you away from it. You can walk away of your own accord, but no one can ever snatch you away. No one can ever threaten your position in the body of Christ – not trouble, not hardship, not persecution, not famine, not sword, nothing. “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.” John 6:39. So many professing Christians are lonely, and too many of us look for fellowship outside the church. Of course there’s nothing wrong with a Christian associating with nonChristians, being friends with them, whether it be through social clubs or networks, or hunting clubs, or congregating with other sports fans. But if you are a Christian, then the most important relationships in your life must be inside the body of Christ, with other Christians, because those are the people with whom you share an organic, permanent connection. Only with them can you talk about the most important person in your life, Jesus and how good he is, how you can please him, serve him, worship him. If you are a Christian, you are included. Second, if you are a Christian you can find empathy among other Christians. Read verse 26: “If one member [or one limb, one hand, one vital organ] suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” This is a simple principle – if you receive a really deep gash on your hand, if you cut it on a rusty piece of metal, it will sooner or later impact the rest of the body. The foot is not safe just because the cut happened to the hand. Why? Because of course the human body is an integrated whole, and an injury to one part of the body can lead to blood loss or shock or infection and eventually death of the whole body. When one member, one limb, one organ, suffers, all suffer together.

© 2014 J.D. Shaw

4 And in the same way, inside the church, the body of Christ, when one person suffers, when one person hurts, they don’t hurt alone. We are called, the Bible says, to bear each other’s burdens. We are called mourn with those who mourn. When you celebrate as a part of the body of Christ, you shouldn’t have to do it alone – there are brothers and sisters who can celebrate with you. When you hurt as a part of the body of Christ, you shouldn’t have to do that either – there are brothers and sisters who can come alongside you, listen to you, pray for you, provide meals for you, give advice to you (if you ask for it). There’s empathy in the body of Christ. Now I don’t know and can’t really imagine of anyone not wanting to experience that. But of course, those of us who have been Christians for a while know it all too often does not work out that way. We don’t feel like there’s empathy in the body of Christ. And this is the other place where the analogy of the church as a human body breaks down, because in the human body the reality of the inclusion and the empathy among the various limbs and organs is a physical reality. We can see it – we can see that in the human body the hand is connected to the foot. But in the church the inclusion and empathy are spiritual realities, so it can often feel like you aren’t connected because these are spiritual realities there are things we can do to quench, to hinder, their operation. We looked at this verse last week – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-19: 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit. What does it mean to quench the Spirit? Well, many local congregations, local churches, are spiritually dead. The group of people gathered under the name “church” stopped really trying to be a part of the body of Christ a long time ago, and now they serve as community centers (which are great, but that’s not what the body of Christ is) or they are trying to hold onto some kind of local or cultural tradition. That’s not a bad thing in and of itself, but if a Christian walks into a church that falls into that category, she will not find the emotional component that comes with being a part of the body of Christ, because the people in those churches – even if they are Christians and they mean really well – are quenching the work of the Spirit by not even thinking of themselves as the Bible describes them – as the body of Christ. So sometimes it is the local churches that quench the emotional component of the Spirit’s work in the body of Christ, but it can also be the individual Christian. If someone comes to me and says, “I’m a Christian, but I don’t feel connected to other believers, I don’t feel like anyone knows me, I’m hurting but no one is helping me to bear this burden,” then of course I try my best to be compassionate with that person. But what I find often is the case is that this Christian has not allowed the body of Christ to minister to her – she’s quenched the Spirit. How? By not opening up her life to the Christians around her. By not being a part of church, or only being superficially involved in the life of the church – maybe coming on Sunday morning but never to a small group or a Wednesday night service sponsored by the church. She’s not involved in any other Bible studies with other

© 2014 J.D. Shaw

5 Christians in the community. What’s happened? She’s quenched the Spirit; she’s refused to allow the Holy Spirit through the body of Christ to know her and care for her. Friends, God will not force you to open up your life to the body of Christ. When you’ve chosen to remain that disconnected from the church like that, what else can you expect but to not feel like you are a part of the body of Christ? So, what do we need to do – both in the church and as individuals – to make sure that doesn’t happen? Second, the equipping component of the body of Christ. In the church, in the body of Christ (and I think I’ve said this each of the past two weeks), every single person, every member – every limb and organ – has been given spiritual gifts by the Holy Spirit. In chapter twelve Paul has two main points about the individual members of the body of Christ and their gifts, and it’s when and only when we understand Paul’s points about our equipment and put them into practice that we can fully experience the emotional components inside the body of Christ. First, inside the body of Christ, each member is just as important as all the other members, no matter what gifts you have. 14 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. 1 Corinthians 12:1418. Paul’s point here is clear – some of us might think that because we don’t have the same gifts as other Christians then we’re not really important to the body of Christ, maybe even that we aren’t included in the body of Christ. But that can never be true – if you are a Christian then you have been given at least one if not more spiritual gifts, and you are vital – vital – to the body of Christ. Just to take one example: probably, my main role as pastor at Grace is to teach. Now, whether or not I have the spiritual gift of teaching, I leave that to you. That’s not my call. But assume that I do have the gift of teaching – is that the most important gift God can give to the church? No, it’s not. Why? Because teaching alone will never be enough to equip the body of Christ! And let me go ahead and cover verse 28 here: 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. 1 Corinthians 12:28. You might read that and say, “Well, teaching must be more important than serving or helping or doing administrative work around the church because Paul puts it earlier in the list.” No, that’s not what he’s doing. Paul is not saying that apostles and prophets and teachers are © 2014 J.D. Shaw

6 the most important members of the body of Christ – that would contradict everything else he says in this section. Rather, he’s simply saying that the apostles and prophets and teachers came first to Corinth with the gospel, they laid the foundation for the church, and then as the church grew these other gifts were discovered and exercised. This is a list of chronological order not an order of importance. Teaching alone will never be enough to build up the body of Christ. I have learned the hard way in my ten years as a pastor that no matter how good the teaching in any particular church might be, it’s not enough to build a healthy church. You might be able to gather a crowd but you’ll never build fellowship and love among the members that way. There are other gifts that must be exercised or it will never happen. So, in some churches, there is great teaching, but there is little pastoral care among the membership – and I don’t just mean care from the paid staff, but care from one member to another. The people in the church show up on Sunday mornings for the service, but they don’t really love one another. You know what a church like that is? It has a huge head, but a tiny little heart. Now, what do you call a human body that has a gigantic head all out of proportion with the rest of the body and a tiny little heart? You would call it grotesque; it would be a freak show. If you ever saw a body like that it would probably be on life support in the ICU wing of a hospital. That’s the opposite of a healthy body. Conversely, there are lots of churches where the people really do love one another – they’ve all lived in the same community for decades, their kids grew up together and played together, now their grandkids are around. They care for one another, but they place no value on biblical teaching and, after years of neglect, now (though they still care for one another) they are biblically illiterate and the gospel is in danger of being forgotten. What’s that church like? All heart, no head. Also, grotesque – freakish. Finally, there are churches where the members love to serve their neighbors, serve the poor, serve the elderly, serve just for the sake of serving – but they don’t really like each other. There’s no sense of community or family inside the church. That church is all hands. But if the church is going to be a functioning, healthy body, and not some kind of grotesque monstrosity, then the individual gifts of all the members – all the limbs and organs – must be used to equip the saints for works of service. First, each member has an important gift – none more important than the other. Second, inside the body of Christ, each member’s gift is just as indispensable as any other member’s gift. 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… 1 Corinthians 12:21-22. If you are a Christian, you have a gift that no other Christian on the planet has, and if you aren’t using

© 2014 J.D. Shaw

7 it to serve and equip the body, then the body is suffering unnecessarily. The body needs your exceptional, unique gift. You must know that there are hands only you can hold, ears that will only listen to you, needs only you can meet, and demons only you can cast out. If you are a Christian, then it is certain that you are uniquely qualified by God to serve in certain capacities and to help certain people. Whether it’s taking someone a meal, or teaching a children’s Sunday school class, or visiting the sick, or helping to organize volunteers, or simply taking someone who’s hurting out for coffee, and listening to them (that’s a real gift; it may be that because of your unique life experiences you can listen to someone and provide encouragement in a way no one else on the planet can) – it could be any number of things, but they are all indispensable to the health of the church. You must use your gifts or the body cannot be healthy. John MacArthur has told the story many times about a man in his church in California whose son died. And about six months after his son died he called John MacArthur up and said, “You came and visited when he died, but I haven’t heard from you since. Do you even care about me?” That’s the kind of phone call every sincere pastor works really hard not to get. Yet you know what? The pastor cannot be at every single bedside, cannot counsel every single hurting person, cannot teach every single class and cannot serve every single meal. But the body can. The limbs and the organs of the body of Christ can be there for one another. That’s not to let the paid staff off the hook – we must do our part. But what is so sweet for me as a pastor is to see needs met in the body of Christ before I even know there’s a need. To see ministries started inside the body of Christ that I had nothing to do with. That’s the sign of a healthy church, a well-proportioned, fit, exercising body of Christ. You must use your gift. And how do you find out what your gift is? We talked about this two weeks ago: when you see a need. When you see a need that you can meet with the abilities and the resources you have at your disposal, you meet it. Christians don’t need gift lists (in other words, we don’t need to take spiritual gifts inventories to find out what our gifts are or have people tell us which ones we have), rather we need need lists. Obviously, Grace Bible Church is not the only place where you can exercise your gift on behalf of the body of Christ – please don’t think when I say “the body of Christ” I mean only our local church. The needs in our community are as diverse as the people. But we do have lots of needs in our congregation. We can give you a list of needs, so if you want to test out your gift set, call me, better yet call Chris Teague – he’s our pastor that oversees most of our volunteers – and we’ll help you get to work equipping the body of Christ at Grace Bible Church. But only if we all exercise our gifts will the spiritual reality of the body of Christ be fully realized – it’s impossible with you.

© 2014 J.D. Shaw

8 So, we’ve talked a lot about what we can expect from the body of Christ and how we can serve once we’re in it. But how do we become a part of the body of Christ in the first place? Third, entrance to the body of Christ. If you’re here today and you’re not a Christian, welcome. We are glad you’re here. I’d like to address you as we close. I want you to know that entrance into the body of Christ is totally unlike the way you join in any other organization. Verse 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.” This verse tells us a couple of things about how we enter into the body of Christ. First, entrance does not depend on who you are. In every other organization on the planet, the more prominent you are, the more connected and prestigious your family name is, the more gifted you are, the more money you have, the more you are sought after to be a member. Some of do come from backgrounds like that, or have made a name for yourself in the community, in the state, and you might know what it’s like to have corporations and civic organizations ask you to be in their leadership, to have universities and churches even ask you for money, to be given attention for who you are and what you’ve done. And you must know that the body of Christ could not be more different. God, the Bible says in Ephesians 6, is no respecter of persons; there is no favoritism with him. All the things that make a person so respected and sought after in the world are meaningless to God. Why is that? Because everyone, no matter how prominent or wealthy they are or aren’t, need the same thing – we need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Now there’s a lot of confusion about that phrase these days. Some Christians use it to describe some second experience you can have after you become a Christian, where you experience the love of God in a new way, and often it’s marked by being slain in the Spirit (the experience of being knocked to the floor and held there while joy overwhelms you), or by ecstatic speech. Now, I have no doubt that this kind of thing does happen to people, but it’s not what Paul means when we writes about being baptized in the Holy Spirit. Paul is not talking about something that happens to you after you become a Christian; he means what must happen to you in order for you to be a Christian. We are spiritually dead, that means that we cannot even begin to understand the things of God. But once we’ve been baptized by the Holy Spirit, we are made alive – our hearts, once dead to the things of God, can now begin to perceive them, understand them, and embrace them. We can understand and embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ – that God became a man in Jesus Christ, he died on the cross in our place for our sins, and if we believe that good news, that gospel, we will be reconciled to God and will have union with Christ – we will be a part of his body.

© 2014 J.D. Shaw

9 No one, no one, is more likely to be accepted into the body of Christ because of their family, their wealth, their position in society. Everyone is equally in need of the same thing – the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And no matter your past, no matter how unimportant the world seems to think you are, if you believe the gospel God will accept you, and his people will, too. One way you can be sure you are around Christians who are really trying to be the body of Christ and who want to exercise the gifts of the Spirit (and, conversely, are not quenching the Spirit by how they do church) is that when you meet them and you tell them how you are Christian and how much the Lord Jesus means to you, they immediately accept you. Why? They know a miracle when they see one. Christians know it’s a miracle of the Holy Spirit when you believe the gospel. And they won’t care where you’ve come from, they won’t care what you can do for them, how much money you have, what kind of connections you have. It’s an upside down reaction from the world, but that’s how entrance into the body of Christ works. Second, entrance into the body of Christ is marked by joy. How can you know that you really believe the gospel? I know a lot of people who wrestle this, I’ve wrestled with it – how can you know that you know that you’ve believed? 4

For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. 6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit … 1 Thessalonians 1:4-6. You can be sure you’re a part of the body of Christ when you receive the gospel with joy. Does the good news of Jesus Christ – that Jesus died to save you from your sins – fill you with joy? Can it bring you joy even during affliction and pain (not perfectly, not all the time, but often)? Does it from time to time make you want to sing: “And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood? Died he for me who caused him pain, for me who him to death pursued? Amazing love, how can it be, that thou my God should die for me?” Friends, people who are not of the body of Christ never want to sing something like that – the gospel never brings them joy. They don’t even understand it. But the Holy Spirit does. If you’ve got questions about that I’d love to talk to you after the service or later this week. To be a part of the body of Christ is the single greatest privilege God can give to anyone. It is the single greatest blessing you can receive on earth. And we have a part to do to make the body of Christ as sweet as it can be – we have to use our gifts to make this spiritual reality we are a part of feel as wonderful in our hearts as it really is. PRAY

© 2014 J.D. Shaw