All right, we're gonna begin in verse 14, because we've already seen in verse 13 that, or verse 12 and 13, we've seen how to talk about how the body is constituted, the completeness that it's involved, and all of the components, and how they work. We saw that in the commonality that there is there in, in all of these things, and we stress the commonality that we all have as believers. And I mentioned I had a couple of poems, and I remembered to bring at least one with me today, and I want to mention that because here's one of the most important things. In this whole lesson, it's been for several weeks now on the subject of spiritual gifts, but one of the overriding themes is the importance of unity in the body. Now, when you look, before I go any further, I want to mention in Ephesians, and if you would turn to Ephesians chapter, I believe it's chapter three. I might be wrong about that. Ephesians chapter four. I wanna just us look at the first three verses. Paul says, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. Now we know there's... a hundred and more things that he could speak of now in connection with this command to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you're called. But let's see what he says in this context, what's involved in walking worthy. He says, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering forbearing one another in love. That's what it means to walk worthy of our vocation. Walking worthy of our vocation may involve standing for doctrinal truth. And that is so important. That is very important. Um, walking worthy of our vocation may be living a separated life. It does involve living a separated life and we can't say too much about the importance of that. But the Apostle Paul is singling out this thing here. And you know what, it's a lot easier to live a separated life, wear the right clothes, get the right haircuts, all of that kind of thing, watch where you go and what you do. All of it's important. But that's a whole lot easier for people than it is to do what is spoken of in verses 2 and 3 here. Living a separated life and dealing with these externals is so easy compared to what's in verses 2 and 3. It's easy to defend the faith in terms of doctrine. That is just easy. compared to this. But the Apostle Paul says that walking worthy of our vocation, he says, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love. Now, let me ask you a question. What is involved in forbearing one another in love? It's easy to forbear. What would be a synonymous phrase or a synonym for that, forbearing? What does it mean? There, Ryan, long suffering, what else? Enduring, what else? Street language, putting up with, forbearing, you know, just forbearing one another in love. It's easy to forbear one another in love if people are doing things like we want them to do them. Then it's easy, right? It's easy to forbear one another in love as long as they're up to speed where we consider being up to speed is. But when people aren't, the Bible is saying here because we know this, this is what the New Testament is stressing so much. In a church, there were people in this church at Ephesus that hadn't been saved 24 hours. There were people there who had come from all kinds of a pagan background to all kinds of things, domestic problems. Does that sound familiar? People today come from the same kinds of backgrounds or people sitting in churches. Some have been in church all their lives. Their mom and dad had them in church a week after they were born. Um, That's been the way it's been for them. There are others who have had a lot of false religious teaching put in their heads, and they're not quite where they need to be. It is not compromise to forbear one another in love, even if they're not right exactly where we want them to be. And we don't want to give the slightest impression to people that we don't wanna be Pharisaical about it. We do not want to cut ourselves off from the influence that we can have with these people by turning them off. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? So I'm not saying it, the Bible is saying it, the walk worthy of our vocation. Do you think Jesus put up with a lot of stuff from his disciples? He did. Shouldn't we put up with a lot of stuff? If need be, that it's not compromise. If it's compromise, that's one thing. But if we're compromising vital truth, And in so doing, we're compromising in such a way that it's really going to have a long-term effect on people. So when Paul is dealing with these things and he's stressing this unity like he is, this is something that was done commonly by the apostles throughout the churches. I said before, this was a major concern. And when you're reading New Testament letters, it comes up in the very first chapter. You don't have to read many verses. He wants to know how the love life of that church is. In verse three, he says, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Now you don't have to resort to the Greek, be a Greek scholar or anything like that. When you read endeavoring, that's a strong word. We can tell it's a strong word. When we think about an endeavor, We think about some effort being expended, some sweat, some sweat equity being put into it. Endeavoring, another word for that is to be striving, to be striving, to be consciously deliberately striving, and if you get a setback, then you keep at it, but you're striving for what? He says, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. of peace. One of the greatest protecting things for a New Testament church is peace. For members to be at peace among themselves. We're not talking about peace at any cost. We're not talking about appeasement where gross error is concerned. But this is the The point is that these spiritual gifts could not be exercised or blessed like they needed to be if the spirit was grieved by the way people were looking at one another or thinking about one another. And we know that in Corinth, they had this problem. They had a lot of big me, little you people there looking down on others. Well, you don't know what I know. You're not where I am and this kind of thing. And I've got this gift and you don't. That's why they were so carnal. And so they were having real problems. So Paul is using something that anybody can understand, and that is this illustration of the body. And he says we're to be contentment, contented with the gifts we have. This is where we closed last week. There's to be contentment because of the importance there is in the place that we have to function. Every one of us, our place is important to function. But here's what we have to do, we have to function. If your place of functioning is behind the pulpit or it's as an usher at the door or whatever your place is, find your place and then make sure you function. Now if you don't know where your particular place is, Maybe you're a new Christian or you're still trying to figure out what is my gift and what is my place? Now, if you haven't got that figured out yet, you can just operate in general and say that every Christian is to be loving and a kind and an edifier and a witness and all of that, so function in that place until you find out your specific place to function. Now, does anybody have a comment or a question? So he talks about contentment because of the importance of the place that we have to serve. Nobody should say because I'm not afoot, you know, I'm just a pinky, little finger. Nobody should say because I'm not the pastor, then it's not important what I do, and so on. That's the point that he's making here. But contentment also because of the idea, and this is where we stopped last week, the idea for all of this, diversity, is in accordance with the pleasure of God. God gave you the gift he gave you because that's what God wanted for you. What he gave me is what he wanted for me. And so we need to be happy about whatever our gift is or our place of service because knowing that was God's good pleasure. And if it's good enough for God, it ought to be good enough for who? It's us, amen. All right, now let's start right here at verse 20. We're gonna begin reading with verse 20. And look at the codependency that exists within the body. I'm sorry, look at verse 15. In verse 15 through 17, I better read it. He says, as the foot shall say, because I'm not of the hand, I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say because I'm not the eye, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? And then down in 21, he goes from this place, do not depreciate yourself. Don't be saying I'm not the foot, I'm not an eye, on and on and on. That's a self depreciation which is sinful. It's not humility, it's vainglory in a very subtle, sneaky kind of a way. Then in verse 21, he talks about there's to be no depreciation of others. And if the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee. See, here's the other side of it. And nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. It's like a story, I think I told this here a long time ago, about over in Europe, there was a very renowned organist. And he went to, and he was really proud. And he went to play an organ at a cathedral one time. And before that, he had really belittled the little boy that worked back behind the organ pumping. I don't know how that works. John or Casey, those of you who know something about these huge pipe pipe organs, but they had to have somebody back there working, you know, pumping or doing whatever they did. And so he had really belittled and depreciated everybody, but himself that day. So when he got up to, when he got up there and started on that Oregon, he went so far and all of a sudden it just ran out of gas and he couldn't get any. any music out of it, anything going. And the little boy had decided, I'm just not gonna do my part. He's back behind the scenes, got a very menial job to do. Mr. Big Shot, educated, talented, renowned, is out there, but totally dependent upon the little guy behind the scenes. And that's the way we are. Now just stop and think about this. How could there be any preaching if there wasn't anybody present? Amen? It is important that people be present. You know, it's amazing that people can get to work under the most adverse circumstances. The car's not running quite right, they're not feeling quite well, and so on and so forth, but they can get to work Because it's just important that I be at work, but they can't be in church. Now, why is that? I think what some of the reasoning is this, I know a lot of the reasoning because I've heard it, but I think some of the reasoning is what difference is it going to make? I don't have an office in the church. I don't have, they're not depending on me for anything. I'm not teaching a class depended on in the nursery or anything like that. I'm just going to be sitting there. Well, you know what? That's a very important function, to be sitting there. People used to understand that. But more and more and more, I'm finding that people do not understand it, especially this younger generation. And I'm not one of these guys that, you know, gets a certain age and turns into an old curmudgeon. But it's just true. Now, it's not a general statement. There's exceptions to everything. But see, if you know you're part of the body, you need to be there. Amen? That's an important function in and of itself. Now, variation is evident. When you look at verse 20 through 26, Paul says, but now there are many members, yet one body. Here's that hands, feet, ears, head, toes kind of thing again, eyes, but the value is equal. The value is equal. Now I wanna read a poem to you in connection with that that I've had for a long time. And I'm gonna read it as best I can. I want you to really listen because this goes back to what we've been saying from the very beginning of the lesson. How we think of other people. Now if we're thinking of other people like we should be thinking of other people, people say, I'm gonna make it to work tomorrow, but otherwise I'm gonna let people down. Well, think that way about church. Think that way about church too. Could we only draw the curtain that surrounds each other's lives, See the naked heart and spirit, know what spur to action drives. In other words, know what their propensities are, what their emotions, what triggers their emotions. Know what spur to action drives. Often, we should find it better. Purer than we judge we should, we should love each other better if we only understood. If we knew the cares and trials, knew the efforts all in vain, and the bitter disappointments, understood the loss and gain, would the grim external roughness seem, I wonder, just the same? Should we help where now we hinder? Should we pity where we blame? So, you know, this is how you have to think and how you have to look. And even what I was saying there about people that will go to work and they can't make it to church and so on like that. Here's one factor to keep in mind. We don't know exact everything about everything that's going on. I remember years ago hearing about someone that just derided a woman. I shouldn't even give this illustration. People would be off to the races with it. But they derided her because she wore her, she wore some, it was a type of a garment where it went all the way down and lapped over her shoes and everything else. And they were being very critical of her. And so one day that was happening with another woman and she went in another room and showed her her legs, which were burned and scarred and pitted from a terrible, terrible fire that she'd been in as a girl. And the person who had been so critical, of course, you can imagine how they felt when they saw that. So the thing is, that's just a little illustration of how we do not know everything that's going on in a person's life. Now that's not a license for people to say, to just do as they please and make excuses and all of that. But I will say this, we all need to just remember that 11th commandment. I said if anybody had asked me for an 11th commandment, I have one ready. I'm sure I'm not gonna be asked. You remember what it is? Thou shalt not kid thyself. You can make all the excuses that you want to, but make sure that you're not kidding yourself. All right? Now, in looking at these different, different members that are codependent within the body, let's remember this. They complement each other. We've already seen that. The hand handles what the eyes see, and the feet protect where the head directs, and on and on and on, the body members compensate for each other. What I'm not able to do, somebody else is able to do in this church. There's a lot of things, I'm just not able to do them. I couldn't do them. For example, well, I don't wanna go on a long list, it'd take too long, but we have people who could do it in a flash. They know exactly what they're doing. So we compensate for each other. Organs make up for malfunction. If a person's vision is weak in one eye, the other eye, many times it'll get stronger. If they're suffering from impairment of vision, a lot of times their hearing will grow keener. And so you see the same thing in the body. The body members are conscious and considerate and they care for one another in a good church. They're conscious and considerate and they care for one another. One of the worst things that I've ever heard anybody say in a church is, well, I don't care what others think. And it's been a long time since I've heard that and I haven't heard it very often in my whole life. But imagine a church member saying, I don't care what others think. I don't care what impression they might be getting. So everything is important. If one member's hurting, Paul said, the whole body hurts. Amen? Affects the whole body. You got a broken tooth and it's into the nerve and it's gonna affect your whole body. Have you ever noticed that in these Olympic races, when somebody wins the gold medal, the silver medal, the bronze medal, now they've run a race, a foot race, but when they get up on that pedestal to receive their ribbon, where do they put the ribbon? Around their feet? They put it around their neck, right? The feet are not in the most honorable position, but they hang it around that athlete's neck, and there's gonna be a whole lot of members of the body of Christ, the feet, so to speak, that will really get the awards, that are responsible for the big reward that come, and they were just what they thought was just not a very important member. So there's not to be, and all of this that Paul's preaching, I'm trying to wind this lesson down, Trying to get this thought through too, that there's not to be, understanding all this, there should be no spirit of competition. We're all in this together. There should be no spirit of competition in the body of Christ, but there should be a sense of concern. We should all have a care for how each other is doing. In verse 25, he says, there should be no schism in the body. He says, but that the members should have the same care one for another. Members should have the same care. In other words, no Corinthian-like evaluation of others. No, they're important, they're not so important. We could do without them, that kind of thing. Mutual care. Is the outcome not, not of just charitable lovey dovey feelings, but it's the outcome of a stark realization that we all need each other. Now let's any, any comment or question on any part of this before we go to the next point? Yes, sir. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and there's all kinds of safeguards. I mean, we don't have to guess at any of this stuff about being a Christian, do we? Do we have to guess at anything? If we understand and read our Bibles, we'll figure out things like that. And we'll know how to act when somebody comes and they're saying something critical to somebody else or something like that. The Bible is very, very clear. For the example, it says, bring not an accusation, except in the presence of two or three elders. It's talking about a pastor, for example. It gives, in Matthew chapter 18, a general rule for all church members, whether they're pastors or not, in how to handle situations. But we don't just receive criticism. We always want to be careful about just like, well, you know, all I did was listen. I just stood there and listened. I didn't say anything. Anybody ever heard this saying? Silence suggests what? Consent. What did you say, John? Yeah, yeah, same thing. So I didn't say anything, you know. Or I've heard people say, why do they always come to me? My answer is probably because you have the biggest ear. So it's time to check yourself out if people are always coming to you with some criticism. As far as I know, we don't have any problems like this in this church. But I wanna tell you why we don't to this point is because we've all striven or been involved in striving together for unity. Amen? And if we stop doing that and stop loving one another and caring and understanding things like this, the unity will evaporate. And people in a church like this will begin to see things you never saw before. So that's why we have to strive for unity. We have to deliberately love one another, appreciate one another, do things like learn and understand, develop our spiritual gifts and exercise and appreciate ours and other people's. Now look at verse 27 through the end of the chapter. Now here's. The analogy is the human body and the church. Verse 27, he says, now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular. So in case you missed this, I haven't just given a human anatomy lesson. This is about you there in Corinth and the church. Now here's the setting, the setting of men in offices, also gifts in the church in verse 28. And God hath set some in the, where? Church, where does he set these gifts and all of this? Where's the setting for all of this? It's not out there in some universal church. He's talking to a local, visible New Testament church, and he says, this is the setting. So we have a lot of things calling themselves, you know, the gathering, the patch, the bridge, the this, the that. And so that doesn't necessarily mean that they're a church. They might be as sincere as they can be in gathering together and trying to study the Bible, but they're not the setting in which the Lord has placed these gifts and offices and wants them to operate. Does anybody have a comment or question on that? And don't think, don't anybody, Okay. Boy, I love that illustration. Most of you have seen Adeline's eye and it's not good and it's being corrected. But a big part of the correction for that eye to become as functional as it needs to be, this eye has to become very, very, take a back seat, so to speak. That's really easy to understand, isn't it? It doesn't matter if you're talking about women working in the kitchen. One of the hardest things for people to do. One of the hardest things for a person who's a really good Bible teacher to do is listen to somebody who's not quite there yet, or they're a long way from being there. Right? You've been in junior church all of your life. If you've ever been in a position, Brother Morton, where you've seen somebody and you thought, they don't even know what they're doing. And it's true. But people never learn. I hear this all the time. I'm trying to get a job, I'm trying to get a job and they just ask me, how much experience do you have? How am I ever gonna get any experience if you don't give me a chance? That works in churches too. People have to have opportunities. You have to be careful, you can't let somebody have, for example, you can't let somebody have an opportunity to preach to the whole congregation and then you can tell they're not putting much into it. You can't just keep on giving a person a chance if it's not doing any good because then you hurt a whole bunch of people. Then it has a negative effect all around. But that is a great illustration. To defer, it's called defer one to another. That's great. Anybody else have a comment or question? Anybody? Okay. All right, let's look at this then. The setting, that's clear. You gotta believe in the New Testament church. Let me tell you how important it is. Did you know that the vast majority of Protestantism, this is one of the marks of Protestantism. Baptists aren't Protestants. They weren't Protestants before they were called Baptists. And let's keep that in mind. The New Testament church was not always called Baptist. Is that true? That is true. All right. So people need to be very careful about going off to the races on things that they, it's called irresponsible preaching and teaching, but the new Testament church has always understood the difference between the church and Protestantism and Catholicism and all of that kind of thing. If you don't understand the New Testament church, for example, probably a great majority of Protestantism and a whole lot of people who call themselves Baptist believe the church started on the day of Pentecost. Most of them believe that, would you agree? Most people you talk to, you hear a lot of preachers, church started on the day of Pentecost. Well, it didn't start on the day of Pentecost. Now see, that is critical. Because if you're messed up even where the church originated, you got a problem. It's not rocket science. Jesus called out his church, he put the ordinances in the church, they were baptizing and observing the Lord's Supper as a church before the day of Pentecost. Jesus said apostles, in the church before the day of Pentecost. When Paul's writing these Corinthians, he talks about the gifts, he talks about apostles, and he said, Christ set apostles first in the church. How many of you know that I can't set this Bible in this pew if there's no pew existing yet for me to set the Bible in? So when people teach, when people get it wrong on when the church started, they open the door of Pandora's box and a whole bunch of theological nasties come flying out of it in every direction. And that's really, that's one of the biggest reasons why you have so many denominations is because people got off on the wrong foot. It goes back to my old button illustration. If you get the first button, I don't have a three-button suit, if you get the first button and the second or the third buttonhole, nothing else is gonna line up. And if you get started off in the wrong way with the New Testament church, even as to when it started, nothing else is really gonna line up. So the setting here for these gifts and the exercises in the church and the supply for officers or offices is in the church. When you look at verse 28. He says, God has set some first in the church, first apostles, here's the verse, secondarily of prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues and all of that is set into the church. And notice one of these gifts that he mentions here, and he mentions the gifts of healing. Wow, that's dramatic to be able to walk up to somebody that is blind and heal them, and they can, 20-20 vision, boom, just like that. But then right after that, healings, it says the gift of helps. You think about these really exciting gifts, like you think about these nice pretty stanchions and these beautiful light fixtures, just so everybody knows this. We wouldn't have these light fixtures if God had not, we wouldn't have anything. But sometimes people come in, how in the, whoa, how extravagant. They're not saying that in so many words, whoa, these kind of light fixtures. Those smallest ones cost $600 retail. When I went down to look at lighting, first thing I did, you know, I'm just like most of you, I've got a filet mignon appetite and a cheeseburger billfold. So I'm in there, first thing I make a beeline when I'm looking at all these, these just caught my eye and I was just looking at them. I thought, wow. But I only, when I inquired, I found out the only thing we could afford was lights like we have these fluorescent lights that are in these plastic cases like we have, you know. That's what we could afford. But sometime I'll tell you this story privately if you want to hear it. We wound up getting these lights for the cost of the fluorescent lights. You say that's impossible, it really is. with us, but nothing's impossible with God. But we have the, I got off on that story because we have these beautiful lights, but there's something hidden in this building that's holding everything up. Would trusses be one of those things? Where would a building be without trusses? How many of you know what a truss is? Okay. So here's healings. That's the lights. And then there's helps. That's the trusses. And so it's telling us how much we need to appreciate all of these different things. Here's a quote. Man may appoint men to offices for which they have not the necessary gift, but God never does any more than he ordains the foot to see or the eye to hear. Now let me just close with this one other poem. I'm in the poem reading mood. Let me become a poet. One of these days I'll quote my first two poems I ever wrote. I wrote them when I was in fifth grade and I can remember them to this day. Eric, I forgot those poems for probably 40 years. A while back I remembered those two poems I wrote. They are great. They're tremendous. They'll bring you to tears. I'm just kidding. He'll bring you to tears, all right, but not the kind you might be thinking of. But anyway, enough about my poetry. I want to read this one. He says, oh, that when Christians meet and part, these words were graved on every heart, they're dear to God. However sinful and unwise will look on them with loving eyes, they're dear to God. Oh wonder to the eternal one, dear as his own beloved son, dearer to Jesus than his blood, dear as the spirit's fixed abode, they're dear to God. When tempted to give pain for pain, how would this thought our words restrain? They're dear to God. When truth compels us to contend, What love with all our strife should blend, they're dear to God. When they would shun the pilgrim's lot, for this vain world, forget them not, but win them back with love and prayer, they never can be happy there, if dear to God. Shall we be there so near, so dear, and be estranged and cold whilst there, all dear to God? By the same cares and toils oppressed, we learn or we lean upon one faithful breast, we hasten to the same repose, how bear or do enough for those so dear to God. That's how we should think of each other as being so dear to God, amen. All right, let's all stand and we'll be dismissed in prayer.