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If you have your Bible tonight,
let me invite you to open it to 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
So we'll continue our study through this
epistle. Who appreciates tonight their
big toe? Anybody here? Who despises their
big toe? Anybody? Well, I could say, You know, I assume that you appreciate
your big toe because it's part of you. It's part of your body.
And your body is important and it's valuable. It's what you
live in. It's the means by which you function.
And so it has value. And you appreciate every part
of it, I assume, for the most part. You know, last time we
saw that you were spiritually gifted. Tonight we're going to
see you are part of the body. And Paul's addressing here things
about spiritual gifts, and we're gonna review a little bit and
set the context here. Again, Paul, beginning in chapter
seven in verse one, is addressing a series of questions that they
had, and he's offering some correction, and certain things they needed
to see relative to the body of Christ and relative to the spiritual
gifts that God gifted them with and how they're to be used. And
so last week we saw a number of things. Paul was writing this
information to dispel their misunderstanding or ignorance regarding spiritual
gifts. Verse one, chapter 12 says, now
concerning spiritual gifts, or actually the spirituals, brethren,
I do not want you to be ignorant, for you know that you were Gentiles
carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led. And therefore
I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God
calls Jesus accursed, and that no one can say that Jesus is
Lord except by the Holy Spirit. You know, it comes to spiritual
matters of this sort. There's no shortage of confusion
in the evangelical world today. And God doesn't want you to be
without understanding. And so the Corinthians were struggling
when it came to discerning the use of these spiritual gifts.
They were confused. They were carnal, they were misusing
them. The tongue speakers were spiritual in their own eyes because
of the spiritual gift they received. They thought they were something
when they were nothing. And they thought because they spoke with
tongues that they could flash their gift in the congregation
and in their own mind that they exalted themselves. And what
Paul is gonna make clear is that just because you have that gift
doesn't mean you're spiritual. In fact, they were confused.
They were returning in some ways, some were, to the way of thinking
in their heathen days, when ecstatic speech was part of the operation,
when they practiced their idolatry. And so whatever they were doing
as pagans, part of the salvation, led them into idolatry. And Paul
had to tell them plainly in verse three that no one who's led by
the Spirit of God can give an utterance that says something
that's doctrinal false, doctrinally false, and apparently that was
happening. Our God is a God of truth. The
Spirit of God is called the Spirit of truth. And so when something
false is being uttered, that's obviously not from the Spirit
of God. In fact, the word speaking there
in verse 3 is the Greek word la'eo, and when you put it amidst
two other words, it simply means to make a noise. And so he's
like saying, I want to make known to you that anyone making any
kind of noise, whether it's intelligible or unintelligible, any kind of
noise, if it's gibberish, It has nothing to do with the
Lord. And that's what's going on here. And so evidently some
of the same people that were influenced prior to salvation
with this ecstatic speech that was going on, some of that was still going
on. And to claim it's from God was the wrong claim. The spirit
of God wasn't influenced in them in that regard. And so that's
another aspect of their spiritual immaturity. They were ignorant. You know, when you were swept
into some emotional state, like some of them were, and not in control, you know,
when the Spirit of God is at work, there's always control.
It's not gonna be something that's out of control. And so, under
the Spirit of God, you would actually say something that was
led by the Spirit of God, and it wouldn't be gibberish. It'd
be a language that was understandable. And so that certainly sets it
apart from what we hear in the modern movement that's going
on. Thirdly, as a believer in Jesus Christ, you've been gifted
for service in the church. And Paul begins to mention this
in verse four. He says, there's diversity of
gifts, but the same spirit. There's differences of ministries,
but the same Lord. And there are diversities of
activities. or operations, but it's the same God who works all
in all. You know, we looked last time
when it comes to these gifts. And we know from chapter one,
verse seven, six and seven, that this church had all the spiritual
gifts. They were gifted above all else.
But what is a spiritual gift? It's a gift by God's grace given
and we'll see sovereignly by the Holy Spirit. And it's so
that you can minister in the body. You can serve in the local
body. It's all part of it. And it's
a gift. And the term means gift. It's
based on grace. It has nothing to do with who
you are by nature, your bloodline, your economic status, your natural
ability, or anything you might think you have going for you.
That has nothing to do with it. It's a gift given sovereignly
by God. And so your spiritual gift was
given to you as God's sovereign choice. He's in charge. He's
the giver. He's the distributor. and he's
the one who gives it. It's his wisdom that determines
what gift or gifts you did receive. You didn't earn it. You weren't
worthy of it. That had nothing again to do with it. And the
Trinity was unified on this distribution and function of spiritual gifts.
Verses four through six again bring that out. The Trinity was
unified. It's not like they were up in
heaven duking it out to figure out how this thing would shake
out. And so God was in charge, and
Paul's trying to let them know, those especially that have a
heightened view of themselves, that you've got nothing to boast
in. You know, Paul is explaining that there's variety here. There's
actually variety in the Trinity. God is diverse, if I can say
it that way. He's the Father, he's the Son,
he's the Holy Spirit. And they're always in agreement.
They're in perfect congruency. They're all God. And so God's in charge of the
gifts. He's in charge of the ministries. He's in charge of
the operations. That's why earlier in this epistle,
Paul said some plants, some water, but God gives you the increase.
And so sometimes I think we're a little, maybe not as aware
as we should be of how God is really directing this whole thing
and undertaking it. And so you have a gift or gifts
given to you by the Holy Spirit. The Lord gives you opportunities
to exercise your gifts. The Father produces the results.
They're all in it together. They're all trying to give the
increase and it's all about God getting the glory. And that's
a train of thinking that we're all to really be aware of. And so we think of the mission
of church. God has got a mission for the church. It's not like
he said, hey, let's have a church and I think I'll give some gifts.
No, there's a point to it all. And you got the Spirit of God
working, you have the Lord working, you have the Father working,
so that the objective and mission of the church is accomplished
on earth, in and through us. It's kind of weird. It's kind
of wild. I've often wondered why God hasn't
used angels. It's because this is the church
and he wants to do it through the church. That means you and
I are part of the equation. But the mindset of the carnal
believer and the saints here at Corinth, They were thwarting
the cohesion that the Spirit of God wanted to produce, because
they were making it all about themselves instead of about Christ. And so the purpose of these spiritual
gifts is edification and unification of the local church. This is
really the theme of the whole chapter. Notice verse seven,
the manifestation of the spirit, spiritual gifts is given to each
one. And notice it's for the profit
of all. It's not about what you can get
out of it. It's about how everyone benefits
from it. And he explains the gifts in
verses eight through 10. And he mentions a number of them.
And then in verse 11, he says, but one and the same spirit works
all these things. It's his business. and he distributes
to each one individually as notice he wills. And so we're all gifted
so that the whole body of believers is benefited. You've received
a gift, I've received a gift. It should be exercised properly
in the body of Christ. And so it's built up and edified
and encouraged. And so the church suffers when
its purpose is lost. And when an individual somehow
thinks he's more important than the rest of the church, that's
how things get skewed. And we have envy, strife, and
division. And so we can say the opposite
is true. Spiritual gifts were not given to build up the individual
privately. And this is missing in the line
of thinking in some circles. We want Christ to have the preeminence,
not an individual so that everyone stands up and notices him or
her. It's about Christ. And I say this because both then
and now, people claim that speaking in a tongue is a private prayer
language, and that's a valid use of the gift. But you see,
no gift is ever given for personal edification. And so that directly
contradicts what God intended the gift to do and what it was
given for. But the net result of being used
is being used to build up one another. Now obviously there's a boomerang
effect. If I'm used by the Lord to build
someone else up by the grace of God, well that's obviously
gonna encourage me as well. And so it's not like that isn't
true, but that's a secondary byproduct. It's not the point
of it all. And verse 11 is kind of, and so what that means, is
you're not to pray for a specific spiritual gift. I mean, the end
of verse 11 is Paul's driving this principle home. He says,
the one and the same spirit works all these things, distributing
to each one individually as he wills. It's his call. Because
I've heard people say, well, you gotta pray for the right
spiritual gift. No, it's a gift, and God gave it to you the moment
you got saved, and you had no idea what it was at the time. And so as a human being, you
have no say in what spiritual gift or gifts you receive. The
Holy Spirit is omniscient. He knows what gift or gifts he
wants to give at any given time in history in order to accomplish
his purposes for the local church. And so that's an important mindset
to recognize that God's got this thing. He's directing it as he
sees fit for his glory. And so we looked at some of these
things last time. And now he's gonna drive it home and develop
really the principle of verse seven, but the manifestation
of the spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. He's
gonna drive that home using an illustration in verse 12 going
forward with the human body, the analogy of a human body.
And the main point of this section is God wants unity amongst the
diversity. That's the point of the analogy.
See, there was an elitist view of some of the oaths who thought
they were spiritual because they had a certain gift and they were
missing the whole point. And so in verse 12, Paul introduces
us to the body. And again, what he has in view
is the human body relative to the body of Christ. He's going
to use the human body to illustrate what's true of us in a spiritual
sense in the church. And if you think of your human
body, it's extremely amazingly diverse and complex. It's one
body, and yet we have thousands of parts that are mutually related
and independent. You know, your body is not just
working at random. It's working in perfect synchronization
to how God designed this thing to do. Who here thought about
taking a breath here today? That's just God's design of the
body. It's happening. It's part of the incredible complexity
and amazement that he put it all together. I mean, your body's
carrying out innumerable things tonight, whether you're aware
of it or not. But obviously the body needs
to cooperate within itself in order for that to function. If
I have a nerve ending that's short-circuiting and tells me
to quit breathing, I got trouble. And so my nerves need to be firing
properly so that I breathe, so that my heart beats, and so forth. And so he says here in verse
12, For as the body is one and has many members, that's your
human body, but all the members of that one body being many are
one body, so also is Christ. And so there we have the analogy
being stated for us. So also is Christ. And so he's
using the word body here to emphasize the unity amongst all the parts. All the parts are working together
so that your body functions the way God intended it to function.
And so, Paul's used this analogy in another place. He used it
also in Romans chapter 12, verses four and five. His emphasis is
different here, as we'll see, though. He says, for as we have
many members in one body, same thing, but all the members do
not have the same function. Your eye and your ear do two
different things. So we, here's the spiritual analogy, being
many, are one body in Christ, but individually we're members
of one of another. And he goes on to say that we have different
functions. because of that. And so here, and the emphasis in Romans
12 here is the diversity. The diversity where the emphasis
in 1 Corinthians is the unity. He wants them to be unified,
and here he says, he's emphasizing the diversity, he's saying, let's
use the gift you've got. He's not shortchanging the unity,
but he's emphasizing something different here in Romans 12.6.
Having then gifts differing according to the grace that's given to
us, let's use them. If prophecy, let us prophesy,
and he goes on to say in the next few verses, if you have
a different verse, or a different gift rather, then use it. That's
really the essence of what he's saying here. But again, in 1
Corinthians 12 here, Paul's looking at the church at Corinth, and
he recognizes that they have a different set of issues going
on. They're divided. They're not unified. Some are
puffed up with pride, and they're pitting one against the other.
My gift's better than your gift, you loser. You know, something
like that. I'm smarter than you are. They
had factions. They were following different
teachers. I'm a Paul, I'm a Paulist. I mean, what a fiasco. And so
some churches need to recognize the reality of the unity in others,
maybe the reality of their diversity and their giftedness. And so here the problem was recognizing
the diversity in this church. So he needs to urge them to understand
the unity. And he's urging them and us to
recognize that we're mutually, to be mutually interdependent
on one another in the body. That's going to be his emphasis. That's what God designed in the
spiritual body. That's what God has designed in the human body.
And so the human body is a perfect analogy because we recognize
very intuitively that that has to be the case. And so what's
needed for them to strive for unity embraces the differences.
Instead of eradicating the differences, they need to embrace them, and
they weren't. They weren't. So what's the bedrock of our
unity? We're told there in verse 13, for by one spirit, we're
all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves
or free. We've all been made to drink
to that one spirit. And so every believer in Jesus
Christ has been baptized into Christ's body through the Holy
Spirit. And that's every believer. This is what happens to you the
moment you got saved, the moment you put your faith in Christ.
It's impossible to be a Christian and not be baptized into Christ.
It's a spiritual baptism. There's only one spirit baptism.
It's the baptism of Christ with the spirit that all believers
receive when they're born again. It's called the baptism of the
spirit. Now, in some circles, the baptism of the spirit is
defined by what they call speaking in tongues. None of that's mentioned
here at all. You know, I've heard it called
the second baptism or the second blessing, and it's evidenced
by something. This is very clear. The word
all shows up. There's not the have and the
have nots. You're either in Christ or you're not. You either have
the spirit of God or you don't. You're a part of the body of
Christ or you're not. There's no stages involved here. And
sometimes they'll even say things like, well, you've been baptized
by the spirit, but have you been baptized in the spirit? And those
are the same Greek prepositions. That distinction is a false distinction.
They mean the same thing. And so the moment you saw that
Christ loved you, Christ died for you, Christ paid for your
sins in full, and you made a choice at that point in time to put
your trust in Christ alone as your Savior, you are at that
point placed into Christ, all right? Jesus Christ is the head
of the church, he is in heaven, the body of Christ is on earth
right now, at least the manifestation of that, because the universal
church is invisible, and one day we're all gonna be together
with the Lord. And so the moment you got saved,
put your faith in Christ, you were placed into the body of
Christ, we're members of him and we're members of one another.
The church which is his body, it's a living organism. And so it doesn't matter what
your background was or is, you're baptized by the Spirit into Christ
at that moment. In fact, it's passive. Verse
13 says, were. For many, by one Spirit, we all
were, were. At a point in time in the past,
we were all placed into Christ, end of story. Now, there's seven
different baptisms in the Bible. Three are dry and real, four
are wet and figurative, and it's important to keep those straight.
We're not gonna talk about those tonight, but when it comes to
a real baptism, it's something that God does. God placed you
into Christ. That's a real baptism. Water
baptism is a physical illustration of that reality. But that's something
that happened to you the moment you got saved. And it's a privilege
for you as a believer to express that publicly by identifying
yourself with that. As you go down in the water,
you picture going down with him, dying with him and coming out
of the water, you're raised with him as you're in Christ. And so the waters picture something, but the real ones are something
God did. You know, when people think that
baptism always means water, I don't know what they do when Jesus
says, I'm going to baptize with fire. It's hard to kind of reconcile
those two, doesn't it? And so God administers the baptism. They're real. In fact, baptism
means to be identified with something. It's identification. When you
take a piece of cloth and you immerse it into a color of some
kind, that cloth is now identified with the color that you immersed
it into. That's how it was used. In the
same way you were baptized by the Spirit, you were identified
with the body of Christ. That's your essential identity
now. You're identified in Adam prior
to this. prior to salvation, but now you're
thoroughly identified with Christ. A transformation is taking place. And so you're placed by Christ
via means of the Holy Spirit into the spiritual body of Christ,
which means since you belong to Christ, you're in Christ,
that is an unchangeable position. You've received all things to
pertain to life and godliness. All the benefits of being in
Christ are all yours freely by the grace of God, because you've
been placed into him. Again, there's no have and have
nots. You got it all the moment you got saved. Secondly, he says, all believers
have been made to drink of one spirit, and that one spirit is
the Holy Spirit. And so, this is distinct from
being baptized by the Holy Spirit. When you got baptized into Christ,
it had changed your essential identity, but drinking of the
Spirit is to partake of him. As the moment you get saved,
you're indwelt with the Holy Spirit, you're sealed with the
Holy Spirit. It's a mark of ownership, but He indwells you, and now
you can rely on Him or drink from Him. This is similar to
what basically Jesus said in John 4, 14 when He's speaking
at the woman in the well. He said, whoever drinks of the
water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that
I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing
up to everlasting life. Speaking of the Holy Spirit that
we can drink from. And so we're made to partake
of that spirit. That spirit energizes us, teaches
us, does all these things. And so that's his way of communicating
that reality, that we're all partaking of that Holy Spirit
because we're in Christ. In fact, he makes a distinction
here. It doesn't matter if you're a Jew. It doesn't matter if you're
a Greek. It doesn't matter if you're a slave or you're free.
You've all been made to drink into that one spirit. In fact,
he could have added like he does in Galatians, male, female, none
of those things, those distinctions don't matter. Doesn't matter
what your race is. The Bible cuts through all the
things people naturally divide over when you're placed into
Christ. But he says in verse 14, for
in fact the body is not one member but many. So the body is not
one member, but many. The word member there technically
means limb. It refers to an arm or a leg
or some part of the human body. And so when you think of your
body, it's not just your arm. It's not just your leg. It's
a combination of many things that make up the one body. So
all those things are essential, crucial ingredients to making
up your body. And so there's unity. You have
one body, but we have all kinds of parts in our body, and that
is true spiritually. And he's saying all parts are
necessary and important. And this is gonna be the point
he drives home in verses 15 through 24. In fact, at McDonald, Summarizes
very nicely says when we see that diversity is essential to
a normal healthy body. It will save us from two dangers
Versus 15 through 20 from belittling ourselves and saying well you
know I'm just a pinky and from belittling others because the
elitist ones with the showing gifts were looking down their
long nose the ones that didn't have it and Thought they were
something when they were nothing That's like my nose telling my
elbow that I'm better than you. How dumb is that? It's dumb. And so, in verse 15, he says,
for the foot should say, because I'm not the hand, I'm not of
the body. He said, therefore, not of the body. And if the ear
should say, because I'm not an eyeball, I'm not of the body. He said, therefore, not of the
body. If the whole body were an eyeball, who would do the
hearing? If everyone was an elbow, I mean, you can take this and
run with it and have a lot of fun with it. If the whole were hearing,
who would do the smelling? And so, by comparison, he's saying,
you know what, because I'm not a prophet, because I don't speak
in tongues, I'm really not part of the body. Does that make any
sense? No. Conversely, those that are
speaking in tongues and prophets, We'll look down and say, well,
I don't need the other gift because I'm the
top dog. I got the flash going on here.
I'm an upfront showy dude. And so I'm better than you are. So hopefully you see that captures
the line of thinking that was going on in this church. Now, I need to tell you, you
know, if you don't think that you're an important part of the
body, or necessary part of the body, you're thinking wrong. Because God here says that you
are. God says that you are. You're
important. You're important to the body.
He made you part of this body. He gifted you and placed you
in this body, as we're gonna see in a second. And so just because
you're a different part of the body than someone else doesn't
mean you're not part of the body and an important part of the
body, because from God's perspective, you are. I mean, someone might be saying,
if I don't have this certain spiritual gift, I guess I'm not
part of the body of Jesus Christ. Well, I guess I'm not a hand,
I'm just a foot, so. Well, do you think your foot
is important? I bet you do. Now, we're gonna see here at
the end that every part of the body is important in every other
part. I mean, you take away my heart, the rest of my body ain't
gonna do real good, right? But if you take out my appendix,
I can get by. So there is some different degrees
of importance in the body parts, and he brings that out actually
in verse 28, which we'll get to. But we all have a different
function, and we're all part of the body, and every part is
important. And so verse 18, he really, this
is an important verse. God has placed the members in
the body as it has pleased him. Notice verse 18. But now God
has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as
he pleased. Now this is true in your physical
body. Aren't you glad God gave you two eyeballs right here instead
of one on your arm and one on your butt cheek or whatever?
That would be real good, wasn't it? You know, he arranged the
body so that we'd function at the highest possible level. Right? And he's saying the Holy
Spirit did the same thing in the spiritual body. Notice he
emphasizes every one of them, each one of them. God gifted
you with a gift he wanted you to have, and then he placed you
in this particular body. He set you in this local church
to make a difference in it. And so not only is the Holy Spirit
giving you a gift, but God says, I've sovereignly placed you in
this body as it's pleased me, God says. If it's about you,
is it about you or is it about pleasing Christ? If it is, then
you're gonna be thankful for whatever gift he gave you. In
fact, has said is in the middle of voice, which means God has
set up the body himself for his purposes. It's his setting and
view here. As a reminder, that movie about
the 1980 USA Olympic hockey team that won the gold medal, And
if you watch the movie, Herb Brooks is picking out everyone
and he makes a list and he hands it to his assistant coach whose
name was Craig. And he said, this is my team. And the guy
looks at him and he says, well, these aren't all the best players.
And he says, these are all the right players. And he put together
a team that won the gold medal. So it's wrong for you to think
that you're not part of the body because you've been given a different
gift to someone else. You're part of the body and God
wants to work in you and through you to bring the whole thing
to its maturity. That's all part of it. We're all in this thing
together just like your elbow and your pinky and your nostril
are all working together in your own body. All believers are important. They're all necessary. All are
precious to God. And that's something the spirit
of God wants to drill through all of our thinking. And so he asks a question in
verse 19. If they're all one member, where would the body
be? If everybody's an eyeball, I mean, how grotesque is that?
Bunch of eyeballs looking at each other, and that's, you know,
I mean, we could really take this and run with it. But now,
indeed, there are many members, yet one body. I mean, he's bending
over backward to make it painfully obvious what he's talking about
here, right? I mean, how strange if we were all a belly button
or something. It's absurd. Now in verses 21 through 24,
he addresses those who think they're something relative to
other people in the body because of their gift. He says, in the eye cannot say
to the hand, now this is the eye thinking it's something and
looking down at the hand, I've got no need of you. Nor again
can the head say to the feet, I have no need of you, thank
you very much. No, much rather those members
of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. That's why I asked you about
your big toe. Is your big toe necessary? Now you can get by
without it, but it's not easy, right? I mean, I don't want to
give up my big toe. I don't think you want to give
up your big toe. Every part is necessary. Some more than others
in a sense, but everyone is necessary and they have a role to play.
And so God wants us to recognize we're in this together regardless
of how you've been gifted. In fact, as believers in a body,
we're all mutually dependent on one another. That's the point
of these three verses. You know, my eyeball sees something,
but can my eyeball pick up something I need, or do I need a hand to
do that? And my feet need to take me over
to wherever I need to go so I can pick up whatever my eye sees.
I mean, this is all intuitive, but it's worthy of giving it
a thought or two. And so the eye can't say to the
hand, I have no need of you. I like how one pastor summarized
this. He says, while some in Corinth were bemoaning the fact
that they did not have the showy gifts, those who did were belittling
those with the more quiet and less prominent gifts. The eye
and the head, which are highly visible, and the focus of all
who engage each other, represent the people with the public gifts.
They so overestimated their own importance that they disdained
those whom they perceived as less gifted and less significant.
They apparently, and were apparently indifferent. I have no need.
They were self-sufficient. Arrogance is a lovely thing,
isn't it? The point he's driving home is you gotta have it all
if you're gonna function as a body. All parts are needed. We're mutually
dependent. And again, if I didn't have a
nerve telling my heart to beat right now, I wouldn't be much
use to you or me or anybody else. I mean, how well would your arms
work if you didn't have any bones? And so you can't say, I don't
need my bones, because I've got muscle. No, it all works together. You know, I thought of this today.
It hit me like a brick. There's those out there that
say, you know, I don't need the church to worship God. Well,
they don't understand a thing about the church of God when
they're saying that. I mean, read this passage and tell me
where you can say that. That's utter arrogance. They don't understand God's design
for the church. What do we need a church for?
I worship God out here in the woods. You know, I could say to those
who don't come when we gather together, why aren't you here?
I mean, God gifted you to make a difference in the local church,
and you're not here. So how can you benefit? the rest because you were gifted
so that all would be benefited if you don't come. Not only are
you shortchanging yourself, you're shortchanging everybody. I mean,
God purchased you with his own blood and placed you into his
church. That should tell you that it's kind of important to
him, don't you think? I mean, he's given you a new
destiny. He's given you a new objective for breathing air.
He wants your life to count in light of eternity. Imagine that
the judgment seat of Christ For those that don't think much of
local churches, he says, hey, I gave you this gift to build
up the saints in the body. How'd that go? Oh, well, I never
went. Big swing and a miss, and you
lose out on all the rewards he wants to give you. See, sometimes
we can become so self-absorbed, we think the world around us,
we miss the big picture. So he says here, in verse 23,
those members of the body which we think be less honorable, on
these we bestow greater honor, and the unpresentable parts is
having greater modesty. Now, in the original language,
he's talking about your private parts. And he's just thinking
about You know, these things require attention, but they're
not there to see. And if you think about it, you
know, I'll use my heart, for example. You don't really see
it, but that doesn't mean I don't need it. That doesn't mean it's
not doing something of incredible importance. It's very necessary. You know, a body can survive
without an ear or a hand or a foot. But it can't function without
the unpresentable parts. Well, we're going to take out
your liver and pancreas. Too bad for you. Now we're going to take your brain
out. I mean, these are the parts we don't see, and yet they're
extremely important. Their function isn't public,
but they're essential to the body's survival. And so the church
is not to be like our society here, which honors those that
are already honored. It's to be counter-cultural.
It is to appreciate and honor all, even the parts you don't
see, that aren't that apparent. You know, I wonder at the judgment
seat of Christ if someone who hardly was visible in the body
is going to be well more regarded and rewarded than me because
they prayed for me and they prayed for you. And they did this little
thing over here that nobody noticed and did this little thing over
here that nobody noticed. God says, you were faithful to the
gift I gave you. Here's your reward. And then
you got the hot dog in the front of everybody, thinking it's all
about him, and he's gonna be way down the totem pole. I mean, someone might not know
how valuable someone else is in the body of Christ until we
stand before the Lord. I don't know. But the point he's making
is that we're all important. We're all in this together. In fact, Paul brought that out
in the other section in Ephesians when he talked about spiritual
gifts. Ephesians 4, 15 and 16. But speaking the truth in love
may grow in all things to him who is the head, Christ, from
whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint
supplies, according to the effect of working by which each part
does its share, Same principle, causes growth of the body for
the edifying of itself in love. Just saying it a different way.
He's spelling it out different for the Corinthians, because
they were thick-headed. We're all in this together. So God has put the body together
as he sees fit. And as every part does its share,
we're all built up and edified. How cool is that? So now comes the application,
beginning in verse 25. That, in order that, I never read verse 24, but our
presentable parts have no need, but God composed the body, having
given greater honor to the part which lacks it. To what end,
verse 25, that there should be no schism or division in the
body, and that the members should have the same care one for another.
Since we're all in this together, since God decided what spiritual
gift you have, and he's given you all things that you have
anyway, there should be no schism in
the body. But when you have envy, strife, and division, which are
byproducts of carnality, how's that all going? You got schisms
everywhere. You got factions, because you
know what? I'm gifted and you're not, so there. Blah, blah, blah. Enough to make a billy goat puke. See, God's expectation, because
he brought us together and put us together in this body, is
there'd be no schisms, not some superiority-inferiority complex. No one's to be neglected at the
expense of anybody else. No one's to be praised at the
expense of anybody else. If they really understood that
there wouldn't be any divisions in this body, but they obviously
didn't, and that's why there was divisions in the body. Secondly, there should be the
same care one for another, which apparently wasn't going on. You
know, sometimes I liken it to parents with children. You've
got four different children with four different bents and four
different personalities. You love them all and give the appropriate
care to all of them. It's not like you're saying,
I'm going to love this one, this one, and this one, and you No, and God wants you to function
in the church the same way, having mutual care and concern for one
another. Shouldn't be some competition going on. We should be loving
one another with a pure heart fervently because we're connected
to each other. We belong to each other. We're
gonna live together with each other. We're members one of another. Verse 26, and if one member suffers,
all the members suffer with it. If one member is honored, all
the members rejoice with it. He's stating what is. He's not telling you to do something.
He's not telling you to suffer. He's stating this is how it is.
I mean, if you stub your toe, does your whole body hurt or
just your toe? It's your whole body. I mean, if I get a toothache
or whatever, it affects more than my tooth. My whole body's
in disarray. When I get a migraine headache,
it's not stuck in my brain. Even Plato said, we don't say
my finger has a pain, we say I have a pain. So it is with
the body of Christ. We all hurt together. It's not
this lone ranger mentality. And so we're to have this mindset
and care for one another. You know, I thought about this. My shoulder hurts, okay, which
it does. But, you know, I'm going to show
my shoulder. I'm going to bang my elbow on
the sidewalk because I, you know, I'm competing with my shoulder
and I want my elbow to hurt more. Does anybody think like that? I mean, we're to care for one
another. And so in verse 27, what does he say? Now you are
a body of Christ and members individually. God puts you together.
We're all members one of another. And if one part of the body's
honored, the whole body's honored with it, which means we don't
have to be jealous of one another. We're set free from that. But
again, since my shoulder hurts, I'm gonna slam my elbow onto
the concrete, see if I can one-up my shoulder. You know, if my shoulder hurts,
I want that to get better so my whole body can rejoice that
my shoulder is feeling better. And so if one's hurting in the
body of Christ, we should all want them to be better so we
can rejoice with one another, not rub their nose in it. I mean, if your body's feeling
great, your whole body rejoices. And so I'm making further application. He says in verse 28, God has
appointed these in the church. And so he's gonna give a hierarchy
of spiritual gifts here relative to their impact on the edification
of the church. So the principle is this, God
himself has given gifts in order of importance for the church's
edification because the whole purpose of a spiritual gift is
so that the whole body is edified. In fact, verse 28, it says, God
has appointed. That's in the middle voice again.
God has intensely set an order up in his church for his benefit
and ours, and he's got a special purpose in doing it this way. so that edification takes place. You know, God has even set up
the human body that way. You know, your eyes and your
head are here. They're important. I remember I was asked, would
you rather lose your eyesight or your hearing? I chose my hearing. I'd rather see than not hear
if I had a choice. because there's a level of importance
there, and there's a level of importance when it comes to the
body in terms of its edification. So he says, what's the order?
First Apostles. Apostles were given by God as
foundation layers of the church. We read about that in Ephesians
chapter two and verse 20. They were given special revelation,
Paul in particular, and writing these epistles was giving direct
revelation and so forth. And so, obviously very critical
because the word of God is a critical factor in us understanding who
God is, understanding the will of God, and so forth. We need to be transformed by
the renewing of our minds in the word of God, so that's prominent.
Then prophets, and prophets had a function at this point in the
local church because the canon wasn't complete yet. They didn't
have all the letters of Paul, and so there was prophets that
God gifted, so they would instruct the congregation, because the
word of God wasn't done yet. Then he got teachers, the teachers
are important. So you have the word of God being
given, then you have those who's gifted to teach the word of God
to the congregation. And then he lists miracles, then
gifts of healings, and then helps. And administration is extremely
important. I remember discussing with a
believer years ago, through talking, he says, I got the gifts of help,
and I said, I'm really glad you do. And he's helped me tremendously. And I'm very grateful for that.
And he knows it, and he loves doing it. And he's not trying
to be something he's not. Administration's, and what's
last on the list? Varieties of tongues. You'd think if they were so important,
they'd be number one, but they're at the bottom of the list. But
the count of Corinthians, the ones that had that gift out,
they were the catch-me-all. And Paul says, guess what? You're
at the bottom of the list. That's kind of humbling, isn't
it? And verse 29 is important, too.
Are all apostles? What's the answer? No. Are all
prophets? What's the answer? No. Are all
teachers? What's the answer? No. Are all
workers of miracles? The answer is no. Do all have
gifts of healings? No. Do all speak the tongues? No. Do all interpret? No. Which flies in the face of a
lot of churches that think everyone should have the gift of tongues.
Paul just said here, no. And I've had to gently explain
to people that that's not the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And
then all people weren't gifted to that. And so God himself has given
the gifts in order of importance for the church's edification.
That's the issue here. But the Corinthians, those that
had the gift, loved it. They, in their own mind, consider
it the highest form of spirituality, and Paul puts it last. And so if the gifts are given
to profit everybody, logically it follows that the gifts that
bring the greatest amount of edification should be given priority. And that's what Paul and God
ordained. Now, he says in verse 30, but
earnestly desire the best gifts. Now, some people read that and
say, see, we're supposed to covet the best gift. It's not what
it means. It means earnestly desire the
manifestation of the best gifts. In other words,
a teaching that which is going to identify
the body. In other words, that's what you want being displayed.
Because in Chapter 14, he's going to address how tongues are being
misused in particular. And so spiritual gifts are very
important when it comes to the proper functioning of a local
church. And so as I'm led of the spirit, as I'm walking by
means of the spirit, God's gonna work in me and through me so
the gift that he's given me can be used for the benefit of the
whole body. And that's true of you as well,
whatever gift or gifts you have. And to the degree that we're
all functioning like that is the degree that the body of believers
are going to be built up and edified. But the problem comes in when
the believers are carnal. Instead of using the spiritual
gift that God gave them for the benefit of others, they use it
to serve themselves. They're missing the divine intent
of the gift. They want to use it to draw attention to themselves.
That's what was going on in Corinth. There were some glory homes in
the church that wanted to get all the attention. So in their
minds, they elevated themselves because they could put on a dog
and pony show of some kind. You know, that's the trouble
with our flesh. Our flesh wants to look good.
Our flesh wants to appear good in the eyes of others. And so
if I'm in my flesh, the bottom line is not am I doing what God
would have me to do in the way that God would have me to do
it for his glory, it's I wanna make sure people stand up and
notice me for whatever reason. And you're missing it. They were
missing it. But I like how verse 31 ends. And I'm gonna show you a more
excellent way. And you know what the more excellent
way is? Love. The love chapter of the Bible,
chapter 13 is next. Love is the key to it all. You
know, love of God has been shed abroad in my heart by the Holy
Spirit. It's been shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, and so if I'm loving you, I'm
gonna be concerned about your edification, about you being
built up, not only individually, but corporately as a body. And
so if we're all loving one another, all these problems go away, don't
they? It's kind of cool. And that's God's design. So next
time we'll begin to talk about love. So why don't we pray? Father,
thank you for the study tonight. Thank you for the importance
of the local church. I pray we'd all be impressed with that. that
this is important to you. This is your program for this
dispensation. This is what you designed. You
want us to not only take it seriously like you do, but you've gifted
us to function in it so that we could be a benefit to everybody
else. Maybe we just ponder that and
we wouldn't lose sight of it and recognize its importance
so that we think like you'd want us to think relative to the local
church. And we present ourselves to you as living sacrifices and
be someone you could work in and through and use to fulfill
the very reason you've left us here and gifted us as such. So
thank you for this study tonight. We thank you for our dear Savior.
It's in his name we pray. Amen.
You are Part of the Body
Series 1 Corinthians
| Sermon ID | 11212401612564 |
| Duration | 55:11 |
| Date | |
| Category | Midweek Service |
| Bible Text | 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 |
| Language | English |
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