I'm going to read the whole chapter but we're only going to cover a small section of the chapter but I think the chapter itself. Is important to read in context. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says, Jesus is accursed. And no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. Now, there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all and everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good, for to one is given through the spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same spirit, to another faith by the same spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills. 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. For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body. Jews are Greeks, slaves are free, and all were made to drink of one spirit. For the body does not consist of one member, but of many. 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. 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. 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? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. 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. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 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. which are more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 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. Are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers, do all work miracles, do all possess gifts of healing, do all speak with tongues, do all interpret, but earnestly desire the higher gifts? And I will show you a still more excellent way. Let's pray. Lord we see this passage that talks about us. He talks about how we are all one but we are all different at the same time. Or to help us to embrace our unity help us to embrace our oneness and help us also to embrace our uniqueness because you are the one who assigns the uniqueness to us. Jesus name. Amen. All right, what's going on here? But I'm going to focus in on this passage in this chapter. I want to start at verses 21 through 25. 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. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weak are indispensable. 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, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. So clearly this is in context of a bigger passage. This section about chapter 12 is talking about the body of Christ. There's a metaphor here. Metaphors matter in scripture. There's a reason that the Lord's spirit has inspired Paul to write about a body because we get it. The Corinthians would have gotten it. We know what a body is because we all sit here and stand here in bodies today. This is not just here on a whim. Metaphors matter. When we look at Scripture and we see something like, say, Christians being referred to as sheep, we get it. When we see Jesus or the elders slash pastors being referred to as shepherds over sheep, we get it. The audience in the first century would have gotten it. It's like the new birth. We understand what a birth is like. that when a child is born the child is not the one who initiates the process that happens passively to the child and that's the that's the imagery that Jesus wants to communicate in John chapter three when he's talking to Nicodemus the new birth is something that is received as a gift that man does not initiate God is the initiator and the accomplisher of the new birth so metaphors are used because we get them we can understand their word pictures that show us what's going on here And in this passage what's Paul trying to do he's trying to show us what it is like within the body of Christ. And it's a body. We all have bodies here. We get it we can look at each other we can look at ourselves. We know that we are not one big I. We are not one big hand or foot or stomach or whatever. But this passage is not an island unto itself like no passage of Scripture is an island unto itself. What is the context of what's going on here? And perhaps I've said it before, but even if I have, I'm going to say it again. Our chapter numbers, our chapter headings, our verse numbers are not inspired. They are not in the original. They are helpful to us. in some ways sometimes they can get in the way though of trying to understand what the scripture said because it breaks up scripture where maybe scripture isn't meant to be broken up when this would have been read to the Corinthian church there were not chapter numbers they did not stop at the end of chapter eleven and say okay now here chapter twelve starts off with now concerning spiritual gifts brothers And at the end of chapter 13, end of chapter 12, as Paul says, I'm going to show you still a more excellent way. He doesn't say now in chapter 13, we're going to talk about love. It's all a continuous letter. So keeping that in mind, what is the setting here for what Paul says about the body in chapter 12? We can go back quite a ways if we want to, but I'm only going to go back so far as chapter 11. what what's going on in chapter eleven he's writing about conduct within the body of Christ practice how do we practice our Christianity he's he writes about he writes about what you're supposed to be doing in early in chapter eleven how men are supposed to to pray and prophesy how women are supposed to pray and prophesy then he gets to the Lord's Supper he he talks to them chastening them about what's happening at the Lord's Supper What's going on at the Lord's Supper. Well there's division at the Lord's Supper. Because some people are going hungry at the Lord's Supper. They would we would know it as an agape love feast that it was the context in the setting for the supper is more really than just a small piece of bread in that context. But that's what he's talking about in Chapter eleven then he goes on and ties in. Because of what's going on in chapter 11, he brings in chapter 12. Now we are a body. We are one. Then he has talked also in chapter 12, though has he not, about spiritual gifts. We know that what was going on in Corinth is the same thing that can happen today. Certain people or a church can elevate certain spiritual gifts to a certain level where Scripture doesn't want us to. and therefore people who have certain gifts get elevated to a certain level within the church that scripture does not want us to so he says what he says here in chapter twelve it's not coincidental that right after this in chapter twelve what does he do he goes to it all being about love if I speak in the tongues of men and angels hypothetically he's not saying he does he's posing a hypothetical even if I do this but I don't have love. What am I? I am a world famous preacher. No he doesn't say that. He says I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If you do all this stuff with your spiritual gifts in the first eleven verses of chapter twelve but you do it without love you're just making racket. your distraction that's why he writes what he writes in chapter thirteen then it's not coincidental that at the end of chapter thirteen he says faith hope and love abide but what's the greatest of them spiritual gifts no love is the greatest that leads back into another discussion of prophecy tongues and practice within the church in chapter fourteen. But in the middle of that we've got this issue of the church being one body. With Christ being the head. And us being individually members of it. We can just look around. Just by even outward appearances know that we are not all clones. We are not all alike. Just by mere outward appearances. But that's that's a picture of the fact that we are not all alike within the body of Christ as well. and let's let's be careful about what we say about the church at Corinth as well we can look at this church and we know repeatedly Paul is calling them out for bad practice but let's think about this this goes to charity faith open love the greatest of these is love If. If there were a church down at the other end of the. Other end of the strip here. And it were like Corinth. You got people suing each other. You got people guys who are maybe consorting with prostitutes. You've got people eating food sacrifice to idols you've got. You've got this wild worship with. Uncontrollable tongues and you've got people getting drunk at the Lord's Supper. What would you say about that church. In our circles we might say that's a false church. What does Paul say about Corinth. I'm not going to do it but go ahead read the first ten verses of chapter one sometime. He says he never calls it a false church. He says that they are sanctified in Christ Jesus. He says that they're lacking in no spiritual gift. He says they're going to be sustained to the end guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. He says they're called into fellowship by the faithfulness of God. Paul doesn't call them a false church. He rebukes them. Yes. He wants them to straighten things out. Yes. But this body of which he speaks in chapter twelve in Paul's mind writing the breathed out words of god is a real what's our lesson let's be careful before we start throwing around the term false church willy-nilly because maybe a church does have bad practice but it doesn't necessarily mean it's a false church and we have corinth as an example we may find some of those people at that church where we go wow that's that's crazy. But what are we going to do when we end up in glory with those people. So let's just keep that in mind. Chapter 12. Paul goes to an issue which existed then, exists now, it's existed between now and then for the last 2,000 years. It exists up in San Antonio, it's going to exist in Corpus, it's going to exist in Laredo, it's going to exist everywhere where the people of God are. Because we're all still the same as the people in the first century were. They are not any less spiritual than we were and they're not any more spiritual than we were. They're just like us. We've got more people being added to the body of Christ every day. Paul wants us to know that these people who are being added to the body of Christ are not being added to the same part of the body every day. Why? Because God has made them different. And why has God arranged the people within the body the way that he has? It's because he has chosen to make them that way. and we can read this passage and go and just sort of not an affirmation and go yeah I know that we're all different parts of the body of Christ and move on but Paul just doesn't want us to go on and move on here and then start arguing about chapter fourteen and the issue of spiritual gifts are arguing about women speaking in church he wants us to understand what he's talking about chapter twelve before you even move on He wants us to deal with the issue of chapter 13, which is love. Love is what enables us to carry out chapter 12, to carry out the admonitions to this church. And his point in leading up into this passage is, do you love the brethren, really? Do you love them? 1 John says you can test a man's profession. by whether or not he loves the brother all of the brother there's no wiggle room here for while of most of them but loving the brother all of the brother and paul's point going into this if one part of the body doesn't work right it can mess up the whole body Hypothetically, if there was a doctor here today, he could tell you that if you have one part of the body messed up, it can mess up the whole thing. But we can even know that from experience. I worked for an endocrinologist for 14 years in Michigan. People come to see an endocrinologist because their pancreas doesn't work right. What happens when your pancreas doesn't work right? Well, perhaps you're diabetic. You're diabetic, that can mess up a lot of things. People came to see us because their thyroid didn't work right. Your thyroid doesn't work right. That can mess up a lot of things. Some thyroid diseases, they cause you to gain weight real fast. We had a patient who gained 60 pounds in a few months. We had another patient whose thyroid disease caused her to lose 70 pounds in a few months. And that causes other issues. You've got people who have diabetes. They get vision problems. We had one guy who was rather young. He woke up one morning, and he couldn't see out of one eye, just like that because of his diabetes. They have kidney problems. They can't feel their feet and toes. I have a really gross story about what happened in the office that I'm not going to say, but maybe Sean would appreciate it. with a diabetic patient because it messes with your body it does things to it arm you know when your stomachs upset you feel bad I I woke up this morning with my stomach is unsettled that's that's why I'm not gonna partake in the meal and after work but my stomach is unsettled we we know that if you have a bad headache I don't know if anybody here gets migraines OK? Tim gets migraines up in San Antonio. One of the women that works with me gets migraines. Now, I get headaches. They're not migraines. But I can appreciate a really, really bad headache. It messes everything up. If you've ever had back pain. I messed up my back when I was a sophomore in high school. I still suffer the consequences today occasionally. But I haven't had a really bad issue with my back in probably 15 years. But when you have a really bad issue and it feels like somebody shot you in the back and you just can't move because it hurts so bad and it would take me probably 5 or 10 minutes to walk over to that counter over there. That hasn't happened a while but when it messes it message it so we get it we get it when one part of our body doesn't work doesn't work right. And that's why Paul can say what he says here in verse twenty one and I and I can't say to the hand I don't need you. And I may look over there and see that is the best looking to Molly I've ever seen. But the I can only see it. The I can't go get it. The eye can't pick it up. The eye can't eat it. The eye can't enjoy it. The eye can only envision the tamale or whatever it is or something else over there that's appealing to the eye. And since this is a body about which Paul is speaking here, that means that a body has all the parts of a human body, even the weaker parts. And that's where I'm going to spend most of the time today is on the weaker parts of verses 22 through 25. There are parts of the body which seem to be weaker. And he's going to get even to another description of certain parts of the body here. Why do they seem to be weaker? Well, they seem to be weaker because they are weaker. That perspective is reality. They don't seem to be able to do something, say, as well as other parts. Or maybe these parts are weaker. They need more help. But I think we need to be clear here that weakness is something which is ascribed to all of us. It's not just certain people within the family of God who are weak. Paul says so elsewhere in 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. What does he say? Verse 27. God chose what kind of people in the world to shame the strong. The weak. So before any of us think too highly about ourselves Our charge is to never forget that we are all weak. How is God's power made perfect according to 2 Corinthians 12? In weakness. The imagery of the body, the metaphor matters here. You probably don't think about something so unimportant as your fingernails. Until you get a sliver under your fingernail. if you've ever had one. Or you do something which causes you to lose a fingernail. One morning, probably around 20 years ago, we were in a hurry to leave on a Saturday morning. And I should probably say, maybe not we were in a hurry, but I was in a hurry to leave on Saturday morning. because what we had to do is we had to jump in the car, drive about 20 to 30 minutes over and meet some people at a church, then we'd drive an hour and a half to a prison, go into prison for two hours, then we'd spend a couple hours eating lunch, then we'd go into another prison for two hours, then you drive an hour and a half back, then you drive 20 to 30 minutes. I'm in a hurry at 6 o'clock in the morning. And we had a front door, which if I was trying to open and close the front door, the doorknob would be over here. So you would open it up, and then you would close it behind you like this as you're leaving. Well, I'm in a big hurry to get out. I take the doorknob, open up, and close it behind me. And the door closed just fine. The problem was this finger didn't make it out in time. And I would close the door hard on it. If you've ever closed the door on your hand, you know how much it hurts. Well, so we drive 20 to 30 minutes, hour and a half, two hours, two hours, two hours, hour and a half. Well, I mean, by the time we're at the second, my finger is killing me. I mean, throbbing doesn't begin to describe how much that thing hurt. But you get back, and sure enough, within due time, the nail starts to get loose, the nail starts to wobble, and you can just get to the point where you can take the nail and pop it off. Well, you don't miss the nail, though, until you don't have it there. It affects what you do. Now, is that a small example? Yeah, that's a small example. It may not be really illustrative of what I'm trying to say. For instance the scholars are divided upon what what Paul means here when he says the weaker parts of the body in verse twenty two when he says on the contrary the parts of the body seem to be weaker are indispensable. You'll get some scholars that say that it's the internal organs you'll have some scholars who say it has to do with external organs or external parts of the body. but we can get hung up on that and miss the point this is this goes to the the biblical interpretation division issue of not not seeing the forest for the trees here that that what's the big picture going on here Paul's point is that there are weaker parts whatever they may be there are weaker parts and we just need to acknowledge that the church has weaker parts within it this is where I'm going to get to this I'm going to say something hopefully rightly about the prosperity gospel in a few minutes here. But there are weaker parts in the body of Christ. There just are. And it's not wrong. Because why are they weaker. Because God has ordained that they be weaker. Why. So we can show love to them. in a way the world would not we have to keep in mind context what has he done in the first eleven verses of chapter twelve he's talked about spiritual gifts He doesn't want people to get caught up in that he wants them to remember that. Well OK. Somebody has the gift of healing or the gift of working miracles. Well is is that person some sort of super Christian compared to the person who doesn't have that gift. No the person who has that gift because God gave that gift to them sovereignly. He says everyone has a gift of the spirit. Everyone has a gift from the spirit and it's for the common good. If anyone tells you that they have a spiritual gift from God and it is only for their private edification it is not a spiritual gift. Spiritual gifts are given for the good of the body not the benefit just of an individual. So it's in light of that immediately after this Paul goes to the one body with many members. Then he says in verses twenty three and twenty four he goes beyond weaker he goes to on presentable. He says that there are on presentable parts of the body of Christ. It's. It's interesting watching what some guys want to say scholarly here too. I think it's abundantly clear that this is referring to what we would call private parts. But it's interesting to see how how scholars want to dodge this because they can't even bring themselves to admit this. Because it's somehow beneath Scripture to talk about these sort of things but Scripture is quite honest talking about certain things which make men blush when we really get down to it. I'm thinking that this is this is the point. When you just take it at face value here because we know when when Paul says here in verse 23 those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor and are on presentable parts are treated with greater modesty. So he says that there are on presentable parts of a human body. Therefore there are on presentable parts of a Christian body the body of Christ and we treat the on presentable parts of our physical bodies with greater modesty. Therefore we treat the on presentable parts of the body of Christ with greater modesty. Why. Verse 24 God has so composed the body giving greater honor to the part that lacked it. One of the issues here in this context appears to have been the marginalization of the poor at the Lord's Supper in Chapter 11. Maybe the poor couldn't afford to bring food or buy food. Maybe the poor had to work late, couldn't get there in time. But there appears to be an issue of haves and have-nots when you really read Chapter 11. And the have-nots went hungry. The haves ate plenty and got drunk. Does that fulfill the love of chapter 13 course not does it fulfill this greater honor about which Paul writes here. No that's why he has to write it. He wants the church and I emphasize the church not just the elders not just the pastor or not just the deacons he wants the church. to listen to this command and he says give them greater honor. So let's talk about honor. He says bestow I think bestow is a great word. I wish it's not in the Bible very much but I think bestow is a great word. To me it connotates something more than merely just giving. When we talk about God bestowing something on somebody you do a concordance you do a word search in the Bible it's not in your Bible nearly as much as you think it might be. And it doesn't matter whether using the new American standard or an English standard or a King James it's just not there as much as you might think. But I think bestow is a great word. Because there's something just more to it. Than just giving. it goes beyond giving it goes beyond it goes goes into the the heart behind giving the reason for giving it's not given out of obligation it's giving out of love it's giving out of grace it's giving out of humility it's giving out of out of in giving glory to God at the end of the day When we talk about we don't use bestow very much except in religious circles. We use it in religious language. Thank you Lord for bestowing this or you have bestowed this. We don't talk about this in our workplace or at home very much. We don't use that word like that. But I think it is a great word because there is just more to it to me. Now that may be subjective on my part but I just think there is more to it about bestowing. So we are supposed to bestow honor upon these unpresentable parts and not just any honor but greater honor. And what does it mean, though, to say, you bestow greater honor? When you look at the word bestow, it's interesting what it really means. It means to put around or to clothe. In the parable of the talents, if we were to go there, Matthew 21 and Mark 12, we read about a man putting a fence around his vineyard. Same word. bestowing a fence around his vineyard, putting a fence around it, wrapping something around the vineyard. Paul says that's what we're supposed to do when we honor the unpresentable parts of the body of Christ. We are supposed to put around them greater honor, to envelop them, to clothe them in greater honor he doesn't want he doesn't want the unpresentable parts of the body of Christ to be always shoved off there in the back corner he does he he doesn't want the less presentable parts of the body to be always at the end of the line that sort of thing Think about where this is going on Corinth was a pretty prosperous city Corinth was on a little isthmus there at the north end of the Mediterranean there's a lot of money a lot of commerce in Corinth but even though there's a lot of money you still had poor people. Jesus says you're always going to have the poor. and the poor were not being treated rightly by the church at the Lord's Supper they were improperly emphasizing certain spiritual gifts minimizing other men's and other women's gifts and Paul says stop but he doesn't merely stop at stop but he says we got to go on and for those people whom you know are amongst you whom you may consider unpresentable you give those people more honor than the people who have these great gifts. I haven't even gotten to what honor means yet. We need to go there. What does he mean? When he says to put honor, what are you doing when you honor somebody? When we read something like the commandment to honor your mother and your father, what are you supposed to do? How do you carry that out? You esteem them. You say they have greater worth. They have value. They have respect. There's a certain degree of love there. There's a deference to them. And you're supposed to do that with unpresentable people. Think about the imagery here. His imagery is with regard to what we would call private parts. He says, yes, we treat them with greater modesty. But that means there's right there, there's an attitude. We do something greater for them. But we also give them greater honor. Think back to the garden, Adam and Eve sin. When their eyes were open, Scripture said they made a covering. And did they put the covering over their eyes? No. They put the covering over their private parts. You read Scripture and the overriding theme, wherever nakedness is mentioned, has to do with shame. And now back when I was a kid, parents would say this all the time. I don't know if it's politically correct anymore to say this, but your mom, especially your mom, your mom would tell you, you ought to be ashamed. I don't know how many times I heard it. I heard it plenty. People of a certain age heard that. I know that there's issue that shaming has taken on a whole other meaning now in the 21st century. But shame is a biblical concept. Shame exists because it serves a purpose in God's economy. Remember what I said about us being weak all of us. Earlier in first Corinthians. God chose what is weak. But why did God choose what is weak. I told you earlier when I read the verse. God chose what is weak in order to. Shame the wise. What is shaming the wise mean it means. It means really. You want to embarrass the wise. You want to humiliate them. You want to humble them. Have them come to an acknowledgment. That's where you're really going with humility. Humility is really acknowledging who you are in your standing before God. That we are not equals here. That's what happened in the garden. Adam and Eve were shamed. They were embarrassed. That's why they covered themselves they were humiliated and they realize their true standing before God as sinners then. So we bring this back around that garden imagery to Paul's statement about on presentable parts knowing the Corinthians would get it. the Old Testament uses nakedness for a symbol uses as symbolic of Israel's rebellion Israel's idolatry so the Corinthians and we we dress in a certain manner to cover certain things we just do there are parts that are hidden from public view even at the beach when people are shown everything else they're still covering certain parts of their body but they're hidden from public view as a matter of modesty and Paul associates people with those parts so so you have to have in your mind as you're reading chapter twelve what he has just said about the Lord supper and spiritual gifts because he wants to go where he's going to go at the end of this passage about there being no division in the body and he's going to continue on with the chapter on love chapter thirteen then he's going to go back to church practice again in chapter fourteen founded on chapters thirteen and chapter twelve. we cannot deny I know I've already said it but we cannot deny that the Lord says there are people who we would look at as on presentable now who here you go to the issue who are they well there's no black and white definition here is there we have to be discerning here but I think one example we can use is going back to chapter 11, the issue of the rich and the poor. James even writes about that. James says in James's letter, he writes about two guys walking in the meeting. You've got one guy dressed in gold and fine clothing, another guy walks in dressed in shabby clothing. How are you supposed to treat those two guys? Well James wants to make sure you don't give the guy who's dressed in gold and fine clothing the nice seat up front that's real comfortable and you make the guy dressed in shabby clothing either sit in the corner on the bench or make him sit on the floor. We apply that using Paul's statement in chapter 12. It looks like the guy in the shabby clothing ought to sit in the nice chair. Not that you always force the guy who's in the good clothing to sit on the floor. But his point is you go out of your way with the guy with the shabby clothing. Maybe there's somebody here who doesn't speak the language very well. Maybe there's somebody here who has physical issues. Maybe you've got somebody who is weak in faith. Maybe you've got somebody who is struggling with sin. I think maybe a contemporary application here is that we're not supposed to shoot our wounded. Because there are wounded Christians. That when we all walk in here on a Sunday morning or we walk into Hedges Street in San Antonio on a Sunday morning, how are you doing today? I'm doing fine. When you get down to it, there are a lot of people in that building and there may be people in this building who are not doing fine but they just won't tell anybody. So they're hurting. and they're weaker at that point. Maybe they sit over there in the corner and they're crying. They're weaker. They're unpresentable. This is where I want to go with the prosperity gospel. This is an inherent problem I have with the prosperity gospel. Those guys say if you have enough faith you will necessarily be healthy, wealthy, and wise. 1st Corinthians 12 tells us we have on presentable parts the prosperity gospel does not have a category for on presentable parts the prosperity gospel is very worldly there's nothing more than it is nothing more than an exaltation of the same things that the world exalts health wealth and wisdom Well, you can go back to Jesus praying in Matthew chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11, Jesus prays and he thanks the Father for something. What does he thank the Father for in verses 25 through 27? He thanks the Father for hiding certain things from certain people. What has the Father hidden from certain people? The Father has hidden things concerning salvation from who? The wise and understanding. but who has he revealed them to he has revealed them to little children that's a metaphor he's revealed them to people who are innocent and I know we have to be careful with our innocence here people who are not wise and understanding is the context of Matthew chapter eleven people who don't think themselves super duper intelligent now is it impossible for God to save the wise and under no that's that's not just a universal statement but on the whole Why? Because God wants us to know that he is the one who gets the glory for this. We can think about how God has accomplished his plan of redemption throughout history in the Bible. He has to accomplish it through people. Well, people have to be born in order to be people. They have to be conceived in order to be born to be people. What kind of women does Paul, does the Lord keep using throughout scripture in order to accomplish his plan? Young women who are bearing all these children? No. He uses either old, or barren, or old and barren women. Abraham and Sarah, beyond childbearing age, supposedly. They get a promise. What is Sarah's response to the promise of a child? She laughed at the promise. Isaac and Rebekah, another barren woman. Go to the New Testament. John the Baptist. Who were John the Baptist's parents? Zechariah and Elizabeth. Was Zechariah a young guy? No. Was Elizabeth a young woman? No. Scripture is very kind and doesn't say Elizabeth is old. The ESV says she has advanced in years. But she didn't have any kids. But she was going to have one. And she not only had a child. She had the fulfillment of prophecy in John the Baptist. The Elijah to come. The guy that Israel's been waiting for for four hundred years since there hasn't been a spirit of prophecy in four hundred years. He's the guy who is going to make straight the way of the Lord. He is the guy who is filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb. And it's all because of what God did not what men do. and it's all about God doing what God does and men understanding that they have nothing and can do nothing apart from receiving gifts from God and that's what Paul wants us to know in first Corinthians twelve about spiritual gifts. Now wherever you stand on the issue say for instance of certain spiritual gifts like tongues. But that's not something that you go take a class and learn how to do. That is something that if it is given to a person it is given to a person. Any spiritual gift is given by God. It is not something that you go to a class or you can buy. Acts chapter 8 Simon the sorcerer thought he could buy the gifts. He could buy the spirit but you can't do that. Those are sovereignly given by God. So we've got people that we know within our body who would be considered by the world and even maybe by the church. Because Paul wants the church to know there are unpresentable parts amongst you. And Paul says we've got to give them a special honor. I know this illustration will be falling short and I always hate to, I shouldn't say hate, I hesitate to ask geography questions. Who liked geography in school? One, two, three, four, three and a half out of, I don't know, 40 people. All right. So I've got three and a half people who can answer my question then. OK. Well, we are from Michigan. I've said that before. And no, we're not from the same part of Michigan as Craig and Tim. They're from way down south. We're from five hours north of Craig and Tim. But there's an item of winter clothing that the state of Michigan looks like. It's in the shape of something. Can somebody tell me what shape it is? Pardon? A mitten. Well, you didn't even raise your hand, though. Well, your geography student there said the same thing back there. OK, yeah, it's in the shape of a mitten. So it looks like this, right? That's what Michigan looks like. Now what if I told you by your statement, if you say that's what Michigan looks like, you have left out one-third of the state of Michigan? You have. Because there's another part of Michigan that looks like this up here. We came from up here. Craig and Tim are way down here. We came from up here. So between these two parts, there's a five-mile stretch of water where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet, and there's a bridge that connects the two. Well, you can cross this bridge that connects the two, start driving here, you can go 300 miles that way and you're still in Michigan. So Michigan's a lot. We lived here, we lived in the largest congressional district east of the Mississippi by geography. We lived here, you know where our U.S. Congressman lived when we left? Over 300 miles over here. Because this is all, and this is all one congressional district. That's how sparsely populated it is up there. But my point is that connecting these two over this five mile stretch of water, there's a bridge. It's a five mile long bridge. Anybody ever see when it was on the show Dirty Jobs? Mike Rowe did a show on the Discovery Channel about people whose job was to do dirty jobs. Jobs people didn't want to do. You run an ad on Indeed.com or Monster.com and nobody applies for these jobs because nobody wants to do them. That's why they're called dirty jobs. There's a job associated with that bridge that connects the two and Mike Rowe did a segment on it. There's a guy whose job is to really live inside the bridge for eight hours a day. Because the bridge is, it's clearly, if it's five miles long, it's big. You're in the middle of the bridge. You're 200 feet above the water. If you go, there's two towers, one on each end. You're 500 plus feet in the air on the top of both towers. Where Lakes Michigan and Huron meet there, it's over 200 feet deep. So clearly, the towers go all the way to the bottom of the lake. And inside the towers, it's a bunch of small little compartments like this. I had a chance in 1983 to go to the top of one of the towers. But it's all a little bunch of small compartments. There's a guy whose job is take an elevator, go down to the bottom of the lake inside the tower, and repaint the towers from the inside out. All he does is strip the paint off of the compartment and repaint it. Why does he do that? He does that because you have to do that to try and inhibit corrosion, because these are sunk in 200 feet of water. That's all he does. He works by himself. He's in these little compartments, 200 feet below the lake. strip it off, repaint it, go to the next compartment, strip it off, repaint it, go to the next one, go all the way up to the top, then what do you do? You go back down to the bottom and start again. That's a dirty job. Now, there are a lot dirtier jobs than that if you've watched the show. But the point is, that's not the kind of job where people exalt you for doing the job. That you have guys who If you've got a guy who runs a septic tank business, cleaning septic tanks, that is not a gloriously celebrated job. He doesn't get exalted like certain people who have certain jobs. Now, I know that falls short of what I'm talking about here, because that's merely talking about what people do. Paul's imagery here can be talking about what people do, but he's also going to talk about who people are, what they are like, Are they maybe challenged with regard to language? Are they challenged with regard to physical things? Are they emotionally challenged? Are they maybe intellectually challenged, as we would call them? Are they something or other challenged where those are not the people you put in your ad on YouTube to advertise your church sort of thing? Paul says you give those people special honor. And maybe they ought to be in the ad on YouTube. You have to go out of your way, according to Paul, to do this with these people. The world says you hide those parts. Within the church, Paul says give those parts greater honor. Keeping in mind that we are all weak at one level here. We are not to be Darwinists within the church where it's all about the survival of the fittest. Really, if you want to go over there, you can even talk about the survival of the weakest. What does Paul say, Romans 12? What are we supposed to do? We're supposed to outdo one another. Doing what, though? Showing honor. Jesus repeats the command to honor your father and mother and who does he say it to in Matthew chapter 15 for instance. He doesn't say it to kids. He says it to adults. We as adults are still supposed to honor our father and mother. We're supposed to give them respect. We're supposed to defer to them. Yes, we have that command to children to honor your parents in Ephesians 6. Paul says 1 Timothy 5, widows are to be honored. He says to give double honor to certain people in First Timothy five to certain elders who teach well. Peter says Peter Peter takes it to the next level. First Peter to. Peter says to honor. Everyone. Everyone. Now he knows he has to say something else here. In what sort of culture and society did Peter live. Peter did not live in a democratic republic. Peter lived in a dictatorship, just like John, Paul, and Jesus all did. So even though Peter says, 1 Peter 2, honor everyone, he feels it necessary, even after saying honor everyone, who else are you supposed to honor? You honor the emperor. Does it say honor the Christian emperor? No. It says honor the emperor, the pagan emperors of Rome. Whether you're talking about Caesar, you're talking about Caligula, you're talking about Diocletian, you're talking about Nero, any of those guys, Peter says honor them. I wrestled with whether or not to say this, but I think there's application. 2012, northern Michigan. Let's just say that most of my friends are conservative Republicans. Social media has not been a friend to Christians carrying out their faith in many cases. 2012, I saw way too many posts on Facebook mocking, racist, sarcastic, condescending concerning Mr. Obama. Guess what happens when you call out your Christian brothers? They say, I didn't vote for him. I said, that's not the point. honor the emperor we don't have an emperor yes you do there's a principle here this is this is as as sprawl would say principal this is about a principle here honoring the civil authority even if they are wicked doesn't mean we agree with the civil authority You're saying I've got to support no I'm not saying you got. I am saying you honor him. It's like you. It's like you as a Christian. You may have lost parents as an adult. So you're an adult. You're a Christian. Your parents are lost. Well does that mean you don't have to honor your parents just because they're lost. No you still honor your parents as long as you don't violate the law of God. Well you can honor the civil authority without violating the law of God. It doesn't mean you have to support the civil authority. You don't have to agree with them, but you have to honor them. You move to San Antonio. I had to say the same thing in San Antonio. We have a different civil authority of a different persuasion in power right now. Same principle though. I'm not saying that you agree with it I'm not saying that that you have to yes he's the man okay I'm awful no I'm just saying you honor that that individual in the civil authority that's the challenge of your Christianity Paul and these guys figured out how to do it in first century Greco-Roman culture how to honor a pagan civil authority so can we but we've got all these commands to honor honor widows honor the unpresentable parts honor your father and mother honor everyone and give special honor to those on presentable parts not just elders not just the musicians not just the profits not just the healers not just the tongue speakers honor everyone as Peter says but special honor to unpresentable parts why verse twenty five so that there would be no division Tim's been going through Ephesians at length. He's been in a certain section of Ephesians 4 for a while because he wants to emphasize the unity of the spirit amongst the body. So he's been going at length regarding unity here. And that's Paul's point here. That's why Let's think about it though. Let's go back to the Lord's Supper in chapter eleven. You got the Lord's Supper in chapter eleven. You've got the rich. You've got the poor. You got people who are going hungry. People who are eating too much getting drunk. Does that engender unity within the church? Absolutely not. What if you exalt certain people inappropriately who have certain gifts and minimize people who have other gifts even though those same gifts were given to them by God. Does that bring unity. No it doesn't. That's his point here is this is all about us being united even though some people are feet some people are hands some people are eyes some people are ears some people are private parts. It's all about unity. He said to the Romans in Romans chapter 12 out doing one another in showing honor. In showing honor to everyone but special honor to our unpresentable parts. And there's no wiggle room here. This doesn't say honor those people except for the ones who listen to music that you don't like. or those people who don't look like you or those people who are from here or from there. No. Honor everyone. Special honor. Who do you give special honor to in this passage? Unpresentable parts. And this command is just as valid for us because nothing has changed. We are people just like the Corinthians. Okay the website says what Corpus Christians dot com. Paul's going to write to the Corpus Christians he's going to say the same thing. He's going to say the same things to the San Antonio Christians. You do all this so that there will be no division. All in the name of unity. All because of what he will then say following this in chapter 13. Faith hope and love. The greatest of these is love. And we will know that you love if you love the brother. Let's pray. Father, I know that we need much help with this. Yet, even though as we sit and stand as the redeemed, we need much help with this today, Lord. Help us, Lord, to honor everyone, but to honor those that you tell us to give special honor to in the way that you want us to honor them. Respect them. Defer to them. Help them and encourage them. acknowledge who they are. Father we know that there are weak amongst us. We know that we have other passages as well that talk about how we are to interact with our weaker brothers and I know that that is regard to or we see it with regard to food we see it with regard to other issues but Lord we know that there are the weak. Amongst the weak. We have weak people amongst a body of weak people. Lord, help us to acknowledge the fact that if we have any strength at all, it is in our weakness, as your servant Paul said. That Lord, what do we have that we weren't given? I know that Paul posed that question to the Corinthians back in chapter four. And I know that the assumed answer is nothing. None of us have anything except what you have given to us. So Lord help us to live in light of that today. Help us to love the brethren. Help us to show honor. Help us to show love. In Jesus name. Amen. Thank you.