text, and tonight I would like to finish up this text. This morning we talked about diversity and unity in the body, and tonight I would like to address the rest of Paul's exhortation, weakness, honor, and suffering in the body. So what I'd like to do is I'd like to come to 1 Corinthians 12, and I'm going to start at verse 21 and read through verse 31. 1 Corinthians 12, verse 21-31. Let us give our attention to the reading of God's infallible Word. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 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, administering in 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. That's part of the reading of God's word. Let's ask the Lord to bless the ministry of the word tonight through his spirit. O Spirit of God, would you come among us tonight and knit our hearts together in love as a body, a local manifestation of the body of Christ? Would you give us joy in this, Father? Would you allow this text to speak to us, even if we don't want to hear it? Would you allow this text to open up our hearts to those who may be weak, those who may be, as Paul says, unpresentable parts, or may be recognized that in some ways we are those parts, weak and unpresentable. And, Father, would you give us grace that would knit everything together in such a way that we desire unity above all things, not above truth, because truth and unity are united and cannot be severed. But, Father, help us to cultivate a kind of unity that is becoming of the Christ of Scripture. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. So tonight, again, I'd like to focus on weakness, honor, and suffering in the body. And I just want to give you three points tonight, and all of them are in the form of a question. So the first question tonight is, how should we think about the weak and unpresentable parts of the body? Well, Paul calls these parts weak and unpresentable, but he says that they are vital. So when Paul speaks about weaker parts, again with the body analogy, I think he's probably referring to the internal organs. This is why he says in verse 22a, on the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. So the internal organs, think about them just for a moment, they're very fragile, but they're very necessary, right? However, there's a reason why we have a ribcage. It is to protect the weakness of these vital organs. And that's really what Paul's getting at here. Now, on the other hand, when he speaks about unpresentable parts of the body, I think, no doubt, he's talking about the genitals, the private parts of the body. These are the parts that we need to be modest with, right? And with the weaker parts of the body, he says that we bestow greater honor, and with the unpresentable parts of the body, we treat with greater modesty. In both cases, listen, the rest of the body is making up for what lacks or what is needed in the weaker and unpresentable parts. So I want to be very careful about drawing analogies to the church, although I think that a minister would be derelict in his duty if he did not do that. We can't simply say what Paul says without connecting it to the local church. So when we think about the church, there are members who have a weakness, but they are nonetheless vital. There are members who, while we may not put them up in front, to lead or to preach or to sing or whatever, they are nonetheless to be treated with great modesty and even honor. And we'll come back to that in a moment. But here's the question that you should be asking. Why does Paul say that the weaker and unpresentable parts are vital? We understand that with the organs, certainly understand that with the genitals, but how does that carry over into church life? Well, the simple answer is that the weaker parts of the body and the unpresentable parts of the body are those things that sanctify everyone. The church is a test tube of sanctification, and though the church should have a common confession, We also have diverse experience and life settings. And beloved, the church is not supposed to be a place where everybody thinks the same way about everything. We all have the same hobbies. We're all in the same tax bracket. We all have the same skin color and the same demographic. It's actually supposed to be an international multicultural group of people from every walk of life who have covenanted to speak the truth and love to each other, to be long-suffering with one another, to be gracious and to be honest. And the weak among us sanctify the strong, and the strong among us sanctify the weak. The unpresentable parts give opportunity for the body to compensate and love. So let me ask a second question with regard to these weak and unpresentable parts. How should we think about honor in the body? Well, Paul speaks about showing honor to the weak and the unpresentable parts, but I want to make something very clear here, and what I'm going to say is going to be paradigmatic for church life. Not all honor is created equally. For example, there's a difference between the kind of honor that is throwing a blanket of love over infelicities, over weakness, over uncouthness, over people that don't get it. But it's not necessarily a sin. It's a maturity issue. And You don't want to bang somebody over the head for any and every infelicity. And so we throw a blanket of love over that, and doing so honors them. But then there's another kind of honor. And it is the kind of honor in the church that, and please don't misunderstand me, is shown toward merit, right? People who have made great sacrifice. People who have shown great faithfulness. People who deserve honor in the church. But come back to this blanket of love for a moment. We honor the weak by throwing a blanket of love over infelicities as much as possible. So look at verse 23. Paul says, 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. So to honor someone like this for merit when there is no merit, there's a word for that. It's called flattery, right? It's kind of an embarrassing story, but I was at a Bible study one time back in San Diego, and the guy hosting the party, he was like a golf pro. That's what he told everybody, he was a golf pro. He didn't look like a golf pro, but I don't know much about golf. I'm kind of more in the Happy Gilmore type of golf. That's kind of my speed, right? But, so we're at this Bible study and he has, I kid you not, the ugliest sweater I've ever seen in my whole entire life. I mean, it would win the ugly sweater contest. It actually hurt my eyeballs, like it was just so bad. But in a moment of not knowing what to do and in a moment of immaturity, I said, hey man, That is a great sweater, right? I'm just totally lying through my teeth, right? And we do that sometimes, right? We try to flatter, and it may not even be a devious motivation in doing so, we're just like, I really don't know what to say right now, so I'm gonna go with being nice, right? But sometimes we do this where there is no merit, and we're telling somebody that they have merit that they don't actually have. Somebody handles something horribly, like, man, you did a great job. It's like, no, they didn't do a great job. And you're lying to them, and you're flattering them by telling them that. But that doesn't mean, again, that in these infelicities, we need to bang them over the head and expect them to be at a certain level of maturity that they may not be for another 10 to 15 years. However, to overlook someone's infelicities in speech or conduct is another kind of honor. It is an honor motivated by love. I'm not talking about blatantly sinful actions. I'm talking, for example, about maybe people who don't get it. Maybe people who are immature, they're uncouth, they're socially awkward, right? You're at a home group, and the person leading the home group, or maybe somebody at the home group, he's somebody who really wants to be honored, right? He's that guy, you know, put me in coach, put me, you know, he really wants honor in the church. But he's also really uncouth, and everybody gets their food, and they sit down, he's eating, he's loud, he's obnoxious, and then in front of everybody, he just belches, right? And like, you know, like, what do you do at that point? Like, is that a sin? It's not a sin. Is it fitting? No, it's not fitting. Is it appropriate? It's certainly not appropriate. But are you going to rebuke him in front of everybody? Well, no, the mature Christian's not going to do that. The mature Christian's going to smile and change the subject, right? And just kind of move on. And if there's ever a time and a place in private because you're going to preserve his dignity, you might say something to him if you have such a relationship to him, if you have that kind of passport, right? But this kind of honor throws a blanket of love over infelicities, and there's a purpose for it. And we see that purpose in 24 and 25. The purpose of this kind of honor is solidarity and symmetry. Whatever the weakness is, listen, the shame associated with it would be the common disgrace of the whole body. So the purpose is unity. Look at 24 and 25. 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 in other words, as a body, we have a vested interest in guarding the dignity and well-being of every member of the body, but especially the weak members. And some members, through some kind of weakness, require some help in accomplishing this. Now, I want to make sure you don't misunderstand me, so let me give a qualification. Overlooking infelicities and even minor sins is not the same as overlooking a pattern of serious offenses. There are some things that are simply idiosyncrasies in people, and other things that have a moral element to them. Don't confuse the two. And yet, sometimes, in the messiness of church life, It's kind of hard to distinguish these things, right? And this is where time and communion with them will reveal the distinction, all right? And Paul says that. He says, some people's sins, they go on before them. But some, they don't reveal themselves for a long time, okay? I'll just be honest with you. There's been certain families in the past that we've had to move out of certain home groups because they dominated the home groups. They were kind of, You know just running roughshod over people's feelings and maybe the home group leader Just didn't you know wasn't that a place where they thought that they could say something to or tried to say something to him And the people would get mad at him, and I'm just like put him in my group You know I'll put a leash on him right and then he comes in he tries to dominate like oh, we're good Thank you for your thoughts time to move on right and you know sometimes you have to do that But if you notice that it just keeps happening, and it's no longer in felicities. It's there's a sinful pattern These are things that you need to address But that is the honor for a blanket of love. Now let me talk about another honor right now, and this is very important. I want you to look at verse 26b. He says, if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now I think he pivots here, I really do. I think that Paul is speaking here about honoring merit. And there is very much a place for giving honor to whom honor is due in the church. And let me be clear when I say, some people in the church deserve more honor than others, whether it is due to experience, wisdom, service, or longstanding faithfulness. Now, I hope that doesn't fall on your ears in an impartial way. I hope you haven't fallen into this broad line evangelical idea of the democratization of the church in such a sense that everybody's equal and there's no distinction. Well, where did that come from? It came from something good, and that is the priesthood of all believers, which is a doctrine that came out of the Reformation, which very simply states that we don't need to go to a human individual as a mediator. We can go directly to Christ, directly to the throne of grace. The wall of division has been demolished, and now we can come straight to God, and that's great. Hallelujah. But the Reformers never meant by that, that in the church there's no distinctions. In fact, Paul says at the end, there's an order in the church. First apostles, then prophets. He talks about a taxonomy. He talks about a hierarchy. And there's an analogy in marriage, right? Peter says husbands and wives are co-heirs of the grace of life. We are equal ontologically in our being, in our standing before God. But then all of the apostles go on to say the husband is the head, and the wife is the helper, and there is to be submission and mutual submission, which is really deference. But there's order in the home, and so also there's order in the church. From a very early age, I taught my boys how to address their pastors. You address your pastor as pastor. And when we would see, back at Third Avenue Baptist in Louisville, when we would see Pastor Greg come in, I'd take my boys and I'd say, see that guy right there? Yeah, Daddy, that's Pastor Greg. And that's how you address him. That's Pastor Greg. He is your under-shepherd. You show respect and honor to him. If he ever tells you to do something, you do it, okay? Those deacons tell you to do something, you do it. And if not, you're gonna hear from me, okay? Because you show honor to whom honor is due. But is Pastor Greg his friend? Well sure, but not in the way that your buddy is your friend. You show reverence, you show honor, you show respect. Now a clear application of this would be Paul's very serious prohibition against laying hands on an elder too hastily in 1 Timothy 5.22. Or allowing a recent convert to be an elder, 1 Timothy 3.6, right? What is Paul pushing back against? He's like, look, You give the position to people that merit it, okay? It's not one of these things, I remember years ago when I was, I just got saved, and there was this pothead, this guy that was addicted to marijuana. And he was a friend from high school, and he was starting to get interested in Christianity. So I would go to his house, his dad was a doctor, they had a beautiful home. I'll never forget, we went in the living room. No, we went in the dining room, and there was this big, long table, like one of the things you'd see in a movie in a king's palace, right? And it was kind of weird. He sat at one end of the table, and I sat at the other end of the table, and we're having a Bible study. And we were talking about just the church, and he said, I just think, I just wish somebody, I struggle with so many things, still smoke pot, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just wish somebody would give me a leadership position, and then I would get my act together. It doesn't work that way, okay? You don't lay your hands on somebody who's not worthy of the title. That man must be tested. And ask any of the deacons who have gone through the process and are going through the process. It's not fun. We open up the bowels of your life. We open up the real issues. We talk about things like pornography. We talk about things like caring for your wife. We talk about family worship. All the things that are actually part of the membership covenant for every single member. And we're well aware that not all members follow the membership covenant. Yes, that's a problem, but we do know that we're not going to put somebody in leadership who's not even doing what they said that they would do. And what we're doing when we do that, if we were to do that, is we're setting people up for failure. And not only that, but we're putting the congregation in a very precarious predicament. You see, when a church anoints a man to be a leader, we are saying, we can, in good conscience, submit to this man's judgment and wisdom. Beloved, that's a very big deal. It's a very, very big deal. So you don't put a man or woman into any leadership position until they have been tested and shown to exhibit the requisite gifts. We've had people over the years that they come in, and one of the first things they do is they give me a card of their parachurch ministry, and it's got a hashtag of their YouTube channel. I do Bible studies online. I'm like, that's great. I'm very happy for you. If you think that that means anything here, you've come to the wrong place. Who is a leader in this place? Somebody who has shown long-standing faithfulness. Somebody who, when the heat gets turned up in church life, they don't bolt for the door. Somebody who is not counting noses unless it's noses in a congregational meeting about who's leaving, who's staying, and who's talking about this guy. No, no, no, no. They are those who are going to hold the line and they're going to be a backstop even if it means losing friends and family. Those are the kind of men and women that we're looking for. Every teacher that we have in this place has been tested. Every teacher and leader in a ministry has been examined. They've been questioned. They've proved themselves to be faithful. So those who have a track record of faithfulness and fidelity, they are to be honored. They aren't church hoppers. They are church men and women. They don't leave a church when hardship and division rears its head. They are the kind of people who, when problems arise, want to be part of the solution rather than the problem. They are the people who are the bees. always looking for the flowers, rather than the flies who are always looking to the trash and the dung. There are people who are unassuming. They don't demand that the elders give them positions of authority. They show themselves faithful such that the elders are compelled to ask them to serve in those positions. And that has always been our MO. You don't find the person that wants to have that position. You find the person that's already doing that position, and then you put the title on them. There are people who are not presumptuous. The kind of people that try to put the most loving construction on a situation. There are the people who have been profoundly impacted by the grace of Christ, and that grace beams from their countenance. So how is this honor earned? By faithfulness in time. There is no substitute. Genuine honor is not like a fad diet. You know, lose 30 pounds in 30 days. It takes time. To give honor to someone who has not earned it due to wealth, or power, or worldly prestige, or even magnanimous character, devoid of true piety, would be to show favoritism and partiality. So now thirdly, I want to ask the question, how do we think about suffering in the body? And I'll be brief on this. But in 26a, he says, If one member suffers, all suffer together. I want you to turn in your Bibles to Colossians 1.24, and I'll end with this tonight. Colossians 1.24. And my apologies to Daniel Long. I know that he's going to be preaching on this, so I'll give him the answer, and we'll see if he repeats it in his ministry of the Word. Colossians 1.24. Paul says this, Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of His body, that is, the church. What does that mean? that we are filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions. If you're a Protestant, and you're paying attention, and you know what time it is, you may feel a little bit uncomfortable with this idea, and yet there it is in the Bible. Let me say very clearly, there is nothing lacking in the afflictions of Christ to justify His people. That's right. Christ's work on the cross and even His suffering in His earthly life were perfect, complete, and lacking nothing. But, that's not what Paul's talking about here. Paul is referring to the ongoing mission of the extension of Christ into the world through the gospel. You see, there's a difference between the work of justification and the Great Commission. Justification has been accomplished and that has been forensically credited to our account, but the publishing of that message and all the affliction and suffering and anguish that comes with it is the ongoing mission of the church. In other words, beloved, Christ is embodied in the church, and it is as if Christ continues to go out into the world, continuing His earthly ministry, and continuing to absorb all the hate and all the affliction and all the suffering that He experienced in His life here on earth. So Christ continues to go out in the world through His church, and just as they persecuted Him, they're going to persecute you. And just as the stain of sin, which brought sickness and death into the world, afflicted Him, so it will afflict us. And so what does Paul say? Don't miss this. I rejoice in the suffering for the sake of His body, the church. No one in the church suffers alone. No one in the church should walk down that road alone. It is incumbent on the church to listen, enter into the suffering with your brethren. Now, if that is a foreign idea to you, You either haven't been reading your Bible or you've been brought up in the lap of the evangelical church that has made success and prosperity and comfort the goal of the church rather than hardship, toil, struggle, pain, and joy shot through all of it. Did not Jesus say if they hated Me that they would hate you? Didn't Jesus say broad is the path that leads to destruction and narrow is the path that leads to life? And beloved, if I could just say tonight, This is the reason why our vespers are so important to us. How do you hear of suffering in the church? You hear it through the prayer requests of the saints. How do you intercede for the suffering in the church? In holy silence and prayer before a living God, lifting up your voice to the Father in heaven in the name of Christ through the power of the Spirit to intervene where doctors couldn't. where the therapist won't, and the happy, clappy, don't worry, be happy, shallow platitudes could never touch. There is profundity and power in prayer. We suffer with the saints through prayer. Probably shouldn't tell this story, but I'm gonna tell it anyway. Many, many years ago in my ministry, I very, in a straightforward way, exhorted the congregation to come back in prayer because there was a family in our congregation that had just suffered a miscarriage. And, you know, I can't help them. The doctors couldn't help them. Jesus wasn't here to resurrect that baby. And I knew that what that family needed and what our church needed is for all of us to enter into the sorrow of it together and lament together and pray for this family. And I'm going to be honest with you, I was a little incensed because not a lot of people were coming. And I'm like, do we not care for these people? Do we not care for the saints? They're suffering. They just lost a child. So I exhorted everyone to come back Later that week, I heard that a man in the congregation got very angry at me. And he went home and told his wife. He said, that was over the top. I can't believe Pastor Joss said that. That man was excommunicated a year later for adultery. And that just tells you the attitude of people that don't care. You see, beloved, we suffer together. Nobody should suffer alone. Nobody should suffer alone, and what is the best thing that we could do? What does Paisios say? More will be accomplished in prayer than in conversation. And so we go to the Lord in prayer, and we have an environment here on Sunday night that you can come in a safe place. and you can share your burdens without fear that people are gonna use it against you, but with every expectation that they're gonna take that prayer request to the Lord, storm the throne of grace, and enter into the suffering and the tears and the lamenting together. That is what it looks like to suffer together. So here is a simple application of suffering with one another. Come and hear their cry and join them in prayerful supplication to the Father. Enter into the weakness of your brothers and sisters. Enter into the messiness of the unpresentable parts. Show honor through a blanket of love and give honor through merit for people who deserve it. Show honor in the body. Enter into suffering. and embrace the weakness knowing that through all of it, the Lord is making all of us look more and more and more like Christ. May the Lord give us help tonight to enter into the throne room of grace and give up ardent cries to the Father knowing that we shall be heard through Christ. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you that we have a place to come to tonight, that we can lift up our prayers to you. And Father, we know that prayer heals our souls. We know that sometimes it's often the case that prayer doesn't change the circumstances, but it does change us. It molds and fashions and shapes our wills into conformity with Yours. Lord, we come to You tonight as clay on a potter's wheel. And we pray that as You turn that wheel on, that You would take Your fingers, O God, and You would shape and form and fashion us into the kind of people that you want us to be, and that you would show us, Father, that this trial that we're in, this hardship that we're in, this mountain that we're up against, it's not the obstacle in the way, it is the way. It is the way through which you're bringing us to look more like Christ. I thank you for every saint here tonight. Father, what a joy it is to serve such a people. I thank you for the spirit of unity that you have given us, and I pray that you would continue to galvanize it tonight as we hear this blessed testimony of our brother Liam, and as we reaffirm our membership vows. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen.