I'd ask you to remain standing, and if you would, please turn in your Bibles. This morning we're in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. 1 Corinthians chapter 12 will be beginning in verse 12 and finishing out the chapter through verse 31. And once again, hear the word of the Lord. 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 baptized into one body. Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink from the 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, yet 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 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. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ, then 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. Now I'd ask you to pray with me. O Lord, we ask that you would humble us under your mighty hand, under your word. Bring us to repentance and lead us to have faith in our only hope in our Lord Jesus Christ as He is proclaimed this morning. So, Father, please use me as a humble vessel for Your Word. Come minister to us now, we pray. Through Christ we ask these things. Amen. Well, please take your seats. Who is missing this morning? Look around you. Who is missing this morning? I don't actually necessarily mean who is not here because they're traveling or they're sick or something like that. Rather I mean who is missing this morning because they would feel too out of place being with us. Or maybe they have visited us before and just something about this place and us as a people They were driven off. Who is missing this morning? Let me ask you another question. Is there anyone that you wish was missing this morning, who is presently here? Or one other way I can ask you. Is there anyone here that you really can't miss? Because if they were to leave the body, you have no idea what we would do. And you would have serious anxieties if any one of these members of this body were not here. Would you be concerned at all? Well, I hope that by the end of this, you would answer, yes, I would be concerned if any single member was not to be here with us. Now, I have to tell you, this passage speaks very much in my own experience for things, undercurrents, going on in our church body as they were going on in the church body of the Corinthians. It has to do with divisions. There are divisions that are created. And I know that some of you, through personal testimony to me, I know you feel disconnected from the body. I know that. I know there are some of you who are hurting because of the experience that you're having right now. And people are not surrounding you and ministering to you in a way that you really want them to or need them to. I know you're here. I know some of you have had a hard time to integrate in, to find friends. You feel like it's hard to break through maybe what seem to be cliques in the body. I know you're here. But every single one of us here has been brought here through one man. So I have hope for you this morning. Well, as I say, we have these struggles of divisions, and certainly the Corinthians did as well. It's not entirely clear if you look in chapter 12, which Mike preached on last Sunday. If you look in chapter 12, it starts off, Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. It's not exactly the same way that he addressed some of the other things. You know, 1 Corinthians kind of proceeds with Paul addressing them in their divisions, favoritism that they're having towards certain leaders, and then he moves on at some point and says, now, about the things which you wrote to me, these questions I know that you have, so let me address them for you. Well, here it's not quite as clear. We don't know whether they asked him a question. Maybe they asked him, Paul, Which of the spiritual gifts is the most important gift? Maybe they said, Paul, we think that tongues is a sign of being a true believer. Is that the case, Paul? They could have asked him that. I don't know if they did or not. Or, it could also just be that the Apostle Paul sees, he knows what's going on there. If you remember from the very beginning of this letter, he says, oh, it's been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. And we know that there's a report that's come back to him because there's quarreling. In that case, it was over leaders, the divisions that they were making among themselves. But, if you take a broader look back at all of 1 Corinthians, which has come so far, There's division all over the place. And it comes out in different ways. As I said, leaders in chapters 3 and 4. Lawsuits against other fellow believers. That was chapter 6. Having divisions over is it proper to eat meat offered to an idol or not. That was chapters 8 through 10. Chapter 11, most recently we saw division in the Lord's Supper. How some were eating and even getting drunk while others went hungry. So in a sense, Paul has moved on, but he hasn't moved on. Because the same root issues that were going on in those passages is happening here as well, but it's manifesting itself in a different way. So this brings us to this question of spiritual gifts. And the complication which is happening is, the spiritual gifts which the Holy Spirit gives to us are meant to build up the body, to unite us together. And yet, to these Corinthians, It seems like they're having the very opposite effect. It's dividing them. It's dividing them up. And so, the very natural question for us is, what is the cure for this? Whether it's happening in our body or in the Corinthians or other churches, what is the cure over this division for spiritual gifts? So, I see the primary answer as what Paul is giving to us here is the answer to that question of how to overcome these divisions is to live according to how the Holy Spirit has made us to be dependent upon one another. And I hope to trace that out for you with three primary points. First point is going to be that we have to understand spiritual unity. Understand spiritual unity. The second point is going to be we have to avoid self-centered divisions. If you write these down, you can kind of see how they play off each other. On the one hand you have spiritual unity, and on the other you have self-centered divisions. And then finally, we have to marvel at God's handiwork, and how He has chosen to so compose the body of our Lord Jesus. So let's go to the first point. Understand spiritual unity. This most essential first point for us. Now, Paul uses a metaphor here. I'm sure you've heard it. in this passage. It's a body. The human body. The human body is made up of many parts. Eyes, ears, hands, feet. Plenty of other parts. In fact, there's even parts that are unpleasant kind of parts. And they're kind of shameful parts, so we cover them up. And in covering up, we give them honor. Those kind of parts, all of the parts, are members of the body. This is verse 12. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. So we have a metaphor here, Christ and His body. Now the way in which Christ's body is composed, as I hinted at before, this Old Testament passage, the foretelling of how God's Spirit would be poured out upon us, And then we see Jesus' baptism, the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove. When you and I are baptized, and this is patterned for us in the New Testament, when we are baptized, I can see you being baptized into water, but I also know that there is a baptism into the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God. I know that's happening because God has told me it's happening. Even though I can't see it, I know that it's there. And when the Spirit baptizes us, There is a type of unity that he brings. Things that we like to divide ourselves along the lines of race, or as men and women, or social status. The Holy Spirit comes in and he's an equalizer. You see that there, verse 13? In one spirit, we're all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks. He is the equalizer. And He brings this unity to us. And Christ's baptism is the beginning of that unity. Do you see that? Christ in His baptism, His baptism is a sign of death and resurrection again. The Holy Spirit is present there. But the Holy Spirit doesn't only bring us unity. He also brings us diversity. But it's not a worldly kind of diversity that he brings. The Holy Spirit is not interested in taking the cultures of the earth and redeeming them and pulling them into the church. That's not the kind of diversity that the Holy Spirit brings. Instead, as we see here, verse 14, the body is not a single member, but many. And again, in verse 19, if all were a single member, where would the body be? It's this thing that Paul is hinting at, which is, if you have a pile of eyes, that doesn't make a body. If you have a pile of ears, a basket full of arms, that's not a body. You have to have this diversity. And they can't just be spread out. They have to be brought together, functioning in this body. But there's something very interesting about how the Holy Spirit brings diversity among us. He doesn't do it just for diversity's sake. He does it to make us to be dependent upon one another. He makes it so that we have to depend upon the other members of the body. As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. We have this dependence working between us. So this is the first point. We have to understand the spiritual unity, what God has accomplished. and pouring out the Holy Spirit upon us. This brings us to the second point. Avoid self-centered divisions. There's two primary temptations that we have when it comes to things like spiritual gifts. And they're both right here in the text. The first temptation that we have is we see our gifts or we might think we don't even have gifts that we really bring to this body. And so, we say something like, you don't really need me here. It's not really that important that I'm here as a part of this body. And, this type of person feels like an outsider. They're never quite connected in. They're always a bit on the outside. In fact, how does Paul say here, verse 15, if the foot should say, because I have not a hand, I do not belong to this body. See, the weaker member of the foot saying about a very important member like the hand, well, because I'm not a hand, I don't belong to the body. It's not very important that I'm here. Or ears. Ears say about eyes, because I'm not an eye, I must not be a part of the body. But Paul says that doesn't make it any less a part of the body, just because it seems to be less important. Seems to be less important. That doesn't make it not be a part of the body. No, in fact, if the whole body was an eye, Where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body was an ear, where would be the sense of smell? Even if you think that you're weak in the gifts that you bring to this body, there is still an absolutely essential role which the Holy Spirit has appointed for you to play. So, I'm trying to give you hope in that. So, don't say, you don't need me. Rather, you should say, I don't know how. But I know that my brothers and sisters need me in this body. God says that's the case. That's one temptation. You're feeling inferior, you're on the outside. The other one, the other pole is that you feel some sense of superiority. Maybe you are an eyeball. Maybe you are one of the more prominent members of the body. You're an insider. And you don't really need those people who are on the outside. And this as well. comes out, verse 21, the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. Eyes can't say that. Nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. So the temptation here is that we say, you know, I really don't need anyone else in this body. They may need me, but I really don't need them. That's a lie. That's not true. God said so. And there's a sense of pride which comes out when we think like this. But in contrast to our pride, verse 22, on the contrary, the weaker parts are indispensable. Do you believe that? The weaker parts of the body are indispensable? And our less honorable parts are treated with greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty. There's parts which you have, which are covered, which I hope to never see in you, which are absolutely essential for your day-to-day living. You cannot live without them. God appointed those parts. God has so composed the body. And now for us, we tend to have, you know, within this body we can say there are certain spiritual gifts, how I'm speaking, some seem to be more elevated than others. Well, this is a much broader problem. Within the church, more broadly speaking, we like to divide ourselves up. We really like to divide ourselves up. We come up with, in some cases, new denominations, in some cases new congregations. We like to divide, and very often we divide along these lines. I understand there are second tier type of issues. Are you going to baptize infants or not? There is some necessity to dividing at times, and there's wisdom in that. But for so many occasions, there's division which is not necessary. And it's not a godly kind of division. I think in my own case about the division between charismatics and evangelicals. a division over spiritual gifts, and a controversy there, or other ways that we divide ourselves. Some denominations are seen as intellectual and very cold, and other denominations are seen as very warm, and the experience is very vibrant in those places. And so if you go into one of these colder type of churches, with doctrine being so central and teaching being so central, and you go in there, and you feel totally out of place. that doesn't feel like the body of Christ. And so you leave. Yes, these divisions, they happen among us as well. But you know what? We need to repent of this sin and turn to God. Because God knows what He's doing. God has given us the gift which He has chosen to give us. Look, verse 18. As it is, God has arranged the members, each one of them as he chose. If you have gifts which you consider to be weak, your complaint is not primarily against the rest of the body or against yourself. Your complaint primarily is against God. He is the one who appointed you with these gifts which you have, which may not seem impressive in your eyes, but in His eyes are beautiful and absolutely essential. So this brings us to point number three. Point number one, understand spiritual unity. Point number two, avoid these self-centered divisions that we have. Point number three, therefore we must marvel at God's handiwork. Now there's an irony here. There's an irony in the way that God has so composed the body. Because he built in weaknesses to it. You cannot be a one-person church. You don't have all the gifts and the callings which God has appointed in His body, even among two people, even among three people. I don't know how many people it takes, but there's a beauty in the way that God has created dependencies, weaknesses within the body, and how we have to depend upon one another. So I'm trying to build a case for you to see that this is actually a beautiful thing. It's better than if each person was able to stand on their own. Do you believe this? Is it better that God should choose to compose the body in this way? Just listen again, verses 24 and 25. For God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it. Why? Why did He do that? Why did God so compose the body giving greater honor to the part that lacked it. There's parts that lack it. He appointed them. Why did he do it? It's in the text. That there may be no division in the body. That all the members may have the same care for one another. That those who are strong in one gift would love their brothers and sisters who are weak in that gift and build them up. and vice versa, that no one person can stand on his own in the gifts that he has. This is so counterintuitive, isn't it? This is so counterintuitive when we see someone who is really spiritual and a very valuable member of the body. We see those who are up front, leaders, teachers, evangelists, missionaries. We see the people who are the official, the professionals. Those are the important people in the church. That is not true. God's Word is saying that is not true. God has so composed the body, so that even those who don't have very impressive gifts, yes, even they would receive honor. And honor because of whom they belong to. Not because of who they are in themselves, but because of who they belong to. And how glorious that makes Jesus Christ. When the world can see how we function as a body and how we can see how we function as a body, God gets glory from that. Do you think this is true in your own life? If one member suffers, do you suffer? If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one of us is honored, do you rejoice? at someone else in this body being honored or someone in the body of Christ? Paul says, if one is honored, then all rejoice. Do you love? I'm pretty sure you don't, unless by the Holy Spirit's grace He would open your eyes. Do you love the fact that you're weak and you have to depend upon other people in the body? Do you love that? Do you marvel at how God has worked? I'm calling you. Don't reject his ways. Don't reject how he has chosen to compose the body here. Well, this moves us now from an analogy, the body, eyes, ears. We don't take the analogy too far. We don't want to press it into service beyond how Paul intends, as in, we don't try to figure out what eyes actually represent or hands represent. And we don't have to do that because Paul shifts for us away from this bodily analogy to the spiritual body, as it were. And the members which make up a spiritual body are not eyes and ears. But they're over here, in the last of the verses, verse 28. God has appointed in the church, these are the members, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating in various kinds of tongues. Now, there's a little bit of debate that I had in preparing for what I would say today because it would be very tempting to spend most of our time talking about spiritual gifts, the various kinds of gifts, ones that maybe you might think that you have and you want to know more about how these gifts work. But I'm not going to do that today. I feel confident that I don't have to do that today because chapter 14 is coming up. Chapter 14 will be a very good opportunity for that. Because you can't really jump forward to thinking about all the ins and outs of how the gifts function without first having the foundation of why the gifts are given in the first place. That there would be this dependency, this diverse dependency among us in the body of Christ. You have to get that part first. So these gifts, and Paul explains them here, And then the question he asks, are all apostles? What's the obvious answer? No. Are all prophets? What's the obvious answer? No. Are all teachers? What's the obvious answer? No. And finally, he gets to this very divisive one. Do all speak in tongues? No. Now, I don't know about you, but in our day, I don't know of many other questions that would be more relevant than this one to bring to bear in how we see these spiritual gifts. And that's something to say to both of us. Because it seems that there was some gift of speaking in tongues. How that works, there's plenty that can be discussed about it, but it seems there was a way in which tongues were given. Chapter 14 is going to get into that much more. But just looking at the way that tongues divide us in the body today, I can tell you confidently that is not from the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit does not give tongues to divide. The Holy Spirit does not give teachers to divide. That's not why He did it. I'm trying to be very careful here. I know different people have different views of how the particulars of these spiritual gifts work together, and I know that we can debate about that. That is fine. But the main thing I'm trying to stress to you here is that you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it. Christ died for you. When you look left and you look right, and you look forward, Christ died for each one of these brothers and sisters. And it is God Himself who appointed the kind of gifts, or lack thereof, that He gave to them. How dare you speak against them? So, let us all see that we need each other. Strong gifts, weak gifts, we need each other. I need you. and you need me. This is interesting. If you're a teacher, teachers are not very needed when there's no untaught people. People who seem to have an extra special measure of love toward another person don't need that gift if there's not people who need an extra special measure of love towards them. Are you an administrator? Gifts of administrating? Does it frustrate you when you see everything is in such disarray, so unorganized? God has granted you to have that gift to fix the problem. You are needed in the body. Are you a helper? Do you think lowly of, you don't have these speaking kinds of gifts or teaching kinds of gifts, but you have a heart to serve and as a helper. You can't help people who don't need it. I need your help. I know this body needs your help. What about hospitality? If you're one who's given to have an extra special portion of hospitality and it frustrates you because others in the body don't share that same concern, I'm glad God has brought you here because we need you. So, whatever these gifts are, instead of it being a frustrating thing to you that people don't appreciate your gifts in the same way that you might think of them, they need you. In fact, if they don't appreciate you, that demonstrates they need you all the more. This is how God has chosen to compose us. So, repent. Turn away from yourself and your feelings of pity or pride. pity if you minimize your gifts, or pride if you overvalue them. Repent of that. Repent of that and instead turn back towards our one Lord who baptized us in one spirit and who is pleased to give us gifts as he chose. And understand the spiritual unity. Avoid the self-centered divisions. and please join with me in marveling at God's handiwork. Oh Lord, I know that these divisions in the body and ways that we separate ourselves, I can't solve these problems. No one man can solve these problems. Not even committees can solve these problems. But unless you would give us your Holy Spirit to unite us, to convict us of our sin and to bring us closer together as a body. Unless that happens, we know it won't happen. So Father, we are pleading with you. I am pleading with you. to overcome the divisions amongst us, especially with respect to spiritual gifts and the gifts that we think too highly of or don't think highly of enough. And Father, do all of these things, please, for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, for whom we belong as one in His body. And all these things we ask in His name. Amen.