1 Corinthians 12:12-27 • Building the Body

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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)

 He is worthy of praise from every tribe and language and people and nation. And in our little slice of the kingdom this day, by God's wonderful grace and blessing, eighty-five people are received into membership in this church on this day for which we give praise and thanks and at the same time clearly acknowledge that is definitely moving counter current to our culture. You must recognize that church membership, like virtually every other membership and organizations of our nation and culture, is declining. Many people will view church membership as passe or incidental, even wrong.



 After all, if you read books that are out now, Bowling Alone or You're Inner Fish, the movement is entirely inward and independent. Even as we are digitally connected more, we are removing ourselves from relationships and commitments to one another.



 So in a church that says that it will be biblically minded and guided, we have to ask, is what these eighty-five people this day did?



 Like sentiment and tradition?



 Or is there anything scriptural about it to guide us, to lead us, to have us consider what we would do in the kingdom of God? To answer, let me ask that you would look in your Bibles at 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Corinthians 12. And though we will consider a large swath of that chapter in the next few minutes, I'll ask that you just focus for the moment on verses 12 through 14 to answer the question,



 is church membership to which these people have committed themselves anything worth doing,



 anything the Scriptures confirm? First Corinthians 12, verses 12 through 14, Paul the Apostle writes, "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 or Greeks, slaves or free, and were all made to drink of one spirit.



 For the body does not consist of one member, but of many." Let's pray together.



 Father you bless us by gathering with us many who delight to name the name of Jesus as Lord, and whose loyalty binds them not only to Him, but to one another and to us for the purposes of His glory. So guide us in what it would mean for each of us here that we may honor you with our lives as we are members of a body that was given for us. So we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.



 A number of you have been kind to ask for updates on the Chinese church for which we prayed back before Christmas. The updates have come. They are not altogether pleasant.



 Forty people have been released from the church.



 One hundred remain in prison, including the pastor and his wife.



 As they are in prison at this moment, the apartment unit which has rented to them has been ordered to evict all of their possessions. And failure to evict their possessions will result in a $30,000 find for the landlord of that particular facility. There is difficult increasing pressure for those who would live as members of the body of Christ in that area.



 There's a police seal on the church where the people have previously worshiped. And as a consequence of its being placed on the building, the last elder to be arrested before the rest of the church was closed down wrote a note to the people before his arrest. He wrote this.



 Other police seals, nor arrests, should hinder our determination to worship in our church sanctuary.



 Unless all elders, preachers, and seminary students able to lead public worship and the preaching of the Word lose their freedom, we will not retreat.



 If we cannot enter the church building, we will rent another place. If there is no place indoors where we can worship, we will worship outdoors. We are willing to have 200, 300, 500 of our members arrested and imprisoned. May the whole world know that we willingly, joyfully yield to this persecution for the sake of our faith.



 God brothers and sisters, may you be filled with joy in the gospel of Christ. May you welcome, filled with hope, the even heavier cross and the more difficult lives that surely lie ahead of you.



 This is membership with high dues.



 This is a willingness to bear the cross of Christ by witness that will cost the bearing of that cross.



 We recognize by those who had bravely and courageously lived for Christ as members of a church made known that their example calls us to question, what does church membership say about us?



 And what does it require of us?



 Surely what membership according to the Apostle Paul meant was a declaration to all that we who are in Christ's church, we are all one from different places, from different backgrounds, but all united in one body. 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." How are we one body? The Apostle Paul says in verse 13, "For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body." The Apostle Paul, speaking to the church of which he is writing, has a presumption. We are all baptized into one body. That the assumption is that those who are naming the name of Jesus as the one who is provided for their salvation on the cross, shedding His blood as the penalty for their sin, that they are baptized to indicate their loyalty to Him.



 Now does their baptism make them a Christian? The answer is clearly no. By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of works, which leads people across the ages to the question, well if my baptism is not essential for my salvation, is it important?



 And the answer is, while it is not essential for your salvation, it is vital to your witness.



 After all, what happens through your baptism? You testify to the watching world, to the church, to your loved ones. I am loyal to Jesus Christ. I do not pretend or contend that I am made right with God by my works, but in my baptism I demonstrate loyalty to the one whose blood has washed away my sin. He makes me right with God. I don't do it myself, and I confess that in my baptism. But even as I am confessing my loyalty to Him, my baptism is His confession of loyalty to me.



 After all, He is promising me that by faith in what that ceremony symbolizes, that I am made right with God forever, that His blood does in fact pay for the penalty of my sin, and His pardon is mine forever.



 But as we often think about baptism, we think of it only individually.



 I'm committing to Christ. Christ is committing to me as I by faith acknowledge Him.



 But you have to understand that is not all that the Apostle himself is saying. Verse 13 again, "For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body."



 The body is made up of many members, he has just said. And he says, "We are all baptized," not some, not a few, "all are baptized into that body."



 It's the reminder that we are not baptized into independency. I'm not just set apart for my life with Christ. Rather, I am set apart for a life with others who are also loyalty to Christ. I'm baptized into a body, into a body of believers who themselves are called to Christ purposes. One that is emphasized in the end of verse 13, "In one spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one spirit." The Apostle Paul looks across backgrounds of religion and ethnicity and nation, and he said, "Whether you're Jew or Greek, whether you're slave or free, you are all baptized into one body, and all of you drink of the spirit."



 Now just as baptism is usually identified as the initiatory ordinance, people who come to Christ are acknowledging as they come, "I need Christ to wash away my sin." That by the Lord's Supper, as we drink of our nourishment by the Spirit regularly, we are also proclaiming, "This is not a one and done. I made a commitment to Christ and I'm done." We drink, we participate with one another in the Lord's Supper of an acknowledgment that we still need the Spirit for nourishment, for nurture. We are dependent upon Christ by His Spirit to continue to strengthen us, and in that continuing work of the Holy Spirit, there are participatory ordinances, the Lord's Supper, communion that are the ongoing way that I declare my loyalty to Christ and my connection to other people. After all, we don't participate in the Lord's Supper individually, but corporately in communion with one another. And in doing so, the Apostle Paul is reminding us that we are all one by our baptism that brought us into this body, but also by our participation in the ordinances that show the Spirit alive in us. But it's important that we recognize how in fact that works. How is the Spirit working among us? I'm going to ask that you let your eyes just go a little bit earlier in the same, 1 Corinthians chapter 12. The Apostle Paul writes in verse 4, "Now there are varieties of gifts but one Spirit, as we are participating in the work of the Spirit, we recognize we're different people. And we are differently made, differently gifted with different personalities and talents and resources as the Spirit uses us in the body of Christ." Verse 7, "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good."



 What does God bring you into His church?



 Why does He give you particular personality and gifts and abilities? He says clearly, "For the common good."



 It's not just so that we would have an independent life with Christ. We are called into the life of the body of Christ for the common good that God has purpose for each of us. Verse 11, "All these different gifts are empowered by the one of the same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as He wills." The Apostle is able to think corporately, the body, and individually at exactly the same moment. He has individually gifted you for the common good, not just so that we could withdraw, not just so everything's okay between me and Jesus so I can forget the rest of you. No, we have been called, gifted, made able, and empowered by the Spirit as signified in the Lord's Supper that we partake of for the good of one another. We are called into a body, into a family. We are called to be the church of Jesus Christ. And these are beautiful truths. You can think about it. That nobody says, "I'm better than you. I have a different route into the church." No, everybody comes by what baptism signifies, every single one. "I'm not made right by what I did, only by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Apart from that, I'm as condemned and wrong as any other person I can imagine. Only by Christ am I made right." But having entered that, every single person has been brought here individually with their gifts, with their abilities, with their personalities, with their perspectives for the common good. That God in wisdom and compassion brought us together to live with and for one another which means that nobody is incidental, nobody is unimportant, and it becomes evident to us over and over again as we look over the life and the ministry of the church.



 A number of you are aware that our whole nation right now is at something of a crossroads regarding sanctity of life issues. The reason is because we're all aware of the huge changes that may be just around the corner because of Supreme Court decisions.



 And the consequence is that virtually everybody in power or in influence is maneuvering for position for what they anticipate will be just around the corner. And as people are maneuvering for position, people typically think of power and politics and what can be influencing the journalists and so forth. But if you think about what affects the heart, I'll remind you of what I said last Sunday,



 Norma McCorvey, the one who was the real person behind the Jane Roe versus Wade decision that made abortion virtually any stage of life legal in this country herself became a Christian.



 How did that happen?



 A few of you will be aware that what happened was even though she was working in an abortion clinic, next door to her was a right-to-life office.



 And the personnel of the two offices actually had conversations and relationships with one another. One was Rhonda Mackey, mother who had considered at one point aborting her daughter, Emily, but did not.



 And Emily had entry into the abortion clinic where Norma McCorvey worked.



 One day Emily was in the office of the abortion clinic when Norma McCorvey received a call from somebody angry and rude and mean, objecting to what her clinic was doing. And her response on the phone was, "I'll see you in hell."



 To which seven-year-old Emily standing beside her desk said, "Miss Norma, if you accept Jesus, he will forgive your sin and you don't have to go to hell."



 And Norma McCorvey repented of her sin and will not go to hell.



 Seven years old. You think of all the politics. You think of the Supreme Court. You think of all the power of the nation, of the states, of the electoral system, of the legislative system, of the judicial system. And what changed our heart was a seven-year-old. As God is reminding us that he brings people into his church, different ages, different backgrounds, different abilities, different gifts, but he has purpose for them. And it's not just that we're all one as we are in the body, but because we are also all different. Verse 14, "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?" Now there are those people who say the Bible doesn't have much humor, but you have to sense what's being said here.



 If the whole body were a nose, what would the church look like?



 One big nose, you know? Those would be the Presbyterians trying to smell out wrong doctrine.



 If the whole church were an ear, one big ear, those would be the Pentecostals listening for the next wave of music.



 If the whole body were a toe, well, those would be the Baptists putting their toe in before they take a dip. No.



 There's a much better way to think about it than emphasizing our differences.



 Some of you will remember the writings of Mike Royco, the Chicago columnist, who wrote a particular Christmas column that continues to be dear to many people of an impoverished couple who went to a Christmas tree lot and could not afford the trees that were for sale until they identified some scraggly ones in the corner that no one wanted and offered just a couple of bucks to the lot owner for the couple of scraggly trees.



 The next day, the lot owner going to the lot walked by their apartment and saw a beautiful Christmas tree in their window because what they had done is they had taken the scraggly one with the bare side and the other scraggly one with the one bare side and wired them together until they became beautiful to glorify the birth of our Savior.



 Every single one of us here has bare sides, the things that are scraggly and wrong.



 And so God calls fallen, sinful, weak, troubled people and He puts us together in the church of Jesus Christ and says, "I need you all there.



 As I am binding you together, you are becoming beautiful." Verse 18, "As it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as He chose."



 Isn't that an amazing thought? You're here because of the design of God.



 When we tend to look around, we say, "Well, I don't have the knowledge of that person. I don't have the wisdom or the musical skills of that person. I can't pray like that person. I don't have the background of that person." All true. But you have aspects of who you are that God meant to have here to flesh us out, to fill us out, to make us beautiful as we are brought together in the purposes of Christ.



 I have to tell you that yesterday was my mother's birthday. And so I called her and wished her happy birthday. And as the conversation goes on, we talk as we often do about her care for my incarcerated special needs brother.



 And in the conversation, she mentioned that now because of his multiple health problems, he's confined to a wheelchair.



 But he gets around because there's a man blind who wheels him around.



 And the blind man doesn't just wheel my brother around, but others who are in that medical facility, carries others around and the ones who are sighted give direction to the man who is blind pushing them.



 Some of those who are sighted read for those who can no longer read or maybe never could read.



 There's a man who has the radio that lets others listen to the music.



 There's a man who has paralegal experience, who even though he's now incarcerated, writes petitions to various legal authorities or charitable foundations to get aspects of the other prisoner's needs met.



 As my mother was describing the way this body works, everybody doing their part, we asked, "Mom, what does my brother do?"



 And she blanched a little bit. She didn't quite want to answer. And then she said, "His role is he's the conduit to me."



 She said, "I buy the paper and I buy the stamps and we force it out of her. Yes, I didn't want to buy the motorized wheelchair for the one who could not get around anymore.



 Your brother is the conduit to me.



 Every single person here is a conduit to Christ for someone.



 That is why you are here.



 And we may say, "I'm not worthy. I'm not able. I'm not gifted in that way."



 Listen, what does the Bible itself say to you? Verses 21 and 22 may be the most important of the whole chapter.



 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, indispensable.



 I don't have his gifts. I don't have his ability. I don't have that stature.



 Parts of the body that seem weaker are actually indispensable in God's arrangement and purpose and timing. As I read those words because I was working through this week various things, I could not help as I read those words to think of an early pastoral experience of my own where pastoring a church in another town, there were a couple of young women, singles, who began to attend our church.



 They were poorly educated.



 They worked on subsistence wages. There was nothing attractive about them, and yet they came regularly to our church, sat in a pew usually by themselves. Others didn't get too close to them.



 And yet they always smiled through the singing, through the sermon, which left me unprepared for the phone call that I received at one point of one of them who was about to take her own life.



 And as we talked, and I drove to her house having said to my wife to call the ambulance,



 she was saved.



 But as we as a church debriefed what had happened, we had to ask ourselves, how could it be that these young women have been in our congregation for so long and so consistently, and we have been so unaware of this one's pain? How did that happen?



 And one of our dear elders for whom I will always be grateful said, "The reason we did not know is because it was not to the advantage of any of us to know them.



 It was convicting for us all, and it changed how we as a church began to shepherd those who were among us, to try to identify those who were the outcast and sitting on the sidelines and changed who we are for the sake of the gospel. It changed my own heart. It changed my thinking about what is God calling me to do and look for and pay attention to. And I began to recognize later on that what God had done is taken the weakest member, the least of these, to change us all.



 And the influence didn't stop there. Do you recognize in my telling you now that her influence is still reverberating for the church of Jesus Christ? As God takes the one who is weakest and says, "You are indispensable for what I am doing." Do you believe that?



 I know it will be a little bit odd, but would you just turn to the person next to you and say, "You are indispensable."



 All right, now turn the other way and say it to the other person.



 Now we chuckle a little bit, not just because it's socially awkward, what also makes it difficult?



 We're not sure it's true.



 Particularly as we think about ourselves, am I really indispensable? Large church, lots of people, people of different backgrounds. I know my past better than the very person I'm just talking to who just said what the pastor said he was supposed to say.



 I know me. How could I be indispensable? And yet what God is saying is knowing all about you, your weakness, your hurts, your strengths, your gifts, who you are. You are indispensable to the purposes of God. So many times in pastoral experience, I deal with people who just face the reality of who they are and say, "I can't possibly measure up to what God expects of other people in this church." It cannot be that way. I think particularly of those who older in life come to faith in Jesus Christ. And they look back over their parenting when perhaps they did not know Christ or their careers in which they did not stand for Christ. And they are so blessed that God has forgiven their sin, but they still feel so bad with a life not well used for Jesus. But I have to say to you, do you recognize what a trophy you are of the grace of God? If every single person in the church, you know, became a convert in Sunday school, was a life put together and made right, no divorces, no firings, no difficulty, no struggles at all, then everybody else around the church would say, "That's no place for me there. There's nobody like me there."



 But God calls us at different phases of life, different backgrounds from life, different difficulties as well as different strengths and says, "Every single one, indispensable as each person that I am calling, is part of this being a conduit to Christ to give people hope in their place, in their position, and to believe that they are truly indispensable. If everyone is truly a banner of God's grace, how do you fly that banner?"



 Paul is pretty clear about that too. Verse 27.



 "Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it." We often think about the body of Christ as this large amorphous thing.



 And the Apostle, knowing that as our temptation, just says with emphasis, "Yes, you are part of a body, but you individually are members of it so that everything He has been saying to us is meant to apply individually, even the embarrassing parts." Verse 23. "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 our more presentable parts do not require.



 But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it." Different culture, different time, and so sensibilities are different. What he's actually talking about here is people's private parts and saying, "We cover them up. We modestly, as though they don't count. And yet we wouldn't be here without the private parts.



 We would not reproduce. We would not fulfill God's purposes for us as a church of multiplying the gospel and the message of Jesus Christ, unless those parts which we think of as being unpresentable needing to be covered up were not themselves seen as vital to the interest and the purposes of God. And so God is reminding us if we say to ourselves, "I'm unpresentable. I'm no place here. I know myself. I know my past. I know my present difficulties. I who should be standing for Christ struggle so."



 We say, "Praise God.



 God has chosen you to be in this place for this time as a trophy of who He is." And we declare it as we declare our loyalty as those who just stood on this stage did, saying, "I want to declare my loyalty to Christ to be a part of His purpose in whatever way He calls me through my strengths, through my weaknesses. I pray that God would use me for His glory."



 Now I know that when we talk about church membership and an educated congregation that there are those people who will say, "There is no verse in the Bible that says that you should…" I shouldn't have done it that way. Forget why I said it. Not this. Okay. There's no verse in the Bible that says you should put your name on a membership role.



 I agree.



 There's also no verse in the Bible that says you should sign a marriage license.



 But in this culture, we recognize the value of people attesting to what they believe, that when people stand up in public and they say about their intended, "I do commit to you," that there is value in that commitment that is a public witness of what we believe and what we're committing to for the sake of marriage. And as we are becoming part of the body of Christ, we recognize that you could just say, "Well, I'm just going to live on the side here and not sign any role." You know, that's passe and that's not required in the Bible. I clearly want to say to you, "It is not essential to your salvation." I would never contend that anymore that I would contend that baptism is essential to your salvation.



 But it is important to your witness, and our membership is also important to our witness as we before friend and hurting people who are watching us from their different places, even as you're sitting there now watching what we do and what we say to one another, that there is affirmation.



 I even I have been blessed by God and want to give you hope and want to minister to you even as I identify who I am and what I am doing in this place by becoming a part of this body. There are people who say, "No, no, no.



 You only become a member of the universal church, the spiritual body of Christ."



 Now, I do recognize that when you are baptized, you join the universal spiritual body of Christ. That is certainly true. But when the Apostle Paul is writing here to the church of Corinth and he is specifically addressing Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free who are sitting next to one another in the church and saying, "You're part of a body, but individually you are called to be part of this melding together of the purposes of God so that each would be helping and supporting one another." He is not just talking in abstract terms about the universal church. There is no universal church if there are not individual churches made up of individuals



 who are showing their loyalty to Christ by their loyalty to His people. After all, when you were baptized, you're not just saying, "I love Jesus." If you deeply and profoundly love Jesus, you love His purposes and you love what and whom He loves.



 And so we give ourselves to one another for that purpose. So often you recognize it's not really a theological objection to membership that keeps us sitting on the sidelines. It's one of two things. One is just, "I don't want to be obligated.



 I want to keep my options open and my obligations low.



 After all, I might object to what they teach someday and therefore I want to be free to leave."



 Well, you're free to leave at any time.



 And you have to actually say, "Is what Christ wants for me to say, let other people take care of His witness in that church?



 I don't want to be obligated.



 I recognize the other reason that people don't sometimes join a church is there are different phases of life.



 There are people who come through difficult phases of life and relationship that in a big church like this, they just need some space.



 After all, doesn't this church just at times draw people who need some anonymity for a while? And for that reason, we say, "Bless you. You need some space. We get it. We understand."



 But it's not a lifetime decision that I will never ever again be part of the body of Christ with my life committed to them and they committed to me. After all, what does God intend? Verse 26, "If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together.



 We are here for one another to weep with those who weep, to rejoice with those who rejoice." And that's not a matter of just sitting on the sideline. It's part of our saying, "How can I when God has given me health, given me vision, given me understanding of pulling me into a body of believers for whom I would then be indispensable,



 that I just say, God is now the time. Is it right for me to be a part of this body? I need to be clear. In this particular church, we never say, you have to agree with every jot and tittle of our doctrine and practice in order to be a member of this church. That is not who we are. We say it should not be harder to be a member of this church than it is to get into heaven.



 If you believe that Jesus is your Savior, that you are a sinner and He died for your sins and that you're made right with Him by your faith and not by your works, we say, "Welcome."



 And then we say, "Now help us."



 In this life of Christ's body, we need people from every background, every relationship, every piece of difficult or good life to help us be what we're supposed to be.



 How do you do that? Is this a place for you? It's not right for everyone. We know that. But if you're discovering, if you're exploring the thing that was in your bulletin today that we ask you just to hang on to until this moment was this little reminders there every week. But if you're saying, "You know what? I do need to think about my baptism.



 I love Jesus. I want to tell a friend or family member what I believe, and I do that by my baptism, is every person who is a member of the body of Christ does when they obey Christ.



 And maybe I've done that years ago and I haven't really understood that being a member of the body of Christ is not just putting your name on the roll for a social convention.



 It's actually saying, "I commit to people out of my weaknesses as well as out of my strengths with my gifts not just of resource but my gifts of talent, even my gifts of disagreement." Do you recognize that we are benefiting one another as we hear different perspectives of young and old and different backgrounds so that we're thinking, "What is our culture struggling with? What's our neighborhood struggling with?" So that we can minister effectively.



 When we draw on one another's gifts and abilities, we are discovering how God is building up a body for His ministry in this community.



 You might just want to discover that. That's why church membership is not just you going into a class where you're, "I'm going to be a member."



 You go to Discovering Grace, a class where we just talk about what does this church believe in? Is it something you should be a part of so that you can enter in at the level that you need to to make decisions that God ultimately calls you to? As odd as it may seem, what I would encourage you to believe is this. If this church is never going to be one that you should join, then you should leave it for a church that you should join.



 We're part of Christ's body, and we help one another, and we weep with those who weep, and we rejoice with those who rejoice, and we commit our resources and our being to Christ purposes, because we are loyal to the one who gave Himself for us, and we love the people for whom Christ died. If that is our calling, what does it ultimately mean?



 We make public decorations about our private commitments for the sake of everyone else.



 Chinese Pastor Wang Yi, now in prison, wrote why.



 Everyone's life he wrote is extremely short, and God fervently commands the church to lead and to call every person to repentance. This is the goal of the church, to lead and call every person. The mission of the church is only to be the church.



 All the acts of the church are to prove to the world the real existence of our Savior.



 Separate me from my wife, ruin my reputation, destroy my life. Jesus is still the Christ, Son of God, the Eternal One. He died for sinners. He rose to life for us. He is my King. He's the King of the whole earth, today and forever. I am His.



 He is mine.



 This is His witness.



 It is your witness.



 Christ is mine, and I am His.



 Praise God in the body of Jesus Christ.



 So Father, unite us in your purposes, we pray.



 Not for the sake of anything formal or material, not for putting ink on a page, but for making your church known to the world, everyone from every walk that you have called to this place, help us to perceive the wonder that you call everyone here indispensable that we, knowing you have called us, give ourselves for the one who gave himself and live for him who rose for us.



 Grant this blessing upon your people, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.