Living Positively in the Body of Christ

 1 Corinthians 12:12 – 27

You are more than a body, but you are not less than a body.  Your body is part of who you are.  It is not just “an earth suit”.  God created humanity as body, soul and spirit.  Christian doctrine teaches from the Bible that in eternity we will have bodies;  far different than these bodies, but never the less a body.  The body is not evil.  It is not dispensable.  We are psycho-spiritual-somatic beings.  Body, soul and spirit are what we are.

It makes sense that in our epistle reading from 1 Cor. 12 the apostle Paul used the human body to teach us about the Church, which is the body of Christ.

I.                   First 10 verses of 1 Cor 12 are an introduction to Spiritual Gifts.

a.     Wide variety of gifts but all are given by the same Holy Spirit.

b.     The gifts manifest the presence of the Holy Spirit.

                                                              i.      The gifts of the Holy Spirit show us that the Spirit is present and at work in our midst.

c.      They are given for the common good = not just to bless the gifted, but through them to bless the entire church.

d.     V 8-10 a PARTIAL list of gifts.

e.     God, the Holy Spirit is so creative and so generous we cannot even imagine the wide variety of gifts He chooses to give to His beloved children!

f.       One list here.  Similar, yet different list in Romans 12. Different list in Ephesians 4 and yet another list in 1 Peter 4:10,11.

                                                             i.      And all of these lists together do not begin to exhaust the number and type of gifts the Holy Spirit chooses to bless the Church with!

g.     V. 7 tells us EACH member of the Church has been gifted!

h.     V. 11 tells us all the gifts are empowered by the Holy Spirit AND it is the HOLY SPIRIT who decides who gets which gift.

i.       V.4-6

 4 Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit.
 5 There are different ministries, but the same Lord.
 6 And there are different activities, but the same God produces each gift in each person. (1 Cor. 12:4-6 CSB17)

II.                 V. 12, " 12 For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body-- so also is Christ. (1 Cor. 12:12 CSB17)

a.     Diversity in the midst of an overarching unity is what we have in our bodies and also in the Church, which is the body of Christ!

b.     The Spirit is the cause of our unity! – v. 13,  13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body-- whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free-- and we were all given one Spirit to drink. (1 Cor. 12:13 CSB17)

                                                              i.      The Holy Spirit baptizes every believer into the body of Christ!

1.     At the moment of conversion

2.     Our baptism in water is connected with this even if it precedes the act of conversion.

3.     God is not limited by time like we are.

4.     Infant or child baptism is like an engagement ring.

5.     For the elect, whom only God knows, there is a spiritual connection from our baptism in water with our eventual baptism into the body of Christ.

6.     Water baptism by itself does not save us, yet it is an instrument of God’s grace in the spiritual life of the redeemed.

7.     In Water baptism the Holy Spirit marks the baptized as belonging to Christ and it is a pledge of redemption for the baptized who will later be drawn by the Father to believe in the Son.

                                                            ii.      all made to drink into one Spirit—Many believe this refers both to the Lord’s Supper and water baptism. [i.e. “The oldest manuscripts read, “Made to drink of one Spirit,” omitting “into” (Jn 7:37). There is an indirect allusion to the Lord’s Supper, as there is a direct allusion to baptism in the beginning of the verse. So the “Spirit, the water, and the blood” (1 Jn 5:8), similarly combine the two outward signs with the inward things signified, the Spirit’s grace.^[1]]

1.     “and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”

2.     The Holy Spirit is represented by fire, by wind, by a dove, and by water!

3.     In John 7:38 Jesus said that rivers of living water would flow out of the believer – speaking of the Holy Spirit.

4.     That is only possible because all were made to drink of this one Spirit!

5.     You can’t give what you don’t have!

6.     Living water can’t flow out of you unless you drink the Living Water of the Spirit into your inner being!

7.     All believers were made to drink from this one Spirit.

8.     At the moment of salvation, Christ causes the Holy Spirit to live in every single believer, no exceptions.

                                                          iii.      And this is why we are united with every single believer living on earth or living in heaven!

1.     There is unity we have to work for and a unity we can’t avoid.

2.     We ARE one body in Christ!

3.     Christ is not divided.

4.     Sadly we too often act as though He were!

5.     Outward unity of purpose and mission is possible and important within the local church and within the greater, universal or catholic church (small “c”).

6.     Because we ARE one in Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit.

III.              Yet there is a wide diversity within this one body – just like your physical body – v. 14-20

a.     Obviously Paul wants us to apply this to the Church.

b.     You are gifted differently than other believers

                                                              i.      We are united and need to learn to act like it, but we are not required to all look alike, think alike, or behave in identical ways.

                                                            ii.      Unity does not mean uniformity.

c.      AND you are neither less than nor greater than other members of the church

                                                              i.      Just different.

d.     Lacking any particular gift does not make you inferior!

                                                              i.      God loves those with the gift of helps as much as He does those with the gift of preaching.

                                                            ii.      And the church NEEDS both!

                                                          iii.      There are churches in which everyone tries to be the preacher or the priest and it is a mess!

                                                         iv.      Too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

e.     V. 18,  But as it is, God has arranged each one of the parts in the body just as he wanted. (1 Cor. 12:18 CSB17)

f.       V. 19,  And if they were all the same part, where would the body be?
  (1 Cor. 12:19-20 CSB17)

g.     God has decided which gifts He has given you and He has placed you in the body, in the church where He wants you.

                                                              i.      Need to be slow to change churches and slow to join a church.

                                                            ii.      Should be a matter of intense, serious prayer!

                                                          iii.      “Where does God want me in the body of Christ?”

                                                         iv.      Where can I be a blessing, as well as be blessed myself,

                                                           v.      But not just where can I be blessed.

                                                         vi.      Where does God want to use me to touch others?

IV.              V. 21 – 26

a.     God has wired us differently.

                                                              i.      We have different motivational gifts as well as different gifts of service.

1.     Some are very merciful

2.     Others are very practical

3.     Personality and backgrounds come into play also.

                                                           ii.      It is easy to think that those who are gifted differently than us, who are wired differently than us are wrong.

1.     If we are not careful we can even think they are not needed.

2.     In the flesh we can even think they are a problem.

3.     In the flesh I can hard for those of us wired and gifted differently to get along.

4.     We have to prayerfully seek grace to work at it!

                                                        iii.      V. 21 can be understood to mean that those who are see-ers and thinkers cannot say to those who are doers, I don’t need you or vice versa.

1.     The Mary’s of the Church need the Martha’s

2.     And the Martha’s need the Mary’s.

b.     I see three overarching themes in this reading this morning

                                                             i.      Unity

                                                           ii.      Diversity

                                                        iii.      And Respect combined with love!

c.      It can be hard for people with financial understanding and people with an outreach focus to understand each other and work together.

                                                              i.      But each needs the balance of the other.

                                                            ii.      Outreach, ministry people have to realize any group, even a cathedral or megachurch, only has so much money to go around.

                                                          iii.      And financial people need to keep in focus the only reason for a church or ministry to have money is so that it can do the ministry God has called it to do.

                                                         iv.      And all have to exercise faith and trust God to provide for His work done in His way.

d.     The behind the scenes functions of the church are essential!

                                                              i.      The rector cannot say he does not need the altar guild!

                                                            ii.      Gifts of leadership, like the Vestry, cannot say they don’t need Ushers, greeters, AV people –

                                                        iii.      these are all essential.

                                                         iv.      Prayer warriors, gifts of hospitality, friendship, the gift of giving, evangelism are indispensable.

V.                V. 25-26

a.     No Division

b.     Equal care for all.

c.      “If one member suffers, all suffer together.”

                                                              i.      Talk about an “uncomely member” that you never see and seldom think about – in the human body the appendix has to fit that bill.

                                                            ii.      Nov. 2, 1990 my appendix burst

                                                          iii.      Sudden onset, too sick to go to a school play.

                                                         iv.      I was home alone when it actually burst.

                                                           v.      The pain put me on the bathroom floor and I really did not expect to live through it.

                                                         vi.      I found out that an uncomely member can bring pain to the who body!

d.     My stepfather had type two diabetes.

                                                              i.      One day in the garden he dropped something on his big toe.

                                                            ii.      That led to a series of events that involved discussion of amputating his entire leg and eventually his death.

e.     THERE ARE NO UNIMPORTANT MEMBERS OF A BODY.    

                                                              i.      We are all in this together.

                                                            ii.      When one member of the body of Christ is hurting we all are affected.

                                                          iii.      We need to care for one another.

                                                         iv.      We need to encourage the spiritual health of every part of this body!

f.       And there is no room for jealousy- v. 26b, “if one member is honored, all rejoice together.”

                                                             i.      When a believer is honored or recognized we need to rejoice with them, not envy them.

I have come to view the image of God as being like a gorgeous diamond with an infinite number of facets.

 Every one of us, in birth and in the gifting that comes at our new birth in Christ, have a small number of those divine facets shaped in us by God. 

And then, those facets are malformed in varying degrees by sin – including our sin and the sin we were born in and the sin we are surrounded by.

*All of this makes living together challenging yet potentially extremely rewarding!

This passage offers wisdom to help us live together as the body of Christ. 

Expect broad diversity because we each are finite image bearers carrying different parts of the glorious image of Almighty God.

 You are essential.  Every other member of this body is essential.

God has put you where He wants you, He has given you the gifts He wants you to have. 

We have to seek grace to respect and love those in the body who are different from us.

v. 18 “God has so composed the body” – blended, mixed like a diverse, mixed, gorgeous color palate, exactly the mixture He wants.

May He give us the grace to live together, to work together, to laugh and cry together as we serve Him and His kingdom together.

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen

---

^[1] Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Vol. 2, p. 287). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.