One Body Many Gifts
Notes
Transcript
One Body Many Gifts
1 Corinthians 12:12–28 (ESV)
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. 13 For 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. 14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 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. 16 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. 17 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? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 21 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.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 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, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28 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.
Introduction
· God wants us to be a family.
God wants us to have a tremendous sense of dependency
. God wants us to be a family.
Do you remember when Cain had slain his brother Abel, God said to him,
“Where is Abel, thy brother?
And he said, I know not: am I my brother’s keeper?”
· Ever since the Fall, man has disdained the thought of responsibility for other people.
We have wanted to be independent of any responsibility.
That is one of the reasons that God, in the Old Testament, made an individual who sinned carry a weight of responsibility that hit a whole family, such as in the case of Achan, because God was getting a message across, and that message was,
“Yes, you are your brother’s keeper. Yes, you are dependent on other people. No, I don’t want rugged individualism.”
Satan, in response, has built into the heart of man this concept of independence, this concept of needing nothing and nobody, as being the epitome of life.
· The Epitome of Life – I don’t need anybody.
The fact of the matter is that this is the very opposite of what God wants. The philosophy of today is, “Do your own thing.” You don’t need anyone or anything; you are sufficient. It is Invictus,
“I am the captain of my fate and the master of my soul.”
I think this attitude pervades our society to the degree that it even gets its way into the church. We tend to translate it a little bit into our theology.
· We think that we, because we have Christ, are sufficient and we, because we have the Holy Spirit, are sufficient, and we really don’t need anyone else.
We have missed the point altogether.
Since we don’t live communally, as they did in the Old Testament when they lived in tribes, or as they did in the New Testament when they lived in the father’s house, and since our independence, we have continuously fostered that same attitude, even as Christians. So, in the backlash of all of this,
The church today struggles to try and regain the concept that
· The church is one body with many members. And we have a tremendous responsibility for dependency on each other. [1]
There is no place in God’s plan or in biblical theology for rugged individualism.
There is no reason to think that you are isolated.
You are your brother’s keeper.
The New Testament is loaded with things that say you are your brother’s keeper. There is no question about it.
· There are 2 reasons many Christians today don’t get into the mainstream of this ministry. There are usually two problems.
1. Some Christians who feel inferior and unnecessary. so they sit on the fringe and don’t ever become involved.
God loves them, and so do their brothers and sisters in Christ.
But they think they don’t matter much, so they are just content to hang on the fringe and never get involved.
You short-circuit the ministry of the Spirit of God through their life to somebody desperately in need of it. [2]
2. “The idea that I don’t need all these people, I can go on my own.”
We all fight that kind of attitude.
You have to realize that there is no place for the individualism of isolation or the individualism of a superstar kind of attitude, where you don’t bother to mingle with the peons. Both of those are wrong.
There is a tremendous sense of interdependence in the body of Christ that defies the spirit of pride and the attitude of inferiority.
This is Paul’s major message in 1 Corinthians 12.[3]
The Interdependence of the Body of Christ
1. “God has arranged the members.” (1 Cor. 12:18)
1 Corinthians 12:18 (ESV)
18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.
let that sink in
Just as God planned the physical body with all of its parts, so He planned the church.
You have the gifts you have because you are exactly what God wanted you to be, minus your sin.
Does that give you a sense of divine dignity?
Instead of saying, “Well, why didn’t I get this gift?” or, “Why don’t I have this gift?”
or, “I’m going to seek for this gift,”
why not just be content with what God has given you
and get into your mind the sense of divine dignity that God has granted you?
Unparalleled dignity is given to every part of the body. [4]
“God has arranged the members.” How many of them? Every one of them, “In the body as it pleased Him.[5]
When you are not content with your gift, you are rebelling and acting selfishly against the sovereign and supreme will of God. You are like the imaginary antagonist in
Romans 9:20 (ESV)
20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”
instead of saying, “God, I just want to thank You for making me like this so I can minister in a way that is necessary for the body.”[6]
The dignity in the body belongs to every member because every one is what he or she is by the very sovereign will of God.
You are that spiritual snowflake; you are that marvelous one that God has made out of all the world of men to be what you are, and to be it in His body for His glory and the blessing of all the other saints.
don’t apologize - don’s make excuses
2. “As he Chose”
A Christian does not select his own gift. You don’t have any part in it; God does it.
Do you realize the chaos that would be created if everyone were running around, seeking their own gifts ?
Do you think that you can organize the entire body of Christ?
God had to do that!
For me to question God, feel inferior, or to feel superior is ridiculous.
There is to be a sense of dignity in every individual believer.
You have not only been created in Christ Jesus, but placed within you is a marvelous capacity to minister to the body of Christ and to God Himself.
And you ought to get a grip on that lofty dignity.
I think that it is terrible when some Christians are not content with what God has given them as a ministry and are proudly pursuing something showy.
3. “God has so Composed the Body.” (1 Corinthians 12:24)
“which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it,”
1 Corinthians 12 (ESV)
The word ‘tempered’ in the Greek means ‘mixed together.’ It is a term used for mixing colors,
an artistic term.
Mixing colors, a beautiful thought. It is harmonious blending.
God chooses the gifts for you and mixes you in with the right people so that the right combination will work in the right location.
Why are You at Grace Covenant Church?
God mixed you in here for ministry.
Imagine it this way:
We have an artist’s palette that contains the primary colors. Those primary colors represent the gifts of the Spirit, the permanent, edifying gifts of the Spirit, such as giving, mercy, teaching, prophesying, and so on.
When the Spirit of God goes to make up your gift,
He takes a little bit from these,
in different combinations, and mixes up a color that is yours and yours alone. When He gets your color together, that’s just you.
You are a combination of many gifts or areas of giftedness.
This analogy goes a step further. Once the Spirit has made you the color, He wants you to be,
then He transfers you over to the canvas of the church precisely in the spot He wants you to be right next to the other colors that ought to be what they ought to be.
So, everybody is in the right spot.
When the picture is finished, it is a picture of Christ.
You are not only the right color, but you are the right color in the right place.
Isn’t that a beautiful concept? God not only gifts you, but He mixes you into the body in just the right place.[7]
You are a combination of the primary colors designed to be a gifted individual like no other.
God wants to put you right on the canvas.
You are strategic because if you’re not there, part of the portrait is gone.
If parts of the portrait are missing from different places, the world looks at the canvas that is the church and cannot really see very well what it is that they are trying to say.
It is sad, selfish, and inconsistent when we rebel and the portrait of Christ is lost. So the choosing and mixing of the gifts is God’s work.[8]
4. We are in the Body, and the Body is One ( 1 Cor 12:20)
1 Corinthians 12:20 (ESV)
20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
We are in a body, and the body is one. We are a part of that oneness.
We must sense that.
· We have the life of the Spirit in us just like everyone else,
and he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit; we are all in it together.
1 Corinthians 6:17 (ESV)
17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
· Yet there is diversity,
and we are unique and exactly as God made us to be.
There is a tremendous dignity in that.
You are not an accident.
You were planned before the foundation of the world to be you.
And you are to use what you are, and to realize that this is God’s plan.
Not to chase something you don’t have, not to be something you can’t be, but to say, “God, if this is what I am, I sense that You wanted it so.
I sense the dignity in that, and I will minister for You.”[9]
5. The Harmony of the Body of Christ
He takes it from two angles: first, the people who thought they were nothing and envied the ones who had the showy gifts; and secondly, the people with the showy gifts who thought they were something and thought the other people were nothing.
Let’s look first of all at the people who feel themselves to be nothing, the gripers, the envious, the ones who felt cheated.
· The foot Principle
1 Corinthians 12:15 (ESV)
15 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.
“If the foot shall say, ‘Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body’; is it, therefore, not of the body?”
Does that make it true?
Here’s a foot, and the foot is not particularly beautiful or lovely. The foot is something that, if you are smart, you cover up.
Especially if you happened to live in that day and age when the feet were what you walked with, and they were usually exposed.
The foot was considered a rather ugly thing. So one might say, “I am just that out-of-the-way thing, usually covered by dirt and not seen. When I am seen, it’s nothing worth seeing. Since I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body.”
What is the principle?
No member, by complaining and depreciating his own importance, can accomplish removal from the body. Just because you think that you are not important, it does not eliminate your responsibility to function in the way that God called you.
You cannot sit in a corner and say, “Since I am a foot, and I don’t have what some others have, I am not going to do anything or be a part at all.” That does not make you not a part, that only makes you disobedient.
The principle is, you cannot remove yourself from a God-given responsibility simply because you are not happy with what you are.
The foot felt clumsy and wanted to remove itself. But that isn’t the way it is. God made you a foot, if that is what you are, because it is vital, critical.[10]
· Don’t be intimidated.
“Because you aren’t out there on display, doing the ecstatic and showy thing, you’re not significant.” That is exactly what was going on at Corinth.
There were a lot of feet sitting in the background saying, “I wish I was an ear, or an eye, even a hand wouldn’t be half bad. At least it’s a little ways up the ladder.”
Look in verse 16, and you can see how it’s only relative anyway. The foot is saying, “Oh, if I could only be an ear.” Verse 16, “And if the ear shall say, ‘Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body’; is it, therefore, not of the body?”
1 Corinthians 12:16 (ESV)
16 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.
A little higher, and it is still relative. Some ear is saying, “I wish I could be an eye. But since I’m only an ear, I’m cutting out. I’m going to lay back. If I can’t be an eye, I’m out of it. They don’t need me.”
Does that remove you from responsibility?
When a foot is jealous of a hand, does that remove the responsibility of the foot to be what it is? When the ear is jealous of the eye, does that eliminate its responsibility? Not in God’s eyes, it doesn’t.
· Whatever your gift is, it is essential; it is needed, and God wants it.
It has to be there and it has to operate.
There is no sense sitting in a corner, on the fringes, saying,
“Well, I don’t have that much to offer anyway; there’s no sense in me getting involved.” But so many Christians do that. Some of you do it. Some of you have been doing it for years.
Perhaps you have never known the joy of ministry because you just thought nobody wanted feet or ears. But that isn’t so.
1 Corinthians 12:17 (ESV)
17 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?
It would not make a lot of sense, would it? If everybody had the same gift, it would be ridiculous. Yet isn’t it amazing that people today keep telling us that we all need to get the same gifts? It’s not true.
There is no place for envying another gift. 1 Corinthians 13:4 says, “Love envies not.” There isn’t any place for that, but for contentedness.
You cannot have one organ. The body cannot be an eye, or an ear, or a nose. One organ, no matter how prominent it is, cannot survive alone. You can’t cut off your ear, set it down, and say, “I have to leave. Would you hang around and listen? Maybe you can pick up some information while I’m gone.” It doesn’t do that. You can’t pluck out your eye and have it look around for you while you are sleeping. There is no such thing as a spiritual loner.[11]
5. There is a tremendous sense of dependence in the body of Christ.
1 Corinthians 12:18 (ESV)
18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.
Paul says that all members cannot be the same. Verse 18. That’s why God set the members the way it pleased Him; He didn’t leave the body for us to figure out.
God didn’t say, “Get organized!” He said, “Be an organism, and I will run it.”
Do you see the point?
Paul is not saying to chase after spiritual gifts; he is saying, “You are chasing after spiritual gifts, and that is what is wrong with you. Stop doing it, and do the excellent thing.
Accept the unity, diversity, sovereignty, and harmony that God has already planned, presented, and built into the body.” And the way it all operates, the key to every bit of it is love. [13]
6. No Division in the Body
1 Corinthians 12:25 (ESV)
25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.
there should be no schism in the body
, no division, but that the members should have the same,”“care one for another.” There’s no difference.
See, no difference. “And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.
One member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.
” Now you’re the body of Christ, unity, and members in particular, diversity, now harmonize.
Don’t set a hierarchy.
See, oh we’ve got to be a healthy body folks. We’ve got to be.
We must be healthy and we need you. We don’t need more structural unity.
We don’t need more organization. We need more body unity, more body ministry.
That’s what Jesus prayed for. Let’s answer His prayer.
Our unity is the unity of the Spirit.
not the unity or the denomination or the church or the organization.
There will be true spiritual unity when we humble ourselves, when we love with a love that is not consumed with what happens to us. And when we begin to minister in harmony, our spiritual gifts to each other.
Oh I pray God, every day that this will be the case here. And that the world will look at us and say, yes, Jesus is real. We can tell because of their love.[14]
Ministry Opportunities
Grace Covenant Church
Fall 2023
1. Ministry to Missionaries
a. Point Person – oversee the ministry to our missionaries.
b. Assist the point person
2. Youth Group
a. Point Person – Ministry once a month.
b. Hosting
c. Teaching
3. Welcome Services
a. Decorating the fellowship hall.
b. Oversee the hospitality table.
4. Men’s Ministry
a. Point Person - Planning and Facilitating activities for the men of the church.
b. Assist the point person
5. Hope Initiative/ Outreach Team
a. Leading a team of people that will facilitate Outreach.
b. Provide leadership for Hope Initiative
c. Serve on the Outreach Team
6. Meal Ministry
a. Point person
b. Meal provider
7. Children’s Ministry
a. Teach
b. Help
c. 5 Day Club Ministry
8. Fellowship Planning
a. Point person
b. Help the point person
9. Food Services
a. Lead Food Services
b. Assist/ help at events that include food.
[1]MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2014). John MacArthur Sermon Archive. Grace to You.
[2]MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2014). John MacArthur Sermon Archive. Grace to You.
[3]MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2014). John MacArthur Sermon Archive. Grace to You.