The Whole Body, Part 1: Introduction

Well it's good to see everyone. As we finish now the Sermon on the Mount and come to an opportunity to have a little bit of space before we begin a new series, I was praying and thinking and working out what might be helpful, knowing some topics that I thought would be helpful, the elders, as we had some meetings and began to discuss some things, but looking for a way to organize that all.

And so this morning what we're going to do is introduce what will be sort of a short topical series that'll probably occupy us for at least two months, maybe three. We'll see how we'll see how it goes.

Of course we spent about a year and a half working through the Sermon on the Mount and so I think we're due for a little bit of a change and maybe some practical topics that will help us begin the year rightly.

And part of that is addressing where we are as a church, who we are as a church, our strengths and our weaknesses as a church, what does it mean to be a church. And so that's what we're going to be focusing on and I'm going to do that by considering the body in terms of its wholeness.

The Church as One Body in 1 Corinthians 12

And so we've read 1 Corinthians 12 there, this idea of the church being like a body composed of many different parts, many different organs, many different members, and yet in God's wisdom he allows all these members to work together for the unity of the whole.

And what we're going to do each week is look at a specific organ, a specific member, and ask the question, what does this kind of member look like when it's healthy? What does this member look like when it's not healthy?

What does it mean, in other words, to be of sound health or to be whole, the whole body, the healthy body, that's what's going to be our focus. We're going to use a lot of different scripture when we look at each body part and so for example it might be the eyes and we'll talk about what does it mean to have healthy sight, healthy vision, the way that we look at life, the way that we look at one another, the way that we look at those outside, what does it mean to have healthy eyes or a healthy mouth, a healthy tongue, what does it mean to have health in the way that we speak to God, speak of God, speak to or about others, and so forth.

So at every week we're going to be focusing on a different aspect of what it means to be a whole body. Now again, this is all coming from 1 Corinthians 12 and I'll just read beginning at the end of verse 14.

The body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, because I'm not a hand, I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? If the ears should say, because I'm not an eye, I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?

If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as he pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be?

But now indeed there are many members, yet one body, and 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. No, rather those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary.

And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor. And our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body having given greater honor to the part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another.

And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. Or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now Paul goes on from that, but this idea of the body, this idea of oneness, wholeness, having a sound body, is going to be a very helpful way for us to think about the way that we relate together as the body of Christ.

How We View the Local Church

Now this is, again, just an introduction this morning, but in the introduction I want to focus on three calls, three things that will have to be behind and in front of us every week that we get our hands and hearts around what it means to be a whole body.

So the first thing before we get to those calls is just to ask the question, how do we view the church? How do we view the church? It would be good for us to think deeply about how we view the church.

And when I say church, I'm not saying capital C church, which is to say the church mustered up from the farthest ends of the earth. All those who name the name of the Lord Jesus Christ are known to Him, known by Him.

That's what we call the invisible church. In other words, the church that we can't always discern or see, but it is seen by God, it is beheld by God. That's the church triumphant, that's the church invisible.

But we're talking about the lowercase c church, our church, GRBC church, the he-sits-over-there church, the we-have-meatballs-after-the-service church. That's what we're talking about, the lowercase c church.

How do you view that church? How do you view this church? One of the things that I've seen in my life is a total transformation about the way I view the church. Now, in some ways, I went from being dragged to church as a young 'un, all right, I didn't have any choice in the matter, I had to go.

So we had to load up every Sunday morning in the Ford Aerostar and get dropped off, and I went through the Sunday school circuit, and God bless those ladies that shared Jesus Christ to me at a young age, and I went through all the awkward phases, sitting there drawing, bored to tears, some of the things that I pick up on happening even in our Sunday service, and I'm fully sympathetic with that experience.

And then I also know what it's like to be, as Wesley would say, strangely warmed. There's something to this whole thing. I think I really love these people, and I love coming to worship, and I'm actually understanding some things that the preacher's saying, and boy, God's Word is really neat, I'm going to tell my classmates about it.

In fact, I want to get into little debates. Often in high school around the lunch table, I enjoyed getting into little debates, and usually that for me was not so much a spiritual quest to make converts as it was a defense mechanism as to why I wasn't like others.

So it had a lot to do with my pride or my insecurity as much as anything else. But even then, I was sort of on the outside looking in. It really wasn't until much later that the Lord really began to transform my mind and my heart.

When the Lord started working in my life and He put a fire in my heart to know Him and to know Him through His Word in ways that I never had before, I had a natural instinct and desire to be with other believers and to know of their knowledge and love for the Savior.

He had put a fire in my heart, and I wanted to fan the flames by looking at the fires in other believers' hearts. And so I had a natural desire to spend time with other people in the church body. Now, before that fully developed, it began most immediately with some of my co-workers.

I was working at a Christian bookstore at the time, and I poured all of my energy into the Bible study that I would prepare the midweek of every week. I would get out of work, and I would spend the rest of the day on websites looking up theology, looking up scripture, pouring my heart and my energy into these little midweek studies.

I had, really, a low view of the church, but a very high view of the fellowship I enjoyed and the way I could pour myself into a few select circle of friends. Now, at that time, Pastor Doar, the man who baptized me, took me aside, and he began to stress to me the importance of the local church rather than a local circle of friends.

He said, Ross, what you're doing is wonderful, and I wouldn't want to stop it. I don't want to be a wet blanket to all this preparation and clearly the zeal you have and the excitement you have to share these things, but Ross, you know, you are part of a church, and that means something for your life that you're not going to be able to fully find or fully work out just among your group of friends.

In other words, he was asking me, Ross, how do you view the church? How are you viewing the church? And so I asked that same question, how do you view the church? Well, that was transformative to me, and then in some ways you go from eating the sausage to being part of how the sausage is made, and you get a whole different view of the church, and the call for love is even deeper and greater.

It's more comprehensive, more self-sacrificial. The Lord has ever been showing me and challenging me on how I view the church. So let me ask you the question, how do you view the church? Is church simply a weekly ritual?

Is it a duty that we check off? This is just what we do on Sundays. We go to church. You pull up to the Chick-fil-A window. The sign says the hours, you know, Monday through Saturday. On Sunday, if that Chick-fil-A is worth its salt, it says go to church.

Is that all churches? Just go to church on Sunday. That's what you do on Sundays. What about a buffet? Do you view the church like a buffet? You come for the things that you like. You just leave off and ignore the things you don't.

This is what I want the church to be for me. These are the things that I like. These are the things that I will enjoy. This is what I will seek to do for myself. It's a buffet. There's all sorts of sections that you don't have to go near.

Do you view the church like a boot camp? We're here simply to get trained so that we don't have to be here because the whole focus is on everything outside of these walls. It's a boot camp. It's just here to prepare us for all that our life means outside of being gathered together.

How do you view the church? Well, the church is given many images, many metaphors in the Bible. It's likened to a temple, the gathering place where God's presence is shown, His people drawn near to Him in that place.

It's likened to a nation. Peter talks about us being set apart like a nation, a holy priesthood. It's likened to a bride. The idea is that Christ died to save His bride. As we sang earlier in the hymn, it's this prized inheritance that is given to Him.

Or a sheepfold. The idea is Christ is our chief shepherd. He's the one that's guiding us as a group of people, guiding us also as individuals within that body and so on. But the image that I really want to put before us in these weeks to come is this image of a body.

A body composed of many parts, many organs, and yet it's all one body. And all those organs, all those parts work together for the greater good of the whole. In fact, it's detrimental to let any one of those organs off to the side.

We weren't created to be organs in styrofoam boxes on ice. We were meant to be effectively working, growing in the body of Christ. So what I want to put before you is this task to view the church as a body.

Union with Christ and the Spirit-Wrought Unity of the Church

As a body. Now, before we can even unpack the body, we need to understand something of that picture of unity. The unity of the body is not something that is mustered up by the body. It's something that is created in Christ Jesus for His body.

It's really important that we understand this. This unity is not something that gives us the warm fuzzies. It's not what Mamdani would call the warmth of collectivism. It's not something that, yeah, I feel really unified.

It's sort of a kumbaya circle. This unity is not something we muster up. It's not something abstract that we stumble into. This unity is something that comes from union with Christ. So a church body is believers in the Lord Jesus Christ who have been united to Him by faith.

And it's that union with Him that makes unity with us. That's a unity that is brought about by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's wrought out, in other words, it's worked out by His Spirit. It's really important we understand this.

We do not muster up unity. Unity is something that is given by God through Christ by the Holy Spirit. Jesus' disciples are called to be with Him. Jesus' disciples are called to have fellowship with God and only therefore fellowship one with another.

And so what's worked out as unity in our midst is actually what's worked in by the unifying Spirit of God. We're going to unpack that a little bit later, but the point is that you see this. We can only work out that which God has worked in.

To the degree that we're united to Christ, we will be more and more united one to another. The greatest glory we have in the gospel, the highest fruit we have in the gospel, is to have fellowship with God.

That is the glory of the gospel, union with Christ, Christ known to us. To have a saving interest in Him, to have a personal acquaintance with Him, to know Him, to see Him, to love Him. As Peter was so mystified, you haven't even seen Him like I have, but you love Him.

That's the highest reward of the gospel. That's the inheritance that we eat off of even now in this life, but we only long for the day when our faith does become sight. Then we can truly see Him, we're truly with Him, everlastingly, never to be separated from His presence again.

That's the greatest glory we have in the gospel, to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and partake of the fellowship of His sufferings. Now, one of the ways we are enabled and strengthened in our communion with God is by gathering together with others who are partaking of that same grace.

This is how God has so composed the Christian life, that we are called to Him even as we are called one to another. It's very important that we understand this. We're encouraged in the Lord, we're reminded of the Lord, we're taught from the Lord, we're enabled to have greater experience of His presence when we are brought into the presence of other believers.

That's what we're doing this morning. Now, what I put before you is we're not here as consumers sharing in some experience, we're not here as concert goers, we're not here as movie watchers, we're here as a body.

For those of us who have trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we're here as body parts. There's a certain work that is taking place when we gather as a result of this dynamic. Now, this gathering, this desire to be unified and work together for the good, it comprises at least three calls, and this is again just introductory, but bear with me because we're setting the foundation for where we're going in weeks to come.

But this gathering, this call toward unification, comprises three calls, and the first call is separation. Before you can be united together in the body of Christ, you must be separated from something.

You can only be united to what you have been separated from. A call for separation is really held out to us here from 1 Corinthians 12. Listen to what he says beginning in verse 12. For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one, so also is Christ.

For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, all have been made to drink into one spirit. Now what is Paul saying there, beginning in verse 12?

He's saying before you were brought into the oneness of the body of Christ, you were brought out of whatever you had been outside of Christ. Whether Jew or Greek, whether slave or free, you were baptized into one body.

Now baptism is this picture of being saved by Christ in such an extent that you no longer are living your own life in your own way toward its own direction. You're radically recognizing that His perfect life, His atoning death, His resurrection and ascension, has so radically changed your life that it's a new life altogether.

Whatever you were before Christ entered your life, that life died, and you died with Him. It's as if when He died on the cross, you died on the cross, and when He broke forth out of the grave, you rose in that newness of His life.

As Paul could say, it's like Christ is now living in me. Saul of Tarsus is dead, long dead. Christ is now the center of my life. Christ is my life, my hope, my heart, my health. You see, the idea is there's this radical plunging into the death of Christ, and whatever comes out of the water is something entirely new, made new by the Spirit of God.

So we're baptized into one body. There's a radical separation of all that we were before. We cannot be unified unless we've first been separated. We cannot be part of the body of Christ unless we first die, unless we've been crucified in Christ.

So we separate from something to something. We were once fellow members with the world, and the Spirit of God separated us from the world. Now we've become pilgrims and sojourners, strangers, foreigners, but that same act of separation from the world is adjoining to the kingdom of God, adjoining to the body of Christ, Ephesians 2 .19.

Therefore, Paul says, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. Do you see the logic there? You were once strangers and foreigners to the people of God.

You were familiar. You were part of the world. Then God saved you. Now you're a stranger and a foreigner to the world because you are the people of God. You are saints, fellow members of the household of God.

So everything gets reversed. You cannot be familiar to one without being a stranger to the other. You cannot be united to one without being separated from the other. So the call for a church's unity is a call for separation.

Listen to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6. He says, another image, you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them. I will walk among them. I will be their God and they will be my people.

Therefore, come out and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you. I'll be a father to you. You'll be my sons and my daughters, says the Lord Almighty. Again, this idea of being knit together as living stones in this temple of God requires the answer to this call.

Come out and be separate. You want to come into the body of Christ? Come out and be separate. You can't come in unless you come out. That's the whole point. You can't come in unless you come out. Every relationship, this is an observation of J .I. Packer, every relationship is transformed around Christ.

It is not possible for us to be united to Christ and have our relationships to everything else in our lives rendered the same. It's just not possible. Christ is the agent of transformation. Christ transforms everything in our lives.

He doesn't just patch up and repair a few aspects of our lives. He transforms the entirety of our life. Some relationships in our lives are created because of Christ. That's a way to view the church body.

Some relationships are ended because of Christ. Again, you can't come in unless you first come out. The point is whether relationships are created or relationships are ended, all relationships are changed.

For the bulk of those relationships, we now engage in those relationships as salt and light. We seek to be those who speak of Christ, to bear our testimonies of what he's done in our lives. We're willing to bend a little bit with the Greek or flex a little bit with the Jew.

By any means, we're seeking to win some. That's the idea. Christ has now changed our relationship with everything. So in order to understand who we are, a holy and a separate people, we must understand that this call to unity is on the other side of that separation.

Now what makes that separation so hard is simply this. Our view of God and of his call to be united is often shaped and stained by our view of the world. To put it more simply, our view of God and his calling is shaped by the world rather than our view of the world being shaped by God.

That's the big problem, that we tend to view things in a very horizontal way. We tend to view things in a very worldly wise way. We tend to think we're really not that different. In fact, it's comforting to me when I can see that I'm not all that different from others around me.

But that's not the call. That's like a doctor saying, it's comforting to me when I'm as sick as the patients that I see. It's like, what good is that? How can you be of their remedy, of their help, if you're just comforting yourself that you're just as diseased as they are?

No, this radical separation, it doesn't keep you from the needs and the brokenness of the world, but it rather equips you to be able to meet those needs. So whatever our competing idols or affections are, whatever things chase down the priorities in our lives, we need to have a right view of God.

We need to have a right view of his calling. We need to have a right view of what it will mean for us to have our whole way of life transformed around who he is and what he has brought about. John 17, Jesus is praying for his disciples and he says, I've given them your word.

The world has hated them because they're not of the world, just as I am not of the world. And I do not pray that you will take them out of the world, that you'll keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

So sanctify them by your truth. It's this beautiful prayer, this high priestly prayer. Jesus says, this is how I came for the world, but I wasn't of the world. I came for the world because I have a character and a heart of mercy and compassion like you, my heavenly father.

And so though I'm not of the world, I'm for the world. Though my kingdom is not of this world, my kingdom is for this world. And I don't pray that these disciples will be taken out of the world, even though like me, they're not like the world.

What is it? What is he saying? They're united to me. They're like me. They're not like the world. They're separate from the world. They've been called out of the world, but not out of the world in terms of purpose, just out of the world in terms of practice.

They no longer run in that same flood of dissipation, as Peter says. And what does he say within that prayer? Two things. He says, Father, keep them from the evil one. I don't think we put enough stock in that, do we?

What does Jesus know that we don't, that we don't frequently pray that prayer? Father, keep me from the evil one. As good Reformed folk, we're often praying against the impact or effects of our flesh or the impact and influence of the world, but I would say we rarely are praying for the influence and activity of the evil one.

When Jesus talks about the world, his mind immediately goes to the influence and power of the evil one. They're not of the world. The world hates them. Father, keep them from the evil one. When Peter's approaching the Lord Jesus and just thinking horizontally, thinking with the mind of man, what does Jesus say?

Get behind me, Satan. What does he say on another occasion to his disciples? He says, Satan is sought to sift you like wheat, but take heart. I've prayed for you. I don't think we take seriously enough that the prince of the power of the air, the evil one, masquerades like an angel of light to such a degree that he doesn't even enter into our prayer lives very frequently.

What's the first thing that Jesus prays? Keep them from the evil one. I don't pray you take them out of the world, but because I've called them to myself and they're united to me and therefore they'll be separate and holy, keep them from the evil one.

Keep them from the one who will prowl about and sneak to devour them. Keep them from the one who will seek to ensnare them, lead them astray, deceive them, put them back in chains of bondage. Keep them from him, Lord.

And then what's the second prayer? Sanctify them. Sanctify them. Keep them from evil. Make them pure. Keep them from the evil one. Sanctify them. It's a call of radical separation and a call of radical unity.

What does it mean to be sanctified? I think we said this a few weeks ago. It means to be brought into greater conformity to Christ himself. C .S. Lewis in his sermon, The Weight of Glory, has this marvelous little section where he's talking about the purpose of the church.

And he says, the purpose of the church is nothing less than to make men into little Christs. In fact, this may be the purpose of the whole world. To make image bearers, actual image bearers, to actually conform them to the image of Christ, who is the image of the invisible.

Christ alone, the express image of God, all that humanity was made to be. That's what sanctification is. It's being purified. It's being transformed by one degree of glory to the next until we look like Christ.

Until we, in other words, become human fully as image bearers are meant to be in every dimension and perfection with which God created us in righteousness. That's what sanctification is. So this call to Jesus, this call to unity, is a call not only of separation but of sanctification.

The Call to Unity in the Body of Christ

So that's the first call, this call for separation. And now, secondly, we see that a call for unity. Again, only because you come out can you come in. Again, 1 Corinthians 12, God composed the body. So you don't come in on your own terms.

God's providence is over it all. He calls you according to his wisdom. I know some of you have shared, it would have been nice if Christ called me a lot earlier in my life. My life would be a lot better, you say.

My life would be very different. I wouldn't have to face or struggle against things that I have to face and struggle against. Well, let me tell you and let me comfort you. God's wisdom is better than your wisdom and God's timing is higher than your timing.

And it might be because you have those struggles, it's because you're facing those things overshadowing your life from the past that has probably kept you close to Christ. Rather than knowing more of him, you probably would know far less of him had he called you earlier in your life, had you not faced some of the things that you had to face.

It's one of the ways that he's kept you near to himself, kept you low in need of his grace. Again, his wisdom is not our wisdom, his timing is not our timing. God composes the body according to his good pleasure.

He knew what you would be in coming to him. He knew how you would operate in being brought into his body. Whatever kind of organ you may be, he has so arranged and ordered you to be a part of the body so that it can be built up in maturity, in sanctification.

God composed the body just as much as he composed your life. God composed the body having given greater honor to the part which lacks it so that there's no schism in the body. This is Paul pressing into the church at Corinth because the church at Corinth is squabbling, breaking apart at the seams.

There's all sorts of factions vying for primacy, vying for influence. They're all chasing and clamoring and drooling after gifts and the things that will put them on the soap boxes so they can puff out their chest and be seen as great, mighty, wise, strong.

Paul comes to that and says, this is not how God has called anyone, not many mighty, not many wise according to the flesh, not many strong. He calls the fools, calls those who are weak, unable to help themselves.

That's how God has composed his body. When I came to you, I didn't want to know anything but Christ and him crucified. Paul again pointing, was it the mighty Achilles-like Christ that we worship or is it a crucified Christ?

Is it a theology of glory or a theology of the cross? Well, God composed the body in such a way that the members all have to work together. See that there's an absolute vital necessity for every member to regard the other member as equally a part of the body of Christ, composed in the wisdom of Christ, composed for the purpose of Christ.

To such a radical degree, if one member suffers in a mature body, the whole body suffers. If one member rejoices, the whole body rejoices. What kind of radical unity is that? First Corinthians 12 as a whole is about this blessed unity wrought by the Spirit of God.

When we talk about separation from the world, the obverse of that is the unity of the body. We're brought out in order to be brought near, not only to Christ, but near to one another. So you ask the question, what would become of the body if different limbs and organs decided to pull back, go off in different directions?

Maybe they want to focus on their own specific roles. This is my strength. This is what I'm good at as the feet, or as the lungs, or as the kidney, or what have you, and I'm just going to focus on that for myself.

I'm going to separate, pull back, and try to be the best kidney I can be. The only problem is then you can't be a kidney, because a kidney doesn't live for itself, nor to toes, nor to eyes, nor lungs, nor a stomach.

The idea is all the organs need to work to their best capacity for the sake of the whole, because only the health of the whole can be the health of the part. That's the idea of the body. You cannot, in other words, separate and say, I need to grow as a kidney, and when I grow big enough and strong enough, then I'll get closer to the body.

I'm too small, too weak as an organ. I need to be outside of the body. When I get big and strong and healthy, then I'll get close to the body. Do you see the point? No, you'll shrivel and die. Do you want to grow?

Then you need to be part of the body, close to the body, effectively working in and for the body, with the body, through the body, from the body. That's the logic. No limb can grow, no organ can function once it has been separated from the body.

So Paul sees this principle of life in God's wisdom. He's made it so no one can be an island to themself, and the church cannot be a scattered Peloponnese. It cannot be the heap of organs that have no rhyme or rhythm in terms of the way they are gathered together.

The body is composed. The body is arranged. The body is put together by the Lord. So there's no hope for unity, no hope for growth, unless we recognize our interdependency. This is how God has arranged the Christian life to be.

Radical separation, radical unity. Now God has set the members, he says, each one of them in the body just as he pleased. If they were all one member, where would the body be? What kind of Frankenstein church would that be if everyone was the lung?

A body part made of eyes, right? How could the body function if we were all the same, if we had the same leanings, the same giftings, the same background, the same depth, the same experience, the same issues, the same personalities that shed light and bring things before the body in unique ways?

This is how the Lord seeks to work organically a unity out of the plurality. If we're all the same, if we all think we have to act the same, be the same, function the same, then we'll never have the unity of the body.

It'll be like herding cats or something far worse. The only way I can recognize interdependency is someone else has something I do not have and something I need. Therefore, I have to be a part of the body because I don't have all that the body has, I don't have all that I need from the body, and I also have something the body needs, something without which the body will lack.

There's an absolute interdependency upon the members of the body. This is what Paul says, the eye can't say to the hand, I have no need of you. How do you view the church? How do you view the church? Can you be honest enough to say there's ways in your life that if we could put the comic strip thought bubble, you might as well type in, I have no need, I have no need of you, I have no need of this, I'm fine, I'm okay, I show up on Sundays, right, I have no need.

But that's not how God has composed the body, that's not how these members are meant to function. The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, the head can't say to the feet, I have no need of you.

What is Paul saying? Is this the obverse? The hand has to learn to say to the eye, I need you. I know sometimes you look at me sideways and sometimes I poke you, but I need you. The head has to say to the feet, I need you.

I can't get anywhere without you. Doesn't matter how much I know, how much I have trapped in here, if I'm immobile, it's all useless. I need feet, I need hands. And Paul presses on, he says the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary.

It's not the biceps, it's not the six-pack, it's not the ripped calves that are the most necessary parts of the body. You can live without abs, you can live without biceps, you can live without calves, you can't live without lungs or a beating heart.

You can't live without functioning internal organs. You can't see them, they seem to be weaker, but they're the most vital, indispensable part of the body. That's Paul's logic. He says learn to have this way of gauging others.

Those that seem to be dispensable are indispensable. Those that seem to be weak are vital. Learn to view things in that way, he's saying to the church at Corinth. The things that are presentable, that seem to get all the attention and show, are far less important in God's sight than in their own sight or in other sights.