Do Not Divide the Body

The Church as One Body With Many Members

For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot says, because I'm not a hand, I'm not a part of the body, it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. And if the ear says, because I'm not an eye, I'm not a part of the body, it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body.

If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But now God has placed the members, each one of them in the body, just as he desired.

If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, or again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.

On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body, which seem to be weaker, are necessary. And those members of the body, which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no need of it.

But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.

If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church, first, apostles, second, prophets, third, teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.

All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of miracles, are they? All do not have gifts of healings, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they?

All do not interpret, do they? But earnestly desire the greater gifts, and I show you a still more excellent way.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you so much for your word. Lord, thank you so much for the blessings you've given us as a church, the members of our body, Lord, each part. Lord, more importantly, thank you for giving us these gifts.

Lord, the giver, you are the best giver. Lord, thank you so much for the way you love us. Lord, help us to hear your word this morning, to trust you, to pray for these things, to pray, to reveal these things to us, to encourage one another, Lord.

I pray that you would just bless the teaching of your word this morning. We love you so much, in your name, amen.

The Danger of Defensive Christianity and Purity Spirals

I think for the next two weeks, there could hardly be a more timely set of passages as we look around at the state of Christianity and as we struggle here in a church that is not yet three years old to see what we will be, to see what's going to happen through.

Here.

And we've seen some first fruits with our brothers over at Grace Covenant and the partnerships that start to forge with places like Living Hope. But what we also see is division, and it confuses us. There is a good kind of division that Paul talks about, the kind of division that causes workers who are up to no good to be discovered, and they need to be divided from.

Their works need to be exposed, and they need to be separated off. But too often today, I think, we see the wrong kind of division, not only within churches, but also with the church universal, as we constantly fight one another.

And this was brought to mind a couple of nights ago as a couple of men from the area wanted to have a phone call with me, and they called, and we talked for a while, and the frustration that these young men had was, why does it seem like we're just not doing anything?

Why does it seem like we're fighting all the time? I can't get anyone stirred up to go on the street with me, to go and protest and fight at the abortion mill. They said, it seems like all we do is just fight inside.

Is the reason we do that? Because we're not doing anything. I offered them what little encouragement I could, and one of the things I told them is that we see over and over the same behavior in humanity, that when humans go on the defense, when we think that we are holed up, the defensive posture is to get in a small, defensible position where you can just hold the line.

And I told these men that I think for too long, the church's objective has been survival instead of conquest. And when your goal is survival, you want to eliminate the risk. You want to stay with your buddies, you want to stay holed up, and you want to repel any invader, anything that could bring a threat to the status quo.

And this is the position that when you're sitting in a confined area with people for a long time and no one else comes in, people start getting restless. It's a defensive position. We see it all over the place today, and I have to poke fun at our particular branch within the Reformed community because we are the absolute worst about this.

What we do is we think that we have the best doctrine, and so we hole up. We don't like any other church. We will say begrudgingly that they're Christians, but we don't like their doctrine. We know they have not ascended to our level yet, and so what we do is we purity spiral.

And what purity spiral is doing is it is taking more and more and more doctrines to separate with each other over. So what started with the core orthodoxy that we can all say are Christians has become other stuff too.

You have to agree with me on baptism. You have to agree with me on the philosophy of the church. You have to agree with me on eschatology. If you think that I'm exaggerating this, just take a dip onto Reformed X someday, formerly Twitter, and just see what's going on in there.

See what's going on between pastors. And you'll see that what it is is a basically defensive posture. We hole up and we protect ourselves. But as a great football coach said, and I tend to agree with, the best defense is a good offense.

And we are called by Christ to conquer the world. No less than that. So how are you doing?

How are we doing?

See, the difference between an offense and a defense is an offense is proactive and a defense is reactive. A defense doesn't know what the offense is going to do. The offense has a plan, right? The offense has practiced their set place, whatever sport you're dealing with.

And so the offense knows where they're going and the defense has to react. Now let me ask you, church, when you properly handle and read the word of God, do we or do we not know where we're going? I think the answer is we know where we're going.

We know where we end up. We know what the God of the universe has done. We know what we're called to do. We know what we are as the church. And so today is a repetition of something you should already know.

But it's a beautiful repetition. It's also a scathing repetition. Because over and over in the New Testament, what we learn is that if the church is to be obedient, and if the church is to achieve the mission that is laid out for her, both in the local and the universal expression, unity is of the utmost importance.

So for two weeks now, we're going to focus very, very specifically on the unity of the.

Church.

The Church as the Bride and the Body of Christ

And we start with a metaphor. This is a popular metaphor. I've used it before with people who question the need for church membership, right? Do I have to be a member of the church? The New Testament never says you have to be a member of the church.

And I would say, yeah, the New Testament never says that you have to sign up to be part of an organization. However, the New Testament also assumes that you are an indivisible part of a body. That you cannot be separated from that body.

If you are a Christian, indwelled by the Holy Spirit, you are a part of the church. And that means nothing if it's not part of the local expression. Because you're not part of the church when you're sitting on a lake having Bible study by yourself saying, I don't need organized religion.

You are not part of the expression. So the church is integral. The gathering of God's people is integral. It was always the way it was. In ancient Israel to today, God's people gather to worship. The other thing that we learn from this metaphor is that every part is necessary.

And so the first thing that we're going to see this morning is that we should not divide out of jealousy. And this is a way that churches divide. People start getting upset about the talents and the expressions and the ministry of other people within the church.

This is especially bad among the pastor class. But it's also bad among the body. When someone is gifted at teaching, when someone is gifted at the more out front speaking types of gifts, they draw a lot of jealousy.

Because we start to value them more highly. But the body is not made of one member. The body is made of many. And the body has been carefully crafted and put together by Jesus Christ. You are here this morning because Christ in his sovereign decree has ordained that you.

Would be here.

Whether you believe in him or not this morning, whether you have been following for decades or are not following at all, you are here this morning to hear this. He's placed you here. He's in charge. If he is God, then he knows everything.

If he is God, then he is all powerful. And so when he creates a body, the church, the local expression, he combines a group of people whose gifts are perfectly coordinated to accomplish the mission and the vision of that particular church.

And as Gandalf would say, that's an encouraging thought indeed, is it not? That there is a sovereign hand, a sovereign will, who has appointed your position, your work and has given you all of the tools and the gifts to accomplish the job that he set out for you to do.

And we cannot work alone because if we're not together, then our individual gifts are just as silly as thinking that my right foot is going to be a professional soccer player without the rest of my body.

It's an impossibility. The church limps along when we divide out of jealousy. And the title of the sermon this morning is Do Not Divide the Church. You're not supposed to divide the church. And there are sinful ways to divide the church.

Because I'm going to assume this morning that I'm talking to good guys, to righteous people who want to follow Christ, who want to live godly lives, who want to be seen for righteousness, who long to be told, well done, good and faithful servant.

That's what we want, isn't it? When we arrive before the judgment throne, we want to be covered by the blood of Christ and we want him to tell us, well done, good and faithful servant. And a huge part of being faithful is to carry out your role in the church.

You cannot function as a Christian without her. She is the bride. To separate yourself from the bride is to separate yourself from God's plan. We have two awesome metaphors in scripture of the church.

We're going to look at the body today, but I'm also going to allude to, we see the metaphor of the church as the bride. And we understand what a bride means, right? A bride is beautiful. A bride is a possession of one man, right?

What has been put together, let no man take apart. There is a one flesh union. And so the church as the bride implies indivisibility. It implies fellowship. It implies loyalty. It implies intimacy. And it's hard for us to picture this because many of us are married and no matter how harmonious and good your marriage is in our human faculties, we still are two people, right?

We still are two people because we react to people selfishly. We strive and we fight with our spouse. We disappoint our spouse. And that is where the shadow gives way to the substance because the substance is that Christ is the bridegroom and the church is the bride and the bridegroom never fails the bride.

And in an eschatological sense, the bride never fails the bridegroom because her righteousness is completely tied up in his righteousness, which is perfect. So let me ask you this. If you attack my wife verbally, physically, what's going to happen to you?

I will give every single thing I have to destroy you is what will happen. Now when we haphazardly deride and say bad things and disparage the bride of Christ, what do we think is going to happen? See this is a sober thing and we're too casual about disparaging the bride of Christ based on our own doctrinal distinctives, based on bad behavior that we think is bad behavior.

Now look, I'm not excusing the obvious terrible behavior that goes on, but we have a lot of Christian brothers who do things that we disagree with on a secondary or tertiary level. And when we talk badly or cast a sidelong glance at that expression of the bride of Christ, then we sin by dividing the body.

We have to stop. Friends, I urge you, I urge you to be careful and I urge myself to be careful how we talk about the bride. Our first reaction should be to give charity and to trust. We know that as the body, this metaphor, so we get the protection of the bride, but when we look at the parts of the body, what we get is we look to Colossians.

When you hear the metaphor of the body, you should think of Colossians 1, where Christ is described as the head of the church. And that head means source, but that head also means the control, right? He is the firstborn.

Christ is number one of the church. He is the source of the church. The church exists because of the work of Christ, and he is in control of all the body parts. He has, Ephesians 2, 10, laid out all of the works that you will go in, so follow them.

He has prepared them before you were born. In fact, he prepared the works for you and for this church before the world was created. He foreknew them, and he established them, and so you walk in them. This church operates only as we operate under Christ, who is the head.

And what he tells us in this passage through Paul is that there are a variety of different members who do a variety of different things. There are hands, there are feet, there are eyes, there are noses, there are private parts, there are all kinds of parts, and these parts all have a role to play.

And this is in the context of spiritual gifting. And so because of his victory, Jesus led us as a parade as his victory spoils, and he gave to us, his people, gifts of the Holy Spirit. And so the Holy Spirit awakens gifts in you and gives you gifts so that you would edify the church and so that you would do the mission that's laid out before you.

And it is a mistake for us within the body to seek one type of gift, to all try to be the same gift. That's what Paul says, right? If you all want to be eyes, then who's going to smell anything? That would be a miserable existence.

We need all of the senses to function at the level that humans are designed to function.

Gifts, Gratitude, and the Sin of Covetousness

At.

Just as in the church, if you are withholding your gift because you're jealous or covetous of another gift that you don't have, then you are sinning against the body and you should stop because the church's mission is being hampered by you.

Now I think in our camp, we probably aren't doing that so much as we probably aren't even thinking about it at all. I think the gifts have become a mysterious thing to us. They become a thing that we take for granted.

They become a thing that we take credit for. But understand that the spirit gives gifts and so our response to our spiritual gifting should be one thing and one thing only, and that is to give gratitude to Christ for giving it to us.

That's it.

We know that it's a sin to covet the gifts of others. Covetousness is the 10th commandment. You should not covet anything. You should especially not covet what your brother inside of the church has. That is a sin against your own household.

It brings division and anger and hatred and bitterness into your own house. You don't want to do that where you live. You have to deal with it all the time. We should be very careful about how we look at others within the body.

And when I see someone who has an overflowing gift of evangelism, which I see, Tyler, I see it, and it can, it can make me jealous because I am in a position where I am around a lot of lost people and I try to give them the hope of the gospel and I don't have the gift in the same measure that other people have.

But instead of making me jealous, what that should do is make us grateful that God has given us people like that in our body that we can learn from, that we can be encouraged by, and that we know God has his people working everywhere.

See, if you are coveting, that means that you are grumbling, you are despising God's will, you are distrusting him, and ultimately you are killing yourself. Because covetousness, much like bitterness, is drinking poison and hoping it's going to hurt the other guy.

It will not. Coveting, they don't even know you're coveting. And you're doing that all to yourself and it's destroying your walk. Understand this, you are here, you have been put in this body for a purpose, and he demands that you work.

The purpose of the church is we gather to worship so that we can work. Is there such a thing as faith without works?

No.

James says that faith without works is dead. When you are called to faith, when you are given a heart that gives allegiance to Christ, you are given works. And we are told, as we read in the call to worship this morning, that we are to stir one another up to good works.

That means that you should demand good works out of the person who's in the body with you. You should not let each other lay down, be lazy, and forsake their gifting so that they would hurt the body. That means, men, that we have to be manly.

We're going to have to look at each other and stir each other up to good works. We're going to have to demand mortification of sin. Whatever the sin that is your pet project, we have to demand that it stops.

And we have to keep demanding. And we have to stir each other up by encouraging, but also by exhorting, that we call someone to their works. Jake has a gift of administration. If he's not blessing the church through administration, the church is limping along, hurting.

If Samuel decides that he doesn't want to sing anymore, we're kind of in some rough shape. You guys have heard Brady and Jake, right? And I've threatened before, you definitely don't want to hear that, okay?

Every part of the body has a purpose. Every part of the body has to work. And as Paul talks about them despising one another and being jealous, he turns over, if you'll look in verse 20 through 26, he explains how you win and how you lose.

And that is together. We win as a church together, and we lose as a church together. And the only way we lose is to lose faith. Because Christ has guaranteed the victory. This is a game that you've already read the last chapter of.

You know how it's going to end. And the way it's going to end is congratulations. You have served the right king who has all of the power, and he is going to reward you as his children. And you will live together forever with your spiritual friends.

You're not going to be floating on clouds playing harps, being bored. Instead, you are going to hang around the spiritual friends that you have made. Many of you guys, we're going to be neighbors, and we're going to be praising Christ forever.

Forever and ever and ever. Working without sin, without toil.

Can you imagine?

Can you imagine the singing? He's called us to that. And we win and we lose together. One body. One body that I cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, or the head to the feet, I have no need of you.

How much more is it that the members of the body, which seem to be weaker, are necessary? And this is true. There is an obvious thing that goes on in the church, and that is that we obviously need each other.

Because we are in life, and things happen to us, don't they? We go through good times, and we go through bad times. And when we have good times, it often coincides with people who are having bad times, so that we can minister to them.

Because when you're low, when you're low, nothing is more encouraging than having someone who has thought of you, and who ministers to you in your need. Because humans need to be loved. And Christ has called us to that purpose, to where we love one another.

We also obviously need each other in the church within the construct of how the gifts work within the body. The gifts and the ministries of the church work together in concert, and also in tension. In concert to work together to push toward the goal, but in tension to keep each other in line.

Because the mercy people and the discernment people can often go off the rails in their different directions, because the discernment person's going, why do you keep wanting to give money to this person?

It's a dry hole. And the mercy person's going, I got to give money to them. We have to help them. And the two of them, through their tension with each other, meet at wisdom. We have to have it in the church.

If there's going to be miracles or works of power in this church, there also has to be administration. And those two gifts, they work in tension, don't they? Because administration wants to predict. Administration wants to have it down to the wire.

It needs to be coordinated. It needs to be together. And works of power just kind of blow that up. Whoa, what just happened? We didn't plan for that at all. What do we do with this? And the two of them in tension as the administrator looks at the power and starts to plan accordingly.

And they work together. You cannot take your ball and go home without hurting the body. You can't. And friends, let me say this with all of the gravity that I could possibly conjure up. If you try to take your ball and go home and not exercise the gifts that you've been given, you are making a mockery of Christ's sacrifice for you.

And you are sinning against the body, but far worse. Far worse than that. You are blaspheming the Holy Spirit. You are saying that he has no power here, that his command is secondary. Do not quench the Holy Spirit.

Do not. Do not treat the commands of God lightly. And we see it explicitly right here, do we not? Every member of the body has a purpose and a function. Your job is to joyfully, gratefully, and obediently do your job.

But we also understand in the midst of this that there is tension, that not every member of the body gets the same honor. Sad to say, there is not clean up appreciation month. And yet, members of the body clean this building, often thanklessly and quietly.

There is no merciful gentleman of the month club, but mercy gets displayed as there are people who are gifted to seek out needs within the body and outside of the body, and to provide financial gain, but also to provide love and affection and care and prayer.

And those members do not get to stand up in front of the church and talk with a loud voice every week. See, my job is one that does get a lot of honor, but this doesn't work whatsoever without the people in the body who do the silent, behind-the-scenes work that makes this place edified, that makes people healthy.

Nothing I do matters without that. And we've missed this for so long in the Reform camp, as we've distilled the whole Sunday gathering and the whole church down to preaching. And this is where these young men were frustrated, because they said, is the whole point of the church to get an information dump on Sunday morning about doctrine?

They said, is it always so dry? That's what they told me. My heart cries out that we would have living water, that it would not be dry, that it would not be an information dump, but instead that the preaching of the word would penetrate hearts so that people would, out of their love for Christ, do what he has called you.

To do.

It's very frustrating to work with no credit. Is it not? It's frustrating when you get no gratitude and you're doing the job every single time. But friends, let me tell you something that is absolutely true, and it's not a cliche.

Christ is watching you. And he says, he says that those who get their reward here have it. But those who work in secret, they get their reward in eternity. See, for my preaching in many ways, I get my reward here.

But we all long for the heavenly reward, right? Where the rust doesn't get it, where the thief can't steal it. Many, many work behind the scenes. And we should treat them as we do the important parts of our body that get less honor.

We are all interwoven. And so we need to care for one another. And when someone steps out and they are doing these small behind-the-scenes things, give them thanks. Encourage them. That is an important thing.

If you think of encouraging someone, do it. It is hugely helpful when someone reaches out and just says, hey, I was thinking of you today, and I wanted to pray for you. Is there anything you need? We should annoy each other with our kindness and our honor that we give to one another.

We have to do it. We have to understand that if one person suffers in the body, we all suffer. But if one is honored, we all rejoice. Is this not the pattern? Paul would say, no one hates his own body.

No one hates his own body. But instead, we love our own body. And so in the church, we have to love our own body because it is a natural thing to.

Do.

Do Not Be a Church Complainer

Don't be a church complainer. Don't complain about others who disagree with you. This is a huge part of the project here. If you haven't heard it before, you probably haven't been listening. So I'm going to say it again now.

We want the gospel to go out in Northwest Arkansas. We want the gospel. Whether someone has a different interpretation of baptism, whether someone is dispensational, whether someone has a different liturgy than us, if they are preaching the true gospel and they are stirring each other up in good works, we are unabashedly for them.

You will never get me to be against them. We are for them. We want people to hear the hope that we have found. And if they don't preach it, how are we going to hear it? How are they going to hear it? Let's end up here.

You are the body of Christ. I think this is the power pack stuff. This is what Paul waits the entire chapter to get to. He's told us about the gifts. He's told us about the metaphor of the body. And then he brings it all to a close.

And then he leaves us with a tantalizing preview of next week, which in many ways is the center point of the Christian life. Let's read it. Now, you are Christ's body and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.

Are all apostles?

Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all translate? But you earnestly desire the greater gifts. And I will yet show you a more excellent way.

Friends, do you treat the body this way? Do you understand that there are a group of people in any body that are given tasks to.

Do?

And you'll notice by the lack of separation in this text, it's interesting in the verse that lists out these gifts, that they are listed in series, but they are also prioritized. There are gifts that are higher than other gifts.

And strangely enough, gifts of healing is not one of them that's higher. That's seen as more of a mundane thing by the apostle. Because the big gifts are the gifts of prophecy and teaching. Is this what's going to characterize us here?

Do we love the church? This is the first thing that we're going to see next week, because you are not a Christian if you don't love the church. It is a dividing line. Christians love the church. Just as you love your own body, just as you love your spouse, just as you love your children, you love the church.

Now, let me ask you, Christian, this morning. Do you think of yourself as a vital part of this body? And every part is vital. I learned this very pointedly in 2020. In 2020, I had this little part of my body.

It may not even really do anything. And this little part of my body got very, very angry. And it blew up. And my body was filled with bacteria and pathogens. And I nearly died over a little piece of the body, the appendix, that's like that big.

Nobody even knows what it does. But it is an integral part of what's going on in the body. One little thing can kill us. Did you know that? If you're a tale bearer, if you're a gossiper, if you are a person who's a complainer, spreading, spreading dissension, you are killing the body.

You are a poison that is leeching through and you're sinning against God. Men, if you're holding up together, holding on to your pride, holding on to your sexual immorality, God is not fooled and you are a cancerous part of the body.

You need to be clean. You need to repent and you need to encourage and stir up other men to good works. We know this, right? The church's need of the day is masculine men who will hold each other accountable for.

Sin.

Not, oh brother, we're all struggling with the same thing. No, not that nonsense. But instead, be holy as I am holy. And in order to say that to someone, you have to be holy. Does that mean we never sin?

No, it doesn't mean that. It means that we're not enmeshed in loving our sin, that we are trusting the Holy Spirit to make us clean. Every person here has a function and your call by Christ, by Christ, is to function at full capacity.

If you don't, then we are crippled. Quit being lackadaisical with your walk. Are you searching for Christ as a precious jewel? Have you sold all of your possessions to buy the field where you knew that the treasure chest was?

Are you lazy in front of your king? He sees everything. You understand that we don't understand that he's God when we take the things of the faith as being lackadaisical, passe, neither here nor there.

What we don't understand is not only that the boss is coming to evaluate you, he's constantly watching you. And he is measuring every word that comes out of your mouth. He is measuring every thought that you have in your mind.

And he is measuring every work that you do for good or ill in the context of the church. It is a high responsibility. And we have no hope other than through the power of the Holy Spirit. He has regenerated us.

Do you believe it? Is your goal every day to function at full capacity for the body of Christ? See, we've missed a thing, have we not? What was the church like in the first century? Well, let me tell you what they were doing.

They were going into a pagan world where there were very few Christians and they were so disruptive that every city was trying to throw them out because they were interrupting the trade of idolatry. That's what the apostles were doing.

Were they sitting around being lazy? Well, maybe someday, I hope somewhere, they may come to a faith in Christ. No, they were going to the town square and they were proclaiming the gospel. We have to ask, are we dividing and fighting so much because we're not doing anything?

Or is there unity in us all having a shared function? The list is not divided in series, but there are different functions in the church. Paul gives us a few of them. Apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, healings, helps, helping the needy, administration, and kinds of tongues.

Now listen, here's what we've done. We've immediately, in our context, eliminated several of these gifts by saying, eh, they're gone.

Whatever.

Here they are. We don't have apostles anymore because we let the bad guys take our language. The scripture does not shy away from saying apostles. And we are not stupid, people. We understand that if I say I'm an apostle of CBC that I'm not talking about I'm like Peter.

I'm obviously not. I've not walked with Christ in the flesh. I've not been given the divine revelation of scripture to write it down in canon. That's obviously not me. But I am a messenger who went to try to establish a church here.

And because of that, first an apostle, there is an outsized amount of authority that resides in me. And so the church starts to take on the character that I have. And that's a scary thing because the church is going to look like me.

Let's not be ridiculous. Am I saying that I'm an apostle ascended from high and that you have to listen to everything I say? No, I'm not saying that. Let's not be dumb. But the word is used in scripture repeatedly.

And it means one who goes out and sends messages. It's kind of the pioneer. We think of them as missionaries. And we sit and we let the bad guys co-opt our language and say, Well, what are you saying?