Many Members, One Body - Christopher G. Brenyo

Ascension Presbyterian Church Longwood

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1 Corinthians chapter 12. We'll begin reading in verse 7.

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This is God's holy and infallible word. But the manifestation of the

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Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the

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Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same

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Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

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But one in the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as he wills.

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For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is

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Christ. For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and all have been made to drink into one

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Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member, but many.

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If the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?

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If the ear should say, because I am not an eye, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?

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If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling?

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But now God has set the members, each one of them, in his body just as he pleased.

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If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body.

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And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet,

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I have no need of you, nor the head to the feet. No, much rather, those members of the body, which seem to be weaker, are necessary.

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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.

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But our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that 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.

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And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it, or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

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Please pray with me. O Lord Jesus, what a blessed thought that we would be called the body of Christ, submitting to our living head, and each working in concert in support of one another to bring glory to him, to worship him, to perform those works that he had prepared for us in advance.

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O Lord, I pray that you would give us a greater sense of our identity in Christ, the power of your spirit, that we might recognize this wondrous truth and be built up and encouraged, edified as a result.

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We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. One of the challenges of looking at a larger section is there's a lot of material that maybe you can't cover in as great a detail, but I felt in this case if I would have stopped short, we would have missed something of the essence, the thrust of the argument that Paul was attempting to make.

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I'm going to give a brief outline to you for those who are needful of that. First, the message is entitled,

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Many Members, One Body. Many Members, One Body.

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First, the spirit manifested these gifts to bless the church.

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The purpose of this spirit -enabled gifting is to bless the church, to edify the body, and to spread the gospel.

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That's number one. The spirit manifested these gifts to bless the church, to edify the body, and to spread the gospel.

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Number two, the same spirit bestows gifts and the measure of their influence according to his purpose.

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The Holy Spirit bestows gifts and the measure of their influence according to his purpose.

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Number three, we have this grand picture or illustration of Christ's church,

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One Body, Many Members. Paul uses something that is very accessible to us, this image of the human body, to show us something about the identity, the interworkings of Christ's church.

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Picture, illustration of Christ's church, One Body, Many Members.

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Next, there is something very important.

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Paul warns against feelings of inferiority within the body.

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This is number four. This covers verses 15 through 18. Paul warns against feelings of inferiority.

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Number five, Paul warns against feelings of superiority. Finally, there should be no division in the body.

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The members should have the same care and love for one another. No division in the body.

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Members should have the same care for one another. Words of application to you.

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Paul is really, again, addressing the heart of the Corinthian problem. They were divided over a host of issues.

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They were not treating each other well. They were not loving each other. Now it appears that he is addressing something in them that their spiritual giftings have become a source not only of disorder, but also of disunity.

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It appears that people were seeking certain gifts, maybe to the exclusion of others, for the purpose of exalting themselves.

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It's an amazing thing. I think one of the dangers of gifted men, for example, in the area of preaching, good sermons, good preachers point us to Christ.

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Sometimes we get enamored with pulpiteering, people who look good or sound good in a pulpit.

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Pastors and preachers should lead us to Christ. Christ should be exalted, not the pastor.

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That's replicated over all the areas of the life of the body. Sometimes we look at some people and say, well, their gifts are so extraordinary and mine seem meager in comparison.

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We learn from this text that all of these things God has set in order and set in motion for his glory and for the good of the body.

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Part of what the call for the last couple weeks for us has been is we are to identify our giftings and cultivate those gifts for the service of the body.

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It's still with us today. We really need to know what we're called to do at this stage of life and where we are.

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If you have a little baby in the back, you've got some responsibilities there. If your children have all left the house, then you have some other responsibilities probably there.

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We're all to ask where we are today in our life and prioritize how are we to serve the church.

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I'll tell you, if you're parents, you need to raise up some godly children because the church really needs some godly people.

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Don't ever dismiss the value and importance, for example, of training and raising discipling children.

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Don't ever diminish the value of going out and earning an honest living, supporting your family, things like that.

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We must look back here at the text. It's very interesting that Paul says the manifestation here in verse 7 of the spirit is given to each one for the profit, really for the benefit of all.

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That's one thing that we have to say, that the activity and life of the church, the ministry of the church, the various giftings, that service needs to be performed so that everyone is built up and edified.

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You can't individually minister to each person every week. We are to use our giftings for the benefit, the profit, the edification of all.

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Paul lists here the various gifts. Today I'm not going to go through all of these.

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There are several texts of scripture. I want to give them to you. Maybe this would be a good other study you can do to look at the gifts of the spirit that Paul lists elsewhere and maybe harmonize them and see where the crossover is in some of these.

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The first instance is found in Romans 12 verses 6 -8. I'm going to read that to you.

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I don't want you to turn there. I just want you to listen. Romans 12 verses 6 -8.

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It says, Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them.

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If prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith. Or ministry, let us use it in our ministering.

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He who teaches in teaching, he who exhorts in exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness.

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Let love be without hypocrisy. Pour what is evil, cling to what is good.

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Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love in honor of giving preference to one another.

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I want to stop here because this admonition in Romans really applies to the

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Corinthian situation and I suspect it applies to us as well. There's a real sense in which we're seeking out service.

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We're not to seek our own honor, not to seek out our own self -exaltation, but we are to give preference to one another.

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We're to be motivated by brotherly love. I think really the deepest sin of the

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Corinthian church is this lack of love for their brother and sister in Christ.

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The other text, of course, that very familiar section in Ephesians 4, which lists the offices and the giftings given to the church.

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Paul, it seems, is very eager for us to understand with some clarity that the

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Spirit is working in and through us for God's glory, for our good. As I think about this,

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I'm really amazed to think about both the big C church and each local expression of Christ's body on the earth.

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As I said last week, it seems that we have a work that we have to accomplish. We're small in number.

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We don't have the resources. Maybe we don't have the gifts and talents of other churches, but we have a work to do.

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I think that applies, you could say, in all these different spheres. You can see that applying not only to our church life, but we can see that in our family life.

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We can see that individually. Wherever we're called today, we need to grow where we're planted.

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Wherever we are serving, whatever we're doing today, that's the place we need to be faithful.

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The Lord may have other things for us, but Ascension Presbyterian has to be faithful to the gospel here at this corner of Longwood.

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All that we're to do, the Lord has a work for us to do, and he's given us the gifts to do it.

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He's given us the resources to do it. The second point, the same Spirit bestows gifts in the measure of their influence according to his purpose.

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He lists the gifts here, the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healings, working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, different kinds of tongues, and interpretation of tongues.

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The tongues issue is going to be a bigger issue as we go on in this section. I want to say very firmly that I believe that the tongues issue is a matter of knowable languages in scripture.

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I believe speaking in tongues in the New Testament is not secret utterance prayer language.

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I believe that these are knowable languages. I believe the modern manifestation of these things is a contradiction to that.

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There are many smart people who disagree with that. I want to tell you, I think when you look at what happened at Pentecost, you had the preaching of the gospel in the known languages of the people who were assembled.

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What Paul calls for in the life of the church is if there, and there was a lot of different languages being spoken in Corinth, if there be preaching that is given to one group in one language, the other people can't be excluded.

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Does that make sense? Can you imagine if I started preaching in Spanish or maybe Portuguese or Russian up here, and I spent the rest of the sermon

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I preached in Russian. Does anyone know Russian in here? No. All right.

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Is that German? There would be no edifications.

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Does that make sense? That if the service was going on and only a part of the people understood it was happening, how that would be detrimental to their fellowship and unity.

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Oh, I guess the Russians are the people that matter here. The Germans don't matter, the Spanish or whatever.

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So the idea of the spirit bestowing gifts, the real issue is not all the intricacies of these individual gifts, but to understand that the spirit does this for a very definitive purpose.

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And he gives the measure, he gives the increase, he does something for the good of the church.

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And Paul says, it's obvious by what's happening at Corinth, that's not the case with you.

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So you guys have zeal, you have knowledge, you have speaking in tongues, you're an impressive group of people, but guess what?

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It's not working. You're not doing it right. You're not going about it in the right way.

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One spirit at work and all these things distributing to each one individually.

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Verse 11. Now I want to stop here. I want to dwell on this for just a moment.

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I want you to meditate on this fact for a minute. As I mentioned in our teaching time just a little while ago, our salvation is a work of the spirit, a divine supernatural act that makes men alive in Christ.

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And what about this idea of service? The Holy Spirit is actively involved in fitting us for service.

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Isn't that amazing? Why are we not more excited about things like that?

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A divine work of the Holy Spirit is happening in the lives of believers.

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I don't know what's got you down today, I don't know why you're depressed or you're sad or not as joyful as you should be, but things like that should make your heart leap for joy.

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God himself in the power of his spirit is at work in believers.

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He's not only sanctifying us, he's gifting us for service that we can perform the work that he has us to do.

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That's exciting. It's almost like the Olympic athlete who's going to go run and get the gold medal.

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And all of the training, the physical tools he has been given by God, he cultivates.

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It's almost what the Holy Spirit does to us. We've got a race to run, we've got a race to win. We're going to win our race as Christians.

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We're not going to lose the race, we're going to win. We're going to finish the mission that God has for us. And he's going to provide all the training, all of the physical needs, all the mental preparation, all the resources he's going to provide for us that we might faithfully run our race.

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I don't know about you, but that is a tremendous load lifted. What if I think

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I have to do all of that, I have to create all of that for myself. I don't have to be disappointed in my life circumstances.

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I don't have to be disappointed in my vocation and in my calling because I can be confident that the

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Lord has a purpose for what I'm doing today. It doesn't mean I'm not going to change next year, but today

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I can be faithful. Today I can carry out the mission that he has for me. He distributes to each one individually as he wills.

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It makes me think of that John text that you can see the effects of the spirit, see the wind blowing, but you can't actually see the wind.

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You see the dust it carries, you see the boughs of the branches bending, but you don't see the spirit.

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And so it is working in us. He's doing something good in you. He's working in you according to his good pleasure.

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We should never be dissatisfied with how much he's working. There's something else.

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Let's go down to this picture. When I think about our identity in Christ, I guess it's affected only primarily by the text.

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I love the imagery of the bride of Christ. I love that imagery. But now in 1

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Corinthians, I love the imagery of being the body of Christ. Paul started this discussion, and it must have been very revolutionary to their thinking and to their minds in chapter 10 in association with communion.

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We eat the body, drink the blood of Jesus. Jesus is the perfect sacrifice, and then he identifies us as the body.

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And so we see this eating of bread and drinking of the blood, drinking the wine, drinking the cup, our union with Christ, kind of has an elevated sense of importance because we are the body of Christ.

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And so his body is broken. He dies that we might live and be the body.

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Football is on my mind because it's football season. I was thinking about all of the different body parts and how this is such a great image of how the church works and what it looks like.

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I heard a story of a young man a couple of generations ago who was a tremendous football player, fullback.

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And he was big, he was strong, and he was fast. And those three things make you very successful in football if you have them in one person, very successful.

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And he was on his way to go play college football somewhere big. I'm not sure where. One of the big schools of that time, a generation, something like Alabama, USC, Ohio State, one of the premier programs.

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And he took a summer job at a lumber place, and he partly did it so that he would do physical labor during the day to kind of bolster his training.

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He would have to lift heavy things, do stuff during the day, carry stuff. He wanted to do it to make himself stronger in preparation for his future in football.

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And he got into an accident, and he cut off a sizable portion of his big toe.

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And from that day forward, that man was never fast again. He could never run straight.

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He could barely walk. I don't know if you've ever stubbed your toe, but your big toe is really important.

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You don't notice it until something's wrong with it. You can't walk easily without your big toe.

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Feel around, press down on the floor. Oh, yeah, I use that a lot. I'm standing on that thing a lot. And so it is with the body.

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When one member is wounded, it affects all of us. If there's an infection in our body from sin or from trial, the body has to work and get a fever to fight it off.

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And so our interdependence is completely embedded in this text.

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And I think this really shatters our notion of autonomy and Lone Rangerism.

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There is something in us that wants to do it by ourselves. We kind of want to have our own version of Christianity.

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It's just the private, in my case, the Christopher version of Christianity. For you, the Michael version or the

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Samantha version. We want to have our own kind of version of Christianity. And that's not really how it works.

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We are members, the pinky toe, the freckle on the cheek, whatever.

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We're all of those little members of the one body of Christ, of which

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Christ is the head. And it's exciting because that divine and holy

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DNA is written into our cellular level. It's in there in us. It's ingrained in who we are.

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We belong to Christ. We're united to Christ. One body.

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And many members. It says here that there are. There's one spirit in verse 13.

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We were all baptized into one body. Paul uses this language of baptism both here in Romans, in my opinion, not referring to physical water baptism, but the baptism of the spirit that is connected with salvation.

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Most of this groups that he puts together here in verse 13. We are by one spirit baptized into one body, whether we're

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Jews or Greeks. That is the ultimate separation of humanity. The smaller, narrower, little group of Jews and the

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Greeks. You think the racial divide between blacks and whites in America in the 60s was why this divide is bigger.

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The Jews and the Greeks. He says, the Jews and the Greeks, they make up one body.

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What about the economics? Well, the slaves or the free, they make up one body.

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So we have all peoples, all races, all classes, all brought together individually to make up the one body of Christ.

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The only worldview, the only system that can address the issues and evils of racism is biblical

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Christianity. Everything else will fall short. Biblical Christianity says we are all in Adam and we can all be in Christ.

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The Jews slave, the free, the Scythian, all of these different people, male, female, all of the issues.

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Our unity is in Christ and Christ is the answer to those problems of class and peoples and races, socioeconomic divisions.

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Christ, his church is the answer to those problems. We've all been made to drink into one spirit.

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Let's turn to Romans six. Some similar language there really quickly. We get in verse one.

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What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

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Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.

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Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death. The justice

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Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father. Even so, we also should walk in newness of life.

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Now I want to stop here because I think part of what's happening in Corinth is they were excited about the show of their religion and they were less eager to deal with the heart of their religion.

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You see, it's cool to show up at the assembly and have everybody looking at you and say, oh man, what a great prophesier that guy is.

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Oh, look at the wonderful spiritual gifts that lady has. It's another thing to walk in newness of life and the church, the problems of the world, the, the egos of the world and all the things that we see with worldliness, those things drip and leak into the church.

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So we should always be aware of our own tendency to fail in this area. You and I are prone to use holy things and holy giftings for perverse sins to glorify yourself.

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What does the scripture say here? These giftings happen to glorify God and to bless the church to build up the church.

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So we have to be on guard with our hearts. Do you desire to be a big

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Christian to have everybody say, man, that's a great Christian lady. Is that something you aspire to?

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Well, it's fraught with peril. Do you Matt, can you imagine how wretched it would be for us to use our gifts intended for the good of the body and to use them for our own glory?

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Well, it's possible. And I think Paul is sharply rebuking that practice in Corinth.

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The verse six of Romans six, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin for he who has died, has been freed from sin.

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Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead dies no more.

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Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life that he lives, he lives to God.

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Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus, our

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Lord. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey it.

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And it's less as I think about this, I think, what a great lie of Satan to say to the

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Christian, you can't change. This is just the way you are.

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You're a sinner. You can't change this. This is just your problem. You can never address this.

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What an incredible lie from Satan. We have been freed from sin.

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We have been given the Holy Spirit that we might walk in newness in life and that we might be obedient children.

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It's a lie about the gospel and about the power of the spirit and what

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Christ has done for us to say, I have to continue in my sin. It's a total lie.

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It's from the pit of hell. Christ has set us free. We've been freed from those bondages.

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Now we have to labor. We have to pray. We know only the spirit himself can preserve us.

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But the promises here in these letters of Paul, both of the Romans and the Corinthians, we've been given so much in Christ, we have to start acting like it.

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We have to live as though our lives have been changed. The last time you reckoned yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

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What an incredible image there. My sinful life I bury.

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I am dead in my sinful life, but I'm alive in Christ. I'm not letting sin reign in my mortal body that I would obey it in its lust.

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I'm presenting my members as instruments of righteousness, as being alive from the dead, using my members as instruments of God's righteousness.

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Let's go back to our text. First Corinthians 12. So how are you working together for the life and health of the whole?

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We've taught the church for too long that you're come to come here and to be a spectator. That's why the liturgy

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I think is so important. You need to realize that you are an active participant in the corporate worship of God.

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You don't sit there and let professionals do the worshiping for you. The worship is for all the saints from the youngest to the oldest.

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Our praise is all. That's why we sing songs and hymns. We sing corporately.

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You say, why do we listen to that old fashioned music? Well, the reason we sing old fashioned music is it's conducive to corporate singing, not for music groups and soloists.

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It's conducive to corporate worship. That's why everything has this purpose and what we do.

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We're members of one body and every turn we're seeking to manifest that picture in our own lives and to reveal that we are one in Christ.

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That's why the Lord suffers so prominent in our liturgy and our weekly worship.

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It's our union with Christ, our oneness with him, our oneness with each other that's put on display in response to his gospel.

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The question now has to be asked is, do I lose my identity? No, you're still a toenail.

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You're still a freckle. You're still a spleen. You still have your job to do, your peculiar gifts that only you can do for the good of the body.

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That should be exciting to think of. Let's look at number four, starting at verse 15.

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We know that this was happening in Corinth in a couple of different areas and that treatment of the poor brethren at the

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Lord's Supper, the rich were feasting lavishly and excluding the poor people among them.

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Paul warns here against the feelings of inferiority. Have you ever felt inferior as a

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Christian? Is that something that you've ever felt? Do you ever feel like, I don't really measure up to the standards of some of these righteous people?

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Have you ever felt that feeling? Listen to what Paul says. If the foot should say, and I believe this is part of the ambiance of the situation at Corinth, they were esteeming certain of these visual outward manifestations of the spirit.

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They were esteeming those against more ordinary or other giftings in the life of the church.

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In this instance, the desirable thing to be is a hand or 15.

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If the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I am not of the body. Is it therefore not of the body?

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Or if the ear should say, because I am not an eye, I am not of the body. Is it therefore not of the body?

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If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling?

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But now God has set the members, each one of them in the body as he pleased.

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I have an advantage over you every week and that I get to stand up here and I get to look at you and see all of your faces during our time of worship.

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And what's remarkable is how different everyone is, how unique each person is.

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Now in our family, we have a bunch of kids, my wife had a lot of kids, and we have a couple of similar models, kind of favor each other, look like each other.

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But there are very strong similarities. Jacob, Abigail have the teasing gene, they like to tease people mercilessly, brutally.

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There are other people who have different kinds of genes. Savannah and Elijah, if you look at them, they kind of look alike, and they both have no concept of personal space or hugging too hard or affectionately.

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So we have similarities, but Savannah and Elijah are different. Jacob and Abigail are different.

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We are all crafted differently for God's purpose.

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We all have different gifts. And when I look out across the congregation, it's really amazing in this moment to see how different,

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I know your story, I know about you, the different ethnic backgrounds, the different educational backgrounds, the different parts of the country you grew up in.

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It's an amazing thing that God would pull together this goulash of people and make the soup of APC.

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And he's doing that in little churches and big churches all over the world, the nations.

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Do you know that today people are being saved in believing the gospel for the first time?

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People got baptized today, somebody took their first communion today, someone decided they were going to reconcile with their extended family member today.

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Someone's marriage is getting saved today. That happens every day because of what

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Christ has done. This work is never hindered. The Holy Spirit is assuring that all of these things happen and they come to pass, and he's pleased to use us to be cogs in the wheel.

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We are being used to build and advance the kingdom of God. And in this we should rejoice.

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Oh, there's another thing. None of you raised your hand about feeling inferior, but Paul warns against something else.

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He warns against feelings of superiority. Verse 19, if we were all one member, where would the body be?

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But now, indeed, there are many members, yet one body and the eye cannot say to the hand,

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I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet.

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I have no need of you. No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary.

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And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor, that our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, and our presentable parts have no need, but God composed the body, having given greater honor to the part which lacks it.

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Have you ever, I remember, we were about to go on summer vacation, and Jacob broke his arm really bad, shattered his arm in a bunch of pieces.

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And he had surgery, and then about a week later or so, we went on vacation. And I saw that goofball out trying to pick football with a broken arm, and he cast his nine pins and screws and plates in his arm.

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And it was crazy, but he wasn't the same man. He wasn't the same teenager.

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His arm being broken hindered his ability to play football.

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So I want you to be really careful with each other, because you think, well, I don't really like that person, and I don't really get along with them, you might say, or I don't really like that person's doctrine in this area.

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We can be quick to dispose of them. Well, guess what? You're going to find out very quickly that you really needed that appendix that you tried to throw away and dispose of.

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God had a purpose for that that's keeping you alive. Isn't that interesting?

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Or we're quick to say, well, we don't really need that person, we don't need that person. These are the most important gifts, or these are the most important things.

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Well, I really worried, I wondered, what's our church going to be like with Fred Dupre dead?

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What's the church going to be like without Margaret Dupre around? Because of their importance to the body.

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God has each of us serving in some capacity. Is there some part of your body that you'd like to give up today?

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How about your tongue? Let's get rid of the tongue. You don't need it that much. You're going to have a problem if you don't have a tongue.

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Eating is going to be very difficult. There will be no more speaking. So Paul is saying effectively, you guys are dealing really harshly with each other.

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You're dealing treacherously with one another because you're not esteeming the giftings of each other's body, of the members and their service to the body.

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You're valuing and prizing one thing over another. In Reformed churches, we esteem wisdom and knowledge about everything, probably.

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But what about the service? What would the church be like without service and hospitality and mercy and helps?

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People who have great faith and believe. There are people who pray for this church regularly.

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There are people in other churches in our denomination who lift up this ministry, this church daily out there.

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They're building us up. We don't even know it. They're praying that the Lord would be with us and bless our work.

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So we have to be very careful. That leads us into our last point. You can never say,

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I have no need of you, because some of these weaker members or some of these other parts of the body in this analogy are essential to our survival.

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Second half of verse 24, but God composed the body, having given greater honor to that 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.

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Later in the application, I'm going to ask you to look at yourself and to look at your thoughts, your actions, your words, and ask, is there any schismatic in you?

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Is there anything in you that is divisive to the mission, the peace and unity of the body?

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If there is, I'm going to ask you to repent. Not for me, not for us, but for Christ's sake.

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Could you imagine the right arm at war with the rest of the body?

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My Uncle Tim, when I was little, used to grab me, and he would grab my arm, and he'd hold me down, and he'd grab my fist, and he'd have me punch myself in the face.

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And it was involuntary, because he was stronger than me. But if I started punching myself in the face up here, you'd say, the guy's lost it.

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It's just counter -intuitive. It goes against everything that we think of. But how quick are we to wage war with a number of members of the body of Christ?

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It's pure insanity. There should be no division in the body.

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You have some strong convictions, you have some theological differences, you have this, you have that.

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So what? Get over yourself. Who cares? Let's think about Christ first.

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Let's think about His people first. Let's set our interests aside. Finally, we should remember that if any member suffers, all the members suffer with it.

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I think we like to keep each other at arm's length. We like to be detached from one another, but we should be filled with empathy, that we have a brother who's having health challenges.

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We need to empathize with him. We have a family who's going through something very hard, looking at a divorce.

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We should feel the empathy and be moved with compassion for them. If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.

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I wonder if we're like the world, and we see someone suffering and say, better him than me. Well, if we're part of the body of Christ, we learn that our connection to that other brother is so significant that if he suffers, we also suffer with him.

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But also, if one member is honored, if one is having things go well, if one has cause for rejoicing, we rejoice with them.

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Or are we just like the world, when someone has something good going, do we just envy them, despise them, because God seems to be blessing them in some way.

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Paul is very desirous that the church at Corinth would use the gifts of the

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Spirit to build each other up and to not tear each other down. So the question we have to ask is, how can we do that?

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How can we use our giftings to build up the body of Christ? And I've got a few for you, and this will be our closing.

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First, there has to be a fundamental appreciation of the

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Spirit's work in gifting the members for the blessing and edification of the body and the propagation of the gospel.

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We are more excited about a boxing fight and a football game than we are about the

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Spirit at work in us. Everything else excites us and tantalizes us, but nothing about Christ does.

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It's a reflection of our cold hearts. O Holy Spirit, the light of fire in our cold, dead hearts, that we might live as those who are alive in Christ.

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We need to appreciate that the Holy Spirit is at work in us. Second, we need to be at peace.

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This is a tranquility of spirit in the individual Christian and family. The Lord is building

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His church, and as I mentioned this morning, His plans are running on schedule.

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I don't like the timing. I want it to go faster. His trains run on time.

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His planes always get to their destination. Number three, there are no inferior members, and there are no superior members, and we should act accordingly.

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If you're looking down your nose at another Christian, you're in violation of His principle.

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If you're looking at your own gifts and saying, I'm not as good as somebody else, you're violating this biblical principle.

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Number four, I think it's very important today that you and I fight our tendency towards schism, and instead be very diligent and delighted and excited to promote the health and unity of the body.

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You need to fight your tendency towards schism. You know, we think about this in the church level.

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This has very practical implications in the life of parents in their relation to children.

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Children, don't be a source of contention in your home. Don't disobey your parents.

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Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Husbands and wives, don't light your marriage on fire.

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Don't drop bombs on each other. Fight this tendency toward division and schism, and promote the health and unity of the body.

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Finally, this overarching principle is, love the brethren, bear their burdens, rejoice in their victories, comfort them in their defeats.

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I think almost we should laugh with joy and be delighted that God has chosen us to do his will and the power of his spirit.

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We should get a kick out of that. He would use me and this grand plan he has for this world.

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Can you believe that he would use you and use me, people like us, to build his kingdom?

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Let's pray together. O Lord, we recognize that your

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Holy Spirit is at work, and that you, Holy Spirit, are distributing these giftings and these talents and these abilities and these areas of service for the building up of your church.

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Lord, I pray that we would be very eager to participate in this work, that we would individually cultivate our gifts and our talents for you, and that we would employ them and put them into service in the body.

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But Lord, there's a tendency in us to esteem one gift to be above another, to maybe feel like we're inferior in some way to other

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Christians. But it's impossible if we're members of the one body that we could be inferior to one another.

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There's also a tendency in us, because of our great idolatry, to always be selfish and prideful.

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Lord, sometimes we think our type of gifting is better than another because we're so haughty in spirit.

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Lord, I pray that you would put that to death in us. Lord, I also pray that every day we would seek to build up our wife or our husband or children, that when we come to church on Sunday, when we meet with each other at other meetings, that we would be eager not to drain on each other, not to pull each other down, but to build each other up.

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Lord, I'm so thankful for this beautiful picture of something we can understand, the eye and the hand work together, and the ear, the brain, they work together.

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Lord, I pray that we would have that same spirit seeing the folly of our ways by being divided with one another.

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I pray that there would be a greater peace and unity and catholicity of experience among us as a result.