WWUTT 1593 An Individual Member of the Body (1 Corinthians 12:26-31)

You are an individual member of the body of Christ, and there will be things that are unique to your faith, even giftings that the

Spirit gives to you that He will not give to another person. But we use these things for the benefit of the body when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying God's Word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study in the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 12, picking up where we left off yesterday.

But to keep things in context, I'm going to start in verse 22 and go through verse 31 out of the

Legacy Standard Bible, the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. On the contrary, how much more is it that the members of the body, which seem to be weaker, are necessary, and those members of the body which we think as 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 such need?

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.

Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers?

Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak in tongues?

Do all translate? But you earnestly desire the greater gifts, and I will show you a more excellent way.

So picking up where we left off yesterday would put us at verse 26. If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.

And if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. That verse really would have fit more with what we were looking at yesterday, because 27 begins kind of the conclusion of chapter 12.

But remember the closing verse from yesterday's lesson, verse 25, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.

It is God who has composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member that lacked so that there's no division, so that we're unified.

It's not dependent upon us to create the unity. The unity is already there.

It's been blood bought by Christ who died on the cross for our sins, his atoning sacrifice, his blood which covers every one of his followers, all who believe in Jesus Christ.

We are unified by that. So the unity in the body of Christ, the unity of his church was bought by Christ with his death on the cross.

Unity is God -given. It is not man -attained, okay? We don't then come together as the church and then start working to acquire unity.

The unity has already been bought, so we must walk in it. Now that doesn't mean there won't be division in the church.

There will be occasions when the passions of our flesh, man -made philosophies, whatever it might be, will get the better of us, and these things will cause divisions.

But what I hope happens is when these things are confronted, if the Holy Spirit of God is dwelling within this people, conviction will take place and we'll turn from those things that divide us and once again be reunited in the thing that brings us together, and that is faith in Jesus Christ.

So God is the one who has composed the body. He's the one that has brought us together. Going back to 1

Corinthians 1, verse 30, it is God's doing that you are in Christ Jesus.

That was stated from the very first chapter. God is the one who has brought us together in the body of Christ.

God is the one who unifies us. So even though our flesh may get the better of us sometimes and there's going to be quarrels and fighting and things that will divide us, we're a family.

These kinds of things happen in families sometimes. But may we not abandon one another.

May we desire in the spirit of unity to reconcile these things, to forgive, to have a spirit of grace toward one another, not thinking the worst of each other.

As Paul said in Colossians 3, if someone has wronged you, forgive, as God has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.

So we work together to be together, that there be no division in the body. We are members who have the same care for one another.

There's not one person that gets more care than another person. We have the same care for each other, the care that God has shown us through his

Son, Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit that fills our hearts. So we have this statement in verse 26, and if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.

If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Because again, we're talking about a body here, right?

The church is the body of Christ. What happens to your body if you injure a part of yourself?

You injure your arm, you break your arm, your arm's in a cast, right? Is it only your arm that's suffering?

Like none of the rest of your body, you don't have any other problems, you can just close off the suffering that you feel in your arm.

I'm just gonna ignore it, I'm not gonna pay any attention to it, boom, there we go. Now I can rejoice in the fact that the rest of my body feels fine.

No, when you feel pain, you feel it everywhere. I'm a miserable wretch today because I have a toothache.

You have a pain in your tooth, it's gonna affect the rest of your day.

You have a headache, it's not that the rest of your body can function when you have this headache, it's debilitating.

You have trouble concentrating, you have trouble doing anything else with your body when you have a headache. You stub a toe, you're not thinking about anything else right now except the fact that I just found this piece of furniture with my toes.

That's what God made toes for, for finding furniture in the dark. So when one part of the body suffers, all the rest of the body suffers with it.

And so it is with the body of Christ, so it is with the church. When one member is struggling, when one is suffering, we suffer with that person who is suffering, right?

But when one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Pay attention to this because this is still under the banner of having just said there's no division in the body, but that the members have the same care for one another.

So oftentimes we see this statement and we think, you know, caring for one another. That means that the person who's suffering, the person who's struggling, the person who lacks or the one who needs, that's who it is that we need to care for.

But what is said about this care, it's not just in suffering, but it's even in rejoicing.

If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. There's care there too, right?

I care about what this person has received or what has happened to them that has filled their lives up with joy.

What is this joy that we can all share in together? And so when one person rejoices, all the rest of the body can rejoice with it.

Now notice here that these two things are not in contradiction to one another. Still in verse 26 here.

If one suffers, all the members suffer with it. If one is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

You can still be honored in suffering. You can still rejoice even when you are mourning.

And in fact, we should. You look at the book of Lamentations, all kinds of mourning in Lamentations, right?

I mean, the name of the book is literally Lament. And yet, right at the heart of Lamentations, there is rejoicing in God.

Great is your faithfulness. Your mercies are new every morning. So just as you suffer and just as you mourn, you can also rejoice.

Therefore, we have these two things here in verse 26, and this is not in contradiction to one another, as if we either have to be mourning or we have to be rejoicing.

No, if somebody is suffering, we care for that person as they need to be cared for. If somebody is rejoicing, we attend to that person also as they need to be rejoiced with.

So we all celebrate these things together. And especially as it pertains to the church, you may have sort of a situation here where a person is suffering, they're struggling because they were persecuted, because they were ridiculed.

Maybe somebody in their family cut them off because of the Christ that they worship and who they honor.

Maybe somebody in their family has come to Christ, and so now that person is rejoicing.

And so we rejoice together. You know, these statements as they pertain to the church, especially when you look at them like in Romans chapter 12 or here in 1

Corinthians 12, where it says to weep with those who weep, rejoice with those who rejoice. These statements in the church may apply to evangelism, and I would say especially it applies to evangelism.

So a person goes out and preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ, if they are ostracized for that, they know they can come back to the church where they're receiving care and encouragement and building up.

The world is going to come against us, no matter what it is that we're experiencing in the world. We know that we can come to the church and the church is a safe haven.

It's a harbor. It's where the love of Christ is practiced and displayed and showed toward one another.

And then you also have a situation where somebody in evangelism goes out with a message of the gospel and somebody comes to faith in the gospel of Christ.

Well, then we're all rejoicing together in knowing that this work was done by a member within our body, and somebody came to faith in Christ.

Therefore the sower is receiving even what the harvester received, right?

The one who sowed the seed, the one who harvests the plants, both receive the same reward as Jesus said.

Therefore we have this applied in that way. We suffer with those who suffer. We rejoice with those who rejoice.

Now that's the conclusion of Paul's distinctions regarding the parts of the body of Christ.

With this conclusion that we have here in verses 27 to 31, it's kind of summarizing everything that we've read in 1

Corinthians thus far, or 1 Corinthians 12, especially going back to the beginning of the chapter where Paul had specified some of these spiritual gifts, varieties of workings, varieties of gifts.

You've got the wisdom through the spirit. You've got faith. You've got gifts of healing.

You've got miracles. You've got prophecy. You've got speaking in tongues. So Paul comes back to that again here in verse 27.

Now you are Christ's body and you are individually members of it. Paul does not neglect the individualness or the individual nature of the fact that we're part of the body of Christ.

So again, and I've mentioned this as we've been going through 1 Corinthians 12, this is not about groupthink, that we're all thinking exactly the same thing, we're all doing exactly the same stuff.

You are an individual in the body of Christ. You have individual giftings. You as an individual turn from your sin that you committed yourself.

Nobody else caused you to do that. Nobody made you rebel against God. It's on you.

You turn from your sin to Jesus Christ and now you live. But now you're part of the body, right?

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you're a member of his body. If you're not part of his body, then you're not attached to the head who is

Christ and therefore you may not really be of Christ. So when we come to faith in Jesus Christ, we must be part of a church, a local church that is demonstrating repentance and faith and even these workings of the

Holy Spirit within a person's life. If you can identify the fruit of the Spirit in a person who is a follower of Christ because all followers of Christ have the

Holy Spirit dwelling within them, we have different giftings but we're all members of the same body filled with the same

Spirit. You are Christ's body individually, members of it. One body, individual members, one body in Christ.

Verse 28, 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.

So we talked about this a little bit when I had read from Ephesians 4. Was that this week or was it last week?

I forget that now. But Ephesians 4, 11 and 12 where God has given prophets and apostles, evangelists, shepherds and teachers, if you read from the legacy standard version, it actually uses the word pastors because that's what pastor means.

It means shepherds. So God has appointed even the pastors and the teachers to prepare the saints for the work of ministry.

And Paul comes into that same list here in 1 Corinthians 12, 28. God has appointed in the church first apostles.

Now there will not be any new apostles. Anybody today who is claiming to be an apostle of Jesus Christ is lying to you.

If they're talking about apostle in the New Testament sense of apostle, not in the sense of one being sent, because that's what the word means, it means sent one.

So if a person calls themselves an apostle, like they would refer to a missionary, well, that's a different use of the word.

They probably shouldn't be using the word apostle because that becomes confusing. They can just say they're an evangelist or a missionary.

But an apostle in the New Testament sense is one who has seen the risen

Christ, has personally been appointed by Christ to carry a word that comes from God, and they will perform signs affirming their apostleship.

There will be miraculous signs on the part of this person who says that they're an apostle.

So whenever I've encountered somebody who claims to be an apostle, I'll say to them, well, raise the dead and prove it.

If you claim to be an apostle of Christ, then you should be able to do the miraculous things that the apostles in the

New Testament did. The astonishing thing about today's modern apostles is that they will claim to be superior to the

New Testament apostles. I think of guys like Mike Bickle at the International House of Prayer, Bill Johnson, Todd White, anybody that's associated with that New Apostolic Reformation group of apostles,

Bethel Church and their associations, Bethel Church in Redding, California. These guys who claim to be apostles, they think that they're better apostles than the apostles of the

New Testament. Mike Bickle even said the apostles of the New Testament will be lining up in heaven to shake the hands with the apostles of today.

My friends, there are no apostles today. The last apostle was John, who died at the end of the first century.

The apostolic age came to an end there. There is no new apostles and therefore no signs of the of apostleship that are being performed today.

Therefore, you cannot expect to see a person who is a faith healer actually healing. You cannot expect to see a person who claims to be a prophet actually prophesying things that will truly come to pass with a 100 % flawless record,

I might add, because God gave no room for this in the book of Deuteronomy.

When he said to the children of Israel, if anybody comes to you with a prophecy, it better come true because if it's not, if it doesn't, then they're not of God and they're to be put to death.

That was the penalty for a false prophet in Israel and there's really no difference today either.

It's not that we're taking false prophets out to the parking lot and stoning them. Although if that were a practice in the church, we'd see a whole lot fewer people claiming to be prophets, but the wages of sin is still death and a person who is a false teacher that continues to speak for God, a word that God did not give to them, they will stand before God and judgment.

So may this person repent and truly fear the word of the Lord, tremble at his word as it says in Isaiah 66, two, and the word of God is in the

Bible. We don't need any additional word. Christ's word is sufficient.

As J .I. Packer has said, if you have anybody that comes with a new revelation, if it agrees with the

Bible, it's needless and if it contradicts the Bible, then it's wrong. So we don't need any new revelation.

We have the prophetic word more fully confirmed as Peter said in second Peter chapter one.

So God has appointed the apostles. The apostles are the ones who gave us the New Testament. We have it right here.

There's no need for any new apostles. By the way, Paul will say later on here in first Corinthians 15, eight that he was the last apostle appointed.

Yeah, I mentioned John was the last apostle. He was the last apostle who died. Paul was the last apostle appointed.

So there would be no one appointed, no one else appointed to the office of apostleship after the apostle

Paul. First Corinthians 15, eight, we'll talk about that a little bit more when we get there, when we get to first Corinthians 15.

So God has appointed in the church apostles, second prophets. Now these are men even in a

New Testament era who spoke things that affirmed what it was that the apostles preached.

And again, there won't be prophetic ministry to get today, except in the sense that a pastor is a prophet who is prophesying the word of God, right?

He's even speaking of things that have yet to happen. When you talk about the return of Christ and the judgment that is to come and the things that a pastor says when he speaks prophetically.

And once again, when I'm saying that I'm using the term loosely here, not talking about a prophet in the sense of revealing new things, but a prophet in the sense of one who prophesies.

He prophesies the word of the Lord because he is speaking the Bible, right? When a pastor prophesies, those things that are being fulfilled are coming to fruition in the lives of believers who are being sanctified just as the scripture says that they will.

So those things are prophetically coming to pass. As we proclaim the word of the Lord from the

Bible, not new revelations, but that revelation that has been given to us, the Bible, when we proclaim those things, the people who hear the word of God grow in sanctification.

You cannot be sanctified any other way, but by the word of God. As it says in Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

So even growing in sanctification is by the word of Christ. We are sanctified by his word, John 17, 17.

So the growth that happens in the body of Christ is a prophetic fulfillment of that which is said in the

Bible would take place when God's word is proclaimed, hearts would be changed. People would grow in holiness.

They would be producing godliness. So that is essential. That is needed in a church.

Godliness will not happen in a church without the proclamation of the word of God that we have in the

Bible, the teaching of this word. So then we have the next, that next appointment of God is teachers.

You have first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, gifts of healings, helps administrations, various kinds of tongues.

We've talked about those things earlier in at the start of first Corinthians 12. We'll talk about them some more even when we get through chapters 13 and 14.

But once again, though, there may be miraculous observances today or gifts of healings or, you know, anyway, a miraculous healing, right?

There may be something miraculous that is done, some kind of healing that you see accomplished.

Those things are very, very rare, which is why they're miracles. If they were common, they wouldn't be miraculous.

There are not people who have those giftings in the sense that they can do them whenever they want.

So be very, very aware or beware rather of those persons who claim to be faith healers, who claim to be prophets.

You will find from them all kinds of things that aren't healings and are not prophecies.

And as I've said before about lists of spiritual gifts, even here in first Corinthians 1228, these gifts or these lists rather are not exhaustive in the sense that it's giving every single way that you will be gifted by the

Holy Spirit. This list does not include the fruit of the spirit. This list has things in it that you don't find in Romans 12 or in Ephesians 4.

So if these lists were exhaustive, they would all be exactly alike and they're not.

So there are different ways that the spirit is going to gift somebody that may not be explicitly stated in these listings of spiritual gifts.

There's a lot of things that could fall under helps and administrations. Just as we talked earlier about different things pertaining to a gift of wisdom, a word of wisdom through the spirit, that was verse eight, and a word of knowledge, according to the same spirit, different ways that that could be applied, that a person could be gifted in such a way.

It may be a pastor or it may be somebody who's just simply mature in their understanding of what the word of God says.

Verse 29, are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers, are all workers of miracles? These are rhetorical questions and the answers to all of them are most definitely no.

Not everybody is going to be an apostle or a worker of miracles. Verse 30, do all have gifts of healings?

Do all speak in tongues? Do all translate? There's those Pentecostal denominations out there.

Well, really, they're probably closer to cults, most of them. They're false teachings, so can't really call them a denomination, but they say that you have to prove that you have the

Holy Spirit by speaking in tongues. Well, Paul would absolutely speak against that here in 1

Corinthians 12, 30, do all speak in tongues? No, they still have the Holy Spirit. They have not spoken in tongues.

It does not mean that they do not have the Holy Spirit. So beware of those false teachers that are proclaiming such a thing.

To demonstrate that you have the Holy Spirit, you have to speak in tongues. That's not anywhere in the Bible. Verse 31,

Paul says, but you earnestly desire the greater gifts and I will show you a more excellent way.

And then we have the love chapter, which we'll start on Monday of next week, God willing.

Heavenly Father, thank you for what we've read in 1 Corinthians 12 and may we know how these things rightly apply to us in the body, in the present today.

Whatever gifting that we've been given by the Holy Spirit, may we use it humbly to serve the church, to build one another up in love as the other members of the body are building us up in love, that we may be mature in Christ Jesus.

And it's in his precious name that we pray, amen. You can find a complete list of videos, books, devotionals, and other resources online at www .tt