Many Members, One Body - [1 Corinthians 12;12-27]

Well, I would ask you if you would please turn back to the text that I read this morning out of 1

Corinthians chapter 12 with a hope to bring a message that will encourage the church, encourage the believers that are here.

To introduce this, I'd like to just kind of use, if I could, an earthly illustration. In 1914, when the

World War I was just about to break out, Ernest Shackleton, an explorer from Great Britain, desired to be on a team and get an expedition together to go across the

Antarctic. And he supposedly put an article in the paper, an ad in the paper, for those to join him.

And this is the ad. You might have heard this before from this pulpit, but it fits in well here this morning.

Here's the ad that was published. Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success,

Sir Ernest Shackleton. He had a whole horde of people come to interview, to be able to go on his expedition.

They knew of him, and they wanted to do this. It was a striving at that time for new adventure, for North Pole, for South Pole, for Africa.

And a lot of men came, and Ernest Shackleton had a unique ability to be able to interview and to be able to read people, to be able to size them up, to know who or who should not go on his expedition.

And he altogether had about 27 men. And I can't get into the story, but if you've never read the story of Ernest Shackleton and the

Endurance, the ship, they left from South America to go across the Weddell Sea to be able to get to one side of the

Arctic to be able to go across and be the first team to go across. Their ship, the Endurance, got stuck in the ice, eventually got crushed by the pack.

They had to take all of their articles off of that and go across the floating ice pack to try to get to land.

They did eventually get to land, but they were far away from where they could be rescued from.

And about five of them got in a boat that was about less than 20 feet long to go hundreds of mile across the sea with just a sextant that they had, skies covered with the clouds, and 22 men were left behind on that island to be able to just stay there, hoping.

And Ernest Shackleton said he would come back. But in all of the expedition,

God was merciful and God helped them in so many ways. As you read the book, we see it as Christians. We see what

God was doing. But after 22 months of them going where they had gone and floating on the ice packs and the ship going and hitting an island 600 miles away or so, it was hundreds of miles, and it was only 25 miles wide, and they hit that, and then eventually

Shackleton comes back with a boat to rescue them. After 22 months of this ordeal since they started, not one person lost their life.

It's an amazing story. You should read it. It's just an encouraging story just to see.

And I just see the hand of God in it all, how merciful he is, even when those people aren't even looking for it.

But the illustration that I'm using this morning is Shackleton chose these people. He knew about these people.

He put them together in his team, and they worked together, and they all fit together, and they all had their role and function, the carpenters, the doctors, the photographers, the seamen.

And they were all safe at the end, and they were all preserved. And I want to share with you something out of 1

Corinthians chapter 12. There's something that God has done. God has put together the people of God.

When it comes to a local New Testament church, this is something that the Lord has purposed to do. And if it's something our

God has purposed to do and something that is important to him, it ought to be important to us.

And I believe that we ought to learn of it, and we ought to be satisfied with the choices that God makes when he brings

God's people together. You will notice in this text in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, we'll see the hand of God in this.

When it comes to the choosing of the people and their roles and their spiritual gifts, in verse 6, it says that this was worked out by this

God which works all in all. Notice in verse 8, it says that God gives these gifts, and it's by the same spirit at the end of verse 8.

And in verse 9, continuing of the gifts, it says that these are given by that same spirit.

In verse 11, it says, And notice in verse 18,

This is something that God is doing. Jesus Christ is building his church, and here we see it visibly represented by those members of the family of God that God has purposed to bring to this place called

Bethlehem Bible Church. This is something that he's pleased to do. You see, it's not our working, but it's something that God is doing, it says in this verse.

And it's according, as it says in verse 11, notice where it says there, But these things work at that self, one and self, same spirit, dividing to every man severally as he wills.

It's according to the will of God. It's according to the purpose of God. It's according to the plan of God that he has brought us together.

This work of God should not be taken lightly. It is a blessed privilege to be a part of God's handiwork.

Our physical bodies, if we think about them, I just cut myself this past week.

I cut myself and it was pretty deep and my finger began to turn all red in that area.

And then the white cells went to that area also. I mean, we are, as the psalm says, fearfully and wonderfully made.

I mean, the way the inner workings of the body is marvelous and it's wonderful and it's

God's doing. And the physical body has many members, yet it is only one body.

And it is an amazing thing when we think about how wonderfully we have made.

And I've wondered if we've ever thought about how wonderful and special and unique and unbelievable it is to be a church of the living

God. Notice in verse 12, for as the body is one and has many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is

Christ. When it comes to the body, when it comes to when it comes to what

God has done physically, he's made one body that is made up of many parts, many members. And when it comes to the church, it's one body of which he is the head and there are many members in that body.

And I wonder how we respond to this truth. Are we grateful for this?

And I believe we will show how much we understand what God is doing and that we understand how important the local

New Testament church is to God by the way that we respond to this glorious truth.

It is so important for us because if we neglect the church as a vital part of our lives, then we show we don't understand the magnitude of this special and blessed work of the

Lord. Now, I said first that it is God that puts us together. It is, it is

God orchestrating all things. We just sang a song. Our God reigns. He reigns in the world.

He reigns in creation. He reigns in governments when he raises up leaders and he takes leaders down. He reigns in creation when it comes to the snow and the rain and the, and the heat and the cold.

But he, he also reigns when it comes to his church. He is the head of his church and he doesn't make any mistakes.

And what he does is he brings us together into a body. God intends for each assembly, for each church to be unified, many members, but one body.

And, uh, for the person who's taken the, who's doing the tape ministry, that's the name of the text here.

Many members, one body. First Corinthians chapter 12. Sometimes it's not in the bulletin. Sometimes I don't give that, but it's many members.

One body is the message. First Corinthians chapter 12 verses 12 through 27.

The Lord puts us together and we are to come together.

They're meeting as one worshiping as one speaking as one.

We noticed in the beginning of the history of the church, in the book of Acts, we noticed that when they're praying together, they're praying in one accord.

They've got one mind. They're striving for the, for the gospel to be proclaimed, serving

Christ. And they're doing it together, worshiping, laboring as one, functioning as one and living as one in one accord with one mind under one

Lord and savior, the head of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we get this idea in the scripture that it's very important to be as one because we even see the apostle

Paul in the book of Ephesians chapter four, where he says, strive for the unity. Make sure that you wrestle, make sure that you give every effort that you stay together.

And at the beginning of this book, the opening of Corinthians, the book of Corinthians, one of the problems that they had was, is that there were these little clicks.

There were these divisions. I am of Paul. I am of Cephas. I am of Apollos. I am of Christ, but they were to be all one.

They were all to be together and unified. And it is such a privilege and is such a precious thing for God to bring us together.

And as we come together, one of the things that we've got to recognize firstly is, is that every member needs each other member.

We need each other. We need each other to exist. Firstly, if you think about it, a member all by itself is not a body.

Now, I can't just take a finger and stick it on the ground and look at it and say that is a body. No. When the fingers and hands and feet and legs and organs and head are all together, all those pieces together, they make one body to exist.

And physically, if there are no members, there is no body. And spiritually speaking, and it also is physically when it comes to the

New Testament church, if there are no members, there is no body. It must be so.

We must purpose to be together. We must purpose to be BBC. We have committed one to another and covenant together that we would look out for each other and care for each other.

And as we heard in Sunday school this morning, to love each other, to bear one another's burdens. But, but just initially thinking there is no

BBC if there are no members, if we don't purpose to do so. And this is something that is vital and it is important.

The dictionary, I just looked it up, it says, this is a definition of a body, the whole physical structure and substance of a man.

And notice with me in verse 19 what the apostle Paul says. I've already touched on this. He says, and if there, and if, if they were all one member, then we're with a body.

See, it's this, this difference. There's these different pieces. There's these different members for us to become a body.

If we were all a finger or if we were all an ear, or if we were all a foot, then it would not be a body.

And we'll touch on that in a little while. Separated from each other, we are scattered pieces of the whole.

And a member by itself is dead. There is no, I mean, physically speaking, if the, if a part of the body is, is removed from the body, there is no life flowing through the blood and through the vessels.

No, to, to give life from the, from the, an oxygen from the red blood cells, it just is not going to happen.

And if we are separated from each other, then we suffer also.

A member by itself is, is, um, is as an, or if a person tries to be like an island unto themselves and be separated from the body, that is not how

God intended for it to be. But when we come together, when we join together and purpose to be together, we gather as, uh, as it were,

Peter called it, we are living stones gathered together, living, breathing a spiritual body together.

But if we isolate ourselves, we do not understand what God is doing because we need each other to be a local body, but not only just to be a body, we need each other.

Secondly, to function or to accomplish the things that God has purposed for us to accomplish, just like the different parts of our physical bodies need each other.

We, as God's people in the body need each other. Also, each part of the body is necessary.

Notice what it says in verse 21, the eye cannot say unto the hand,

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

Those members of the body, which seemed to be more feeble are necessary. Each part of the body has its own place and each part of the body is necessary.

It has its own shape. It has its own role. It has its own function to perform.

Now notice back up in 21 and in verse B, B, uh, the second part of the verse, it says the head cannot say of the feet,

I have no need of you. Just think of our bodies. Just kind of illustrate this for a moment. Suppose the body wants to get someplace.

The brain wants to engage and say, I would like to go across the room. The brain sends a signal down the spinal cord through the nervous system to the muscular system to tell the legs how and when to move and where to go and how much to move.

The brain cannot walk without the legs and the legs cannot move without the brain.

The first part of that verse 21, the eye cannot say into the hand, I have no need of you.

If we are going through our lives, another illustration. And, uh, do you ever get those times when you've got something in your eye and it's, and it's one of those little eyelashes, it's stuck in there and it's bugging you and your eyes turning red.

Well, the eye needs the hand, does it not to get it out? And the hand needs the eye to be able to see it.

If you're looking like in the mirror to be able to, to get the job done necessary, vital to each other, dependent upon each other in our physical body, each piece needs the other.

And in the church of the living God, brethren, God has done something special to bring us together because we function together in a way where we are dependent upon each other.

We need each other. The older and more mature brothers and sisters in Christ need the younger, the weak need the strong, the timid need the bold, the leaders need the followers and vice versa.

The brother with great faith needs the sister with the gift of helps to carry out his vision.

The deacon needs the teacher. The ruling elder needs the ministering deacon. The pastor needs faithful church members in the pew.

Now I'm just going to stop. I'm going to go aside and I'm going to do something dangerous and go off my notes a little bit because I'll probably hit it again later.

But just in case I forget or somebody has to leave, I want you to get this point. There are a couple of issues that Paul is dealing with in this text.

And the first issue is I'm in this body, but I don't need you. That's a bad attitude.

That's a sinful attitude. That's a disobedient attitude. I'm in this body, but I don't need you.

I can handle it myself. I can do it myself. And that's basically what we just read in those couple of verses.

The eye can't say it doesn't need the hand and the head can't say that it doesn't that it doesn't need the other member of the body.

And some people will be like that. They will say, I don't need you. That's a horrible place to be in because we set ourselves up as an authority and we put ourselves in a place where we think we have it over on God as far as we know how he has meant for it to happen.

The second attitude that is wrong is here I am in this body, but I just don't seem to fit in.

I just don't seem to have anything to do. I just don't seem profitable. I don't seem like like like I'm helping out at all.

Let me give you a tip here to help you out. One of the things that you can do in a church as a church member to be profitable.

To to have a role is to be a faithful member in the pew or a faithful member in the chair here, so to speak, to come when the doors are open.

Here's another aside. I'm going way off. Hope I can get back the last two

Sunday nights. If you weren't here, you missed a tremendous blessing.

Two men preached messages that were life changing. If you haven't been here, I if you weren't get the tape, you must get write it down.

Yes, you're getting a piece of paper and a note pencil. Write it down. Get the tape. They were excellent messages.

And it's almost like you when you came on Sunday morning, but you didn't come on Sunday night. You only got half of what

God intended for us to get because God moved upon this church and moved upon the leadership of the church that we would purpose to gather together

Sunday morning and Sunday evening. And the door is open and you must come, brethren. You must come to hear what

God has to say. Another brother is going to preach tonight. Please take and whatever it is that you had for a plan and set it aside.

You might think it's more important, but come, please, and listen to what God has through somebody who has been giving themselves to the study of the word of God and utilizing their spiritual gift in this body, utilizing the gift tonight.

Get them teaching the word of God, helping, desiring to be of benefit and profit to somebody else.

Come and be faithful. Be a faithful member in the pew when the doors are open. Be here. Come and sing.

Come and do your part. You might think I don't know how to do anything. I'll bet you could stand at that door over there and open the door when somebody come in and say hello.

I'll bet you could do that. I'll bet when it's raining out, you could go out and hold an umbrella for somebody to get from their car in.

Maybe it's just you could find something to do. It doesn't. Some folks think, you know what, I'm going to I'm going to have to study.

And I'm going to have to really know doctrine in and out, and it's going to take me years.

And then one day I'll serve the Lord over here. I share we're sharing this with a brother this week. Now, if you have a desire to serve, to teach, to help, to give whatever it might be, don't be looking someplace down the road to where I'm going to be prepared to do that and serve the

Lord there. Start right here, serving the Lord with what you know. God has saved you.

God has given you truth. God has implanted truth in your heart. You've experienced things that God has enabled you to overcome as far as sin in your life, or you've learned some special things about marriage or children or whatever it might be on the job, wherever you are, whatever it is that God has worked in your life, impart that truth to somebody else and do it now, not waiting to serve the

Lord, being a faithful church member in the pew. We need each other. In Paul's day, you see that there was a there was a misappropriation and a misuse of these spiritual gifts.

And that's where basically this chapter starts off. I shared this in Sunday school, verse one now concerning spiritual gifts.

And Paul deals with spiritual gifts in the Corinthian church and the problems that they had of favoring others more than some other having an overemphasis on certain spiritual gifts, maybe looking down upon someone else because because your gift was better or more important or more prominent in the church, taking doing them out of order, not doing them properly.

That's Corinthians. First Corinthians chapter 14. Excuse me. And Paul said, you know what?

When it comes to the most important gift, when it comes to the most important focus in the church at the end of chapter 12, he says,

I'm going to show you a more excellent way. And he goes into chapter 13, which is the love chapter in the

Bible. And he says, no matter what you do, I don't care what it is, what spiritual gift you have. You have the outward, more showy spiritual gifts like tongues of discernment or faith.

You can move mountains. You give your body to be burned, but you do not have love. You're nothing. And it doesn't profit anybody.

The whole idea of the functioning and the gathering together of God's people is that we profit one another.

We benefit one another. And God has put us together, functioning in the church so that we would be able to iron, sharpen iron.

And so a man, the countenance of his friend to bear one another's burdens, as I said in Sunday school, to in love, look for a way that we can meet the needs of others and not just be selfish and not just look at ourselves and gratify ourselves and come in these doors and go out these doors.

Maybe we're saying I didn't get anything out of that message this morning. And maybe we didn't get anything out of that message this morning because our thinking is so self -focused, our thinking is such is in ways that we're trying to lift up ourselves where we're almost like when we were kids.

I don't know if any of you ever played King of the Hill. You try to get on top of everybody else and push everybody else down where it ought to be.

Our idea is, is we we should be playing that game by pushing other people up the hill so that they are helped.

They are edified. They are built up in the faith. We meet their needs. We show that we love them by sacrificing for them, esteeming other better than ourselves.

Paul said of Timothy, he he loved this son in the faith and he said he was going to send them to the

Philippian church. I believe it was in Philippians chapter two around in the teens in that in that chapter. He said something about sending

Timothy to them because he knows there isn't anybody else who cares for them, who cares for their souls.

And that's what it's about. How can we how can we provide our needs for each other if we don't care for each other, if we don't love each other and bear each other's burdens and sacrifice and show it by our lives and our actions towards each other?

And what the apostle Paul is saying in this chapter to me is we've got to understand that in order for us to function properly together as Bethlehem Bible Church, we need many members, but we are one body to function together.

We need to do this. No man is to be an island under them unto themselves. If a person has this attitude,

I can take church or leave it. They have a major problem because that's not what God intended for believers.

God intended for believers to be what sheep in the flock, to be bricks, living bricks or living stones in the building, to be members of a what of an isolated survival island type of conglomeration.

Everybody's just on their own island now to be members of the family of God, children of God.

Yet, brothers and sisters in Christ, how do we even get that that name of being brothers and sisters in Christ?

Brothers and sisters are in a what? They're in a family and we are part and parcel of the family of God and we need each other.

People who tell us they can have church all by themselves don't understand the very meaning of the word church.

In the Greek, the word means a called out assembly. It's a group of people that are called out. It had the idea of the town crier going through the town and announcing that there would be a meeting.

And that gathering together of those people is was church. Ekklesia was that group of people.

And it means to come together. One reason for it is that we really do need each other coming together to function properly.

One time when I was in high school, bought my first car, 1963 Ford Falcon, white, black convertible, red interior, fifty dollars.

1973, I bought a 10 years old, fifty dollars, bought it from a friend. Going to be smart,

I'm going to tune up this thing. It's going to run a little bit better. Go out and buy the parts. And probably back then probably didn't even cost five dollars,

I'm sure. Put it all, took it all apart, put it all back together again, and that car would not start, could not figure out what it was and what had happened.

We had done a tune up in an oil change and the rotor inside the distributor cap had when we took it off, we laid it aside.

It had fallen into the oil pan and the need to catch the oil from the oil change with cranking that key wasn't going anywhere.

So we started all over again and opened it up and took it, took it apart. And we said, there's no there's no there's no rotor.

That's the thing that shoots the spark around inside the distributor cap, which sends the spark down to the spark plugs. You may have had a car that some piece fell off on the highway when it's going down and then you got a big noise, the muffler falls off.

I mean, our cars don't function well when all the parts and pieces are not there. And brethren, when all the pieces and parts in the church are not there, when we are or if we are here and we are not functioning, we are not doing well.

We are not as we should be. We are stunted. We don't go forward. We don't minister as we ought to minister.

And and the privilege is, is that God has brought us together and given us spiritual gifts, as it talks about here in this chapter, given us offices in the church, as it talks about in this chapter for this for the express purpose of being a local

New Testament church, which will glorify Jesus Christ in the day in which we live, striving to reach the world that we live in with the gospel for for Christ's glory, people being saved, coming in and coming into the church and growing in the grace and knowledge of the

Lord. And we need every single member of the church to be functioning. Paul said in Ephesians chapter four,

I'll go there. You can stay in Corinthians 12. In Ephesians chapter four and in verse 16,

Paul says these words, he says, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies, according to the effectual working of the measure of every part, make an increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

That is one verse. Wow. In the Greek with the words, the way that this is put together.

But basically what Paul is saying here is that when we are together, every one of us supplies as it were glue to hold us together.

And when we have a cowboy, an independent cowboy mentality and go off and try to live it ourselves,

I don't need you. I can do it by myself. The church suffers from that.

We are not supplying that which needs to be supplied from every joint, from every part. And the word here means that it's joining or knitting us together by that which you supply.

If you supply, if you labor, if you're here, if you're edifying, if you're encouraging, if you're instructing, if you're ministering, if you're bearing one another's burdens, if you're loving one another as God has loved you, if you are forgiving one another as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you, if you're looking to try to disciple, to pray with, to encourage on, to spur to good behavior, then you're supplying that which is necessary to hold us together and to be that body.

And that's part of the striving towards the unity that is so essential in a body.

There's no other gathering of people on the face of the earth quite like the local

New Testament church. No other thing quite like it. This is so unique and it is marvelous if we think about it.

We do need each other and the way that we're going to be able to help each other and to know the needs of each other is to get to know each other.

I stress this in Sunday school. We need to get beyond the superficial conversations. Watch yourself after the service today.

How are you doing? Fine. Good day, isn't it? Fine. I'm sorry for the Sunday school people.

When you study two chapters or things that run together, everything just kind of goes together and the messages overlap a little bit.

But we do that. We say we stay superficial in the comfort zone. We don't want to peel back the layers of the onions because we're afraid what we might find or we afraid we might need to help and do something.

So it's, you know, the temperature is good today, isn't it? Yes. How's your job?

Fine. You know, we stay there. But what we ought to be doing is going a little deeper and showing that we really care for each other.

When someone is hurting. I mean, doesn't it say that in our text? I mean, it talks to us that when somebody rejoices, we ought to rejoice and we ought to do that.

I rejoice with the couple over here. This is the baby today. Did it get announced this morning?

The baby's birth? No, I didn't. Did I? Did anybody hear it? Lydia. Well, we rejoice in that.

Something like that. And when God saves somebody, we rejoice. When someone gets a job,

I mean, it seems like such a little thing, but we're rejoicing in that. But when somebody is grieving, when somebody has suffered a loss in the church, when maybe there's a family issue that comes up, when maybe there's a something that has happened between a husband and a wife and it's it's serious and somebody comes to church and they're hurting, they come into this place.

We should be looking for that and looking to help and trying to trying to to pour ourselves into the people who we say that we love.

I mean, we say it. I love you, brother. I love you, sister. We might even put it in our email, loving Christ at the end.

But have we ever demonstrated that love to somebody else in a real, practical, physical way?

I mean, a note, a card, a meal that you make for somebody, you mow their lawn when they're when it's unexpected, whatever it might be.

We show that we care for them and and we show how much we need and are dependent upon each other by acting in this way towards each other.

I wonder if we spend time talking about the things of God. And get beyond the physical and get beyond this superficial to where we can bear our hearts to one another so that we can help support each other and bear one another's burdens.

And I gave this side note and I should do it here for those of you that weren't present in Sunday school. Just be prepared.

If you ever ask somebody, how are you doing? Just be prepared that it might be serious, it might get serious and you may need to help and don't brush it off.

Just get in the trench with them and put your arms around them and and love them and try to do what you can to help them.

No, we don't do this perfectly, but we do do this at BBC. I see it. I understand it. I know as an elder and the elders, when we talk, we know there are people ministering to one another.

But some of you might be here this morning thinking, I cannot do anything. Certainly you can. There is a place for you, there is ministry for you, there is something that you can do with the with the capacity that you have to be able to help other people.

If you would only look for the for the opportunity, don't put the blinders on, but look for them. People are hurting, people are crushed, people are in need or people might just have regular routine things that are going on in their lives.

And you can be someone that can come by and and bear them up a bit. We need to care for one another.

We need to hold each other in high esteem. And treasure the specialness of God saving us and setting us together in this body.

We are valuable to each other. And with tender concern, we should share in the griefs and in the joys, as we see.

In verse 26, whether one member suffer, all members suffer, I couldn't find it earlier and I'm just kind of covering up,

I just I just saw it. Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it. And one member is honored.

All the members rejoice with it. No one should be overlooked, especially when someone is hurting.

I mean, you know what you do when when you hurt yourself, your body. I mean, you do a job around the house.

You didn't wear the gloves and you were supposed to and you cut your finger, hammer on the finger, whatever it might be, stub your toe as you're trying to do something.

You throw your back out, you show you throw your shoulder out. What do you do? You favor that member of the body, don't you?

You are concerned with that member. You you give it a little extra care. I mean, if you throw your back out, you hope that maybe you can get to the chiropractor or to the doctor or get somebody the massager to help to get that knot out, you know, to you get medicine, you put it on the cut.

You favor that part of the body. And when the body is hurting and someone here is hurting, they ought to be favored.

By who? They can't even do it themselves. They need other members of the body to come in and to favor them and to love them.

So we do need each other to function. We need each other in the work of the gospel, some planting and some watering.

And God gives the increase, some praying, some preaching, some teaching, some sharing their testimony.

But everyone pulling together, meeting together as often as we can to encourage each other, to exhort each other.

That's the purpose why we come here this morning. It isn't to see as, you know, as, as we might say, it isn't just for the friendship aspect of it or the fellowship aspect of it.

That is good. That is, that is, um, that is just a blessed by -product of what it is that we're doing or is another result of what we're doing, but we come here this morning and gather first and foremost to worship our

God who has loved us enough to save us from our sins, to completely wipe out our sins, to separate them from us as far as the

East is from the West. We are people who have no right to heaven. None whatsoever, sinners, rebellious against God, not caring about God, not understanding

God, thinking we do thinking that we can do something work maybe to please God, but totally the enemies of God at enmity with God, at warfare with God gone out of the way, like a lost sheep and yet God in his great love and his great grace and by his powerful gospel reaches down and plucks us out of the quicksand of sin.

So to speak, the Psalmist said out of the mirey clay, out of that horrible pit that we were in, out of the prison house of sin and God comes and he tears the bars away, the bars of our darkness, the bars, the bars of sin that held us for so many years and he set us free and we've passed from death into life out of the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God's dear son, totally forgiven when we didn't deserve it.

And God has placed us into his family. We are upon the heart of God. We one day will spend all eternity with the

Lord. Those who named the name of Christ here this morning, brethren, brothers and sisters of Christ, you and I have been saved by the powerful work of God.

It is God who has done this work. It is not something we could have ever done for ourselves. It's what God has done.

And in so doing, it's not God's going to save us. And then we're right to heaven. We have a life to live upon this earth and the life that we live in these bodies where to live to the glory of Christ.

And part of that, part of our lives is the church family, and it is so vital, it is so very important.

And what I really want to to impart this morning is such a high view of what

God has done when he brings people of varied backgrounds. Think of where we've all come from, different nationalities, different cultures, different upbringings, different religions, different likes and dislikes, different abilities, putting us in the body together.

And you'll notice. In verse 24, with me, please. Paul says our comely parts or our presentable parts have no need, but God has tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacks.

And that word temper in the Greek means to co -mingle, to combine, to mix together.

And if we were to take it physically, it would be like taking hydrogen and oxygen,

H2O, two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen, mixing them together and we get a new compound.

And in the new compound, you can no longer distinguish the hydrogen and the oxygen. It is water.

And this is what God has done in the church. He takes the Carls and the

Daniels and he takes the flows and he takes the jacks and he takes the marks and he takes the

Maxines and he puts them together. This is marvelous. God puts us together in such a way, co -mingling, just like the members of a body being put together, combining the members together, specifically selecting the parts that he wants, co -mingling and mixing the members of the local assembly together that we become a living spiritual church, a living body together.

And when we're together, it's no longer the Carls and the flows and the

Maxines and the jacks that is distinguishable. It is Christ.

It is his body that is moving and functioning and living in this world to be ambassadors for Christ.

Now, yes, we have our individuality and we deal with ourselves and we see ourselves as members of that body.

But what's more important is not that we're all members and we're islands and we're living to ourselves, but that we're together in this special.

I can't even come up with the words. I wish I could. Just this special uniqueness of this body. And I think we miss it.

I really believe that we miss this and we kind of we just kind of give just maybe just a little bit of a lip service to the idea of what the local

New Testament church is. But we don't see this as a marvelous work of God.

Somebody said last week, it's OK to repeat your messages, you know, my wife tells me that a lot, Dave, you just kind of hit the same point over and over and over again.

One time I was reading about a church, a pastor. He preached this message on Sunday, Lord's Day, came back the next

Sunday and preached the same message, came back the next Sunday, preached the same message.

He did it for 14 weeks. On about week 14, someone in the church asked him,

Pastor, why did you preach that message 14 times and or why you keep preaching this message?

And he said, I'm going to start preaching it when we as a church start living it. You see, sometimes we hear it.

We know the truth, don't we? We know it well. We we can kind of quote verses and know this whole thing about the about the local

New Testament church, but we don't really grasp it or we don't really show that we've grasped the understanding of it until we live it.

And what I'm saying is, is that we do need each other. And sometimes I don't think we recognize that we kind of think

I'll just go and I'll sit and I'll listen and I'll get up and I'll walk out the door and go back home. What a shame.

What a shame. We did not benefit from the means of grace that God has given us when he brings us together, that we might, as it says in Hebrews chapter 10, let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another.

And so much the more, as you see the day approaching, a whole idea of when they're gathered together is to exhort one another.

And that exhortation is is that encouragement, encouragement to go on to better behavior, encouragement to go on and serve in Christ, because it's distressing out there, is it not?

When you came in out of the world today, I mean, you came in out of weeks of maybe distress and pain and hurt and loss.

And and it was difficult to live out there. It's difficult to live in this present evil world.

But God has allowed us to have this means of grace when we gather together to help each other as we're worshiping him, to hold each other up, to care for each other in such a way that I want to, before I leave the doors of the church, try to be a blessing to somebody else, try to be a blessing in some way, shape or form, because I need them and they need me.

And when when it comes to the need, we also need to be in our proper place in the church. That's another important point.

We are only useful as we are in our proper place. Can you imagine what would it be like if our eyes were placed on our knees or maybe our ears on our feet?

You know, like, what'd you say, you know? But God didn't make it that way. He put them in the right place so that they would work properly.

And you know what's so interesting? We have two ears for what? Hearing, for listening, but we only have one mouth for speaking.

Two ears, one mouth. Maybe there's more of an emphasis ought to be on listening. I think sometimes we just don't listen well enough and we don't listen and we don't really look for the opportunity.

And therefore, we can't help each other because we're not listening. We're talking, we're talking. We just want to sometimes we just want to let people know what we know, you know, and it's

OK when it's when it's the right time. But sometimes we just need to be quiet and we need to listen. And that's the best way to help somebody.

Lewis Brown shared that with us the other week. The best time when Job's friends came to him is when they were saying nothing for the first seven days and they were just listening.

That was the best time of the whole visit. And sometimes we just need to listen as we help each other.

But God created our bodies in a most remarkable and a useful way. Each member having its own place according to the design of God's perfect handiwork in order that the whole body would be profited by that unique positioning.

I like the way that our bodies are made. I like the way that the

Lord has put the ears in the place so that we can hear from both directions. And just I mean, you ever thought about our eyes and what what they're able to do to bring in that light and to be able to see and for us to be able to hear and to be able to walk and how a man tries to make robots and computers to do things, but will never really be able to match what

God has wonderfully and marvelously done in the body. And so from the greatest part. In our churches to the least, so the strongest to the weakest, every member has a spiritual gift or gifts notice in verse 11, but these all work that one and the self same spirit dividing to every man.

Notice it says everyone severally as he wills. It is God's will that everyone has spiritual gift or gifts.

And there are offices to in the church and we must pray about and pursue our gifts and our place in the church, our role within the body, and then be willing to labor together as one.

And no, we all don't have the same gifts. Paul says that very clearly in his in his text here dealing with.

I mean, if if everybody was the eye, where would be the hearing and everybody was the hearing, you know, where would be the other function of the body?

We're not all ears. We're not all eyes. We're not all apostles, we're not all prophets, we're not all pastors, we're not all.

We don't all have the same spiritual gifts either. It's unique and they're spurs out as God has decided to do so.

If we were all noses, let's take that example, we would be a grotesque scene, would we not?

We would be unnatural, deformed and disorderly in a church with everyone striving to be a leader or striving to be the teacher or striving to be an authority or striving to have one gift that everybody focuses upon.

It's unnatural because God made us different and gifted us differently to fit into our divinely selected and holy position within the church.

Our God is wisely put members with a variety of gifts in this church so that we can all contribute to the health and the beauty and the functionality of the body.

The variety of gifts gives the church its beauty, just like the variety of the body, the variety of the members gives it its beauty and functionality.

The variety of the gifts in the church gives its beauty also. Imagine this, and I'm not anti -Tuba, you'll know what

I mean in a second. Imagine that you pay $50 to go to a symphony and everyone comes out on the stage with a tuba.

You'd be disappointed with you, wouldn't you? Because you wanted to hear all the instruments. You wanted to hear the drums and the violins and the trumpets and the

French horns. You wanted to hear all of those blend together in the harmony of all of that, not just everybody blowing the tuba.

And see, that's what the church at Corinth was doing, blowing the tuba. They all wanted to blow the tuba, but nobody wanted to be what

God had intended for them to be and to utilize their own unique gifts in that special blend and co -mingling together as the body.

God gives each local church members with differing gifts and offices, and He expects those gifts to be used for His glory.

And I wonder, do you know what your gift is? Do you know what your gift or gifts are? Do you know what it is that God wants you to do and how it is that you are to minister?

If you need help in that area, pray about it first. Consider what it is that you are inclined to do.

What is it that you like to do when it comes to serving? And maybe that is the focus of your gift. Maybe you're one who likes to help others.

You're constantly just wanting to be there to meet the needs of other people. Maybe your gift is the gift of helps. Maybe you can't, like my wife, you can't just go into a store and buy something for yourself.

I mean, we go into the store, and my wife, Deb, she says, I've got to go get such and such for myself.

I'll go off to another store or run some other errand, and I'll come into the store, and there's the shopping cart, and this is for Naomi, and this is for her mother, and this is for a sister in the church.

This is for somebody down in Texas that we knew. I said, well, where's the thing that you wanted? Oh, I'll get there.

She has, I believe, the gift of giving. She loves to give to other people, give of herself and give whatever to meet people's needs.

If you have that gift, then do it, and do it with all your heart. But if you have the gift and you're not utilizing the gift, then we all suffer.

Do you understand that, how important it is for us to be able to work together in this way? And I wonder if you are active in the church doing that which

God has enabled you and gifted you to do. And if you need help, seek out help. Pray about it, look what you're inclined to do, and then seek some help.

Ask some questions. Find a mature Christian, a woman or a man in the church, an elder, a pastor, and ask them what you can do maybe to find out what your gift is so that you can get busy being the glue in the church that holds us together.

Like the musical instruments, God has blended us together, tempered us together for the purpose of the church's existence, functionality, usefulness, growth, testimony, and beauty.

And if we are not doing this, then there is a schism in the body, as Paul puts it in verse 25.

There's a division. If we think that we all are going to have one gift, or we think my gift is better than your gift, then there's a division and a lot not to be so.

We need to be happy. We need to be pleased. We need to be satisfied with the gift or gifts that God has given us because he's done in it as he wills and as he is pleased.

And if he doesn't, he makes no mistakes. And we ought to be a people who recognize that it's not up to us, it's up to him.

And he's done a very good job so that we, as a special people that God has put together, need each other for harmonious church living.

That's really where I was driving at today. Harmonious church living. Everyone in that orchestra doing their part, and it's beautiful.

It's beautiful when it's all being lived together in that type of life where there's that harmony.

We all help each other and build each other up. Well, I've got to close my message this morning.

How do I do that? Well, just like the body, the body has parts in it like eyelashes.

What's the function of an eyelash? Well, it's necessary to keep the dust particles out of our sensitive eyes.

The thyroid, a small gland. It produces the hormone thyroxine, which regulates growth in the body.

If you have a thyroid problem, and many of you do, you know that, you take medicine for that because it helps to regulate those hormone levels in your body so that your body works well.

The pituitary gland, a very small oval gland at the base of the brain, which secretes hormones which influences growth, metabolism, and other important systems.

When it works well, the body grows in the proportion that it should in the time that it should.

And in the church, you might think, I am just, Dave, I think I'm just a little teeny toenail.

Or maybe you might think, I'm just the big toe. What's the big deal? I mean,

I can't do much of anything here. Do you realize in your physical body that without your big toe you have no balance?

You need your big toe to have balance. It's important. Is the toenail important? I'll tell you how important it is.

Hit it with a hammer and tell me if it's important. Very important. Stick a pin through it.

I knew my grandmother when she was sewing it one time. She used to be a seamstress in Worcester back in the 1930s and 40s, and she ran her hand underneath the sewing machine and pierced her fingernail.

She knew how important her fingernail is. You hurt any part of your body, you see how important it is.

And we are important, vital, crucial, and no one is to be left out.

Everyone contributing. Everyone being vital. No one idle in the church.

Can you just imagine this? Think about this. If our heart could talk. You know what?

I've been doing this pumping thing for years and years. I think I'll just take a break for about 45 minutes.

Is it important? Yes, it is. Without the heart beating certain death and problems.

And, brethren, without your role, without your functioning, without you ministering here, without you understanding your unique special privileged gift that God has made you to this church, and you are a special gift.

I count it a privilege to be able to be a part of this church with this group of people that God has brought together because I know that it was

God who selected you to be here. For you to perform your unique role in this church.

But if you don't perform it, we suffer. And our growth is stunted. The pituitary gland doesn't work right, and the growth is stunted.

And if we don't work right, it is a detriment to the church.

One body, many members. Each part serving its purpose.

Every nerve, every tendon, every pore, every hair. Physically, spiritually, every believer.

Every BBC church member. Every one is important. If your gift, whatever your purpose is, if it is to teach, then proclaim the truth with such a boldness and a zeal that people cannot go away from what you just taught without having to make a decision in their life.

If you are witnessing to other people, be a fork in the road so that when they come to you, they have to go one way or another.

It is either embrace or receive Christ or reject Christ. If your gift is the gift of helps, then get busy ministering with love in your heart for the

Lord who called you and for those you are helping. If it is exhorting, spur your brother or sister on to good behavior.

If it is the gift of faith, believe God and diligently seek him because he rewards those who do just that.

If your gift is the gift of giving, do it with simplicity. Support the ministry here. Meet the needs of others.

If it is ruling, rule with diligence. If it is the gift of mercy, be merciful and do it cheerfully.

Pastors should shepherd the flock. Deacons need to rise up and serve the church and remain faithful.

And every member in the church should see how unique and special this privilege is and never again take lightly what it means to be a local

New Testament church. And the privilege we have, the high calling of God to be Bethlehem Bible Church is something that we ought to be grateful about and sing praises to God for because it is his means of grace for his glory and for the propagation of that gospel to go out this place we gather together so that we can be strengthened to leave this place so that we can be faithful ambassadors of Jesus Christ.

And some of you were here this morning and you've heard all this message and you say, you know, that's pretty neat, that sounds like a church message.

But what about me? I'm sitting here and I'm hurting. I'm sitting here and I haven't got a clue what it means to be a

Christian, what it means to be forgiven. I mean, I thought I had to be good and do good and pray and go to church and labor as much as I could just do something for God and maybe

God would accept me or maybe by my good works God would look with favor upon me.

Cast it all out, throw it all away, that type of thinking and receive

Jesus Christ because he's the only Savior of sinners. He's the only one who can save you from your sins.

Not only the penalty of it because we're going to face the wrath of God one day because of our sin but he's the only one who can deliver you away from your sins, out of the power of sin because you know you're in a prison.

You know you're doing things you don't want to do and you're trapped and you're bogged down and you're like in that quicksand and you need somebody to rescue you and the great rescuer, the great redeemer is

Jesus Christ and he saves and he keeps and he loves to the very end.

And every one of your sins put upon Christ upon the cross so that you would not have to bear the penalty of it and by calling upon Christ and looking to him for your salvation when you call upon the name of the

Lord you shall be saved and if you believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead you shall be saved.

He's a wonderful Savior and he'll never fail you and you know what's really neat? He puts you in the family of God and you get to benefit from this means of grace of coming together in the first part of this whole message that I was preaching and to God be the glory for his wonderful works towards us.

I cannot express more deeply, I cannot put it in words. When I go sit down there

I'm going to be thinking I just could not get this across but don't take lightly the specialness brethren of what it is that God has worked in the middle of us, in the midst of us.

Let's pray. Our Father, some of us may have been struggling with that attitude that I don't need others,

I really can do it on my own. Some people might think I'm here and I don't feel like I'm contributing.

There's no place for me, there's no role, there's no function for me and yet if we think that way we know we're wrong and we know we're wrong if we've taken lightly the putting together of God's people together in a place like this in a gathering like BBC Bethlehem Bible Church.

Help us to treasure these truths. Lord, help us to walk out of this place today and be changed.

Lord, to think differently now and maybe we can see that there is hope. I can function, even though I might be the little toe,

I can help. And I do need my brother and sister, I'm going to see and look for the opportunities to help, maybe even today.

I'm going to go up to somebody I know who's hurting or maybe I know who has been struggling and I'm going to say something and begin a conversation so that I can help hold up their arms and maybe be of some help to them.

Father, in all of this we would so desire that we would not be the focus of attention in the outworking of all these things that we've heard and the practical outworking of the functioning of the church together but that Jesus Christ, your

Son, our blessed Lord and Savior might be magnified, that He might receive the glory, that our boast would be in Him and in Him alone.

And as the Apostle Paul said that we ought to glory or boast in the cross of Christ, that's what we do.

And we lift up and magnify His blessed name. Please help us. Lord, please forgive us.

Please change us. And we thank you so much for the hope that we have that you, when you begin a work, it will not be undone but you will conform us to the image of Christ, that you will establish and settle us, that you will mold us and make us the potter over the clay into that which will bring glory and more glory to Christ.

And one day you will take us home. And what hope we have of the blessed return of our

Lord and Savior. And we thank you for the rest and hope and assurance that we have in our great