One Body - THERE'S NO "I" IN ONE (Eph 4:4a)

Hey, good morning everybody.

We're going to officially start the service now.

So first of all, of course, we want to welcome you to 12 .5.

I don't know about you, but I look forward to this every Sunday, every Wednesday.

So the first thing we're going to do is do some announcements.

The first three are for new members, sorry, new guests.

So if this is you, then of course, these first three are for you.

So if you're new here, we want you to fill out a connection card.

Obviously, this lets us get to know you a little better.

It allows us to pray for you and your family, and of course, like the name of the card, it allows us to connect with you if we need to

reach out to you.

Also, again, if you're new, something we do different here is we have a Koinonia Feast.

So it's a time of Christian fellowship, and you leave not only spiritually fed, but also physically fed.

So please stay for the meal afterwards.

Then the third thing, again, if you're new to 12 .5, stay after the feast.

We have a sermon discussion.

So it's a good time where we can ask questions.

We can dive deeper into the sermon.

We don't leave anything unturned.

So if there's any questions, no matter how tough, I think they actually enjoy it the tougher it is.

So be sure to stay for that.

That's always an interesting time.

Every Tuesday, this building is open for prayer.

So it's from 7 a .m. to 8 a .m. when I know we've got work and kids dropping off.

But if you can make it here, it's a great time where we pray for the church, we pray for each other.

If you got something, if you need prayer or want us to help pray for something, then obviously glad to do that.

Wednesdays, so we got three different things on Wednesday.

So the last and final new member class is this Wednesday.

So be in prayer for those people going through that.

Our church is growing.

It's exciting.

I think we got seven new people going through right now.

So just pray for them that they would, you know, do what the Lord has willed for them if

they come here or not.

So also, if you want to learn more about 12 .5 and what we do, then of course the leaders here are welcome to ask or

answer any questions anytime.

So I think the new member class is offered once a quarter.

So if you missed this time, then it should be offered in roughly two months or so.

Wednesday nights, again, adults are going through.

We meet here at 6 .30 and we're going through a book called Everyone's a Theologian by R .C. Sproul.

This is chapter 26.

Adam, who's working the street out there, is teaching this Wednesday, so it'd be great.

And the chapter is called The States of Christ, you know, the pre -incarnate state, you know, all the different states.

I think there's a bunch of different ones listed in the book, so it's pretty amazing.

And then Wednesday nights, also the youth, which is kids 10 and up, you know, they

meet over at the big house and they are currently going through First John with Jeremiah.

And just on a personal note, if you've got youth and you're new visiting 12 .5, then

I feel like that there's not a better place for our kids to be at than with Jeremiah.

He's a great teacher.

And so anyways, September 21st through the 23rd is G3 Conference.

We'll leave on the 20th, come back later that evening.

I believe most of us are doing that.

And then finally, we are going to pray for a local church.

I don't know if this can be on the screen or not.

Needham Baptist Church.

So yeah, we're going to lift them up in prayer now, and then we'll start our singing, I believe.

So all right.

So Lord God, we just want to lift up Needham Baptist Church.

Specifically, I'm going to start off with the leaders, God, just that you protect them, you bless their marriage, and you would help them to grow

deeper in your word.

And that depth of growth and knowledge and excitement about your word would be contagious and spill over to the congregation, God.

And I do want to lift up the saints at Needham, that you would use them, that they would be encouraged for

us praying for them and encouraging them to run the race well, and that we would in turn be encouraged by how you use them to

draw people to yourself, God.

And we'll just thank you again for the new members going through the class, the growth we're experiencing here at 12 .5, the spiritual and

physical growth, the new numbers and people, but most of the spiritual growth, God.

You're moving in families and working.

God's pray you bless this time today, and you would be with us here in Jesus' name.

Amen.

We're going

to practice the ordinance of baptism.

And today, our brother, Nathan Hart, and it's almost called your brother's name.

I'm sorry, Nathan.

Come on.

You'd think I'd remember Nathan.

You're right.

Come on, Nathan.

Well, baptism, obviously, this is an ordinance of the church representing what has taken place

in the act of salvation that God has wrought in your heart and in

most of our hearts, if not all in here.

And this act is not salvific in any way.

These are just waters.

This is representing what has taken place in our lives and in our hearts.

It's the old away being brought into something new.

And so, Nathan, I ask you this morning, did Jesus pay your debt at the cross?

Yes.

Are you trusting in the finished work of Jesus, his life, death, and

resurrection?

Amen.

Amen.

His life, death, and resurrection, this is what it represents.

We step into these waters, and we go into death just as

he did for us and then raised, resurrected.

Praise God.

Well, come on.

Let's step in here.

I think it should be warm.

Is it all right?

All right.

Well, go ahead.

Let's sit down here.

Nathan, is Jesus Christ interceding on your behalf at the right hand of the Father at this moment?

Praise God.

Praise God.

Well, brother, here, bring your hands together.

That's all right.

Brother, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, buried with Christ,

raised to walk in newness of life.

Amen.

All right.

I'll give you a hug here.

That's all right.

You can step out on that side where you got that.

You need a towel here.

I'll hand it to you.

Praise God.

What a celebration.

Amen?

Amen.

Well, God is good, and God is saving those around us.

The gospel is going forward.

Well, go ahead.

Let's stand as we begin our service with a call to worship.

Our call to worship is just as the one we did last week, a read in response of Ephesians chapter 4,

verses 4 through 7, where Paul says, there is one body and

one spirit.

We have been to one Lord, one

faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.

Grace was given to each one of us,

and all God's people said, let's pray a prayer of adoration before we sing to our great God.

Dear heavenly Father, we come before you today, and we are so thankful for

this beautiful imagery that you've given us in baptism, and showing us that

you have redeemed a people for yourself.

Father, we thank you.

We've been called to this one hope of Jesus Christ.

God, and you've brought us together with one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one Father.

We worship the triune God this morning.

For you have accomplished that great saving work in our lives and in our hearts.

We thank you.

Be honored in our worship today.

In Christ's name, amen.

I'm the sound man.

Forgot to turn my own cell phone.

Fire the bum.

That's what I say.

Anyways, it's wonderful to be in the house today, the house of the Lord.

We're typically reading through Psalms in our scripture reading, and we're taking a little bit of a deviation today.

We've been preaching and learning through Ephesians, and that was our

receptive reading today.

We're going to skip and go back to Ephesians just a little bit, because it has so much to do with what Nathan will be

preaching today.

I'll be reading in Ephesians 2, starting in verse 14.

It says, For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one, and has

broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing the law of

commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man

in place of the two, so making peace.

And he might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing

the hostility.

And he came and preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near.

For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the

saints, and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the

apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,

in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple

in the Lord.

In him, in him, you are also being built together into a

dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Thank you.

Amen.

Do me a favor, raise up your copy of God's Word, whether that be digital or

actual scripture there.

Glad to see so many in here have those.

You see, this is the only way that you are going to know if what I say today is true.

That's the source.

We obviously don't put the text up on the screen while we're preaching.

We do that on purpose, because we want you to be learning how to

study God's Word.

That's part of the preaching of God's Word on Sundays, teaching the saints, equipping the saints for that good work, and

learning what it means to study God's Word.

And if you've been here for any amount of time, you know this isn't the type of place where you come and passively consume.

Everything in this service is structured and geared towards corporate

engagement.

Notice we don't do special music here.

We don't do anything that there is somebody doing something, and then

the audience or congregation being passive consumers.

Everything is purposeful.

And you may say, well, you're the only one preaching, Pastor.

How is that not being passive consumers?

Well, we believe every one of you in here are called to be an expositional listener.

I'm preaching expositionally through Scripture.

You're to listen expositionally.

You are participating in this, and that's why we go to God's Word.

This is an essential part of God's gathering, isn't it?

Yeah?

I've got a couple of amens over here.

I expected that one.

Amen?

This is God's Word.

Well, go ahead.

That being said, open your copy of God's Word to Ephesians chapter 4.

Brother Keith just read a passage earlier on that we've covered previously, but

now we have made it to chapter 4.

I think today is week 29 of our study through this great letter, and

we covered the first three verses of chapter 4 last week, but I want us to read starting in verse 1 again on through

verse 6 to get the context of what Paul is saying, where Paul says, I therefore a prisoner for the Lord

urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with

all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,

eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

For there is one body, one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope

that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

This is the reading of God's holy inspired Word.

Let's stop again.

Let's pray.

Let's go to the source again.

Ask that we would be able to comprehend this great truth.

Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you now and we acknowledge

that we are fallible people, and with that comes

fallible interpretations of your infallible true Word.

And so God, we ask right now that you would, through the power of the Holy Spirit that is within us,

allow us to see it in truth.

Lord, I pray that I would speak only truth from your Word today.

I pray that you would be honored in it.

In Christ's name, amen.

Well, as I said a moment ago, last week we looked at verses 1 through 3, where we saw Paul urging us

as believers to walk in a way, to walk in a manner that is worthy of

this calling.

And we spent a moment examining what this calling is, and we saw that it was to suffer.

That is the theme in the New Testament, calling Christians to suffer because our Savior suffered, right?

And we're to do so, as Paul says, with all humility, with gentleness, patience, and

enduring one another in love and looking to our Savior, who is an example of

that.

And our Savior, He's the one that has exemplified all of those attributes perfectly, hasn't

He?

After all, they are the fruit of the Spirit.

And this is for the purpose of guarding that great unity that Paul goes on to talk about

in verse 3.

And it's that unity that is already ours, isn't it?

That unity that is already ours through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

And Paul goes on, he's grounded all of this in all of this theology, hasn't he?

He's grounded it in all that he's been laying out, that we've looked at over the past few months in chapters 1 through 3, of all

of the information about God.

How has God saved us?

What has God done?

How has God worked in the lives of believers?

All of this information leads us to striving for this humility, and patience,

and long -suffering, and striving for unity.

Which is why I started off chapter 4 with, therefore.

Tying it all back together.

But it didn't start off with theology.

He actually sandwiches the theology, this call to unity, with

this very interesting crescendo of nouns that we see starting in verse 4.

He does this in three separate groupings.

If you look at it, you see the first two groups in verses 4 and 5, consisting of three specific

nouns, each one, ending with a seventh there in verse 6.

Now many theologians have surmised that Paul did this on purpose, of course, seeing as how the number

seven represents completion in Scripture.

Let me take that as you will, I'm not going to read too much into that.

I'm far more concerned and interested in what we do know to be certain about what Paul is saying

here in these verses.

Paul's thought ascends from this realization of unity in the Spirit there in verse 4,

to focus on the unity of the Son in verse 5, and ultimately to the source of

unity in the Father there in verse 6, all the while

emphasizing in each one a singular word.

Now when you see a word repeated in Scripture, we need to pay very special attention to it, don't

we?

Every single word in Scripture is obviously important, but when the writers wanted us to pay special

attention or focus on that word or thought, they would use repetition to

drive our attention further into there.

And what is that word that we keep seeing over and over here?

What is it?

One.

The word one is repeated seven different times in connection with each

one of these nouns that he represents.

So over the next seven weeks, we are going to look at each one of these ones.

We're going to have a little mini -series in the midst of our bigger series.

Paul here is identifying the very source of our unity, and if we

as a church here at 12 .5, as believers that have covenanted together, are to guard

that unity as Paul has told us to do, we must have a firm grasp on how and why

we are doing so.

And I mentioned last week how unity often eludes us, doesn't it?

It's like picking up sand in your hand.

Remember the analogy?

We always try and strive for unity as if it's something external and mechanical.

We pick it up, and the harder we try and grip that unity and hang on to it, the sand just

makes its way through our fingers, doesn't it, and falls back to the ground.

That's how we treat unity often.

But we strive to be unified because we're trying to create unity instead of realizing that

we are already unified in Christ, aren't we?

It is not something external and mechanical.

It is something internal and organic.

And the reason that that's so hard for us to see, I believe, is because we have a poor doctrine of the

church.

A very poor doctrine of the church.

Our individualistic culture has crept into the church.

It happens in every generation, in every church.

It makes its way.

We're human after all.

We live in a world, in a broken world, and it makes its way into the church, and it's

created a doctrine of the church after its own image is what has happened.

It's created a church that is filled with selfish, blind consumers.

Unfortunately, that is often the case.

Selfish in that they're willing to give up of their time.

The people in that church, the Christians are willing to give up of their time as long as it's convenient for them.

Don't push me to the limits on giving of my time.

They're willing to give of their money.

Well, some of them.

Very few these days anymore.

They're willing to give of their money as long as it's not too much of a sacrifice.

They're blind in that they just trust whatever the pastor says.

If the pastor says it, that must be true, at least as long as it doesn't hit too close to home.

Then it makes you mad.

Then you leave and go find another pastor that'll tickle your ears.

That's church, isn't it?

Blind in that they assume that theology is only for the elite.

It's only for the pastors.

They're just content with their Beth more devotional.

Consumers in that the Sunday gathering has become nothing more than a show to attend,

or not attend if the weather's good, or if their child has a game.

Rarely, if ever, serving and using their God -given gifts for the rest of the church.

You see what the culture has created?

A doctrine of the church, and it's permeated into the life of so many

churches.

If you think we're above any of that, you're sorely mistaken.

Listing these things off, it's not meant for condemnation.

I'm not trying to create guilt trips here.

That's not the purpose of this.

I'm simply pointing out the obvious distinction between what many consider church today

and the doctrine of the church that is spoken about in the New Testament.

We have to see that there is a massive contrast between what Paul lays out as a doctrine of the church and what

we perceive today as a doctrine of the church.

Because one is guarding that unity, as Paul told them to.

One doctrine of the church is guarding, is maintaining the unity of the Spirit, and the other is

smashing it with a self -righteous sledgehammer of self as a sacrificial act of worship for its God,

self.

And Paul points to this with the very first one that he proclaims.

And what is the first one?

What's the first one he points to in verse 4?

Body.

One body.

You want to be unified?

Well, here's the doctrine of the church.

Here's the church.

This is actually why we chose to name 12 .5, 12 .5, isn't it?

We chose that because of Romans 12 .5, which you can see it over here, we, though many, are one

body in Christ and individually members, one of another.

And we did that on purpose because our prayer was that we would be consistently reminded of what we're

doing here, a constant reminder of the doctrine of the church.

What is this?

What are we doing?

How should we function?

How should we see each other?

How should we engage with each other?

How should we interact?

How should we live out our lives?

How should we sacrifice?

You see, we may be a group of individual believers, but we do not belong to ourselves.

That's hard in an individualistic culture, isn't it?

To me, it's selfish.

It's what I want.

It's my comfort, you know?

I can't participate in that way in the body because that's going to take away from

what I want in some way.

We don't belong to ourselves.

We belong.

We are part of, as Scripture teaches, a body, one body.

So I've titled the next seven weeks here, as you can see, There Is No I In One.

It's a bit of a play on an old adage, there is no I in team.

I'm assuming you've all heard that phrase.

There is no I in team, saying that, hey, when you're a team, there is no

individual within that team.

However, this saying falls short, very short, of what we're talking about

because we're not talking about a team here.

We're talking about a singular organism.

This is different.

This isn't just a group of people that you've come and agreed on like terms

and have a common goal.

That's not how the New Testament speaks of us as believers.

That's not what that's about.

It's not a team.

It's a body.

It's a body in which you and I, if we are in Christ, have been made a part of this body.

We've been brought into this body.

We see this no more clearly than in Paul's letter to the church in Corinth.

And we're going to look at chapter 12 in a moment, but turn with me in your Bible.

I want us to kind of build up to chapter 12.

Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 with me first because I want us to see the

reason for Paul's letter to the Christians in Corinth.

And I think we see a great similarity to the church today because in the church at Corinth,

there was much trouble.

And I would argue that much of that trouble came from them not understanding the doctrine of the

church, which is why I believe Paul writes this letter to them.

And so in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, look with me at verse 10.

We see the reason he writes this.

I appeal to you brothers.

Now notice that Paul is saying brothers.

He's talking to Christians, right?

He's talking to people that he's assuming are in Christ.

And so he's not just throwing these people under the bus no matter how just because they're wicked and they have no understanding of the of the

doctrine of the church.

No, he's calling them brothers.

He says, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you

agree and that there be no divisions among you

but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

And notice he says that there he doesn't say there be few divisions among you.

He says there are no divisions among you.

Without exception, that is the rule.

No divisions.

Look down at verse 12.

What I mean is that each one of you says, oh, I follow Paul.

I follow Apollos.

I follow Cephas or I follow Christ.

You can imagine those guys.

Everybody probably then like, oh, come on.

Jesus juked us on that one.

I follow Christ.

And then verse 13, he says, is Christ divided?

Was Paul crucified for you?

Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

I love how Paul feels as though he's being a little facetious here like, come on guys, let's think about this real quick.

You see the similarity to us today though in these few verses?

Why don't you think about it for a second.

I follow Calvin.

I follow Wesley.

I follow Arminius.

I follow MacArthur.

You see it?

Same pattern, isn't it?

Was MacArthur crucified for you?

What does this say about us as Christians today?

What does this say that we, like the church at Corinth, put

more stock in how we follow and in who we follow and divide amongst the

body depending upon that particular man

and shun the other because they follow Apollos?

Oh, I follow Paul.

Oh, you follow Apollos?

Okay.

And I have my own group.

What does it say about us though as Christians?

What's the same thing that Paul goes on to tell them in chapter 3?

What does he say at the beginning of chapter 3?

He tells them that they're infants in the faith.

Remember Paul, he's encouraged the saints when he writes to grow up into mature manhood, to grow up in

understanding the truth, understanding theology, having your mind renewed and to be

mature in the faith, looking to Christ and being unified in the faith.

That's mature manhood.

But now he tells them, the church at Corinth, you're divided because you're infants.

You aren't ready for the meat of the word.

You're not ready for the depths of God's word because you're not even being obedient to the very smallest

commands.

And look at verse 3 of chapter 3.

It says, for you are still of the flesh.

For while there is jealousy and strife among you.

How many churches have you ever been in where there's not jealousy and strife?

Right?

And how many of those churches actually just allowed that jealousy and strife to simmer?

Right?

Infants.

That's what the church at Corinth was.

He says, it's among you.

Are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?

We're not so different, are we?

Maybe many of the Christians in our culture today are not quite as spiritually

mature as they would think they are.

Maybe we're just infants in many ways.

Just like the church in Corinth.

Look at verse 4.

For when one says, I follow Paul, and another, I follow Apollos, are you

not being merely human?

Saying, are you not just living in the flesh?

You're not living by the spirit.

You're living by the flesh according to the flesh.

When you say that you follow me or you follow Apollos, look at verse 5.

What then is Apollos?

What is Paul?

Right?

What is Wesley?

What is Calvin?

Servants through whom you believed.

Remember, he's speaking to believers.

They may be immature believers, but they're believers nonetheless.

And he's saying, who are these people?

Who are these people that you follow so greatly?

Who is John MacArthur?

A servant through whom you believed.

That's it.

It's simply a man pointing you to Christ.

And let me say this.

It's okay to admire and imitate these men.

It's okay in the areas of their life and faith that are imitating the Savior.

And that's what Paul's getting at here.

And Paul spends the next few chapters that we see in between here addressing all of these

worldly things that are going on in the church because of their immaturity.

Because they're not understanding the doctrine of the church and the unity.

He's just breaking down all of these things as he goes on, ultimately leading up to chapter 11,

where he addresses a most grievous corporate sin.

You see, their disunity and immaturity now leads them to make a mockery of the

ordinance of the Lord's table.

Look at chapter 11, verses 20 and 21.

He says, when you come together, he's talking about the

Lord's Supper, right?

When you come together and you're gathered on Sunday morning, is it not the Lord's Supper

that you eat?

He says, it is not the Lord's Supper that you eat.

They think they're going and they're partaking in the Lord's Supper like we do every single week, but he's saying it's

not.

You think it is, but it's not.

Look at verse 21.

For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal.

One goes hungry, another gets drunk.

See, the church in Corinth was so disunified, they didn't even pretend unity at the Lord's table.

They didn't even bother with it.

That's how immature and infantile they were in their faith and their doctrine of the church.

They didn't even understand the reason and the purpose of the Lord's table.

They didn't comprehend it.

You see, what was happening here, let me give you a kind of a breakdown.

The wealthy would sit at their tables with excess food because back then when they would, they did

kind of like what we do with Koinonia Feast.

They called it the love feast.

That's what the church did.

Every week, they ate together, period.

But what they began to do was bring the Lord's Supper and intertwine it with that meal.

So they made it an entire meal.

And the wealthy had tables, and the wealthy had excess and food, so much excess that they

were gluttons eating all of their food up and all of this stuff, and they were drunk.

They were sitting there partaking of the wine, and we got our wine in a little bitty cup here, a little bit,

but they're sitting there drinking in excess to the point to where many of them are becoming drunk

on the Lord's Day.

They even had divisions of class within these tables.

Like this particular culture of people gets at that table.

It's like going to a public high school, right?

You've got the cool kids at that table, you've got the nerds over here, you've got the jocks over here, you've

got these sects within all of this whole group, and this is exactly what the church in Corinth was doing

with the Lord's Supper, and they're sitting there in excess, all the while the poor sat on the outskirts

watching because they didn't have access to the food,

and they're claiming this is the Lord's table.

You could see what a small view of the doctrine of the church they had.

They didn't even understand this, the unifying nature of this.

And I think sometimes we look at this, and I lay it all out, and we think, oh man, we would never do that.

And we have Koinonia Feast, and man, I invite everybody in the church to come over and sit with me, even if they're a guest, this is

great.

We don't have those types of divisions, all the while we avoid certain people in our own church because they're different from

us.

We don't have deep abiding relationships with someone because we don't just, we just don't seem to mesh.

Our personalities are too different.

You may say, well, pastor, good thing, I don't struggle with that.

Pastor, I fellowship with every person in this church.

Well, praise God.

That's awesome.

Great.

Now, what about your brothers and sisters who don't believe in the doctrines of grace and reformed

theology?

What about them?

Do you fellowship with them?

Or do you just argue with them all the time, trying to beat it over their heads, trying to make them believe it?

What about your brother and sister who believe in the ongoing gifts of the Spirit?

Do you fellowship with them?

Are they a part of this body?

Or any such thing that doesn't distort the gospel of faith alone and Christ alone?

If you've been around here for any amount of time, you know I'm not talking about some open -ended,

ecumenical, like we're all Jesus lovers.

We draw hard lines.

You distort the gospel in any way, and we're going to act like Jude, treating you the way

Jude told us to treat you.

We are going to call you to repentance, and we are acknowledging we do not have fellowship.

Light has no fellowship with darkness, and distortion of the gospel is darkness, right?

But that's not always the case.

Sometimes we're drawing lines in places where we have no business drawing lines.

I'll be honest with you, I've been convicted of this lately.

As I've been going through Ephesians and seeing the doctrine of the church more and more, and seeing the unity of the body,

I'm convicted.

I'm drawing lines, and sometimes I don't draw hard lines.

I say, well no, we're brothers.

I don't really have any kind of meaningful fellowship with that brother or sister.

It's hard for us.

Yes, they may be immature saints.

They may have a low view of salvation, but if they are in Christ, we already

are unified with them.

I don't have to create unity.

What I'm doing is I'm not guarding the unity that already exists between me and them.

I'm the one that's the problem.

I'm the one causing division.

That's hard.

Well, Paul finally gets to chapter 12.

Look at chapter 12 with me, where we see this similar verse in chapter 12, verse 12,

to our namesake, Romans 12, 5.

Very similar passage.

As Paul writes here in 1 Corinthians 12, 12, for just as the body is one

and has many members, hands, knees, feet, eyes,

nose, ears, and all the members of the body, though many, are

one body.

One body.

And he says, so it is with Christ.

What does Paul mean there?

What does Paul mean, so it is with Christ?

Well, think back to what we talked about in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 22, where he says, when he's talking

about Jesus, and he put all things under Jesus's feet and gave him as head

over all things to the church.

And what is the church?

The body.

Christ is the head of the church is what Paul's getting at there in verse 12.

So it is with Christ.

Christ is one.

Christ's body has been brought together in union.

There are many members, but we are all members of one organic body.

Look at verse 13 there.

For in one spirit, which we're going to deal with next week, we

were all baptized into one body.

And he explains this.

He says, Jew or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink

of one spirit.

Paul just continues to drive this doctrine of the church home.

One.

One.

There's no I in one.

I'm not an individual any longer.

I can't see myself as what Nathan wants or what Nathan desires.

I can't see my life belonging to me.

My life belongs to this body that Jesus is the head of.

And we drink of one spirit.

We're at that same source, that indwelling Holy Spirit that we talk about all the time here is the same Holy

Spirit that is in our brother and sister that's weeping to worship somewhere else in town right now.

Now their structure of church and their ecclesiology and their understanding of salvation may not be fully formed.

Maybe they are an immature saint.

But they're part of the one spirit.

We're tied to them in one body.

Look at verse 15.

If the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body.

That would not make it any less a part of the body.

And if the ear should say, because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body.

That would not make it any less part of the body.

Hold on there for a second.

What is Paul saying?

Paul's giving us an example of ourselves, the individual, that piece, the ear,

the hand, the eye, those differing parts in the body that have differing functions.

Sometimes in the church, what do we do?

Well, my role isn't the same role as the pastor has.

So I guess I really don't have as much to bring the body as he does.

You realize that whatever part of the body that I am and Pastor Jeremiah is,

whatever part of that body, we are completely and thoroughly rely upon you as part of

that body.

We can't function without you.

We may be the mouth piece.

Who knows what that is?

I don't know how it looks.

I'm just using analogies like Paul is.

Maybe we're the mouth.

Well, that mouth is meaningless if it's just a mouth sitting there jabbering like the little teeth that click when you wind them up

and hop all over the table.

It means nothing.

We can't proclaim the gospel.

We need the entirety of the body that is one unit that is able to go out and proclaim the good news.

We desperately need each other.

Look at verse 17.

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

If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?

But as it is, God arranged the members of the body, each one of them.

I find it interesting that Paul puts this in here as he chose, right?

You don't get to choose what part of the body you are.

You don't get to choose whether you're the mouthpiece or the ear or the eyes or the hands.

You don't get to choose.

He's the one that has sovereignly chosen.

He is the one that is in control.

Look at verse 19.

If all were a single member, where would the body be?

As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

See the imagery here?

Are you following Paul's train of thought here?

There's organic unity that is already built in.

Look with me then at verse 21.

He continues with this analogy.

He says, the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you.

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

On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.

And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor.

And our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which is more presentable

parts, which are more presentable parts do not require.

Let's stop there for a second.

How often do we treat the body like this?

I don't need you.

That's what we're saying in disunity.

That's what the church in Corinth is saying whenever they're dividing up during the Lord's Supper.

The wealthy people are saying, I don't need that group of wealthy people because they're not from the same social

setting that I am.

Maybe our personalities aren't different.

Maybe I don't want to associate with them because they come from a different culture.

And then they're all looking around at all the poor people around the edges that are starving to death while they're

getting drunk and gorging themselves.

And they're saying to the poor people, we don't need you.

And all the while the spirit is grieved.

And the spirit is saying, you don't realize that

you're one?

What happens if the hand says to the eye, I don't need you?

Well, now the hand has to work double time.

The hand has to feel its way around to get places.

The hand can't function without the eye.

The eye can't function without the hand.

The eye can see all the things, but it can't grab it.

You have to have the whole, the entirety of the body.

And it functions in perfect unity.

Look there at the second part of verse 24.

He says, but God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the

part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body,

but that the members may have the same care for one another.

We look at our bodies and we think, man, I can't imagine losing my eyesight, or I can't imagine losing my

hearing, or I can't imagine losing a limb.

Well, I understand that, but that's the whole point of what Paul is saying.

God has designed it to where every single body part is just as important as the other body part.

They have different roles, just as important.

The importance of each individual part of this body continues to drive us towards

unity.

That's why here we're very, very careful about that whole senior pastor model, to where

everybody comes in and they think, well, the senior pastor is like, he's like the super Christian, and we all look to

him.

No, I'm in desperate need of y 'all.

I'm not a, there's no such thing as a senior pastor.

We're a plurality, and all of us are together, united

as one unit.

There is not one that is getting greater accolades or praise, because they are all

together, same care for one another.

God has created us for unity.

You see, it would be unnatural for our body to not look out after the other parts, wouldn't it?

Try and put your hand on a hot stove on purpose.

The rest of your body is going to fight you.

It's going to guard that hand.

It's going to seek to protect that hand and keep you from harming it.

It would be unnatural to have nothing to do with the other parts.

And to further drive this analogy of a spiritual reality home, Paul wraps up that

thought with verse 26.

And here's the key, and here's how you know if you have unity.

Here's how you know if you're understanding the doctrine of the church, okay?

This right here is the pinnacle verse of what Paul is saying here.

You want to know if you're unified?

You want to know if we truly are acting as a body?

If one member suffers, all suffer together.

If one member is honored, all rejoice together.

This is a beautiful analogy.

And we see it in our own physical being.

I don't know if you can see it on my face from where you are, but I have a terrible case of poison ivy this week.

My eyes were nearly swollen shut two days ago, and it's everywhere.

There are very few parts of my body that do not have it.

My right foot is one that doesn't have poison ivy at the moment.

But let me tell you something about my right foot.

It's suffering with the rest of the body, because the whole body is affected.

Even if I just had poison ivy on this arm, that was, oh, well, okay.

But the whole body's going to suffer, isn't it?

That's how united the body is.

That's how natural it is for the body to suffer.

That's how natural it is.

When I come in here on Sunday morning, and I get some of Chris's coffee, and it's not just my taste buds and my

stomach that rejoices it.

It's my whole body going, nice, we got caffeine.

And we respond.

It's only natural for this to happen.

The point is, the church, the church universal, when I say that, I mean all saints

from all times are part of this organic body.

Sometimes when we think of the body, we only think of ourselves.

We automatically go, well, 12 -5.

And last week, we talked a lot about that.

We talked about unity amongst the body and striving for that.

And we should, right?

We're a group of Christians that are part of this universal body that have covenanted together to live life.

And all of these things work out.

And we're going to talk more about that over the next seven weeks as we go through all of these ones.

But I want us to understand and really, really comprehend the universal church,

the universal body.

There is one head, which is Christ, and there is one body, which is his people

of all time that will ever be.

And we are in perfect unity with them.

Why do we, why do we strive for ourselves?

Why do we live for ourselves?

The question is, are you an active, participating member of that body?

Now, again, I'm not talking about this church body at the moment.

Church membership is important, even though that's part of being in the universal body.

I'm asking if you're a hand, okay?

Let's suppose your job is a hand.

And you're, are you doing your job as a hand?

A job that benefits the whole body?

Are you being obedient to the head?

The head tells the hand what to do.

The hand obeys.

Christ tells us what to do.

We obey.

Or is sin causing you to be lame, disrupting the unity of the

body?

I don't know about you, but if I lost the use of my right hand right now and it just quit functioning, no matter how much my

brain tells it to, my whole body's suffering.

It's going to affect my whole life.

It's going to hinder the body in many, many ways.

Are you falling into the American dream, Christianity, of selfishness, blindness, and spiritual

consumerism?

Being that hand just lying there saying, body, what can you do for me today?

What benefit do you have for me today while I lay here and relax?

Oh, by the way, by the way, if the weather's good, I'll be at the lake.

Or are you looking to the Savior?

Are you looking to the head of the body?

Are you looking to the one that has purchased you and redeemed you and brought you into perfect union?

Are you seeking to be obedient to him, looking out for the well -being of his body, the church?

Because this one body is his body, not yours,

not mine, not ours.

It's his body.

We're but the members of that body.

We must be unified.

I want other gospel churches in this community to look at 12 .5

not as competition or enemies.

I don't want us to look at others as competition or enemies.

I want us to look at them as brothers and sisters.

Again, they may not have a great ecclesiology.

I get it.

They may not understand the inner workings of salvation and its intricacies.

But oh, if they have put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ and Christ alone,

they're a part of that body.

Let's quit looking so internally.

Let's start thinking the universal church more and more

and having great unity with them.

One of the ways that we express this unity here, hopefully very differently than the church in

Corinth, is the Lord's Supper, where we get to see the oneness that we have.

We get to see the unity.