One Body, Many Members

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

The Unity of Spiritual Gifts in 1 Corinthians 12

So, as I mentioned, we're still in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. We heard from Steve last week on the first half, and now I'm going to take it away with the second half. And as you might have noticed if you've been following along, we're getting to a monumental landmark or milestone, maybe is a better word.

We're closing in on the last four chapters of 1 Corinthians. And so, if you've been around since the beginning, that was sometime in June. And so, by God's grace, if we are to finish it, it'll be sometime in April when we do that almost a full year in 1 Corinthians.

And as we heard from Steve last week, the Apostle Paul has written his letter to this young and immature church, and in this particular section, to address the use and the misuse of spiritual gifts in the assembly of the church, like so many other things.

We know the Corinthians well by now, like so many things in the Corinthian church. The church was confused about another issue, and in this case, came to the proper exercise of spiritual gifts when they gathered.

They were so confused, in fact, that if we look at the way or the space that the gifts take up in this letter, Paul spends three chapters looking at the gifts of the Holy Spirit. That's almost one-fifth of the book, about the same amount that he gives to idolatry, and just one chapter less than the issue that he gives to unity.

And as we've seen over and over and over again, the church in this city was acting in such a way that the spiritual gifts had become an occasion again for disunity, for division, for disagreement, for all kinds of schisms and party systems within the church.

And as one commentator put it, the Corinthians were engaged in the stratification. If you can picture that, you go to the Grand Canyon, and you see the different layers of sediment in the Grand Canyon.

The Corinthian church was engaged in the same, the stratification of the spiritual gifts. And Steve alluded to that last week. It seems that the Corinthian believers, like many today, and you guys are going to see parallels as we look at this text, the Corinthians, like many today, had obsessed about certain gifts, had obsessed about the prominent, the spectacular gifts in the church to the exclusion of other good gifts that had been given by the Holy Spirit that were less flashy, less visible.

As a result, some gifts in the Corinthian church were viewed as being more important, more worthy, as being more necessary, while other gifts in the church were viewed as being less than worthy. They were inherently neglected or dishonored.

And so last week we saw, as Steve preached through the first 11 verses of 1 Corinthians 12, that Paul listed a variety of gifts. If you remember that, Steve itemized them, went through them, one at a time, that there's the utterance of wisdom and knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, tongues in their interpretation.

And Paul's primary point in those first 11 verses was to show that all of these gifts are from the same Holy Spirit who distributes them as he wills. That's how chapter 11 ends, that the one Holy Spirit distributes all of them as he wills.

And I know we've been talking a little bit among some people about the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. And I just wanted to point out something that was interesting at the end of verse 11.

It says, the same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills. We have the personification again of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. This Holy Spirit gave the Corinthians the gifts that they had.

And now as we look at verse 12, in chapter 12, what's the first word that we see there? That word for. Every time that we see a conjunction, a for, and, therefore, but, however, now we know that this is connected to, it's building upon, it's conjoined with the previous passage.

And so what we're going to see today as we look at 1 Corinthians 12 to 31 is that Paul is going to build on this issue of unity, these issues of spiritual gifts in the church. He's going to elaborate for the benefit of the Corinthians and for, by God's grace, for the benefit of this church, our church some 2 ,000 years later.

And so you know that I like to summarize the passage as we're studying a text. And so what I want to do is give you exactly that. As we study this text, the main idea, the big idea that Paul is trying to convey to the church is this.

Here Paul shows us what the exercise of spiritual gifts should look like in a mature and in a healthy church. And so if you're looking at the handout or the insert in our bulletin, you'll see that Paul leans on three points in particular as he makes this case for the healthy exercise of spiritual gifts.

And we'll see that he's going to teach us this, that spiritual gifts exercised in a healthy church should unify the church. It should build the church up. A healthy church is one body, and not just any body, but Christ's body.

The second point that Paul is going to make in this text is that spiritual gifts exercised in a healthy church recognize that there are many members in the body. There is a plurality of members, a diversity of gifts.

And then thirdly, Paul is going to say, he's going to show us that spiritual gifts exercised in a healthy church recognize that each member of the body is indispensable. We're going to see his use of that word, indispensable.

A healthy church knows that it needs each and every one of its members. And so I'm encouraged as we look at this text, it is a thoroughly practical text, very applicable to our circumstances. And as we study it, what we're actually going to see are some of the errors of the Corinthian church repeated in the church today.

And so if you're paying attention, you'll be able to say, ah, I see that. We see a lot of the same Corinthian, what I'm calling the Corinthian heresy in the church today. And so even as we study this text, I was telling Lowell just before, this is a hard text to preach on in one way because it is very clear.

It's almost like we should just read it and then say, go and do likewise. Just do it, read it, and then do it. But there are things to learn. It's very applicable. I'm going to try to dig in a little bit and we'll see what we can glean from the text.

So here Paul gives us a recipe for the orderly and God-glorifying use of the spiritual gifts in the church. So let's begin in chapter 12, verse 12. I'm going to read some, but not all the texts as we work our way through.

But Paul writes in chapter 12 and verse 12, For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

Christ's Body Is One

The first point that Paul is making, especially if you're taking notes, you can write this down. First thing that we need to understand is that a healthy church is one body. A healthy church is united.

Paul opens up the section of the letter by using the metaphor of the human body to describe the church. He first introduced this metaphor, this illustration in chapter 10, in verse 17 when he was speaking about the Lord's Supper.

There he said, Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body. That was the first time we heard that in 1 Corinthians. And we find many metaphors. If you've listened to our Statement of Faith study, if you've heard teaching on the church before, you know that a quick survey of the New Testament, a quick survey of your Bibles, is going to find that there are a number of metaphors, a number of word pictures for the church.

And just to list a couple, we see that the church is a bride. She's Christ's bride. The church is a building. She's a family, a flock, a field, a temple, a nation. Even a holy priesthood. The church is often used in the Bible, sorry, the church is often described in the Bible using a variety of these word pictures or these images, these metaphors, but no metaphor.

If you really look through the text, if you were to look through your concordance maybe, and search the word bride, or search the word household or building or temple, no metaphor, no word is used as frequently or as prominently to describe the church as this metaphor of the human body, metaphor of the human body.

The church is perhaps best understood, think about this in light of some of the errors that we see today, is best understood not as a movement, not as an institution. The church is not best understood as an organization.

The church is best understood as an organism, as a living organism. It's a living, breathing, moving organism made up of countless vital parts that are necessary for its health and for its survival. The church lives and moves as a body, as an organism, by the sustaining grace of God, just as we do every single day.

We were talking this week at the prayer meeting about unity in the church and all of the potential pitfalls, the minefields in the world. I think I said it then, I know I was feeling it then, that if God does not sustain this church at any and every moment, we are dead in the water now.

Tomorrow there is no Grace Fellowship Church. It's like so many websites, you look at the website and then you realize the last sermon preached was two and a half years ago, or you go to the Google page and it says this business is now closed.

That could be Grace Fellowship Church if not for the sustaining grace and providence, the help of God. The church has figurative hands and figurative feet and joints and ligaments and internal organs, ears, eyes and a mouth to function and to carry out its duties.

The church is a living body. And I don't know if this captures your attention, if this even makes you flinch, but it's remarkable, it's most remarkable that God describes, that Paul describes as inspired by God, that the church is Christ's body.

Not just any body, not just the body of the President of the United States or the Prime Minister or the head of some world governmental organization, but the church is Christ's body, the physical body.

We are, this local church, the physical body of the Lord Jesus Christ in the world. What that means is that we are the temple. That's another metaphor. We see the temple of the Lord Jesus Christ in the world.

When the church is faithful, when we are spiritually alive and walking in lockstep with scripture, the church is the fitting physical representation of the living Christ in the world. To use another word picture, the church is God's embassy in this foreign and fallen land.

And all of us who are in Christ in this room are little ambassadors of Christ, making Christ known to the world around us. I wish that we could go a little bit deeper into that, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to stay on track with what Paul is prioritizing here.

Paul's primary concern in the text, in this case, in speaking about the body, is the unity of that body. This is Paul's concern. It was Paul's concern last time. It is now that the human body, just as the human body is singular, so it is with Christ's body.

Kids, I want to ask you a question. I'm going to put you on the hot seat for a second. It's not a hard question. How many bodies do you have?

One.

So do you have one body for home and one body for church and one body for school and one body for play? No, you have one body. And so it is, just as Paul makes this case, just as there is one body, one human body, he says, so it is with Christ.

Or that's a short form of saying, so it is with Christ's body. There is one body, the church. And Paul's first claim is that the church, Christ's church is first singular in its nature. Now looking at the text, Paul says in verse 13 that in one spirit we were all baptized into one body.

What does that mean?

In one spirit we were all baptized into one body. And then he says later, we were all made to drink of the one spirit. Here he's not referring to a literal or a physical baptism, although baptism signifies this reality.

He's not talking about a literal, physical baptism, or the physical drinking of the Holy Spirit. We know that's not possible. But that at the time of our conversion, when every single one of us who is in Christ came to Christ, when we believed in the Lord Jesus, when we were born again by the Spirit, it was as if we were immersed in the Holy Spirit.

It was not merely, and it wasn't merely external, it was internal as well. Kids, I'm going to ask you another question just to make sure you're paying attention. How many of you guys, when you go outside, and you're outside for a long time, let's say tobogganing, or skating, or playing, building a snow fort, how many of you love to have hot chocolate when you're really, really cold?

Right?

And us adults, it might be tea, it might be coffee, but we all know the experience when you've been outside for a long time and you're chilled to the bone, and then someone, they see that you're cold, they offer you a hot tea, or a hot coffee, a hot chocolate, and you take that, and you drink it, and almost immediately, it's as if your body is being heated from the inside out.

The heat is radiating from your very core.

That's what Paul means.

When he says that we've all been baptized in the Holy Spirit, that we've been immersed in it at the time of our salvation, at the time of our being saved, and also that not only the Holy Spirit was outside of us, but also inside of us, became internal, dwelt in us.

The theologians,.

If you were to read a systematic theology, would call it the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We read about that in all kinds of different texts. And it changes us, Paul says, right down to the point of our very identity.

Now, I don't want to hammer on this too hard because we've already looked at it to some degree, but what it means is that we're no longer Jews or Gentiles. We're no longer slaves or free. In another place Paul says we're no longer male or female.

All of these dividing lines are erased and were made members of the one united body of Christ without division or distinction. Now, coming to a point of contention, many people, and some of you have probably heard this, have talked about the baptism of the Holy Spirit as being a secondary act or as being part of a second blessing, this extra blessing that Christians should look after, seek after, to work towards.

That we are saved, that we can be physically baptized, but then we aren't actually baptized in the Holy Spirit. I think I've used an example before of a book that I read where the author said that he was saved in 1972, but he did not receive the Holy Spirit or did not experience the spiritual baptism until the 1980s.

Is this true? Should we as believers be seeking a second blessing, a second baptism of the Holy Spirit? If we look at Paul's words and the flow of the argument in chapter 12, in verse 13, what we see is this.

This is completely at odds. This idea of a second baptism is completely at odds with what Paul is trying to say. Paul says, if you look, he says, we were all baptized into one body. He says, we were. Past tense.

It's not some future hope, but it's a historical fact. It happened at the time of our conversion. The Holy Spirit immersed us. The Holy Spirit filled us. Past tense. And he says, we were all baptized.

Not just a selective few. Not just the spiritually elite. But this is a universal experience of all Christians. That every Christian, if you're a Christian in this room, you have been baptized in, by, with the Holy Spirit.

And there's a number of other references to this spirit baptism, what we can do one day. If you're interested, you can ask me afterwards. I'll give you some of the texts. But what Paul is essentially saying is, beginning on the day of Pentecost, in fulfillment of the promises of the new covenant, promises like we read in Ezekiel 36, 27, all believers in Christ, all believers in Christ, all participants in this new covenant would be baptized, not only by water, but also by the Holy Spirit.

And this physical act of baptism, as we looked at, if you were here, when some of our brothers were baptized a few months ago, paints a picture of this spiritual reality. And where Paul is going with all of this, that we are one body, that we've been baptized, that we have drunk of one spirit, is that in all of this, we have been baptized by the Holy Spirit, we have entered into a one body relationship with the church.

The church is to be a radical, supernatural, other worldly example of unity in this fallen world. Out of this world, in a world that's increasingly divided, if we use the modern vernacular, how often have you heard the word polarized this year?

We live in a polarized society. Sociologists and media pundits ask, how are we going to gulf the chasm between the left wing and the right wing? I recently read in the National Post that they were saying that the government of Canada is now making a plan, they're putting together strategies for if and when the United States implodes.

What do we do when the United States breaks into chaos and disorder? In that world, in this world, the church is to be radically united. We are to stand steadfast as one body. Now, we've looked at this unity issue, the first four chapters of 1 Corinthians.

We looked at it again last week. We looked at it when it came to the Lord's Supper. We know that the Corinthians had a massive unity issue, and we've talked about that over and over and over again. So I'm not going to rehash all of it, but what I will ask is this, for all of us, even as our unity is tested about masks and no masks and vaccines and no vaccines and restrictions and no restrictions and NDP and Conservative and Jason Kenney and no Jason Kenney and any other number of things, how are we going to be sure, brothers and sisters in this room, beloved, how are we going to be sure that we will remain united as a local church or that a family over here won't leave because they're disgruntled with one view or a brother over here wants to leave because of another view?

How can we exhibit the spiritual solidarity in a world that is crumbling around us? I like what Martyn Lloyd-Jones said. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, he was a Welsh preacher in the early 20th or mid -20th century, mid -1900s, and he lived and ministered during probably one of the most prominent ecumenical movements of the last few hundred years, at least, where all of the churches were trying in some way to compromise, to cast out truth, spiritual truth, scripture, sound doctrine for the sake of unity.

Unity was more important than anything else and they sought it that way. And Martyn Lloyd-Jones said this, that pastors should stop simply insisting on unity. From the front of this, from behind the pulpit, from here at the front, we should stop just saying, be united as a means, as an end.

Be united.

Be one.

You guys love one another.

Please do it.

Do it. Do it. Do it.

Instead,.

What Martyn Lloyd-Jones said was this, that the pastor should focus on preaching Christ and the essential truths of scripture. He said when holiness is the main characteristic of the church, unity will take care of itself.

Now many people say that doctrine divides and we should not, we should not talk too much about doctrine because then we're going to offend this brother and this sister and that family and soon everyone's going to be offended because we all have different doctrines.

There are many views in the church, many interpretations of certain texts and some people would say we need to leave doctrine out of it. But in line with what Martyn Lloyd-Jones has said, in line with what scripture says, the way that we as a church will be truly united, not a shallow unity, not a superficial unity, is to drill down deep and to seek Christ, to be a church about the gospel, to be a church about Christ, to be a church that says this is what we believe, this is why we believe it.

To be a sound and a united church in many ways is simply for us to know our Bibles and to be conformed to it. Now I heard a story from R .C. Sproul. It was, I believe, in the 70s in the Ligonier Valley in Pennsylvania.

They were putting on a conference and they had a bunch of people come from all over the world and actually I believe it was from Europe specifically and there were Presbyterians and there were Catholics and there were Pentecostals and a whole host of other denominations or beliefs.

But the one thing that they had in common is they were all charismatic. They all believed in the miraculous workings of the spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit. And so they were together and they were having fellowship and everything was lovely and sweet and talking about the Holy Spirit and talking about the gifts and talking about tongues and prophecy.

And R .C. Sproul asked them the question, he said, how can you guys possibly have unity when you all believe different things? And they said, what do you mean? And he said, well, the Presbyterians, you believe this.

And the Catholics, you would deny salvation by faith alone, through Christ alone. And Pentecostals, you would believe this about men and women in ministry. And before you knew it, he said, everyone was at each other's throats and the fellowship was gone.

That's a superficial kind of unity. That is not the unity that we are after in the church. It's a unity that goes down deep beyond all of the world's mechanisms and the world's tools to divide. If we're going to survive petty disputes, if we're going to concern ourselves with unity, we must first concern ourselves with godliness.

We must concern ourselves with Christ, with an emphasis on sound doctrine. And when we put first things first, all of the other things of the world divides over will become largely trivial to us. I believe that if we do that, things like masks are no masks.

I know that's the hot topic.

Right now,.

But that is not going to be the issue. Paul writes next in verse 14. He says, for the body does not consist of one member, but of many. If the foot should say, because I'm 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'm not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body, children picture this, if the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?

If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, notice this, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?

As it is, there are many members, yet one body. Here Paul shows us his second point, that a healthy church consists of a plurality or a diversity of members and gifts.

Earlier I said,.

And it's true, that a healthy church is first singular. A church divided against itself will fall every time. And yet at the same time, a healthy church must, by necessity, consist of a plurality of members with their own distinct and diverse gifts.

I like what one commentator pointed out, I think he's exactly right. He said that the Corinthians chief issue, their fundamental problem was not their rejection of the church's unity. They didn't say, to heck with unity, we want nothing to do.

With being united.

He says instead, their fundamental problem was their failure to acknowledge their diversity. Their failure to acknowledge that there is allowance in God's church, in God's kingdom, for different gifts.

Just as the body is made up of many cells, the church is made up of many members. And in their immaturity, many of the believers in the Corinthian church felt that everyone had to be the same to belong.

How often do we feel that, sometimes, if we're really honest? To be around someone who is different than us, who acts different, who thinks different, makes us uncomfortable. It's a common problem in the church today.

I was thinking about it today, we could all get, I think we would fit in a small school bus, we could all get into a school bus and drive around town and we could say, ah, there's the church that emphasizes missions.

Ah, there's the church that emphasizes evangelism. There's the church that emphasizes mercy and justice. Ah, there's the church that emphasizes exacting theological precision. Every T is crossed. Every I is dotted.

Ah, there's the seniors' church. There's the young adults' church. There's the contemporary church. There's the traditional church. There's the cowboy church. The biker church. Might it be the case that many churches today divide themselves in the same way that the Corinthians did?

That we break ties.

With people that are different?

And know this,.

Please know this, that I'm not talking about tolerating or even promoting heretical views within the church. That we should say, ah, he just has a different view about who Jesus is. Or, ah, he just has a different view about how a person can be saved.

We're not talking about groundbreaking differences, false teachings, compromising the truth.

Of Scripture.

For the sake of unity. What we're talking about.

Is allowing.

For legitimate God-given. Differences in the church. Differences of personality and constitution. Differences of age and marital status. Differences in musical preference. You know, the worship wars.

It's okay for us to sing good,.

Deep, old,.

Rich hymns. It's okay for us to sing good,.

Rich, deep,.

New hymns and spiritual songs. And it hasn't fully emerged here, but I want us to see this. And I want us to see how this problem is still alive and well in the church today. It hasn't emerged in our text, but what we're going to see in the coming verses, even in this chapter, and the beginning in verse 13, and the beginning,.

Or sorry,.

We're continuing in verse 14 that the Corinthians, like the modern church, were obsessed with the showy gifts, and specifically, the Corinthian church was obsessed with the gift of tongues. That's the ability to speak in other languages.

Or, as some modern Charismatics would put forward, the ability to speak in angelic languages. And the Corinthian church was plagued by this obsession when it came to the gift of tongues. And I'll show you, I'll prove to you, that this is a problem.

If we go all the way back, this is just a hint, but in 1 Corinthians 1, in verse 5, if you guys were here for the study of this first chapter, what we learn in chapter 1 is that Paul is giving, essentially, an overview of his entire letter in the opening chapter of 1 Corinthians.

And it's just a small reference, but he says, he says, I give thanks, in verse 4, to God always for you because of the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him.

In all speech.

And all knowledge. We know that the Corinthians were obsessed with knowledge, with wisdom, but also with issues related to speech and speaking specifically in different tongues. But that's not enough.

1 Corinthians 12, or sorry, 13, if we go back, the very first issue when Paul, and we're going to talk about this next week, the very first issue that Paul addresses when it comes to love is what? Verse 1, If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

In 1 Corinthians 14, 23, as another example, he's talking about prophecy and speaking in tongues. He says in verse 23,. If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds?

This is the emphasis on tongues in verse 24. But if all prophesy and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all. He is called to account. All the secrets of his heart are disclosed.

And so,.

Falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God really is among you. And then Paul is going to give instructions on the use of tongues. But one of the issues, it appears, is that the Corinthians loved the gift of tongues.

And like we would see in the modern charismatic movement in some areas, in the Oneness Pentecostals as an example, they would say, If you do not speak in tongues, you do not have the Spirit of God. If you do not speak in tongues, none of the other gifts that you claim to have matter.

Because tongues, that is the one. That is the gift. That is what you need to belong to the church. But in verse 14, what Paul is doing now, as he speaks in verse 14, is this. He is offering a word of encouragement for the lowly believers.

Maybe the believers that were not speaking in tongues. Maybe the believers that felt pressured to speak in tongues and yet were not. And Paul says this. He says, Maybe you have a serving gift rather than a speaking gift.

And he says, You are not any less part of the body even if your gift isn't as spectacular as the other gifts. And notice the body parts that he names for these particular Christians. They are the foot of the body and not the hand.

They are the ear of the body and not the eye. At first glance, these appear to be disposable members of the body. Would you rather be, for instance, a hand or a foot? I'm thankful that when I meet someone, I shake their hand and not their foot.

If I had to give up my sense of sight or give up my sense of hearing, I would probably give up my sense of hearing over sight. And yet, what Paul is saying is this, that these members of the body, though they are less prominent, they are essential.

They're just as important.

And who here,.

If we were just given the option, would choose to have our foot amputated or our ear removed or our hearing removed from us? It would be ludicrous to suggest that. And in the same way, it's ludicrous to suggest that the Church is a one-man show.

That it's all about one man. There's one Church and there's one member. God has so designed our body that it's made up of many parts and every part is uniquely valuable to the body. And so it is the case with every member of the Church.

Every member of this Church. Every member of this Church. Every one of the believers in this room is uniquely valuable to the health of this local Church. Every single one of you. And then Paul gets to the heart of the matter in verse 18.

He says,. But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as He chose. As He chose. It is God in His wise and sovereign providence who has arranged every member of the body so that we have the exact gifts that we need.

Every single one of us in this room. The exact gifts that we need to fulfill our purpose to build up the Church and to glorify God in the world. Nowhere are we told in these passages that Christians are to try exchanging their gifts.

Or to level up. But we're to accept and to use the gifts that God has given us. And so if you're in this room.

And you've been given.

A prominent gift. 1 Peter 4, verse 11 talks about two different kinds of gifts. Speaking gifts and serving gifts.

If God has given you.

A speaking gift. A gift where you are out in the front. You're teaching or you're doing evangelism. Or it's a gift related to leadership. And what Paul would say is humble yourselves. Humble yourself before God.

What do you have that you did not receive? And what you did receive take it and glorify God with it. And if you have a less prominent gift maybe God has given you a serving gift in the Church. What are some serving gifts?

Maybe administration or the works of mercy or helping or contributing. Giving as a gift. If God has given you a gift that's out of sight that's more obscured then praise God with that gift. Take that gift and serve Christ with it.

The Church Needs Every Member

Now we're going to dig a little bit deeper but we're going to move on. So what Paul has shown us so far is that a healthy church is one body. A healthy church consists of many members. I know a lot of this is obvious.