WWUTT 1591 One Body With Many Members (1 Corinthians 12:12-14)

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The church is the body of Christ. And like any body, we're one body, but we're made up of many members.

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If we were all exactly the same, we would not be a functioning body of Christ, when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it.

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Visit our website at www .wutt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study in the book of 1 Corinthians, still in chapter 12.

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And I'll pick up reading in verse 12 and go through verse 22. This is out of the

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Legacy Standard Bible, the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. For even as the body is one, and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is

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Christ. For also by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one

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Spirit. For also the body is not one member, but many. If the foot says, because I am not a hand,

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I am not a part of the body, it is not for this reason any less a part of the body.

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And if the ear says, because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body, it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body.

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

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But now God has appointed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired.

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And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now they are many members, but one body.

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And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, or again the head to the feet,

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I have no need of you. On the contrary, how much more is it that the members of the body, which seem to be weaker, are necessary?

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Now I'm stopping there in the middle of a sentence, it goes on from there, but we're going to cover at least that much between today and tomorrow, and I'm hoping by Wednesday to get through the rest of this chapter, we'll see how far we get here.

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So in verse 12, for even as the body is one, and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

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So the body that we're a part of, and of course we're talking about the church, right? The body of Christ is the church, and it's made up of many members.

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A little bit later on, we have this statement, verse 19, if they were all one member, where would the body be?

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So if the entire body of Christ was all exactly the same, it wouldn't be a body, because a body is made up of different parts.

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There are different parts of the body that do different things. They have different tasks.

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They have things that they can accomplish that another part of the body can't do. So it's because all of the members of the body are different that we call it a body.

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If they weren't different, then there wouldn't be a body. Now this all ties into something Paul has said previously in the chapter about how the spirit has given different gifts to different people, and we all work together with these different gifts for the benefit of the body, building it up in love.

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That's what the Corinthians are lacking, remember. They don't have love. They're not self -sacrificing.

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They're not considering others' needs ahead of their own. They're all looking for different ways that they can advance themselves.

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Not everybody. There's surely some in the church that have been convicted in such ways, which is why they brought this report to Paul about things that were going on in the church in Corinth that needed to be addressed.

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Remember, he's getting a report from Chloe's people. So Chloe's people may have been those that were like, hey, what we're seeing going on in the church now, this is not the way that we are supposed to be.

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So it's not everybody, but for the most part, the church is not exhibiting love. And when we get to the end of this chapter, hopefully next week, starting in chapter 13, that's where Paul confronts the church about exactly what love is.

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And what he says love is, is not what the church in Corinth is exhibiting by and large.

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So again, the body is one. We are unified in Christ. Paul has been making that point from the beginning of the letter, rebuking the church in Corinth for how many factions had developed among them.

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Because every person was out for their own thing, then there was no unity being exhibited in the body.

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And yet Paul is not writing them off as as some sort of fallen church, some sort of apostate church that can't call themselves believers anymore.

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They're just baby Christians. That was also earlier in the letter. I could not address you as mature, but you are infants in the faith.

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So I'm still having to give you the milk. I can't go on to meat and potatoes. We got to go back to the basics for you to understand these things.

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And one of the basic things we need to understand is the body of Christ, that we are many parts, but one body.

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All the members of the body, though they are many, are one. So it is with Christ.

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Christ is not divided. Remember, that was a point that Paul made to the Corinthians earlier as well.

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Is Christ divided? No, Christ is one. So the body is one. We're different parts, but we're one body.

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Therefore, let there be unity in the church. That's what Paul is driving them toward.

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Verse 13 for also by one spirit, we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free.

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And we were all made to drink of one spirit. Now remember, going back to chapter 11, when

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Paul was rebuking the church for their misuse of the Lord's table, we saw some class separation going on there.

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First Corinthians 1122. Do you? Oh, I'm sorry. It's a little bit earlier than that.

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Let me start in verse 20. So First Corinthians 1120, when you meet together in the same place, it is not the

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Lord's supper that you eat for in your eating. Each one takes his own supper first and one is hungry and another is drunk.

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For do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing?

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What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I will not praise you. So there Paul is confronting some of the class separation that's been going on.

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Some come with a lot of food and they will leave drunk and then others come with nothing and they leave hungry.

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So as he comes here and he and he mentions that in the body of Christ, there is not

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Jew or Greek. There is not slave or free. We're all made to drink of the one spirit.

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He's addressing there that there is no ethnic distinction in the body of Christ.

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We're all one. You know that that speaks right against the critical race theory, the wokeness that has come into modern

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American evangelicalism, where everybody in the body of Christ is supposed to be separated according to their ethnicities.

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Like you have to have some sort of variation of skin color in your church in order to truly be at accepting or Holy Spirit filled church, which that's not the case at all.

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For here, Paul is saying to the church that there's not Jew and Greek. There is no ethnic separation.

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We're all one in Christ. And then when he says whether slaves are free, there's class separation.

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We're not. We're not slaves. We're not divided up into slaves. You're over here practicing your own

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Lord's table, right? And then free or the rich. You're not over here practicing your own

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Lord's table. We're all made to drink of one spirit, whether slave or free Jew or Greek.

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We all have the Holy Spirit of God in equal measure. There's not one person that has more

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Holy Spirit and another person who has less Holy Spirit. We all have the same spirit, one spirit, same measure, though he may give different gifts to different people.

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And as we read in Romans 12 three, there is a different measure of faith that is given to each one.

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But that doesn't mean that a person has more Holy Spirit or less Holy Spirit. We've all been given the same spirit and the same filling of that spirit, though there are going to be different manifestations of that spirit in the spiritual gifts that each person is given.

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Verse 14 for also the body is not one member, but many. And that verse again couples with verse 19.

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So 14 says the body is not one member, but many. Verse 19 says if they were all one member, where would the body be?

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We would not be a body if it was all just, you know, it would be groupthink, right? Everybody has to think exactly the same thing and do exactly the same stuff.

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Well, then that would not be a body. That wouldn't be a functioning body of Christ because the body is not one member.

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The body is many. We are one. We're one body, but we're not one member. Some of this is very similar to something that Paul said to the

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Ephesians in Ephesians chapter four. It's also in chapter four. We've got another lift, another list of giftings in the

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Holy Spirit given to the church. But I think more specifically of the beginning of the chapter. So I'm reading here in Ephesians four, starting in verse one.

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Now hang on here. I've got my English standard version in front of me. So to be consistent, let me bring up the

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LSB. Here we go. So Ephesians four, one in the legacy, therefore, I, the prisoner of the

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Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being diligent to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

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Now, now Paul is addressing a different church with different things that he has to say to them.

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With the Ephesians, there was not a lot of division going on because of false teaching or because they weren't loving one another.

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They actually were very affectionate toward one another and very faithful in the gospel that had been given to them.

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So a totally different tone in Paul's address to the Ephesians than what we're reading here in in first Corinthians twelve.

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Nonetheless, he still calls the church, reminds the church to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

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Going on to verse four, there is one body and one spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling, one

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Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

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But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.

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Therefore, it says when he ascended on high, he led captive a host of captives and he gave gifts to men.

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Now, this expression he ascended. What does it mean? Except that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth.

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He who descended is himself also he who ascended far above all the heavens so that he might fill all things.

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And he himself gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the full knowledge of the son of God to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ so that we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

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But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head that is

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Christ from whom the whole body being joined and held together by what every joint supplies according to the properly measured working of each individual part causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

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And it's beautiful, right? And that's that's Paul's address to the church in Ephesus about the body of Christ.

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I read there from Ephesians, chapter four, one through 16. That was that was about half the chapter there.

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So you see how Paul describes the body of Christ, even to the Ephesians, very similar to what he says to the

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Corinthians, just with a different tone and that when the body is working properly, though we are different parts, we're one body, but we're different parts.

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When every part is working properly, what does the body do for itself? It builds itself up in love.

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It builds up the body into Christ. This is Ephesians four, verse 12 again, that that God gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ.

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Yeah, your church is going to have pastors and deacons and they'll be elders.

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You know, if you're if you're elder led, if you have a plurality eldership, you're going to have teachers in different departments and you will have different ministries perhaps within the church.

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But these persons that fill these different ministerial roles are not those who are building the church up.

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All of the members of the body are to be building the church up. There are people that have these different positions because of a certain measure of grace that God has given to them to fill in those particular roles.

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And they have gifts given to them to fill those roles. But they're to be building up the rest of the body, just as the rest of the body is to be building itself up.

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Even the pastor has been given to equip the saints for the work of service, for the building up the body of Christ.

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So your church is not the pastor. The pastor is a servant to the rest of the church that he might build the church up in love.

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We're all doing this together. The church needs one another for the purpose of building each other up in sanctification into Christ, building itself up in love.

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And it's in Christ that the whole body is joined and held together by what every joint supplies according to the properly measured working of each individual part, causing the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

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That was once again, verse 16. So this is the same instruction that Paul has for the church in Corinth.

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There's one body, there's many parts, but they need to be building one another up.

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They need to be using the different gifts that have been given to them for the purpose of building each other up, not not building themselves up.

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Like I have this gift, and so I'm going to use it to advance myself. Well, you're not doing it then for the benefit of the body of Christ.

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You're not building up Christ's body. You're not helping to sanctify others. And if you're not helping to sanctify others, you are not also being sanctified because you need others to help you be sanctified just as you need to help others be sanctified.

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Right now, it's a word we use a lot sanctified. But what does this word mean? It means to be made holy, to grow in holiness.

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The moment you came to Christ, you were immediately justified. You are declared innocent before a holy

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God, but you've not yet been fully sanctified. And just as Jesus lived a holy life, so you also are called to live in holiness, to grow in holiness, to grow, therefore, in Christ likeness, that you become more like him.

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And as we're part of the body of Christ, with Christ as the head, this can only be done with the other parts of the body.

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You cannot grow in Christ by yourself. You need other Christians to help you do that.

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As I've heard Tim Challey say, sanctification is a community project.

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In other words, that's something that we are doing together. We are building each other up. We're helping one another mature, and we're doing this in love.

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Now, there are sometimes there are people in the church that it seems like their purpose in the church is to check everyone else and make sure they're all growing in sanctification.

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You know, these people, it's like I'm checking everybody else's behavior, but they themselves don't really see a need to grow or or they're not even involved in helping that other person in their behavior.

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They're just checking somebody else and they're going to tell the pastor or they're just going to gossip about it. Right. I think back several years ago, six or seven years,

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I can't remember exactly how long, but I had some young men in my church who were exactly like this, and it was like all they did.

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They came to church and then after church, they're telling me, hey, did you see what so and so said on Facebook? You know, so on and so forth.

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At first, when this was going on, I would I would listen to what it was that they had to say, and then

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I would check with the other person or I would look online to see what it was that they were saying. But then after a time,

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I realized what they were doing. This this was just their M .O. It was they thought that they were holier than everybody else.

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So I'm going to check everybody else's behavior, but not but not actually being involved in helping anyone mature in their

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Christianity. So I confronted these young men and I said, when you see another person that's behaving in a certain way that you are deeming to be unrighteous, which

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I'm guessing is the reason why you're coming to me and telling me this. Right. So you think this person is sinning.

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Then what does Matthew 18 tell you to do? You need to go to that person between you and the other person and just between the two of you.

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You need to tell them of their sin. And if they listen to you, then you've won your brother or sister.

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But if they won't listen to you, then take two or three others along. And I said to them, don't do this just among yourselves, because you guys are kind of a group.

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These young men were kind of their own clique. So I said, when you take one or two others along, make sure it's somebody that's not part of your clique already, that you guys don't become like this little clan that's going around and checking everybody's behavior.

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But you make sure that it can be seen and testified to by other members in the church that there's a sin that needs to be corrected in this person's not willing to correct it.

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Well, even though I confronted these young men with this, they didn't listen to it. I think they did it one or two times. But then what it turned into was, see, there's all these problems with people going on in the church and Gabe isn't doing anything about it.

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So they turned against me, which didn't work. It was actually it was comical and heartbreaking at the same time.

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But they they then brought a list of grievances about me and said, see, these are things we've brought to Gabe's attention.

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He won't do anything about it. And so therefore, Gabe is the problem. And and so this was this was a group of men who did not have love for the church.

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They did not desire to build it up in love. They only desired to virtue signal themselves.

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How can I look good to the rest of this body? Well, I'm going to call out everybody else's sin, not actually helping anybody else grow, not actually listening to correction myself, but I'm going to correct everybody else.

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Those were men that would have fit perfectly within the congregation of Corinth, a pre -repentant congregation of Corinth.

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We are different members of the body. And this is for the purpose of building the body up in love.

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And we do all of this in the name of Christ. The body is not one member.

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We're not all meant to groupthink, but we are many with different giftings, different maturity.

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One member has more faith in another member. We talked about that a little bit last week.

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And these spiritual gifts that we are given are for the purpose of building one another up, of serving each other.

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We serve in the church. We don't serve ourselves. Some people take their spiritual gifts and start websites, right?

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They start their own Internet ministries. Hey, look what I'm doing with my spiritual gift. That's not what your spiritual gift is for.

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It's not to start your own brand. It's for building up the body of Christ and don't envy others gifts, but rejoice in God for the gift that you have and use it for the blessing of others.

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We're going to talk about that a little bit more tomorrow, picking up in verse 15. Heavenly Father, thank you for these lessons that we've been reading here about being a member of the body of Christ and to truly be a member of your church.

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We need to be going to church. We need to attend church. And may that be the motivation in our heart for your churches to actually be with our brothers and sisters in the

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Lord so that we may grow in love and help one another grow as well. Sanctify us,

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O Lord, and help us to be sanctifying to one another. It's in Jesus' name that we pray.

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Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .wutt

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.com. And click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our