A Christian Spiritual Culture, Part II

Text: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Focus: The Unity the Holy Spirit brings.

Function: To help people embrace the importance of their own significance in our church.

Form: Bible Study

Intro:

Sermon mistakes I have committed or heard.

• Brother Earl Coates was going through some medical problems and was losing weight quickly when his pants fell down during the sermon.
• Will the board please stay after the sermon? Everyone stayed (they were bored). It took one lady almost the whole message to get the joke.
• I was speaking at Bible College and I introduced my wife who had about 10 kids with her –kids she was babysitting- so when she stood up, all the kids stood up and people started to laugh, and in an effort to clear it up, I said: “some of those kids are mine.”
• It actually took 15 minutes to calm down the laughter. The dean of men was standing behind the curtain, and when I started laughing, he got a stern look on his face, but when I regained my composure he started laughing.
• And maybe the worse one I have committed: I was preaching on this passage of scripture, explaining the importance of how the body needs each other and it needs all of its parts and somehow I said, “some of you are suffering from being the armpit.”

I really don’t know where that came from; it might have been the Devil; it just came out.

Anyway, that introduces our message this morning about what it means to have the Holy Spirit inside of us, creating the Christian Spiritual Culture.

The emphasis on this passage, as we mentioned last week is that (SHOW): The Holy Spirit is here to bring us AS ONE BODY so that we can bring glory to Jesus.

Now remember, the problem that the Church in Corinth was experiencing was division about these gifts and the way that some believers thought that their gifts were more important than others.

Consider this paraphrase of part of the passage, (SHOW): ^14-18I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn't just a single part blown up into something huge. It's all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, "I'm not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don't belong to this body," would that make it so? If Ear said, "I'm not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don't deserve a place on the head," would you want to remove it from the body?

Being a part of the body of Christ makes you more important, significant, not less.

You are desperately needed. We can’t compare ourselves to each other or be jealous of each other’s gifts or think that we are the only ones who are important.

A body can survive without the sense of hearing, smelling, seeing, walking or talking, but its capacity is greatly diminished.

If we think that because we do not have some other function, we are less important, not needed or insignificant, and therefore we don’t commit to the health and the welfare of the body, we do the body harm.

If the foot decided to separate itself from the body, the body could bleed out and die.

(SHOW) Your participation in the body and your spiritual health are vital to the survival of the body.

Now, I am not going to shame you with the thought of Spiritual health. This whole passage is talking about spiritual health in the body specifically by not being proud, or arrogant about yourself.

That also applies to your level, or understanding of holiness.

God is asking us to look at ourselves, and not others about how we are growing, developing and working spiritually.

Different parts of the body have different functions.

The mouth speaks, the ears listen, the feet take the body where it needs to go, the hands are crafted for work, and the arms are there to give embrace.

(SHOW) Holiness means different things to different parts of the body.

The feet, may be passionate about missions. The mouth may be passionate about singing, rejoicing and proclaiming God’s love. The hands may be passionate about doing service. The eyes may be passionate about visualizing beautiful works of art, or reading God’s word. The ears may be passionate about being a kind, comforting friend who listens to people who are having problems.

All of those passions are important for everyone to have. But the specific use and gifting of those, the significance of the individual passion is placed in each one of us by Grand Design through the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, the mouth can’t say to the ear, the preacher cannot say to the listener, because you don’t preach the truth to the person you are listening to, you aren’t holy. The ear can’t say to the mouth, the listener to the preacher, because you don’t give space for people to be individual unless they think and believe exactly like you, you are a hypocrite.

Holiness is different for each one of us.

The passage is a teaching about not being proud or arrogant about what fuels our passion, but to dwell together in unity.

Of course, it is much easier to talk about metaphorically, but a good application, one that is personal to this body would be the decision to make up our minds to respect diversity between the two different kinds of worship we have here as reflected in both services. Neither service is better, or more spiritual, or more biblical, or more sincere, than the other. Both worship services are growing. God is blessing both services for His purpose.

The passage is about pride, love and unity, that is why the last verse is there to introduce Chapter 13, the great chapter on love. Look at it (SHOW): And yet some of you keep competing for so-called "important" parts. But now I want to lay out a far better way for you.

The “far better way” he speaks of is to focus the proof of our salvation, our membership in the family of God through the way we love each other instead of the power we experience from God. I think, that focusing on the gifts is a focus on ourselves, while focusing on love is an outward focus.

And again, that comes back to personal significance. In verses 14-18, he speaks of how the (SHOW) Holy Spirit is in each of us; everyone is necessary. Everyone is significant.

Then he goes into a teaching about the importance of the members that don’t appear important because they are not as visible, they are not in the forefront, they are hidden.

The problem was that everyone was competing for the positions that made them look more spiritual than others.

Remember, the Charis gifts were the gifts that were visible; that are seen; that have been falsely taught as the proof of a person’s relationship with Christ.

The apostle puts that into perspective in order to facilitate a Christian Spiritual culture.

He goes back to the human body as a metaphor for understanding it. He talks about parts that are seen and parts that are hidden and that the hidden parts are the most important.

A body can survive without a hand, without vision, without a sense of smell, without the ability to speak, without the ability to hear, without the ability to see, without the ability to walk.

But the body, for example, cannot survive without a stomach, a liver, a brain, lungs, or a heart.

If the whole body were a hand, then it would be a monster, kind of like that creepy (SHOW) Halloween hand.

The parts that we cannot see are the ones that we cannot live without.

So that I am not picking on anyone else, I will talk about what that means for the preacher.

In one sense, it may appear that the pastor seems to be the one driving force that holds the church together, the one force that makes things happen. When Jesus commissioned Peter he implied that Jesus is the Shepherd of the Church and the pastor is the under-shepherd.

And the role of the pastor is important for the health and welfare of the Church.

But, it is an obvious member, and the body can survive without it. When I was in Bible College, I was asked to fill the pulpit at a church in Saint Mary’s Ohio that had been without a pastor for 3 years and for some reason had experienced great growth because the rest of the members felt, sensed the Power of the Holy Spirit, using their individual gifts and the body grew.

The body grows when every part of the body takes responsibility for its own area of ministry. If one member becomes sick and diseased, it can hamper or even kill the body.

To use the body metaphor, a healthy church is not a body that never has to ward off infection, but one with an effective immune system. Just like a vaccine, the more an immune system is used, the stronger it becomes.

If I am an obvious member, then I am a member that we can do without.

In that sense, it is an upside down kingdom. Jesus said it like this (SHOW): “The rulers of earthly kingdoms dominate their subjects and make them serve the rulers, but not in the Kingdom of God. If you want to be great in God’s kingdom, then become the servant of others.”

This Christian Spiritual Culture is a culture that is hallmarked by humble and faithful service of one another for the common good.

You can live without me, but there are other offices, gifts and members that we cannot live without. Did you know that the great evangelist, Billy Sunday had a couple of physically weak older women who would travel ahead of him into the city where he was next to preach and spend days praying and fasting for the city, the preacher and the congregation? I believe that they were members that the body could not live without.

So what about you? (SHOW) Are you participating according to the passion and gifts that the Holy Spirit has given you?