The Body

 

Text: I Corinthians 12:12-27

Focus: The body of Christ

Function: to help people acknowledge their part in the body of Christ.

¹²For 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. ¹³For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

¹⁴Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. ¹⁵If the foot would 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. ¹⁶And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁷If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. ¹⁹If all were a single member, where would the body be? ²⁰As it is, there are many members, yet one body. ²¹The 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.” ²²On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; ²⁴whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, ²⁵that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. ²⁶If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

²⁷Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

Today we are going to talk about the body of Christ and what it means for us to be a part of it.

Although what we already read is self evident and really doesn’t need an explanation, my goal this morning is to help people acknowledge their own part in the body of Christ and to see how significant you all are.

So let me re-read our passage from The Message translation.

^12-13You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.

^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, transparent and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.

^19-24But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?

^25-26The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.

²⁷You are Christ’s body—that’s who you are! You must never forget this

That last line is important. You are Christ’s body, you must never forget that.

This passage is in context of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the way that they should work to equip the body of Christ for service. Wherever we go, the Spirit of God goes with us, we represent Jesus in everything we do.

Verse 14: “I want you to think of how this all makes you more significant, not less.”

Every individual believer is just as important as the next. He actually says that the members that are the most important, like the stomach (a literal translation from the Greek), is never seen but is more important to living that the beautiful eyes are. The one working hard in the background, who is never seen or acknowledged is the one that God deems more important than the preacher who is up front leading the congregation.

The body cannot exist without all the members doing their jobs. I love the way he says if we emphasize one member over the others, then we get out of balance and become like monsters. It isn’t what God intended.

The problem that brother Paul was addressing in the Corinthian church was pride by some members boasting that their spiritual gift was more significant than others and he wanted them to admire all the works of the Holy Spirit and see the obvious need for all the parts of Christ’s body functioning together.

I have often preached the passage with a call to action because people were expecting others to pick up the slack and were not using their own gifts. I have had to remind people that we are here to serve others until Christ Jesus calls us home.

Rarely have I had to preach it as Paul wrote it where I had a member in the church who thought his or her gifts were more important than others. It has happened on a few occasions.

But what I love about the passage is the way it enables us to serve in God’s kingdom.

I find it empowering to know that God needs me.

I remember a men’s work day at the Church where we were roofing the steeple and it was very steep. They tied a rope over the top and sent me up there since I was only 138 pounds and I knew what to do.

I was part of the team, part of the Church. It felt so good to be included in the mission and the body of Christ. God needs us and fills us with His Spirit when we are serving God. It is a great source of refreshing joy for me.

And that wasn’t the only time the church encouraged me as a child. The Bible says that if we are faithful in a few things, He will make us faithful over much.

I got to teach the 2^nd grade boys SS class for the summer when I was 16. They were probably desperate. But I still vividly remember how the Holy Spirit, for the first time, opened up the meaning of scripture to me as I was preparing to teach those young boys the story of David and his life. It was a joy to be used of God.

And I guess that was the beginning of the spiritual gift that God has given me and it happened because the Church was willing to allow me to be a part and use discover my gifts.

Thank God for His calling on our lives. It fills us with joy. So, God is calling us to be faithful with our gifts and encouraging of others use of their own gifts.