The Whole Body, Part 1: Introduction

Well it's good to see everyone. As we finish now the

Sermon on the Mount and come to an opportunity to have a little bit of space before we begin a new series,

I was praying and thinking and working out what might be helpful, knowing some topics that I thought would be helpful, the elders, as we had some meetings and began to discuss some things, but looking for a way to organize that all.

And so this morning what we're going to do is introduce what will be sort of a short topical series that'll probably occupy us for at least two months, maybe three.

We'll see how it goes. Of course we spent about a year and a half working through the

Sermon on the Mount and so I think we're due for a little bit of a change and maybe some practical topics that will help us begin the year rightly.

And part of that is addressing where we are as a church, who we are as a church, our strengths and our weaknesses as a church.

What does it mean to be a church? And so that's what we're going to be focusing on and I'm going to do that by considering the body in terms of its wholeness.

And so we've read 1st Corinthians 12 there, this idea of the church being like a body composed of many different parts, many different organs, many different members, and yet in God's wisdom he allows all these members to work together for the unity of the whole.

And what we're going to do each week is look at a specific organ, a specific member, and ask the question, what does this kind of member look like when it's healthy?

What does this member look like when it's not healthy? What does it mean, in other words, to be of sound health or to be whole, the whole body, the healthy body?

That's what's going to be our focus. We're going to use a lot of different scripture when we look at each body part and so, for example, it might be the eyes and we'll talk about what does it mean to have healthy sight, healthy vision, the way that we look at life, the way that we look at one another, the way that we look at those outside, what does it mean to have healthy eyes or a healthy mouth, a healthy tongue, what does it mean to have health in the way that we speak to God, speak of God, speak to or about others, and so forth.

So at every week we're going to be focusing on a different aspect of what it means to be a whole body.

Now again, this is all coming from 1st Corinthians 12, and I'll just read beginning at the end of verse 14.

The body is not one member, but many. If the foot should say, because I'm not a hand,

I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? If the ears should say, because I'm not an eye,

I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing?

If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as he pleased.

And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body, and 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. No, rather those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary.

And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor. And our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need.

But God composed the body, having given greater honor to the part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another.

And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. Or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

Now Paul goes on from that, but this idea of the body, this idea of oneness, wholeness, having a sound body is going to be a very helpful way for us to think about the way that we relate together as the body of Christ.

And this is again just an introduction this morning, but in the introduction I want to focus on three calls, three things that will have to be behind and in front of us every week that we get our hands and hearts around what it means to be a whole body.

So the first thing before we get to those calls is just to ask the question, how do we view the church?

How do we view the church? It would be good for us to think deeply about how we view the church.

And when I say church, I'm not saying capital C Church, which is to say the church mustered up from the farthest ends of the earth.

All those who name the name of the Lord Jesus Christ are known to him, known by him. That's what we call the invisible church, in other words, the church that we can't always discern or see, but it is seen by God, it is beheld by God, that's the church triumphant, that's the church invisible.

But we're talking about the lowercase C church, our church, GRBC church, the he -sits -over -there church, that we have meatballs -after -the -service church, that's what we're talking about, the lowercase

C church. How do you view that church? How do you view this church?

One of the things that I've seen in my life is a total transformation about the way I view the church.

Now in some ways I went from being dragged to church as a young 'un, all right,

I didn't have any choice in the matter, I had to go, so we had to load up every Sunday morning in the

Ford Aerostar and get dropped off, and I went through the Sunday school circuit, and God bless those ladies that shared

Jesus Christ to me at a young age, and I went through all the awkward phases, sitting there drawing, bored to tears, some of the things that I pick up on happening even in our

Sunday service, and I'm fully sympathetic with that experience. And then I also know what it's like to be, as Wesley would say, strangely warmed.

There's something to this whole thing. I think I really love these people, and I I love coming to worship, and I'm actually understanding some things that the preacher is saying, and boy,

God's Word is really neat, I'm gonna tell my classmates about it. In fact, I want to get into little debates.

Often in high school or on the lunch table I enjoyed getting into little debates, and usually that for me was not so much a spiritual quest to make converts as it was a defense mechanism as to why

I wasn't like others, so it had a lot to do with my pride or my insecurity as much as anything else.

But even then I was sort of on the outside looking in, it really wasn't until much later that the

Lord really began to transform my mind and my heart. When the Lord started working in my life and He put a fire in my heart to know

Him and to know Him through His Word in ways that I never had before, I had a natural instinct and desire to be with other believers and to know of their knowledge and love for the

Savior. He had put a fire in my heart and I wanted to fan the flames by looking at the fires in other believers hearts, and so I had a natural desire to spend time with other people in the church body.

Now before that fully developed it began most immediately with some of my co -workers.

I was working at a Christian bookstore at the time and I poured all of my energy into the

Bible study that I would prepare the midweek of every week. I would get out of work and I would spend the rest of the day on websites looking up theology, looking up scripture, pouring my heart and my energy into these little midweek studies.

I had really a low view of the church but a very high view of the fellowship

I enjoyed and the way I could pour myself into a few select circle of friends.

Now at that time, Pastor Dorr, the man who baptized me, took me aside and he began to stress to me the importance of the local church rather than a local circle of friends.

He said, Ross, what you're doing is wonderful and I wouldn't want to stop it. I don't want to be a wet blanket to all this preparation and clearly the zeal you have and the excitement you have to share these things, but Ross, you know, you are part of a church and that means something for your life that you're not going to be able to fully find or fully work out just among your group of friends.

In other words, he was asking me, Ross, how do you view the church? How are you viewing the church?

And so I asked that same question, how do you view the church? Well, that was transformative to me and then in some ways you go from eating the sausage to being part of how the sausage is made and you get a whole different view of the church and the call for love is even deeper and greater.

It's more comprehensive, more self -sacrificial. The Lord has ever been showing me and challenging me on how

I view the church. So let me ask you the question, how do you view the church? Is church simply a weekly ritual?

Is it a duty that we check off? This is just what we do on Sundays. We go to church. You pull up to the

Chick -fil -A window. The sign says the hours, you know, Monday through Saturday.

On Sunday, if that Chick -fil -A is worth its salt, it says go to church. Is that all churches?

Just go to church on Sunday. That's what you do on Sundays. What about a buffet? Do you view the church like a buffet?

You come for the things that you like, you just leave off and ignore the things you don't. This is what I want the church to be for me.

These are the things that I like, these are the things that I will enjoy, this is what I will seek to do for myself.

It's a buffet. There's all sorts of sections that you don't have to go near. Do you view the church like a boot camp?

We're here simply to get trained so that we don't have to be here because the whole focus is on everything outside of these walls.

It's a boot camp. It's just here to prepare us for all that our life means outside of being gathered together.

How do you view the church? Well, the church is given many images, many metaphors in the

Bible. It's likened to a temple, the gathering place where God's presence is shown,

His people drawn near to Him in that place. It's likened to a nation. Peter talks about us being set apart like a nation, a holy priesthood.

It's likened to a bride. The idea is that Christ died to save His bride.

As we sang earlier in the hymn, it's this prized inheritance that is given to Him.

Or a sheepfold. The idea is Christ is our chief shepherd. He's the one that's guiding us as a group of people, guiding us also as individuals within that body and so on.

But the image that I really want to put before us in weeks to come is this image of a body, a body composed of many parts, many organs, and yet it's all one body.

And all those organs, all those parts work together for the greater good of the whole. In fact, it's detrimental to let any one of those organs off to the side.

We weren't created to be organs in styrofoam boxes on ice. We were meant to be effectively working, growing in the body of Christ.

So what I want to put before you is this task to view the church as a body, as a body.

Now before we can even unpack the body, we need to understand something of that picture of unity.

The unity of the body is not something that is mustered up by the body. It's something that is created in Christ Jesus for His body.

It's really important that we understand this. This unity is not something that gives us the warm fuzzies.

It's not what Mamdani would call the warmth of collectivism. It's not something that, yeah,

I feel really unified. It's a sort of a kumbaya circle. This unity is not something we muster up.

It's not something abstract that we stumble into. This unity is something that comes from union with Christ.

So a church body is believers in the Lord Jesus Christ who have been united to Him by faith.

And it's that union with Him that makes unity with us. That's a unity that is brought about by faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ. And it's wrought out, in other words, it's worked out by His Spirit. It's really important we understand this.

We do not muster up unity. Unity is something that is given by God, through Christ, by the

Holy Spirit. Jesus' disciples are called to be with Him.

Jesus' disciples are called to have fellowship with God, and only therefore fellowship one with another.

And so what's worked out as unity in our midst is actually what's worked in by the unifying

Spirit of God. We're going to unpack that a little bit later, but the point is that you see this.

We can only work out that which God has worked in. To the degree that we're united to Christ, we will be more and more united one to another.

Now the greatest glory we have in the gospel, the highest fruit we have in the gospel, is to have fellowship with God.

That is the glory of the gospel, union with Christ, Christ known to us. To have a saving interest in Him, to have a personal acquaintance with Him, to know

Him, to see Him, to love Him. As Peter was so mystified, you haven't even seen

Him like I have, but you love Him. That's the highest reward of the gospel. That's the inheritance that we eat off of, even now in this life, but we only long for the day when our faith does become sight.

Then we can truly see Him, we're truly with Him, everlastingly, never to be separated from His presence again.

That's the greatest glory we have in the gospel, to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and partake of the fellowship of His sufferings.

Now one of the ways we are enabled and strengthened in our communion with God is by gathering together with others who are partaking of that same grace.

This is how God has so composed the Christian life, that we are called to Him even as we are called one to another.

It's very important that we understand this. We're encouraged in the Lord, we're reminded of the

Lord, we're taught from the Lord, we're enabled to have greater experience of His presence when we are brought into the presence of other believers.

That's what we're doing this morning. Now what I put before you is we're not here as consumers sharing in some experience, we're not here as concert goers, we're not here as movie watchers, we're here as a body.

For those of us who have trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we're here as body parts. There's a certain work that is taking place when we gather as a result of this dynamic.

Now this gathering, this desire to be unified and work together for the good, it comprises at least three calls, and this is again just introductory, but bear with me because we're setting the foundation for where we're going in weeks to come.

But this gathering, this call toward unification comprises three calls, and the first call is separation.

Before you can be united together in the body of Christ, you must be separated from something. You can only be united to what you have been separated from.

A call for separation is really held out to us here from 1st Corinthians 12.

Listen to what he says beginning in verse 12. For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body being many are one, so also is

Christ. For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, all have been made to drink into one spirit.

Now what is Paul saying there beginning in verse 12? He's saying before you were brought into the oneness of the body of Christ, you were brought out of whatever you had been outside of Christ.

Whether Jew or Greek, whether slave or free, you were baptized into one body. Now baptism is this picture of being saved by Christ in such an extent that you no longer are living your own life in your own way toward its own direction.

You're radically recognizing that His perfect life, His atoning death, His resurrection and ascension has so radically changed your life that it's a new life altogether.

Whatever you were before Christ entered your life, that life died and you died with Him.

It's as if when He died on the cross, you died on the cross, and when He broke forth out of the grave, you rose in that newness of His life.

As Paul could say, it's like Christ is now living in me. Saul of Tarsus is dead, long dead.

Christ is now the center of my life. Christ is my light, my hope, my heart, my health.

You see, the idea is there's this radical plunging into the death of Christ and whatever comes out of the water is something entirely new, made new by the

Spirit of God. So we're baptized into one body. There's a radical separation of all that we were before.

We cannot be unified unless we've first been separated. We cannot be part of the body of Christ unless we first die, unless we've been crucified in Christ.

So we separate from something to something. We were once fellow members with the world, and the

Spirit of God separated us from the world. Now we've become pilgrims and sojourners, strangers, foreigners, but that same act of separation from the world is adjoining to the kingdom of God, adjoining to the body of Christ.

Ephesians 2 .19. Therefore, Paul says, you are no longer strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

Do you see the logic there? You were once strangers and foreigners to the people of God.

You were familiar. You were part of the world. Then God saved you. Now you're a stranger and a foreigner to the world because you are the people of God.

You are saints, fellow members of the household of God. So everything gets reversed. You cannot be familiar to one without being a stranger to the other.

You cannot be united to one without being separated from the other. So the call for a church's unity is a call for separation.

Listen to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6. He says, another image, you are the temple of the living

God. As God has said, I will dwell in them. I will walk among them. I will be their

God and they will be my people. Therefore, come out and be separate, says the

Lord. Do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you. I'll be a father to you. You'll be my sons and my daughters, says the

Lord Almighty. Again, this idea of being knit together as living stones in this temple of God requires the answer to this call.

Come out and be separate. You want to come into the body of Christ?

Come out and be separate. You can't come in unless you come out. That's the whole point.

You can't come in unless you come out. Every relationship, this is an observation of J .I.

Packer, every relationship is transformed around Christ. It is not possible for us to be united to Christ and have our relationships to everything else in our lives rendered the same.

It's just not possible. Christ is the agent of transformation. Christ transforms everything in our lives.

He doesn't just patch up and repair a few aspects of our lives. He transforms the entirety of our life.

Some relationships in our lives are created because of Christ. That's a way to view the church body.

Some relationships are ended because of Christ. Again, you can't come in unless you first come out.

The point is whether relationships are created or relationships are ended, all relationships are changed. For the bulk of those relationships, we now engage in those relationships as salt and light.

We seek to be those who speak of Christ, who bear our testimonies of what he's done in our lives.

We're willing to bend a little bit with the Greek or flex a little bit with the Jew. By any means, we're seeking to win some.

That's the idea. Christ has now changed our relationship with everything. So in order to understand who we are, a holy and a separate people, we must understand that this call to unity is on the other side of that separation.

Now what makes that separation so hard is simply this. Our view of God and of his call to be united is often shaped and stained by our view of the world.

To put it more simply, our view of God and his calling is shaped by the world rather than our view of the world being shaped by God.

That's the big problem. That we tend to view things in a very horizontal way. We tend to view things in a very worldly wise way.

We tend to think we're really not that different. In fact, it's comforting to me when I can see that I'm not all that different from others around me.

But that's not the call. That's like a doctor saying, it's comforting to me when

I'm as sick as the patients that I see. It's like, what good is that? How can you be of their remedy, of their help, if you're just comforting yourself that you're just as diseased as they are?

No, this radical separation, it doesn't keep you from the needs and the brokenness of the world, but it rather equips you to be able to meet those needs.

So whatever our competing idols or affections are, whatever things chase down the priorities in our lives, we need to have a right view of God.

We need to have a right view of his calling. We need to have a right view of what it will mean for us to have our whole way of life transformed around who he is and what he has brought about.

John 17, Jesus is praying for his disciples and he says, I've given them your word.

The world has hated them because they're not of the world, just as I am not of the world. And I do not pray that you will take them out of the world, that you'll keep them from the evil one.

They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. So sanctify them by your truth.

It's this beautiful prayer, this high priestly prayer. Jesus says, this is how

I came for the world, but I wasn't of the world. I came for the world because I have a character and a heart of mercy and compassion like you, my

Heavenly Father. And so, though I'm not of the world, I'm for the world. Though my kingdom is not of this world, my kingdom is for this world.

And I don't pray that these disciples will be taken out of the world, even though, like me, they're not like the world.

What is he saying? They're united to me. They're like me. They're not like the world. They're separate from the world.

They've been called out of the world, but not out of the world in terms of purpose, just out of the world in terms of practice.

They no longer run in that same flood of dissipation, as Peter says. And what does he say within that prayer?

Two things. He says, Father, keep them from the evil one. I don't think we put enough stock in that, do we?

What does Jesus know that we don't, that we don't frequently pray that prayer? Father, keep me from the evil one.

As good Reformed folk, we're often praying against the impact or effects of our flesh or the impact and influence of the world, but I would say we rarely are praying for the influence and activity of the evil one.

When Jesus talks about the world, his mind immediately goes to the influence and power of the evil one.

They're not of the world. The world hates them. Father, keep them from the evil one. When Peter's approaching the

Lord Jesus and just thinking horizontally, thinking with the mind of man, what does Jesus say?

Get behind me, Satan. What does he say on another occasion to his disciples?

He says, Satan is sought to sift you like wheat, but take heart. I've prayed for you. I don't think we take seriously enough that the prince of the power of the air, the evil one, masquerades like an angel of light to such a degree that he doesn't even enter into our prayer lives very frequently.

What's the first thing that Jesus prays? Keep them from the evil one. I don't pray you take them out of the world, but because I've called them to myself and they're united to me and therefore they'll be separate and holy, keep them from the evil one.

Keep them from the one who will prowl about and seek to devour them. Keep them from the one who will seek to ensnare them, lead them astray, deceive them, put them back in chains of bondage.

Keep them from him, Lord. And then what's the second prayer? Sanctify them.

Sanctify them. Keep them from evil, make them pure.

Keep them from the evil one, sanctify them. It's a call of radical separation and a call of radical unity.

What does it mean to be sanctified? I think we said this a few weeks ago. It means to be brought into greater conformity to Christ himself.

C .S. Lewis in his sermon, The Weight of Glory, has this marvelous little section where he's talking about the purpose of the church.

And he says the purpose of the church is nothing less than to make men into little

Christs. In fact, this may be the purpose of the whole world. To make image -bearers actual image -bearers, to actually conform them to the image of Christ, who is the image of the invisible.

Christ alone, the express image of God, all that humanity was made to be, that's what sanctification is.

It's being purified, it's being transformed by one degree of glory to the next, until we look like Christ.

Until we, in other words, become human, fully, as image -bearers are meant to be, in every dimension and perfection with which

God created us in righteousness. That's what sanctification is. So this call to Jesus, this call to unity, is a call not only of separation, but of sanctification.

And now, so that's the first call, this call for separation. And now, secondly, we see that a call for unity. Again, only because you come out can you come in.

Again, 1st Corinthians 12, God composed the body. So you don't come in on your own terms.

God's providence is over it all. He calls you according to His wisdom.

I know some of you have shared, it would have been nice if Christ called me a lot earlier in my life.

My life would be a lot better, you say. My life would be very different. I wouldn't have to face or struggle against things that I have to face and struggle against.

Well, let me tell you, let me comfort you. God's wisdom is better than your wisdom, and God's timing is higher than your timing.

And it might be because you have those struggles, it's because you're facing those those things, overshadowing your life from the past, that has probably kept you close to Christ.

Rather than knowing more of Him, you probably would know far less of Him, had He called you earlier in your life, had you not faced some of the things that you had to face.

It's one of the ways that He's kept you near to Himself, kept you low in need of His grace. Again, His wisdom is not our wisdom.

His timing is not our timing. God composes the body according to His good pleasure.

He knew what you would be in coming to Him. He knew how you would operate in being brought into His body.

Whatever kind of organ you may be, He has so arranged and ordered you to be a part of the body so that it can be built up in maturity, in sanctification.

God composed the body just as much as He composed your life. God composed the body having given greater honor to the part which lacks it, so that there's no schism in the body.

This is Paul pressing in to the church at Corinth because the church at Corinth is squabbling, breaking apart at the seams.

There's all sorts of factions vying for primacy, vying for influence. They're all chasing and clamoring and drooling after gifts and the things that will put them on the soapboxes so they can puff out their chest and be seen as great, mighty, wise, strong.

Paul comes to that and says, this is not how God has called anyone. Not many mighty, not many wise according to the flesh, not many strong.

He calls the fools, calls those who are weak, unable to help themselves. That's how God has composed His body. When I came to you,

I didn't want to know anything but Christ and Him crucified. Paul again pointing, is it the mighty

Achilles -like Christ that we worship or is it a crucified Christ? Is it a theology of glory or a theology of the cross?

Well, God composed the body in such a way that the members all have to work together.

See that there's an absolute vital necessity for every member to regard the other member as equally a part of the body of Christ, composed in the wisdom of Christ, composed for the purpose of Christ.

To such a radical degree, if one member suffers in a mature body, the whole body suffers.

If one member rejoices, the whole body rejoices.

What kind of radical unity is that? 1

Corinthians 12 as a whole is about this blessed unity wrought by the

Spirit of God. When we talk about separation from the world, the obverse of that is the unity of the body.

We're brought out in order to be brought near, not only to Christ, but near to one another.

So you ask the question, what would become of the body if different limbs and organs decided to pull back, go off in different directions?

Maybe they want to focus on their own specific roles. This is my strength, this is what

I'm good at as the feet, or as the lungs, or as the kidney, or what have you, and I'm just going to focus on that for myself.

I'm going to separate, pull back, and try to be the best kidney I can be. Only problem is then you can't be a kidney, because a kidney doesn't live for itself, nor to toes, nor to eyes, nor lungs, nor a stomach.

The idea is all the organs need to work to their best capacity for the sake of the whole, because only the health of the whole can be the health of the part.

That's the idea of the body. You cannot, in other words, separate and say,

I need to grow as a kidney, and when I grow big enough and strong enough, then I'll get closer to the body.

I'm just not, I'm too small, too weak as an organ, I need to be outside of the body. When I get big and strong and healthy, then

I'll get close to the body. Do you see the point? No, you'll shrivel and die. Do you want to grow?

Then you need to be part of the body, close to the body, effectively working in and for the body, with the body, through the body, from the body.

That's the logic. No limb can grow, no organ can function once it has been separated from the body.

So Paul sees this principle of life in God's wisdom. He's made it so no one can be an island to themself, and the church cannot be a scattered

Peloponnese. It cannot be the the heap of organs that have no rhyme or rhythm in terms of the way they are gathered together.

The body is composed, the body is arranged, the body is put together by the

Lord. So there's no hope for unity, no hope for growth, unless we recognize our interdependency.

This is how God has arranged the Christian life to be. Radical separation, radical unity.

Now God has set the members, he says, each one of them in the body just as he pleased.

If they were all one member, where would the body be? What kind of Frankenstein church would that be if everyone was the lung?

A body part made of eyes, right? How could the body function if we were all the same, if we had the same leanings, the same giftings, the same background, the same depth, the same experience, the same issues, the same personalities that shed light and bring things before the body in unique ways?

This is how the the Lord seeks to work organically a unity out of the plurality.

If we're all the same, if we all think we have to act the same, be the same, function the same, then we'll never have the unity of the body.

It'll be like herding cats or something far worse. The only way

I can recognize interdependency is someone else has something I do not have and something I need.

Therefore, I have to be a part of the body because I don't have all that the body has, I don't have all that I need from the body, and I also have something the body needs, something without which the body will lack.

There's an absolute interdependency upon the members of the body. This is what Paul says, the eye can't say to the hand,

I have no need of you. How do you view the church?

How do you view the church? Can you be honest enough to say there's ways in your life that if we could put the comic strip thought bubble, you might as well type in,

I have no need, I have no need of you, I have no need of this, I'm fine,

I'm okay, I show up on Sundays, right? I have no need. But that's not how

God has composed the body. That's not how these members are meant to function. The eye cannot say to the hand,

I have no need of you. The head can't say to the feet, I have no need of you. What is

Paul saying? Is this the obverse? The hand has to learn to say to the eye, I need you.

I know sometimes you look at me sideways and sometimes I poke you, but I need you.

The head has to say to the feet, I need you.

I can't get anywhere without you. It doesn't matter how much I know, how much I have trapped in here.

If I'm immobile, it's all useless. I need feet. I need hands. And Paul presses on.

He says the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. It's not the biceps.

It's not the six -pack. It's not the ripped calves that are the most necessary parts of the body.

You can live without abs. You can live without biceps. You can live without calves. You can't live without lungs or a beating heart.

You can't live without functioning internal organs. You can't see them. They seem to be weaker, but they're the most vital, indispensable part of the body.

That's Paul's logic. He says learn to have this way of gauging others. Those that seem to be dispensable are indispensable.

Those that seem to be weak are vital. Learn to view things in that way, he's saying to the church at Corinth. The things that are presentable, that seem to get all the attention and show, are far less important in God's sight than in their own sight or in other sights.

Those members of the body which seem to be weaker are vital. The members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor.

This is mostly tied to modesty. So you can, leaving the euphemism for what it is, you can understand what he means by body parts less honorable or un -presentable parts, and he's saying we honor them by showing the care, not only the way that we dress and arrange and cover over those parts, but also the ways socially there's all sort of ramifications tied to those parts.

If you could put it that way, it's the most tender, the most delicate, the most sensitive thing, and Paul's just saying, you know, even for those delicate, sensitive, almost unapproachable parts of the body, you should bestow that much more care, that much more protection, that much more caution in the way you regard them, do you see?

This is an absolutely glorious way to view the church. It means on the one hand that although the

Lord often brings newly found sheep into his fold, the Lord is in the business of calling people to himself, that call goes out even from a pulpit or from someone after work or in the coffee shop saying, come out and be separate, come to the

Lord Jesus Christ, repent of your sins, put saving faith in him alone who can save, and he's working internally through that to bring people to himself.

Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice. All that the Father gives to me will come to me.

We're the voice box, we're the amplification, we're the speaker of what the Lord is doing internally.

He's the one who's actually calling people to himself. As chief shepherd, he brings sheep into his fold. My sheep know me, he says.

And when he brings these newly found sheep into the fold, it's not just because the new sheep need the fold, but it's also because the fold needs the new sheep.

Again, in wisdom, God has composed the body. In wisdom, God has arranged each part.

There are gifts and abilities and graces that he has orchestrated according to his wisdom. It's never just that the fold, that the sheep need the fold, it's also that the fold needs the sheep.

So someone's brand new to the faith, brand spanking new, and they always think, I have nothing to offer.

And that's not 1st Corinthians 12. You have everything to offer, everything to offer.

Now there's profound ways you'll need to grow, but if you have become part of the body of Christ, in his wisdom, you have been composed that the body cannot function right without you.

That means there's no place to think, I've been around the block, I'm only here to teach the newcomers a thing or two.

No, that's like viewing the church as a pyramid scheme. You know, you have to work up the different rings of the ladder, different echelons of knowledge.

There's not elite levels of membership, that's not where Paul is going. There's not a hierarchy of those who have a 5, 10, 15, or 20 year stand in Christianity.

There may be wisdom, experience, spiritual maturity that sets them up as patterns, as examples to be followed, but that does not mean that somehow they are more vital to the body than the weakest, the most hidden, the faintest organ that God has brought to it.

This means that I understand my sanctification is bound up with all of you. Your sanctification is bound up.

Look in front of you, look next to you, look behind you. Your sanctification is bound up with everyone that you can see around you.

That's how God has composed the body. Sanctification is never a me, myself, and I type of thing.

It's always bound up together. You see those action movies from the 80s, and you get some

Rambo -like figure. They're like, you know, we've got, you know, a platoon that's ready to go. No, I work faster alone.

There's just no place for that in the church. I'll be more spiritually whole by myself. No, you won't.

There's all sorts of ways that the organs of the body are comprised by God in such a way that you cannot grow without them.

And if you try to grow without them, you'll grow malformed, maladjusted. You'll be immature for those ten years rather than maturing for those ten years.

That's the idea. So Paul is not saying try really hard to be united, because even though it's hard, it's important.

It's just that you guys are light -years away from each other on every level. That's not what Paul's logic is.

He begins 1 Corinthians 12 by saying God has already baptized you as one body by His Spirit.

You already have a oneness from God. Now he's saying live in the reality of that oneness. You're already sewn together as one, so live out that reality.

Walk in the truth of that unity. That's Paul's point. He's made you one in Christ. You really are one.

You really are bound up with each other. So it's the reality of the unity that is calling us to strive.

He's not dangling unity like some carrot in front of us that's ever out of reach. It is the spiritual reality that we tend to denigrate or we put a blind eye toward it.

Paul's saying no, no, no. Focus on it and lean into it. The same God that has affectionately called you, given you a new birth, given you faith in Him who's justified you, has also adopted you into His body.

So you cannot live your life of faith unto Him apart from the body that He's called you to. That's the idea.

I therefore, Paul says, a prisoner of the Lord, I beseech you, walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the

Spirit in the bond of peace. That's Ephesians 4, 1 through 3. Again, do you notice what he's saying?

The unity is not something far -fetched, something beyond, something we can never really attain.

The unity is the present reality. If we're understanding what the Spirit has done in bringing us to Christ, we understand the

Spirit has also brought us one to another. That's the unity of the Spirit. Paul says endeavor to keep it.

It doesn't say try to find it. It doesn't say work up your way toward it. Hopefully you'll discover it one day.

He says you already have it. Now keep it. Now grow. Now work toward it.

That's the idea. This doesn't mean, of course, there won't be tough situations, difficult topics.

We've seen this year the stakes of unity, what a difference not only a year but even half a year can make.

Have we understood what the Lord is trying to teach us through these things, through Colossians 3 and now 1

Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4? What does it mean to be a body? How do you view the church?

So right off the bat, we should get the sense that if we're endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit, unity is more than avoiding conflict.

You can always have a sort of tepid unity if that's your goal. You can fill a stadium with the most generic and watered -down versions of good moral preaching and easy believism, but that's not the unity that's held out by the

Spirit of God. The unity that we're after is a unity that narrows our circle in ever greater lengths to the deep truths of the gospel, deep truths of the gospel that are not only confessed but lived out with and for one another.

And the whole idea is if I can't live out the gospel with the church, I can't live out the gospel to the world.

That's the idea. If I can't love believers in a body of Christ, I can't love unbelievers outside the body of Christ.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 1 at the very beginning of this letter says, I plead with you, just like Ephesians 4, I'm begging,

I'm pleading. Paul sees how difficult this is, how hard this will be. He says, I beg you, brethren, by the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, so that there's no divisions among you, that you're perfectly joined together with the same mind and the same judgment.

Really, all we're doing for the next few months is trying to answer, how in the world can we be perfectly joined together like that?

Is that even possible, to have the same mind and the same judgment? What does that look like? What does it look like to be a whole body?

All the body parts healthy, functioning, working effectively, so the whole body is built up, maturing in love.

And that brings us to our last call, which is a call for love. Again, these are the three calls that have to be behind and in front of us as we're working through the parts of the whole body over the weeks to come.

A call of separation, come out from her, be separate, can't come in if you don't first come out, and then the call to unity, having come in, we recognize we're living out the reality of the

Spirit of God. To put it in this way, we're seeking to deliver what Christ has purchased with His own blood.

He saved us to be a pure bride, a whole bride, and that means, thirdly, a call for love.

One of the effects of a genuine work of grace in our lives is affection for His people. That's why I began the sermon this morning sharing a little bit about my own experience of the church.

When the Lord began to work in my heart and shed the light of His grace in my life, it impacted the way

I viewed the church. It transformed the way I regarded others. It gave me a desire to be around them when years before I didn't want to be around them, didn't want anything to do with them.

I just wanted to pass muster, give a half a smile, and move on with my life. A work of grace is a new affection for the

Lord and, therefore, a new affection for the people of the Lord. You love others who love your

Lord. That's why you gather with them, to worship with them, and God is so composed that in doing that you will be functioning as organs built together in the body of Christ.

John puts it this way, we know that we have passed from death to life because we... most of you know this...

we know that we've passed from death to life because we... amen.

He doesn't say, because it's January 4th and so far

I'm four for four on my daily reading. That's how I know I love the Lord.

I know that I've passed from death to life because I've worked really hard to change a few things in my marriage and my home.

That's how I know that I've passed from death to life. I'm really different now, you know. 2026 is turning over a new leaf.

It's a new year for me. I'm gonna be a new me. That doesn't prove that you've gone from death.

Everyone tries to do that in January. The best time to be the CEO of Planet Fitness is

January. Everyone wants to turn a new leaf. No, you only know that you've passed from death into life, according to John in this passage, because you love the brethren.

So we have the song, at least I grew up singing the song, and they'll know that we are Christians by our love, by our love.

Yes, they'll know that we are Christians by our love. Now that's true, but we will know that we are

Christians by our love. Not just they, we. We will know that we are Christians by our love for the brethren, by our love for the body of Christ.

As the hymn says of the bride, it's for her that my tears will fall, for her my prayers will ascend.

You see, it's not just about me, my needs, my life. If I could do a really bad JFK impression, don't ask what the church can do for you, ask what you can do for the church.

That's someone who loves the brethren, someone who understands, because I've passed from death into life, my whole relationships have been transformed around Christ.

That means I have a kinship, an instinct, a desire, a regard for others who love

Christ. Christians love Christians. Really easy to love

Christians when you run into them at Walmart. When I was doing those midweek

Bible studies, they would be usually at Starbucks, and you get a bunch of people and they have

Bibles open around a table, and invariably at one point a customer comes along and they're a Christian too, and they go, praise

God, and they'll come up and put a hand on the shoulder, are you guys Christians? Oh, it warms my heart to see you guys studying the scriptures together.

Can I buy you some cookies? I gained like three pounds going to Starbucks midweek. Free coffee, cookies, amazing.

And it's just like, oh, the body of Christ, amen. Christians love Christians. You know what's harder? Loving Christians that you meet with every week, year after year after year after year, but those are the

Christians you're called to love. This is the new commandment that Christ has given to us.

The same grace that brought us to him also teaches us to obey it. A new commandment

I give to you, the Lord says, that you love one another. Christians love Christians. Paul loves the church of Corinth.

Is it because the church of Corinth is lovely? Far from it. Do we love others because others are lovely?

Far from it. Do we only love those that are lovely? Where's the gospel in that?

There's no gospel in that. The gospel is love to the loveless shown, in those words of Samuel Crossman in the hymn, love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.

That's the gospel. Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.

So you love the saints, not just as a work in progress, but because they are a work in progress.

You love them because they will grow in the grace and knowledge of the

Lord Jesus Christ. You don't love them always where they are or for what they are in that present season or circumstance, but you love them for who has loved them first while they were yet sinners.

In the same way, he's loved you when you were an enemy, dead in trespass and sin. He loved you in that way.

Love to the loveless shown so that you might lovely be. That's how you're to love others. You don't love them when they're lovely.

That's not Christian love. Christian love is loving the unlovely, the loveless. It's blessing even those who curse, who use you spitefully.

That's Christian love. We know that the saints are work in progress.

We know this church is a work in progress. Sometimes the the saints of the church is more work than progress, but so it is.

Christians love Christians. Christ dwells in every believer from the least to the greatest. That was the promise of the

New Covenant. No longer will a man need to say to his neighbor, know the Lord. From now on, as a result of this

New Covenant in my blood, they'll all know me from the least to the greatest. Everyone who is a believer, every body part of the body of Christ has the indwelling presence of Christ within them.

Do you need a reason to love someone in the body that's hard to love? Here's your reason.

Christ dwells in them. Is that not reason entire?

Do you need anything more than that? It means that I can't love someone properly who's indwelt by Christ without seeking to love them in the way that I would seek to love

Christ. It's this radical way of reorienting the whole way you look at others.

If you are a body of Christ, you are part of Christ's body. You're a member so composed in this body that for me to love you and to seek your good is actually me loving

Christ and seeking the good of Christ because he's the head of this body of which you are a part. So that means that when

I recognize Christ dwelling in my brother or sister in the body, I am to regard them in the way

I would seek to regard Christ because of who Christ is and because of what he is doing in them, of how he is still present with them, how he is degree by degree making them more conformed to his image.

If I recognize that, I want to be a part of that. I want to pray.

I want to strengthen. I want to comfort. I want to encourage. I want to grieve if they're grieving and rejoice if they're rejoicing.

I want to be all things to them that I might help them grow up into him who is all things. And as I do that, the

Lord's gonna soften out my rough edges and give me a warmth in light of my indifference and he's gonna humble me because it's a humbling thing to view others in that way.

If I had time for a fourth point, that would be the fourth point, humility. I guess what

I'm saying is simply this. When you're finding it hard to love the person across from you, in front of you, behind you, you need to recognize this.

You're called to love them because of who they are in Christ and you're loving them for what they are not only right now but what they will be.

Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be. Christ loved us when we were loveless, unlovely, hideous because he knew that in his act of love he would make us lovely, make us glorious.

That's how we're to love others. You learn to love the before because of the after.

When when Alicia and I were renting and looking for a place to live and I should say

Alicia was doing it, I really had no part in it, but she came across our little condo and it was a fixer -upper and then some burst pipes, water damage, hadn't been touched since it was built, hadn't been lived in for a decade, cobwebs, stains.

Alicia with beaming eyes said, I think I found the place. I'm like, really?

Let me see it. She starts going through and I'm like, are we moving to Siberia?

What in the world are you looking at? It looks like a POW camp more than a home. What was she seeing in that that I wasn't seeing?

She wasn't seeing it as it is, she was seeing it in terms of what it could be. That's just the way you're to view other people.

In the body of Christ, it's not who you are right now, but who you're called to be, what you'll be like.

Never fully arriving as you won't fully arrive in this life, but one day that same brother or sister will be at the gates of glory, made perfect unto

Christ as you'll be made perfect. What a glorious day that will be. And so you live in love toward that vision, toward that call, toward that glory.

That's the idea. Simply being at the right places or at the right times is not

Christian love. It's loving the loveless. This is what

Paul's getting at. The whole body joined, knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effect of working by which every part does its share.

It causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself, the building up of itself in love.

It doesn't, as Paul says a chapter later in 1st Corinthians 13, if you don't have love, what do you have?

All the knowledge, all the zeal, all the self -sacrifice, all the noble endeavors.

Without love, what does that amount to? You're just this clashing gong, this banging cymbal.

You're causing more to be miserable around you rather than more to be built up by you. That's the difference that love makes.

Whatever else we may have, if we lack love, we lack almost everything that would make us spiritually mature.

A mature believer is a believer who's understood the love of Christ and has that love worked out in their life.

I remember William Still, who was a tremendous preacher in Aberdeen, Scotland, and he used to talk about Christians who had been baptized in vinegar because they were just so sour and cold.

He said, we don't need Christians that are baptized in vinegar, but Christians that have been baptized in the waters of life.

And that's the only way we can no longer be children tossed to and fro. We speak the truth in love because the body needs to be built up in love.

The point is the love that characterizes the walk of the Christian, the regard of the Christian. And John Owen, I'm so thankful I found,

I was looking for this note, I remembered it from some years ago and I'm glad I found it. John Owen, the

Prince of Puritans, listen to what he says about this idea of a church being built up in love.

And I'll say this and then close with 1 Thessalonians 3. So this is what

John Owen says, he says, a church full of love is a church well built up.

I would rather see a church filled with love a thousand times than filled with the best, the highest, the most glorious gifts and parts that any men in this world may be partakers of.

I know the end of all Christ's institutions is to increase love. And a built -up church will be the result of the effect of love rather than the cause of love.

Do you see what he's saying? A maturing church, a well -built church will be the effect of us loving in this way rather than the cause of it.

You don't get built up in then love, you love so that you may be built up. That's the logic of Ephesians 4.

May the Lord make us increase and abound in love one to another and to all just as we do to you,

Paul says, so that he may establish our hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our

Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints. May we, by his grace, grow up into all things, into him who is the head

Christ from whom the whole body, every joint knit together by what it supplies.

Again, that's our focus now for the next few months. The whole body, the sound, healthy body, according to the effect of working by which every part does its share and causes the growth of the body for the building it up of itself in love.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for this word.

Lord, as we prepare to spend some time looking in the mirror as a body, looking at the parts of our body, how these parts all work together, areas that our body is weak, is struggling, is lacking,

I pray Lord, by your own Spirit, you'd give us this overarching zeal to press on in sanctification by recognizing,

Lord, you've separated us from the world, you've called us to yourself. We're not of the world if we're of you.

We don't run in the way that they run. We don't operate in the ways that they'd operate. Lord, we we know you.

We seek to please you. We want to walk according to your light, your grace.

So help us, Lord, to keep this call behind us and in front of us, Lord, that we are a holy and a separate people, but we're a separate and holy people gathered together as one.

Lord, unite our hearts to fear your name. Unite us in the holiness of your worship. Unite us,

Lord, in the love that you have wrought in us, the love that caused you to descend from heaven above into the depths of the earth, to live the life we could not live, die the sinful death that we deserved, to face and atone for the full weight of wrath due for our sin, and yet be justified by a just God who saw your perfect life and therefore brought you up out of Sheol and brought you up to the very right hand of his power and gave you a name above every name, that at that name every knee would bow and every tongue would confess that you alone are

Lord. You're all our hope. You're all our stay. Unite us,

Lord, in love. Build this body up. Over these next weeks, Lord, help us to be humble and honest, transparent, to analyze the way that we are toward this body and what it means for this body.

Help us, Lord, to recognize our interdependency in ever -deepening ways, Lord, and give us the joy and the peace that are to characterize your kingdom, knowing that your kingdom doesn't consist in eating and drinking but in joy and peace and righteousness.