Now you are Christ's body
Vern Peterman · May 10, 2009
Body Life, No. 08
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926133391712

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. Just in case you've forgotten, and guys, I just need to make sure you remember this. This is Mother's Day. It's Mother's Day, probably compliments of Hallmark and a few other commercial influences, but nonetheless, it's still, I think, a worthy date to remember. One of the things I was thinking this morning as I was getting ready, What's some of the things I can look back on as part of my own mother's influence?

And one of the things I think may be a little bit, well, okay, a little odd, is I grew up, and I think largely because of my mother's influence, I grew up looking on missionaries as heroes. Those were the heroes. My mom's own mom had been a missionary to the cannibals in Fiji. And so I grew up hearing, you know, stories of my grandmother having missionary activities with these cannibals in Fiji. And then my grandfather, Also being involved in tent evangelistic meetings, going around the United States with tent evangelistic meetings. A couple other aunts and uncles involved in Latin America. A number of you may remember Jim and Rachel Poole. I have an uncle that built the school where Rachel went to school down in Bolivia. So real interesting connections there. So it's real interesting.

I look back and one of those influences is, at least for me, those were the heroes. Missionaries were the heroes. Those were the ones who did heroic things. And I grew up admiring the things that missionaries did. Which is interesting, now I'm taking off Wednesday for Uganda and kind of pondering that trip and just thinking about, boy, it's finally coming around so that I'm influenced. By the way, I've been trying for decades. to go to be a missionary in Latin America, and the Lord has closed the door every time. So I don't know why the Lord's opening the door to Uganda, but that's the way it works.

All right. Let's take a look here at this passage. Oh, before we do, there's a supplement that I mentioned last week. It wasn't available immediately, but now is. How should we understand the imperative verbs and acts in the New Testament letters? So that's available at the cabinet to the right as you exit the room if you're interested in pursuing that.

Well here is this lengthy verse that Courtney read for us. Now you are Christ's body and individually members of it. One of the things that as we were thinking through that might be helpful is to talk about why are we taking this several weeks here to talk about the body of Christ? What's the reason? What's the value in it? And so I wanted to take a minute to introduce it with this particular verse, not that we're going to stay precisely with it.

But that's the basic message there. You are Christ's body and individually members of it. Who's the you there? Well, specifically, that was the church in Corinth. But as we read it, is this applicable to you? Yeah. Yeah, it's applicable to you personally. You believers here this morning are Christ's body, individually members of it. If you're a believer here joining us this morning, you are a member of the body of Christ. You are part of the body of Christ.

The other part of that is spelled out in Ephesians 5.23, Christ also is the head of the church. Christ is the head, we are the body. All totaled, the head and the body mean one organism. Now, another passage that we have looked at before talks about what is our ongoing relationship with the head, who is Christ.

Speaking the truth in love, or as we explained a few weeks back, it actually says, truthing in love. That's truth in action. We are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ. What's going on here? We are growing. We are in the process of growing into Christ, Christ our head.

Something else that I think is important to recognize, the body of Christ is unique in all the universe. There is nothing quite like it anywhere else. It's not like you can say, oh, there's several other, you know, bodies where Christ is the head? No. Were there several other relationships like that? No. No, there isn't. This is very unique in all the universe. There is nothing quite like it. The angels don't have anything quite like it. Even other groups of human beings don't have anything quite like it.

The body of Christ, we, us, is unique in all the universe. illustrating our relationship to Christ with Christ as the head, and we, the church, we who believe, the body is unique in all the universe. Certainly it's made unique because Christ himself is unique. We can think back of some of the things that make Christ unique.

Here is Christ, the creator of the universe, who voluntarily, is born of a woman, about 2,000 years ago. And we celebrated that just a few months back here. Boy, the year is screaming on, isn't it? But here is the creator of the universe who volunteers to be born of a woman.

Christ is unique in that regard. There's no one else like Him. Christ voluntarily gives His life, taking our sins upon Himself. In that respect, Christ is unique. Nobody else did that. Nobody else could. He did it voluntarily. As Scripture says repeatedly, He loved and He gave. He loved and He gave. Christ uniquely held that place. He uniquely is the one who was witnessed by a great many as resurrected, risen from the dead. That to our benefit as well. Not just so that he could be alive, but so that we benefit. We have life because of his resurrection. He is unique. We have a unique head.

None other like it anywhere in the universe. See, the world is full of all sorts of human organizations. There are different kinds and different sizes, different purposes. Some of them are in business, some of them are in government, volunteer organizations, other organizations of different kinds. But the body of Christ is pictured here in Scripture as an organism, not just an organization.

Some churches get really big into the organization. They'll even have titles. They'll have a head pastor and a couple of associate pastors and they'll kind of go down this hierarchy. And they'll get really big into the organization. They'll have lots of programs and lots of meetings to organize things. It's easy to get lost in that and certainly want to have order. But the key point is we are not just an organization. We are an organism. We are the living body of Christ.

Now the Jews, it's clear, did have and in fact will have a temple. There was the Temple of Solomon, the first one. There was the temple that was rebuilt after the exile and then constructed during the time of Herod. As a matter of fact, during the first part of the New Testament era, it was being reconstructed with funds that Herod initially had set aside. For decades, all during the earthly ministry of Christ and his time on the earth, the temple was under construction, the second temple.

But we in the body of Christ are a temple. We are a temple. The Jews had two temples in the past, and those were called the House of God. We have one reference there in Psalm 42, but there are others. It was called the House of God. The Jews are going to have two more temples, one more during the tribulation period, and actually another after that, a fourth temple all totaled, which will be during the Millennial Kingdom.

So the Jews have had and will have a temple, but we are a temple. We can be thankful for this building. I'm glad on days like today where it's a little drippy. that we have a building that we can meet at other times. And it has lots of advantages and conveniences. So it's really great to have this.

But this isn't the temple. The temple, the house of God, is us. Us. Scripture makes clear, 1 Corinthians makes this point, you singular as a believer are a temple. God indwells you. You have the very life of Christ within you. Christ who is our life. So God lives in each and every single believer among us, so each one is a temple, but also, it's true, God lives amongst all of us as a body. We, as a church body, are a temple. Not the building, us. We, the people, are the temple. Something else that's happened here.

By the Holy Spirit, each believer has been placed into the body of Christ. You are, in fact, a miracle. We come here and we gather together here this morning, and the world would say we're having a meeting. But in fact, it is miraculous that you are a part of the body of Christ. It's God's miracle. 1 Corinthians 12, an earlier part of the same chapter that Courtney read from, For by one Spirit we were all baptized, that is, placed into by immersion into one body. It's God's doing. It's God's accomplishment. What do we mean by baptized?

Cloth was baptized into the vat of dye to color it purple or red. They would take the cloth, baptize it, immerse it into the Vat of dye. The vat of dye was often made either from shells. By the way, it took about 10,000 shells to make an ounce. So it was very expensive stuff. Or actually a coloring agent made from a caterpillar. Nonetheless, what they would do is take this cloth, which was start off white, and immerse it into this vat of dye and therefore permanently change the cloth. There was, in those days, no way of reversing it back to anything other than the color red that it was dyed.

Similar example is with a sword. A sword, in order to be made finally ready for use, was first put into the fire to heat treat it, and then it was immersed quickly into water. They baptized the sword. It was changed as a result of being placed into the water. and then would come out this finished sword.

So baptism is immersion so as to come out quite different in character. So this baptism by immersion so as to be changed by that immersion is the idea here. You've been placed into the body of Christ not to be the same. Not to be the same as before. Your baptism into the body of Christ was not something you and I did.

But as we believed, the Lord accomplished it. The Lord did it. It's His miraculous accomplishment. It's His gracious accomplishment. We've heard the expression, you know, we can't go on meeting like this, right? But I'm going to do the reverse of that. By God's grace, we've got to continue meeting like this. Why? As the body of Christ, we have a gracious compulsion, okay? We're graciously compelled to gather together. Not out of anything from law. No, that's not the reason. It's not just a social function, although some people can think of church as a social function. That's not what it's about either.

We gather together because we're an organism. That's why we're meeting here this morning. We are one body, a living body, with Christ's life. We are an organism. We are God's designated organism on this planet. We are the living body of Christ here on planet Earth. If somebody says, I want to see Christ here on this planet, how can they do that? Us.

Here's what's amazing, when we studied in Ephesians chapter 3, I think it's around verse 10, our presence here on this planet is angel college. The angels are being taught about God's grace by watching us. We are a living, gracious miracle here on planet Earth. So when the Lord wants to teach the angels about His character, He says, look at my body. That is my body. Watch them. You will learn about my grace by watching them. You're angel college. You're living it. One of the things that we talk about at Holly Hills fairly often is spiritual growth. And appropriately, we've made a point of individual spiritual growth quite often and at length in the past. It's clear from scripture God intends each individual believer to grow spiritually. Personal spiritual growth is most certainly what God has in mind.

Here's in Colossians 128, Paul wrote to these believers in Colossae, and he says, we proclaim Him, and he says three times, admonishing every man, and by the way, that word means person, not just the males, every man and teaching every man with all wisdom so that we may present every man complete, and that word means mature, completed by maturity, in Christ. It is God's desire, design, and intent that every believer among us be growing and be in the process of being brought to completion and maturity.

That is certainly and clearly God's intent. But the other thing that goes along with that is spiritual growth among all of us as a body is also God's intent. Acts and the letters of the New Testament spell this out. This church body growing spiritually as a body is also exactly what God has in mind.

God intends to grow us. This comes out in this passage in Ephesians that we made reference to earlier. We are to grow up in all aspects unto him who is the head, even Christ. Or on in verse 16, each individual part causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. The growth of us as a church body is also precisely what God has in mind. And that's because it's an organism. As an organism, growth is what's expected.

Now, the Dones just had a little baby. And I'm sure they're just absolutely enthralled with this little baby. No question about it. Colette's just cute as can be. as enthralled as they are with Colette, they would not want Colette to stay the same size over the next 10 years. They would be rather alarmed long before 10 years was up. Why? Because growth is the norm. The growth of Colette is the norm for an infant.

For us too, the Lord intends growth. I'm not talking about, I think Hal used to say, nickels and noses, not talking about Just, you know, growing in numbers. If the Lord does that, that's great. But I'm talking instead about a spiritual growth that is the expression of the life of Christ among us and between us. That's the kind of growth that we're talking about. That's what He intends.

We have the opportunity here in Colorado to see a lot of nature. And when you're kind of at the edge of nature where nature has not been touched, we tend to give that a term. We call it a frontier. And a frontier, as nature expresses itself, might look several different ways. And definitely it's beautiful to look at. You might have something that's lush and green like this shot. something more alpine like this that's above Timberline and where the greenery is. All those, however, would be the frontier when we see it as that.

The spiritual growth of the body of Christ is here at Holly Hills our next frontier. It is an area where this body has some learning to do, has some growth to discover. And as a body, this growth is exactly what God has in mind. The spiritual growth of the body of Christ, the growth of all of us, as a single body of believers, will be our next frontier. And it's also a kind of a growing edge. There's a continuing moving of that frontier. There's always room to grow, isn't there?

Both individually and as a church body. It does come down to whose life is lived out. We could come up with what it looks like when the truths of the body of Christ get lived out, and yes, we'll talk about that some. In the end, it's Christ's life that matters, not just lists of actions. Though certainly there ought to be some organization to what we do among us. Paul had here in 1 Corinthians 14, all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner. Certainly a degree of organization. Ultimately, as an organism that lives by the life of Christ, it's His life lived out among us that matters most. His life. among us and between us. That's where he puts the emphasis there.

The head of the body is not just any head. As we said before, Christ is unique. And so we're not just any body either. What is amazing is the Lord has specifically selected us. We are His body. Other terms are applied. We're His bride. Very special. The head of the body is Christ. He was the one who was crucified and buried, raised, ascended and seated. That very special one is our head. He is now in the heavenlies, where we are also in our position.

We've been seated with Christ, Ephesians 2.6. We have a heavenly citizenship, as Paul wrote to the believers in Philippi. We're seated alongside him. It's his resurrected life that he intends to live through us, between us and among us. He intends that life to be expressed in us and through us and between each one of us here. That's his intent.

So in our physical bodies, think about that, in our physical bodies, we have a head that decides to do certain things. And different parts of our bodies follow through on that. Our body parts carry out the actions that our head decides. So that what we do is coordinated how? By connection to the head. It is Christ and our connection to him that guides how we interact with each other and what functions we have between one another. Each part carries out the appropriate function, right?

Or at least we sure hope so. So when we express how that might look among us, it's an expression of how His life might look among us, as each one depends upon the Lord for that life, that life coming from Christ who is our Head. The life of Christ coming from us and between us and among us ultimately will be inexplicable. We started off saying that our spiritual relationship with Christ is our head, and we as His body is unique in all the universe. Certainly that's clear.

Not only is that relationship unique, but God intends the living out of that unique life of Christ among us to be inexplicable by what is seen. Did you ever want to be puzzling? The life that God intends between us should be one that doesn't have earthly explanation.

Paul, and we're going to be getting eventually into this chapter, Paul explained to the believers at Corinth how a particular spiritual gift should apply. And so I'm piecing together a kind of a key message from his longer explanation. He talks about in chapter 14, if an unbeliever should enter among you, in the end he should be declaring that God is certainly among you.

Now, you may be wondering, why is there this picture of this wedding? I'll tell you why there's a picture of this wedding. That's when Nancy and I got married. And it was at Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California. And the reason I have this picture has nothing to do with our wedding.

But it has to do with in this room on Sunday nights, there was a meeting of the people in the church. And one of the interesting things about it is that at that particular meeting, They would have a portion of the service where they would have kind of a roving microphone and different people could say things among the church body. And so this happened just pretty much every Sunday evening. Different people in the church body would share like that. One time, and it sticks in my mind rather clearly, I remember there was an unbeliever who came among the group. and asked to have the microphone.

And the unbeliever held the microphone, and it was a lady. She said, I look at what's going on in this church body, and she said, I have got to have what's going on here. She saw the life of Christ lived out among and between the people there. And she recognized it. And just like this verse, She said, God is certainly among you.

And that's what I mean by inexplicable, where someone looks at what's going on between us and they begin to realize, you know, I cannot explain what's happening. among these people just by earthly explanations. There is something extraordinary going on. There is a life source among these people that I can't explain by anything here on planet Earth. There must be a deeper explanation.

When we looked at Galatians 5.13, we saw that phrase, through love serve one another.

This phrase implies certainly that believers will act in such a way as to serve other believers, but it also implies receiving. It also implies being on the receiving end of serving as well. Being served. As the body of Christ lives out the life of Christ, coming from Christ the head, each part of us will have a part to contribute and also will receive service from others in the body of Christ. There is action among believers based on the life of Christ, but there is also a receiving of that life.

One of the ways that it was clear in the early church that something extraordinary was going on Christians of earlier eras, including the New Testament times, lived in times of great turmoil and trouble. During the time of the Roman Empire, there were ten waves of persecution. Two of those took place during the New Testament era. And we have a record here that the believers lived under the oppression of the Roman Empire. Some lost their jobs and fortunes. Many faced death for being a Christian.

One observer of the Christian Aristides reported to the pagan emperor Hadrian about 130 AD, see how they love one another. See how they love one another. That expression, see how they love one another, was recorded various times throughout this time of persecution, even as the Christians were being attacked by wild animals in the Colosseum. One of the expressions of one of the emperors was, see how they love one another. Amazing. As we look at this, this is one of the expressions of the life of Christ among and between us. See how they love one another.

It is amazing, as we ponder this to think about it, What God intends is this growth in each one of our lives, spiritual growth. What God intends is growth as a body of believers, spiritual growth. What God intends is the very life of Christ through each one of us and the life of Christ between and among us.

So as we gather here this morning, think of it, those people that are sitting next to you and across the aisle and all that, those are the people. Those are the people. Well, you're going to spend eternity with them. But before we get through heaven's gates, the Lord has a purpose here.

The Lord intends that we have Christ's life shared among and between us in such a way that the world will look at us and have no explanation other than to say, God is certainly among us. Let's pray. Lord, as we look at these scripture passages and as we gain the message of what these passages have to tell us, Lord, what is described in your word is not something that we can cook up. As a matter of fact, we're not even intended to.

But what is described, Lord, is instead something that must only come from your life, your life in us, your life through us, your life between and among us. And we just thank you for what you have made us to be. We are indeed the body of Christ, the living organism that is your designated expression of grace here on this planet. Thank you for what you've accomplished and what you intend to accomplish in and through us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.