Body building - what is God's part?

So last week we looked at the process of what God is doing in the life of the believer in regards to bodybuilding, and Vern introduced that, and we'll pick up with God's part today. That's the angle that we're going to be taking it from. So when we start to think about what God is doing by building the body of Christ, it's helpful to think about our own human body and how that illustration that's actually looked at, and we'll spend a great deal of time in 1 Corinthians 12 today, It's a design by the Creator that gives us really a mirror image of what is similar to the body of Christ. And so having that analogy and having that teaching in 1 Corinthians 12, we'll be able to use the body, the human body, as kind of a jumping point into what God is doing.

And so just thinking about the human body and David there kind of meditating on that in Psalm 139, he says, For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. And so our bodies, just the sheer design of the creation of the human body, causes a person to magnify the Creator in their mind. And that's exactly what David was doing there in Psalm 139.

But just to take a few minutes and get an idea of our bodies, because this is such a huge analogy when it comes to the church, I just wanted to magnify our own thinking around the human body because it is part of how God designed us. If you're just looking at the sheer magnificence of the organism of the human body, we're talking about organisms made up of billions and billions of tiny cells.

There are more cells in the human body than there are people in the world. Roughly 10 to 100 trillion. They don't know for sure. They keep discovering aspects of cellular parts that they haven't found before and the numbers just keep growing and it's not the same for every person. But we're talking anywhere between 10 and 100 trillion different cells just in your own body.

Some of the other wonders of the body, if you were to Think about just the blood that's circulating through 60,000 miles of tubing reaching to every part of your body. This tubing, if you were to take it out and lay it all out end to end, it would stretch around the world seven times. I tried to explain that to my daughter. She believed it. She's like, okay, sure. I have a hard time believing it. It's like, are you serious?

There's that much going on just in terms of circulation through the body. Every day the heart pumps 5,000 to 6,000 quarts of blood. The heart is an amazing pump which never seems to get tired and which never takes a rest. An adult has over 200 separate bones. Also within the bones there is an amazing blood manufacturing factory. Blood cells are made inside the bones. Number four, there are more than 600 muscles in a person's body.

These muscles, along with many perfectly designed joints, enable man to move his arms, legs, and body with amazing coordination. The nervous system, which is really amazing to me, can be likened to a highly organized postal system or telephone system, carrying messages to and from the brain. Nerve impulses can move at a speed of nearly 350 feet per second. They can zip up from a person's feet and back again more than 30 times in one second. Did you catch that? Pretty fast. I don't think we've got... We don't have anything on the human body right now, as far as technology goes.

And that wraps up the sixth wonder that I've listed here. The world's most complex computer is the human brain. In fact, the entire human body is the world's most incredible piece of machinery. Men have made different kinds of robots, but they have never made any robot which can even begin to do what the human body can do.

So when we're talking about and meditating on what it is that God did just in our own physical human body, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. And that is a realization that instantly comes across the mind as you start to recognize how complex this is. But the human body is a wonderful thing, but what we're talking about is another intricately detailed designed body, which God has put together in a wonderful way as well.

It's called the body of Christ. In Ephesians 1, 22 through 23, We read, And he put all things under his feet, and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. So in Ephesians there, we're talking about the church, which is made up of all the believers, and that includes us.

And as I start to work through this today, I want you to kind of just be aware of those that are sitting around you. Not in a weird way, but just to think about how, as we talk about this, just look around, kind of see if everybody's where they're supposed to be.

I know Wayne's where he wants to be. Anyway, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But yeah, we want to just be aware of the fact that this is our body. This is us. And there's more of us moving around doing different things in different rooms and we'll get together later and be more of a complete fellowship. And there's some of us that are gone. Some of us that are traveling, which is why I'm here.

But the idea is, I want you to, in the context of what we're studying today, to not set it out as some doctrine that's a little bit impersonal, but to start thinking about names and faces and just the relationship that we have as an intricately detailed designed body of Christ. I think that will help you and really draw some application in your heart as we work through this today.

But this verse, Ephesians 1, 22 and 23, it just talks about the fact that the church is the body of Christ and Christ is the head. And while Christ will rule as head over all the creation in the future, what is he actually ruling over today? He's actually head over the fellowship of believers. So right now he's functioning as head of the body of Christ, whereas there will be a time when he actually steps into the role of head over all creation, as far as a functioning ruler. But today we find the headship of Christ located in the body of believers, the church, this age. That's what he's doing. You want to know what God's doing today? Look at the church. That's what he's got going on.

And that's what that verse is talking about. Let's move to this idea of one body and many members. First Corinthians 12. 12 through 31 is the passage that we're going to be spending all of our time in this morning. And you're all probably very likely familiar with this passage, but it has to do with the makeup of the body of Christ and what God is doing in order to design and bring that together, to build it up, as we talked about a little bit last week. So let's just get started here, and using the human body as an analogy, it will give us a glimpse of the creative work that God is doing in this age. So, 1 Corinthians 12, 12-31, I'm just going to go verse by verse through this, and then add a little commentary through each verse. So, if you're wanting to be in your Bible, you can follow along. We will cover all of these verses. Verse 12, For just as the body is one and has many members, all the members of the body, though many, are one body, and so it is with Christ.

So just getting started here with the idea of this oneness, but yet many parts. The body, it is a unit, but it's also made up of different parts. And I realize that this may sound and seem a little elementary as we start talking about, yeah, well, we have ears, we have eyes, we have nose, we have feet and toes and so forth. And they all function together in order to do what the body is doing. But they're individual, they're unique, but they're also a unit.

We don't want to overlook the, maybe, if we were to think, this is maybe a little elementary God. We get it. We've got a nose, and this guy's an arm, and this guy's a leg. But that's exactly the analogy he wanted us to have. And he wants us to identify with the body so much so that we make this analogy in our own mind.

And that's what's going on here, is he uses this idea that while every person has many members within their body, they only have one body. And the unity of members in our body is a parallel to the unity of members within the body of Christ. Though there is a unity, there is also a diversity among the members as we will see later in this passage. Verse 13, for in one spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one spirit.

So it is by means of the spirit that we are immersed into the body of Christ. So how do we get to be a part of this? This organism called the body of Christ? Believe. believe in the salvation message, and instantly we're told that not only is there regeneration, indwelling baptism and a sealing, there's also that placement or identification with the body of Christ instantly. A person could be in the middle of Africa and believe and they're instantly joined to the body of Christ. Yes, with their local body there, if there is one, but in a universal sense with every single believer in the church age, they're joined in that body. And they hold a special place in that body.

And we'll see what that is as we go on here. What is God doing with the body of Christ? Well, if you think about it just through pure evangelism, which is one of the gifts, if you think about what God is doing in the body of Christ by building it up, he's adding to it, isn't he? He's using parts, members of the body to add other members of the body. And he's doing it through the gospel, and as the person believes, as we see in this verse, they are baptized into the body. And it doesn't matter if they're a Jew or a Greek, it doesn't matter their nationality. It also doesn't matter their station or position in life. If they're a slave or free, or whatever the case, instantly they are identified with that body.

So the spirit is responsible for placing each believer in unity with the rest of the body and permanently identifying him or her with Christ, the head. Drinking of one spirit, as we see in the last portion of that verse 13, it refers to the indwelling that occurs at the very moment of belief. We see that in John 7, 38 and 39. But that's pointing to the unity that we all share in the spirit.

We were all brought into the body in the same way. Nobody bought their way in. Nobody paid the man, as it were. We all came to a position of being in the body of Christ in the exact same way. God provided entrance through belief in the salvation message, through the gospel.

Can you think about how, in some ways, your concept of being involved with the church was much different than maybe what this verse says? I mean, I think and we may hopefully do a better job of not identifying the church with a building in our minds. Hopefully we're taught to understand that the church is not a building and we do understand that here. But I don't think that that's the case in many places around our city and around our country and around our world. The church is a very unidentifiable concept for people.

The only way they can get their minds around it is to see what's on the corner of such and such a street. And that's how they think of the church. And how do you get entrance into that church? Well, you walk through the doors. That's one way. But then you've got to find out, well, what else is there that I've got to do here?

You know, what does membership require? And while church membership is another topic altogether, if we were to talk specifically about the membership of the body of Christ, it has nothing to do with, quote unquote, church membership. It has simply to do with evangelism, the acceptance of the gospel message through faith, and boom, it's done. Now, whether you're functioning in the fellowship or not functioning, those are different discussions that we could have.

But a person's concept of the church is what? All too often. It's just what's down on the corner, the building, the group of people. Maybe that's the way a person views it, but that's not what the scripture talks about at all. So what we have is a different concept. And that's hard to explain. In fact, if you are just walking, having a conversation with your neighbor, your coworker, oftentimes I find that evangelism type of opportunities, discussions, occur within the context of a church type of discussion.

They want to know, what church do you go to? And why do they want to know that? Why do you think people want to know what church you go to? Because it's something that we do, we categorize and we pigeonhole and we try to define our world as we see it.

That's right. I do it. I meet someone new and I'm like, well, what church do you go to? And that's like the very first point of discussion that gets me into an opportunity to actually begin a discussion of spiritual things. But it has to do with where you actually drive and attend on a Sunday morning between these hours. That's kind of the context of that discussion. And that's not at all what's going on in Scripture, but that's how we use it.

And because we use that as a discussion point, and because we use it to pigeonhole and find out where people are in their doctrine and this kind of thing, We end up thinking of the church as a collection of believers who are in a certain location at a certain time, and they call themselves first this or second that. And so we just want to know, you're those people, and we're these people.

In fact, interestingly enough, when you move to a new city, or you begin to look for a local fellowship to begin being a part of, what are the things that you look for? What are the things that you do? How do you begin to analyze the local body in order to find out if it's the right place for you?

Well, I won't ask you to give me the answer from your perspective. Hopefully, it's a mature perspective. But the immature perspective of that is, well, you know, what's this church like? And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that later, but it's very much a personality inventory.

It's like, what's going on with the personalities of this group? Do they do things like I do it? Do they sing like I sing? Do they sit in things that I like to sit in? Because a lot of people don't even know what... pews are a different concept to them. It's like, where else do we go when we have a pew? Not very many places. Court. What? Court. Court. Which is a pretty... Where else do we have these kind of pedestals that we stand behind and stuff? Okay.

So anyway, there's a lot going on with how people think of church, but what God is doing is different than the way our culture tries to put our mind around it. What God is doing is he is bringing people into a body of believers. He's baptizing them in the spirit, into the body of Christ, through the gospel message, through faith in Christ. Let's read on verse 14 through 20.

For the body does not consist of one member, but of many. If the foot should 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. And if the ear should 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. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose. That's a big deal.

We're talking about what is God doing in the body of Christ? God is arranging. He's not only creating it and building it. Once He gets it built, what's He doing with it? He's arranging things. He's putting pieces in different places. And building it up. Making it stronger. That's right. There's a goal with what He's doing. And I think that's one of the things that a lot of times we might lose sight of is that there's a plan going on here with who's here and what's going on and who comes through our doors and who joins the fellowship and who's been here and spent their days here. That's all a part of how God is arranging our local body to do what it's designed to do. We'll talk more about that.

As it were, or as it is, there are many parts, yet one body. And so each part of the body is an essential part of its existence. And that's verse 19. So this really leaves no room for a believer to think that his gift or his membership is more important or valuable than another member's gift. That is the overwhelming, repetitive point of those verses that we just read.

Why does he say it multiple ways? I mean, he's talking about, you know, if the hands just say this, it's like, okay, we get it. You say it with one analogy, but he goes on and says, what's the point of the eye? What about, you know, you couldn't smell, you couldn't hear.

And so he uses this actually a number of verses, like six verses here, to draw out this important point that if you are thinking that God's arrangement doesn't work, that what we have in this arrangement isn't quite right for the time that we now exist, then you're overlooking some of what God is doing.

And I think that to entertain such a thought puts us in a place where we start to think of God as being careless or maybe arbitrary about how he designs the local body as well as the universal body. Now, there's some other things that are most likely going to come to mind and that is, are we complete? Are we complete as a local body or are we complete as a universal body? I'll address that in a little bit.

But to think that God is careless in how he arranges even the local fellowship is to think that God is not doing what it says that he is doing in verse 18. So it seems like then that would apply to different locations of churches, like maybe there and here. You know, even how we each go to our own location, that's even part of the plan. So maybe to think that we wouldn't do that would be...

Yeah, and I think what you're on to is the fact that Within each local fellowship, there are strengths, and we're going to also talk about apparent weaknesses, because he deals with that in the next set of verses. And so what you're on to is right. I think that there's a little bit more through this chapter that can develop your thinking on that. So hang tight to that question and see where you think once we get through here. But good point. Yeah, go ahead.

And there's always room for more. Anyone that wants to believe that there's a place for that person, whether you believe or I believe or whatever, there's not too many of this and not too many of that. There's always a space for that person. I think that's another good point, is that not only do we find ourselves looking around saying, well maybe we're not complete in every single way, but God is arranging and working and there's a plan, even though we may not have every single aspect of the body in place. It's also not to say that we have it all and we can't accept any more of what God is doing.

Now, instead of thinking of ourselves as being eyes and ears and so forth, that's the analogy that we start with. We actually move to a transition of thinking of it in terms of gifts. In other words, it's your gift and your gift combined together to make a membership of the body a more complete body. So while we're thinking of ourselves as functioning body parts, we're going to move that analogy to functioning spiritual gifts.

That's where he's taking us in this verse. Go ahead. And I think just like when you become a Christian, you begin to grow in this spiritual process even aware of it. I mean, to try to analyze this and to say, you know, you do these tests and say, you know, I have this, this, and this, or you have this, that, and that, that's okay, but that's not the full depth of the gifting that God has done. Yeah, I think that's a good point. They appear sometimes. They do, and how do they appear? How do we, how are our gifts expressed?

Within the context of the body of Christ. There's a need. There's a need for it. And that need, and when you, it's not about that we go through a spiritual gifts test and we find out, you know, this is where I fit. And now I go start shopping for a church that needs my gift. Because that's the way that the corporate world has basically taken its personality test and enforced it into the church, and now we are all taking personality tests to try to figure out where we fit. That's not how it works.

You find out where you fit by fellowshipping with other believers. Those believers do something to you, and we're going to talk about that, but we're talking about what is God doing in building up the body of Christ. Well, first of all, he's bringing members into it through salvation. So he's placing us in these pews, as it were. We could be sitting around a tree and it would be just the same. But he's placing us in these pews so that we can fellowship together and we don't just come to church to sit here and teach and learn.

There's more to it than that. God's doing more in the body of Christ than just teaching us. There's more. We're going to talk about that, too. And one of the things that happens, as you mentioned, Stan, is that we begin to understand who we are within the body of Christ, which is really part of our own growth. And that's where I'm trying to draw our attention to, is that when we function within the body of Christ like God has designed us to, we actually grow and we cause others to grow. And we'll talk about it. Go ahead.

Do gifts change? Do you have a gift for a while and then have a different gift? I think that's a good question. In order to just stay off too long of a rabbit trail with it, I believe that God has given each believer, the Spirit has enabled you to do at least one engiftment.

And you may be more than that. And you may find that you have more than one as you function within the body. But you don't recognize gifts as you function outside of the body. I think a lot of times we think about being a solo act, an island to ourselves, fellowshipping God and getting really close to God in our prayer closet, but never actually having a corporate prayer, having a corporate learning and corporate sharing and admonishing and teaching one another, as we'll talk about. And so that's where gifts get sharpened. Okay, and we're going to refer to Hebrews here in a moment, so I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit, but I think that each believer is given at a minimum one gift, and that over time you may recognize that you actually had additional engifments, and they come through the sharpening of the body, also through the growth and maturity of doctrinal understanding, and they begin to function over time, where they don't function at an immature state when you first become a believer. Does that make sense? So you kind of have them, but they may be added too. Well, I don't know that they're added to, I think they're just unveiled. Unveiled under pressures, unveiled under teaching, unveiled under the fellowship of other believers.

Because sometimes believers can come alongside and say, I don't know if you've noticed this, but you have a real knack for such and such. and it actually is a biblical gift. I'm not trying to tell you that you should do it and sign up right here, which a lot of places do. I really appreciate Holly Hills in that the way that spiritual gifts and capabilities are allowed is through a natural growth process.

When I got here, that wasn't said, hey, you've taught before, why don't you go teach? No, it was, I'll sit here for a year or so and I'll learn. And I'll fellowship and I'll get to know you. And as I get an opportunity, hey, I'm not going to be here tonight, would you mind filling in? I know that you like to teach.

And so it was through opportunity within the body of Christ that gifts began to grow and get sharpened. And some gifts are actually to grow the body. So they function outside of the church gathered. But it's for the purpose of growing the church, I'm sorry, They function as a church scattered, but for the purpose of growing the church gathered. Does that make sense? A little twist on words there. Okay, verse 21.

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. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. Notice what he says there. That's paradoxical. That's just like God. You know, he's saying, I use the weak instead of the strong. I use the poor instead of the rich. You know, we see this way of doing things from the very, very beginning. And here he's saying again, you want to know how I think about the church?

Those spiritual gifts that you think are weaker are actually indispensable. And he goes on, and he lifts up our understanding of these. And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor, and our un-presentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body. And remember, we're talking about what is God doing to build the body. He's composing us with stronger, apparently stronger, and apparently weaker gifts so that we function in a correct way.

So what would be really an unbiblical thing is to sit and look across the pew and say, they're not quite like me and therefore not as valuable to the Lord or to this local body than I am. Now, if you have ever not thought in some way like that, you're like super Christian.

Because it is a very natural thing. Go ahead. I think that's how church leaders get off track and fall into sin. They get fried and whatever. I think you're right. It's very easy then for Satan to attack. And I want to take some time and just kind of camp on this thought. Because you're exactly right. This is a huge danger and I want to drive this home.

Let's go and finish the passage and we'll do that. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that it lacked it, that there may be no division in the body. That there be no division. What happens if you start doing that? You break things up, which is exactly what we're talking about.

The leadership starts doing it, who else starts doing it? They often say that the leadership determines the personality of the whole body. I think that's to some degree true, a lot of times, especially when you put a leader up on a pedestal. I'm not saying, I don't feel that we're in that situation here, but often times the personality of the leadership will influence the personality of the congregation. And so if the leaders are doing that, then what are you going to do? You're going to be doing fruit inspection too, or gift inspection as it were. Go ahead.

I think this is where talents and spiritual gifts overlap and connect with each other. They can work in concert with each other. But when you have a talent, I think it can develop pride. And if you have a spiritual gift, it comes in humility. So certain people can sing, and it develops a certain pride because they know that they're really good at singing. But a worship leader can sing as well, but it comes from humility. It's difficult to divide talents and gifts, but I think the resulting, like Carol's saying, the result of it is observable. You have pride and you have humility. The church should always be, you know, the gifts will be seen through humility. Look at Paul. Look at the people in the New Testament, almost all of them in their gifts. When they weren't, it was pride. That's right. I agree. I agree completely.

I think when the body overall is humble in their expression of the gifts with one another, and that's what this chapter is talking about, it's the weaker that are indispensable. It's the weaker that need the honor. So who do we honor? In the world, we honor the ones with the super talents, right? Those are the ones that get all the attention.

But in the church, it's actually a flip-flop. Again, it's that paradoxical way that God functions. He's different than us. His ways are not our ways. And when He composes the body, as we talk about there in verse 24, He composes in a way that you wouldn't do it.

And I think that's really important. I think that a functioning leadership of a church will do very well to camp on this verse and understand, God is composing this body, not me. God is putting this thing together and combining the spiritual gifts in such a way that's exactly what we need in this part of the world, in this part of the city, in this part of our town. He's doing the combining. My responsibility is to do what I'm supposed to do, and in that case teach and shepherd and so forth, but we need that kind of understanding and that kind of humility starting from the top all the way down. and the elders all the way down. And I think that we're blessed, I can say from my experience, we're a blessed fellowship to have that here. I think we all are having an opportunity to humbly grow together. And where we fail, well, that's where we need growth, right?

Unity without diversity would produce uniformity. Does God want a uniform church every single corner? He doesn't. Does he want uniformity across the entire universal church? Where everybody's like just a rubber stamp. You came through our discipleship programs, you should be functioning like this. He made individuals. He did. And he put those individuals in a unity.

So we don't want uniformity. What we're actually looking for is not uniformity in terms of what God is doing, composing the body. We're actually looking for the diversity that comes from a unique combination. But you do want uniformity and focus. There are a number of areas where the body wants uniformity. Doctrine is number one. And from doctrine comes focus and so forth. So we want uniformity in truth. But in terms of how each individual functions with their spiritual gift, we don't. And not only do we not want it, it's just not what's going to happen. It's not what God designed us to be like. While the heart beats at certain amounts per second, there are other parts of our body that are doing things at different speeds and different rhythms, but they all work in conjunction with one another.

It's kind of like, one analogy, I didn't write it here, was an orchestra. You've got different pieces all over the place doing different things, but there's a uniformity because they speak the same music mathematical language. There's a rhythm in how they function. And it's like we've got a brass section over here, and we've got strings over here, and everybody's kind of functioning differently. But as we learn solid doctrine from the Word, and we focus our minds on the truth of God, we start to produce sounds that are in harmony with one another. Different diversity in terms of what we're capable of doing, but harmony in terms of how we're functioning.

That was one analogy that I have. But the body actually is a good one, and it's biblical, so we'll stick with it. The diversity of the body is critical to understanding what God is doing with regards to our individual spiritual growth. All too often, believers look around their fellowship and begin the process of gift inspection.

It comes natural to organize people by their strengths and weaknesses and to put them in categories and label them. While this might be acceptable in some instances, just in terms of understanding how to get something done, we should use caution here because diversity within the body is part of God's plan.

The real danger occurs when a person with a seemingly greater gift imagines that he could function alone without the need of the other gifts. If you cut off your arm, it's going to cease to exist. There are no solo gifts in the church. Whatever God determined to give you is critical to the body, and so it is with those who are thought to have lesser gifts. In fact, this passage tells us that just like the human body gives greater attention to the weaker parts, so we too should give them greater honor. There is no rivalry in the body of Christ.

I should also mention something that's not written here. I didn't write down, but I do want to camp out on it for just a second. There's a growing desire for believers to start to fellowship in a more universal sense as opposed to a local sense. And in other words, well I don't go to a church, I just actually fellowship with other believers over coffee and we'll do some kind of retreat or do something like that.

Is that what God intended? Why? Because the full expression of those gifts cannot be expressed until they're in a body of a local assembly. That's right. And what happens in a local assembly that causes them to play the same tune as we mentioned? You're going to be under that doctrine. Doctrine. I think you nailed it. That's right. The person of Christ being taught through the Scripture, the truths of the Word of God being taught and shepherded and watched over. Do you have a shepherding and a doctrinal teaching out there in a kind of organic universal church relationship kind of thing?

There's no one there to look over the doctrine. There's no one to carry out discipline. If somebody gets off on a path that's rogue, there's no one to do that. So I just wanted to nail this down for us just for a few minutes. Is it OK for us to think about having church in our, you know, prayer closet or our own little secret place? And for you to say, well, what church? I don't go to church. I actually conduct church on my own.

Is that an acceptable biblical answer? Is it acceptable, biblical answer, to say, I go to church with my friends when we meet together and have coffee? And then they'll quote and misquote, you know, we're two or more or three more gathered, so forth, you know, that whole one, two, any more than two, you know, we're at church. You know, it's just a misquote of the verse. But is it acceptable to take that path?

But Hebrews says we shouldn't forsake the assembly for ourselves. Exactly. That's the next verse on this list here. And I'm going to get to it. I just wanted to nail that down for us because I think in our connected world where we can connect online, where we can connect, you can chat with believers anywhere in the world if you want and say, quote unquote, I'm attending church because I'm hanging out with other believers. deception in the church and the Gnosticism and all the other things that were growing at that period of time. So yes, you are right according to Hebrews, but when you do go to church you have to be awake and discerning and know Scripture so you know you're in the right place. It's true.

But what we want to do is make sure that we still protect doctrine in the ways that God told us to do it. And by that, we have overseers and shepherds that we entrust to lead us. Now, are we to not be Bereans and still consider? We are. We're still told to be careful and sharp and run things through the Word. But we also want to humble ourselves to fit under the leadership of those who are shepherding us and entrust, you know, what God has given them in engifments to lead us and direct us.

And when you have a church that is kind of not local and not gathered or assembled, and it's kind of an informal online or over coffee type of thing, you lose all these biblical principles on how to conduct church. So I'm all for looking at traditions and saying, OK, these are traditions. They're not biblical traditions. We don't necessarily have to hold to these traditions. They're just traditions.

They're things that we like. But when it comes to what God has said in the Word, there's no debating. We humble ourselves and we submit and we move on. And we're better for it. Go ahead. And that's why it says that the church is built, the foundation is built upon the apostles and the prophets. It's true today. That's why we have the scriptures.

Without going into too much more about the local body and how it functions, I did get up on a little bit of a rabbit trail, but it's been something that's been kind of tugging away at my heart for the last number of years is, you know, individuals saying they're involved in church and some kind of new definition of the term.

And again, I don't care if we're sitting in pews or on the grass. I don't care if we're in a building or, you know, out under a tree. You know, whether or not we do do music at the beginning or the end. I personally am not concerned with those things because the Bible doesn't specify to me how those things function. Orders of service and so forth are just convenient for us in our culture.

When it comes to doctrine, and when it comes to teaching, when it comes to the eldership and the leadership of the church, and us as believers who are being composed and arranged into a spiritual engiftment to function in the same rhythm and sound that God has designed us to do, now that I really am concerned about. I want to make sure that I'm operating according to Scripture with it. And so that's what we're talking about. What is God doing by building the body? Well, first of all, He's doing it in a certain way and not in other ways. We say, and I'm just reading there, we say we need what is happening to us.

You've heard Vern mention that. I often will use it. You need what's happening to you. You don't like it? That's because you need it. I have to remind myself of that too, and it's not a very happy reminder, but that's how I go through that process. We say that that's an expression of how God is purposefully using circumstances to mature us. But we could also say that we need the exact believers surrounding us. That's a pretty interesting thought. It's like, wait a minute, I need you guys. You need me. Why? God is arranging according to his will. God's in charge of this thing and he's doing it. And so to think that God's careless or arbitrary is to say, well, I don't need it. because God doesn't care. But He does.

He put us here together to work with one another and to cause each other to grow in the knowledge of the Son of God and to mature to manhood, as Spurgeon talked about. We'll wrap that up with Ephesians today, but that's the idea there. So rather, God's design for the body is to be an environment of believers that sharpen one another, to be chiseled into the image of Christ. We are sharpening one another.

Hebrews 10.24, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. So it's really important to understand how God has designed us to grow within the community of other believers. I think this is overlooked.

If you go look in the Christian growth section of the library, how many of those books are going to be about Christian growth within the body of Christ? Or is it going to be all about you? It's all about you. Now, is there a place for that? We've spent a lot of lessons in this series on what God is doing individually. But what about what God is doing corporately to grow you? Now that's a book I haven't seen on the shelf. Maybe it's out there, I just haven't seen it. But it sure is a part of the scripture. It's all over this stuff. And Hebrews nails it.

We must also fellowship, or I say fellowship with God must never become selfish. Have you ever felt that way? It's like, oh well my understanding of God is so sweet and special that it's mine and I don't really know how to communicate with other people because they just don't get it. Well, that's not how fellowship was ever intended to be. It wasn't intended to be selfish like that.

We must also fellowship with other Christians in the local body. It is interesting to note that the emphasis here is not on what a believer gets from the body, but rather on what he can contribute to the body. I'm going to say it one more time. It's not what a believer can get from the body, but what he can contribute. When we go out and we start to think about shopping for churches, it's more about what can I get? What kind of programs do you have? What are you going to give me? Give me, give me, give me, give me.

And for a new believer, maybe that's just where they are. But for those that understand these verses and have spent some time thinking about it, it's like, where can I fit into this body? How can the Lord arrange me into this local body? So then you, this is indicating that you're supposed to fellowship with, if you're fellowshipping with other believers within the body, that means some Southern Baptists, some Pentecostals, some of the different people who worship in different ways. They're part of the body, right? So the fellowship doesn't have to be... From a universal sense, there's nothing wrong with fellowshipping across the body. the local border, if you will. There's nothing wrong with it, and it can grow, and it can be a good thing.

But at the end of the day, we don't have direction to forsake the assembly of gathering with people across the country. But we do have the direction of forsaking the assembly of your local gathering. So while we can say it's a good thing, it's not a necessary thing that we talk to somebody in Africa that's a believer. It's not necessary. But it is necessary that we spend fellowship time gathering together for the purposes of maturity.

The reason I said that is because people have a tendency to seclude themselves within their own little body and that's limiting your gifts that you can give. with other people and other bodies and other churches? Yeah, yeah. I think to some degree that's definitely the case. Although God did have in mind using local churches where they were.

So I tend to just say, let's stick to the local church and when we meet other believers and we come across them, let's have a great time and fellowship with them and then let's go back to church and keep learning and keep doing our thing. To get into the idea of the Universal Church is where we're supposed to be thinking, that's later. The Universal Church and its organization in fullness and its rulership and all that's involved are all millennial. It gets much more clear what goes on with the Universal Church at that point. Right now our directions are very local.

So I just keep it that way as best I can. Not to say that I don't want to hang out with anybody that's a believer elsewhere. I sure do. Let's try to wrap some of this up here. Faithfulness in church attendance encourages others and provokes them to love and good works. And I think that's going to be more so what the lesson of next week is focused on is, what's your part? in the body of Christ. But just to mention a few things here down this list, consider some of these ministries that happen within the local church, that we're told to function within a local fellowship.

Be devoted to one another in love. Accept one another in Christ. Forgive one another. Be patient with one another. Restore one another. Teach and admonish one another. These are all letters that Paul wrote to individual churches, encouraging them to do these things with one another. So just getting back to 1 Corinthians 12, And kind of nailing down this chapter, it says, Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers. then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?

But earnestly desire the higher or greater gifts, and I will show you a still more excellent way. And I'm going to try to just read and stick to this due to time, and then we'll wrap up. But I know that this particular section of verses could lead on to a lot of rabbit trails, so let's just try to stay within the confines of where we're at with this and see what we can't learn and pick up. It is God who gives the gifts and assigns the offices. He has a perfect plan, not only for the church as a whole, but also for each local church.

We have no reason to believe that each church in the New Testament possessed all of the gifts. The church at Corinth was an especially gifted assembly. And Holly, I think that might answer your question a little bit there, that not every church had every gift. And we don't have any reason to believe that that was the case.

However, God gives to each fellowship just the gifts it needs when they are needed. So not only what gifts are there, but when they get there are part of what God is doing. Should we trust God with that? I think so. Because then we can get real bent out of shape, or bent around the axle, or something like that, as Vern said, about, well, who's here and when are they here? That's God's doing. In these verses, 27 through 31, Paul points out that there is a priority list for the gifts, that some have more significance than others, but this fact does not override the truth that each gift is important, and each individual believer is important. Even in the human body, there are some parts that we can do without, even though their absence might handicap us a bit. I think that's how we need to see ourselves. No, we don't have it. We're handicapped in some ways, but we're able to function.

We're able to do what God has intended us to do. And when we need it, God will bring it. His timing is perfect, and he'll do the work of building the local body. The apostles and prophets, of course, appeared first on the scene because they had a foundational ministry.

Ephesians 2.20 tells us that. Teachers were needed to help establish believers in the faith. And the other gifts were needed from time to time to help individual believers and to build the church.

So the construction, just looking at that verse and thinking about it from the Greek perspective, in 1 Corinthians 12, 29 through 30, that demands that no is the answer to every single one of the questions that were proposed there. No is the answer to each of them. No individual believer possesses all these spiritual gifts. Each believer has the gift or gifts assigned to him by the Lord and needed at that time.

The word translated best in 1 Corinthians 12 31 simply means greater or desire the higher gifts or greater gifts. That's what that translates to. And some spiritual gifts are greater in significance than others. And it's proper for the believer to desire these gifts. Paul put a high value on prophecy, but the Corinthians value the gift of tongues. Paul put tongues at the end of the list.

Now, because gifts are more significant to what God is doing, does that make them more important? Does it make it more important from the perspective of you honoring or dishonoring that person's gifts? So the honor that we give to a person's gifts is the same, irregardless of its significance. And significance has to do with the time and what God is doing in that local church.

In the time that these guys were getting established, tongues was a necessity. They needed to bridge the gap for the gospel across the language barrier. It was a necessity. It's not the necessity today. So it's not the significance. Nor is prophecy significant. Prophecy in the sense that I believe, as you mentioned last week, not only telling of future things, but of truth. Prophecy is contained, it's finalized so far as it's recorded in the 66 books of the scripture, the Bible.

Unity and diversity must be balanced by maturity, and that maturity comes with love. It is not enough to have the gift of the Spirit and gifts from the Spirit. We must also have the graces of the Spirit as we use our gifts to serve one another. Instead, I think that's what we're saying. It's not enough just to know our gifts and to use them, but to do it in grace, to do it humbly, and to honor those with the weaker gifts or seemingly weaker, the ones that we don't see, the ones that are behind the scenes. So just final thoughts here.

As each believer functions in accord with the gifts Christ has given him, the body as a whole enjoys unity and becomes more spiritually mature, more like Jesus Christ in all his fullness. We need to recognize that individual spiritual maturity takes place within the context of the body. Individual spiritual maturity takes place within the context of the body. Being in Christ is not only personal identification, but also corporate identification. All those that are in Christ are His body and are being matured individually. But equally important is the maturity that takes place in the unity of church fellowship. I think for me, I've often thought of being in Christ as very much a personal thing.

But being in Christ is also a fellowship thing. When we're together, we get to see parts of the aspect of Christ's body that we ourselves don't have. And we learn from that. And we grow from that. And without it, we stay immature in some ways. In this age, God is glorifying himself by building up the body of Christ, so that each of its members attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

And that was Ephesians 4.13, where Vern introduced you last week. And I think that's what you guys were mentioning, just the whole goal of this thing, he's arranging, he's adding to it all to build up to the maturity and the image of Christ. And so that's what God is doing in the body from his perspective.

And I think that that hopefully will help us put some perspective on what's going on on Sunday mornings for us as we gather together and we fellowship together. So let's close in a word of prayer. Father, we're just so thankful that you have brought us here together at Holly Hills. I thank you for each and every one of these believers, for our leadership, for the elders and the deacons and all those who serve and express their gifts in this local body. Lord, I pray you would humble us and teach us to be accepting of the things that we may not understand and the areas of engiftment that we don't have. Father, I pray that we would desire unity through doctrine and that we would have a focus that is one and that that focus might be on you and seeking and beholding you and your word. So I just pray that you would help us to do that this morning as we continue to learn. It is in your name that we pray. Amen.