I hope that this time in the Word would be a blessing to you, so let's pray.
Father, we thank you for your church.
We thank you for the incredible things you are doing through ordinary people, ordinary
sinners who need help, who need to be saved, who need to be redeemed and sanctified.
Thank you that you are a God who gets glory from taking the weak and useless things of
this world and creating life.
We are the foolish things.
We are the low and despised things, the things that are not, so that in the presence of God
no human being may boast.
So we thank you for your church and we thank you for your Word and I pray that you would
speak to us clearly through it this morning.
Amen.
So what have we learned so far?
We've learned that when God commands His blessing, His blessing comes.
Psalm 133 announced that God would bring eternal life from Zion and He did it.
Two thousand years ago, here we are today, Jesus Christ came and in just three years,
as one historian puts it, this Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered more millions
than Alexander, Caesar, Muhammad and Napoleon.
Without science and learning, He shared more light on things human and divine than all
philosophers and scholars combined.
Without the eloquence of schools, He spoke such words of life as were never spoken before
or since and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of orator or poet.
Without writing a single line, He set more pens in motion and furnished themes for more
sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art and songs of praise than the
whole army of great men of ancient and modern times.
Born in a manger and crucified as a malefactor, He now controls the destinies of the civilized
world and rules a spiritual empire which embraces one third of the inhabitants of the globe.
There never was in this world a life so unpretending, modest and lowly in its outward form and
condition, and yet producing such extraordinary effects upon all ages, nations and classes
of men.
The annals of history furnish no other example of such complete and astounding success, in
spite of the absence of those material, social, literary and artistic powers and influences
which are indispensable to success for a mere man.
Christ stands in this respect also, solitary and alone among all the heroes of history
and presents to us an unsolvable problem unless we admit Him to be more than a man, even the
eternal Son of God.
So here we are, 2000 years later, in a world irreversibly changed by the life of that one
man, Jesus Christ.
Today in 195 countries and about 3,300 languages, Christians gather together to worship Jesus
Christ.
Who is He?
He is the most important figure in all of human history.
He is the Lord of history.
He is the author of the greatest story ever told, a figure so prominent and preeminent
that His birth is even more important than the birth of the universe itself, which is
why all the dates on our calendars do not go back to the beginning of time.
We do not date our existence from the origin of this universe because something more important
was born 2000 years ago.
He who created this universe.
And so we date our calendar to that year for He is Lord and He has changed this world and
He will change this world forever.
That is our hope, friends, as we gather here this morning.
There is no one like Him because there is no one like God.
No one spoke like Jesus.
No one could ever live like Jesus.
No one could ever die like Jesus, which is why at the foot of His cross, you have a man
who has watched perhaps hundreds to thousands of other men die excruciating deaths.
And He watches Christ die.
And just from His death, He concludes this man is the Son of God.
How powerful that you can die in such a way that the conclusion you come to is this man
is divine.
Jesus is in a league of His own.
He is holy, unrivaled, utterly preeminent in everything He does.
There are no other words known to man more studied and translated and memorized and copied
and sung than the words of this man, Jesus Christ.
Whether you believe in Him or not, His short life in this world changed it forever.
Millions of books filled with the desperate efforts of men and women to try and plumb
the depths of His legacy.
This is why other religions cannot ignore Jesus.
Muhammad couldn't ignore Jesus.
Hindus can't help including Jesus amidst their pantheon of gods.
Buddhists are fascinated by Jesus.
Hare Krishnas call Jesus one of their gurus.
Of course, the Jewish scriptures themselves contain the first 39 books of the Bible, which
all point in various ways to who?
To Jesus Christ.
Even those who deny any interest in Christ can't stop taking His name in vain, which
is why all blasphemy is owned by Jesus Christ in Hollywood.
He is the name you're going to keep hearing because other names have no power.
There is no scandal in using Muhammad's name in vain, which is why there's lots of Muhammad's
in this world.
There is only one Jesus Christ and His name will be the one that continues to be profaned
and blasphemed because He's the only one worthy to be worshipped.
He is the only name before which every human being in all of human history, past, present
and future will bow the knee one day and say, holy, holy, holy, you are Lord.
That is a day appointed on all of our calendars, a day that we must reckon with.
Joe Rogan, whether you love him or hate him, has the most popular podcast in our world
today and he even recently admitted, we need Jesus.
But we're not surprised.
No one lived a life as fascinating and profound as that of Jesus Christ.
In antiquity, crucifixion stands as possibly the most barbaric invention ever to be conceived,
to humiliate and torture a man to death.
Shameful, bloody, horrific.
And yet Jesus turned that into a symbol of hope.
Isn't that incredible?
A cross that speaks of love, of life, of hope, of glory.
And yesterday we considered Christ's incredible prayer before this moment, a prayer that speaks
of incredible things, a prayer that reminds us of the fact that Christ came to save sinners
and glorify them, uniting them in Him as He is in the Father and the Father is in Him
because that's His plan, a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, whether
on earth or in heaven.
And that's what He's been doing ever since.
Christ has been uniting His people from all nations and cultures, from every continent
and every country on the face of this earth, from every generation throughout the ages
to form a single, unified, sanctified, glorified community of saints.
Friends, the church is not a side project.
The mustard seed has become a sizable tree and it isn't finished growing.
Christ's kingdom won't be hindered.
And we would do well to remember that from just a handful of skittish disciples, we now
find ourselves at a time in history when more than 30% of our world professes some form
of faith in Jesus Christ.
When Jesus said the gates of Hades would not prevail against His church, He meant it.
When Moses and David and Isaiah and Habakkuk prophesied more than three millennia ago that
the knowledge of the glory of the Lord would cover the earth as the waters cover the seas,
they weren't lying.
And Malachi foretold a time when from the rising of the sun to its setting, the name
of the Lord would be great among the nations and feared.
He wasn't daydreaming.
As we saw from John 17, Christ didn't end up on a cross by mistake.
A perfect plan is unfolding before our eyes, which is why Christ's church is unstoppable.
No one and nothing can derail God's purposes to save the world.
Which brings us, of course, to His strategy, the church.
What is the church?
It's not a social club.
It's not a charity.
We're not just another non-for-profit incorporated association.
And I want you to look at this verse 27, when we consider who Jesus Christ is in history,
who He is in reality.
And you read verse 27, you must know that the church is big stuff.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
This same Jesus, this incredible God man, this gigantic figure that eclipses every other
human being who has ever lived.
The eternal Word who became flesh, the Holy One who sits on the throne of the universe
to whom all authority and power and dominion is given.
This Jesus has a body here right on earth.
As Ephesians chapter one puts it, God 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.
We are the body of Christ.
There's a metaphysical dimension to this that just completely boggles the mind.
Here we are.
We are the building and we belong to something massive, eternal.
Who are we to be a part of His body?
The huge ramifications that come from this reality.
And our passage gives us three of them.
Number one, we were made for each other.
Number two, we need each other.
And number three, we were gifted for each other.
Let's briefly look at each of these in turn.
Number one, we were made for each other.
Verse seven, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
Friends to know why each one of us exists is fundamental to the meaning of our lives.
You don't want to be born into this world and ask the question, well, why am I here?
What is this all about?
So many people struggle with anxiety, depression, identity crises, not knowing what they're
here for, not knowing what their life is about, going from one thing to the next, lost.
Friends, this doesn't have to be us.
We have the most incredible mission given to us.
The most incredible reality that we can know we were made for this, for each other.
It's exhilarating to know that when God saves sinners, he saves us to serve.
We were born for a reason.
Our lives are not an accident.
We belong to something bigger than ourselves.
And our meaning and purpose is completely tied up in his church.
We were made for each other.
To each of us is given the manifestation of his Spirit for the common good, for the common
good of the church.
Friends, it's great comfort to know that God has deliberately made us and formed us and
saved us and sanctified us for his body.
We're not saved to sit and wait for the end of the world to come, to hive off in a bunker.
We're saved to serve.
We're made for each other.
And I want you to see from our text that our place in Christ's body is no accident.
Verse 11, all these are empowered by the one and the same Spirit who apportions to each
one individually as he wills.
Verse 18, but as it is God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose.
Verse 24, but God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked
it that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care
for one another.
Look around you, the people right here in this room.
We're not all the same.
We're gloriously different.
God has chosen our shape and size.
He has chosen what part of the body we're supposed to be so we can serve, so we can
love, so we can make the church strong so that we can leave this world better than we
found it.
Friends, isn't it great to know that God has prepared good works in advance for us to do?
Our lives have meaning and purpose.
There's amazing things that we can be doing by the power of his Spirit in his grace to
make other people's lives better, to make the church strong.
You are not a lone ranger.
You need people.
God has made us for each other.
And just today we had the joy of seeing Amy baptized.
The body has got a new limb.
You don't want to push that too far.
You end up with some sort of octopus in your head.
But it's encouraging to know that we're stronger.
Every time a new person comes into the body, we grow.
We were made for each other.
So many Christians want to discover the will of God for their life.
Well here's one helpful answer to that question.
God has given to each one of us his Spirit for the common good of the church.
We were made for each other, which means secondly, we need each other, as I've been saying.
We need each other.
And Paul paints a bizarre picture for us to drive the point home.
Can you imagine if all the parts of your body decided to go rogue?
If your hand no longer listened to your brain, your feet refused to carry your body anywhere.
What if your mouth decided it wasn't going to be accepting any more food?
If your lungs decided they weren't going to take in any more air, what would happen to
your body if your heart quit beating?
Isn't the case that it's just the foot that dies if the foot goes on strike?
If your heart stops beating, is it just your heart that suffers?
Is it just your lungs that fail if your lungs decide we're quitting today?
No, the whole body dies.
The whole body suffers.
And this is by design.
God is saying, I have inextricably woven you people together.
You have the same spirit in you.
One spirit binding us together.
We need each other.
God could have made us autonomous.
He could have made us so we don't need other people.
He could have decided, you know what, I'm going to save people one at a time and they
can go and do their own thing.
But that wouldn't bring him glory.
And so he's decided the church is going to be his body here on earth.
And we need each other if we're going to survive.
Have you ever woken up in the night with a dead arm?
It's a horrible feeling, isn't it?
You feel the skin.
It's like, who is this person lying next to me?
Doesn't feel like it's part of you anymore.
We don't want to be dead limbs.
Paul points out the obvious in verse 21, I 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.
And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor
and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which are more presentable
parts do not require.
And if this is true of how each one of us relates to the church, then we must know that
we cannot live without each other.
We need each other.
And it means that we have a vested interest in seeing other people win.
When members of our church community hurt, if we're a healthy body, we should hurt.
We don't want to be a church with leprosy.
The other day I was chopping wood and I decided to use a hammer, which incidentally is not
the best technique to use.
And I thought I could just crack it because it was very old and instead I cracked my toe.
And it was just my toe that felt pain.
The rest of me was fine.
Yes?
You've had this experience?
No.
The whole body reacts.
I am leaping and dancing.
I am ululating, which in Africa is like, and my toe is turning black.
My whole body suffers for that one toe, that part of my body that I hadn't noticed the
whole day.
Do I need a toe?
Apparently I do.
Friends, we need each other.
Some of us might be toes, but we need toes.
We need elbows.
We need hairy armpits.
I'm not looking at anyone.
But we're grateful for all the different parts of our body and Christ is saying, I've given
you a role to play in this world.
It means that we've been called to weep with those who weep and grieve with those who grieve,
rejoice with those who rejoice.
Verse 26, if one member suffers, all suffer together.
If one member is honored, all rejoice together.
Friends, I want you to imagine we've got Joel over here at the back.
He's into his catching wild animals.
I want you to imagine he goes out one night and it's just incredible.
He breaks Samson's record.
Samson got 300 foxes and Joel comes home and he's 305.
And West Australia, you've got to celebrate this man.
This is unprecedented.
Normally it's like one or two, but this guy, he's broken the national record.
So they put his face in the paper.
Would we say, well, it's just his face we're honoring really, because it's just his face
that ended up in the paper.
Did his face catch all the foxes?
That doesn't make any sense.
Of course, we understand that if his face is there, his face represents the whole body.
Maybe it was his brain that figured out clever traps that he could use to catch that many
foxes, but we don't print his brain in the paper.
That wouldn't be any helpful.
We understand how this works.
If one part of the body is honored, the whole body is honored.
And so friends, we need to be people that have a vested interest in the success of each
other.
We don't want to be people who envy other people's gifts.
You might want to be intelligent and literate in multiple languages.
Maybe you have all these people up here playing these.
I can't play a single musical instrument.
I think it's wonderful you've got folk who are musical and talented with music and they
can, you know, music is this like amazing language and they can understand.
I can't understand it.
My wife can sing and it's fantastic to hear her and I get by.
But the point is we've got to find our, find your road and be a blessing, serve with what
God has given you.
And when other people excel, rejoice in their success.
Let's be a healthy body.
That's what it means for the whole body to rejoice when one member is honored.
We belong to each other, which means we can rejoice in other people's giftedness and
success.
The glory of one part glorifies the rest, which brings us to our third and final reality.
We were gifted for each other.
As you probably noticed already, this whole chapter and the ones that follow are about
the subject spiritual gifts.
We all love spiritual gifts, but why do we have spiritual gifts?
The Holy Spirit tells us plainly in verse seven, to each is given the manifestation
of the Spirit for the common good.
God gives spiritual gifts to the church for the common good, not for our own personal
enrichment and pleasure.
God gives each of us gifts, not to bless ourselves, but to bless others.
We're spiritually gifted to give, not to get.
Put simply, we were gifted for each other.
Hands need feet.
Feet need hands.
Eyes are useless without ears and mouths and a nose.
God has gifted each one of us uniquely so that we complete His body.
The gifts that we have are not for us, they're for others.
We think of a rugby team.
Some of you watch a bit of rugby.
And a rugby team is made up of people of all shapes and sizes, which is why I love watching
the game.
You've got the tall blokes, you've got the big stocky guys with no neck.
You've got the fast sprinters, the gangly sort of chaps that hope they never get caught
standing on the fringes.
And if you just randomly reposition these people on the field and get them to do jobs
they're not designed to do, you have a rugby team that's never going to win.
A rugby team that functions healthily is a rugby team where the guys that are good at
running are in the place where they should be running.
And the guys that are good at pushing are in the place where they should be pushing.
The guys that are good at jumping are there where they can jump.
And this is how the whole team works well together.
And God has made us like a rugby team.
We've got the stocky blokes, we've got the tall guys, we've got the fast ones, we've
got the clever ones who can figure things out.
But we need to work together otherwise we're going to fail.
So God has gifted us each differently.
Friends, if we're going to be a healthy church united in one body we must remember that our
giftedness is for each other, not ourselves.
Our world has turned giftedness into a quest to make ourselves great.
I mean that's why we have these shows.
America's got talent and Britain's got talent, American Idol, The Voice.
We have events and competitions that celebrate individual giftedness, but this is not the
way of the church.
If you're good at something, make it a blessing to others.
Don't worry about what others can or can't do.
Don't envy those who have gifts that you don't.
That's not your business.
God gave you your role in the church.
Make your life about serving each other.
Paul asked the question, verse 29, 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?
Which is his indirect way of saying no, that's not the case at all.
We're not all apostles or prophets or teachers or miracle workers or healers or tongue speakers
or interpreters, and that's by design.
Verse 18, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose.
And of course, that's not to say that some gifts aren't greater than others, because
Paul tells us plainly right at the end of this chapter in verse 31, but earnestly desire
the higher gifts, which means there are some gifts that are higher than others.
And in fact, the order is given to us in verse 28, God has apportioned in the church first
apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping,
administrating, and various kinds of tongues.
And if you think about it, you can see why.
Without the apostles, we wouldn't have the New Testament.
Without the prophets, we wouldn't have most of our Old Testament.
And without teachers, we wouldn't be able to make sense of the Old and New Testaments.
So if you have to choose between having someone who can speak in tongues or having the Bible,
I choose the Bible.
But again, I think this is where a lot of us stumble.
Why should anyone desire the higher gifts?
For status, for fame, for glory?
No.
If we've been following with Paul up till now, we know it would have to be for the common
good.
We don't desire the gifts so that we can strive to become tongue speaking, Jedi, mountain
moving people.
This is not God's plan for giftedness.
We desire the gifts so that we can love this church, which is why the last thing that Paul
writes in this chapter is this, and I will show you still a more excellent way.
What is this more excellent way?
What is the next chapter in this book all about?
Love.
It's all about love.
We're gifted to love.
What is gifts without love?
It's worthless.
Loveless giftedness is worthless because the goal of giftedness is the building up of the
church, not ourselves.
Friends, we've been gifted to give, not to get.
So 1 Corinthians 12 confronts us with an incredible reality.
The church is the body of Jesus Christ, and that means at least three things for us.
It means we were made for each other.
It means that we need each other, and it means that we've been gifted for each other.
That's how we stay united and grow, and that's how we conquer this world for Jesus Christ.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for a reason to live.
We thank you for purpose.
We thank you for truth.
We thank you from saving us from being lost and without hope, bringing us into your body,
your church, that we might live forever, that we might be with you, that we might call upon
you as Father, that we might be used by you in this world to show others your love, to
speak truth.
And so I ask Father that you would bless this church, that you would give them the gifts
that they need, and that they would serve you from a full heart.
And I pray that this weekend might be a wonderful catalyst to motivate anyone who might be sitting
on the fringes to get more involved, to spend more time and more effort with your people,
for your people, for your glory.
Amen.