On an international scale, we have been watching an identity crisis, as we have seen the Soviet
Union in the last couple of weeks literally come unraveled.
And today, those who are in leadership in the Kremlin and in the republics of Russia
are seeking desperately to come to a new identity.
What does it mean now to be a member of the Soviet Union, a union that technically no
longer exists?
What does it mean to be a Russian?
It is an international identity crisis.
What we see on an international basis, we can also observe on a personal basis.
For there are times as we pass through our lives when we come to crisis regarding identity.
It does happen of course with teenagers as they come through those important years.
It happens with college students who graduate from college with a degree in hand and find
out that all of the rights and privileges that come with the degree somehow have evaporated
and they stand at the end of the employment line wondering now what.
It happens when couples get married, especially when couples get married later in life.
Yesterday, it was a privilege to share at a marriage ceremony for a couple who are just
around 40 years of age, living all of these lives, their lives alone.
Now they come together as husband and wife.
I have a hunch there's going to be an identity crisis in the next few months as they learn
what it is to live in a new relationship.
It happens in the loss of a spouse.
Suddenly who am I and where do I fit in identity crisis?
I believe that the only way to really find the answer to that question, who am I, and
to the question, where do I belong, how do I fit, is to have a right understanding of
God and our relationship to Him.
If we have that understanding, it will help us in the time of our crisis.
Who is my God and what is my relationship to Him?
If I have some understanding regarding those issues, then the identity crisis will be hopefully
a brief one.
Last spring we looked at two important verses in the book of Jeremiah.
I would invite you to look back there again with me at the book of Jeremiah, the ninth
chapter, verses 23 and 24.
Thus says the Lord, let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man
boast of his might.
Let not a rich man boast of his riches.
If there are any values that our culture tends to boast in, it is those that are mentioned
in the 23rd verse.
Might, intellect, wealth.
But God says, let not anyone boast in these things, but rather let him boast of this,
that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice,
and righteousness on earth.
For I delight in these things, declares the Lord.
God says, here is my value system.
My value system is not found in how smart you are, the position you have in life, the
prestige that you think is yours.
It is not found in your possessions.
My value system, says God, is found in character qualities, loving kindness, righteousness,
and justice.
And he says, I exercise these on the earth.
In these things I delight.
God says, let him who boasts boast that he knows and understands me.
To understand God means to have discernment.
We can never fully discern a God who is infinite.
But there is some sense in which we can discern and understand God, or God would not have
said we could.
God says that we can also know him.
As we pointed out months ago, that word know is the same word for Adam knowing Eve, his
wife, and she conceived with child.
It is the most intimate kind of knowing.
God says that you and I can know him in an intimate, deeply personal way.
And when we know God that way, and when we understand God, then we can boast.
If you and I are going to go through an identity crisis successfully, we had better have some
understanding of God first of all.
We'd better have some intimate acquaintance with the Holy One of heaven.
And not only so, we need to have some understanding of what God has done for us.
As we studied God last spring, we discovered that God is one who lives, he loves, he gives,
he cleanses, he knows, he empowers, he endures.
God promises, unites, judges, and God is here.
And as we looked at those attributes, we came to the conclusion that God is both an infinite
and a personal God who can be known.
And he is a God who is the giver of good gifts to us.
Through the summer we studied 13 of the gifts that God has given us in Jesus Christ.
We talked about the gift of completeness, the gift of relationship, of acceptance, redemption,
justification, sanctification, forgiveness, eternal life, assurance, deliverance, regeneration,
and adoption.
All of those wonderful gifts that the infinite personal God has given to us.
The result of all of these good gifts which comprise salvation is a new identity, a new
you, a new you in your deepest self.
Because of who God is and what he has given to you in response to your faith in Jesus
Christ, you are not merely remodeled, you are not merely renovated or rehabilitated.
You are a brand new person.
It is as if the old were passed away and you have become new.
And isn't that exactly what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 17?
The new you is a new man or a new person.
You are a new creation in Jesus Christ.
So let me summarize.
If you are a person who has understood your sinfulness before God and your need for a
Savior, and if you have therefore placed your faith in Jesus Christ alone as your sin bearer
and Savior, you have as a result of that become a profoundly fundamentally different person
than you were before that.
Physically, you are much the same, but spiritually you are entirely different.
And the innermost part of you is beginning a dynamic process, excuse me, a change so
that it will eventually touch your emotions, your mental capacities, and the volitional
you.
And eventually even your body itself will be affected by the change that has been started
because of your salvation.
God is at work in you today.
You cooperate with God in this work, in this change by spiritual disciplines and by a positive
response to God.
The new you is identified and described in the New Testament with a number of different
word pictures and names.
And through this fall we want to study some of those so that we can understand the new
you, who you are in Jesus Christ, whom God has made you to be.
The first of the names that we're looking at is found in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and
I invite you to open your Bible there.
1 Corinthians chapter 12.
Verse 12 says, even as the body is one and yet has many members, sounds like my voice
is going to give way to me this morning, and all the members of the body, though they are
many, are one body, so also is Christ.
For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether
slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
Here we see that the new you is described by God as if you were a limb or an organ in
a physical body.
Now think of that for a moment.
God describes the new you as if you were a limb or some organ in a physical body.
The difference of course is that this body He's talking about is a spiritual body and
not a physical body, but it is nonetheless real.
Because of our orientation in the natural world, we think of things spiritual as being
fantasy, but that's not the case.
A spiritual being is as real as we are, and the body of Jesus Christ is spiritual and
it is real, at the same time it is not natural.
It is supernatural.
As we think about this truth that the new you is described as a member of the body,
there are several truths that come to mind in the first place.
The new you is an addition, an addition to the body.
The body was begun, you see, long before you were on the earth.
The body began on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came and for the first time
congealed and indwelt and unified the disciples of the Lord Jesus as a body, a spiritual body.
I'd like you to turn back to the book of Acts for a moment and look at the second chapter.
We have here the account of the day of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit.
And He indwelt those who were Jesus' disciples and they were proclaiming Christ.
Peter's sermon is recorded for us and the result of all of this is that there were many
people, many Jews who were immediately saved.
They believed what was being proclaimed and it says in verse 41, so then those who had
received His word were baptized and there were added, added that day about 3,000 souls.
Because they were added, added to what?
To an entity, a body that had just begun as the Spirit of the Lord came.
They were added to that number.
And again in verse 47 it says that those who believed were praising God and having favor
with all the people and the Lord was adding, adding to their number day by day those who
were being saved.
Now my point is this, that you as a new you were also added to the body by the work of
God.
In history much after the day of Pentecost, about 2,000 years later, but nonetheless very
truly and really added to the body.
You were made a member of the body.
This addition to the body is a past addition.
Past in the sense of your own lifetime.
Again going back to 1 Corinthians chapter 12 you notice that the apostle says to these
Corinthian believers, by one Spirit we were all baptized.
The tense in the Greek here is a tense that's not in the English language.
It's what's called the heiress tense.
And in this context it means an event that happened once and for all in the past.
The apostle is writing to these believers and he says you were once and for all in one
act added to the body.
What was he thinking about?
When were these Corinthians added to the body?
Were they there in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost?
No.
So when was it that they were added to the body?
It was when the apostle first came to Corinth and preached the word of God to them.
They were at that moment added to the body when they believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.
This verb looks back to an historic defined moment of time, their salvation.
And the same can be said of you.
You were added to the body at that moment in time when you were regenerated by the Holy
Spirit and placed your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and were saved.
You were at that moment added to the body.
The tense of this verb means that it is once for all, never to be repeated.
One is added to the body never needing to be added again because one is added to the
body once and for all.
Well you say, well what about a Christian who goes out and lives carnally, who disobeys
God, who lives in sin?
Well need I remind you that the believers who received this letter of 1 Corinthians
were somewhat people like that.
There were some of them who were leading lives that were much like the unsaved in Corinth.
And yet as Paul writes to this body of believers, even the carnal ones, he says you were all
baptized by the Spirit.
And so this adding to the body is true of all Christians.
It's not just for a certain select group of spiritual ones or those who are walking especially
close with God, but it is true of all believers.
All have been added to the body.
That's a past addition.
But secondly, it is a permanent addition.
How is this done, this adding to the body?
Well he describes it as being baptized into one body by one Spirit, baptized.
This addition to the body was accomplished by the baptism in or with or of the Holy Spirit.
The preposition that is there can be understood in a number of different ways.
When you hear people talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit or the baptism with the
Holy Spirit or the baptism in the Holy Spirit, here is the text in the Bible that talks about
that.
And you will notice, may I point out, that it never says here that we're to seek it.
It is something that happens to us at the moment of our salvation, as we've already
said.
But what is this baptism of the Holy Spirit?
Well it's the work of the Holy Spirit placing us into the body of Jesus Christ, adding us
to the body.
It is the work of the Holy Spirit identifying us with Christ.
It is the work of the Holy Spirit uniting us to Jesus Christ.
All of those things mean the same thing.
Being added to the body means being identified with Christ, united with Christ.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit is our being placed into or identified with the body of
Jesus Christ.
This is not the first time that the Apostle Paul has mentioned baptism in the book of
1 Corinthians.
It might be useful for us to go back and look at the two other places that he talks about
it.
One of them is in the first chapter, so would you turn back there with me a moment?
It may help us to come to some understanding of what he means in chapter 12 by the baptism
by the one Spirit.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 1 the Apostle is recounting his ministry among them.
And he says in verse 11, I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people
that there are quarrels among you.
Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, and Paul is now telling them what he's heard.
I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas, I am of Christ.
You see they were dividing among the teachers that they had had.
Then there were these ones who seemed that Paul does not commend by the way who said
I am of Christ, which must have been a statement claiming some super spiritual position.
Paul condemns them with the others who were choosing upsides in the church.
He says in verse 13, has Christ been divided?
Paul was not crucified for you, was he?
Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
And so he goes back to his time with them and obviously here he's talking about water
baptism, a ritual, an ordinance that had been accomplished and we'll see in a moment when
he was there.
So baptism here is water baptism.
He says in verse 14, I thank God that I baptize none of you except Crespus and Gaius, that
no man may say that you were baptized in my name.
Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanus.
Beyond that I do not know whether I baptized in the other.
Christ did not send me to baptize, but he says to preach the gospel.
Well, there are a number of things to say here.
One is that Paul clearly differentiates between baptism and the gospel.
And yet there are people today who are trying to put baptism with the gospel and saying
that somehow you are saved by being baptized, that that's a part of the gospel.
Paul argues against that here.
He says Christ didn't send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.
But he did baptize some and he recounts them.
By the way, if baptism had been crucial for salvation, as some still today are teaching,
then it would seem strange that Paul would say, I don't remember all those people I
baptized.
I know I baptized these and these and I don't remember any others.
If baptism were essential for salvation, Paul would certainly be able to say, I baptized
every one of you.
It would have been that important.
But the main thing I want us to see here is that this is water baptism and that the apostle
is saying that he baptized not in his own name, but in the name of Jesus Christ.
Well, that literal baptism, that act of water baptism was an outward ceremony by which people
were identified with Christ, the gospel message, and the people of God.
And that's essentially what water baptism does today.
Water baptism identifies us as believers with Jesus Christ's people and the gospel of Christ.
Baptism is not unimportant.
Paul is not saying here that it doesn't really make any difference if we're baptized, but
he's saying when it comes to choosing sides, he's glad he didn't baptize too many of them,
lest there would be those who would boast that they had been baptized by Paul.
Those who believe in Jesus Christ ought to be baptized.
To be baptized as an infant is not biblical baptism.
However sincere parents may be in having a child baptized, it did accomplish absolutely
nothing for the child, spiritually speaking.
Baptism is an act that occurs after one has trusted Jesus Christ as Savior.
And it might be good just to ask the question at this moment, have you been biblically baptized
as one who has as a responsible individual trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior?
Have you then been baptized as the apostle speaks here in the name of Jesus Christ to
publicly identify with Christ, His body, and His gospel in the world?
Water baptism is in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, but there's another occasion of baptism
before we come to chapter 12.
It's actually in chapter 10.
And here again Paul uses this word which means to immerse or to dip literally, which tells
us the mode of baptism in the early church.
And history records that that's exactly how it was done.
But now in chapter 10 he uses baptism in a slightly different way.
He says in verse 1, I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all
under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the
cloud and in the sea.
Well, were the people there immersed?
Well, in an analogous way, a metaphorical way they were, he mentions the cloud overhead,
that cloud being the cloud that God caused to be there to protect His people, symbolizing
His presence, a cloud which is made up mostly of water.
He mentions the sea on either side of them, the sea that had been split and through which
they marched.
And so you see in a certain sense, and that's the sense Paul means, they were enveloped
in water.
But the point that he's really making here is not so much the literal water, the immersion
in water, as the fact that the people on this occasion were identified with Moses.
At this moment God, as it were, baptized them into Moses or identified them with Moses so
that Moses could go on from that experience to the top of Mount Sinai and there represent
all of the nation.
And there talk to God on their behalf and there receive from God on their behalf the
covenant of the law.
So this occasion was not only a mighty miracle of God, it had symbolic importance.
They were baptized on that occasion.
And again I say the importance is not so much the literal envelopment in water, though in
a sense that happened there.
The important thing here is the metaphorical meaning of baptism.
They were united to Moses, identified with Moses, so that from that point on when God
talked to Moses, He was talking to the whole nation.
Now we come to chapter 12 where again we see the word baptize used.
The very same word as in chapter 1 where it's clearly water baptism, the ritual of baptism
is mentioned.
The same word as baptism as in chapter 10 where you can see the water literally around
them, but the important thing is the metaphorical meaning of baptism to identify with someone.
Now as we come to chapter 13 or chapter 12 rather verse 13, it's very clear that there's
no water literally involved here.
He is talking about the Holy Spirit performing baptism.
It is not in H2O that He's baptizing.
It is into a spiritual entity, the body of Christ.
He is placing believers into the body.
He is identifying believers with the body of Jesus Christ.
I think it is very profound and striking what He says in verse 12.
He talks about the physical body being one with many members and then He says, so also
is Christ.
So is Christ.
He is one, but He has many members.
What do you mean Paul?
Well He says the Holy Spirit by one Spirit you were united to, you were added to the
body of Christ and that addition is a permanent addition.
It is a permanent addition.
The Holy Spirit does not unbaptize people.
The Holy Spirit does not disconnect.
He doesn't amputate.
The Holy Spirit unites.
He brings into, He identifies with, He unites us to Jesus Christ.
Now let's back up a moment.
We're talking this morning about your identity.
We're talking about the new you if you have trusted Jesus Christ.
We have said the new you is a member of the body of Jesus Christ.
You were added to that body.
It's a past addition.
It happened at the moment you were saved.
It doesn't occur later.
It doesn't happen again.
It's a once for all experience.
It's not something that you sensed.
It's not something you felt, but it happened to you in the past, at the moment of salvation.
And it's also a permanent addition.
It's the work of the Holy Spirit identifying you with the body of Christ.
But He uses another sort of a picture of this same thing in verse 13 at the end.
He says, we were all, notice we were, past again, we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
Now in the earlier picture it's the Spirit placing us into something.
Now it's the Spirit coming into us.
By the baptism of the Holy Spirit we are placed into Christ.
But at the same moment we, as it were, drank, we appropriated, we partook of, we received
the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit indwelled us at that moment.
The Lord Jesus said that the Spirit would be in us.
Not only in us, but that He would flow out of us like a river of living water.
A permanent addition to the body you are, because the Holy Spirit has placed you into
the body and now indwells you.
He resides in you to keep you in the body.
His presence is your security.
And then finally, your addition to the body is a purposed addition.
In other words, it was not haphazard, it was not by chance you were added to the body because
God long before He created the world chose you to be a part of the body.
And now having accomplished that in your life, He has placed you into the body as He has
purposed to do so.
Look at verse 18.
Now God has placed the members, that's you, the new you, each one of them in the body
just as He desired.
According to the gifts that God has given you and the calling of God in your life, He
has purposely placed you into the body just where you are.
The new you is an addition to the body.
It's a past addition, it's a permanent addition, you are a purposed addition.
You're not an accident.
You are the choice of God.
And God has placed you into the body of Jesus Christ with a purpose.
I began by saying this morning that there is an identity crisis in the world and we
all go through identity crises in our lives.
We can only understand who we are and what our purpose is in the world if we know God
and understand Him and know what our relationship to Him is.
Our relationship is as if we were members of the body, and we are.
That gives us our identity and our purpose likewise is found there.
And we're going to talk more about that the next time that we come to this chapter
in two weeks.
I hope that you'll study with us as we think about being members of the body of Jesus Christ.
You're not an accident.
You are here for a reason.
And God has gifted you and God will enable you to accomplish the full reason for your
being in the body.
The fact that we are members of the body of Christ means that we have an enormous responsibility
to Christ.
The privilege is tremendous, but so is the responsibility.
For in this world we are the life of Christ, we are the extension of Jesus Christ.
So as you go out this week and you live before other people, try to remember that.
As you make decisions about your life, as you make choices about lifestyle, about how
you're going to invest yourself and your resources, as you decide how you're going
to treat others, remember who you are as the new you.
Let's bow together.
Jesus Christ has chosen you for Himself and by His Spirit He has called you to be a member
of the body.
Let's ask Him to enable us this week to live as the new people that we are in Christ.
Ask Him to enable us to live according to our new identity.
And if you're here without a personal relationship with God through faith in Christ, would you
today place your faith in Him and in your heart trust in Him at this moment?
Asking Him to cleanse you of your sin and to give you this special relationship with
Him, He would love to do that.
He desires to do that for you.
And you too can be added to the body.
You see the church is still growing.
That's why we're here, to be a part of the growing body of Jesus Christ.
You can be added to the body today by trusting the Savior.
Father, I pray that all of us will be conscious of who we are in a growing, maturing sense.
And may that understanding of who we are transform our lives in our motives, in our desires,
in our choices, in our hope.
And as we have studied today that we are members of the body of Jesus Christ, so may we walk
this week understanding that privilege and carrying that responsibility well by the power
of the Holy Spirit who lives within us.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
I'd like for us to sing a verse of a closing hymn before we go in our way.
Jesus Christ died to redeem His body so that we might live for Him.
And that's what the songwriter says in 439.
I'll live for Him who died for me.
And then truly does He say, how happy then my life shall be.
It is when we live for ourselves that we're miserable people.
When we recognize who we are and we live for the Christ who died for us, then we can know
true joy.
Let's stand and sing before we go.
I'll live for Him who died for me.
My life, my love, I give to Thee, Thou Lamb of God, who died for me.
O may I ever, ever be Savior and my God.
I'll live for Him who died for me.
How happy then my life shall be.
I'll live for Him who died for me.
My Savior and my God.
With the words of that determination on our hearts, that desire, that prayer that God
would strengthen us to do so, let's go out rejoicing that we are who we are in Jesus
Christ.
God bless you.
We're dismissed.