1 Corinthians Chapter 12:21-24

One of the things that we do here and encourage people to do is actually for people to get involved, to begin serving in the church. And hundreds of people who have never served in church or never served in ministries, I've had the joy of seeing them come forth in this place and begin to serve God.

And you never know how God is going to use you to step out and start trying. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the Senior Pastor of the Bridge and Kernersville, North Carolina. God chose you to be you.

You're gifted in some ways to fit in and to be a blessing to others. Find out how that is today as Pastor David continues in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. But before we join David, have you ever considered the Bible as a whole? It's more than just a history book, a book of poetry, or a series of stories to share in Sunday school class. The Bible is one book with one central message.

You heard me right. There is one main message in the Bible, and David McGee is ready to share that life-changing message with you in his latest DVD entitled, One Book, One Message. Join David as he takes you from Genesis to Revelation and unlocks the most profound truth of all the Scripture. You'll never look at the Bible the same way again. The DVD, One Book, One Message is our gift to you when you call to support Cross the Bridge today.

You can call 877-458-5508 or go online to crossthebridge.com. Now here's David McGee with today's teaching. Turn with me to 1st Corinthians chapter 12. The title of today's message is, Dismembered Body Found. Dismembered Body Found.

Thought that might get your attention. This chapter is talking about the body, the body of Christ. And Paul is using this picture of the church at Corinth being the body of Christ. Now Corinth was a Greek city, still there. And there was a church that was started here. And then Paul is wondering how they're doing.

And here's some things, he writes this letter back to them that we have now. It's the book of Corinthians. We're going to pick it up with verse 21. We ended with the verse 21 last week, but we'll use that as our pivot verse. For context's sake, we'll start out there. Verse 21 says, And 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. So there, you know, we've seen, we're reminded that we all need each other. And we like to act like the ultimate goal is to be independent, but really isn't.

Talked a great deal about that last week. Let's go on to verse 22. Says, no, not rather those members of the body, which seem to be weaker are necessary. One of the things that we do here and encourage people to do is actually for people to get involved with the church, to begin serving in the church. And hundreds of people who have never served in church or never served in ministries, I've had the joy of seeing them come forth in this place and begin to serve God. And friend, we don't have a bunch of stringent requirements that only a select few can actually help out.

Maybe you think, well, isn't that dangerous? Well, no, that's Bible. That's what it is. Let's understand when we talk about children's ministry, we do background checks, state, local, federal background checks on people because kids are treasures and we need to take care of them. Amen. So yeah, praise God. Now, and what happens is you make yourself available, God begins to use you. And you never know how God is going to use you to step out and start trying. See some people they're like, wow, you know, I think I'm going to be the next Billy Graham, but I'm just waiting until the Coliseum feels and then I'll go and speak to him. No, God's waiting on you to begin to be faithful in the small things.

Could be true. Maybe God wants to use you in huge ways, but he's waiting for you to be faithful in those small things. And brother and sisters, there's nothing that's too small to do for God. We started this fellowship in our, in our home, a little home Bible study. And every Thursday and every Sunday we get together and we clean the house and make sure it was presentable for the guests who were coming over. We get the house ready. Do you realize we still do that every Thursday and Sunday here? Well, actually Saturdays too.

We get the house ready because guests are coming. And that's a very important ministry. That's being a part. And if you're sitting there going, well, yeah, but you know, Pastor David, I think, you know, what other people do is more important.

No, it's not. The sparkle ministry, the cleanup ministry is, is so, so important. Gang, if somebody walks in here, they drive up and the parking lot is trashed. Really, they're going to think we don't care. And then when they walk in, if the building is trashed, they're going to think not only do we not care about the building, we don't care about them. We don't care about what they think. And when they sit in here, they're not even going to be listening to what I'm saying.

They're going to be thinking how trashed the building was. So do you see how each role is so important? And some people are really strong in their faith.

Some people are struggling. It's okay. None of us are always weak and none of us are always strong.

We all have our moments. So we all join together to do this thing that we call bridge and cross the bridge. Now, why is this important to us?

Why is this important to you? Because of the things that we've been through in life, we get hurt. Our feelings get hurt. We get wounded. And sometimes we tend to carry those wounds around. If we're hurt bad enough, we begin to pull back. And friend, that's, that's not what God wants us to do. God wants us in the midst of our pain to go ahead and press in to join with other people. Well, if I do that, I might get hurt.

Yes. But if you don't do that, your heart may turn to stone and you may wind up with a calloused heart. So in life, we need to pursue relationships with other people.

Why? Because if you really look at your life, when you were really on some kind of downward spiral, what was one of the first things you did? Pull back from people. A lot of times that was actually the start. So you press into this thing called the body of Christ. And that's part of what protects you and part of what heals you. And you think about it, you know, at the heart of Christianity. Do you think Christianity is like a do it yourself religion?

I mean, some people kind of present it that way. Christianity, you just need the try harder. It's a big deal.

It's a big deal. Just need to try harder. The beginning of Christianity is to realize you can't do it.

Somebody came to me one day and they said, pastor, this Christian life is just, it's so hard. I said, uh, it's not hard. It's impossible.

Just want to encourage them. But it is, it actually is impossible. You can't do it. And once you realize you can't do it, you say, well, if I can't do it, what do I do? If I can't get everything right and I stand here in my sins, what, what do I do? You go outside of yourself.

You're dependent on somebody else. And that's somebody else's Jesus. So the whole beginning of Christianity is realizing that you need Jesus.

You can't do it yourself. And then of course, it's just you and Jesus and nobody else matters. Don't amen. It's a trap. No, it's not just you and Jesus. Why Jesus puts you with other people. Now some people are like, I don't know, warm, fluffy, wash cloths or something.

You know, it's just like, oh, this is great. You know? And some people are like sandpaper, but we need both. We need both in our lives. And God puts us together with those people.

And part of us wants to run, hide, pull back. God says, no. And Jesus is such an incredible example of this. If you think about his life with the disciples, Jesus chose the 12 disciples. The Bible says that he went up on the hill and prayed all night and came back down and chose the disciples. I always thought that he went up on the hill to pray about who the disciples were going to be, who they were. But as I grew in the Lord, I realized that I think that he knew, he realized who the disciples were. And he said, I got to go up the hill and pray, man.

You sure these are the guys? Think about it. He chose Judas, knowing he would betray him and had a relationship with him. He chose Peter, knowing Peter was going to deny him, had a relationship with him. And he treated, on that night when Jesus said, somebody is going to betray me, Jesus had extended himself to Judas so much and treated him like just one of the other guys that nobody knew who it was.

Now you think about that. Sometimes we treat people differently because we think they might do something to hurt us. Or we heard they did that, or we heard they did this, or we heard that they said that. Part of the beauty of the body of Christ is Christ is the rainbow, the kaleidoscope of people that are involved. I think of the moment when Jesus went up to Matthew, the tax collector, and everybody hated tax collectors. They were thieves.

They ripped people off. And even the disciples are proud, this is going to be great. He's going to slam Matthew. And Jesus goes up to Matthew and says, follow me. Oh, no, no, no, no. Jesus, he's a tax collector.

Don't do that. He ends up trying one of the gospels. See, friend, we need God and we need each other. And that's a little scary. But part of that too is committing to each other. You know, I've seen some folks do some tough things in this place, man. Some of the leaders have been through some serious storms. People went through hard times in their marriage, their families, sicknesses, deaths, disappointments, but were committed.

And each person, as this points out, each person is unique. But as we make a commitment, this place becomes a strong place where people can come in here. And one of the things we hear over, I can sense the love of God in this place. And part of that is there is people that are committed here.

Maybe you're one of them. Maybe you're, I don't know, maybe you're still on the fence, but you need to realize, and here's the life lesson. You have within the bridge and cross the bridge, a group of people that are committed to you and your spiritual understanding and growth.

Let me say that again. You have within the bridge and cross the bridge, a group of people that are committed to you and your spiritual understanding and growth. Committed, deeply committed. When we purchased this building, so many people got involved with the financing of it. That's commitment. When we were moving, we had over 800 people that came and volunteered and helped build and paint as commitment. This is a committed group of people. Why is that important?

Because a lot of you might not have that anywhere else in your life. And we talked about, you know, senior pastors, their average tenure is like 2.3 years. I've been here since we started. I always get tickled and this might, you know, meet somebody and go, how long you been pastoring there?

Wow. Since it started. Or somebody asked my wife, how long you been going there? Sometimes I interrupt and say, she started a couple of years after it got started.

She started attending. That commitment's important. If you return that commitment, it's a place of strength.

If you don't return that commitment, it leaves you in a place where honestly you're vulnerable. You're listening to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. We'll return to the teaching in just a moment. But first we have a brand new DVD that we would love to send to you. It's called One Book, One Message. In this powerful DVD, David sweeps through the entire Bible to help you understand the main message of all of scripture.

Once you grasp this amazing truth, you will never look at the Bible the same way again. One Book, One Message is our gift to you today when you call with a gift of any amount to Cross the Bridge. Your gift helps keep us on the air encouraging you and others. So call today. The number is 877-458-5508.

That's 877-458-5508. Or go online to CrossTheBridge.com. Friend, do you have a heart for the lost? I invite you to send us the first names of your lost loved ones and we will have hundreds of people praying for them. Just go to CrossTheBridge.com and click on the prayer button and you'll enter their name. And if you put your name and email address in there, I'll send you free resources to equip you to pray and teach you how to reach your lost loved ones.

Please don't wait. This is so important. So please, again, go to CrossTheBridge.com and click on the prayer button and send us the first names of lost loved ones. We'll send you some free information and together we can partner to deliver the good news of Jesus Christ to the whole world.

The whole book for the whole world. Now let's return to our study. Verse 23 says, And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor, and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty. So just like the human body, you know, there's parts that are seen and unseen. The body of Christ, parts are seen and unseen, but every part's important.

It's staggering the amount of energy and time and effort that goes on in this place so we can have service here on Sunday is staggering. And all that's unseen by most. A lot of it's to be honest, a lot of it's unseen by me.

And then we have the media team who takes the teachings and it puts them together and edits them for the radio and all that's unseen. And one common denominator is me being seen in these things. So I believe that, to be honest, I think, you know, a lot of the rewards I kind of, I get now because people encourage me and they thank me. And I think when I get to heaven, you know, it's gonna be like, oh, David, can you cross the bridge? Yeah, stand to the side for a moment. There was a few ladies that prayed for you nonstop. I want to recognize them first.

There was that lady in Missouri that sent in five dollars a month so you could purchase radio to, I want her to come forward and thank her first. These things that are unseen are so important. The roles that people do are so important. And understand too, that that's part of that commitment. As you get involved, it's returning that commitment. When you give, it's returning that commitment. And it joins us together more. And it really does make a difference in your life. Why?

Because everyone, every one of us wants to belong to something that's bigger than ourselves. God put that in you. God put in you. He has put eternity into your heart.

That's why part of you is not satisfied with temporary things. When you have eternity in your heart, just getting something, a new trinket or a new house or a new car, that's not gonna deeply satisfy your soul. God has put eternity in your heart.

What's gonna satisfy that? Doing something for eternity. What can I do for eternity? You've got lots of opportunities in this place.

There's opportunities out there. When you invite somebody to come to church with you, it's walking that eternity out. When you help serve here, that's eternity in your heart.

When you give, that's eternity in your heart. And these things, they will bring a deep spiritual satisfaction to you. But friend, if you don't have those things, guess what? You know they're missing. You can't just float through life.

Church, hop, shop, bop around. You gotta get to a place and then you bloom where you're planted. And sometimes it's hard. But remember, He is worthy. He is worthy. God is worthy of that commitment.

Hebrews chapter six, verse 11 says, for God is not unjust. He will not forget how hard you have worked for Him and how you have shown your love to Him by caring for other believers as you still do. Our great desire is that you keep on loving others as long as life lasts in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true.

That's a really couple of deep verses. In other words, God is watching what you do and He will reward you. And as you pour your life out, you will be rewarded eternally and the hope that you will be rewarded eternally comes true. Every now and again, I'll hear somebody say, well, I don't care anything about heavenly rewards.

You will one day. God set us up, created us to desire to do something for Him. Maybe at one time you had an immaculate yard where every blade of grass was in place. And then as you drew close to God and started helping the kingdom, well, maybe every blade of grass isn't in place, but did you really gain eternal spiritual satisfaction from that?

If you're a landscaper, I apologize. See, this chapter talks about this body and how what you do is important, how everything everybody does in the sense of a church is important. I've been in ministry for 20 years and done a lot of things. It always amazed me when somebody would do something for God and do it halfway.

I don't want us to ever do anything like that. Well, you're doing it for God, do it in excellence, do it with passion, and everything you do is important. And if you understand that everything you do is important, no matter how small it is, how seemingly insignificant, when you understand that God is going to reward you and then the eternal scheme of things that really is important, you know what? You'll begin to pour your life into those things and it'll change your life and change the life of people around you because people will notice that.

Now, here's what's interesting, friend. When you do that in the church, you know what happens? You begin to do that outside the church. And when you begin to walk in excellence outside the church, guess what happens?

People notice. You will be blessed in this life from that. Why? Because people you work with go, man, that dude Steve, man, whenever he does something, boy, he does it 110%. Oh, I have a special task. I have a promotion. And keep in mind that one day as we come into the presence of God, Matthew 25, 21, his Lord said to him, well done, good and faithful servant.

You were faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of the Lord.

Now this is an interesting story that Jesus tells. He goes to these three guys and he gives them talents. Now talent was a form of money, but it's an interesting word that's used in this story.

Why? Because God gives every one of us talents. And he gives this one guy 10 talents and he really uses them. And he gives us five talents and he really uses them. And he gives one guy one talent and he goes and buries it.

And he comes back and he goes to the guy with 10 talents and five talents. But notice that verse, he says, hey, that's great. You're faithful in the small things. Enter into the joy of the Lord. Do you understand as you use your gifts, you'll be entering into the joy of the Lord.

And if you're not using your gifts, there'll be something missing. Not just in the body and the church, there'll be something missing in your life. Colossians 3 23 says, and whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men. Knowing that from the Lord, you will receive the reward of the inheritance for you serve the Lord Christ. Or in the New Living Translation, it says this, work willingly at whatever you do as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Whatever you do, whatever your job is, you do it for God. If you're a teacher or a landscaper, construction person or engineer or whatever, do it as unto the Lord. God honors that kind of thinking. When you say, no God, you told me to do this, I'm going to do it with the best of my ability, with all of my heart, all my mind, all my soul. God's looking for people like that.

And if you'll be one of those people, God will bless you. He'll bless you in this life, He'll bless you in the life to come. But the body, we're talking about this body, we need each other.

That's not bad theology, that's solid theology. Now, if you're sitting there going, oh, I'm really kind of uncomfortable, man, God wants to heal you of that because we need each other. Verse 24 says, but our presentable parts have no need, but God composed the body having given great an honor to that part which lacks it.

This is kind of in two ways you can look at this. First of all, your vital organs are covered, usually. If your vital organs are not covered, you got issues, there's problems going on in your body. And there's some parts of the body that, I don't know, perhaps aren't that glorious, liver, cleaning everything up. That's not that glorious of a job, but you certainly need your liver. And the body of Christ, if you will, has the livers who clean stuff up, whether that's sparkle or spiritually trying to address issues.

Platelets, you don't really see platelets even in the blood, but they help clot the blood. Extremely important. Again, so much that goes on here in this place is behind the scenes is unseen. But without these unseen things, this church, this ministry wouldn't happen the way I asked. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that He died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask Him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. Jesus said He would not turn anybody away who comes to Him.

And He came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous. So congratulations, friend. You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we would love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. If you've been encouraged by this ministry, contact us today. Your prayers and financial support help keep us on the air encouraging you and others. Call today and we'll send you a copy of Pastor David's brand new DVD entitled One Book, One Message.

You'll be blessed by this overview of the Bible, and it will forever change how you read the Scriptures. To get your copy, call 877-458-5508. That's 877-458-5508. Or visit us online at crossthebridge.com. While there, make sure to sign up for the free email devotional. Also, if you're not able to make it to your home church this Sunday, why not join us for our live stream at 9 and 1130 Eastern. Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our live stream link. There you can watch Pastor David teach from his home church, The Bridge, in Kernersville, North Carolina. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening. We hope you'll join us next time as we continue to cross the bridge.