1 Corinthians 12:11-13:13 - Part A

Using the analogy of the body, Paul speaks here about the body of Christ.

It's one of his favorite analogies, favorite metaphors. The church is more than an organization. Yes, it should be organized, but it's an organism. It's alive. It's living like a body. There are other analogies the Bible uses to speak about the church, not just the body of Christ, but all of them are living analogies.

The bride of Christ. The apostle Paul compared the church to a living body with each believer functioning as an essential part. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip shares how you can serve even more effectively as a member of the body of Christ. But first, did you know that Skip shares important updates and biblical encouragement on social media? Just follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to get the latest from him and this ministry.

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800-922-1888. Thank you. Now, we're in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, as we dive into our study with Skip Heitzig.

Your body is amazing. The Bible says in Psalm 139 that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Beautiful verse, fearfully and wonderfully made. Or as one translation says, you are wonderfully complex. And some of you maybe are more complex than others, but you're still fearfully and wonderfully made. And so your body, the human body, that's the analogy that Paul is going to be working off of next here.

The human body is an analogy for the spiritual body, the church. So your body, your unit that you call you, you have about 30 trillion cells. 30 trillion cells compose your human entity, your human body. In each of your cells, you have a nucleus. In your nucleus of each cell, you have 23 pairs of chromosomes. You know this, you remember this from grade school going to those science classes.

One pair come from your mom, one pair come from your dad. And in your cells, you have this material that is scrunched up like a ribbon that has densely coated information on it, DNA. That densely coated information on that scrunched up tape inside the nucleus of every cell of your body gives instructions of how that cell is to operate.

And it gives instructions of its operation from the moment of conception in the womb to the moment of demise from birth to death, dictating the complexion of your skin, dictating the color of your hair, how tall you will be, how tall you will be, color of your eyes. All that information is in the nucleus of your cell on that DNA. If you were to take one cell and translate that information, that densely coated information in the nucleus of just one cell, the equivalent of written book information, it would provide, one cell would provide a 4,000 volume library. One cell translated into a written code would give you 4,000 volumes. If you were to do that with all 30 trillion cells, how big of a room would you need? Well, you could fill, if you did all 30 trillion cells, took that DNA, coded information, translated into written form, you could fill the Grand Canyon. Now you know the Grand Canyon is a big hole, right?

It's between 3 and 20 miles across and about 200 miles long. You could fill the Grand Canyon 40 times to overflowing with the information decoded in written form in all 30 trillion cells. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are wonderfully complex.

Your human body is amazing. Most of us know that. And most human beings are body-aware, body-conscious. Maybe a little too much so in our culture. We spend, in America, roughly $33 billion a year on products to make us look good.

Don't know how much it helps. But we buy into it, obviously. It's a big industry, $33 billion a year, to make our bodies presentable, to make us beautiful, to make us, our appearance, attractive. That's important to us. Our bodies are important to us.

That's how we relate to people. Using the analogy of the body, Paul speaks here about the body of Christ as one of his favorite analogies, favorite metaphors. The church is more than an organization.

Yes, it should be organized, but it's an organism. It's alive. It's living like a body.

There are other analogies the Bible uses to speak about the church, not just the body of Christ, but all of them are living analogies. The bride of Christ. That's a living entity.

A bride is alive. A flock of sheep. There's life there. So all of these analogies speak of the fact that the church, far more than an organism, far more than a polished organizational machine that has checks and balances, and it's an organism filled with people who are filled with life. So the Bible talks about our bodies, presenting our bodies, Romans chapter 12, as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. If every one of us filled with eternal life, Ionia zoe, everlasting life, all of us who are filled with life are dedicating, giving our bodies over to the Lord, presenting our bodies to the Lord, and finding our place within the church, within that group, it's powerful. It's a powerful expression of the life of God on the earth to the individual members of the body of Christ. The problem with Corinth is that the body of Christ in Corinth was giving off a poor reflection of the life of God.

They were riddled with all sorts of problems that we have noticed over the past several weeks, all the way from divisions noted in chapters one and two and three, divisions, schisms in the body. And so the antidote to that is to realize what we are, who we are, what our identity is, the body of Christ. And what I want to do now, and we've gone through the gifts of the Spirit, is just sort of recap a little bit, then jump into verse 11. We didn't get into that, and then scoot all the way to the end of verse 11.

And so what I want to do now, and we've gone through get into that, and then scoot all the way to the end of the chapter. So to fix the problem at Corinth, this problematic church, this body that was not really reflecting the intention of God because of the problems that they were dealing with, especially division, the antidote to that is found in chapters 12, 13, and 14. The first principle we already covered, and we covered it in depth the last few weeks, is to recognize variety. Recognize variety. There are diversities of gifts, verse four. There are differences of operation, verse five. There are diversities of activities, verse six.

And we've looked at the differences, all the different gifts that are listed. Word of wisdom, verse eight. Word of knowledge, also verse eight. Faith, verse nine. Gifts of healings by the same Spirit.

Miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, different kinds of tongues. God is a God of variety. God loves variety. Look at all of us, so different from one another. Our fingerprints, our thumbprints are different. Our facial features are different so that if you have a facial recognition software on your phone, I can't take it and dress up like you and fool it. There's too many subtleties in it.

You are unique as an individual, fearfully and wonderfully made. So we recognize variety because God loves variety, and He puts variety into the church with different gifts, different operations, different styles of ministry. Aren't you glad there's not one style of ministry?

I would say aren't you glad, but a lot of people actually aren't glad. They want everyone in the church to think exactly like they think, and every church to be exactly like their church. I don't. I am so glad that there are different expressions of the Lord in every community, because there are certain people that just wouldn't fit here, and I'm glad they fit in other churches. I might not fit in those churches, but they do, and they gravitate toward that style. God loves variety. It's pretty evident just looking around at creation. I am glad that the world doesn't all look like Albuquerque, or doesn't all look like California, or doesn't all look like Colorado, but there's variety.

You go in one direction, and you get desert, and you get mountains, and you get ocean, you get plains. Just there's variety. So it is with gifts of the Spirit, and even two people with the same gift. It's going to be like a fingerprint, like a thumbprint, like a facial recognition. There's going to be subtleties and differences of operation.

That's the beauty of it. Recognize variety. As a kid, I always looked forward to Christmas Day, and I hoped that I wouldn't get 10 packages of the same thing. 10 packages of t-shirts and underwear.

That would be boring for a kid. You want to have variety in the gifts that you receive, especially what you asked for. You hope that that's in there somewhere, and so in the body of Christ there is variety. So now go all the way down to, we covered verse 10, now verse 11, but one and the same and the same Spirit works all these things. He's controlling the variety, distributing to each one individually as He wills.

So who is in control of the distribution of the various gifts? The Holy Spirit is the body of Christ. Christ is like the head.

He's the brain. As we have noted, the Holy Spirit is more or less like the nervous system, conveying the messages from the brain to the different members, different parts, each of us, so that we can operate smoothly together. So then I should never be part of a group and seek to impose my will on that group or come to a church or a small group meeting. And let me tell you about what I want and my will. We're here to discover God's will and where God placed us and what gifts God has given to us. And so He is the one who gives gifts. One of the great joys and pursuits in the Christian life is to discover the gifts of the Spirit that you have. And it's okay to experiment, try different ones out, different things out, different places out, to see where you fit, not only with your temperament and your natural talents and abilities, but your spiritual gifts.

It'll be an interesting mix, and it's something only you can do. And because it's Spirit-given, it's a gift. It's not earned.

You're not working for it. So it's not like, well, if I'm really good at the Word of Wisdom, you think I can work my way up to being a prophet? If I'm really good at the gift of helps, you think I could fill in one Sunday as a Bible teacher? You don't work your way up in the body of Christ in terms of gifts. You really discover how God made you and where God has placed you and be content to operate as that part of the body that only you can do. I guess that would be sort of like my kneecap saying, if I'm a really good kneecap, could I become a shoulder one day? Could I work my way up?

No, it's best for you to just stay a kneecap, because if we lose the kneecaps, we're going to have problems. So it's the Holy Spirit that works these things, distributing to each one individually as He will. So that's first. We need to recognize variety. The second, and again, I'm going generally now.

We've covered it in depth, those first several verses with the gifts. That's sort of a general summation to recognize variety. Second is to emphasize unity, and this balances out that first one.

If the first one, recognize variety is important, and it is, the second point balances out the first. We need to emphasize unity, because if we don't, if we're all about celebrating variety, and man, it's about who I am, and it's about who God made me, there can be a malfunction in the church, because you're off to celebrating variety and doing your own thing, your own way, and not really concerned about everyone else, and the harmony and the unity. So you are not the body of Christ individually. We are the body of Christ together, any more than you are not the temple of the Holy Spirit. We've told you before, it's not singular like you're a temple, you're a temple, I'm a temple. No, we all together when we gather together are the temple of the Holy Spirit. So we need to emphasize unity. The brain, the head of the body, that the head is Jesus.

The Holy Spirit gives us His orders. If we're not listening to His orders, there's going to be a malfunction. I had a friend, I remember when I was growing up, and I remember the day he told us that he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and I was young. I didn't quite understand what that meant, and then I had it explained to me that the brain has the cortex of the brain, little hard patches form on the brain and on the spinal cord, and so the message that is normally transmitted from the brain to the parts of the body are unable to make the right connection. And so the body, instead of a smooth motion, will be forced to make jerky motions and uncontrolled motions.

And I watched my friend deteriorate over the years as those patches became more pronounced. So back to the body, our physical body. You've got 30 trillion cells in your brain. You have 10 billion cells, roughly.

Some have a bit more, some have considerably less, I would imagine. But about 10 billion neurons that are there to basically send messages to all the different parts so there's a smooth function. Ligaments and bones, and when it's all working together, it's awesome to watch.

So there's real teamwork involved in a task. So it's dinner time, and a message from your stomach is sent to your brain that says, I'm hungry, gotta eat. So the brain sends a message to your feet to walk toward the barbecue in the backyard where they're barbecuing burgers in. And as you get closer, your nose is involved. You start smelling the meat and smelling the grilled onions, and your body is cooperating. And then as you get closer, your eye spots the ketchup and the mustard and the bun and the burger. And the brain says to your hand, grab it, and grab the mayonnaise and mustard and put it on. And then your mouth cooperates. You open your mouth and chop and swallow it, and you're fearfully and wonderfully made.

When your body is working together, it's a beautiful thing. Years ago, I'm from California, and we would go to Venice Beach. I don't know if you've ever had the interesting and sometimes awkward experience of walking Venice Beach, but there's all sorts of interesting characters on the beach, from body builders and weightlifters to people who do magic tricks. And I remember one evening, there was a guy out there who was a juggler, but he wasn't just juggling like apples or bowling pins. He was juggling chainsaws, live chainsaws. So he'd start up a little chainsaw, start up another one, start up another one, and he'd toss one in the air and catch the handle and get in. It's like, you know, everybody's standing way back.

But it was a marvel. And I thought, if the message doesn't make it at the right time from the brain to the hand, he's in trouble. He's in trouble. If there's a malfunction in this beautiful coordination, there's going to be blood everywhere. There's going to be a news story.

There's going to be bad news. So the church, like the body, only works when we are receiving the messages that come from Christ, and we're discovering our gifts and operating smoothly together. So I should have read the text before I went into that long tirade. Verse 12, for as the body is one, there's the unity, the body is one, it has many members, that's the variety, but all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. Just like the human body that has a variety of different units and members, so also is the church, the body of Christ. For by one spirit, we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and have all been made to drink into one spirit. For in fact, the body is not one member, but many. Verse 15, if the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I am not of the body, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? Now verse 15 introduces us to a third little principle here. So church of Corinth, not a beautiful body, it's an ugly body, it's a malfunctioning body. And so Paul is saying, we need to recognize variety, we need to emphasize unity. Third, we need to maximize equality.

We need to maximize equality. There's no such thing as a part of the body that is worthless or useless. There's no vestigial organs in the body of Christ, no useless organs. If the foot should say, well because I'm not a hand, I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? If the ear should say, because I'm not an eye, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased.

And if they were all one member, where would the body be? The body of Christ, the church, malfunctions when we emphasize one gift over another gift. When we put a certain gift or a certain gifted person on a pedestal.

Pedestalizing any person is bad for that person and bad for the rest of us, because you're saying that certain people are more important than other people, not according to Paul. All parts of the body are necessary. And so what he does is compares two parts of the body that are rarely seen, and he compares those to two parts of the human body that are often seen, more visible. Ones that are often seen are the eye and the hand.

Parts that are not seen as regularly, the foot and the ear, but they're important. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from the series Expound 1 Corinthians. Right now, we want to share about a resource that shares how you can grab hold of a critical opportunity to represent Jesus even better to the world. The most recent US census revealed that our population is much more diverse than ever before. In fact, over the past 10 years, our multiracial population increased 276%, which presents new challenges.

Here's Skip Heitzig. To say that this nation is divided would be a gross understatement, but I am not going to take sides politically. I am going to take sides morally and spiritually and biblically. I'm going to raise the conversation to a different level, to a higher level, to a biblical level, because the issue, as I see it, is not a skin issue as much as it's a sin issue. We want to help you understand this divisive issue from a divine perspective. When you give $20 or more today to this Bible teaching ministry, we'll send you Pastor Skip's booklet, The Church and Racism, plus his teaching featuring a conversation with Pastor Tony Clark.

Get these relevant resources today when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Tune in tomorrow as Skip Heitzig shares why you are essential to the body of Christ and carrying out God's purposes on earth. God created us not to be independent, but to be interdependent. We need each other. We do. And it's not until you have real life-giving relationships within the community of the body of Christ you really understand that. .... Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.