Now, maybe you're thinking, well, I'm a little different. I'm not sure I belong here. No, you are a little different.
That's why you belong here. Amen. We're never going to be one of those churches that says, okay, well, if you're going to be a Christian, here's what you got to do. You got to look like this, you got to wear this, and you got to act like this. Exactly.
We're all different. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Christian unity is vital to the church, but Christian unity doesn't mean we're all the same. Find out more about this 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 part three of his teaching, Listen to Your Body Talk. So 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 13, it says, 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. If the foot should say, Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body. Is it therefore not of the body? So there's two, there's two thoughts and, and you got to, there's the worldwide church, if you will, big C church, that is every person who believes in Jesus as their savior worldwide, that's the body of Christ.
And then also there's a reference in Scripture that, you know, this church or, or any local church is also the body of Christ. So here in this place, you know, maybe you're thinking, well, I'm a little different. I'm not sure I belong here. No, you are a little different.
That's why you belong here. Amen. Praise God. See, cause I don't ever, we're never going to be one of those churches that says, okay, well, if you're going to be a Christian, here's what you got to, you got to look like this.
You got to wear this and you got to act like this. Exactly. We're all different. And churches are all different too, gang. Understand, you know, there's, there's other churches here in the triad and some of them are great churches. Occasionally somebody will come to us and they'll say, you know, I think you ought to do this. And we'll say, well, we don't do that.
Well, you need to start it or I'm leaving. Well, here's the name and the number of a church that does that here. Do you understand we actually do that? We refer people to other churches because we're a particular style slash kind of church.
It's not going to appeal to everybody. I'm okay with that. What I'm not going to do is every time somebody comes in, well, I think you ought to do church like, okay, we'll do that for a week. And somebody, well, I think y'all do okay. Well, we'll do it like that. Well, I think you're okay. Well, I'll do it like you can't do church like that.
Do you know, this may shock you. I, if you go on my iPhone, I've got all sorts of, all sorts of music, classical music, Bach, Brahms. I actually studied classical music, played classical music for years. I love, I used to go to pipe organ recitals and stuff like that. I love that style of music. And you know, as the church was kind of growing, I, to be honest, I, I wanted the music to go a little lighter.
And I was praying, I said, no, got that covered. There's lots of churches in town that got light cover. There's lots of churches and they got pipe organ covered. As a matter of fact, we even did for a season, we did this thing called Heartlight when it, and it was more acoustic, much more laid back. And all those people that were complaining that the other music was too loud, didn't show up.
So we said, well, I ain't gonna do that anymore. That's not to say that this music is the only way to worship God. It does say in the Bible that you should worship him with a loud noise. You should worship when the cymbal and the drums, but I'm not saying that, you know, every church that's not loud and doesn't have drums is bad. It's just different, different way to worship.
So we're all different. And then let's go back to the church. There's again, the two analogies, the big church, big C, and then this church, this fellowship, the bridge takes hundreds of people to do what we do here on Sunday morning from the parking lot to the media ministry, the children's ministries, to the worship team, to all these things come together. I tell staff and volunteers often, you know, are all these ministries important?
Absolutely. Because we want to have an environment and an atmosphere that when you invite a loved one, a family member, a friend, maybe somebody that doesn't know Jesus, you're just hoping everything goes well. And it is important that the moment they pull up that they have a space and then they're greeted. Why? Because that's really important.
And when they come in, we've got people to talk to them, to show them around. Why? Because that's important. Because what we've realized that if that goes wrong before they get in here, I don't even get up to bat because they'll be sitting in here going, I can't, that guy was so hateful. I can't. And why, what was up with that? And I'm up here sharing the gospel.
I just can't believe that guy did that. You know, the average person decides within 11 seconds of walking in a church, whether they're coming back or not, they haven't heard music. They've heard the teaching. They've seen the parking lot folks and the greeters.
It's the body coming together, working together. And what happens, and I've seen this historically, you know, people, they start to want to do their thing, their own thing. And obviously as the senior pastor, I'm responsible for the vision and casting the vision and make sure we're going in the same direction. And we've had people in the past say, well, I want to go in this direction.
Well, God bless you. We're not going in that direction. Maybe God's calling you to do something else somewhere else. Because a body can't work like that.
As a matter of fact, if your human body, if one part of your human body wants to start doing its own thing, using up all the resources around it and grow, you know, and then doing stuff opposed to the rest of your body, you know, we call that cancer. So it's important for the body to be unified. And for you to understand, for you not to sit here and go, well, I'm a little different. I'm not sure I belong. You are different and that's why you belong. You know, if you're in here and you like wearing suits, praise God, please keep wearing suits. Why? Because somebody else that shows up in a suit will look at you and go, okay, somebody else in the suit's here.
It's okay. Well, they'll probably look at you and go, I must be the pastor. If you got tattoos, don't feel out of place. A bunch of people got ink here. As a matter of fact, when somebody else shows up that has tattoos, they're going to go, okay, cool. I'm welcomed here.
Or piercings or whatever. Because we come together and it's this beautiful tapestry, rainbow kaleidoscope of the body of Christ. 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 16 says, and if the ear should say, because I am not an eye, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? The foot is obviously different than the hand.
If you're taking notes, jot that down. No, but I mean, you know, I could learn to walk on my hands, but why? My feet do it much better. And then this verse talks about the eye and the ear are different. And there's room for that. There's diversity in animal life. There's so much diversity in the plant kingdom and there's diversity in the body of Christ. Life lesson here is Christian unity does not mean uniformity or sameness.
Christian unity does not mean uniformity or sameness. And let's understand that, you know, if you take a body part off, you know, if you can do that, something's gone wrong. But you know, if you, if you like pull out your eye and sit it on the table, it's not going to survive.
If I pull out my tongue and sit it on the table, it's not going to survive very long. If you're not part of the body of Christ, it is going to be really hard to survive spiritually. Now I know some people go, well, I don't need to go to church. Every time I run into those people, I don't feel like you got to go to church to have a relationship with God. Theologically, yeah, you know, that's correct.
But whenever I see people like that, I say, well, okay, so you're not going to church? No. Okay, how's it going?
No, it's not going so well. We need each other. We need encouragement. We come together. We use our gifts.
We bless one another. And while we're talking about it and the title, you know, listen to your body talk is how do you speak around the body of Christ? Because these verses, it says, the foot says this, the ear says this. What's your speech like around the body of Christ? See, because it's not enough just not to say bad words.
You need to be saying good words. James 1 26 says this, if anyone among you thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless. And the New Living Translation says if you claim to be religious but don't control your tongue, you're fooling yourself and your religion is worthless. And the King James, it says, if any man among you seems to be religious and bridleth not his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Or in the Amplified, it says, if anyone thinks himself to be religious, piously observant of the external duties of his faith and does not bridle his tongue but deludes his own heart, this person's religious service is worthless, futile, barren.
Look at these words, useless, worthless, vain, futile, barren. That means you can be doing all sorts of stuff for God but if you're running your mouth about other people, it's showing that your heart is not right with God. Well, yeah, but what if somebody's actually really doing something wrong? There's always going to be people doing stuff wrong.
But most of the people that I have seen that are preoccupied with what somebody else is doing wrong are not occupied enough with what they're doing wrong. So watching what we say, James, and I would encourage you to read the whole third chapter, James, what it says, and the tongue is a flame of fire. It's a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body.
It can set your whole life on fire for it is set on fire by hell itself. That's a strong verse, isn't it? And it goes on to say, people contain, James 3 verse 7, people contain all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, but no one can tame the tongue.
It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison. Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God. And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right.
Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water? Now, keep in mind when it says cursing, you're probably tying cursing to profanity. And that's one application of the word, but you need to understand actually to curse is wider than profanity. To curse in the Greek is the word katerra, and it means to speak down to or to doom or to curse. In other words, if you say, oh man, you're just worthless.
Let's curse. If somebody says, oh man, you'll never amount to nothing. That's cursing. That's speaking down to. If somebody says, oh man, there's no hope for you and God. That's cursing.
If somebody says, hey, man, have you heard about so-and-so and how messed up he is? That's cursing. And we do it way too much.
And quite frankly, we have to learn how to talk all over again. To bless is the Greek word elegio, and it literally means good words. Logo is word. Loio is words.
Plural is good. Good words. To bless. So how do you bless somebody? You say good words.
You can simply say, happy to see you. Hey, man, that was a great job you did at this. Or, man, that was such a blessing, this.
But you know what's interesting? Is elegio is where we get our word for eulogy. What's eulogy? Well, that's when after they pass, everybody stands around and says good things about them.
Well, how weird in our society and our culture that we wait until somebody dies to say anything good about them instead of saying it while they're alive. How many times do you need encouragement? How many times do you give encouragement? It's one of those things that's so easy to do, and yet none of us, including myself, do it enough.
We gotta watch what we say. Why? Because, tell you what, I have a $100 bill back in my office. I will give that $100 bill to somebody if they can do something. It's a tube of toothpaste. Anybody that can take this tube and get all this toothpaste back in there, I will give them that $100, but you can't do it. Years ago, I sat at Family Devotions and did this and set a $10 bill out there, and my son Johnny tried and tried and tried to get that toothpaste back in there, but it's not gonna happen. You realize once you say words, you can't get them back?
They're out there. Once you send that email, it's out there, and you can't take it back. The Holy Spirit wants to help us with this. You know, sometimes when you go to say something, even as you're saying it, you know, it's like, you know, you're trying to pull it back. Well, you shouldn't have done that yourself.
No. And then you say, and it's too late. You know, it's interesting, Paul in his ministry had a very, very important person with him, Barnabas. The Bible says that God showed Paul everything he was gonna go through. All that Paul suffered, God showed him that.
I cannot imagine, I'm so glad God didn't do this to me. David, let me show you what all's gonna go on and who's gonna do this and who's gonna do that, but apparently he showed it to Paul, but God also gave somebody to Paul. In Acts chapter four, verse 36, and Hosea, who was also named Barnabas by the apostles, which is translated, Son of Encouragement, a Levite of the country of Cyprus. God gave the man who was gonna have one of the most difficult ministries in the history of the church, his partner was who? Son of Encouragement.
I believe firmly that a big part of Barnabas' ministry was encouraging Paul. Encouraging. You need encouragement. I need encouragement.
I need encouragement. And praise God that he puts people in our life to encourage us, but let's recognize something. If God is putting people in our life to encourage us, what's the enemy doing?
He's gonna put people in their life to discourage us, to make us go, I don't know about that guy, or I don't know about that woman, I don't know about that ministry, I don't know about that church. Recognize that, gang, and recognize with your tongue you can bless or you can curse. You can encourage somebody or you can discourage them. Especially if you're a parent in here, you need to figure out how to bless your kids, man. And I don't mean just bless them, give them stuff.
I mean bless them, say, you know what? I think you're a smart kid. I think you're a good kid. Now, maybe you didn't grow up like that. Maybe you grew up in a home where your dad and your mom said, oh, you're such a loser. You'll never amount to anything. Oh, you might as well not try that.
We all know you're stupid. I don't want this place to be like that. I want to raise the bar on the body talk and encourage each other. Enemy's always gonna raise up people to accuse us and bum us out. Don't take the bait. Because the body, you know, if you're going to work out, the brain looks, it sends a message to the arms and says, you can do this before you try to lift it. The brain does not look at the weights and say, there ain't no way.
Don't even try. If you're trying to run or jog, your brain says to your legs, you can do this. And friend, when you have the mind of Christ, Jesus, the Holy Spirit says, you can do this. Nothing is impossible.
Amen. This book says, all things are possible that I can do all things. Say all things. You know what the Greek, you know what that means in the Greek? It means all things.
All things. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That means to the power of Holy Spirit, you can get a hold of your tongue. You can start to be more of a blessing to people.
Is this important? Do you know what the Bible says about the tongue? Proverbs 18, 21 says death and life are in the power of the tongue and those who love it will eat its fruit. You can be a blessing to a lot of people or you can be a cursing to a lot of people and it depends on what you say. I understand some people overemphasize this teaching I'm sharing with you. I'm giving it to you in biblical balance.
Do you understand? The Bible says life and death. Do you understand eternal life and death is in the power of the tongue? How do you access the forgiveness from God? The Bible is very clear.
It's gotta be with your mouth. Romans chapter 10, verse nine says that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be safe. That's why I encourage people to pray it out loud. Now, if somebody can't speak, God's merciful, but if somebody can speak, they need to say it out loud.
Why? The Bible says to confess plainly. It says that. As a matter of fact, if you're in here and you're not sure you've been forgiven, God wants to forgive you. Jesus died for your sins that he could take your sins upon himself.
Now let me explain to you what that means. That means you no longer have your sins. That means when God looks at you, he doesn't see your sins. He sees the robe of righteousness from Jesus Christ because God can't see the same sin in two places.
He's either gonna see it on you because you reject Jesus or he's gonna see it on his son because you accept Jesus. Well, what makes the decision? You do. Your choice.
What you say. Romans 8 14 says, for as many as are led by the spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you receive the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out Abba father.
Closer is daddy. And John chapter one, verse 12 says, but as many as received him to them, he gave the right to become children of God to those who believe in his name. You can be forgiven right here, right now. And some of you may have been brought up saying you're this and you're that and you're messed up and you're always gonna be messed up.
And you know what? How about you just drop that now? How about you just forget all that now? How about you ask God to help cleanse your mind of all that garbage? How about instead of believing what other people are saying about you and your life, you begin to believe what this book says about you and your life. Put much more stock in what God says than any person. So right now, the Holy Spirit wants to wash all that away. And as you realize that you can be wrapped in the robe of righteousness, then you can turn around and be a blessing and be an encourager to other people. 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. 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. 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 devotionally. 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.
