Your uniqueness is why you belong here, because we're all unique. And if we were all the same, it would be redundant or one of us wouldn't be necessary. The Bible talks about this uniqueness.
And because of that, it doesn't matter what somebody does, their past, their background, how they help, every person's important. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. No matter who you are or what church you may attend, God has a design for each church and every member of that church. 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 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 two of his teaching, Quit Dating the Church. 1 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 17 says, 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. Verse 19, it says, And if they were all one member, where would the body be? If they were all one member, where would the body be? See, if we were all one part of the body, what kind of body would it be? If my foot was made up of five big toes, I would probably have to learn how to walk again. If my hand had five thumbs on it, I would probably need to figure out how to play guitar again.
That's not the way that it works, that's not the way it's operated. There's diversity in the hand, there's diversity in the foot, there's diversity in the body of Christ. A lot of times we look at other people and go, well, you're not like me. Well, praise God.
Amen. We think we want somebody to be exactly like us, but we don't. Ladies, you let somebody show up wearing something you're wearing, and you realize quickly you don't want everybody to look like you. As a matter of fact, sometimes we look, hey, hey, hey, he's got on my shirt. That's not your shirt. I doubt he slipped into your house and stole it from you. He bought that shirt probably the same place that you bought it.
It's not your shirt. It's like kindergarteners, isn't it? If some little kid's playing with a toy that looks like the toy that the other kid has, he freaks out. That's my toy.
It's not your toy. And see, we're different. And praise God, we're different. And I'm still learning leadership and their giftings and who's gifted in this area, who's gifted.
Nobody's gifted in every area. You have people that are really gifted in mercy, really gifted in encouragement. You know, I feel like God has, to a certain degree, gifted me in encouragement. And so I want to be committed to encouraging people. Why? Because we need encouragement.
You come in here some Sundays and you're in the midst of a storm. You're in the midst of a trial. And I want to help you. I want to encourage you through that. Maybe you're fighting some illness or some disease or cancer.
Maybe you're battling cancer. And you know what? You come in here battling that kind of stuff. You don't need me up here saying women should wear their hair like this, or women shouldn't wear makeup or lipstick. You don't need that. Amen. How weird is that? You come in battling something.
You can't wear lipstick. We get beat up enough out there. And occasionally you'll hear something else step on your toe a little bit, but it's done with love. It's done with mercy. And it talks about the gifts. We all have got different gifts. And the Bible plainly says you're not supposed to have every gift, yet. We're all supposed to have one gift.
Spent a whole chapter on it after this one. This chapter, 1 Corinthians 12 31 says, so you should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts, but now let me show you a way of life that is best of all. It's love. We should have love for one another. But how do you have love without commitment?
You don't. Love comes with commitment. If I tell you that I love you and then you have a storm and I abandon you, or if you tell me you love me and then you hear a rumor and you abandon me, hey, is that really love? That's not love.
It's not commitment. So we're all given these different gifts. Who gives these gifts? God gives these gifts. And then we fit together like this beautiful kaleidoscope, jigsaw puzzle, this rainbow. Body crushes like a rainbow made up of all these beautiful colors. I talked about a rainbow. One time somebody emailed and said, the rainbow's gay. It's in Genesis with Noah. The rainbow is ours.
We're taking it back. God gave it as a sign of his covenant. And what makes it, what makes a rainbow so beautiful that it's different? So many colors. I mean, if you saw a rainbow and it was all one color, I'd be a little weird with it. No, but there's different colors.
That's what makes it so beautiful. When you look out the body of Christ, different colors, different people, different backgrounds, different careers, different gifts, different personalities, different characteristics. So don't come in here thinking, well, I got to be like this. Any church where they say, well, you got to, this is what a Christian looks like. How do you know what a Christian looks like? Well, they got to wear their hair like this and no earrings and no tattoos and no this and no that.
Where do you get that? You know what, that's basically being communicated and this is weird. You need to look like me because me's good. So God gives gifts. We have the fivefold ministry. The Bible talks about Ephesians chapter four, verse 11 says, and he himself, he who? He, God, he himself gave what to the church, these fivefold ministry. And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
So you got the fivefold ministry, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers. Romans chapter 12 lists another list of giftings. Romans 12, six says, in his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. We do different things.
So the expectation that we're all the same is simply not biblical. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you a leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly. So there's a whole list there.
Verse 20 says, but now indeed there are many members yet one body. So again, there's this diversity. So while I was talking about there's a diversity, how do we get locked into we all got to look like this? We all got to act like this. We all got to talk like this. All of us do that. Pastors, pastors do that a lot. I love watching other pastors teach.
I do. I do it a lot. And I get ideas and I just watch them mannerisms and stuff. Praise God, you know, I've gotten more mature in ministry and I don't, you know, when you're first starting out in ministry, whoever you're watching, you begin to, you know, take on their mannerisms and stuff and I need to do it like this. You know, if you watch, I watched Billy Graham for a while.
So, you know, the Bible tells, you know, watch very Pentecostal people for a while. And then the Lord said, he said to Noah, and then he said to Noah that it's going to be a flood. And then the flood was coming and you got to get ready because the flood was going to be there, but the people didn't get ready. And because the people didn't get ready, they weren't ready for the flood.
And the rains came and the boat was locked and they knocked on the boat. Some of you are like, I didn't know you could do that. But see, God wants us to be, he wants us all to be different because there's a beauty in that.
There really is. And what's sad is in some places, in some spiritual communities, if somebody comes in and they feel a little different, they actually are made to feel like they don't belong. Let me tell you something, if you're unique and everybody in here is, we need you. We need your uniqueness because at some point, somebody else is going to walk through that door that you will click with. Maybe your past, your history, maybe your education, maybe what you do for a living. And because of your uniqueness, and maybe the enemy has come and say, well, you don't really belong here.
You're not whatever. No, your uniqueness is why you belong here because we're all unique. And if we were all the same, it would be redundant or one of us wouldn't be necessary. The Bible talks about this uniqueness. And because of that, it doesn't matter what somebody does, their past, their background, how they help, every person's important.
Every person. Life lesson here is each person in this church is important. Each person in this church is important. You are important. The person sitting beside you is important. Person sitting behind you is important. Person sitting in front of you is important. Now we all need balancing.
The Bible gives us balance. Some of you already think you're very, very important. And you need to realize the people around you are important. Some may not realize how important you are. And you need to be encouraged of how valuable you are to the kingdom of God, to this body.
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'll 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. I've talked about it before, but you know, the attend, give, serve small group. You should do those four things. They're simple.
Everybody can understand them. Attend, give, serve, be in a small group. I mean, this is not rocket science. And yet when you do these things, what happens? It's a little bit more commitment each time. And I know people said, well, I'm just not sure I have the time.
No, maybe you're afraid of the commitment. But God will bless that commitment. Because do you understand your body, do you understand your body is committed to itself? In other words, your hand, if you're taking notes, you might want to jot this down.
Your hand is connected to your arm. So there's a commitment there. There's a commitment. Your nose is committed to your face.
I know this is simple, but seriously, I mean, sometimes I may go somewhere that smells bad and my nose is like, I don't want to be here, but my nose doesn't like jump down off my face and run off. Come back here. And my stomach, I may go, you know, if, if there's like a merry-go-round, my stomach don't want to go on the merry-go-round, you know, but my stomach doesn't say, well, you know, I'm going to leave while you go on the merry-go-round. Now after the merry-go-round, nevermind. But, but it does, you don't have, well, I'm not, you know what, I'm out of here. I'm part of the body, but I'm going to leave.
You can come pick me up after. No, it's committed. You go places together. He goes through storms, goes through trials together. Verse 21 says, and the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. I've heard people say, I only need God.
You're wrong. We need each other. The Bible points that out.
This verse points that out. It says, we can't, one member can't say no, we don't, you know, we don't need you. If the eye said to the hand, we don't need you and the hand ran off, how would you feed yourself? What if your brain got in a mutiny and, you know, or your hand got in a mutiny? What if your hand said, you know, I'm tired of the brain running everything. We do everything the brain wants to do. The brain says, do this and we do that. The brain says, do that. I'm sick of that. And then next time you go to eat, your hand says, you know what, I think now's the time. And you pick up a fork and your brain's going fork, hand take the food to your mouth, but the hand says, nope, I am taking the brain out and your fork lands right in the middle of the forehead. Why?
Because your hand's in rebellion. The body doesn't function well like that. We need each other. That's the next life lesson here is we need God and we need each other. We need God and we need each other.
That's scary, I understand. To think that we need each other. Why do we need each other? Because somebody beside you has gifts you don't have and one day you're going to need those gifts.
And I know we like to think that we're all independent, but you're not. You probably go to a grocery store to buy your food that somebody else grew. You buy meat there that somebody else raised and slaughtered. You live in a house that somebody else built.
You drive a car that somebody else built. We need each other. And there's nothing wrong with that.
God set it up like that. And we need to become more like Jesus in our relationships with one another. And to realize that we need to start trying to treat each other like Jesus treats us. What if we treated each other the way that Jesus treats us?
What if Jesus treated us like we treat each other? What if you go to pray tonight or tomorrow and you say, God, Jesus, I am so sorry. Lord, I messed up.
I shouldn't have said that and I shouldn't have done that. Please forgive me, Jesus. And Jesus says, oh yes, I forgive you. Okay, thank you, God, for forgiving me. Thank you, Jesus, for forgiving me. I'm going to go on my way now. Okay, my son, go on your way. God bless you.
You're forgiven. You walk away and Jesus says, I can't wait to get on Facebook. You wouldn't believe what he did.
Amen or on me? What if we're playing the what if game? What if the church treated families like sometimes the families treat the church?
Would it work? I would call a family and go, hey, we really like you guys, but we've been discussing it and there's another family and we've been talking about it. And to be honest, we like their kids a little better. So we're going to go with the other family or somebody calls and says, hey, you know what? We're just called to tell you. We heard this rumor and we're not even going to ask you whether it's true or not or if it's actually happened, but we're going to pick the other family. We're going to have them come to our church.
We're going to ask you not to. Do you realize people do that? How would you imagine that that makes a leader, pastor, deacon, elder feel? Is that the kind of commitment you want from leadership here? What would the world look like if you and I and you and the people around you were actually better friends, more committed?
Do you understand that's something that you need? I think most of us understand how painful loneliness is. God has a solution for loneliness, a relationship with him, and part of his solution is called the church, the body of Christ.
And I wonder how many murders and suicides and hunger and poverty could be avoided if we were the kind of friends that God wants us to be with each other. There's a story in the Bible about Naomi. She has two sons. The two sons marry these two daughters and later on the two sons die and she turns to the two daughters-in-laws and said, you know what? I'm too old to have any more kids.
Just go and try to find somebody else to marry. And Orpah goes off and does that, but listen to what Ruth says. Ruth chapter 1 verse 16. But Ruth said, entreat me not to leave you.
Don't ask me to leave you or to turn back from following after you. For wherever you go, I will go. And wherever you lodge or live, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God my God. And where you die, I will die.
And there I will be buried. And the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts you and me. That's commitment. That's friendship. That's the kind of commitment that we as a body of Christ are supposed to have.
But what happens if one of us perceives a flaw in the other? Let me go ahead and tell you as senior pastor, I know you got problems. I know you got issues. The assisting pastors, the elders know you got problems and issues. When somebody sits down and says, oh man, I'm dealing with this.
You know what? We're dealing with this. We're dealing with this.
We're very rarely shocked. And a lot of times it's stuff that either we've done in the past or somebody we know has been involved with. We're not gonna look at you and go, wow man, I didn't know you had problems. Maybe you should go to church somewhere else. When you become aware of a flaw or you perceive there's a flaw in somebody, how you handle them tells a lot about your character. The Bible says love covers a multitude of sins. I want to tell you as a pastor that I'm committed to the people here.
Not until I find out they messed up. The story of Noah's sons, and it's very interesting. Noah, of course, there was the flood. He built the boat. The flood came, went back.
Noah planted a vineyard after the flood. And he drank the fruit of the vineyard, drank too much, got drunk, and was naked in his tent. And Ham went into his dad's tent, saw his dad was in there, had been drinking and was naked, went out and told his two other brothers, man, Dad got drunk.
He's in there. Man, this is messed up. Ham revealed what Noah did wrong. Shem and Japheth, the other two sons, you know what they did?
They got a blanket. They walked backwards and they covered their father up. What's interesting is Ham for the rest of his life was cursed for uncovering the sins of his father. Japheth and Shem were blessed because they respected their father.
As a matter of fact, here's something that's interesting. What does Shem mean? In the Hebrew, it means name.
As a matter of fact, a lot of people, Jewish people, they refer to God as Hashem. What does that mean? The name.
Why is that important? Because the name covers your sins. When you go to Jesus and ask Him to forgive you, what does He do? He forgives you. Does He post it on Facebook? No.
I'm sure He could. Yeah, but somebody needed to tell other people about Noah's drunkenness. You know what? You need to be careful with that. And granted, there are times when somebody messes up or somebody in leadership messes up where somebody needs to sit down with them and say, hey, this is the issue. Far too often, we sell each other out and expose each other when we're vulnerable. And the reason we do that sometimes, expose each other's sins, it's not because we're so spiritual. It's because a lot of times there's rebellion in our hearts and we're looking for a flaw in authority. The flesh always looks for an excuse or a flaw in authority or in leadership to express rebellion. What kind of friend do you want?
Do you want a friend every time you're vulnerable, every time you mess up, they expose you? We think that's spiritual. You know what? Far too often, it's not. It's carnal. It stinks in the eyes and the nostrils of God. A 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.
