How to Function in the Body B

We all are possessors of spiritual gifts.

When you were saved, the Spirit of God deposited with you certain abilities. The idea is that every one of us has a certain place to fill in the body of Christ. We're all able to minister back and forth of various spiritual gifts that we have. From the pastor to the nursery director to the audio guy, the local church has a lot of different parts, all of them vital to its life. So what's your role?

If you're not sure, how do you find out? Consider that today on Grace To You, as John MacArthur continues his study titled Spiritual Boot Camp. So, you know, John, someone listening to us day after day may wonder what we, this organization Grace To You, would see as our role with regard to the local church. I mean, as a ministry, we're not a church. We're technically a parachurch organization. But some might say we're in competition with local churches.

How do you answer that? Well, no, we are designed to be a supplement. We're no different, say, than Christian publishers. The church has always been supplemented by resources in addition to, say, the Sunday service and the Sunday school classes and Bible studies, and that's all Grace To You is. We're coming alongside the people in the church to feed the Word of God to them on a regular basis in a way that the church can't do. The church meets and you go to the church and you go to the meeting, and that's great.

That's the priority. But the rest of the week, Grace To You is there, available on radio, on the internet, through books and CDs and whatever we have, in order to make the Word of God available to people all the time. Let me read what Grace To You's purpose statement says, and I'm quoting, Our role is not to supplant the church's ministry, but to support it by providing additional resources for those hungering for the truth of God's Word. Media ministries can never substitute for involvement in a biblical church, a biblical group study, or interaction with a teacher. Yet we sense the need for more in-depth resources evidenced by the many Christians and Christian leaders worldwide who depend on our ministry to supplement their own study.

Now that is exactly why we do what we do. We're here to support the local church, not replace it. We do that by helping equip the people of the church as well as the leaders of the church in the biblical truth so that they can be more effective in their ministry.

We focus narrowly on the Bible alone. We teach it. We hope we elicit confidence in it and help men and women like you handle it effectively and accurately in your ministry. We're reaching people every day. We're able to do that because folks like you share our vision and support us, and we honestly stand in awe of God's goodness to us and his faithfulness to sustain us.

But we're not surprised because he promised to honor his Word. Yes, friend, we give all the credit to God. This ministry has succeeded because he empowers his Word. And if you want to have a part in strengthening God's people with life-saving biblical truth, I'll tell you how to do that before we end today.

But right now, stay here as John continues his study, Spiritual Boot Camp. And how to function in the body of Christ. Now, there's a very important verse in the Bible that would be the place to start, and that would be 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 13. For by one Spirit were we all baptized into one body. The moment you received Jesus Christ as Savior, you were placed into the body of Christ, whether we be Jews or Greeks, bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. When you became a Christian, you were placed, and that's what the baptizing of the Holy Spirit means, you were baptized or placed into the body of Christ.

It's like baptism means dipping somebody under or putting somebody into. You were put into the body of Christ. You became a member of the body of Christ. That's synonymous with the concept of the church. You became a member of the church of Christ.

You may not join a local church yet. You may not have an official membership in a local church, but the moment you were saved, you became a member of the church, of Christ's body, and that's one of the terms used for the church. The Bible uses several terms for the church. It calls us a flock. Christ is the shepherd.

It calls us branches, and He is the vine. It calls us subjects of a kingdom, and He is the King. It calls us children in a family, and He is the Father. There are many metaphors for the church, but one of them, and a very unique one, is the concept of the body, that we are members of the body of Christ. We're all one in Christ. Everybody's in the body of Christ. We're all part of His body. But within that body, we come to the concept of gifts.

Though we are all one, there are diversities of gifts within the body. The idea is that every one of us has a certain place to fill in the body of Christ. We're all able to minister back and forth of various spiritual gifts that we have. Now when some of us don't do that, when we don't study the Word of God, we don't recognize our obligation to other Christians in the body, then we cease to minister. And when we cease to minister, the body of Christ becomes crippled. And then the testimony of Christ in the world is hindered because the world doesn't get a true picture. So where there is unity in the body of Christ, there is also diversity because there are different gifts, and there is also, thirdly, mutuality, or the multiple sharing of those various gifts. Now that just gives you an idea of how the body of Christ works.

Let me just talk about that for a minute. We all are possessors of spiritual gifts. When you were saved, the Spirit of God deposited with you certain abilities.

Nobody is in the church just to sit there and take it in. We're all there to mature so that we can minister to one another. The word minister means serve. We serve one another with our gifts. Now there are a multiple of gifts, the gift of prophecy, teaching, faith, wisdom, knowledge, discernment of spirits, mercy, exhortation, giving, government, ministry, miracles, healings, tongues, interpretation, the last four being temporary sign gifts. But those were the gifts given to the early church.

The top group continue even through today. And those gifts were given for mutual ministry by the saints. It's very important that we accept the ministry that we have been given by God. Now, we believe that every believer has certain gifts. 1 Corinthians chapter 12 again describes this whole idea. It says this, Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. There are diversities of operations, but the same God who works all in all. What he means there is there are different gifts.

Step number one. Now I may have the gift of teaching, gift of preaching, and you may have the gift of giving. You may have the gift of faith. You may have the gift of showing mercy. You may have the gift of helps. You may also have the gift of teaching. So there may be various gifts and surely there are among us. Now a gift is a, listen, it is a God-given channel through which the Holy Spirit can minister.

It is not a human ability. You can't say my gift is playing the piano. That's not a spiritual gift. That's a talent. Or my gift is writing.

I can write. No, that is not your gift. That's an ability that you have.

That is not a spiritual channel through which the Holy Spirit ministers. You may use your writing to express your gift. Maybe you have the gift of showing mercy and you can write lovely letters that are kind letters that help people through times of trouble. Maybe your gift is the gift of exhortation and you can write letters that exhort. Or maybe it's the gift of teaching and you can write books that teach. But don't confuse physical abilities and mental abilities with gifts. They're different things.

Is that clear? But you have spiritual gifts. Now they're not only different gifts, and every believer has them.

According to verse 11, all these works the one and very same Spirit dividing to every man severally as He wills. The Spirit determines who gets what. You can't seek for it. You can't earn it. You can't wish for it and receive it.

God will give it to you if that's His plan. And He puts the gifts together the way He wants for the building of His church. But they're not only different gifts.

Verse 5 says there are differences of administrations. There are different ways that those gifts are administrated. For example, in our church we have many people with the gift of teaching, many of them. But not all of them stand up here and teach because there are different ways that the same gift can be administered so that you have the same gift but different ways that it can be used. So you don't need to feel that if you have the gift that somebody else has, you've got to do the same thing they do. No, there's just as many diverse administrations as there are gifts and probably more.

And there are diversities of operations. But everybody in the body of Christ has a gift, and I would be convinced in my own heart from study of Scripture that everybody in the body of Christ most likely has more than just a gift, although I can't be dogmatic. There may be somebody somewhere with only one. But it seems to me that a plurality of gifts seems to be the norm rather than just one. And the gift at any given point that is used most dominantly may be the one that is most needed in a given situation. But all of us have spiritual gifts, and those are abilities through which the Holy Spirit can minister to His body. My gift isn't for me, it's for you. My gift of teaching doesn't do me any good, it does you good, your gifts do me good.

See, it's an interchange. So those are very important. Now, in addition to spiritual gifts and the recognition in the body of Christ that you have to function in that area, you need to know your gift and you need to use your gift, and you need to use your gift, there is also the area of fellowship. It's very important that we understand that we are to fellowship. Now, when we talk about fellowship, we don't always have everybody thinking about the same thing, so let me just mention what it means. We not only are to minister to one another in spiritual gifts, we're not only to share those gifts, but fellowship means that we interchange a mutual concern and care for each other. For example, the New Testament says, confess your faults one to another. You could just go through the New Testament, find all the one anothers, edify one another, rebuke the one who sins, exhort one another, restore one another, love one another, pray for one another, build up one another. All of those one anothers are the responsibility of a Christian to his brother and sister Christian. So we not only are to minister our gifts, but we are also to express that mutual fellowship back and forth one to another, a very important thing. So when you became a Christian, you entered the body of Christ. You were in Christ positionally so that everything is secured, and you are perfect positionally. Your practice needs to come into harmony with that.

When you became a Christian, you were not only in Christ, but you were in the body of Christ. And as a member of a body, you have to function together. A body that doesn't cooperate with itself is spastic, and it's a dishonored body.

We look at it and we feel pity for it. A body that cooperates is a beautiful thing. We look at an athlete who is well coordinated and skilled and we say, isn't that a tremendous thing to see, the development?

And we are excited about somebody who's that well coordinated. Well, it's true in the spiritual realm as well. Our testimony in the world depends upon what kind of presentation we make of the body of Christ to the world.

A functioning body that's cooperating where the foot and the hand are doing the things they're supposed to do and not standing around saying, I wish I were the nose, so forth and so on. That's the problem of 1 Corinthians 12. So where there's cooperation, there will be witness and effective ministry. And then in addition to the mutual gifts that we use in the body, we are responsible for one another to make sure we're living the kind of lives we should. We want to build each other up, pray for one another, counsel one another, rebuke one another if need be, confess our faults to one another, etc., etc., etc.

Those are the responsibilities of the believer in the body. Now the key, the key to everything, I believe, is love. Where love exists in the body of Christ, all these ministries will work. And I would add, love only exists where there is humility. Love only exists where there is true humility. And we really need to have a sense of humility, and it only comes, I think, from knowing God and knowing Christ.

And when we see how glorious they are, we'll understand how low we are, and that's the beginning of real humility. And where we're humble, we're able to minister to other people. All right, that's just a basic introduction to how you function in the body, and now we'll throw it open for some questions for a little while. One thing the body does, and we do it together, is worship. Would you explain two things, what worship is, and why do we do it on Sunday? Worship is simply praising God.

It can take a lot of different forms. Any way that you praise God is worshiped. I really feel that the two key things in worshiping God would be to extol His character or speak of His character. For example, in the Old Testament, they worshiped the Lord by saying, God is great, and God is wonderful, and God is holy, and God is righteous, and God is a pure God, and God is Almighty God. And anytime you recite the character of God, that praises God. That, in a sense, is worship.

Another aspect to worship is not just reciting the character of God and thinking on the character of God and meditating on the character of God, but on the works of God. We worship God when we say, God, you're the God who created the world. You're the God who made man. You're the God who parted the Red Sea. You're the God who led Israel out of Egypt. You're the God who restored Israel from Babylon. You're the God who sent Jesus Christ. You're the God who raised Him from the dead. You're the God who gave the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

You're the God who has done this in my life. You're the God who's built your church here. In other words, when you not only extol His character but His works, you are, in a true sense, worshiping God. Worship is a simple thing, then.

It's simply our concentration upon the character and the works of God. And, of course, the heart from which worship comes must be a pure heart. God accepts our worship when it comes out of a pure heart.

You can't say, well, God, I want to tell you how wonderful you are and how thankful I am for you while you're harboring sin in your life. That's mocking God. So, worship must come from a pure heart. Worship in scripture can include many things. It can include reading the scripture.

We have illustrations of that. It can include praying. Worship can include singing. Many times in the Old Testament they worshiped the Lord in song, extolling His character and His mighty works in song or in prayer or in reading of the word. Worship can also include the communion table, because the communion table exalts the work of God in Christ on the cross.

It exalts not only His work on the cross, but doesn't the communion table remind us of His love and His forgiveness and His mercy and His grace and all those aspects of His character. So, the communion table is an act of worship. You can worship God alone. You can worship God with a group. You can worship God with any size group. Worship isn't stained glass windows and organ music.

Worship is the attitude of your heart, praising God for who He is, for what He has done. Now, the reason Christians worship on Sunday is simply because Sunday was the day that the Lord Jesus rose from the dead. In the Old Testament, they worshiped the Lord on the last day of the week. The Sabbath day is a day of rest. But when Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week, they began to celebrate the resurrection.

The church was born out of the resurrection. And the very next time we see the disciples meeting together, it is on the first day of the week. And then again on the first day of the week.

That became the pattern. And all the way through the book of Acts, you begin to see them meeting on the first day of the week. And this was to commemorate the resurrection. The Sabbath law of the Old Testament was set aside for Israel for their rest.

It's interesting that even though it's in the Ten Commandments, the only one of the Ten Commandments that's never repeated in the New Testament is the commandment to keep the Sabbath day. More than a day of rest, the Christians Sunday is a day of remembrance of Christ's resurrection from the dead. And there is plenty of evidence in the New Testament that the early church met for worship, corporate worship, on the first day of the week, and so we accept that. But that is simply the traditional day. Our worship of God should occur all day long, every day, seven days a week.

And it really doesn't matter. You're as much involved in worshiping the Lord today on Saturday morning as you would be on Sunday morning. There's nothing sacred particularly about the day.

It's simply a day that was established because of the remembrance of His resurrection. In rebuking a brother and going to him in love, if say, he is in sin or having problems and trying to help him out of his problems, and he is stubborn or just doesn't, he's not seeking help nor wants any, what is your, what is the responsibility of myself or someone else at that point? If you rebuke him and he does not confess the sin and turn from the sin, then you follow the pattern of Matthew 18.

You take two or three witnesses. If they don't hear it, then you tell it to the church, which means you may tell it to a group of Christians, to the elders of the church, and they should go deal with it. If they don't deal with it, then it says you treat him like a heathen and a tax collector. Matthew 18, put him out. The other passage indicating that would be that if he does respond, somewhere along the line, then you would love him and restore him as a brother, Galatians chapter 6. But if he does not respond, then you turn him away.

2 Thessalonians 3 has the same issue. If your brother will not do what is right, then you admonish him as a brother, but you sever your fellowship with him. If your brother will not do your fellowship with him.

Okay? Why is it necessary to join a local church? That's a good question. Why is it necessary to join a local church?

For many reasons. Number one, it says in Hebrews 10 25, forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some and much more as you see the day approaching. There is a command there to attend the assembly of Christians.

Very important. So we are to be involved in an assembly of Christians. Now, from the historical argument, I'll take it a step further. There is never seen in the New Testament a Christian who doesn't belong to a local assembly. There is no such thing in the New Testament. Every one of them belong to some local assembly.

And that becomes the pattern. And we know that they had lists in those local assemblies of their people. They had, for example, Paul wrote to Timothy and talked about the widow's list, that they had an actual roll of widows. We know that there were, between the churches, letters of recommendation sent commending one member to another church when he left a certain area.

So we do know that they kept rolls and they kept lists of the people who were in their congregations. And there is no such thing in the New Testament as a Christian who doesn't belong to some local assembly. Now, beyond the statement of Scripture and beyond the argument of history, you have thirdly the fact that Hebrews 13 says that all Christians are to submit themselves to the rulers over them. And we know that Christ rules through the local assembly, the church. If you are not submitting yourself to some rulers of Christ in the church, then you're disobedient to Hebrews chapter 13.

Let me just read that to you so you understand what it says. Remember those who have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the Word of God, whose faith follow. You're to be under these people who are rulers, elders in the church, and you're to follow their faith. Verse 17, obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves, for they watch for your souls. Here again, you have the statement that the congregation is to be submitting to elders and leaders, and that assumes that you'll be in a local congregation to be able to do that.

No Christian is a law unto himself, just autonomous running around. They all historically were in a local congregation. The Bible says not to forsake the assembling of yourselves together. We are to come together. In the early church, they came together the first day of the week for sure, and probably several other times during the week for fellowship. And the reason we do this is because Hebrews 10 says we stimulate one another to love and good works.

When you stay away, you grow cold. You need that peer pressure, if you will, that spiritual stimulus that comes from the community of Christians. In fact, in the earliest years of the early church, they met every day. In many cases, people are a little bit confused, and it comes under this area of admonishing, forsaking not the assembling of yourselves together. What is, in a proper definition, a local assembly or a local church?

Some people feel it's five miles, 10 miles, and they have very definite feelings. I think anytime Christians get together in a local community, they can constitute a church. A church is a place where there are elders, where there are teachers, where there's a congregation. It can be if you're two Christians on a desert island, that's a church. That's a local assembly. If there's 5,000 Christians in a church, that's a church.

It's very hard to define that because of denominations and different churches. So the important thing to realize is that you are a member of the total body of Christ, and you are to attach yourself to a local assembly. Oh, you mean what you're asking is, can a guy come from 35 miles away and still be a part of a local assembly? Yeah, I don't think that's the issue. I don't think the distance his house is from the assembly is the issue.

God can use him there and use his gifts there and use his abilities there as well as anywhere else. There are advantages to being close, obviously, for the sake of ease of involvement. Well, I know we've tried to cover a very, very broad subject in this idea of how to function in the body, and it's very difficult to cover it total.

But I hope maybe just a little bit of it has helped. Let me take it a step further and offer this thought. In the life of the church, it is important that all of us have a ministry, using our gifts and using the responsibilities of fellowship. Sometimes that ministry will be within the organization of the church.

Sometimes it'll be without it. In other words, some of you may teach a Bible study that's just an independent Bible study. You meet together on an evening in your home and you have a Bible study. Others of you may teach a class either way, but be ministering if that's your gift. Some of you may be helping in some ministry officially in the church, like working with convalescence and helping in the convalescent ministry, or you just might be helping in other ways, certain Christians that you know and in certain rather catches-catch-can ministries, either way. All I'm saying is that your ministries can be within the structure of the church or without the structure of the church, however the Spirit of God directs. But it's important to recognize that the church has needs and that the Spirit of God leads the church to develop certain ministries and certain patterns of ministry, and we need help from the people who make up that assembly. And so from time to time, you will be hearing that maybe there's a training class for somebody who'd like to work with children, or a training class for somebody who'd like to work with youth, or a training class for somebody who would like to be in a convalescent ministry if they have the gift of showing mercy or the gift of helps, or maybe somebody to help in administration of something and do some projects if you have the gift of administration or whatever. You'll hear about this from time to time, and if the Spirit of God speaks to your heart and challenge you to do that, that's a good thing to do.

But it can be within the structure or without. I think it's good also to offer yourself to the local assembly that you're in, whatever one it is, to say, you know, I feel that these are the gifts that I have, and if the Spirit of God can use me in this ministry here somewhere, I'd like to make myself available. We have people that do that all the time. They'll come in and say, I have certain gifts and certain talents, can you use me?

And if you can, I'll be really happy to work. And we were talking the other day about a follow-up visitation ministry, and we were talking about a certain approach to it where a church just hires a whole bevy of people to go out and do all the visitation. And sometimes they'll have as many as 25 people on a full-time salary just visiting people. Well, there's really no need to do that if all of us as Christians accept the fact that visitation is just part of pure religion, James said, and we go and we share in the lives of the people we care for and we love. And so we would rather see the lay people doing the ministries that God has given them than go out and hire a lot of professionals to do it, so we wouldn't do that. But it's important that we be available to the local church to minister and serve within that local church as best we are able. I might add one other footnote, and that is be sure you pray for your leaders.

Very, very important. This is Grace To You with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us. Today John continued his look at the practices that lead to a vibrant spiritual life.

The series is titled Spiritual Boot Camp. Now as John mentioned before the lesson, we are committed to taking the teaching of God's Word to people in your area and around the world, and it's the support of listeners like you that makes this far-reaching ministry possible. If you'd like to stand with us as we bring biblical truth to spiritually hungry people worldwide, consider making a donation when you contact us today.

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The web address one more time, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace To You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, with a question for you. Why doesn't God take you to heaven as soon as you become a Christian? Consider that tomorrow, when John returns to his study titled Spiritual Boot Camp. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.