Unity in Diversity (Part 2 of 4)

As believers, no two of us are exactly alike. Every one of us is different, and yet all of us are significant members of the Body of Christ, known as his Universal Church. But here's the question, is it necessary for us to be part of a local church?

Alistair Begg addresses this question today on Truth for Life Weekend. We continue our series in 1 Corinthians 12. We start today in verse 12. There are some folks who, in their experience of walking with Christ and seeking after Christ, use terminology in different ways. And what they may be referring to when they say that they experience the baptism of the Holy Spirit is nothing other than a very gracious kick in the seat of their pants, moving them out of a time of deep lethargy and uselessness in their Christian lives. They've been living in a time of rebellion, a time of disinterest, a time of indifference. They have not been reading their Bible.

They've had no boldness in their testimony. They have been diminished in their usefulness for Christ. And someone has come along and told them that there is a possibility for them to move beyond that level of experience if they will only encounter what they have on offer. What they have on offer is then explained as the baptism in or with or by the Holy Spirit. And so these people then enter into a discovery of God's blessing. They then theologize it in terms of the phraseology that they've been given. And what they're using is wrong terminology, which confuses them and other people. And what they ought to be thankful for is the fact that God in His mercy met them along the journey of their disobedience, gave them a major hug, put them back in the realm of usefulness.

Now, that's for some. In other situations, for example, where there is a real theological divide—and I'm thinking now, for example, within the Roman Catholic Church and the whole question of Roman Catholic renewals—over the years, I've met many people who will testify within the framework of Catholicism to having been, quote, baptized in the Holy Spirit or with the Holy Spirit. It goes along with the whole charismatic renewal thing. And there is no question that some of them have come into a measure of spiritual life that they have never known before. Does that legitimize the phraseology?

Absolutely not. It's very dangerous and sinister, insofar as what it seeks to do is to trap people in a wrong theological understanding of truth and the need for regeneration and grace and faith while explaining to them that they have now had all of their previous theology authenticated by means of this post-baptism, post-communion, post-whatever discovery of the Spirit's fullness. What has happened to those people? I believe what happened to them was that they got converted. They came to faith in Jesus Christ, because they couldn't be converted before, because you can't get converted by being baptized, and you don't get converted by doing religious things, and you don't get converted as a result of somebody doing something to you.

You only are converted when the Spirit of God shows you your sin, brings you to faith in him, fills you with the Spirit, and makes you a brand-new person. Now, I'm not too worried about that, because eventually, if somebody will only teach them the Bible, they'll begin to understand it, and they will stop calling it the wrong thing. So we can rejoice in the fact that God in his vast mystery has brought them to a discovery of himself, and we'll let time catch up with their expression of that. You see, if you turn for a moment to Colossians chapter 2, this idea that the problem in our lives is that we're missing something, or we're missing the Holy Spirit, or we're missing this or that, is not in accord with the New Testament documents. Colossians 2, for in Christ, all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form. Now tell me how much deity that is.

All of it, right? Father, Son, Holy Spirit, the whole deal, all that you can get of God, the whole business. In Christ, all of the deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, all that is ours to experience, all that is ours that is necessary for usefulness, for participation within the body, for boldness in testimony, for purity of life, for exercise of spiritual gifts, has been given to us in Christ, who in our coming to Christ baptized us with the Holy Spirit and made us to drink of that same Spirit. We need then to live in the awareness that any lack in us is not a lack of the Spirit. I'm constantly confronted by people who teach that you got a little deposit of the Spirit when you were converted. That's the way it works. And what you have to do is you have to wait around a la Pentecost, and then you get the rest of it. You get a kind of ten percent initial down payment, and you get the other ninety percent when you get baptized with the Spirit. That is just a failure to understand the Bible. That's all it is. They're very well-meaning people.

Many of them, I'm not worthy to untie their shoelaces. But I think they're wrong, and I think it's unhelpful. What is descriptive in the birth of the church should not be regarded as prescriptive throughout every generation that follows. What is prescriptive is picked up and made perfectly plain as the Acts of the Apostles ends and as the apostles themselves begin to write their letters. So what then of spiritual dearth in our lives?

What then of the not firing on all four cylinders? It is not an absence of the Spirit—I'll tell you what it is. It is an absence of obedience. It is an absence of trust.

It is an absence of submission. The question is not, do I have all of the Holy Spirit? The question is, does the Holy Spirit have all of me? It is not an absence of full salvation, it's not an absence of his indwelling, it's not an absence of blessing.

So let us summarize it. In Christ, we are placed into the church as we are baptized with or in the Spirit as we are all made to drink of this one Spirit. We are placed into the universal body, the great invisible mysterious body that is the church that is numbered way beyond our ability to count. Well then, says somebody, if that is the case and I am actually placed in the body of Christ, why is it important for me to be a member of a local church? Probably the most important thing is that I am in the body of Christ, having been baptized into it, having been made to drink of the same Spirit. And there are probably not a few of you who are sitting out there tonight who on the basis of this kind of rationale have remained apart from a local body of believers. Rather than go on from this foundational unity into the diversity in verse 14, I want to take the remaining moments to address with you this question of why a local church is important.

People ask me that all the time. Well, the deal is this. Number one, the New Testament takes it for granted that every Christian will join together with other Christians in the membership of local congregations. The New Testament letters were not written to the universal body of Christ. The New Testament letters were written to individual churches, to the Christians in Galatia, to the Christians in Thessalonica and Ephesus and so on. And indeed, most of the New Testament letters were written in such a way to encourage the believers to excel in building up the local church. In fact, you get that in 1 Corinthians, so it is with you, since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church. What church? Well, this church. What other church are you going to build up as a result of the fact that God gave you the ability to sing? What are you planning on doing?

Going down Euclid Avenue singing? And someone said, what are you doing? He said, I'm building up the universal church.

No, you're not. The only way that we can express spiritual gifts is within the context of a local body. And the New Testament takes that for granted. Family, the pictures of the church only make sense, only become real, when we meet together in church fellowship.

Take for example, the pictures, we'll go through a few of them. Flock, household, building, body, right? One sheep doesn't make a flock. One brick doesn't make a house.

One individual doesn't make a family, and one limb doesn't make a body. The only way those pictures make sense is in togetherness. And the togetherness that God intends is within the framework of a local fellowship of God's people, a vital, close relationship with one another, and God has so arranged things that we need one another. Thirdly, the local church is the special provision made by the Lord Jesus for fellowship, discipline, fellowship, instruction, and service. It is the local church that God has given to us for the discovery of fellowship. Acts 2 42, after they had repented, they had been baptized, they had been made to drink of the one Spirit—what does it say?—and they devoted themselves to the apostles' doctrine, to the breaking of bread, to the fellowship.

To the fellowship. You see, every so often I meet a student—they're nineteen years old—they tell me they're not involved in a local church. They go to the InterVarsity group or the Campus Crusade group, and that's their, quote, church.

No, it isn't. That's a group, but that's not the church. If you are substituting an all-lady's Bible study for church, you're not in church. Or an all-men's Bible study for church—it's not church. Where is it possible to experience fellowship with young and old, black and white, rich and poor, bright and dumb, fat and thin, the whole variegated panoply of humanity?

Where does that take place? Only in the local church. And God has intended that that should be the thing. So all of those other things may be supplemental, but they are not fundamental, and they dare not take its place, neither in instruction nor in service nor in fellowship, certainly not in worship.

So our fellowship is to be experienced in this context. Because when I'm in a student group, I don't need to worry about old granny so-and-so. I don't like old people. I like my student group. I don't ever want to do that.

Or a man who I hate babies. I cannot stand those kids with the noses and the whole thing. That's why I like my student group. That's my thing. That's my church.

No, it's not. But it's not your church. What about the question of discipline? Where is discipline going to take place for the Christian that has been baptized with the Spirit and made to drink of the Spirit? Where are we going to be disciplined? Where do your kids get disciplined? In your family.

Why? Because that's the place for them to be disciplined. Where does Jesus expect his kids to get disciplined? In the family. In what family? The universal family.

No. Therefore, church hoppers of America who buzz between one place and the next place live without the necessary spiritual discipline in their lives, because it is a discipline to sit next to some of these people around us. It is a discipline to respond to their exhortation.

It is a discipline, and it is a discipline that takes place in togetherness. None of us is perfect. All of us make mistakes. We all need help.

We all need correction, and mostly we need it from people who are older than us. And that's another reason why these age-graded deals will never take the place of a local church, because you need to be with those who are more mature than you. What about worship? Where does worship take place? People say, well, I go up on the hills and worship. Well, that's fine.

You can do that. But God desires the corporate worship of his people. And by means of the local church, he has made it possible for Christians to unite in prayer and to unite in praise. Just take Acts chapter 2, 42 to 47, and use it as a paradigm.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' doctrine, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers. In what context? In the context of one another. What about instruction?

Where is a Christian supposed to be instructed? Not on the radio. You say, well, what's wrong with the radio? Aren't we on the radio?

Yes, we are. It's a supplement. It's not the issue. God never intended for people to sit in their rooms. The sadness of people that sit in their rooms alone and isolated can be responded to on multiple levels. God never intended for an electronic church to take the place of the kind of instruction that he has purposed in giving to the fellowship of God's people, pastors, and teachers. Where are God's people supposed to serve?

Not exclusively here, but certainly here to serve in the local church. Because the local church is God's place for mission and God's place for service. And for too long, we live with this notion that, well, you know, the local church is not very good, and so we justify our existence for all our parachurch organizations on the basis of the church being no good, quotes our local church. Meanwhile, X number of people who could make the local church that good by exercising their same gifts within the framework of the church continue to diminish the potential of the church by the exercise of their giftedness elsewhere. Well, is that an indictment on everything that happens outside the local church?

No, but it is saying this. Let us start where the New Testament starts, and let us add to without deleting from. For we have a mandate in our Bible for this. We need to scramble for some of the rest.

Final question. Which church should I join? Well, don't join a perfect one, right?

If you find it, don't join it, because you'll mess it up. You want to know what kind of church to join? Join an Acts 2 42 to 47 church. Join a church that at least has this true of it. There is faithful preaching and teaching of the Word of God. There is genuine fellowship in the Lord Jesus. There is a rightful place given to baptism and the Lord's Supper.

And there is a recognition of the priority of prayer. I always tell a student when they go away, if you're looking for a church in the community, go around and look for the ones that have prayer time. And be wary of churches that call themselves churches that don't pray. Okay, that's why I should be in the church. That's the kind of church I should join.

What part should I play? Well, we'll come to this next time in verse 14. But for now, let me say this. Before we can play a part in the church, we need to join the church. We need to commit ourselves to membership in that church.

The externals that are involved in that are more than secondary to the actual issue of our heartbeat involvement. So we need to commit ourselves to a church in membership, and then we need to determine to discover and fulfill our God-given part. To discover and fulfill our God-given part, to throw our whole weight into things.

Anything that God gives us to do, throw our whole weight into it. We need then to aim at being a healthy member of the body. Our individual spiritual wellness contributes to the health of the whole. For all that the body is, is the congregation of the health or lack of health of individual believers. That's why we need to be on the lookout for one another, to look out for visitors and for strangers, to look out for the hurting, for the homeless, to look out for the discouraged and the disappointed, to genuinely care.

Because after all, we have the resources within the church to make the right kind of response, provided the gifts that have been given to the church are being exercised in and through the church. We need to make sure that we get our priorities right and check them regularly. We all have commitments to our homes, to our families, to our chores, to our employment.

Few of us are able to juggle that really perfectly. We need to check our priorities regularly in relationship to these things. We need, in playing our part in the church, to give generously and regularly and systematically to it. It's a privilege to contribute to the support of those who labor in the Word and in doctrine. It is an immense privilege to contribute to the extension of the gospel throughout the world. And ultimately, in playing our part within the church, we need to respect and support spiritual leadership and never neglect to pray for them.

And finally, all of us need to clothe ourselves with humility and expect to serve rather than to be served. And as we'll see when we come to 1 Corinthians 14.1, we are to make love our constant aim and our discovery of living together. For all our years, for all our numbers, for all our journey, there remains for us as a church family an immense need to pray that God will teach us and apply in our lives the truths of what we're about to discover in relationship to the remainder of 1 Corinthians 12.

It's exciting, it's gonna be challenging, it's gonna demand change, it's gonna make comfortable people uncomfortable, it's gonna see isolated people involved, it's gonna see over-involved people less involved if we prayerfully get it right. That is Alistair Begg, today on Truth for Life Weekend, with a reminder that all of us have a part to play in the local church. We hope you'll keep listening, Alistair is going to be back in just a minute to close today's program with prayer. If you are a regular Truth for Life listener, you know that all of Alistair's teaching is available, it can be accessed online for free, all of the resources we make available are available at our cost, and the reason for this is because we're passionate about giving you access to what the Bible teaches. We're also passionate about recommending books that will encourage you in your faith, and our book selection this weekend is one that will have you looking forward to eternity. It's called Heaven on Earth, What the Bible Teaches About Life to Come. This is a short book that addresses many issues surrounding the afterlife that we don't usually talk about, things like what happens immediately after we die, is there truly a hell, what should we expect when Jesus returns?

You can learn more about the book Heaven on Earth when you visit our website, Truth for Life dot org. Now let's join Alistair as he closes with prayer. Our gracious God and our Father, we thank you for the immensity of your grace, that we who were by very nature strangers to your love, we who were dead in our trespasses and in our sins, discovered that in just the same way as you made light shine out of darkness when you created the universe, so you shone into our lives the light of the glory of your gospel, in the power of the Holy Spirit baptizing us into Christ and into relationships with one another, affirming the truth that the unifying factor in our lives is not that we all have an interest in religion, not that we all come from the same kind of homogeneous background, not that we all have signed the same creed or embraced the same doctrine, but the ultimate truth is that we have been all given to drink of the same Spirit, and that this is the principle which unifies. Help us, Lord, to lay hold of this, so that we'll then be able to understand the nature of what it means to deal with the diversity that is expressed in our giftedness, in our personalities, in our passions, in our drives, in our hopes, and in our dreams, so that the unifying factor of the Spirit's abiding presence may give clarity and joy and distinctiveness to the uniqueness of each one. Thank you for this day and for each other and for your Word. Thank you for each one, the people around us, our children and loved ones and those whom we represent. May the Lord bless us and keep us. May the Lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious unto us. May the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon us and give us his peace tonight and forevermore. Amen. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for taking time out of your weekend to study God's Word with us. We hope you can listen next week as Alistair challenges us to say no to isolation and yes to involvement. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the learning is for the loving.