Unity in Diversity (Part 4 of 4)

If a church is going to function effectively, diversity is important. Our differences may make us, well, different, but it also is what makes us necessary. So if we're all needed and we all need each other, how can we learn to work together?

Today on Truth for Life Weekend, Alistair Begg concludes our series in 1 Corinthians 12 and explains what it takes. Okay so if inferiority is the problem on the one hand, superiority is the problem on the other. So you've got some people who spend their time saying, they don't need me, and then you have others of us who walk around going, I don't need them. That's basically where the problems in the body of Christ all come. Some people whose propensity is to say, they don't need me, and others whose propensity is to say, I don't need them.

Because you'll notice how he switches. In the first few verses he's saying, if the foot should say, I am not this, therefore I don't belong, expressing a sense of disengagement, he changes it in verse 21, he turns it around the other way and he says, the eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you. Now there were clearly some in the Corinthian context who believed that on account of their personal giftedness, they could get along fine without anybody else. They didn't need the unimportant contributions that were made by other members of the body of Christ.

They could get along fine, but it can't be. Now, why is he using this? He's using this because that's what we do to one another. We say to one another, I don't need you, or I don't belong here. And he is going to this almost simplistic level in order to drive home the fact that the distinctions within the body of Christ are distinctions of function, they are not distinctions of value. And in this context, the strategy of the evil one is to inflate us in order to defeat us, and the pattern that God has is to deflate us in order to exalt us.

It's the absolute reverse of so much of what we hear today. You've got to understand how important you are and how wonderful you are and how terrific you are. Now you've got to understand under God how necessary you are, because God is God, and because he cares about his church.

Now he then drives this home in verse 22 and following. The head can't say to the feet, I don't need you. On the contrary, he says, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. In other words, you can live without your legs, but you can't live without your lungs. But how much time have you given thinking about your lungs recently unless you are in that kind of chest area in medicine?

Not a lot, probably. But you may have given a lot of attention to your legs for whatever reasons, either in exercising or whatever it might be. But the fact is you can live without the legs, but you can't live without the lungs. The weaker parts are indispensable.

The internal organs inevitably don't get the exposure that other parts of the body get. That stands to reason, right? You know, I say, you want to come over to my house and see my kidneys?

I mean, cannibals could say, you want to come over to my house and see my mother's kidneys, but you don't do that with one another. Okay? So what? So this what?

Think about it. This is not a lesson in human anatomy. This is a lesson in the body of Christ. This is what he's saying. The bits of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.

Would you underline that if you underline in your Bible? Indispensable. If you think about the things that we are able to reproduce in terms of prosthetic surgery, most of the stuff is external. All the endeavors internally are less than perfect, less than successful. Much of what is external may be replaced, may be fixed, may be badgered around, made to function. But as soon as we go into the heart of the matter, we discover the indispensable of those things. Therefore, think it out. Those who have less noticeable parts in the body of Christ, those with less noticeable ministries, are often vulnerable to misunderstanding, they are often vulnerable to neglect, and they are often vulnerable to misappreciation. And that, incidentally, is why some of them feel inferior. Because it stands then to those who have a different role within the body of Christ to protect those indispensable believers in the same way that our external shell protects our indispensable organs.

But because they're not on public display, we don't give them a lot of thought. But when we lie in our beds and think, we realize it's the stuff that no one can see that makes me work. Now, loved ones, is that what Paul is saying in here, or is that what Paul is saying in here? Do you see what he's saying? What he's saying is this, the things that we attach the greatest significance to in the body of Christ, the talkers and the walkers and the singers and the jokers and the upfront characters, can be replaced at a moment's notice. But there are indispensable parts of the body unseen, unnoticed, that are holding fellowships together.

That's what he's saying. We don't necessarily even know who they are in this church. Faithful prayer warriors, no fuss, no bother in their homes, in their cars, whatever it might be, holding on as it were to God and to his promises for the wellbeing of Parkside Church. Only eternity will make that plain when the last are first and those of us who think we're first end up last. And pastors don't like to teach it too much because what it does is it takes the pastor and it says, you can drop in right down through the hall here with this podium without a great deal of problem and walk another guy out on here, and they'll carry on without a great deal of difficulty. But there are some people, as it were, in the guts of the whole affair, the indispensable parts, that those who are external and vocal and prominent need to provide protection for. In the same way, not only are the weaker parts indispensable, but the parts that we think less honorable we treat with special honor. Have you ever seen on television somebody advertising for an eye master or an ear master or an elbow master?

No. But you've seen them doing it for a thigh master, right? Because we have a problem here with hips. And we cover it up, and we work it, and we do all sorts of things to it.

Why? Because they're actually less honorable, and we treat them with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But where do we give the most treatment? To the bits that don't need the treatment.

That's what he said. So we don't look for the indispensable parts to secure them. We don't take the less honorable parts to clothe them and cover them and bestow them with a measure of honor.

And we take the presentable parts and spend all our time shining them up so that we'll look good, thereby neglecting the parts that need our concern. Now, the flip side then of saying no to isolation is clearly saying yes to involvement. Saying yes to involvement. And that's what he's teaching here. The reason he says that I'm doing all of this is to let you know that every one of you is a part, every one of you is important. Now, this is a vitally important instruction for many of our churches have grown so dependent on a small number of people. And often in certain cases, and usually in smaller churches, they grow so dependent on an individual, whoever that pastor may be. And so the pastor lives with an unbelievable burden. To the watching world, he's the guy who does nothing. Then all the people that say, oh, it must be nice to have your job after all, you only work one day a week. So we have that, we walk around.

Yeah, here comes a guy. So to the watching world, he does nothing. To his congregation, he's a guy who's supposed to do everything. And if you've been in a church like that, you know that that is true. When that misperception is tolerated or even cultivated, it turns congregations into interested or disinterested spectators, rather than into active participants.

And so they become dependent upon all that is fed to them, and they sit around to watch and see how successful the pastor or the pastors or whoever they are will be at providing all their needs. Harmony in the body of Christ is about individuality, it's about diversity, it's about that diversity operating under the unity of the lordship of Christ. And the tragedy of the Corinthian church was this, that they were divided where they should have been unified, namely in doctrine, and they were attempting uniformity where God's purpose was diversity.

So they were a recipe for total disaster. He says in chapter 1, he says, I want you to be perfectly united in heart and mind and in thought. I want you to believe the same things.

I want you to understand that. Now, if you have a unity under the lordship of Christ in terms of basic Christian doctrine, then you will be able to tolerate all the diversity that is part of you, because you're all made very differently and you all come from different backgrounds and God has given you all kinds of different gifts. They instead bombed out on the unity of doctrine and attempted a uniformity of behavior. And so you end up with a church that is trying to make clones out of people. They can never ask questions, they can never differ, they all have to wear the same kind of suits, they all carry the same kind of Bibles, and so it goes. Now, the reason is God has ordered things in this way very clearly, and we're not all the same.

That's 27 to the end. All these rhetorical questions expect the answer no. There were temporary sign gifts, there were foundational apostolic and prophetic gifts, there were abiding necessary gifts, but the unity was to be found not in displaying the same gifts but in obeying the same head and loving the other members. Let me try and summarize it and draw this to a close. Number one, we need one another. Number two, we're different from each other. Number three, we're supposed to care for each other.

That's it. We need each other, we're different from one another, and therefore we have to tolerate those differences and watch out for each other. What is God's purpose in all of this?

Let me summarize it. Verse 25, his purpose in this is to deal with division. God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it. Verse 25, so that there should be no division in the body. The word which is used here is a graphic word used for a tear in a cloth, where you would tear something and it has jaggy edges.

Nothing creates jaggy edges more than an attitude of superiority on the part of some or an unhelpful allegiance to individuals. I am Paul, I am Apollos, I am Cephas. This is my guy. This is my group. I like her.

I like him. We're our little deal. It says, no, the reason you're all like this, this great hodgepodge, is so that there should be no division, to deal with division, and to call them to caring.

You'll notice that? No division in the body and that its parts should have equal concern for each other. Now, some people get tied up on this. They say, well, we've got a very large church here, and it's impossible for us to know everything and everyone. That's right. That's absolutely right. That is an unsavory element of size. But it is an element of science. The fact that I cannot know everyone and everything about everyone, nor can you, does not mean that I cannot exercise equal concern for each one that I know. What he's saying here is not, that we are equally involved with everyone. But no matter who the one is, no matter how we encounter them, no matter their background, their giftedness, or whatever it is, our concern for them must be the same, because God put them in the body. So nobody ought to be able to come to you and find that your level of concern for them is this much greater simply because you like them, or this much less because I don't like them. That kind of thing is supernatural activity.

No group of people will pull this off as a result of an act of congress. No group of us will ever be able to bring it together in sharing one another's joys and sorrows in, if you like, living like Siamese twins without the depth of relationship that only the Spirit of God can bring. That's why when Paul writes to the Ephesians and he says to them that God has given pastors and teachers so that the church may be edified as the Scriptures are made clear, so that you may come to maturity as each part does its work. At the heart of that metaphor is love.

It's very dangerous for me to use illustrations like this. I know I'll be corrected later, but I'll proceed in conclusion at any rate. In arthritis, or in an arthritic condition, the joints have a brittleness and a friction to them as a result of the absence of this synovial fluid. It is because that fluid is not in the abundance that it should be that the joints do not have the harmony and flexibility and ease of movement that they may otherwise have. Or the knee's still in place, or the ball and socket joints are there in the hip, but something is wrong. There's pain involved in it. It's because of the drainage of the synovial fluid. The synovial fluid in the body of Christ will come to in chapter 13.

It is love. And when love drains out of the joints in the body, then the body may still have a skeletal structure, but it will be pained in its movement. It will be impoverished in its actions.

It will be less than what God intends. That's why in our families, more than anything else, what matters is that we love each other, that we teach our kids to love each other, that we tell our children that we love them unreservedly, unconditionally. For as soon as love drains away, then we're left with mechanical motions, disengaged lives, disenfranchised people, disgruntled fellowships, and ineffective churches. I think it's very important for us as individuals to be reading and rereading these chapters on our own, to be asking God to speak to us through them.

Those of us who are prone to inferiority and to feeling that we don't have a part, asking the Spirit of God to bolster us up, those of us who have a problem with superiority asking the Lord to burst the bubble of our pride, so that together we may be more effective than any of us are on our own. There's no greater illustration of it than when an orchestra plays. They don't all play the same instruments. They don't all play the same part. Indeed, I don't think they all read off the same notes. The way it's written for the French horn, the way it's written for the cello, the way it's written for the oboe is not written necessarily all in the same way, I believe. But when they play the part according to the score and when they bow beneath the batten of the conductor, the harmony and the music is powerful. Therefore, it's simple.

We need to know the score. We need to submit to the conductor. We need to be cautious and careful with the people around us so that we don't stick our bow in their eye or try and play louder than them to silence them. Or go on an inferiority trip because we're playing the triangle, and in the whole movement the triangle comes once. Do you realize how important it is when it comes just once?

I mean, if it came 50 times, people would be saying, heck, you know, the triangle, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. But if the thing goes for 27 minutes and you play that thing just ding once, I think the composer thought that was pretty important. Do you know this afternoon, Dan Majeski, the concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra went to be with Christ? What an illustration of a man who played his part. Not only with great skill within the orchestra, but also within the body of Christ. Those of us who attended the prayer breakfasts when he would come and play along with Bob Vernon and his wife and his son, we'll never forget how he loved to take out that piece of paper and read the same poem every year, the poem about the violin found in the dusty old workshop, and how the man said, Oh, it's a piece of junk.

It's irrelevant. It's not that great of a violin. I don't really know why we keep it around here.

And then the poem goes on, and the gentleman took the violin, and he brushed the dust off, and he began to play. He said, Majeski, this is how it is when we are placed in the Master's hands. Sure, we're dusty. Sure, we look junky.

Sure, people think that we lie around the shop and are fairly irrelevant. But whenever the Master takes us up to play our part, there is no other part that is necessary for that moment. And today, tonight, we honor Dan Majeski and the part that he has played in the body of Christ in this city, and the testimony that he has borne throughout the world with the orchestra, a reminder to us of the simple song, There's a work for Jesus, none but you can do.

Now let's go out and help one another to do that work. Each one of us has a significant part to play in God's kingdom, and that includes you. You just heard Alistair beg with the final message in our series, Firm Foundation. This is Truth for Life weekend.

Please keep listening as Alistair will close in prayer in just a minute. Here at Truth for Life, we intentionally choose books that will be a source of encouragement and spiritual growth for you and your family. Today's recommendation is specifically geared for college students or for high school students who are headed toward college. It's titled Surviving Religion 101, Letters to a Christian Student on Keeping the Faith in College. As parents, we often prepare our kids for college by stocking up on all the things they're going to need in their dorm room, but are they ready to face the kinds of questions that are going to come to them on the college campus, questions that might cause them to doubt their Christian faith? Surviving Religion 101 addresses very practical real-world topics, and it's written so college students will be confident about what they believe when their faith is put to the test.

Find out more about the book Surviving Religion 101 when you visit our website, truthforlife.org. Now let's join Alistair in prayer. Unseen, indispensable activity. Help us to say no to isolation and to say yes to involvement.

And teach us unmistakably in these days that our significance and our effectiveness is far greater as a whole than any individual part on its own. Thank you for this place. Thank you for each other. Be with us as we go.

Take us in safety. Make us useful to the Master in the days of this week. For we ask these things with the forgiveness of all our sin. In Jesus' name, Amen.

I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening today. We hope you'll be back next weekend as we begin a new series of messages from 2 Timothy chapter 4 titled Guard the Truth. We'll discover how every pastor should determine what to say Sunday by Sunday. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.