1 Corinthians 12:12-31

1 Corinthians 12:12‑31
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First Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 12.
Perez The body is one and has many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body. So also is Christ. For by 1 Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one spirit. For the body is not one member, but many.
The foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body. Is it therefore not of the body?
And if the ears shall say, because I am not the eye, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?
If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the hole were hearing, where were the smelling?
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But now his God set the members, every one of them, in the body, as it had pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say under the hand, I have no need of thee, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you, nay, much more of those members of the body which seem to be more feeble or necessary.
Those members of the body which we think to be less honorable. Upon these we bestow more abundant honor, and our uncommon parts have more abundant comeliness.
For our comely parts have no need, but God has tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another.
Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.
And God has set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles and gifts of healing, helps governments, diversities of tongues.
Are all apostles, Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret, but covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet show I unto you a more excellent way.
To perhaps just mention before we go on and we didn't have a chance to mention all these particular manifestations of the spirits and the verses beforehand, but there is one called prophecy and there was a sense of prophecy before the Canon of Scripture was complete that God used men to speak his word for the particular time. You have that in Acts chapter 13 where.
The Spirit said, separate me, Barnabas and Paul for the work which I have called them. There were prophets that spoke the word of God according to the particular need at that moment. We don't have profits in that sense of the word. We do have prophecy In chapter 14, verse three says he that prophesied speaketh unto men to edification and exhortation and comfort. We have that kind of prophecy today.
But, uh, just wanted to comment on that. Another one is, uh, that Don mentioned this morning, I think is a very important one is the discerning of spirits. And there are those that God gives to discern spirits. And it's a very important thing. You can be right in everything you say, but wrong in your spirit. And there are those who the Lord helps to discern spirits.
On, on what Bob just mentioned about the profits versus helpful in that regard is Romans chapter 16.
Romans chapter 16 and verse.
25 Now to him that is of power to establish you, according to my gospel, the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets.
By the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God made known to all nations.
For the obedience of faith the prophets used in this verse since include Paul and John, whose writings are prophetical in some of their character, and they were foundational because.
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That there was a mystery that God was making known that had not been known to his church.
And so he established at that time prophets who would make that known. And it has for some of them. Not all of the prophecies, As Bob said, it was found at the beginning before the written word was available. But we still have and we still benefit from that gift today in the word itself that has been given to us by those who were used of God. And now we have the scriptures of those prophets.
Apostles and prophets are no longer with us. They laid the foundation.
Don't lay 2 foundations for a building. But I was thinking in, uh, verse 13, just a doctrinal comment here. Uh, we, we uh, hear of people Speaking of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as if it was some, uh, new manifestation, some outpouring of the Spirit upon a person, an individual, but uh, the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Really took place just once, and it occurred at Pentecost. It was collective. It's never individual. Now we're exhorted to be filled with the Spirit.
That he might control our actions and thoughts and.
Our manners and so on, but the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Actually only took place at at Pentecost. And when a person is saved, they are not baptized of the Holy Spirit again, they are added to the church. It's like a.
Verse 13 by 1 Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have all been made to drink into one. Spirit really looks back to Pentecost there.
Umm and umm, it's like a company that has been incorporated. For instance, we have in Canada a very famous umm.
Company, uh, established about 1680 called the Hudson's Bay Company. It was incorporated at that date. Now there's been members added to the board and to the committee down through the years, but they don't reincorporate the company again. Every time that a new member is added to it or a new employee is uh, is put on the payroll, there's not another incorporation of the company. It has been done once.
They are added into an existing.
A body. And so it is with a person who is saved. Now they are added into a body that already exists and umm.
And uh.
So the Spirit of God does that adding, but it's not a baptism of the Holy Spirit. This might be, uh, good to be accurate on those points that we don't get, uh, many other many baptisms that would indicate that many new bodies were being formed. So, uh, the intimacy is so great in verse 12 That it says being many, uh, all the members of that one body, being many are one body.
So also is Christ, the intimacy, the union is so.
Uh, close here That, uh, the body and Christ are spoken of as Christ.
Not, not separated. We are united to him by the Spirit of God.
Into that mysterious yet wonderful union of the body of Christ, our head in heaven, and we as members of that body here on earth, but joined intimately with our risen head in the glory.
A little bit, because the Scriptures are very, very careful to guard in the New Testament, lest we ever think that there is more than one church or more than one body.
And as John has brought out, the Church of God was formed on the day of Pentecost.
By the descent of the Holy Spirit, something very remarkable happened on that day.
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Not only did the Spirit of God come to indwell individual believers, but to form, if I can put it this way, a new unit, the Church of Go, the Church of God, and to dwell collectively.
In that unit that was formed at that time. But some have been a little confused because you go over to the 8th chapter of Acts and the 10th chapter of Acts, and at first glance, it may seem like there was a repeat of the baptism of the Holy Spirit in those two chapters. Now again, I, I want to put this as carefully as possible, but I, if I can put it this way again, it's the Spirit of God being very careful to guard lest we ever think there was.
A Jewish church, a Samaritan church and a Gentile church.
Or even a Jewish gentile church with a hyphen and so in the.
8th chapter of Acts, where the Samaritans were brought in. Let me back up a minute. When the church was formed on the day of Pentecost, it was Jews, about 120, who were gathered together.
Who formed initially the Church of God or made-up the Church of God when it was formed?
Later on in the 8th chapter, the Samaritans are brought in and there was, if I can put it this way, a little addendum to what happened. Not a repeat of what happened in the second chapter of Acts, but a little addendum to it. To guard last. We think, as I say, that there was now a Samaritan church being formed. No, they are brought into what was already formed by the Spirit of God on the day of Pentecost. Then when we come over to the 10th chapter, we have.
In the home of Cornelius the truth going out to the Gentiles.
And the Gentiles are brought into the Church of God. And so there's another little addendum to what happened on the Day of Pentecost to bring to bring them in. But as John said, and I think it's very good to be clear on it, the baptism of the Holy Spirit was something that took place on the day of Pentecost, never to be repeated as such again. And I know we've already quoted it, but at the end of that second chapter of Acts after the formation of the church, it says.
And the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. And we could put it this way, for our purposes this afternoon, the Lord is still adding to the church daily, such as should be saved.
If someone got saved last night when the gospel was preached, they're added to what was formed on the day of Pentecost. They become a member of the body of Christ.
They become part of the Church of God and that work of the Spirit of God.
In compelling sinners to come in and to bring souls to Christ is going to continue.
And souls are going to be added to the church until the church is completed and the Lord Jesus is then going to come and the church is going to be raptured to glory. So there's only ever in Scripture the thought of there being one church or one body.
Oh, Brother Jim, to see the expression the baptism of the Holy Spirit mentioned in chapter one of Acts and verse five in connection with what was to take place in chapter 2, notice it for John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. That's in relation to what takes place and.
Chapter 2 and it's for like you say, the formation of the body of Christ, and when you go over to chapter 10 you have the Gentiles brought in and in Chapter 11 Peter is called to account for what happened and he says in Chapter 11.
Verse 15 As I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.
Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. So you see, the scriptures themselves use that term in connection with the formation of the Church of God at the beginning of the Christian era. Think it is helpful because in those two cases in the dead penny cost in connection with Cornelius and his household.
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It was the Holy Spirit that fell without any human instrumentality, and I agree with you that.
Acts 8 is kind of an addendum, but it does not say that he fell on them. It was through the imposition of the hands of the apostles that they received the Spirit of God and were.
Incorporated into the same body.
Maybe I could use a little simple illustration that I sometimes use before, and that is when I was a boy, my parents bought me a set of building blocks. And I remember using those blocks and one day I built some kind of house or building with those blocks and I ran out of blocks before the building was completed. I wanted to build something a little bigger than the capacity of the block set was able to accommodate.
And I remember keeping that building set up, built until I made perhaps it was a birthday or some special day. I had been promised that some more blocks would be added to the set. And when those blocks came on my birthday or whatever day it was, I still remember opening that box and adding those blocks to what I had already built. I didn't build a new house. I added to what was already there.
And that perhaps helps us to understand a little bit what the work of the Spirit of God has been.
Since the day of Pentecost, adding those living stones as we get in first Peter to the church. And so when, as I say, when that last living stone is added and the church is completed, the work of the Spirit of God will be done.
And brethren, isn't it wonderful? We've talked about the work of the Spirit of God at great length in these reading meetings.
And isn't it wonderful to realize that the Spirit of God will not leave until the work is completed? And when he leaves, we leave too. That's why at the end of the Book of Revelation it says, And the Spirit and the Bride say, come. He doesn't leave till we leave. And the fact that the Spirit of God is still here shows that there is still some work for the Spirit of God to do.
And he does that work, as we've been saying, through each one who is indwelt by the Spirit, by the Spirit.
He had, in other words, he has some work left for you to do. He has some work left for each of us. And as long as the church and the Spirit is here, there are going to be opportunities. There's going to be needs, there's going to be the power to go on.
Individually and collectively, as we've been saying, there's going to be the resources to go on in the assembly and to be fed and to have collective worship and praise and prayer and singing in the spirit and ministry.
I think that's a great comfort, but it also ought to exercise us as members of the body of Christ.
And the fact that the Spirit of God is still here ought to exercise each one of us.
To take up our part and function as a member of the body of Christ and seek to to manifest that in each of our lives for the good and blessing of the other members.
Verse 12 to see the word one, how often it is mentioned and brother and I just must say, I really think this is something to rejoice in. We are one. It is a fact today, even though the outward testimony is in such disarray and we can say that the testimony has been broken up.
The truth of the body of Christ that its one remains today just as much a reality and we need to be exercised.
In meeting together or at any time to be exercised in view of all the other members of the body of Christ, because God has set his heart on them and he's going to bring them all home to glory in his own purposes of blessing. And so the body is one beautiful, wonderful truth. You know, there's just so many factors in today's world that seems like want to pull us apart.
But, brethren, we are.
Baptized by the Holy Spirit into one body, we are one body. Remember when there was a time of trouble amongst the brethren in Bolivia? And I remember some brethren got off track and I went to visit one of the brothers who was a son-in-law to Leno Bueno. And as we sat down in his home, he says to me, Brother, how sad it is that the body of Christ is all broken up into pieces.
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I said to him, Brother, I come to you to tell you that I am with you. Even though we are not breaking bread at the present moment, we are still one body in Christ. We're not acting like it, but we are still one body in Christ. Thank God he came back into fellowship, that dear brother. And and it's that truth, brethren. It's the reality of the fact. And some of us like I was saying yesterday.
Have the privilege of going from 1 Country to the next.
Prove the reality of the fact that there is one body and it says at the end of verse 13 within all made to drink into one spirit. It's the same spirit that unites us. They're talking about Chile or Argentina or Haiti or or Dominican Republic or Cuba or wherever you want to go. It's the same body. It's the same spirit. It's a wonderful reality and we are called to.
Walk in view of that truth. It's not possible to walk in fellowship with all our brethren, but the truth of the body of Christ is a reality, and you and I should walk in view of the reality that truth.
On a verse in chapter 10.
Connection with what's before us.
First Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 32 give none offense.
Neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God.
If I wanted to trap you, I might ask you, are you a Jew?
And you'd probably say no. Well, what if I ask you if you're a Gentile?
If you said yes, you're missing the truth of our chapter.
There's from God's perspective, he has now divided. Before the church was formed, you could look at this world and say he divided into two classes, Jews and Gentiles. But since he formed the body of Christ on earth, he has now divided the world into three classes, Jews and Gentiles and the Church of God.
And as long as the Church of God is on earth, if you become a member of it, you leave the other two classes before the eye of God. You're not a Jew anymore. You're not a Gentile anymore.
You are something else. You are that one new thing in the earth. When the rapture takes place, that body leaves the earth and it will return to the two classes. It will return to the class of Jews, and it will return to its class of Gentiles. But it is well for us in our thoughts and in our associations to recognize I don't want to offend a Jew. I don't want to offend a Gentile.
You probably are around some Gentiles a lot. Nor do I want to offend as Bob was just talking of the Church of God and all the association I have with it. But it's important for us to seek to maintain God's view of it. Otherwise our thought patterns and our activities and we'll get get us while I'm I'm part of the church, but I'm also a Gentile and I'm this, but I'm also that.
Umm, there are false teaching.
That is very destructive to the purposes of God, although God will triumph over it. But there is that which mixes those three classes together in such a way that S Satan uses it to oppose God.
That white on the word baptism is used here.
Baptism in Scripture has the connotation of separating us from what we were connected with before and associating us with others, or maybe just as an individual in a new position. And so we don't want to give the impression that the baptism of the Spirit, because it occurred once on the day of Pentecost, has no relevance to you and me today.
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Paul was writing to people who had not been there the day of Pentecost.
Nor was Paul himself. And yet he says we all are. We all baptized into one body, and so there is a separation from whatever we have been connected with before.
And if I meet a fellow believer, I meet him as a member of the body of Christ, as Bob has said, no matter what part of the world he is in.
And we may say, not seeking to be critical, but that truth, that precious truth, is often not particularly understood. I well remember visiting in a country some years ago.
And enjoyed very much the opportunity to speak with believers there. And in some cases they already knew about the truth of the one body.
But then they said to those of us that were there, now let's see, Bill, you're from Canada and you're from the United States and you're from the western United States, and one brother was from another country, not even in North America.
How do you 4 all get to know each other anyway?
And to them, it was a tremendous revelation to realize that.
The body of Christ didn't just comprise believers within a certain locality, or believers within a certain country or a certain culture, but rather it was universal. Well, I'm happy to say that that precious truth had its result in those that heard it, and they began to absorb that.
But then it says, as we've been mentioning, drink into one spirit.
What does that mean?
I don't pretend to be able to explain it fully, I think Bob put a very good construction on it, but could we suggest this thought?
It is not merely that the Spirit of God has formed us into one body. In one sense, we could say God has done that. That's his work.
But he's made us to drink into one spirit.
Could we suggest that that means if we're members of one body, God intends us to act like it?
I remember well, some years ago, quite a few years ago now, there was a brother who had been raised among those gathered to the Lord's name, and he had left.
And I had a good chat with him, I knew him quite well.
And after a while, he kind of closed the conversation by saying, Oh well, Bill, anyway, we can thank God for a unity of the body that we can't break anyway.
Was that true? As Bob has been saying, indeed it's true.
But could he shrug off his responsibility merely by saying, well, I'm thankful I'm still a member of the body, and so are you? No, as Ephesians 4 tells us, there's one body and one spirit. 1 body means that we all belong and are part of that same body with Christ as the head. But the Spirit forms us into that body. We drink into one spirit in order that we might live and move and act.
Together, as members of that body. And that's what this chapter brings before.
The 15th chapter.
Verse 44, we read there's a spiritual body and a natural body. There's a natural body and there's a spiritual body.
Now we all know, uh, and specially those who are employed in the medical field, you can't take any member out of a natural body and put it by itself and make it operate or make it function. It's impossible.
Well, the same, I believe, is true to the spiritual body.
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How can you make? How can we function when we are?
I divided or somebody goes by himself and starts something new again and says he is part of the body. I can't understand people that leave the assembly.
Gathered to the Lord Jesus, knowing that we all embody and they can go someplace else and then function there.
Suppose I.
In Chicago there's hundreds of them, Hundreds of so-called churches. Churches.
Now I would leave the meeting and go to one of those. Could I function there?
And then go the next one. Could I function there? I couldn't function in any of them.
It would be impossible. I would throw up my hands and say it's all lost. They are all divided, they are all different.
But knowing that.
As much as we can't leave.
The natural body.
Cannot leave the spiritual body either and function.
We have quoted several times, and Bill just did Ephesians 44. But it might be helpful to go there for a moment in connection with our responsibility and what ought to exercise our souls. Ephesians chapter 4, and I'll begin reading at verse one. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation, wherewith ye are called with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering.
Forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit, as Mr. Darbys translation says, in the uniting bond of peace. And then he says there is one body and one spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling. And so as we've been saying, as far as the unity of the body that's in the hand of God, nothing can can not touch that. Thank God the responsibility.
Of the keeping of the unity of the body was not committed to man, because everything man does, everything that has been committed to man, he fails in some way. But there is a responsibility placed upon the members of the body of Christ, and that is that we are to endeavor or give diligence to keep the unity, not of the body, but the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace.
You know, when you're LED of the Spirit and I'm LED of the Spirit, there's going to be unity and peace.
And if you, if you're walking in the Spirit, I'm walking in the Spirit, that is going to be the result. The trouble is, so often we don't walk in the Spirit, We're not following the Lord in the way that we ought to. And it leads some often to sadly to divisions, to differences, to not being able to go on and fellowship or full fellowship with other members of the body of Christ.
But I thought of it when Bill was speaking about drinking in one's spirit into one's spirit, if there isn't a connection here.
With endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and maybe someone else can make some comments and develop the thought. What do you think, Bill?
Well I guess the way I have enjoyed it, and I'd like to hear others comments too, but it seems to me that the way the word of God presents it is that yes, we are all members of one body, but.
You and I are to, and again, I prefer the Darby translation of Ephesians 4, Ephesians four and three, using diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace.
Sometimes we hear the expression that we can break the unity of the Spirit. I well remember using that expression in an address at least 30 years ago and being corrected by a brother my own age who said to me afterward, Bill, where do you read that in the Word of God? And I had to admit that I didn't. And he was totally right. We no more break the unity of the Spirit than we break the unity of the body.
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The unity of the Spirit is there. That is, the Spirit leads.
If he's given the opportunity.
To how shall we word it lead every believer.
Into the full truth of God, according to the word of God. He's there to do that.
What am I doing to allow that unity practically to be manifested? I am to use diligence to keep that unity in the uniting bond of peace.
We don't want to belabor the point, but.
Let me use an example.
There are some parts of the world where things are done a little differently in meetings.
Sometimes I've been in assemblies where when someone prays, everyone stands up. Everyone.
You can imagine what it's like in a prayer meeting. Nobody goes to sleep.
We don't do that here.
And we could get into a squabble about it. The scripture say that we have to stand up or sit down or something.
Or kneel down.
The Scripture doesn't make instructions that extreme, does it? And so there's the opportunity to use diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We have been raised in different backgrounds, in some cases different cultures.
Different thoughts about things, different temperaments, different characters, and I believe God has allowed that. But what he has done is in many cases taken the most dissimilar group of people out of every different walk of life, put them together in the church and said, now I'm going to give you.
As it were the Spirit of God to enable you all to rise right above all of that and walk in peace and harmony together. First of all, for my glory.
And then for the edification and blessing of the Church and the preaching of the Gospel.
Is that the thought? And to do that, Yes. And to do that there needs to be then with us the spirit of loneliness, meekness.
Long-suffering and forbearing one another in love. I'm reading the second verse of the 4th chapter of Ephesians that comes before the exhortation, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit. And it takes that, doesn't it? And if I can put it very practically, you know, when we sit down at the Lord's table to remember the Lord Jesus in the breaking of bread, we practically express the truth of the one body in the breaking of bread.
And that brings us into a relationship. One with another causes us to rub shoulders, if I can put it that way. One with another in a way, in a relationship that's closer than any other relationship on earth outside of the family tie. I, I trust this won't offend anybody, but just to make my point, you can go to another fellowship and you can sit on a chair or a bench and you hardly know the person.
A few rows behind you. Never mind the person in a distant city who's in that same fellowship.
But as we've been saying, they'll use the illustration of the brothers that were together from different.
Countries in different parts of the continent, it brings us into a relationship that's very close.
But having said that, brethren, if love and forbearance and meekness and lowliness aren't exercised, if the 13th chapter of First Corinthians, the oil that we spoke of yesterday.
Isn't flowing the machinery's going to seize up? Why is it so? Often things great and difficulties arise because we are brought into that closeness of relationship, because we sit down and break bread and seek by the grace of God to express in a practical way the truth of the one body at the Lord's table. And so it takes the constant exercise of soul.
That there would be that meekness and lowliness and grace. And those of us who have the privilege of traveling to other cultures and countries, you don't go in and seek to change them. When we've had our conference in, uh, in France and our European and British brethren are there when we, when there's a, when there's prayer, we all stand up together. We're, we're there in Europe, we're in fellowship with our brethren in Belgium, uh, and breaking a Brown Lord's day, The routine is just slightly different.
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It with loneliness and grace. We trust, we uh.
We go on with with our brethren, with our brethren there, and sometimes it takes.
Real humility and grace to go on. That's that's a very easy situation that Bill has mentioned that I have met. But there are other things that take that real exercise and sometimes out that long-suffering has to be in place. But it is important not that we ever want to compromise principles rather and far, far be the thought we never want to compromise principles or truth.
But we need to exercise that proper spirit that we might go on together.
The spirit is something that we keep or else if I act in the flesh, I do not keep. But like you said, Brother Bill, we don't break it. I myself was corrected on that matter one time and it's a it's a beautiful reality. Either I act in the unity of the spirit or I do not act in the unity of the spirit. And so we're.
Exhorted to keep that unity in the bond of peace, but to go on, brethren, in our verses here, because our time is advancing. Verse 14. The body is not one member, but many.
So we go to the truth of the fact that the body of Christ is formed by many different members. Not one member is like another. And so if the foot shall say, because I am not the hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?
The foot is kind of a lowly member in the in the body. The hand is the prominent member, always active doing things and perhaps the foot would say, well, I don't have that position. Maybe I'm not important brethren, let's be delivered from this spirit of self occupation. It leads either to.
A. As in these verses. A uh.
A, umm, complex of thinking bad about ourselves, or as it is later on, a complex of thinking highly, more highly of ourselves. Either extreme is wrong. We need to be occupied as our union with the Lord Jesus. What a wonderful thing. We're united intimately to a man, a real man, in the glory of God.
And it is in the measure that we are sensitive as to His presence there in glory, and responsive and obedient to His direction that we can go on together. And so the body is not one member, but many.
Oh, the wonderful truth of it, brethren, the members of the body of Christ to meet in that simplicity as members of the body of Christ. And I'd just like to say that.
When we speak, uh, being gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus on the ground of the one body, this is what we're talking about now. There is one body and each believer in the Lord Jesus is a member of that one body, and so it's acting together.
In recognition of this precious truth.
This is jumping ahead, but I there's a summary verse that for this section that we're getting into, and that's in verse 7, and it also ties in with Ephesians.
Verse 27.
I think it should go, and I certainly be well to be correct on this, but I think this is the thought that now you are the body of Christ and you are part of the members.
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And to remember, too, that, as it says in our chapter, he's placed the members in the body not as it hath pleased us, but as it hath pleased him. When we realize how precious those members each member is to him, and that he has placed that member in the body because it has pleased him, I believe it adjusts our perspective and our interactions with one another.
And again, let's bring it down to.
The local assembly, you know, you go home and you say, well, it's not quite the company I choose to be, I'd be to be associated with. In fact, you look around today, I look around and most of you, if not all of you in this room, I would never have known if the Lord hadn't saved me and the Lord hadn't saved you. That's what has brought us together. We're from all different backgrounds, all different bends to our nature.
We're from all different parts of the continent and even the world and what is it that's brought us together? He's placed us in the body as it has pleased him and not only that, but by his grace and it's only his grace. We've been gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We've been brought to the place where we believe this truth is expressed as Bob has has just brought brought out. But as you look around when you go home on.
Our next Lord's Day, or whatever meeting night you have for reading and prayer.
And you look around and you see those that are there. Remember, the Lord doesn't let us choose our company. He chooses for us. I know it's a little different, but I often think of Gideon, you know, when Gideon went out to fight, the men that were associated in fellowship with Gideon to win the battle. I don't think we're necessarily men that Gideon would have chose if he had had a choice. But the Lord said to Gideon, whom I say shall go with thee, shall go with thee.
And whom I say shall not go with thee, shall not go with thee. The Lord chose Gideon's army.
He, if I can put it this way, he placed the soldiers in the army as it pleased him, not as it pleased Gideon.
And Gideon had no choice but to go out and associate with those men. And when he did, there was a great victory in Israel.
And so to remember, brethren, that He has saved each one and placed them in the body according to His perfect love and wisdom. He's gathered different ones to His name by His grace, and we need to see it from see it and see them from His perspective. And that then, I believe, helps us to function as members of the body for the health and edification of the body.
I'd like to make a comment on First Peter chapter 4.
Verse 10.
First Peter 4 and 10.
As every man has received the gift, Even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praised and dominion forever and ever. Amen. I was enjoying the thoughts and just suggesting this thought and connection with that expression in the 13th verse of First Corinthians 12 as to the baptism of the Spirit and of drinking into one Spirit.
Now we have a picture there, I believe in the expressions that are used of water.
And uh, it is on certain verses where the Spirit of God is compared to water.
And on the day of Pentecost, the house was filled, and so were all those that were in the house that were filled. On the other occasions in the Acts, the house was not filled, just the individuals that were filled by the same Spirit. So we've been made to drink of the same Spirit. We read in Ephesians chapter 5 it says be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. And I'd like to make think that in parallel, what we have here, the ability to minister, to speak at the oracles of God, to serve with the strength that God gives.
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I believe we won't be able to do that if we're filled by the Spirit of God. The Lord. Jesus says in John seven that rivers of living water were to flow from the bellies of those that would have His Spirit, not just from their minds, but from the deep affections of their souls for the Lord and for their brethren. That we would minister to one another with a heart of love from the heart of the Lord by the Spirit.
Each one has his, uh, God-given place in the body and, uh, a different work to do. I often think of the sons of Aaron, the Kohites and the Marathi Maraites and the, uh, Gershonites. They each had a, uh, special, uh, place to fulfill in the work of the Tabernacle they were appointed by.
Aaron to that service or to that burden, and they fulfilled it. It might not have been.
Very prominent in the eyes of their brethren. Some of them were only carrying a few pins, but they were doing the work which, uh, God had given them to do through Aaron and they could be happy in it. I think. But referred to yesterday that that we can, uh, better turn to the verse in Galatians chapter, uh, six. But every man prove his own.
Better terms of the verse and Galatians.
6.
Let every verse four, let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another, For every man shall bear his own burden. So there it shows that.
We each one have a place to fulfill in the body of Christ. Different to someone else, there are different gifts and uh.
If the Lord hasn't given us a gift to to perform a certain function and let us be satisfied with what He has given to us.
I was thinking also where it speaks there in the verse that our brother Bruce referred to, uh, verse 27. Now ye are the body of Christ or body of Christ.
Uh, and members in particular, it doesn't mean that, uh, the Corinthians, of course, were the only, uh, expression of the body of Christ. They were an expression of the body, but they weren't the total body, uh, on the earth at that time. They were members. By the way, you, you don't have members of an assembly in the scriptures. You have members of the body. You don't have members of the, a church or anything of that sort in the Scripture. I was thinking of the illustration, you know, in.
Canada, we have a very, uh, famous, uh, military force, uh, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, well known all over the world. Well, there's the detachments in Ottawa and there's detachments in Regina and other parts of the country. Now in, uh, a commander might say, now remember, you are Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He's speaking to the, uh, the force in Canada, in Ottawa.
Well, that's not the whole force.
There are other detachments throughout the country, but you are Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Umm, doesn't mean they were the whole detachment and everyone would understand that. So we are the body of Christ. We are the representative locally of the complete body of Christ. Now that might be helpful. Another thing we might mention is don't introduce into the assembly anything which would hinder the, uh, the operation of the Spirit of God in the meeting.
That would bring discord. That's our responsibility, is it not?
Versus the differences in the members of the body and we are different brethren. Nobody is like another. Sometimes we see things a little bit differently. Notice in verse 17, I've enjoyed this verse. You have three different members mentioned there. You have the eye, you have the hearing, you have the smelling. Remember a brother commenting on that in South American one of the conferences, he said.
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There's things that are very evident and openly you can see it. There's other things you don't see, but you have another member and you hear it. And then there's things you don't see and you don't hear, but there's another member of the smelling that tells you something's not right. And so we need to be careful to not despise any of the members, but seek to operate together.
Remember in South America we were in a particular assembly down there and there was a brother that seemed to always.
Being a little bit at odds with me and I was talking to him one day and I said, brother, I say we have some differences. It's evident.
But you know what?
I didn't choose you to be a member of the body of Christ, and you didn't choose me to be in the body of Christ. Somebody else chose us both and put us in the same body. Now we gotta figure out how to get along, and that's what we have to do. Brother, we're one body. Don't think just because you have those differences, I'm gonna separate and go off my own way. That's not of God.
Let's seek to strive together and there are differences. I I'd like to suggest something that I think is.
Very helpful. It's been very helpful to me and Philippians Chapter 3 in connection with those differences that we have sometimes as members of the body, how we're going to handle them. Let's not let these things be an occasion of the enemy to pull us apart, brethren.
Notice in chapter 3 of Philippians verse 15. Let us therefore as many as be perfect, you're full grown. Be thus minded, and if any in anything ye be otherwise minded.
God shall reveal even this unto you. So it's not agreeing to disagree, it's not agreeing to agree, it's waiting on God to give us.
Like mindedness, may the Lord help us brethren. And just simply, if there is differences, well, what are we gonna do about it? God shall reveal even this unto you. Sometimes it's a matter of grow spiritual grow. Times a brother doesn't understand a thing, we're gonna force it. No, we don't have to force it. It's by the Spirit of God that we are brought into the truth of God.
So as we wait on the Lord, He is able to reveal even this unto you.
Verse 18. It's already been common on, but to add a little to it.
God has set the members, every one of them, in the body as it hath pleased him.
As it had pleased him.
A lot of this reading meeting and every time we talk about anything, it's where I fit in.
And that's important to us. And we wanna fit in, and if we're a nose, we wanna smell, and we're and we wanna do what the hand does, and so on. And we'd like to know what we are, and we'd like to do it, and so on. But, brethren, it's good to get away from ourselves once in a while. God designed the body for His own pleasure.
Imagine, by contrast, if we were allowed to set up a committee to design it and we were allowed, or we had to go to everybody and say, what do you want to be?
Can you imagine what the body would look like if everyone in this room was given their choice as to what they'd like to be in the hall?
You probably wouldn't wanna be a part of it, but God has formed something for his own pleasure, and He has done it. Look at the human body. It was formed according to God's own choices, and it couldn't be better. He could have designed it so that it didn't enjoy color or taste or smell, but he had. God likes variety.
With unity, he likes both. God is one, and yet it's his own pleasure.
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To have created a universe that has a variety to it and still maintain a common unity connected with it. So God decided when He created us, He'd give us eyes and then He'd give us something to look at that had variety in it. He decided when He gonna provide food for us to give us a variety, and then He gave us a capacity to enjoy it. But when it's the church.
It's especially for his own pleasure.
He made us in a way that we can enjoy, but when it's the body of Christ, it's that for His own pleasure as it pleased Him, and He has so designed it that it will fulfill that pleasure of which He has, if I can accept that.
What difference does it make what I am? I don't have to worry about it. I don't have to be preoccupied with whether I'm a toe or whether I'm a muscle or whether I'm a tooth. It doesn't really matter if he gets his pleasure out of that which he has designed. And so it is for us to not say, well, I'm not a tooth or I'm not a this or I'm not a that, so I don't matter.
No, God is so designed it to create an interdependence upon the members of it, and that's his own pleasure, that he wants us to be interdependent and not sufficient in ourselves. If we have the choice of design, I can just imagine we design a whole bunch of parts which were pretty self-sufficient. Just in case you didn't operate very good, I'm still gonna be kind of self-sufficient. I'll be able to operate, OK.
But not God, He has so designed it that only only by His operation can all the parts work together, and without the parts the members, then it isn't going to function to His pleasure. One other thing I'd like to mention and connections goes beyond this chapter. But I enjoyed it in my own soul. In this reading, there's wonderful diversity.
But when you come to God.
The the Lord and the Spirit. There's something of unity connected with each one that is also manifested in the body that is so wonderful to maintain its unity in its diversity. The 1St is in first John four. God is the sole source of love.
And the love of God is.
Shed abroad into the hearts of the members of the body. But there's only one source of it, and it provides a common love, the source of which is God. And you can't generate it in any other way. You can't generate it within yourself. The body has only one power, which is of God, and it's the Spirit We're all made to drink of 1 spirit.
And so there is no other pot, there is no other power to make it work except the one source of it. And in not in the sense of the Lord. There's only one life in the body.
You know, I have a lot. I have a body, but it only has one life. It's not a whole bunch of lives going on my hand and my heart and all the rest of it can't. Nothing can exist without the rest. It's just one life.
Represented in it wonderful thing in the body of Christ. When Colossians teaches us that Christ is our life, there is no other. The life of the body has just won its Christ in you.
And so we have all been mar made to partake of 1 spirit. We have all also been made to partake in one life. And consequently, when the body is working as it should, it only has one life. It's not a whole bunch of members, each with their own life, each with their own agenda, each with their own anything in the true sense of this, the the way the Word of God presents it to us, we're part of one body, one person.
Which has one life, Let's enjoy it and let's not try to live separate from it.
Three different bodies that are spoken of.
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There's one body spoken of in First Corinthians chapter 6. It's know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have of God, and you are not your own, for ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body. And we see there that we have an ownership, one that has bought us and paid for us, and He owns this body. When you go to 1St Thessalonians 4 and four.
You read the words that everyone of you should know how to possess His vessel in sanctification and honor. We're sitting here possessing this vessel, this body, but it's owned by him. When we got to this passage that we're in now, we're Speaking of the one body.
Uh, the true church, God's church, the body of Christ. And we have read that it has pleased him the way that he's positioned us in it there. The third body is found in First Corinthians 15. We've been there before and it is Speaking of the spiritual body if you read verse 38. But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him.
So we see two out of the three there. It says that as it has pleased Him, we're also going to receive an eternal body, spiritual body. That'll be one that has pleased Him. Isn't it the problems that people get into? And you can almost read verse 18 before you start on the passage in verse 12. And it helps you to understand it, that if He's placed us in the body as it has pleased Him, therefore it should please us where we're positioned at.
And the problems they get into is that we think.
That the gifts back in the passages before that there may be some more honorable than other gifts. Those those gifts, singular or gift plural, were bestowed by 1 Spirit.
And that one spirit bestowed him, and there is nothing more honorable than any other gift.
They're all equal. They have diversities, yes, but they're all equal.
And the Lord lets the Holy Spirit give them out. God energizes those gifts. So when we get over here to this passage here, if we're happy.
Understanding and pleased within ourselves that God is pleased where He has placed us that that that's the key to it. Then I'm comfortable.
I'm happy he's using me. He's filled me well. He's taken what he's given me for a gift.
And he's and we've read according to your ability back in First Peter, haven't we? And we're all different. We hear that. But it's beautiful to know that the Lord has placed me where He wants me.
You see, and, and it, it's the same with that body that I'm going to receive later on. It, it pleases him. That body I don't know nothing about a spiritual body is going to be able to live outside of this Earth's atmosphere. But he's given this body right here, every breath and every life within my blood, this physical body. But over here I'm placed in his church, singular, his church, the true church.
We're not talking about local churches here, are we?
We're talking about God's church. He's placed us there. And when we understand that, then it's it's OK. If I'm this little piece of skin that is attached up here between the hair and the ear, that's fine. So be it. That's where God wanted to place me. Now I can go on.
For fulfilling that place, as you mentioned there, it may be a very insignificant.
Work that the Lord has appointed for us to do in the background, behind the scenes, so to speak. The sisters, many of them.
Fulfill their place in the body in a very uh.
You might say.
Insignificant, non, non public way, but they fulfill that service. It's like the Apostle Paul could say that I might finish my course with joy and the ministry which the Lord has given me. So if we do that little service, uh, in the body of Christ that, uh, the Lord has given us to do, uh, there will be a reward for that in that coming day.
The Lord will not forget any uh.
Even a cup of cold water given in His name. And if we perform that little service for the Lord, there surely will be a reward. Not that it is the motive, but certainly it is an incentive to, uh, to press on in the path of faith and faithfulness.
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Have you, John? You've never seen your heart, Have you? Don't want to either.
But it's a pretty necessary member, isn't it?
Very necessary, and sometimes our sisters may think that they're not that important. Sisters, you are just as important as any brother in your place.
And verse 21 has the other, we want to touch on it, the extreme that we can get to we had in verse, uh.
15 and 16, the inferiority complex. And we have in verse 21 The superiority complex. The eye cannot stand to the hand, I have no need of thee, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.
Nay, much more of those members of the body which seem to be more feeble.
Are necessary. Let's bear with one another, brethren, let's go on together. This is the truth that we have been called in one body.
Thankfully we need each one of our the members of the body so the eye cannot say to the hand, I don't have any need of you.
Verse 25 Our time is going.
Anybody in the medical field will tell you the body is also healing. We can help it heal.
But our bodies heal by themselves, don't they? So we speak of unity and function. And here we have in a 25th verse that should be nose kism in the body. So there should be unity and it says but that the members should have the same care.
One for another.
That we would be healers of one another.
Concern for one another.
This is the expression of the care of 1 member for the other, the member the head.
Cares for all the members and I believe if he would have free course in our hearts we would be caring more for each other too. Any measure that we are led to have contact with believers that perhaps do not meet with us brother and we should at the same time have a care for them. That's the truth of the body of Christ.
One member suffer, all members suffer with it. A lot of our brethren in countries that are Muslim, countries that are suffering severely, are we interested rather than them? Are we praying for them? Are we doing what we can to help them in their sufferings? I think we can be exercised in a practical way to say to the Lord, what can I do to be a help to those fellow members of the body of Christ?
Wherever we meet them, brethren, whatever measure we can, we're not talking about walking in fellowship together, but to do what we can to be a blessing to them. And the measure that we can. Let's not miss out too on, on the members that are in the chairs beside us and in the little meetings where we go, the ones that the Lord has placed in our environment to be really concerned about those two. Mm-hmm.
So we've spoken a great deal about the body of Christ. We've used the expression the Church of God and so on. I think it's helpful to realize that when we speak of the body of Christ.
It's one way in which the Church of God or one aspect or context in which the Church of God is brought before us. There are various ways that the Church of God is brought before us, but when it's the the body.
It's the function of the members here on earth. Now, when there's a loaf on the table tomorrow, that loaf will represent to God. And I trust to our hearts as well, every believer alive on the face of the earth as a member, functioning member of the body of Christ at that moment, if I can put it this way, my parents who have been with the Lord for some time.
And who functioned as members of the body of Christ on earth? They're beyond that now.
Now they will be part of the Church in a coming day in the aspect of the bride of Christ.
The Lamb's wife, the church described as a city in her millennial administrative function in reigning over the earth with Christ in the coming day. And so I think it's helpful to see that the church is taken up in different contexts and different aspects. Sometimes it's every believer from the day of Pentecost when the church was formed, until its completion at the rapture. Sometimes it's a local aspect, the church, which is in my house.
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And that aspect of things, the local expression of it, and sometimes as in connection with the body, it's every member alive on the face of the earth at that one given time. And it ought to again exercise us to realize that it's not just a few that are here. It's not just those who are in fellowship with around the world this afternoon, but it is every believer alive on the face of the earth at this moment is a.
Member of the body of Christ, a functioning member, and it ought to exercise us to function in the proper way for His glory and for the edification of the other members.
No longer in the body.
Now, as members of the body, they'll be part of the Church of God in its completion in that day.
We sing 330.
330.
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Perhaps just two verses.
Acts Chapter 20.
Verse 30.
Or 29.
Acts 20 and verse 29.
For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you.
Not sparing the flock.
Also of your own self shall men arise, speaking perverse things.
To draw away disciples after them.
Therefore what?
And remember.
So we pray.