Address—Dn. Spence
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30.
What raised the wonders thought or who did it suggest that we the church to glory brush and with the sun be blessed? Oh God, the thought was thine, thine only it could be fruit of the wisdom love, the thine peculiar unto thee #330.
The way.
I'm going to talk a little bit tonight about the Body of Christ.
In First Corinthians.
Chapter 12.
First Corinthians chapter 12.
And verse 12.
00:05:05
We'll just read a few verses and comment on it. We're going to draw a few pictures. I bring my board along so in case there's some children will draw some pictures. First Corinthians, chapter 12 and verse 12.
Or as the body is 1.
And have many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body. So also it is Christ. For by 1 Spirit we are 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.
We notice in these verses that we as believers.
Under the shelter of the blood of Christ, and I hope everyone tonight is there, We as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have not just been given a birthright to heaven, but we have been made members of the body of Christ.
I don't believe that there is any closer relationship on the face of the earth or anywhere that we could ever experience than to be a member of the body of Christ.
I have some relatives and some of them are here tonight and in many ways I feel closer to them and because they not only have spiritual ties but blood ties.
But you know, there is nothing that is closer to me than my own body.
Everything, every sickness, every good feeling I experienced here in my body is a part of me. And when the Lord Jesus went to Calvary Cross, he went there with the purpose in mind. Not only of rescuing us from a last eternity and making us a part of that heavenly sea forever, but he went there with the purpose of making us members of His body.
There is no closer relationship with Christ and that no other people on the face of the earth who have ever lived have experienced the closeness that we, the Church of God, have right now. And if we don't feel close to the Lord, it's not because it's His fault. There may be some problems with us. He has made us members of that one body.
Now the human body is an extremely complex device.
I'm not really familiar with a lot of the functions of the body, but if you just talk about the eye, we'll be talking about the eye tonight. The eye is an extremely interesting device. The eye is capable of focusing. It has an automatic focus device on it. So when I look out there in the audience and I look from the front row to the back row.
My eye automatically focuses.
I didn't train it to focus. It has an automatic focus device on it and what it is doing is trying to focus the image that I am looking at on a screen on the back of my eye called the retina so that that image will not be fuzzy.
In the back of my resident.
Now that I has this screen back there that is so complex because it is not just a screen. Like let's say we were to take this wall and focus an image on it through a projector. It's not just that, but it is thousands and millions of little nerve endings that are capable of converting light and darkness into electronic signals and these electronic signals.
Go down a a bundle of nerve fibers called the optic nerve, and they go into the center of the brain and there they are stored in a certain location that your brain interprets as sight.
Fantastic thing. The human mind doesn't even understand exactly how all of that works.
But it stores it there, and many of you can have. You have images that are stored in your mind from your childhood. Sometimes you'll dream about them and they will come back. They're coming back out of a memory that has stored those, those.
Images there in your mind.
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Also the if we were to talk about the ear, the ear is a device that is just sitting there and sound waves are coming through your ear and inside your ear there's a little drum and and the drum begins to vibrate and it transfers that vibration to three little bones in the middle ear. And these bones transmit the vibration 1 to the other right down the line until it comes to.
A device called the cochlea. It always makes me a little nervous talking about these things when I see somebody who's a nurse in the audience. But this cochlea is, is a thing that looks like a snail shell and it has little fine hairs that are sticking out there and it has some liquid in it. And when these these vibrations come in there, some of these hairs inside this cochlea have, they have a resonant frequency in which they begin to vibrate and send a signal down to the brain saying.
Its middle scene.
This is a fantastic thing. And if we were to talk about the nose, we would get into things that that they, they don't even understand fully how the nose, how smell and so on operate and all through the body. They're just they're just interesting and intricate functions. There in your lungs as you're breathing air in and out, there's a tremendous exchange going on of carbon dioxide and oxygen. Those of you who've had dinner tonight have.
A process of digestion going on. And that food is being broken down, right down into the elements so it can route into your bloodstream and give your body some energy. So that the human body is an extremely interesting and very complex device. And so it is with the body of Christ. The body of Christ has many members. It has those functions that are open to sight. It has those functions that are never seen.
It has things that are going on that are vital to the body, like the beating of the heart, like the breathing of air, like the digestion of food. It has all of those things going on so that the body can function properly.
It is sight, it is hearing, it is vision, it is smell. And all of those things in a spiritual way, and those functions are part of the body of Christ. So not only did he bring us into oneness with himself, but he gave us a function in the body.
Now it says that by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body.
Picture here Run Reese gave a little illustration that I enjoyed, and maybe I can. Maybe I can illustrate it for the kids anyway.
I'm going to draw a picture of a glass and this glass is going to have some water.
OK.
There's a picture of a glass with some water, and this glass of water is 1 body. It is one glass. Now what we're going to do is we're going to put in this glass of water a pencil. In fact, we will put a whole bunch of pencils in this.
Glass of water. Let's suppose that there's 12 Pencils in there and now we're we're, we're going to, we're going to liken this to baptism.
You, many of you in the room tonight have been baptized. I still remember my baptism. I was 11 years old, and some will remember Al Larson spoke at my baptism. He put me under, put me under the water. Well, if we were to look at Acts chapter two, we would notice in Acts chapter 2 That there were a group of people, and I'm supposed to say 12 here. There were more than that, but there were a group of people together on a day called Pentecost.
And those people on this particular day were meeting in a place, and all of a sudden there was a sound like rushing wind. And that sound was the presence of God's Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead, coming not only to indwell them, live inside them, but coming to bind them together into one body and on that particular day, those.
12 apostles let's say.
Were baptized into that one body.
Now here we are almost 2000 years later, and here we we read a verse like this, for by 1 Spirit we are all baptized into one body. That word baptized means immersed.
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So here they were at pinnacles immersed into one body. They were immersed by the Holy Spirit. The water was really the Holy Spirit. But here we are 2000 years later and we got saved. And when we were saved we were indwelt by the Holy Spirit and at the same time we were brought in there and we were baptized or or immersed into that one body. Notice the the way it says. I mean it makes it so plain. For by 1 spirit we are all baptized into one body.
All of us here were the Corinthians. They were, they were not there in Pentecost, and yet they were baptized. They had people at Corinth that weren't going on well. There's some people that say, well, you know, you've got to reach a certain level of spirituality, and then you will, you'll, you'll experience this baptism. But Paul says that you, you were all baptized into one body. He doesn't say now, just the spiritual ones of you have made it. He doesn't say that.
But he says that you have all been baptized into one body, so no matter how old you are here tonight.
No matter how young you are, no matter how much knowledge you have, no matter whether you're walking with the Lord or not, if you've been redeemed with the blood of Christ, you have been immersed in that spirit, and you have been brought into that relationship of one body. You're baptized, you know. So if someone asks you at school, say, have you been baptized by the Holy Spirit, what can you say? What would you say? Yes.
I have been baptized by the Holy Spirit. I've seen so many people among us. I I go around and I ask questions. Sometimes I say, have you been baptized by the Holy Spirit? And there's a little hesitation. There doesn't need to be a hesitation. If you're really safe, you can say I have been baptized by the Holy Spirit. And the effect of that Holy Spirit is to bring us into that one bite, to bind us together in that one body. So what we'll do is we'll draw a little picture here of one body.
And you will notice.
One of my gifts is not artistry.
But here is a body in this body if it's just a body.
That body doesn't do anything. It doesn't function properly. You know, you hear people talk about coordination, you know, and when people are not coordinated, sometimes 1 foot tries to go in One Direction and one foot tries to go in the other direction. But this to give this body coordination there is.
A very interesting, very intricate bundle of nerve fibers that are running all the way out to the tips of the fingers and down to the legs and things like that. And they have little nerve fibers on them. They go everywhere. And that's what binds this body together, makes it function as as one body and gives it feeling and things like that. All of you have those, those nerve fibers in your body.
And.
The and because of that the body becomes one unit. OK, that's what I think is the function of the Holy Spirit. It says by 1 Spirit we are all baptized in into one body. And we notice down in verse 26 and we'll talk about this later. Whether one member suffer, all members suffer with it, that is. That is the Holy Spirit's connection to all members of this body. That gives it feeling.
For the rest of the body.
That gives it coordination. That makes it one, that makes it operate at one as one, And all of that. So that's one of the functions of the Holy Spirit, to bind it together and to connect it to a risen Christ in heaven, and from which all of that direction comes. So it was really the Holy Spirit's function to connect this to Christ and glory. And we read in Romans chapter 8 that the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. That is, you may not know exactly how to pray about an issue.
But when you get down on your knees and you pray the Holy Spirit addresses the throne of God with the right words. He addresses the throne of God with the right thought so that we can be encouraged if we don't feel that we know exactly how to say it or the right words, that the message is getting through to God up there in heaven. OK, now let's go a little bit further.
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In verse 14, for the body is not one member, but many.
Skip 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 in time, where were the hearings? If the full were hearings, where were the smelling? But now that God has got set the members, every one of them in the body, as it has pleased him? And if they were all one member, where were the Bible?
Now we will notice in this passage what we might call a little bit of an inferiority complex in the body. That is, the foot is saying to the hand, because I am not the hand, I am not important, I am not of the body. Now the foot is at.
Could you say the farthest point away from the head, but it is still the bottom and the foot takes it a lot. It gets walked on, it gets stepped on, and but yet it has a function to carry the body around. And you can see how the foot can take a lot of abuse and it looks up there at the hand. And the hand is a very, very fascinating device because the hand can take something and it can write a letter or it can paint a picture or it can sit down and play the piano.
Can play a trumpet.
The hand can do many things and so the foot is taking all of this abuse, bearing all the weight of the body and it looks up at the hand and says I wish I were more like you. I really don't like what I'm doing and I would rather be in hand. I can get up a little closer to the rest of the body.
That's what we might call an inferiority complex. And here is the ear in this ear is sitting there on the side of the head, and it's feeling rather inferior because it just sits there. And if we could speak in this kind of language, it looks around at the eye and there is the eye.
Now, I don't know. You married couples, how long it's been since you looked into one another's eyes. But if you look.
There, occasionally you will see the most beautiful part of the body. God has designed the eye, and He has designed it with all kinds of beauty. You know, You remember those days when you just used to enjoy looking into somebody'd eyes. And because the eyes not only have a physical beauty, but they convey a plot, you know you can. They convey feeling in the eyes, and the eyes are capable of movement. They're capable of focusing.
And here is the ear sitting there, not doing a thing, not even moving. Maybe some people can move their ears, but normally the ear just sits there. And here is the air looking around at the eye. And it's saying, I wish I were like you. I wish I could do your functions. And so it often happens in the body of Christ that.
Part of the body may feel a little inferior, and it may feel like it would rather be something else.
Another part of the body.
Wonder if you have ever thought about being a member of the Body of Christ.
Never thought if I were to go down the road here and ask you what member of the body of Christ are you, would you be able to liken it to a certain, could we say physical function in the body?
I remember when I was little and grew up on one of your Iowa farms and was rather shy, didn't have a whole lot of company. My dad used company as a threat to the farm work, kind of. He said you don't get enough done when there's company around. So we didn't have a whole lot of company and I was shy. And when I went down to Des Moines and was among groups of young people.
I was shy. I didn't know what to say.
And they would stand around having a good time talking with each other. And I felt uncomfortable in that group. And so I would go over and sit on the side somewhere. Pretty soon, somebody else would come over and they'd sit by me.
And I didn't know what to say. So I would sit there and pretty soon they would start talking.
And I would just listen to them, and I would listen and listen. And the more I listened, the more I learned. And after a while, I began to do what I've come to call active listening. I would ask a question and probe a little deeper. And after a while, it seemed like a lot of people needed somebody to listen to them. So they would come and talk to me. And I didn't know what to say, but I would just listen. So as time went on, I discovered that maybe in the body of Christ, I was in here.
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And it was rather exciting just to make that discovery that you're part of the body of Christ and what part you really are so.
I discovered this and then began to use my life in this way. Well, I was I I spoke on this up at Lassen this summer. If any of you were there, you probably heard this. And you know, when I came back home, we found that in Southern California there was a lot of discouragement.
And so we decided to do some plaques on the ground and gathering, and we've been going through them out there. And we found out that there's a lot of problems that we have that we didn't know about and a lot of truth that we didn't really understand about the fundamental basic of the church.
But one day we were talking on the subject and I told my my class to take out a piece of paper and a pencil. And I said, I want you to write on this piece of paper what function of the body of Christ that you think you are. If you don't know, just say I don't know or whatever. So they thought for a long time. And then they wrote and they passed in the sheet and I got all of these sheets back. You know, they were maybe 35 people in the class.
And out of those 35 people, 1/3 of them said they did not know what they were, 1/3 of them said they were not functioning doing anything, 1/3 of them said that they were hands, and 1/3 of them said that they had some rather unique functions of some kind or another.
So I drew a picture of what this body looked like. 1/3 of it was paralyzed so it hadn't crashed. And on the other side of the This body was about 15 hands down it. It was all hands. There was no backbone in this body, so it was bent over and there was no there was no mouth in the body. None of them said that they were a mouth. One of them said they were a mouth. They used to be a mouth, but they got the scurries.
And so there was number mouth on the body and there was number.
There were no feet on the body and it was just paralyzed. There was no reproduction system in the body so it had it had no capability of reproducing itself. So, so you can see that the body that of this of these young believers has some real problems. It was partly paralyzed. It was it was it was all hands.
Some of it, anyway. And then it has some kind of interesting and unique functions that some of them I'd never heard before, but they were interested. So we found that that we did not really know very well what we really were in the body of Christ. And we felt that rather than blame our older brother for the problems that we were seeing in the assembly, that we needed to first of all discover what place we were in the body of Christ.
I wonder how we would do tonight, you know, if we were to take a little test. I wonder how we would do as to whether we really know what our place in the body of Christ is.
All parts of the body are important and we can see that here we've been talking about some very visible parts, very visible parts, and we can see that there's some feeling between some of the parts that probably shouldn't exist.
OK, a little feeling of inferiority.
Now let's go down a little further and diverse 20 verse 20. But now are they many members yet, but one body.
And the I cannot say unto 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, and those members of the body which we think to be less honorable. Upon these we bestow more abundant honour. And our comely parts have more abundant comeliness, for our humbling. Hearts have no need, but God has tempered the body together.
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Having given more abundance, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked.
OK, we can see that over and over that the Lord Jesus wants to impress upon us that we are one body. And here tonight there are German believers that are a part of that body.
That body consists of every single believer on the face of the earth. There are no favors in the body of Christ. There are none. None at all. We see here in this portion kind of a superiority complex.
That is there, here is the eye and it's looking at the hand and saying, well I'm self-sufficient, I don't need you.
Just saying, I can function all by myself and the functions that I do are totally.
Self-contained. I don't need somebody else.
As superiority complex in the body of Christ, every believer is a member of the body of Christ and every believer is equally precious.
That is, there is no such thing as a remnant of believers within the assembly that is more precious through the heart of Christ. Everyone of them is just the same. There may be a believer out here in the Catholic Church, and that believer is just as important in the body of Christ, just as valuable, just as love, as someone who is here in the assembly gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are no favorites in the body.
Even though they are many members, they are one body. I remember a number of years ago that we used to meet together with a group of engineers on our lunch hour and we had some wonderful times with them. A lot of people got saved through that. They just come in and they sit down and we wouldn't try to pressure them with the gospel, but we would just go ahead and read through the chapter.
And after several months, they would start talking like Christians and the there were three of us from the assembly in Buena Park that were in that Bible study.
And that some of the thoughts and some of the times we had really wonderful and I hadn't seen one of these engineers for about 10 years. I ran into him last year. His name was Dave Peters and he came up and Dave said.
You know, the Bible studies that we used to have over at Rockwell. And I said, yeah, he said, you know, I never have ever heard ministry like we heard in those studies. And he said I have done all over Southern California.
Thoughts that I heard in that Bible study with other Christians, and they were equally excited about them. See here, here is the the assembly. Those in the assembly might be a channel of truth and blessing to others. And you know, I had this one, this one Christian who was in my office and one day I asked him, I said, Bruce, where do you learn the truth of the word of God?
He said from from my pastor, I think I said where else? Well, he said from from the radio, I I listen to the radio quite a bit and I said where else? And he said, well, well, I have some books at home that I studied occasionally and I learned some there and I said where else And he said I think that's it. And I said, Bruce, there's one thing that you forgot. He said what's that?
I said God sent the Holy Spirit down to be a teacher to your soul. I said, have you ever learned anything from him? And he said nothing.
So I said with you could go home some night and just sit down with all the books on the shelf with the radio off and just tune into the Holy Spirit and let him be your teacher for one evening. I said I think he would really enjoy it. So he came in the next day and he said look at this. So he has this sheet of paper and on this sheet of paper is Romans chapter 14 and it is all outlined.
And and he shows this to me and the thoughts were fantastic. And I said, Bruce can I have that outline And he gave the outline to me. And that outline may have shared many things in the assembly in Buena Park. You see it's kind of a two way St. I mean if if he gave me something that wasn't the truth, well I wouldn't share it. But here is the body function. You know someone comes around gives you a little word of encouragement. It built. It helps you out.
00:35:10
Sometimes you may be that one that does that. So the body is something that constantly functions, and the one that ties it together is the Holy Spirit. But here in the body is the possibility of a superiority complex. And what's the body part of the body is saying, I don't need you?
I don't need you, so he says in verse 21. And the eye cannot say In the end I have no need of thee, nor again the heads of the feet. I have no need of you.
Nay, much more of those members of the body would seem to be more feeble are necessary.
And then it goes into the the thought of hidden members of the body. Now I just want to say a little word on feeble members of the body. You know, I have certain feeble functions in my body. For instance, my little finger is rather feeble in comparison to my arm or my leg. But never have I ever felt that my little finger is a worthless member of my body.
So there are certain functions that may be rather weak in the body, but the body is not to look down on those functions now. Likewise, there are certain things in the body that are hidden.
Most of what goes on in the body that that is of real importance is hidden, and those hidden parts of the body I bestow a lot of honor on it.
Now I was over at Marty's for dinner tonight and they're all of this food that's coming by and my eye was functioning as part of the body and it was saying I think my stomach would like that. And so I put some of that on my plate and some of that and she had some of these Pickles called lime Pickles. And I put them on my plate and I tried them out and my mouth tasted them and it said I think I will give some more of those to my stomach. So I all this was coming along.
And I was bestowing abundant honor on some hidden parts of my body.
Now, there are many hidden parts in the body. In the body itself, there's the heart, the very important part of the body. There's the lungs, very important. There's a digestive tract. And some of the hidden parts of the body do not begin to function until a certain age.
Those lands in the body that are just sitting there for a long time.
And all of a sudden in the teenage years, this is a person this the teenage years, those glands could fire up and they begin dumping fluids and hormones and things like that out into the body, into the bloodstream. And I always say, you know, this is the time that parents begin to go to prayer meeting because they can't understand what happened to their family. So all of those functions begin to operate at certain times.
And so it is in the body of Christ. You know, you can have a person who's sitting there and sitting there and sitting there and folks are saying, well, why doesn't something happen? Why doesn't that person start functioning? All of the vital signs look good and everything. It may not be God's time. It may not be time for that, that function of the body to fire up and to begin to function properly. OK, so some of those just sit there. I always, when I look back in my life.
I realized that there were certain problems in my life that exist that existed that may have caused this, but it seemed like all the way through my life until I was 22 years old and there just wasn't a whole lot of functioning going on for the Lord. And all of a sudden, the 22 years of age, there were some functions that suddenly began to happen. So you may be a member of the body of Christ that hasn't started to function yet.
It could be that there is some sin in your life. It could be that you're out in the world. It could be that your focus is not the person of Christ. But if you clear all of those things up, remember that it is the direction from the head that starts that function working. So I don't think the Apostle Paul is saying go out and go into a very, very extended and and kind of a, you know, a.
Frantic race to find out where you are but it's saying be sensitive to any direction that comes from the head of the body. So here are the hidden parts in verse 24 or funding. Parts have no need, but God has tempered your the body together. Have them get having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked.
00:40:21
Now the hidden parts of the body are parts that are very important.
And I realized that in this body of believers here tonight, there are many hidden functions. And oftentimes because our function may not be visible, we may get discouraged and we may not want to function. We may say, well, if I were, if I were visible, I could do something, I would do something in the body, but I'm invisible. But you see, what he's saying here is that those invisible parts of the body.
The invisible parts are the ones that got on it.
Now the visible parts of the body often get their honor visibly. Someone may come up and say that's a nice work that you're doing out there. Birthday thank you for.
Cleaning up the meeting room after we had the all day meeting or whatever. There's certain things that are visible, but there are certain things that are not visible. Much of the real work of Christ goes on invisible, but it is It is not, It is not apparent to the rest of the body of Christ.
I just want to say a little word to you sisters who may carry on some of this work. It could be a correspondence with some soul that is in need and nobody else knows about this. It could be a broken heart. It could be a marriage that is going on the rocks and you carry on this, this work behind the scenes and nobody knows about it. It could be a, it could be a lot of prayer that's going on. You might be able to spend now that your children have grown up, you might be able to spend.
1/2 hour a day in prayer or something like that.
So much of the real work of God goes on invisible, and it is never recognized. It is never honored in the scene. But there's coming a moment when God is going to honor. There's going to be a reward for it, and that reward is going to be very, very great. So if you're doing a work for the Lord.
Well, don't get discouraged if nobody's noticed it. Maybe it's a hidden work that's going on in the body of Christ. Maybe. I've told this story before. I I like this story really well.
There was this brother and I was traveling around a little bit and somebody said to me this brother, and he named him, he said this brother, really, he really doesn't have anything to offer. He really well, he said he's really kind of a worthless member for the body of Christ. That's what the way I interpreted.
What he said, He said he doesn't know anything. He hasn't grown very much. He just doesn't have it. So I stirred that away in my thoughts and one time I was visiting this credit and we were having some gospel meetings in that town. And this brother, this brother came out and he did everything for us. He kept us at his home. He blasted out tracks to all the people in the town.
He carted all the chairs out to the place that we were having the gospel meetings and all of this thing. He worked tirelessly from 6:00 in the morning till 11 at night and day after day, after several days of this work and when we were driving away from this place, one of the brothers I was with, he said I just had a vision of brother so and so and he started to tell me about it and I said don't tell me about it, draw me a picture. He's he was kind of an artist. So he drew me a picture and he drew a picture of a great throne.
And on this throne was a king. There was a little crown on his head.
And down at the bottom of this throne is a little man, little bald headed man. By the way, this man was about 85 years old.
Aiden Butter. And so here was this little bald headed man at the bottom of the stone. Little tiny man grew engulfed by the stone. And on the throne was the king. And there was coming a gigantic prize down this. The king was lifting this prize down to this little man. And over the head of this man was a little question mark. That's a picture that he didn't like.
What is that for? I didn't do anything. I wasn't recognized. Nobody thought much of me.
You see, there are certain hidden functions in the body of Christ that are going to wait until that judgment day that, and then they are going to be recognized. Don't ever feel that because your work is not visible, that it is not valuable to the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:45:20
Now verse 25, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one or another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one member be be honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now we are the body of Christ and the members in particular, so he's saying that now that we are one.
In Christ there shouldn't be.
Any division in the body of Christ. And we know from John chapter 17 that the oneness of that body would be a testimony through the whole world. And so we can see why the devil has attacked the unity of the body of Christ. You and I are meeting on what people call the ground of the one body. Maybe I can draw a little picture of of that and how that works.
Let's get rid of the black.
Here is 1 body.
There's a head.
And this body is standing on a book called the Bible.
And this, this body here is, we'll call it the church or the body of Christ. All believers on the face of the earth are part of that body. And there's there's its head. It's a risen Christ and glory. And now I'm just going to make a statement and we're not going to go into this. But what gives that body unity in a practical way is the word of God. That is the basis of unity in the assembly.
Is the word of God, and it's very, very important that that that keeps us from our own opinions. You know how opinionated people are, especially people like me. We're all opinionated and we all have our opinions and we sometimes have our opinions about the Bible.
And someone of the reasons that you sisters often complain about us getting only from the care meeting is because we have different opinions about what the Bible says.
But this Bible is the basis of unity in the assembly, and it is so important not only that you brothers, but that you sisters understand the word of God and what it really means.
It is the basis of that that unity. But when the assembly started and it was bound together in one body, it was one body of believers in the city of Jerusalem.
But as time went on, what happened was that this the the gospel spread to other cities. So there was there were believers in Jerusalem, and there were believers in Antioch, and there were believers in Rome, but they were still all part of that one body.
In other words, they were still the function as one body.
If they didn't. If Jerusalem operated independent of Rome.
And Antioch did what they wanted to do independent of the rest of this body. Then there was no longer unity within the body. There was no longer communication within the body. And the result was a body that was was operating independent of itself. You know what would happen if this arm operated independent of this arm? It would no longer serve to function as part of the one body. There would be a lot of this coordination and we would have real trouble.
In the body. But in these these assemblies, and there were more, and they spread over the face of the known earth of that day, all operated as one body. So someone who we say someone who was recognized over here at Jerusalem as a shepherd, was recognized in Antioch as a shepherd, was recognized in Rome as a shepherd.
Say because that body was all one somebody who was an evangelist and Jerusalem was an evangelist and Antioch, he didn't need to go to to Antioch and the brethren in Antioch. Look him over and say, who is this? Maybe we better give him about a three-year test and see how he does. They didn't need to do that. Neither did someone who was in fellowship here in Rome or in Jerusalem. I suppose he can't come in here and he's breaking bread and he takes a trip over here to Rome.
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And he comes into Rome.
And he didn't need to sit there and let the brethren scrutinize him for a few days or weeks and find out if he was saved and if he was baptized and if he had any bad doctrine or anything like that, he could go right over to Rome and begin to break bread. How was that? Why was that? What was the vehicle for causing that body to operate as one? It was the letter of commendation, letter of commendation that is described in.
The last chapter of Roman's or Romans chapter 15. Maybe this I commend unto you, Phoebe.
Over there in Rome and the Apostle Paul in 2nd Corinthians 3 and verse one says do I need a letter of accommodation when I come to Kirk Corn. So they this letter of commendation went with people who traveled and it said yes, Phoebe is in fellowship or Paul is in fellowship or Silas is in fellowship here in Jerusalem. He's traveling over to your area and when it comes to your area why you should allow him to break bread?
And not only that, he may be gifted in some way. So they might even mention that he's gifted so that the brethren over in these other areas did not need to put that person on trial. And the body, even though it's spread to different localities, still function as as one body.
OK. Now we know that the challenge today, the challenge is that much of the body could you say is split up, It's in division, it's out there in division. It's still connected together by the Holy Spirit, but it is out there in division. But and it is, it is very, very probable that that whole body will never be united in fellowship with each other in this particular way. We we don't believe that will ever happen.
And yet there are a group of believers who are gathered together on the principles of the one body, and they operate as one body separate from all of the division. And you're a part of that, of that testimony. So there there is some oneness that they won, even though all members of the body aren't necessarily human fellowship.
OK, so he says that there should be no schism in the body. And that means that there are times, brethren, when we must be open and honest with each other. There's someone who might be causing us some problems or difficulties. There might be someone who's gossiping about us, or somebody who's criticizing us unjustly. And we need to be open and honest with other never allow feelings to go on, bitterness to exist.
An unforgiving spirit. It's good to go get those problems worked out.
We had just recently and in Buena Park with brother who had been causing some difficulties.
Toward a couple of us. And you know, rather than gossip about him, rather than see how many people we could get on our side.
We just met together with him and we just sat down and said brother, let's get this problem worked out.
And he sat down with us and he admitted that he had been hung. And he agreed to call every single brother that he had affected by what he had done and straightened it out in that better brother isn't that better than to call 50 people on the phone and get them on our side?
The Lord doesn't want any division. He doesn't want a fracturing within the body. But he wants the body to have a care for each other that all the bodies should have care for all of the rest of the members of that body, so that when one suffers, all suffer with it. If somebody, if someone's going through some marital difficulties, the rest of the body hurts. If somebody is in the hospital and pain and agony, the rest of the body feels if one of the body, if one member of the body is honored.
The rest of the body it rejoices with it, and so on. So there is a feeling that exists all among the body, that is, if we are in tune with the Holy Spirit, that causes it to.
Act together Last verse, verse 27. Now ye are the body of Christ and members. In particular, it seems like the apostle Paul wants it over and over and over again. Emphasize the fact that you are a part of the body.
The body of Christ, the body for which He does. And he wants you to know that as a part of that body, you do not lose your individuality. You are members in particular. Well, I guess the bottom line of of this talk might be for all of us to have a real deep exercise about how we can function, what part of the body of Christ we are, and how we can function as part of the body, so that there will be a real unity, a real carrier that will continue to exist.
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Click on the button. Let's close it.