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The
Gathering, The Sermon
Three main points: 1) Being a body or group made of parts, 2) Being the
body of Christ and 3) Support and Unity as one Body.
1 Corinthians 12:12-14
The body is
a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though
all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is
with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into
one body - whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free - and
we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
Body of many
parts
·
What does
being a body mean?
·
Online
dictionary: ‘A group of individuals regarded as an
entity’
·
How and why
do we become that entity?
People come together as a group for many different reasons. They may
have come together as part of their job, through family
and friendship groups or even church. The congregation
of a church is often referred to as the ‘body’ of the
church. And yet, within these ‘bodies’ there are many
people doing many different things, with many different
motives.
Using the church as an example, the individual members of the
congregation have different roles. Some are musicians,
some are preachers, some are cleaners and some are
simply the congregation. People have different skills
and gifts, which when used together can achieve great
things.
In the human body, every thing is interconnected; everything relies on
another part to function fully. When everything is
working together as it should, the human body can
achieve amazing things! Groups are like this to – to
function effectively, people have to work together,
using their individual skills to work as a team, to
achieve their objectives. As in the human body, the
right skills have to be deployed at the right time and
in harmony with the rest of the parts. Having hands and
fingers is fantastically useful for typing, but not so
useful for seeing. I generally need to see to type, so
both my eyes and my figures need to work together to
type. If they didn’t, and instead just did their own
thing, I would not have been able to write this sermon!
It is clear to see that working together as a group, as one body, is a
great idea. It is also fairly clear that not working
together as a group but each as individuals doing our
own thing is not such a good plan. Like in the human
body, we all need to complement each others skills and
not to stand in the way.
Being the
body of Christ
So what is the difference between being in a group and being in Christ’s
group, Christ’s body? When you become a Christian, when
you accept Jesus into your life, you join with the body
of Christ, a God led body of Christians. In a business,
a team can work together and be seemingly very
successful, but when you are in the body of Christ
things are different.
Joining the body of Christ means your values and views may change. Your
motivation and reasons for doing things may well be very
different. When we are baptised by the spirit, we enter
one body where racial origins or secular status make
no difference. The old labels we once used to
identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or
free—are no longer useful. We need something larger,
more comprehensive. We have a desire to serve God, to do
his will and to spread his word.
1 Corinthians 12:27-28
Now you are
the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
And in the church God has appointed first of all
apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers
of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those
able to help others, those with gifts of administration,
and those speaking in different kinds of tongues.
Everyone in the Body of Christ, in God’s Kingdom has a God given gift
to use.
As an example, one thing I simply can not do is administration. I
struggle when dealing with lists, written plans and
minute detail. What I want to do is go out and work with
young people and the community, get involved, build up
relationships, share the gospel message and to help
people. And I want to do it immediately. I often see the
big picture and just want to go out there and achieve
it. My colleague Russell, on the other hand, is a
natural administrator. He is at home with paperwork,
plans, rotas, written objectives and planning meetings.
I know that if we work together, we can use our skills
to complement each other, to achieve our objectives. I
also know that if I ignore his skills and try and do it
all myself, I will fail, the job just will not get done.
So identifying your skills, accepting you can’t do everything by your
self and working together as one body are what Jesus
calls us to do. That is how we as a church, as a body of
Christians are going achieve. It is how we are going to
be successful. A church that doesn’t work together and
does its own thing is not what God requires. Unity and
harmony are what is called for. Your gift is unique, and
equally important. It is essential to the body that you
use your spiritual gift in service to God.
Unity
in the body
Another part of being one body is love, unity and support.
1 John 4:11 (the message)
My dear,
dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly
ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But
if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and
his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!
How do we love each other? Loving people is not always easy, sometimes
we have to show love towards people we don’t like or
don’t want to be around. Sometimes we have to work at
love, sometimes it can be difficult. But we are called
to do it, it is what God wants. Being part of the body
of Christ is all about unity. If we don’t show love for
one another, how can we work together? How can we use
our complementary gifts for the greater good?
I want to tell you a true story, which really proved to me the
importance of love, unity and support.
·
I go to
Bible school, small class – we are all really good
friends.
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Sarah (pic)
and problems
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Gemma (pic)
·
Fiona (pic)
·
Me (pic)
·
The drive
·
Sarah
needed us to rally round he and support her
·
She needed
us to show her God’s love
·
To show her
that she is still part of the body of Christ
·
She needed
reminding of her own gifts
We worked
together to help her through her tough time, each of us
bringing a different skills. Each using what we had,
each giving something up for the greater good. For God’s
Purpose.
By working together as a team, in unity, we were able to help Sarah in
her difficult situation. And not only that, the three of
us in the car really benefited from the trip. We were
able to talk to each other about our own worries and
fears, to support each other and to grow stronger as a
group.
This trip was absolutely God inspired. He provided Sarah with what she
needed, and he supplied us with the time, the car, the
fuel, the money and the individual support we all
needed.
If we were not willing to act as one body, we would not have achieved. If
we had done what we wanted as individuals I am certain
we would not have been able to help Sarah. If we had
done it without Jesus, without God, we would defiantly
not succeed.
Summery
To sum up, we are all individuals with our own gifts and skills but also
we have our own motives and desires. We need to
recognise that our gifts are God given and are most
effective when we use them for his purposes, in
conjunction with others.
We are all parts of the same body, we all have different roles and tasks
but together we should function as one. We should be
working in unity, striving to love one another and
always be ready to support each other when the time
comes. This is the body that Jesus died for! AMEN!
To finish, I want to leave you with four questions…
1)
Are you a
contributing member of the body of Christ?
2)
Are you
actively serving God and sharing him with others
3)
Are you
contributing to peace and unity within the body?
4)
Do you
worship regularly?
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