All right, open up your Bibles to 1st Corinthians chapter 12,
First Corinthians chapter 12. If you're using one of our black
hardcover Bibles, it's page 959. We're working through a series
called Church Anatomy One O 1 today.
Specifically, my teaching is entitled Members of the Body and
we're going to be talking about membership in the church.
I know membership is not necessarily the most interesting
topic, but it is of the utmost importance for your for your
spiritual life. And so it's that's why we're
taking a chunk of time to really dive into this idea of church
membership. When you think about membership,
you typically think about membership with an organization
like maybe like Sam's Club, right?
Or Costco by show of Hands, who is Sam's fan?
How about Costco? OK.
It's usually pretty, pretty divided.
I don't think there's any difference.
I've been to both. It's the same stuff.
Yeah, I knew. I knew that was going to get
some comments. You know, we thinking about
membership like that, you maybe think about your gym membership,
right? I'm a member at Crunch.
I'm a member at Gainesville Health and Fitness.
Or or maybe some of your Country Club members and you get to golf
because you're a Country Club member.
But the, the way that it works is I pay a fee and then I get
benefits, right? That's how that's how it works.
I pay a fee and I get benefits. And that is the nature of our
relationship with that organization.
I don't really care about the other members of Sam's Club,
right? I'm not there to be friends with
them. I'm there to get my bulk coffee
and my pretzel and my drink. I don't care about the company
necessarily. It's about what we can get out
of the situation. It's about me and my experience.
And then if I stop getting the benefits that I want, I'm going
to drop my membership, right? So if Sam's Club stops giving
out free samples, I'm going somewhere else, right?
That is like my lunch on Saturdays.
You just wander around and then you put on a disguise and then
you go do all the circuit again and you get double S of
everything. But it's about, I don't actually
do that. I've thought about it before,
right? But it's about me.
It's about what I can get out of the out of the deal.
That is very different than the Bible's idea of church
membership. I want to read a quote for you
out of a book written by a man named Mark Dever.
The book is called 9 Marks of the Healthy Church, And this is
actually a quote that I read. Every time we welcome new
members into our church body, we stand them at our Team Vita
meeting. We stand them up in the front.
And I read this to remind us what we are committing to as
members of God's church. He says church membership is our
opportunity to grasp hold of each other in responsibility and
love. By identifying ourselves with a
particular church, we let the pastors and other members of
that local church know that we intend to be committed in
attendance giving prayer and service.
We allow fellow believers to have Great Expectations of us in
these areas, and we make it known that we are the
responsibility of this local church.
We assure the Church of our commitment to Christ in serving
with them, and we call for their commitment to serve and
encourage as well. I think it's a good summary of
what church membership really is and what it means.
Church membership is a formal, not casual, it's official.
It's a formal reciprocal relationship between a Christian
and a local church. OK, So it's not just casual.
There's some formality to it and it's reciprocal.
It's two sided. It's not just one giving all,
but it's it's give and take on both sides.
Your decision to join or not join a church as a member, I
believe will have a bigger spiritual impact on you, on your
life and on your health than almost any other decision that
you make as a Christian. Maybe with the exception of of
who you marry, right, If you're married, if you get married, it
is a huge deal for our spiritual lives.
And so we're going to spend the next 4 weeks really digging into
what the Bible says about it. And so today, if I can just kind
of summarize the main point of where we're headed with First
Corinthians 12, really what Paul gets at here is that the church,
God's church, is composed of different members who belong and
are needed in the body for the church to be effective.
And you and I are all called to be members of a local church
body. So membership is not some kind
of optional add on for the really committed, but it is just
for anybody who is a follower of Jesus.
Give you a little bit of background before we dive into
chapter 12. If you were here last week, you
heard Gordon Gordon talk about the community in Acts chapter 2.
Beautiful picture of of the the original church community. 3000
people get saved after Peter preaches on Pentecost and they
start organizing into these smaller groups of disciples and
they're extremely devoted to one another.
And there is an incredible sense of unity and togetherness among
God's people. 25 years later, the apostle Paul is writing this
letter to the church in Corinth. OK.
So it does not take long For what was so beautiful and
unified at first, the edges start to fray, and we start to
see some disunity, some divisions among God's people.
And so Paul is spending really, really the whole letter of First
Corinthians as he's addressing all of these different issues in
the church that are causing division among God's people.
He talks about there there's factions that have formed.
Some people say I follow Apollo, so other people say I follow
Paul. Christians are suing each other.
Christians are divorcing each other.
They're disagreeing with each other over issues of food that
was sacrificed to idols and if it's OK to eat that food or if
it's not, there's disunity as they're taking the Lord's Supper
with one another. So there's just all this trouble
now and this division that has come into God's church in
chapters 12 through 14. The context is spiritual gifts.
So in the Corinthian church, people are ranking one another
based on their gifting. Oh, you're such a powerful
prophet, you're more important. And that's causing division in
the church. And so Paul is correcting them
and he uses in these verses an illustration of a physical body,
a human physical body to talk about unity in Jesus church.
So as we do every week, let me give you a moment of silence
before we before I read the text for us today, just to prepare
your heart, to quiet your heart to clear your head, maybe take a
brief moment and pray and ask God to speak to you and
encourage you through his scriptures.
I'll give us a moment of silence and I'll read the text, pray for
us, and preach. 1st Corinthians 12 Starting in
verse 12, the apostle Paul writes For just as the body is 1
and has many members, and all the members of the body, though
many are one body, so it is with Christ.
For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or
Greeks, slave or free, and all were made to drink of 1 spirit.
For the body does not consist of 1 member, but of many.
If the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I do not belong
to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body.
And if the ear should say, Because I am not an eye, I do
not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a
part of the body. If the whole body were an eye,
where would the sense of where would be the sense of hearing?
If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of
smell? But as it is, God arranged the
members in the body, each one of them as He chose.
If all were a single member, where would the body be?
As it is, there are many parts, yet one body the I cannot say.
To the hand I have no need of you, nor again the head.
To the feet I have no need of you.
On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker
are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think
less honorable, we bestow the greater honor, and our
unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which are
more presentable parts do not require.
But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to
the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the
body, but that the members may have the same care for one
another. If one member suffers, all
suffer together. If one member is honored, all
rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ,
and individually members of it. Father, help us to see clearly
today. There are so many things in this
world that seek to divide people, and not just people out
there, but people in here, people in your church.
And we pray God that you would help us and strengthen us to be
unified as your body, as you call us to be.
Thank you, Jesus, that you died for us, that we might be adopted
into your family. You identify with us so closely
that you call us your very body. And so help us to see these
things, to understand these things, and to live out a right
kind of unity in your church. Strengthen us with a strong,
unified membership here at Vita Springs.
Bless this time as we look to your words, Jesus, and fill me
with the Holy Spirit. Help me to teach your church
well. We pray all these things in
Jesus name, Amen. OK, so we start here in verses
12 and 13 and Paul is using this illustration of the physical
body. It is one unit that is composed
of many different members and he's saying that is a kind of a
picture or an image or an illustration of Jesus Christ's
body. The church verse 12, he says for
just as the body and he's talking about the physical body
first is 1 and has many members and all the members of the body,
though many are one body. So it is with Christ.
So again, very simple illustration, the human body,
you have one body, but in that one body that God gave you,
there's a whole lot of different pieces and parts, right?
I shared some stats the first week of this series.
You have 30 to 40 trillion cells that make up your body.
That's a lot. It's a big number.
You have 600 to 800 muscles, you have 206 bones, 78 organs, and
all of those pieces and parts work together to form 1 cohesive
body, one cohesive unit. And so Paul is saying it's the
same way with Christ, right? So it is with Christ.
He goes on in verse 13 he says for in one spirit we were all
baptized into one body and now he's talking about the church
body. Jews are Greeks, slaves are free
and all were made to drink of 1 spirit.
So you look around the room and you see all of these different
pieces and all of these different parts, many different
individuals, different ages, different races, different
cultures, different social categories, different life
stages, different spiritual gifts and abilities and
experiences all come together and form 1 cohesive unit 1
church body. The sin that separated us from
one another has been paid for by Jesus on the cross so that we
can now come together, be joined together by one common faith,
through one common Savior into one common church.
We, as he says in the verse, he says, we share this.
We're all baptized into one body.
We've all, if you're a Christian, you should have been
through that symbol of baptism showing that you have died with
Christ. You're resurrected with him
again and now you are a part of his people.
We share that common symbol. We have the same Holy Spirit
that has been poured out onto each of us, that fills each of
us, that dwells in each of us. We've been made into one.
So now there's two different ways or levels to think about
the church, OK, the body of Christ.
And I just want to clarify these so you have this clear in your
mind. There is the universal church,
OK, some people call it the Big C or the capital C church.
You can define the universal church as all Christians from
all time, OK Anybody who has trusted in Jesus as Lord and
Savior in the Old Testament, those who look forward to the
coming Messiah are included in that church.
New Testament church age. Those who look back on the cross
and with trusted Jesus to be our Lord and Savior.
We are in that church, right? We're a part of the Big C Church
and we share that same family with like Abraham and Ezekiel
and Moses and the Apostle Paul and Peter and Billy Graham and
Charles Spurgeon and you name your favorite Christian pastor,
celebrity, family member, whatever, right?
We are all part of the universal Big Sea Church.
But there's another expression of Jesus Church, smaller
expression, the local church, or sometimes we call this the
Little Sea Church, Vita Springs, right, Creekside, Christ
Community, Grace at Fort Clark, different local churches.
When you are saved and you come into the Big C church, now you
have the privilege and the responsibility to be a part of a
Little C local church, a local body.
Big C church membership is automatic.
When you get saved, OK, you are in it.
Local church membership is not necessarily automatic.
You must make a willful decision to join a local church body.
Some people say, and I've heard this through the years, some
people say, I don't need to be a part of a local church because I
am part of God's church, the Big C church.
What's the big deal, You know, And so because I'm a part of the
universal church, I, I just want to love the whole church and be
a part of the whole church. So this week I'm going to go to
this church and then the next week I'm going to go to that
church. And then the next week I'm going
to go to that one. And then the next one, I don't
think I want to go. I'm just going to watch online
because there's this guy in Orlando that I really love
listening to. And then the next week I'll hop
around from here to there to here to there.
Or maybe I won't even do that. Maybe I'll just read my Bible,
right, because you don't have to physically be in the building to
be a part of God's church. So I'll just read my Bible on my
own. I've heard that a lot through
the years, and I think that is misguided and unhealthy
thinking. That's like saying, you know,
I'm a human. I'm a part of the human race.
And so I don't need a family. I don't need a mom.
I don't need a dad. I don't need grandparents.
I don't need brothers or sisters.
You know why? Because I'm a human.
I'm part of the human race, right?
It just doesn't make sense. You would say.
No. You are part yes.
You are part of the human race. Congratulations.
So am I. And you need a family, right?
You need a family. God gave you a family.
You don't hop from family to family to family to family,
right? And and I'm going to eat dinner
with the Gatlings tonight and the Jerkowitz is the next night
and the Browns the next night. Because you know, if they're all
just part of my, we're all part of the human race.
No, you find a family. You don't have an online family.
You have a flesh and blood family.
You are a part of the human race and you need a human family.
You are part of the Universal church and you need a local
church, an Incarnate body of believers that walk with you and
live with you and help you and that you pour into as well.
It's not good. It's not healthy for a Christian
to be disembodied. They think of that word
disembodied. You have been separated from the
body. If there was a disembodied foot
on the stage, Gross. Exactly.
You'd say that's not good, that poor foot and that poor person,
right? That is not healthy.
That's not the way that it's supposed to be.
A foot is supposed to be bodied, not disembodied.
It's the same for the Christian, right?
It's the same. We need a body, we need a
family. So, and this is where Paul is
going with this illustration. And so as he continues, he
illustrates 2 really big points in this section.
He wants us to see that number one, you belong to a family.
OK, you belong to a family and then #2 you are needed in a
family that's stronger than just you belong.
You are needed in the church body.
So let's go look at verse 14. He says for the body does not
consist of 1 member, but of many, right?
Just not like your physical body has many different parts, not
just one, right? That it's same thing for the
body is not because of 1 member, but of many.
So verse 15, if the foot should say because I'm not a hand, I
don't belong to the body, that would not make it any less a
part of the body. And if the ear should say,
because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that
would not make it any less a part of the body, right?
So just because they're different from one another and
they play different roles from one another in the body, that
doesn't mean that they don't belong to the same body.
You know, it's like the foot saying to the hand, oh hand, you
are so elegant and so skilled. And I here I am.
I'm just stuck in a shoe all day and I've got calluses and I get
walked on all day long and I'm constantly under pressure.
I must not belong to this body. You got it.
You're different. You're better than me.
I must not belong. You say.
That's absurd. No, you need your hand and you
need your foot or the ear, says to the eye.
Oh, I you are so sophisticated and you are so beautiful.
And I am just this weird flap of skin and cartilage hanging like
a flag on a windless day to the side of this guy's head.
You must belong and I must not belong.
And you would say, well, no, of course not.
That's absurd, right? Your eye has a role.
Your eye is made a certain way and it belongs to your body.
Thank God for your for your eyes and your ears have a different
kind of role, a different kind of shape, a different kind of
function. It's like somebody on the coffee
team saying to a small group leader, oh, well, you have so
much influence in people's lives.
And, you know, you get to lead discussions on Wednesday night.
And all I do is I just come in and I grind beans and I pour
water through beans and I, you know how to clean up drips,
right? It's like, no, well, hold on.
You have a different role in the body, right?
Or somebody who has a strong gift of mercy.
Thank God for people who have gifts of mercy coming to Pete,
you have a gift of mercy coming to someone who has a gift of
leadership and saying, oh, all I have is this lowly gift of
mercy. I just care about people.
And, you know, and and you get to, you know, rally the troops
and really drive forward the vision like I must not belong.
We'd say, no, we need both and you both belong.
He goes on. So do you see what he's saying
here? You, you belong.
You're different. We're wonderfully different, but
we all belong to this body, he says in verse 17.
He says if the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of
where would be the sense of hearing?
If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of
smell? The body would be so limited.
If all of the parts were exactly the same, it would be #1 if we
were all an eye, it would be gross, it would be monstrous,
and we would be severely limited.
We would lose something very, very important if we didn't have
diversity, all belonging together.
Verse 18 he says. But as it is, God arranged the
members in the body, each one of them, as He chose.
That's very, very important. Remember that regardless of what
gift you have, your experiences, your inclinations, your
passions, God arranged the members of the body, each one of
them as He chose, and then he goes on.
If all were a single member, where would the body be?
As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
So God has ordained all these different parts in one unified
body. If we were all the same, we'd be
in trouble. And so thank God we are not.
Just because you're different than other people in the church,
that does not mean that you don't belong.
That does not mean that you don't belong.
God knew what he was doing when he assembled your physical body,
and God knows what He's doing as he assembles his spiritual body,
the church. We are Better Together in our
differences than we are apart from one another.
You belong to the body. This is true in marriage.
You know, we see this in marriage.
God, in his wonderful sense of humor, brings people who are
very different. Usually this is how it works,
people who are very different and he puts you together and if
you're married, you agree with me, right?
It's like I married my opposite, that God does that.
He knows what he's doing. It's for your good.
By the way, it can cause conflict, but it does not mean
that you don't belong together. He was intentional and that I
think about this regularly. I'm very analytical.
I'm very practical. My wife is more emotional.
She's more of the dreamer. She wants to buy fixer uppers.
And I'm like, Oh my gosh, the last thing I want to do with my
time, energy and money is buy some junky old house and spend
all my spare time ripping out drywall and, you know, putting
floors in like that. Just you want to torture me,
make me remodel my house. She was like, let's get a bed.
Let's do make a bed and breakfast.
I don't like bed and breakfast. I have to have breakfast with
people I don't know. It's very awkward.
I would rather go to a hotel and just then go to a restaurant
afterwards. I'm in control of my
surroundings. Like we why are we?
And that has caused some conflict between us because
she'll have a dream and I'll instantly squash her dream.
And we went to a counselor together once and he was like,
you need to let your wife dream. You need to encourage her in her
dreams. I'm like, OK, that's very hard
for me. I'm going to try.
I think I'm doing better, right? Honey?
I'm doing better. Just because we are different
from one another in that, and that causes conflict among us,
that does not mean that we married wrong.
In fact, I would say I think we married right because I'm
stretching her and she's stretching me.
We're shaping one another in our differences.
And God does that in the church, right?
You look around this room and we see people from different
ethnicities, different countries.
We have old and young, we have married and single, we have some
widowed. We have introverts and
extroverts. We have different people with
different gifts, different passions, different experiences,
different level of education. And that is a good thing.
Thank God that we have that diversity.
Just because you're different than the person sitting next to
you, that does not mean that you don't belong in this local body.
Don't let Satan trick you into thinking that because you're not
like everyone else, you don't belong.
And I think he plays that one on repeat for a lot of people,
right? He gets in our heads.
See, this is this you're, this is not right.
This is not for you. You're in the wrong crowd.
He wants to cause division. Listen, here's the beautiful
thing about Jesus church. Do you know why you belong?
And I belong because Jesus died for you, and Jesus died for me,
and I was a Sinner, and you're a Sinner.
And Jesus poured his blood out on one cross that He would
create a people who could come together and forgive one
another, as we have been forgiven of our sin and love one
another as we have been loved by Him.
That we could belong in one family.
Isaiah chapter 53, verses 3 through 5.
He was despised and rejected by men.
A man of sorrows acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men
hid their faces. He was despised, and we esteemed
Him not. Surely He has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows, Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten
by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our
transgressions. He was crushed for our
iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement
that brought us peace. Peace with God and peace with
one another. By his wounds we are healed.
Jesus was despised and rejected and cut off and chastised so
that you could belong, so that you could be welcomed and so
that you could be included. He died to create a people.
God is wise. He made you intentionally.
You have a place among God's people.
You belong. You belong, he goes on and now
he shifts his focus a little bit and he talks about how all the
parts of the body, although they're different, are also
needed were needed for this body to function correctly and
properly and well, look at verse 21.
He says the I cannot say to the hand I have no need of you nor
again the head to the feet. I have no need of you.
It is arrogant and downright foolish for one part of the body
to think they don't need the other.
It's foolishness. The body is incomplete and
severely handicapped if all the parts were the same.
I mean, think about it, just in the flesh again.
So some of you guys ate a chocolate doughnut when you came
in here this morning. And you go to the bathroom
afterwards and you realize for the past hour you've had a smear
of chocolate on your cheek. Now what if you had no hand to
wipe that chocolate off your cheek?
It'd be torture, right? You walk around for the rest of
your life with doughnut on your cheek.
It's like your eye sees it but you're you got no hand to do
anything about it. Your head perceives this car
that is barreling towards you, but you have no foot to move you
out of the way. That is disaster.
The eye needs the hand. The head needs the foot.
Think about it. In the church, what if we had
all leaders but no administrators?
We'd have people trying to charge the rally, the troops,
but no one to actually organize it all and pull it all off.
What if we had teachers but no evangelists?
Right? We're just teaching the same
people over and over. We got no new believers coming
in to be taught. What if we had all evangelists
but no shepherds? Now you got a bunch of new
believers and there's nobody there to walk with them through
life and help them grow up in the faith.
What if we had a bunch of prophets, but no one with a gift
of discernment? That's trouble.
People proclaiming things in the name of the Lord, but no one
with discernment to be able to say.
I think that's off. That sounds a little fishy.
We need all the parts. A car with no tires does not get
very far. A plane with no wings can never
take off. A computer with no operating
system is just a chunk of plastic.
All the parts are needed for the church to glorify God by loving
God and loving others and making disciples of all nations.
You just heard Gordon say. That's our mission, our mission
statement. We need all the parts working
together. It's true on a local scale and
realize it's actually true on a broader universal church scale
too. My wife and I were had a retreat
this past week up in northern Georgia with 31 couples from all
different kinds of groups and denominations and it was so
wonderful. Our community group leader was a
Methodist minister. We had a Scottish Presbyterian
pastor who was in our group, another guy who was an army
chaplain, another guy with a kind of a more Pentecostal non
denominational church from Tampa.
We had Southern Baptists and General Baptist and Independent
Baptists. And it was just such a
beautiful, I thought we need all of you, right?
The church need you all bring something different to this
body, this party, and it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
He goes on to verse 22. He says, On the contrary, the
parts of the body that's that seem to be weaker are
indispensable. And on those parts of the body
that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor and our
unpresentable parts. He's probably talking about your
unpresentable. He's talking about your
unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which are
more presentable parts do not require.
So what's he saying here? He's saying that the parts that
seem weaker, less honorable, he refers to them as unpresentable,
are actually some of the most necessary and should be treated
with the most honor because they are essential.
Excuse me for our health. Paul is speaking into Roman
culture here, where power and your family's name and your
social status and your wealth, that was everything.
So if you're Caesar's nephew and you go to the restaurant, you're
going to be honored. Of course.
You're going to get the best seat.
You're going to get the best meal.
You're going to get the best treatment.
You're going to get the best special favor, he's saying, But
not in the church. That's not how it should be in
the church. In the church, we blow up those
worldly categories. All of the parts are necessary
and all of them should be treated with honor.
The parts that we view as weaker in our physical body think of
maybe like your intestine, your gut as a paired as as compared
to your something stronger like your bones or something that's
unpresentable. He is probably talking about
your genitals in this in this text.
We don't uncover them like we uncover our face or our hands,
right? We honor them, we take care of
them. We treat them with modesty.
We guard them, we protect them. We value them.
In society, the weaker, the less honorable tend to be pitched
aside, disregarded, demoted. But in the church, it's not
supposed to be that way. We realize that every part is
needed and that God arranged this body and everyone brings
something to the table and is to be treated with respect and
honor in Jesus Church. Again, you look around the room
and you say, you know, we have, we have young, we love that we
have young people, we have the younger generation at Vita
Springs Church, the the young adults, college students.
You bring a kind of zeal and energy and passion that is very,
very needed in God's church. And it's also wonderful that we
have the old, the older I should say, or maybe the more mature,
right? You bring wisdom and stability
that the youth do not necessarily have.
And it's wonderful. We both belong.
And let's not forget about our children, our zero to 5th
graders that are in our building across the way.
They're a part of the church. They bring a kind of awe and
wonder and faith. Jesus praises the faith of
children that we all benefit from.
It's beautiful. We are all needed.
We have a lot of Brazilians here at Vita Springs Church, and I
think the Brazilians teach the Americans about how to have
community. Amazing and food and laughter
and joy and community. We have Africans here at Vita
Springs and there's a kind of an exuberance and joy that that is
built into African culture that can be very different from what
Americans are more accustomed to.
We even have people who are in a season of life where their
bodies are breaking down. They have a lot of pain.
They're in some cases in constant pain and constant
suffering. And if that's you, please
understand you are needed in this body because you teach us.
You teach us how to persevere. You teach us how to have joy and
faith in the midst of sorrow and pain.
And we need that. I need that.
I will tell you about about some of our older folks here who are
going through hardship. I love it because I never hear
them complain. And that teaches me I want to
comply. I get sick, ask my wife.
I get like a little sniffle and I'm like, I'm dying and I'm
complaining and fussing and she's like, what's wrong?
You just get a Kleenex. You're fine, right?
I need to learn from those who who can endure well and with
good hearts and with faith. We're all needed, goes on in
these verses. Halfway through verse 24, he
says. But God has so composed the
body, giving greater honor to the party, to the part that
lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that
the members may have the same care for one another.
If one member suffers, all suffer together.
If one member is honored, all rejoice together.
So the conclusion here's He's saying those who are more
visible, those who are more gifted, they should not be
treated as more important or more necessary.
Those who are less visible, those who are left gifted should
not be treated as less important or less necessary.
There should be unity. There should be mutual care for
one another. There should be mutual respect
and honoring of one another because we're all needed.
In Corinth they were saying you're so smart, you're so rich,
you have an amazing family, you have a powerful gift of
prophecy. You got baptized by the apostle
Peter, You get special honor. And Paul's saying, no, no, no,
that's not the way it works in God's church.
He's saying you're a brick, I'm a brick.
Jesus is the cornerstone. He's the important.
He's the most important one. The rest of us are bricks.
We're going to honor or make much of anyone.
Let's let it be Jesus, not the bricks, He finishes in verse 27.
He says now you are the body of Christ and individually members
of it. OK, you take it personal.
Now you individual, you are the body of Christ, and individually
members of it. You are a member of Christ's
body. What an honor.
What an honor to be called a part of Jesus's body.
No matter how high, how low, how this, how that you are a member.
You are intimately linked with Christ and Christ's people.
To dishonor any part of the body is to dishonor Christ himself.
So this is where this is where please listen to me because I'm
kind of I'm trying to build something.
I'm going to end real practical here.
You need to be very careful about your relationship with
Jesus's body, OK? You need to be very thoughtful
and very careful about it. And in our culture, Christians
and church is usually easy come, easy go, right?
It's very consumeristic in nature.
I'm going to go here. It's like Sam's Club.
I'm going to go there. And as long as I get the
benefits that I'm, I'll be part of it.
But as soon as I'm, I'm out, you've got to be very careful
about that kind of thinking. Jesus links himself with his
people, right? So much so that if you mess with
his people, if you exploit his people, if you take advantage of
his people, you're doing the same thing to him.
Remember the story about the Saul before he was the apostle
Paul, He was a he was a zealous Jew and he is now pre salvation.
He is persecuting Christians, OK.
He is going to different cities and he's gathering up the
believers and some of the in some cases either being killed,
right. And Paul is behind that.
And while he's going to a town called Damascus, Jesus appears
before him. Remember the story blinds him,
knocks him to the ground, and you remember what Jesus says to
Paul, to Saul. Saul, Saul, why are you
persecuting me? He doesn't say, Saul, Saul, why
are you persecuting my church? Saul, Saul, why are you
persecuting those individual Christians?
He doesn't say that. He so identifies with his
people. Then with that, when Saul is
persecuting the Christian, she says, no, you're doing it to me.
We need to be very careful about our relationship with Jesus's
body, his church. And so let me end very, very
practically as I talked a little bit about church membership and
how this kind of all plays together.
It is very clear to understand how to express membership in the
universal church. You know how you do it.
You get saved, right? You put your trust in Jesus as
Savior and Lord, repent of your sin, and believe that Jesus is
the Christ. That's how you become a member
in the Universal church. You are just a Christian now.
How do you express membership in a local church?
How do you know or how do we know, IE the church and the
leadership of the church? How do you know and how do we
know if you are a member of this church?
Remember I told you at the beginning, it's important to be
a part of both, right? How do you express membership?
Do you just show up? Do you show up and serve?
Do you have to show up and serve and go to small group and then
you're a member? Do you show up and serve and
small go to small group and give?
What if you give but you don't go to small group?
What if you only come once a month?
What if you come twice a month? What if you come once every two
months? What if you go to Vita?
Sometimes in Salt, sometimes in Creekside, sometimes in Saint
Andrews, sometimes. Are you a member of all of those
bodies? Which body are you a part of?
If you are the liver, how does Vita Springs Church know that we
are going to have a liver this week?
That's really important for us to know.
We need our liver, you see. Do you understand what I'm
saying? Do you understand how do we
express the unity of the body that Jesus calls us to if we
don't know who is a part of this body?
We need some way to know and that's where formal church
membership comes in. It's a, it's a way that helps
define and clarify who is actually a part of this little
sea church, this local body. Many churches do not have any
kind of a formal membership process.
And I believe that is to their detriment.
I remember years ago we had a membership class and there was a
young lady. It was a, it was the last class.
We handed out the membership forms that we asked people who
want to be members to sign. And she came up to me.
She was a bit angry. She says, what is this?
I said that looks like a membership form.
She said, I can't believe this. I've never seen anything like
this in my life. You're going to make me sign a
piece of paper? And I was like, well, yeah.
I mean, that's kind of what we do.
That's how we know if you want to be a part of this particular
body, imagine a team, an army, a hospital, a school who did not
know who the players were, who the soldiers were, who the
doctors were, or who the students were.
What if it changed every week? And this week this guy's your
quarterback, and next week that guy's your quarterback, and this
week this guy's your surgeon, and next week that guy's your
surgeon. All of these kinds of
relationships have formalized commitment, so there is clarity
and there's accountability on both sides, right?
So you have a roster, you have enlistment, you have a contract,
you have enrollment. The church needs this too.
A way for church leaders and
church members to know to say I'm a part of this body, you can
count on me. I'm accountable to you, you're
accountable to me. This is the local body that I'm
a part of. It shows who's accountable to
who. It shows who you are committed
to working alongside for the gospel in our city.
It clarifies where you are being helped and where you can offer
help. It tells here's where I'm
primarily investing my time, my energy, my spiritual gifts, my
money, my prayer, my relationships.
It clarifies who your spiritual family is, where you go for
comfort and wisdom and care and correction.
You know people are going to AI now because they need a friend.
That is a sad state of affairs. You should join a church and get
a real human friend. And of course, this doesn't mean
that you can't get any of those things from other places because
remember, we are a part of the universal church and you can
find all these blessings in other places.
But it's of great value to you and the local body to say, but
this is my family. This is my little C church.
So the way we do this at Vita Springs, very, very simple.
We ask you to take the membership series.
We're offering another round in October.
It's been completely revamped. So we're this is kind of our
pilot for our new membership curriculum and structure.
We do ask you to sign a form and it is a covenant.
It is a two way agreement between church member and
church, church members to one another and church leaders to
church members. We're saying we are in this
together. So if you have not done that,
it's coming up. October 19th is when we're
starting it, where they're going to be for like an hour and a
half after church on Sunday for four weeks.
I would encourage you to devote yourself to membership here at
Vita Springs Church if Vita Springs Church is the place
where you decide to call home, and if it is not, then we are
very happy to help you find another local church community
in this community, gospel preaching, Bible believing local
church where you can link up with that family and be a member
of that body. We're not competitive about
that. We want you to be connected in a
body because you need it and the church needs it.
You need a church. The church needs you.
Do not live as a disembodied part.
It's not good for you. It's not good for the church.
You are made for a body.