[0:00] This reading tonight is from Romans chapter 12 verses 1 to 8 and you can find that on page 1139 on the church Bibles.! That's Romans 12 verses 1 to 8.
[0:14] Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
[0:25] This is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will.
[0:42] For by the grace given me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.
[0:57] For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
[1:11] We have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith. If it is serving, then serve. If it is teaching, then teach.
[1:25] If it is to encourage, then give encouragement. If it is giving, then give generously. If it is to lead, do it diligently. If it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
[1:37] Thanks, Amy. And we're now going to move into a time of... Tonight is found on page 1153, and we're going to be reading 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 12 to 27.
[1:55] Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.
[2:06] For we were all baptized by one spirit, so as to form one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free. And we were all given the one spirit to drink.
[2:17] And so the body is not made up of one part, but of many. Now, if the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, it would not for that reason stop being part of the body.
[2:31] If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?
[2:45] If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? In fact, God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
[2:56] If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you.
[3:08] And the head cannot say to the feet, I don't need you. On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. And the parts that we think are less honorable, we treat with special honor.
[3:22] And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.
[3:42] If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now, you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
[4:00] Thanks very much, Amy. Hi everyone, I'm Robbie. It's a joy to be with you tonight. I'm the pastor for youth and children here at St. Silas. And it's a pleasure to be able to share God's word with you on Back to Church Sunday, as we think about the church being the body of Christ.
[4:15] If you were here last week, we had Jonathan preaching on the church as the building that Christ builds. He's an architect, he's a bit of an expert. As you can tell by looking at me, I'm less of an expert on the body. I don't spend that much time on it, it's all fine.
[4:28] For some of us, it's Back to Church Sunday. This is the first Sunday back in Glasgow, maybe, for the new term. New Year's begun, new term begins tomorrow. And what better way to start than by gathering with God's people thinking about the church.
[4:43] For others with us tonight, it's maybe been a very long time since you've been in a church. Maybe this is the very first time you've ever actually attended a church service. Maybe you're here because you've been looking for something that's just been missing in your life.
[4:58] Or maybe you just saw the giant banner outside that said, try church. Maybe you've seen someone online talk about Christianity and you want to see for yourself. What is it all about?
[5:09] Can church help you? Maybe you're here because you think you can help the church. But whatever you think about church, I am glad that you're here tonight.
[5:20] As Darren said, all January, we're thinking about these different pictures that the Bible uses to describe the church. And as I've said, we're talking about the body. So let me pray before we get stuck in. Heavenly Father, speak to us tonight.
[5:34] Show us the glory and wonder of your church. Help us to love your church and to love one another as Christ has loved us. In Jesus' name, amen.
[5:47] Well, if you've ever watched the BBC TV show called Ghosts, you may be familiar with Sir Humphrey Bone. Now, Humphrey is a bit of an unusual ghost in that he's actually a ghost in two parts.
[6:00] He is, he was accidentally, well, he accidentally beheaded himself and has ended up roaming the world's one part body, one part head. Humphrey's head is often found in unusual places waiting for his body to find him.
[6:15] Whilst invariably the body ends up lost in a field or bumping into walls. You see, a body without a head is not much use. And a head without a body, well, it's a bit useless as well.
[6:28] The body has no direction, no plan. It just blunders around, bumping into walls. I thought this is a helpful place for us to start as we think about the church as a body.
[6:40] Bodies need heads. Living bodies, especially. A ghost might survive without a head, but a living entity cannot. Even that chicken we all got told about in school that had its head chopped off, lived for only 18 months before it died, right?
[6:56] A body needs a head or it dies. So if the church is the body of Christ, well, it needs a head. And thankfully, we've not been left headless, stumbling into walls, getting lost in gardens, no.
[7:10] Jesus Christ himself, he is the head of the church. He guides the body. His character and actions exemplify how we are to act as the body.
[7:22] Just to think a little bit more about what it means that Christ is the head, we're going to turn to Ephesians chapter 5, verses 25 to 30. It's going to be on the screen. If you want to turn there in your Bibles, feel free.
[7:35] I'll give you a second to turn it up and then I will read it to you. It's page 1176. But it is on the screen behind me. So this is Ephesians chapter 5, verse 25 to 30. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the words and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
[8:06] In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body just as Christ does the church.
[8:21] For we are members of his body. Jesus Christ loves the church and he is its head. We are his body.
[8:32] In Ephesians, Paul calls the husband the head of the wife. And that's where this passage is the context. A husband is called to love his wife like Christ loves the church. And you see the extent to which Christ loves the church.
[8:46] The church exists because our heads loved his people. Jesus loved his people so much. He gave himself up for them to make them holy.
[8:59] He gave up his life. He has cleansed the church and now presents her as radiant. Through Jesus' death, he has taken his people from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.
[9:13] So the church exists for Jesus loved it and has saved it and has called it to himself. The church has never existed as a social club. It has never been just some traditional thing people attend.
[9:26] The church is not a political organization, nor is it a charity invented to give aid to the needy. The church exists because God wanted to make his people holy in Christ.
[9:43] Jesus came to save sinners, not give themselves help. So if that is what the head of the church does, well, the body needs to as well. Because the church exists to follow its heads, to call people out of sin and into radiant purity.
[10:01] If we forget that that is what our head wants for his body, well, our understanding of church will take a wrong turn. We may begin to prioritize social justice or our political influence or our favorite traditions.
[10:18] Those might be the things we fight for. And what happens when we lose them? Well, we start to panic. The moment we stop following the head's direction, the body will start to bump into walls.
[10:34] We might start thinking that the church itself needs rescued. The only thing the church needs rescued from is a life without the word of Jesus Christ.
[10:47] When we wander from the words, we need to return to the head. Jesus, he never cared about power or influence or tradition. He cares, as Ephesians says, about presenting the church as radiant, without stain or wrinkle or blemish.
[11:04] Jesus cares about saving you from your sins. We cannot get that mixed up. Because that salvation from sins is the gospel that we share.
[11:17] It is the good news that we have as a church. That gospel is the lifeblood of this body. God's unmerited grace to us is the heartbeats that keeps this body living.
[11:30] What a wonderful savior we have in what he has done for us. He has given up everything to call us to himself, to join us into his body.
[11:43] Why would we ever think we know better than him? We must cling to the heads of the body. We must daily and weekly gather together to let the heartbeat of the gospel pump through our veins.
[12:01] That we might go out as a church serving the world by reaching it with the gospel. Christ came to save sinners. He gave himself up for them.
[12:13] He died for them and rose that they might be brought to life with him. Jesus shed his blood to wash us clean as a church. He's called us to repent of those sins and he offers us eternal life.
[12:27] This is the head that we as the body must follow. He has done everything for us. So let us follow him.
[12:38] The church is one body with one head. Jesus Christ. It is also our second point. One body united in Christ.
[12:51] You may have seen this recently. Our world is incredibly lonely. I saw an article the other week where it said, two thirds of students claim to feel lonely at least some of, at least some of the time, one third claim almost all the time.
[13:09] We see that third spaces for community are disappearing. We all long to find some form of connection and community with people. We want unity somewhere.
[13:20] I don't know if you've noticed, but podcasts are traditionally audio, media form are all shifting to video. Because people are now relying on them to feel a part of a conversation.
[13:31] They want to be able to watch it. To have a deeper connection with those who they've listened to for years. Netflix is starting to show podcast episodes. We all long for connection, acceptance.
[13:45] We want to be loved and welcomed for who we are by the people around us. Can we ever find that on earth? This is a deep shared longing.
[13:58] I think the fact it's a shared longing, it infers that we must be able to find an answer to it somewhere. Just like hunger shows we have a need for food.
[14:12] We need a community, but I don't think any community will do. I think any community we be a part of on earth will let us down. Sin will infect in some way or another.
[14:24] We don't need a special community, but a special person. And that is what makes the church so unique. You see, it is a community of people gathering together.
[14:36] But this image presents it as a body. The body of Jesus. Who I think is that one person we all long for without even realizing it.
[14:47] It is in encountering the body of Christ we meet this person. And that is why this community offers more than anywhere else. We're going to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
[15:00] It's one of the readings we had out. It's not going to be on the screen. So please do turn there. It'll be helpful. Let me just get the page. Page 1153, I think.
[15:13] From verse 12. So the apostle Paul has written this letter to a church where chaos reigns.
[15:24] Arguments and infighting. There are sex scandals and unintelligible discourse. Sound familiar? To reconcile these issues, Paul presents a picture of a church as a united body.
[15:39] That the Corinthians and our society today desperately means. This is a body where everyone is truly united as one. Look with me at verse 12 of chapter 12.
[15:52] Just as a body, though one has many parts. But all its many parts form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one spirit as to form one body.
[16:06] Whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free. And we were all given one spirit to drink. Just like my body up here, though it has many parts, is one.
[16:19] So to the church, though it has many parts, is one. There is no division or separation. Every single member of the body has been united for one common cause.
[16:30] The Lord Jesus Christ. This is true because when we are saved by the Lord Jesus, when we become Christians, a great miracle happens.
[16:41] We were brought to life through the work of the spirit. We were spiritually dead. We were brought back to life. Not into our own singular bodies.
[16:53] But we have been united into the body of Christ. We were baptized by the one spirit so as to form one body. And we were all given the one spirit to drink.
[17:06] Everyone who has been saved has gone through the same process. The same event has happened. They've been given new life by the spirit and brought into unity together.
[17:17] So we are unbreakably united in Christ's body. Nothing can break that bond. Christian, if you are sitting here listening to me, hear this good news.
[17:30] You are forever and always engrafted into the body of Christ. Wherever you are in the world, there will be fellow believers, fellow body parts to cling to, embrace you, to love you with the love of Christ.
[17:44] It is the deepest beauty of the church. Wherever you are, if you are meeting with believers, you are connected to them in a way that no one else can be.
[18:00] This unity, it doesn't matter where you've come from, doesn't matter where you've been. There are no entry requirements. There are no visa applications. There are no entry fees. Look at verse 13.
[18:11] If you are in Christ, you are united as one.
[18:29] You are totally accepted. Because now, the work of the spirit has brought you into the body of Christ. Look with me again to verse 24.
[18:43] God has put the body together so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers.
[18:55] If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now, you are the body of Christ and each one of you is in it. God knits us together as this body, and it means we get to share in all of life together.
[19:15] If one member suffers, we get to suffer with them. If one member rejoices, we rejoice with them. This is an area of church life I think we often skim over, and we often don't realize it's happening.
[19:28] We're so blessed here at St. Silas that we regularly are able to have announcements. We get pictures on the screen of engagements and weddings. New babies are born. We don't do this just as a formal notice to advertise the meal train.
[19:43] We share this because it is an opportunity to rejoice in the life of others and the good gifts of God.
[19:55] We get to share in those good moments. We rejoice with those who rejoice, but we suffer with those who suffer. This is a place where you will not be rejected, avoided, kept at arm's length when you are going through the hardest things of life.
[20:15] Instead, the body of Christ will draw you close. Tragedy often causes isolation, but in the body of Christ, you are not alone.
[20:27] Church, we cannot forget those who grieve or suffer. Suffering is a long, hard thing a lot of the time.
[20:38] Let us remember those who are grieving. They may have been grieving for a year, decades. Do we still engage with them and love them, or do we forget after a month and hope they're okay?
[20:52] It's not just grief. Whether you lose your job, whether you are going through sickness, whether you've gone through a relational breakup, your work is hard.
[21:07] We are called to care and support, to suffer with one another. When a body part is injured, the rest will compensate. If our right arm is broken and in a cast, our left arm will strengthen to deal with the balance.
[21:21] Brothers and sisters, let's uphold this unity. Let's actively seek out one another to care for the body, because we are one. If you ever hear of someone struggling on their own, we are not acting as a body should.
[21:38] If you're here tonight and you're not yet a believer, I'm so glad you're here. Being in church as a believer is a great place to be.
[21:50] It's your opportunity to witness what this looks like. You get to witness and experience the love of Christ in action, because he is standing, arms open wide, ready to accept anyone who realizes this is the thing they've been missing.
[22:06] He is the thing that they've been missing. It doesn't matter who you are, where you've been. You can find deep, true unity and endless love and support from the Lord Jesus Christ in his body.
[22:21] This is the place to find respite from the endless ache in your heart. It is in this body that you will see the love of Christ in action.
[22:34] The church is one, united by the Spirit to honour and support one another. That leads us to our third point. The church is one body, a united people serving each other, serving like Christ.
[22:48] No matter who you are, if you believe in Christ, you are part of the body. If you like it or not, you're here. But that does not mean that we become some homogenized species with no individuality.
[23:04] Look again at verse 14 of 1 Corinthians with me. For we were all baptized by one Spirit to form one body. Even so, the body is not made up of one part, but of many.
[23:16] I am one body, but I have two hands, two feet, six pack of abs, you know. I'm still one body. And the church is one body made up of many members.
[23:27] And let's just do a little social experiment, right? Everybody pause for a second, look up. Can you all wiggle your fingers for me? Everybody wiggle your fingers. Great, thank you. Like roll your shoulders out. Yeah, great. Take a deep breath in. And a deep breath out.
[23:41] You've just done three separate actions, right? And in each of those actions, so many parts of your body were all moving together at once. Wiggling your fingers, you had to lift your arms, your core strength had to engage.
[23:53] To breathe in, your diaphragm, everything inside of you was moving at once. When your body moves, it needs the whole body involved. That's what verses 15 to 21 of 1 Corinthians 12, that makes this point.
[24:08] We need every single part of the body to be operative, to engage. We cannot assume because we are different parts that we are not then needed.
[24:19] There is no part of the body that is better or more worthy than another. Each and every part of the body is needed to work together.
[24:30] I remember teaching this to a bunch of teenagers here a few years ago, and the conversation quickly took a turn I didn't expect. Because we, we, they started discussing, who would ever want to be the pinky toe of the church?
[24:45] Why would you ever want to be a pinky toe? And then somebody else, well, yeah, I mean, and you can live without a pinky toe. So surely this doesn't make sense. We could chop off a pinky toe and the body will still be fine. Indeed, one of our teenagers proceeded to take his sock off to show us he had lost his pinky toe and he was completely fine.
[25:02] I say this because actually what I had allowed to happen was that we'd slightly misinterpreted the metaphor Paul was getting at. These teenagers were trying to figure out, well, am I a hand? Am I a leg? What am I?
[25:18] That's not what Paul's calling for. We're not called to figure out if we're an ear or an eye. It is to, Paul is saying to us, no one can back out from the body because they're different from someone else.
[25:31] And no one can reject another part of the body because they are different. The foot should not say, because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body. The eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you.
[25:44] There is no arrogance allowed in this body. A high-flying partner in a law firm, they might think they are more valuable than the cleaner to the profit margin of the company.
[25:55] You get rid of that cleaner, fine. Get rid of this partner, you'll probably think they'll be worse off. But a knee cannot claim to be more important than a foot when a body is walking.
[26:06] Every body part needs every other body part for the whole range of actions that a body needs to do. What that means is, you need the church and the church needs you.
[26:19] Our bodily unity is most clearly shown when every member strives to love and serve the other members of the body.
[26:31] Here's a handy summary for a healthy body member. Romans 12 is going to come up on the screen. You don't need to flick there. It's just going to be a couple of verses, right? This is from chapter 12, verse 3.
[26:42] For by the grace given to me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment. Then verse 5.
[26:54] Then verse 5. In Christ, we though many form one body and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts according to the grace given to us.
[27:06] Whatever that gift is, do it. That's how I'm summarizing the rest of that passage, right? Now often a classic response to reading this passage, because he goes on to talk about different gifts, is to say, well, what is my gifts?
[27:17] Or great, here's my gift. I need to do that. What that is actually happening, right? When that is the next step, right? It's natural. We all have it.
[27:28] It's a helpful conversation to have sometimes. But when you start thinking, well, what's my gift? Here's my gift. How can we use it? Actually, you're thinking of yourself first and the body second. You're starting to put yourself above other people, even just in practicalities in your head, right?
[27:45] The body of Christ can only function as the wholly embodied presence of Jesus on earth if we all view ourselves humbly and think of others with a self-sacrificial love according to the grace that God has given us.
[28:01] Sinclair Ferguson, in his book, Devoted to God's Church, right? He describes a few principles of service that the body of Christ needs to have. Right here they are. They're on the screen. If you can't read it, I'm going to read them out.
[28:12] It's a good book. So here we go. Principles of service for the body of Christ. Service is not a matter of others recognizing our gifts. Service is a matter of us recognizing others' needs.
[28:27] Service is not a matter of doing things for others at our own convenience. Service is a matter of us helping others when they are inconvenienced.
[28:39] Service is not a matter of feeling we have a special gift. Service is a matter of us seeing that others have very special needs. Does that change how you view serving your church?
[28:56] Does it change how you view the body, the people sitting beside you? Have you been thinking, even without realizing, in a me first, church second type way?
[29:10] I have and do for a very long time. I was very challenged by reading that section of Sinclair's book. We at St. Silas, we're a very big church.
[29:21] It can feel really easy to sit in the congregation and be consumers. What I mean by that is you turn up faithfully every Sunday possibly, and you sit and you receive, you listen to the sermon, you engage in the worship, and then you leave.
[29:37] It's a big church. It's easy to do that. But what we're hearing tonight from Paul is that that is not how bodies work. Every member is serving the whole in some way, and without it, the body is weaker.
[29:54] So if you are a member of this body, but not serving, can I challenge you tonight? Have a look around.
[30:05] Where do you see the greatest needs? If you can't see it, I'd love to chat to you after the service. If you long to serve, we all need people to help in this great mission the church is called to.
[30:18] Because isn't that question the perfect encapsulation of the self-sacrificial attitudes of Jesus? He saw our greatest needs, and he gave himself up for us.
[30:32] Jesus didn't wait until someone recognized the gift he had. Jesus didn't stand back on the sidelines until someone asked him to serve. Jesus stepped into a world of needs and gave all that he had.
[30:48] If you're not a Christian tonight, again, it's not necessarily appropriate for you to serve in some of these ways. It's still right for you to be here. It's still right for you to sit there and listen and engage and process and figure out who is this Jesus.
[31:06] That is why this body exists. For you to see what true unity and community looks like. To provide a place for you to be accepted as the sinner you are and loved and supported to grow in faith, grace, and experience the loving forgiveness of Jesus.
[31:29] Stick around. See what this body of Christ thing is all about. Brothers and sisters, whether you're rejoicing or grieving, you have been placed in this body by the Lord Jesus Christ.
[31:45] You don't need to question if you deserve to be here or if you belong here. You are here because Christ has brought you in by his spirit.
[31:56] You are here as a member of a body that cannot survive on its own. Every member of the body needs the body as much as the body needs every member.
[32:10] The end of 1 Corinthians 12 says this, and I hope we can all take comfort in it. Now you are part of the body of Christ.
[32:23] Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it. Together we are one made up of many members brought together to love like Jesus our head.
[32:34] Let us treat one another and live accordingly. Let me close in prayer. Father God, you are so good to have given us the church.
[32:49] You are so gracious to have called us into it. Lord, help us to look to Christ as our head for guidance. And may his self-sacrificial love be our example.
[33:04] Forgive us our selfish attitudes when we put ourselves above others. Give us the wisdom to be truly and utterly aware of those around us. Lord, may every single one of us be transformed by the renewing of our minds as we grow in the grace of our great head, Lord Jesus.
[33:22] Amen. We are going to stand and sing.