Part 4: Living Together In Christ Series

God’s Best for One Another

Part 4: Living Together in Christ

1 Corinthians 12:12-27

Sermon by Rick Crandall

McClendon Baptist Church - Sept. 20, 2009

*How do you feel about my body? -- I’ll have you know it takes almost 60 years to get a body like this!

*How do you feel about your own body?

-Denn Guptill says: “Most of us would rather not think about our bodies and if we do we probably don’t think very complementary things. It’s too fat or too skinny, too short or too tall, bumpy, lumpy or just plain ugly. . . At least that’s the way we think about it. So it’s kind of strange to hear Paul say that Christian, right now, you and all believers are part of Christ’s body.” (1)

*God’s Word stresses this truth here in 1 Cor 12, but also in other places like Rom 12:4-5, where Paul tells Christians: “As we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.”

*In 1 Corin 12:12-13, Paul said:

12. For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.

13. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.

*This truth of the Body is vitally important because it helps us to understand how God wants us to treat one another.

-Christians, we are living together as the body of Christ.

1. This means that we find our worth together.

[1] God wants you to see your own value to His Body. And this helps us avoid the error of low self esteem. That’s a problem many of us have. A lot of people feel inferior because of their background, their education, their income or their looks.

*One of the things that disturbed me about pop star Michael Jackson was the way he kept having surgery on his nose. It was grotesque at the end. Have you ever wondered why he kept having those plastic surgeries?

-Kent Crockett tells the sad story that when Michael was a little boy his abusive father constantly mocked him, telling him that he was ugly because his nose was too big. (2)

*Maybe someone in your past has hurt you and made you feel worthless. But God doesn’t want you to feel that way! Christian, God wants you to see your value in His Body. This was Paul’s message in vs. 15-19. Listen to these verses from the New Living Translation:

15. If the foot says, "I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand," that does not make it any less a part of the body.

16. And if the ear says, "I am not part of the body because I am only an ear and not an eye," would that make it any less a part of the body?

17. Suppose the whole body were an eye -- then how would you hear? Or if your whole body were just one big ear, how could you smell anything?

18. But God made our bodies with many parts, and he has put each part just where he wants it.

19. What a strange thing a body would be if it had only one part!

*God wants you to see your own value. He wants you to know how important you are. Think about your physical body.

-Nobody in their right mind would trade a finger for a thousand dollars.

-Would you trade your arm for $100,000?

-Would you trade your tongue for a million? -- Of course not.

*And these are just parts of the temporary body God gave us for this world, things we can really live without. Your real life, your soul is worth more that all the riches of the world.

*Think of the incredible value of your life. Jesus wants you to know, and so in Matt 16:26, He asked this question: “What is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

*Your life, your soul is worth more that all the riches of the world.

-Your soul is worth more than every dime, every diamond and every drop of oil.

-Your soul is priceless. There is nothing worth more.

*On top of that, think of the incredible value God has put on your life.

-God the Father values you so much that He was willing to send His only Son into the world to die on the cross for your sins. That is why Peter tells believers that we should live our lives in Godly reverence, “Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” (1 Peter 1:18-19)