Called By God

Sometimes God has a difficult time helping us with teamwork because we have a hard time “sticking together” as a team.

Instead of fighting, warring, arguing, and criticizing, we must work at building the church. We must work at building up one another, not tearing one another down. We must eliminate the negative and accentuate the positive. We must focus on the positive, instead of the negative.

Heb. 12:14 “Make every effort to live in peace with all men…”

Rom. 14:19 “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.”

We are admonished in Scripture “to make every effort” to be at peace, to promote peace, to build up one another in the church, to edify, to maintain unity in the church.

II. The second reason is DIVERSITY (3:4, 6)

1 Cor 12:12 says “The body is a unit made up of many parts; and though it’s parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.”

Paul writes to the Corinthian church that each one who has made a commitment to Christ is a valuable member of the body of Christ.

These Corinthians were getting all puffed up as one person could do one thing and someone else couldn’t. They were putting themselves above others because they saw that their gifting made them more important than someone else.

Yet Paul tells them that the body is made up of many individual, different, unique, diverse parts and that each one is important.

That person is not the same as you. They don’t look the same, they don’t talk the same, they don’t smell the same and they don’t do all the same things as you. They are not the same as you. They are themselves.

Even so called identical twins are not completely the same, they are individuals.

Each one of us is unique. We’re unique in our appearance, unique in our character, unique in our gifts, unique in our maturity, unique in our abilities and unique in so many other ways.

And you know what? You are the best person to be You! There’s no-one else who could be you any better than you. In the words of Carly Simon’s James Bond theme, Nobody does it better, nobody does it half as good as you, you’re the best!

So resentment born of a feeling of inferiority or arrogance arising from a sense of superiority are both out of place. “Because God did not made us the same”

Our roles are different, yet equally important. And that’s why I like the model that this congregation follows of laity involvement. Each person doing a job in this church is just as important as the next person.

Joe Phillips said it in last weeks business meeting: if we don’t do it folks, it doesn’t get done!

Read 1 Cor 12: 15-19

III. The third reason is OPPORTUNITY (3:5)

What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one.

“As the Lord has assigned to each his task.”

The Lord called us here to serve him? Now, I ask you, what is your part in this church?

I read this humorous story of a guy who prayed this prayer every morning: "Lord, if you want me to witness to someone today, please give me a sign to show me who it is." One day he found himself on a bus when a big, burly man sat next to him. The bus was nearly empty but this guy sat next to our praying friend. The timid Christian anxiously waited for his stop so he could exit the bus. But before he could get very nervous about the man next to him, the big guy burst into tears and began to weep. He then cried out with a loud voice, "I need to be saved. I’m a lost sinner and I need the Lord. Won’t somebody tell me how to be saved?" He turned to the Christian and pleaded, "Can you show me how to be saved?" The believer immediately bowed his head and prayed, "Lord, is this a sign?"