How To Be A Team Player Series

The net result is still the same: ineffectiveness.

Now I want to go one layer deeper. Remember Paul noted the diversity of the Body goes deeper than spiritual gifts? Paul mentions ethnicity, religious background, social standing etc. The incredible uniqueness that is you, goes deeper than your spiritual gift to your background, your experiences, your interests and your temperament and personality.

So part of saying, OK, I’m an eye, is to also say, “oh, and I’m a LEFT eye, or a RIGHT eye.” See, some of you already know what special, divine enablements the Holy Spirit put into your life the day he took up residence there:

- helps,

- faith,

- intercession,

- giving,

- hospitality,

- encouragement,

- administration,

- evangelism,

- service,

- mercy,

- discernment,

- shepherding

You KNOW this is in there… but then when you’re using that gift you’ll find your energy flags or there’s frustration, or there’s no fruit. Why not? It could be you’re functioning as a left eye and you’re made to be a right eye.

Once, after I uncovered the thrill of teaching God’s Word, I jumped at the opportunity to teach a class of 5 year olds. Why not? I was gifted to teach, right? Big mistake. Every week blank faces staring at me. I brought in a lifelike stuffed bird once to liven up a discussion and a kid almost wet his pants he was so scared.

I asked myself, what’s wrong? Why does this service suck me dry? Don’t I have the gift of teaching? The answer I found out years later was that I did have a gift to teach but I had little passion for teaching children. The same principle applies to personality discoveries. And this is the just part of the fun stuff you’ll unpack in Network on Sept 28th.

Now finally Paul talks about

(SLIDE) COMMUNITY PAYOFFS

1 Cor 12:23-27

23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty,

24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it,

(SLIDE) 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.

26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

Two kinds of payoffs Paul mentions.

(SLIDE) MUTUAL CARE

Again, there’s no better illustration of God’s design than the human body. The unpresentable parts of the human body are on the inside. They are delicate and they are unseen. Exposed to outside, how long would the heart, the lungs, the stomach last? Not long. So God sees to it that ribs and skin protects them. In turn, the heart and lungs and stomach feed and nurture the ribs and skin.

This mutual care works itself out in the Body of Christ on more than one level.

- those with upfront gifts must continually acknowledge and give honor to the truth: that the church falls flat without the myriads of behind the scenes gifts. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t do that now: behind every piece of fruit that comes from my life and ministry which is more on display than any other at AC3 comes back to another person’s service. A wife. A small group leader. A cleaning team member. A child care worker.