One Anothers #1: Members Of One Another Series

Members of One Another

Series: The One Anothers: The Church’s “Body Builders”

Chuck Sligh

April 24, 2022

BLURB:

NOTE: A PowerPoint presentation is available for this sermon by request at chucksligh@hotmail.com. Please mention the title of the sermon and the Bible text to help me find the sermon in my archives.

TEXT: Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 12:5

INTRODUCTION

Illus. – After World War II, a group of German students volunteered to help rebuild an English cathedral that had been severely damaged by German bombs. As work progressed, they became concerned about a large statue of Jesus, whose arms were outstretched, beneath which was the inscription: “Come unto Me.” They had particular difficulty trying to restore the hands, which had been completely destroyed. After much discussion, they decided to let the hands remain missing and changed the inscription to: “Christ has no hands but ours.” (John MacArthur Jr.)

The work of Jesus Christ in the world is in the hands of those who belong to Him. I love the way Casting Crowns puts it in their song, We Are the Body, where the chorus says:

If we are the body

Why aren’t His arms reaching?

Why aren’t His hands healing?

Why aren’t His words teaching?

And if we are the body

Why aren’t His feet going?

Why is His love not showing them there is a way?

Yes, the work of Christ in the world is in our hands. But how can the church—a collection of people from varying walks of life and different backgrounds and different cultures—do the job God has called us to do?

That answer is this: Over and over again, the New Testament writers exhort believers to engage in specific activities and attitudes to help local churches function effectively and grow spiritually so that they would be healthy and be able to carry out the church’s biblically mandated tasks.

Frequently these writers, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, employed a unique word in the Greek language to describe this mutual process. It’s the Greek word alle´lon (Grk: a??????), invariably translated as “one another.” This Greek word is used 58 times in the New Testament. Paul utilized it most often, using it 40 of the 58 instances in the New Testament. Since some of them are repeated, for instance “love one another” is found 17 times in the New Testament, or almost one-third of the total, we end up with 22 separate “one another” commands and one statement of fact, which we will look at today.

When you take them all together, you realize that this is an important, though neglected, New Testament priority.

Andy Stanley said of the early church: “The primary activity of the church was one-anothering one another.”

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to look a few of these significant actions or attitudes Christians ought to have toward one another that are the “Body Builders” of the body—both the Body of Christ and local church bodies. Let’s start with the foundational “One Another,” that we are “members of one another.” This is the only one that is a statement rather than a command, and is found in our text, Romans 12:5.

Follow along as I read the verse, “So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.”

Paul says that every believer is a part of Christ’s body. In Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, and Colossians Paul used the word body 30 times to illustrate the functioning of the church. Now go with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 12:14-27, where the concept of being members of a body is explained in detail. Paul’s immediate context is the worldwide Body of Christ, but every generality of the body motif can be particularized to any individual local church as well. Since the New Testament “one anothers” are largely focused on local churches, that will be the focus of our study in 1 Corinthians 12.

This won’t be an exhaustive look at this passage, but please note the following:

I. FIRST NOTE THAT PAUL TEACHES THAT THE BODY IS MADE UP OF MANY DIFFERENT MEMBERS – 1 Corinthians 12:14 – “For the body is not one member, but many.”

There are many of us, and we’re all different.

• We’re tall and short; thin and not-so-thin; attractive and plain; some are ACADEMICALLY smart and others are more HANDS-ON smart.

• All races and many cultures are represented in our church.

• We also have all kinds of different personalities: Hard charging and laid back; outgoing and quiet; action-oriented or contemplative and creative.

• We come from all sorts of economic backgrounds—from lower to upper class, and everything in between.

• Some of us can sing; some can play instruments; others can teach; some can organize; others can fix things; others can clean the building and maintain gardens; and on and on we could go.