October 27, 2002 1 Corinthians 12:21-31a
“Unity, not uniformity” (pt. 2)
INTRODUCTION
For more than a year a little old cleaning women, who lived on the wrong side of the tracks, had been trying to join a fashionable downtown church. The pastor was not eager to have a seedy looking person in faded, out-of-style clothes sitting in a pew next to his rich members. When she called for the fifth time to discuss membership, he put her off for the fifth time.
"I tell you what," said the pastor, "you just go home tonight and have a talk with God about it. Later you can tell me what He said."
The poor woman went her way. Weeks moved into months, and the preacher saw no more of her and his conscience did hurt a little. Then one day he encountered her scrubbing floors in an office building, and felt impelled to inquire, "did you have your little talk with God, Mrs. Washington?" he asked.
"Oh, my yes," she said, "I talked with God as you suggested."
"Ah, and what answer did He give you?" asked the pastor.
"Well, Preacher," she said as she pushed back a wisp of stringy hair with a sudsy hand, "God said for me not to get discouraged, but to keep trying. He said that He Himself had been trying to get into your church for 20 years, with no more success than I have had." - Unknown (PULPIT HELPS, Sept., 1990)
That church had what I would call an attitude of superiority. They felt that they were too important to need someone who they felt didn’t match up to their standards. But in the verses that we are going to look at this morning, we are going to discover that no part of the body of Christ is of any greater value than any other part. We all stand as sinners in front of a holy God, we have all been saved by the same grace, and our sins have all been washed away by the same blood.
In spite of what God has done in their lives, some Christians never get involved in actively serving Him in a local church. Paul deals with two reasons for this here in verses 14 – 31 of 1 Cor. 12. The first is that “some feel that they have no gifts or abilitites that are worthwhile, and so sit back and let others do the work.” We dealt with that reason last week. We saw that there are no inferior people, and there are no inferior spiritual gifts. The second reason that people do not get involved in ministering with others in a local church is because they “feel they are so highly qualified that they do not really need the help of others to perform their ministry”. A spirit of inferiority and an attitude of superiority both have the same affect: they isolate Christians from one another. They divide us. We become unproductive separated parts rather than the powerful unified body of Christ. “We are not to isolate ourselves in our supposed inadequacy, nor are we to isolate ourselves in our imagined superiority”, and it is that attitude of superiority that we are going to deal with this morning.
Let’s take a look at three ways that an attitude of superiority can prevent the body of Christ from being healthy and accomplishing God’s mission for it.
1. An attitude of superiority prevents the parts of the body of Christ from recognizing their need for each other. (vs. 21-24a)
If you remember from our study last week, the focus of the Christians in the Corinthian church was on certain spiritual gifts – the ones that were of the more showier type. These would include the gift of healing, the gift of performing miracles and especially the gift of tongues. Anyone who didn’t have one of these gifts considered themselves to be inferior, and those who did have these gifts thought of themselves as superior. “Whereas the first [group] says, “They don’t need me,” the second says, “I don’t need them.”” But Paul wants to communicate to them and to us that no part of the body is strong enough to not need the other parts. In order to be healthy, we need each other. Look at vs. 21.
a. No part of the body can be discarded. (vs. 21)
Christians can get to the point where they think that they are self-sufficient. Imagine that you can hear the foot talking to the hand. And he’s saying something like this: “I don’t need you! I can get along fine without you. You are doing such a horrible job at being a hand. I think I can do my job of walking and still do your job better than you are doing it right now. You screw-up. You can’t do anything right!” The hand was already feeling like it was all thumbs before these harsh words came from the foot. So now, a part of the body that is already feeling inferior is being trounced on by another part of the body which only serves to confirm the way that the hand was feeling about its worth to the body to begin with. “The philosophy that we are basically self-sufficient and do not need anyone else is Satan’s philosophy and the opposite of God’s plan and will for men…[man’s] great desire [is] to be his own god.” – p. 318
“There is no such thing as a solitary Christian” – John Wesley Some people try to hide the fact that they do need other people. When people get hurt, one of the defense mechanisms that they use to protect themselves is to take on an attitude of superiority. They pretend that they do not need the other person’s friendship or approval. “You want to walk away? Fine. I don’t need you. I can get along perfectly well without you.” They would rather cut off the relationship and try to make it on their own than do the work necessary to bring healing.
Reality is that God has made us so that we do need each other. That’s why God did not give all of the spiritual gifts to any one person. None of us individually has everything that we need to be able to survive as a human body or as a church body. That realization keeps us humble.
Within every church body, there is a power-structure. It is made up of he powerful people in the church who make decisions that the rest of the church body follows. The pastor and other church leaders may not be the ones who make the decisions for the church. It may be the person or family that has been in the church the longest or that has the most financial resources or the matriarch of a prominent family in the church. Whenever the church body grows, the power structure shifts. Some people don’t like that. They feel threatened. They like to see new faces, but they don’t like to think about the possibility that new faces will bring changes in the church. New people are told, “You come and sit. You give in the offering if you want to. But don’t start butting in where you don’t belong. We’ve got things running just the way we want them. You would only mess things up. We don’t need your help or input. You just sit back, relax, and let us do the driving.”
Right now, this church is growing. We have been seeing new faces almost every week for two months. I think it’s great, and most of you would probably agree. But new people are going to bring changes. They’re going to take over some of the jobs that you have been doing which at first sounds wonderful. You get a break. But it also lowers your level of control over something that you once ran. Some envy starts to creep in. Some rivalry starts to build. And before you know it, we’ve either got a long-time member leaving because things aren’t like they’ve always been, or we’ve got a new person that never comes back because we had a closed group that wouldn’t let them in.
b. No part of the body can be devalued. (vs. 22-24a)
In order to justify their self-amputation of parts of the body of Christ, these superior Christians try to diminish the value of those parts that they want to get rid of. They are overly critical, they pick apart what everyone else does, and they think that they can do it better themselves. So Paul communicates to them that though some parts seem less significant and necessary, every part has value and is necessary.
These verses identify 4 different groups of body parts.
Weaker – indispensable “seem”
The first group is the weaker parts of the body, or at least they seem that way. The reason that they seem that way is because they work on the inside – your internal organs – and no one sees what they do. And sense no one sees what they do, it is easy to come to the conclusion that they do nothing and are therefore expendable unless they start to do their fair share of the work.
One day it occurred to the members of the body that they were doing all the work and that the belly was having all the food. So they held a meeting and after a long discussion decided to strike work until the belly consented to take its proper share of the work. So for a day or two the hands refused to take the food, the mouth refused to receive it and the teeth had no work to do. But after a day or two the external members began to find that they themselves were not in very active condition. The hands could hardly move, the mouth was all parched and dry, while the legs were unable to support the rest. Thus they found that even the belly in its dull quiet way was doing necessary work for the body and that all must work together or the body would go to pieces. – Aesop
The church body has parts that correspond to the internal organs of the human body. Sometimes we forget about them because they may not hold an office on the list of church officers and teachers. They are the ones who fulfill their role in the body by working on the inside. The prayer warriors are the lungs of the church. Those who encourage with a smile, a listening ear or a kind card are the heart of the church. Those who fast for spiritual cleansing in the church are the kidneys of the church. They are indispensable.
If ever you forget how indispensable the internal organs of the body are, just ask the bus driver who was shot by the sniper on Tuesday. The surgeons said that his liver was more torn up than any they had ever seen. They were unable to repair it, so he died.
“You can lose an eye or ear, a hand or leg and still live. But you cannot lose your heart or liver or brain and live…Their work is not nearly as obvious…those less noticed parts (internal organs) seem to be weaker than much of the rest of the body (external limbs), but they also are more necessary…more guarded by the skeleton…more vital and more vulnerable…given more protection. You can live without legs but not without lungs.”
Just as the body protects its vital organs behind the rib cage, so the vulnerable indispensable organs within the church body must be protected rather than being cast aside just because they have no obvious place of service on Sunday mornings. “[To look] down on other Christians who possess no obvious gift [is an attitude that] is a direct contradiction of the principle of concern that characterizes a body.”
The “sensible person is more concerned [when there is a problem] with his heart than [when there is a problem with] his hair.” I’m afraid that we as a church have spent too little time making sure that the heart and lungs of the church are healthy because we have focused too much on what people see on the outside.
Less honorable – special honor “you think”
Every person has a part of their body that they would like to change or would rather not admit that there is a problem there. These are the parts of our body that make us love winter and dread summer. This group would include things like flabby thighs and bellies that have dunlap disease – they’ve dun lapped over our belts. It would include hairy backs and armpits, love handles, moles, scars and skin blotches. They are parts of the body that are out of shape, damaged, bruised and generally not very appealing. Baggy sweatshirts allow us to cover up these things, but shorts and bathing suits expose them for everyone to see.
The body of Christ has parts that aren’t the most appealing too. Some parts of the body are out of shape and haven’t reached spiritual maturity. We’re ashamed of them. We cringe whenever they tell someone that they go to our church. Yea, that’s really going to make people want to come here when they find out that _____ comes here. We even tend to blame the body’s problems on them. The body tends to look at the belly and blame it for lapping over the belt. But if the rest of the body got out and exercised or used some self-control, then the belly would not be a problem. If the rest of the body took the time and was willing to work with them, they could help those less honorable parts become the lean washboard stomach that the rest of the body is. But the body is lazy. Easier to get rid of that unseemly part – have spiritual lyposuction – than to stop eating the wrong things and living the wrong kind of lifestyle.
Unpresentable – special modesty
“Unseemly – shameful, indecent, or unpresentable; considered private and to be covered…treated with modesty. It is not those parts of the body themselves, but the display of them, that is unseemly and shameful.” This group of body parts would be the reproductive organs. Very rarely are these body parts exposed, and their work is seen even more rarely. But they are absolutely crucial to the overall goal of the body because it is these organs that make it possible for the body to reproduce itself. In your physical body, you give these organs special treatment. You cover them with an extra layer of clothing, and you reserve them for one person at very special times of your life. They are not seen, but they are a joy to the body.
Presentable – no special treatment
Finally, the last group is the presentable parts – those parts of the body that are most often seen and need no clothing in order for them to be seen in public. They are the head, the hands and sometimes the feet. They are the ones that everyone sees and get the most visible work done. But they could not do what they do without all of the other parts working to support them.
Paul’s point in listing these groups of parts in the body and my point in explaining some of what these groups may include is not so that you can examine your role or someone else’s and determine what group you fit into. That doesn’t really matter. We are all a part of the body of Christ, and as Tony reminded me last week, someone has to be the armpit. Paul’s point is this – we as individual parts of the body do not have the right to judge what parts of the body are needed and what ones are not. We don’t have the right to look at someone who comes in the door and say, “Oh, I know that person. He’s weird. He’s got some psychological problems. Do we really want him to be a part of this church?” We don’t have the right to decide that someone is too needy, or that they’ll be a drain if we let them come. We can’t push them away because they haven’t reached the level of spiritual maturity that the rest of us have reached. The Bible tells us to “encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, [and] be patient with all men” (1 Thess. 5:14), not to push them away because they aren’t perfect yet. And we can’t ignore people’s absence simply because as far as we know they never put anything in the offering plate and they don’t serve on any ministry team. God determines the value of the parts of the body, not us.
2. An attitude of superiority prevents the parts of the body of Christ from showing real concern for each other. (vs. 24b -26)
a. No part has the right to take credit for its placement. (vs. 24b)
God is the authority in making and placing the parts. Paul had dealt with this idea that God does the arranging of the parts already in vs. 18. Why deal with it again? There, he was talking to people who thought God had made a mistake in giving them the part that they had because they considered themselves too inferior for it or they considered the job it enabled them for to be beneath them. Here, he reminds them of the fact of God’s sovereignty again so that they will not forget that they had nothing to do with the placement that they received in the body. And therefore, they have no right to be proud about the place that they have.
[Include the Gospel here.] “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9) You can’t boast about your salvation. That was a work of God. Neither can you boast about your placement in the church. That too was a work of God.
“God has given (not the body has given) greater honor (a bigger responsibility, more opportunity for greatness [i.e. the reproductive organs are covered up in modesty, but it is those organs that have the awesome honor of producing children]) to the parts that lacked it.”
b. No part has the right to change other’s placement. (vs. 25a)
God does not want division in His body. He works things in such a way so as to prevent division. He put the parts where they are, and I don’t have the right to whack off a part and try to put it somewhere else. That would create confusion and division. God hates both of those.
c. No part has the right to think only about its own placement. (vs. 25b-26)
The Christians in Jerusalem in early Acts did have an equal concern for one another. That’s one of the reasons that the church grew at the rate it did. My fear is that right now, there is very little concern being shown back and forth in this church. It is natural to develop friendships in a church and to show greater concern for that individual or family. But we are a supernatural body not a natural one. God desires that we show equal, great concern for all parts regardless of what part of the body we are.
On March 30th of 1981 when then President Ronald Reagan was shot in the left side of his chest by a deranged John Hinckley Jr., Reagan was rushed to George Washington University Hospital. When one of the doctors told the President that they were going to operate on him, Reagan, with his characteristic wit quipped, “I hope you’re a Republican.” To which the surgeon replied, “Today, Mr. President, we’re all Republicans.”
“In our eyes, as in God’s eyes, every believer should be of the highest importance and every ministry of the highest importance.” Turn with me to Phil 2:1-4. [read it] “We should care as much for the nursery teacher as for the pastor, as much for the janitor as for the Sunday School superintendent.”
We are told to (Gal 6:2 NIV) Carry each other’s burdens…and to Rom. 12:15 “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” Instead, “…we are jealous of those who rejoice and apathetic toward those who weep…” – Life Application Bible, p. 2082
In the human body, there is a unified response to either joy or pain throughout the whole body. When I hit my thumbnail with a hammer, stub my toe, or get a toothache, it is not just that part of the body that is damaged that suffers. The whole body feels the pain. Have you ever had a pain that starts in one part of your body and then spreads to other parts of your body? When you receive a back-rub or a foot massage (warm bath), only one part of your body is being touched, but the whole body reaps the benefits. The whole body relaxes.
The body doesn’t have to be told to share in the sufferings or joys of another part of the body. It is just a natural part of the body’s physiology that this happens. Notice that Paul does not say, “If one part suffers, every part should suffer with it…” He says that it does suffer with it. In a healthy body, the normal response of one part suffering is that all the other parts join in on that suffering.
Suffering that is shared is halved; joy that is shared is multiplied.
I hope you’ve got your pen out there. If you don’t, get it out now. I want you to write some stuff down. I’m going to give you a list of the names of people who haven’t been here in a significant amount of time or are going through some kind of crisis. Are you ready? Here we go. Irene Bates, Janet Finley, Sharon Harrison, Launie and Pauline Martin (Launie’s up in Maine right now recovering from back surgery. When he gets back, I want his mailbox to be overflowing with cards), David and Janet Morris, Kristin and T.J. Thompson, Libby Valentine (Libby had surgery this week), Mary, Kaitlin and Ryan Williams, Lorenna and Niketta Wilmoth and Jean Layman. If you didn’t get all those names, get them from me before you leave. I want you to send a note to each and every one of those families. Doesn’t have to be long, and if you need stamps, I’ll provide them. You say, “I don’t know some of those people.” That’s okay; if somebody showed me my liver, I wouldn’t recognize it. But it’s a part of my body, and I have concern for it. These people are a part of this body. We must show concern for them.
3. An attitude of superiority prevents the parts of the body of Christ from working together with each other. (vs. 27-31a)
a. No part has the same job. (vs. 27-28)
“Every local church is fully equipped to serve the Lord, just as every believer is fully equipped to serve Him. Any lacking, any deficiency, is always in our recognition and use of what He has provided.” Paul’s primary goal here was not to “give an exhaustive list [of the gifts]… [but] to show the variety [of the gifts]” and to show that God has placed just the right gifts in each church so that they will have every resource that they need to accomplish what He has given them to do.
God does not intend for everyone to have the same gift, and He does not intend for everyone to have gifts that are out front and noticed.
“appointed” – not elected, not asked, not pleaded with. Paul again reminds the Corinthians of God’s sovereign and perfect provision.
“apostles, prophets, teachers” – declare God’s message
“miracles, healings, helps” – ministering to people; helps means to take the burden off someone and place it on yourself.
“administration” – “to steer or pilot” a ship; he keeps a ship or a church on course toward its proper destination.
“tongues” – mentioned last even though that was the most sought-after gift at that time and appears to be still today.
b. No part has been equipped for the same job. (vs. 29-30)
Last week, a fly came into our Sunday School room. How would people with different gifts respond to a fly being in the room?
- Prophecy – swat it!
- Mercy – would hit the prophet for trying to swat the fly and then would gingerly try to coax the fly out the door. After the fly was gone, the mercy person would bandage the wound that she had inflicted on the prophet.
- Administration – would position everyone in the room and give them each a different job so that they could reach the desired outcome of getting the fly to leave
- Teaching – would try to talk to the fly and teach him how to fly or would try to communicate directions on how he could get to the nearest outdoor trash heap
- Helps – pick up the book that the fly landed on and try to carry it out the door
- Hospitality – you just stay right there Mr. Fly. My home is your home. Here, have some of my donut.
- Evangelism – tell the fly, “You only have a lifespan of 28 days. There is no putting this decision off until tomorrow. Don’t leave without getting saved today!”
That scenario may be a little far-fetched, but it shows that your gifting will equip you to respond to situations differently than someone else with a different gift would.
Your gifting will also equip you for a specific job that no one else can do.
When I was younger, I had terrible eye-hand coordination – even worse than I do now. I’m sure that there were times that, if it had been possible, my eye would have looked down at my hand and said, “You idiot! I can see that basketball hoop right there. It looks wide open. All you have to do is bounce the ball you’re holding against the backboard and get it in the basket. But you can’t even do a simple thing like that. It looks easy enough to me. In fact, I think I can do it myself. I don’t need you.” But the eye is not equipped to shoot a basketball.
When Paul asks all these questions in vs. 29, the expected answer to all them is “no”. Not everyone has the same gift. And so not everyone is equipped to function in the same way or respond to the same situation in the same way.
c. No part should seek a job other than the one God has given. (vs. 31)
If you look at the first part of vs. 31, you will probably see that there is a superscript letter or number telling you to look in the margin or at the bottom of your Bible for further explanation. There, you will probably discover that this part of vs. 31 could also be translated “But you are eagerly desiring the greater gifts.” The wording of this makes a difference. Worded one way, Paul is commanding them to seek the best gifts. That’s a problem because Paul has repeatedly told them that God is the one who decides what gift each person gets and that each gift is necessary for the health of the body. There are no greater gifts in God’s view. It wouldn’t make sense for Paul to seek something that they had no control over. The alternate reading makes a lot more sense. Rather than commanding them to seek greater gifts, he was simply stating that they were seeking greater gifts. They were eagerly desiring – they were coveting – gifts that they thought were greater than the gifts that they presently had. This is something that Paul was not happy with.
God had already given them their gifts and assigned them a responsibility based on that gift. But instead of being satisfied with God’s wisdom and God’s goodness, they were shooting for something more. They failed to understand that God only gives good gifts. They thought that they knew better than God and that they had the right to determine what gifts were really good and which ones were second-rate. They had put themselves in the place of God.
God wants His children to recognize that as Father, He only gives good gifts. Rather than wanting the gift and the job that someone else has, He expects us to humbly and thankfully accept what He has given and to faithfully use it for Him in conjunction with the rest of the body of Christ.
CONCLUSION
Back in 1957 the First Brethren Church of Sarasota, Florida had a ground breaking service. Instead of the usual shovels for special people to use in digging, they brought an old one horse plow. Recalling the words of Jesus, "Take my yoke upon you," they borrowed an old yoke and two stalwart laymen were hitched up. But the two were unable to pull the plow. Then the entire Building Committee of the congregation were put on the rope, but even then the plow did not move. Other church officers were added, and the Sunday school officers and teachers, but still the plow did not move. Finally every member of the congregation who was present each took a hold of the rope. With every member pulling together, the plow moved, the ground was broken.
Too many churches have only a few people working either because there are inferior people who feel that they have nothing to offer or superior people who won’t let anyone else share in the work. If we want to see progress everyone must work and work together.
“Jesus said that those who seek to be first in this life will be last in the next (Matt. 19:30), and that spiritual greatness is determined by the spirit of servanthood not by high position or impressive achievements (Matt. 20:27)”. We must work toward having a church where there is “no rivalry or competition, no envy or malice, no inferiority or superiority, but only love – love that is patient, kind, and not jealous, boastful or arrogant; love that… does not seek its own and is not easily provoked (1 Cor. 13:4-6)”
INVITATION
My invitation to you this morning concerns the three points that we have covered this morning.
1. Have you been guilty of communicating to others that you don’t need them? Oh, you may have never said the words, but whenever you refuse someone else’s help, whenever you make judgments on who is a worthwhile part of the church and who is not, whenever you decide not to invite someone to this church because they are different from us, whenever you choose not to encourage someone to come back because you think they are a drain or don’t contribute enough, then you in effect have said, “I don’t need you.” And then, you have put yourself in the place of God.
2. Have you been showing real concern for others that are a part of this body, or have you been so wrapped up in your own life that you haven’t taken the time to get involved in someone else’s life?
3. Are you willing to commit yourself to discovering what your spiritual gifting is not so that you can take pride in it but so that you can put it to use to work with the rest of the body to accomplish the mission of God?
