Spiritual Gifts- The Body Series

Spiritual Gifts- The Body

CCCAG June 13, 2021

Scripture- 1 Cor 12:12-26

Introduction-

Today we're going to continue our series on the spiritual gifts in looking at how God uses them to bring the entire body of Christ together in unity through the diversity of the gifts that he gives us.

One of the questions I had as an early believer in Jesus is how come God just doesn't give us all the gifts?

Wouldn't it just be better if we were all spiritual Superman and super women? Every one of us capable of giving a word of prophecy, or healing the sick, or discerning between spirits, or being able to stand up on a Sunday and give a sermon.

Well God didn't design his church that way. God in His wisdom made us interdependent upon each other. In fact within all of creation everything is interdependent upon something else.

Plants need a number of things to grow. They need good ground to develop a root system, they need the sun to start the chemical reaction between chlorophyll, water, and carbon dioxide that produces glucose and oxygen. Take out one of those ingredients, the plant dies, and with it, all life on earth.

Taking anatomy and Physiology a few years ago and complex health alterations last semester we learn how interdependent the body is upon every organ within it.

Did you know your body uses Multiple different organs to manage your blood pressure?

One of the ways your body manage his blood pressure is called the renin angiotensin aldosterone system. It starts in the kidneys, the nephrons detect a lower blood pressure and release a hormone called renin. Your liver is always producing a hormone called angiotensinogen.

These two hormones meet up in the blood stream and covert to angiotensin 1. Meanwhile your lungs are always producing a chemical called angiotensin converting enzyme, otherwise known as ACE. Anyone ever heard of an ACE inhibitor for blood pressure? That’s why you get a cough with that- because the ACE inhibitor works by decreasing the amount of ACE secreted by the lungs, which also decreases your lungs natural production of chemicals that keep the air sacs from collapsing, causing the cough to make up for it.

ACE meets Angiotensin 1, causing a chemical reaction that creates Angiotensin 2 which is a very potent vasoconstrictor- makes your blood vessels smaller, increasing your blood pressure. Angiotensin 2 makes it’s way to the adrenal glands on top of your kidneys, which produces aldosterone, which tells your kidneys to reabsorb water and salt, which also increases your blood pressure.

See how that is all interwound with each other.

So it is in the church. We are all part of a body that need the other parts of the body to work properly.

That’s the main point that we will be talking about today, and what I want you to have the back of your head as we read today’s scripture-

We are going to cover the rest of chapter 12 this week in a few different slices, starting with verses 12-19

12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be?

Prayer

Our primary thought for this message is this- Unity in diversity is necessary for both your personal spiritual health and the health of the entire body of Christ.

This thought answers the initial question I had when I first got saved. How come God doesn't make us all spiritual supermen/women who can do everything?

The simple matter is because then we wouldn't need each other. Human pride would set in and there would be no unity within his body.

The premise behind this idea is this simple fact at the center of all creation-