We Are The Body Of Christ On Mission To Reconcile The World To God!

We Are the Body of Christ on Mission to Reconcile the World to God!

I’m delighted to be able to share with you from the Word of God today. It is so good to be in the house of the Lord!

My name is Matthew Parker and I’m the lead pastor of Church at the Mission, Yonge Street Mission, as well as a Regional Minister Assistant in Toronto, working with Jeff Knott, the Regional Minister for the EMCC for the area that includes Toronto.

As you may know I’ve been working with the Steering Committee of Riverside to ‘steer’ the church in a direction that will be pleasing to God and at the same time be a blessing to this local community.

It’s been a genuine blessing to work with Pastor Tim, who as you know is currently pastoring both St. Clair and Riverside churches.

He really is an excellent man, completely genuine and full of passion for the Lord Jesus Christ and for His church.

You are blessed, both the people of St. Clair Missionary Church and of Riverside Missionary Church, to have him as your shepherd, serving under the Great Shepherd, Jesus Christ.

And today I want to tap into the general theme that Pastor Tim has been talking about for the past number of weeks, which is Being Christ’s Church”

I thought we could do that by looking at a passage from 1 Corinthians 12:

1 Corinthians 12:12 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[c] 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? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 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 put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it,

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.

This is a wonderful and encouraging passage that speaks to so many truths about God, about us as His people, and about the church. I'd like us to spend some time this morning exploring the following themes that emerge from the scriptures I've just read.

We are a part of the body - we are not alone

We are partners in the furthering of the gospel of Jesus

We are a holy priesthood

We Are A Part Of The Body - We Are Not Alone

Did you know that you are not alone? We are coming out of a worldwide pandemic, a plague that this planet has endured for 3 years.

One of the things that the pandemic did is create a situation forced upon us where many of us found ourselves disconnected from others.

For months upon months we couldn’t safely meet with others, even extended family members, we were in lockdown for some time. We suffered. You suffered.

But the truth is that we have this connection. We have this privilege to have this connection that is life giving, this relationship with others in the church that makes the truth of our lives be such that we are not alone.