Community - We Have Unity In Diversity - 1 Corinthians 12:12-20

That's right, buddy. Let's give it up.

Let's let's praise the Lord, man.

Let's clap. Let's do it.

Yeah. All right.

Praise the Lord, man. Hey, welcome to church.

Thanks for being here. My name is Thomas.

I'm the pastor here at Portland Gospel.

And we're here in just a moment. We're going to get into our time

of Bible study. But before that, I just want to

say hi and welcome you. David mentioned it's Mother's

Day, so we actually have some gifts for the mothers.

So David and Austin, I think, are going to pass some of those

out. So if you're a mom, just look at

these guys and they've got a little something for you because

as he said, we love moms. It's a part of God's design that

families have mothers. And if you're not a mother, if

you've lost a mother, today I know can be a difficult day.

God is good and He can meet you in your joy and in your sorrow.

So. And we love you.

Moms. There's a Starbucks gift card

and some flowers. Huh.

Dutch Bros. Sorry.

My bad. Dutch Bros.

Yeah. Give it up for the moms.

That's right. Yeah, that's right.

Amen. All right.

Well, here at Portland Gospel Church, we exist.

We have 3 reasons why we exist. I don't think.

I don't know if my buttons work and make my button work for me.

But somebody tell me, why do we exist as a church?

We believe, live and share. That's right.

We want to help you believe the gospel.

Every person that we come into contact with, that's our goal,

man. That's God's will that they

would believe and be saved. We want to help them live that

out through the word of God in a discipleship relationship and

then be equipped to be able to share that good news with other

people. So that's why we exist as a

church. We're about to get into our

Bible teaching time. And so with that, I want to

dismiss our kids. They have their own time

together. So our kids, we love you.

Jay, are you staying or you going?

You're going. All right, all right.

Well, the rest of you, if you're going to stay, you can turn your

Bibles to 1st Corinthians chapter 12.

We're going to get into our time and God's Word together.

While you're turning there, let me ask you, if you had to choose

between cutting off your hand or your foot, which one would you

choose? Your hand?

Are you just raising your hand? It's hard to pick.

OK, What about if you had to choose between sight or hearing,

like, no more music or like, no more seeing your wife?

You know, like, these are difficult things to pick.

Hopefully we're never in a position.

It's kind of like asking which one is of your kids is your

favorite. You're like, I don't, don't make

me pick. You shouldn't have a favorite

anyway. But as we get into our community

series, we've been in First Corinthians 12 looking at the

church as a community. The Bible calls the church the

body of Christ, and today we're going to see that God is fit

members into the body and we need to figure out how to

function together. So today we will see that we

have unity in diversity. And just as much as the hand and

the foot are different and the eyes and the ears are different,

it's hard to pick which one you wouldn't want to have.

The same is true for people in the church community.

We can't say, hey, we don't, we don't need you here.

We need every part functioning, even if they're very different

from us. Maybe you, you know what that's

like. There's somebody in a community

that they're so different than you.

They annoy you. They're like, how could you ever

think the way that you think? But when we're going to function

in unity together as a community, we need people, even

in their differences. They make us better.

So we're about to read God's word.

Let me just remind us, in Psalm 1/19, 1:30, the Bible says the

entrance of thy word giveth light.

So as we open the scriptures, you can expect the Lord to open

your eyes and give you some thoughts that you weren't

thinking before you came in the room today.

The Bible says in Hebrews 4 that the word of God is a discerner

of those thoughts. So before we get in to our time,

I just want to take a moment and let you rest and breathe.

Maybe just pray in silence and just tell the Lord I'm ready to

hear. What do you have for me?

What do you have for our church? And then we'll begin and read

together. So I'm going to give you just

one moment. Lord, we ask that you'd speak to

us today. We're so thankful for your

grace. We don't deserve to hear from

you, but you love us. You draw us to yourself.

God, I pray today that you'd open our eyes and our ears, each

individual in this room, God, that they would have direction

and clarity for what you're doing in their life and for us

as a church community. God direct us together that we

can be better to glorify you and reach the World better.

I pray in Jesus name, Amen. All right, First Corinthians

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

chapter 12, if you'll follow along with me starting in verse

12 to verse 20. The Bible says for as the body

is 1 and hath many members, and all the members of that one body

being many are one body, so also is Christ.

For by 1 Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether

we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have

been all made to drink into one Spirit.

For the body is not one member, but many.

If the foot shall say, because I am not of the hand, I am not of

the body, is it therefore not of the body?

If the ear shall say, because I am not of the eye, I am not of

the body, is it therefore not of the body?

If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing?

If the whole we're hearing, where were the smelling?

But now hath God set the members, every one of them, in

the body as it hath pleased Him. And if they were all one member,

where were the body? But now are they many members

yet? But one body, and the I cannot

say into the hand. I have no need of the OK, that's

that. I need to stop.

We're going to get there next week.

We end up, we're ending today at verse 20.

I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves.

You got to come back next week to get to get the rest or or go

home and keep reading. But today, if you're following

along with us, you're going to see that there is unity in

diversity. When we look at this body, the

word 1 frequently shows up in our passage today.

One body, 1 spirit multiple times over.

And so we look at here this illustration, the, the book of

first Corinthians is the most body conscious book of the

Bible. I think 40 something times the

word body shows up in this book. It's it's greater than any other

book. And we learn that the church,

there's an illustration for the church.

It's called the body of Christ. And we're we're saved, we're

placed into this new identity verse chapter verse 12 says for

as the body is 1 and hath many members, and all the members of

that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ.

So now we see this illustration. The church is likened unto a

body. We see this throughout the

scriptures in Acts Chapter 9 when the apostle Paul before he

Acts 9 · chapter mention

was saved was persecuting the church.

Jesus said, why persecutest thou me?

So Christ had already ascended to heaven, but he uses this kind

of language to say you're actually persecuting me by

persecuting my people. So we know that Jesus replaced

himself with a body on the planet, and those are believers.

This body, Ephesians 2 says, is supposed to function as 1 new

man. We all come together as one new

person. And Ephesians also tells us that

Jesus is the head of the church. So we're the body, and I'm not

the head. I might be in the front of the

room. Jesus is the head.

He's the one that's in charge that tells the body what to do.

But we all come together in this new identity.

And that means we may have to surrender some things in our

previous identity to learn how to function together because now

we all have one source. First Corinthians chapter 12, if

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

you go on in verse 27 says ye are the body of Christ and

members in particular. So that's you maybe sometimes

planning a church. We feel like we're impostors,

like we're not a real church. One day we'll become one.

But most churches in the United States are 100 people and under

most churches throughout time and history have not been fancy

mega churches. We are a church and ye are the

body of Christ, but we also have this the same source.

Verse 13 in First Corinthians 12 says that we're baptized into

one body and we've all been made to drink into one spirit.

So when we come together, none of us gets to say I'm better

than another person because we all are in the body for the same

reason. In the last several weeks, we've

been going through a series on the Gospel course.

We saw that we are saved by grace through faith.

There's nothing that we could do to earn being right with God.

That's what Jesus did on the cross for us.

There's really nothing in the natural man that was redeemable.

God made us righteous through his Son.

And we see here this source. It says that we're baptized into

one body and this isn't the baptistry get wet kind of

baptism. This is a Romans 6 kind of

baptism where it says we're baptized into Jesus Christ.

So at the moment that you believe the gospel, you're

placed into Christ, into his death and you're resurrected to

be given a new spirit. You're you become a new

creature. You identify with him.

Your old you is put off. All things are become new.

And for this reason, baptism is actually the the water baptism.

It's a picture, but it it can be a hindrance to people because

they understand they're putting off 1 identity and taking on

another. So we're baptized into one body.

When you're saved, you're placed into the church whether you like

it or not, whether you attend the gathering or not.

But it also says that we've been made to drink of 1 spirit, that

all of us in the church have the same Holy Spirit.

We saw in Ephesians one a few weeks ago, that we're given the

Holy Spirit of promise when we believe God puts his Spirit in

US. And if you go back in First

Corinthians, if you just go back 2 chapters to chapter 10, Paul

mentions this picture in the Old Testament that we see this

familiar story when Israel was wandering the wilderness and

they were made to drink a spiritual drink.

He says when they, when Moses struck the rock and water came

out and it was a miracle. That was a picture of Christ in

the way that God satisfies his people with his spirit.

That rock was Christ. For us as believers today, we

have the Holy Spirit of promise. And the only reason that we're

righteous is because God has sealed us and indwelled us.

So our unity is all because of our source together.

You could look at John chapter 4 and verse 14 where Jesus says

John 4 · chapter mention

that the Holy Spirit is like and unto water that springs up unto

everlasting life. But I put it to you this way, if

you're taking notes that no Christian has the right to brag

because we all have the same origin.

This part's going to be important as we continue on.

You'll see. Maybe you identify with that

grace and you're thankful for God's grace.

But thirdly, with unity, we see that we need to submit our roots

for us to be a community that functions as one new man.

We cannot be split by faction. In verse 13, the Bible says

whether we be Jews or Gentiles or whether we be bond or free.

And in verse 14 it says the body is not one member but many.

So there there's this incredible thing that happened in the 1st

century. The cross brought the

possibility of Gentiles experiencing the same walk with

God as Jews. There was no longer a need to

keep the law. There is no longer a need to

become a proselyte. The gospel is the same for all

people. But if you've read some of the

epistles, you've read the Bible, especially the book of Romans,

you know that these two groups of people kind of struggled to

get along in the church. The Jews look down on the

Gentiles. They were dogs, uncircumcised.

They were kind of filthy. They worshipped idols.

And even if the Jews worshipped and messed up other things, they

still serve the one true God. But now they come together as

one new man in one body. So we see that nationality is

not a dividing line in the church.

It is God's will that all nations would hear and believe

the gospel. And God is a God of of

diversity, but also of unity together.

Romans chapter 3 says, is he the God of the Jews only?

Romans 3 · chapter mention

Is he not also the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also.

Now we made maybe don't wrestle with the Jew and Gentile

situation in America quite as much, but we all bring a kind of

a background into the church. It could be likened unto a

marriage. If you're not married, it's OK.

Let me just help you. When you get married, you have a

history and a past. Before you ever met your spouse.

You were raised a particular way.

Maybe you had a particular identity, maybe it was a

national identity. You speak a different language

or come from another country. But when two people come

together, Jesus says they become one flesh and you no longer get

to say, well, my family always did it this way and my family

always did it that way. That's a recipe for disaster.

You have to become one new thing that functions together and you

will wrestle and figure out how to do that.

And both of you have to lay down your preferences and say, what

do we want to do? And that's kind of how the

church is. Yes, you maybe have been in

different churches or maybe you have a national background

that's different than an American one, but we all come

together to function as one in the church.

Secondly, we also see in verse 14 or in verse 13, I'm sorry,

whether we be bond or free. And this one I think is even

more interesting than Jew and Gentile because only in the

church can there be such a quality that a master and a

servant are on the same level. This doesn't mean much to you

because you're not living in the 1st century where there was a

lot of servants there. There was people that were

indebted to others and they weren't just their boss.

It was a lot more complicated than that.

But when when these people would get saved and they would come

into the church, those previous relationships would have to

disappear because they're of 1 spirit and A1 body.

We see this clear most clearly out of the book of Philemon.

In the book of Philemon, it's just one, basically one page in

your Bible. It's a letter and the Apostle

Paul was in prison. While he was there, he met a

runaway servant and that guy came into the prison.

Paul shared the gospel, he got saved and he found out that this

guy's, he knew this guy's master and he sent him back to his

master who was a believer and said y'all need to, y'all need

to work this out. Y'all are brothers.

Now he says this to receive him, not now as a servant, but above

a servant, a brother, beloved. And he says, how much more unto

thee and in the Lord. So that the church is this

incredible place of equality where there is no like premier

race or premier thing. All of us function together.

We have different roles. And we'll see in our fourth week

in this series there is a structure.

Some things are more important than other things.

But as far as equality goes, we all come together and put our

roots down and say we're one. We're one in the Lord.

Now, maybe that freaks you out because maybe you've seen like

some cultish behavior in religious settings before.

Does that mean that we all wear the same thing?

We all say the same thing? Like I'm not allowed to have any

different thoughts? Well, it's good for you that

there is a diversity in this unity.

You can be yourself. We just submit self to the whole

in honor, prefer one another. So let's talk a little bit about

diversity. We hit unity.

We have one identity, one source, and we submit our roots

together. But let's talk about what it

means to be different. So you are made differently than

other people. So we practiced this last week.

Let's try it again this week. Turn to your neighbor and say

you're different. It's true.

My my wife and I couldn't be any more different.

Yeah, we are. We've had to figure out how to

work this thing out. And we make each other better.

We come together as one whole and we complement each other.

But we have to do that in the Lord, otherwise it doesn't work.

When we get into verses 15 through 17, we see this

illustration. Paul uses the body and says, OK,

well let's talk about the foot and the hand and the ear, the

eye. And he doesn't mention the nose,

but he says the smelling, which is just an interesting Bible

word for God to talk about smelling.

Maybe you can identify with one of those more than the other if

we take these anthropomorphized body parts, because they're

going to speak here, if you will.

It's kind of an analogy. Perhaps you can identify with

one. Last week we saw the spiritual

gifts, and if you missed that, you can go back online and find

it. If you still have questions

about that, I think I linked my commentary in your notes as well

as come talk to me if you want to talk about that.

Those are really specific gifts. This one perhaps is a we have a

little bit more liberty to contemplate.

So I did some thinking for you. Let me know if you identify with

one of these. Maybe you would identify with

the foot. I mean, no one wants to be the

heel unless you're in WWE. You can get famous for being the

heel, but the foot is really stable.

I mean, these are people that are solid.

They hold up the entire body, but yet they're moving.

They're moving us forward somewhere because without the

foot man, it's really hard to move around with the hand.

Think about how much the hand does.

The hand is skilled. You have people like David who

are able to draw, play instruments.

David doesn't play an instrument yet.

Maybe one day he will. The the hands can be gentle

enough, though, to hold a baby or a piece of paper.

They're also very helpful or they can defend you.

There's just so much. The hand is what really gets to

gets work done. The ear is really good at

listening. They hear everything.

I heard a need. I heard you say, hey, I'm paying

attention to what's going on over here.

We like those people. The eye sees everything.

Maybe you know these people, nothing gets by them.

They're always watching. They see everybody in the room.

They see everything that's happening.

We're so thankful for our eyes. They sit at the top of our

bodies so that they can keep a lookout for danger.

We also have the smelling, which is an interesting one.

Who wants to be the nose? But without smelling, we lose a

lot of discernment. You can walk into a room and

smell something isn't right. That's not the case with every

poison, right? Not every poison is you're able

to discern, but the nose really can make the whole body do some

stuff. Like when my wife was pregnant

with our first kid I think we went on a family vacation with

my parents. We did not tell my family we had

lost 3 pregnancies so we weren't sharing that we were pregnant.

And they made bacon and coffee every morning.

And my wife was just like, and we were trying not to share

anything. They weren't being mean.

They just didn't know. But to a pregnant lady, some of

those senses are so heightened that as soon as they smell it,

man, it just makes the entire body revolt.

And we need people like that in the church.

They need to be sniffing out false doctrine that doesn't

smell right. I don't know about this.

You know, maybe these people can be a little touchy if you've met

people like that, but we need people who have some sensitivity

in that kind of way. So I put it to you this way, the

diversity values each other and our differences.

Diversity values each other and our differences.

I think in order to best illustrate this, I have an

example and I'm going to need 3 volunteers that are going to be

willing to be embarrassed. So does anybody want to come on

up here? I have three things that I like

to help illustrate. 3 volunteers.

I can voluntold somebody if we need to help with that.

Don't worry, I'll be nice. It's OK Nathan, I'm glad you

volunteered. Come on up here, man.

Austin. I see your hand up there, buddy.

Man. Come on up here.

Austin. Sydney, I know that you can do

this. You're going to do great.

Come on up here. All right?

Come on over to this side. OK, Now I have Who's the most

honest, Sydney. Sydney's the most honest.

OK, Sydney, I'm going to need you to close your eyes.

I'm going to give you something, and I'm going to need you to

tell me what it is. Don't open your eyes, OK?

You can take as long as you want to tell me what book that is.

Keep your eyes closed. OK?

Austin, I need you to come over here, all right?

I need you to take this. You can't use your feet.

But I want you to carry this box to, you know, over here.

Yeah. You can't use your feet, Nathan.

Over here. I have a pen and a paper.

You can't use your hands. I want you to draw me a picture.

Go. Go ahead.

You're not going anywhere. You don't want to try it with

braid with your mouth. OK, OK.

Sydney, what book is this? What is it?

What's the title? OK, you can open your eyes or

you guys can have a seat. Thanks.

The book I grabbed from the basement downstairs, this is a

Korean church. It's all in Korean, but the one

English word says Christology. So in case you were wondering, I

don't know what's in the box. I also found it in the basement,

but you get the picture that without one function of the

body, we're really missing a whole lot, right?

Without eyes, I can feel that it's a book.

I don't know what it's, what's in it.

I can't read it without feet, man.

I'm immobilized without my hands.

I mean, I could try to. Some people can write with their

feet, but you know, that's pretty difficult.

So we need each other. So just remember, when someone

else is different, they add something to the body that you

don't. And if they aren't here, we all

suffer for it. Thanks for playing along.

You guys are great, good sports. If you like that, we'll keep

doing that some more. All right.

Well, secondly, let's look at not comparing ourselves to

others. So in this diversity, those

parts can be so different that it might be tempting to look at

one of those parts and say, I wish I had that.

And what we find in verses 15 to 16 is these.

These members are speaking in verse 15, if the foot shall say,

because I am not the hand. In verse 16, if the ear shall

say, because I am not the eye. And four times here we see this

phrase, I am not. And this is an unhealthy self

focus that just says if I'm not like that, then I don't really

have a purpose. And that's not how the body

functions. You're glad your foot is not

your hand. I actually asked ChatGPT to make

some pictures and they came out really weird to what does a body

look like? That's all feet.

And I was just like, you know, I just couldn't put it on the

screen for you. But you could imagine if you

only had feet and no fingers there.

There's just no, you don't want to compare like that.

The book of Proverbs tell us the hearing ear and the seeing eye.

The Lord hath made even both of them.

And as far as it goes in the church, we need each of the the

members and the way that God made them to function together.

So I put it to you this way, if you're taking notes, we cannot

find our validation in the community through comparison.

It's just simply not fair because God made us differently.

Paul actually says in Second Corinthians chapter 10 of a

2 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

group of people, he says that measure themselves by

themselves. They're comparing themselves and

ultimately they're not wise through their biased comparison.

And so we just compare with others.

We're we're not doing, we're not doing well.

Thirdly, we see that in this diversity we must submit to

God's design. You see, the body, the fact that

the physical human body is an illustration of the church is

all because God created the human body.

So we deny evolution and we say God created man in his image.

But in the church we maybe don't like God's design sometimes.

Yet in verse 18 the Bible says, but now hath God, God set the

members, every one of them in the body as it is pleased him.

So God adds to the the church community, the church body as he

sees fit. And I have an example of this

from my time when I was in Ohio, 30 years, I lived in Ohio.

I met my wife. She started taking me to a

Baptist Church where I heard the word of God preached, I believe

the gospel. I got discipled.

Big portion of my life was there.

And the church that we were in had a tough time, as some

churches have, and they became a little bit dysfunctional and

there was a split. And one of my favorite pastors,

if you will, and my disciple Maker and several of my friends

that I was training together in ministry with all left.

And it was a decent sized church.

But when we were going to church through that season, just felt

like everybody kept leaving there be.

There was empty pews and it just, it was kind of

discouraging. And there was this guy around

that time that started coming to church and he was just such a

breath of fresh air. His name is Maksud.

And Maksud has this big booming voice and the pastor be

preaching and he would say Amen. And it was like, whoa.

But it's like every time that he would chirp in church, you know,

it was like, oh, man, it was so encouraging.

I just felt so much better. He added something to our church

at a time that we were we were wounded.

We needed life and encouragement.

And I thought about this verse when Moxu started coming to our

church and God has set the members, every one of them in

the body as it is pleased him. So maybe mock suit is an

example. This is a real guy.

I hope you get to meet him one day of the people that God has

yet to add to our church. Our community hopefully isn't

just us forever. And who knows what God will add.

Maybe we need, you know, we need another I you're glad to have

two eyes and not just one right or two ears.

So if we put down competition in comparison, we can say, man, we

could use more. What if somebody can speak

better than me? What if somebody can do

something better than you, man who praise the Lord.

Maybe we need that. But first Corinthians 12 and

verse 27, if you continue down to verse 27, again, it says you

are members in particular. And Romans 12 says that we being

many are one body. Well, our last point for tonight

is that we always work together. So with this diversity, we've

seen that we're different that that we don't need to compare

that it really is God's design that we function together.

And now we see that we work together.

Look at First Corinthians 12 and verse 20.

The Bible says, but now are they many members, yet one body, Many

members yet one body. And so we've got to figure out

how to love each other, how to serve each other, how to accept

our differences, and ultimately how to keep the unity of the

Spirit. We have one source.

Remember, we've been made to drink of 1 spirit.

And the spirit is a person. She's the a person, the person

of God that lives inside of us. We're his temple, his desire,

his natural means is to glorify God and to help people function

together. So if we will just submit to the

Spirit, we are going to keep the unity.

We don't have to create or fabricate unity.

We all listen to the Spirit of God, walk with God in his Word

and that will produce a kind of unity that makes every member

important but all together and on the same page because check

this out. We have a mission.

If people look to the church and they say y'all are

dysfunctional, we have lost our witness to the world.

So the church community must work together to effectively

reach the World. We need to be healthy, we need

to be strong, we need to have each other's back.

We'll talk next week about some of the members that aren't

mentioned. There's some uncomely parts that

are internal even that are valued.

We're going to need to care for each other.

So come back next week to learn how to care for each other.

But today, if we just take some time, I think at the bottom of

your page, there's like a take away section maybe you want to

think about for yourself, what is God telling me?

Do you have a church community where you know you're fit, where

you are able to contribute and function and be a part?

Have you believed the Gospels? There been a time in your life

that you heard that Jesus died on the cross, was buried and

rose again, and all you had to do was believe in him, call him

Lord, ask Him to save you, and you would be given eternal life

in a new home in heaven and a new home in a church.

If you haven't done that part, I'd love to talk to you today

about that. But maybe you want to think

about, just for you, what is my fit?

Which one of those things do you identify with?

The foot, hand, ear, eye knows. Maybe even thinking about last

week in the spiritual gifts. What?

How did God equip me in the Spirit to contribute to this

church? Or maybe just think about our

church together. What are we missing as a

community that God needs to add to our church?

Maybe you would just pray God give us, give us the people we

need. We're going to go evangelize

this Saturday. So maybe we'll meet some of

those people on the street. That's How I Met Maksud.

Actually, I wasn't evangelizing, but he was at a coffee shop and

we began a conversation and I was going in to meet with a

pastor and I said, hey bro, just come in here and meet my guy.

And then eventually he started attending our church.

And you know, rest is history now, praise the Lord.

But we just meet people, places, and who knows how they'll plug

in. So just like we begin, I want to

give you just a moment of silence, you and the Lord to

pray. And then I'll lead us in a

prayer, and then we're going to have one final song to sing

together.