Nobody Is a Nobody — Finding Your Place in God's Body - Sermon 18th January 2026

G'day. Thanks for joining the Heights Church Podcast today. We hope you enjoy our message.

If you're in the Sydney area, be sure to join us at the Heights Church at Goldstone

Road, Hornsby Heights, Summings Valley.

So today's Bible reading comes from 1 Corinthians, chapter 12,

1 Corinthians 12:14–16

verses 14 to 16, and it's a bit of a tricky one.

Even so, the body is not made up of one part, but of many.

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.

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.

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?

But in fact, God has planned the parts in the body, every one of them,

just as he wanted them to be.

If they were all one heart, where would the body be?

As it is, there are many parts but one body.

But I cannot say to the hand, I don't need you.

And the head cannot say to the feet, I don't need you.

On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are.

Indispensable and the parts that we think are less honourable we treat with special honour.

And the parts that are presentable are treated with special modesty.

While our presentable parts needed no special treatment,

but God has put the body together, giving greater honour to the part that lacked it,

so that there should be no division in the body, but that its part should have

equal concern for each other.

If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.

If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Well, good morning. I think I've switched on okay, am I not?

Yep. And some of you are way down the back, but that is fine.

Welcome to you. I know the Bible tells us, by the way, that not everything was

recorded by the writers that Jesus actually said and did.

And I was just thinking there a little while ago, I wonder what Jesus did when

he went out to preach and the rain came like we had this.

I wonder what he did and whether everybody scattered or whether he said,

up with the brollies and we'll persevere.

But I want to thank you for coming this morning. That was pretty horrendous.

And all I did was come down from Barara.

But I went through quite a few car cleaning washes.

But it's really great. I just want to give you my very brief perspective on

how the pastoral search team's going, which is actually so it's going extremely well.

So thank you for praying. Everyone is working very, very hard.

And I'm very pleased the way it's such a complimentary team.

So we hope to finish the profiles in the next three weeks, something like that.

We're well into them. And when they're finished, you'll be made a known.

And if you wanted to look at them, then you're welcome. But one of the things

that we're waiting on is this pastoral survey.

I wonder if anybody's bold enough this morning to say, I haven't actually filled this out yet.

No one. We've got one or two very honest people.

And the young oh yeah this is for everybody could you do it could you do it

in the next couple of days,

because we can't complete one of the profiles this is so that would be my encouragement

to you if you would do that and,

after we get those we'll be looking for names and we'll do that through the,

partly through the baptist association,

but partly through people like you that you might come come alongside one of us and say,

give us a nine that we can inquire about. So we appreciate that.

Now, you don't need me to tell you that, but I will say it again,

that the Heights is in what we call a transition period.

And how long that transition period is, is up to God and the work that we do.

But I want to share with you this morning a message that I've entitled, Nobody is a Nobody.

Nobody is a nobody. And we'll come to that.

When I do my quiet time, my reading, and like many of you here,

but not all of you, not all of you younger ones, but just think about it.

I've been reading the word of God for a long, long time.

And I've been listening to a lot, a lot of sermons. And I've attended a lot, a lot of home groups.

But I'm no different than anyone else, by the way, which means I know a fair

bit about the scripture, a fair bit.

And when we came to, I come to a passage that I know well, and let's say it

might be the feeding of the 5,000.

I'll use that as an example. I know that story well.

I know the story of the wedding at Cana really well.

I know the story of Jesus walking on the water really well.

And what I tended to do for a long while, I think, was I'd skip through the

reading a bit. I'd read it really quickly because I knew it.

But then I gave myself a bit of an uppercut, you might say, and decided that

I went on an adventure, that I wanted to find a gem in the reading that I read each morning.

And I wanted to jump out at me and for God to speak to me through that.

And so that's one of the things that I did. and I was listening to your opening

reading this morning from Psalm

103 and we all can remember it talks about forget not all your benefits.

The word that jumped out to me there was awe, just one little word.

I cannot forget any of his benefits because he has given them for us. So I did that for a while.

I thought this is interesting, making my quiet time more interesting.

And then I've developed another little exercise that I do, which leads us into

the message this morning.

And that is I'm staggered at the number of people in the scripture who have

had a significant impact on parables, miracles, the writings of Paul and everyone else.

Which we now take and apply to our lives, staggered by the number of people who are nameless.

They're anonymous, and I call them God's anonymous group.

And yet they, without them, I wonder if the impact of what I'm reading about.

And I want to give you a few examples, and I'd like you to be starting to think

about as I give an explanation.

For instance, we know that Noah, the Bible tells us he had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

But who were the wives? Who were they? Just leave it out there,

because they were all saved.

We don't even know Noah's wife's name. Interesting.

What about all the people, carpenters, the builders, et cetera,

who were given the task of building the ark and others who built the tabernacle.

We don't have one single name of any of those people. Interesting.

Now, perhaps if we come over to the New Testament, we're a little bit more,

you and I are a little bit more familiar with the New Testament.

We know that the shepherds came to Jesus. Don't know their names,

but do you realize the significance that they played in the birth of Christ?

It was a world-shattering event.

And who were the ten virgins that we read about in Matthew 25?

In Mark 6, which is the one that I refer to about the feeding of the 5,000,

who was the little boy that gave his lunch to Jesus via Andrew?

I want to meet that little bloke.

It reminds me every time I hear Jeremiah bring the word, I always think of that little guy.

I don't know who he was, but I wonder if Jesus could have performed the miracle that he performed.

And, of course, for me, the gem in that story, using both my little techniques

was this little lad gave all that he had to Jesus.

And I've had a chat with God about this.

In my unusual way of chatting with God, what if the little boy had kept one

roll and one fish and given the rest to Jesus?

Because his mum said, I want you to eat your lunch, little fella.

Don't throw it away. I've been up since crack of dawn getting this lunch ready

for you. I wonder what would have happened with that.

Think about Luke, in Luke 17, these are the ones that I'm thinking of,

and I hope you're thinking, I wonder if he's going to say this one.

Luke 17, about the 10 lepers.

Now, maybe the nine that didn't come back shrugged my shoulders and say,

oh, well, they missed the blessing, didn't they?

But what about the leper who came back and thanked Jesus? Who was he?

Acts 16, and this is another of my favorites, Paul, we read in Acts 16,

where Paul, after being in jail, was rescued, and we know this person as the Philippian jailer.

The Philippian jailer believed what Paul shared with him about Christ,

and he and all his family were baptized.

Who was the Philippian jailer?

And another one that someone else shared with me recently, so I've added it

from someone else when I was talking to them about this message that I was putting together.

He said, I'd like to know who the soldier was at the cross who said to Jesus,

truly this man is the son of God. Who was that man?

Think about what you're thinking about. And perhaps while we're having a couple

this morning, we'll talk about it. You might come up to me or come up to one of your friends.

I was thinking about this person in this passage, because I've just given you

a handful to sort of whet your appetite.

But the unknown people in the scriptures are extremely important,

and the unknown people often in the life of a fellowship, such as the Heights

here this morning, I want to,

reinforce and encourage you all this morning just how important you are,

because we see people up on the platform.

I'm in that place today that I'm known for what I'm doing this morning.

But next Sunday, I'm going to be sitting in church at Barara,

probably where I normally sit or somewhere.

And nicely, I'll be a nobody.

I'll be anonymous to many other people.

But I know the importance that I have in the body of Christ.

And I want you to remember that little phrase, nobody is a nobody.

Paul, in our reading this morning, and I apologize, I think I must have mucked

up when I gave the reference to Tony, but I have an excuse when I'm on the computer,

and that is that I'm left-handed.

So I'm allowed to make mistakes because the computer keyboard is made for right-handers.

That is my excuse, and I'm living with it.

But in that reading, it's a favorite reading of mine, and it's got one of these

little gems in the middle of it because if I said to you this morning between

us all let's talk about 1 Corinthians 12,

and we'll start talking about and someone will say well we can't all be an ear

and can't all be a hand and we can't all be a nose etc etc,

and we would get 95% of the story without fail but I want to bring your attention

to that verse It's there twice, but I'm just referring to verse 18.

Right in the middle of this discussion, we read these words,

which I'm reading from the Amplified.

But God has placed and arranged the limbs and organs in the body,

each particular one of them, just as he wished and saw fit and with the best adaptation.

So God has placed you in this fellowship because this is where he wants you,

and where he wants you to maximise whatever gifts and talents that you have.

As meagre or as small as you may think, sometimes they're not.

Because you are not a nobody. You are a very precious person in the sight of God.

And I don't believe you're here in this place, whether it's today or any Sunday,

by accident, because I believe this body won't function without you.

It won't function to its full capacity.

It'll get by. Sometimes it'll need a push.

Sometimes it'll need something being put aside because we don't have enough

volunteers for this or for that, but you are very, very important.

Psalm 17 verse 8 says this beautiful verse, that you are the apple of my eye,

Psalms 17:8

and hide me in the shadow of your wings.

I love that verse, particularly the first part, I'm the apple of his eye.

I often refer to that to people who sometimes come to me and are disturbed,

troubled, and just need a friend.

In Ephesians 4.15, it says, From Christ the whole body, that is the whole body of the Heights Baptist,

joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself

up as each part does its work.

Reminds me if I'm not doing what I know God wants me to do, or if I'm not doing

what someone else has come and asked me to do because they recognize that I

have a particular gift or capability, no matter what it is,

then I'm slowing the body down.

So you are vital, whether you're a head, whether you're on the leadership council,

whether you're up here on the stage like beautiful music we had this morning,

whether you're one of them, they're the significant ones.

You might be talking about the body, you might be a cartilage, you might be a neuron.

There's a new word for you if you don't know what it is.

I suggest you look up Mr. Google because I'm not sure what it is either.

So whether you're well-known or just a quiet person in the life of the church,

why don't you just briefly, I want to give you some useless bit of information about your body.

Do you know that you have 650 muscles? Please don't start counting now because

we'll, the road will come.

You have between 210 and 213 bones.

Do you know that? I mean, I knew that because I did some research on it.

You breathe 22,000 times in a day, and please don't try and cut that down to 21 or 20,000.

We could be in need. Could be in need of that first aid pack.

Your body contains at least 50,000 gallons of blood, and you have 100 billion nerve cells.

I don't know what you're going to do with this useless information,

but it tells us something about a body.

It also tells us that water makes up well in advance of 50% of our body.

And we don't go around looking for these things, but we need these parts of

our body to do what they're called to do, to breathe, for the blood to pump,

for the muscles to do their things,

in order that we can carry out our normal activities.

Galatians 3.28 says, There is neither new nor Greek, male or female,

for you are all one in Christ.

That's how important you are to Christ. We are one with him.

God's not in the business of making mistakes, and I'm so grateful for that.

And that's why I know that you and I are important to him. And God wants you to be here.

In this transition period, you might feel, what are we doing without this or

without someone to do that?

Well, that's where you're going to be able to pull your weight,

as we might say, or step up and say, I can do something.

I can go and buy a small bag of the toothpaste that we heard about this morning

for Rob or something else, bring some wipes, and it's insignificant.

They won't even know that I've put it in the box because I don't have to attach my name to it.

But it's very, very important that you feel called to do that.

Every one of you can say today, I'm important. I want you all to say that to

yourself now, I'm important.

I'm important because God has called me to this fellowship and God's given me

a distinct part to play in the life of this church.

Now, you might say to me over a cuppa, no one knows what I do.

Well, first of all, I debate that no one knows.

But let me tell you that God knows what you're doing and that God's relying

on you to continue to do whatever that might be so that he can accomplish what

he's seeking to accomplish in the life of this church.

A question I think that I've allowed myself to ask you is are you an effective

part of the body that Christ has called you to be?

So are you doing what God knows you can do?

Are you exercising your gifts? Are you putting them into practice as often as you can?

Can God trust you with the gift that he's given you?

And then to reaffirm again that God depends upon you.

He has made you in the way he has made you. He has given you the gifts and talents,

and capabilities, whatever word you like to use,

because he wants you to use them in your daily life, in your family,

but more importantly, in the life of the church.

And for you to allow the Holy Spirit to use those gifts and abilities and talents

and skills that you have so that this whole body can be built up and be effective in this community.

If I use the analogy, and forgive me, but you might get used to it,

I think I mentioned to you when I first got introduced to you, I'm a sports tragic.

So if I talk about rugby league, I may not do it again if I get a vote that

says don't talk about rugby league again, Ted.

But if you imagine the state of origins on, and we've got people like,

Mitch Moses and Caelan Ponger, And some of these other players who we might

say, they're the outstanding players. Get the ball to them.

Get the, you know, let them do their magic because they're so brilliant.

They can't do what they do without the help of their teammates.

No matter how good they are, they can't do that.

And that's the same in the life of the church. So though we see people who are

called to ministry, called to lead, called to be our pastors,

called to be our worship leaders.

They can't effectively do and use their talent unless you and I are also using

the talents and the gifts that we have.

So I want to encourage you this morning as we come to a close in a moment for

you to remember how important you are. You're not a nobody.

You'll never be a nobody in the sight of God.

But you are someone who he loves and who his design is for you to be an effective

part in the life of the church,

because you and God together are a great team. Let me pray.

Father, let me thank you this morning for all the beautiful people that you

have placed into this fellowship and for the wonderful gifts and talents that

you've given to each and every one of them.

And I ask this morning, Lord, that they will, first of all, recognise how important

they are and move away from that myth that they're just a nobody and that nobody

cares, but they're extremely important,

and for them to use the gifts and talents that you've given them so that this

church can be built up and be the effective witness in this community that you've called us to be.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.