1 Cor 12:12-31 | Aug 9, 2026 | Will Rutt

I love what I get to do, and I love Sunday mornings with us.

The little moments of joy that get sprinkled through it.

So good.

When communion was getting passed out this morning, uh, one of my daughters, my youngest daughter, Corey, she smiles real big and she says, It's already communion again.

Love it.

Just uh joy is a contagious thing.

And so thanks to everyone who serves with joy, to the band who leads with joy.

Just grateful.

We're in the book of 1 Corinthians, and here's what we've seen so far: chapters 1 through 6, rebukes, chapters 7 through 16, responses.

We're in chapters 11 through 14 now, all dealing with the corporate worship, what we would call church.

Chapter 11, we looked at what he has to say about communion.

And he rebukes them, saying it's for the worse that you get to better, that you get together.

It's for the worse.

Because in the way they were taking communion, they were celebrating the love of God and failing to show the love of God.

And that the simplicity of this has been so uh helpful to me.

And just kind of a one-word love application that he gave them.

Their one word love application was wait.

And I've shared my one-word love application that has really helped me be and been on my mind.

Say, Lord, would you help me as I engage here?

Not just as kind of somebody watching things happen, but as part of a body.

You want to show love.

I don't want to just remember Jesus' love.

I want to show it.

So he talks about headship, he talks uh with head coverings, and he talks about communion.

And now we're in chapters 12 through 14, where he's talking about spiritual gifts.

That's chapter 12, spiritual gifts in chapter 4, and then right in the middle of that is one of the probably the most well-known chapter in Corinthians, 1 Corinthians is chapter 13, the love chapter, which is why we have the heart in the middle of it.

Isaiah 13 · chapter mention

But we're in chapter 12 again this morning, kind of a part two from what we did last week.

So if you weren't here last week, I hoped last week that a biblical theology of spiritual gifts would lead us to believe I have a gift, my gift matters, and I cannot not use my gift.

Whether it's a chainsaw or a handsaw or something between, uh, I cannot not use my gift in the body.

That was what I hoped would happen last week.

That a biblical theology of gifts would lead us there.

This morning, as we look at 1 Corinthians 12 again, we're going to zoom in on the the word that is repeated most in chapter 12.

And that word is body.

Body.

18 times in this chapter, he's talking about the body, the body, the body, the body, the body, the body, the body, the body.

And so last week I hoped that a biblical theology of spiritual gifts would lead us to believe I have a gift, my gift matters, and I cannot not use my gift.

This morning, I want to give us from the text very simply a biblical theology of the body.

And that when we look at the biblical theology of the body, that then we would get an honest look at the body of Christ here at Sandhurst, and that hopefully seeing those two things would perhaps move us in a way that maybe last week didn't.

That's the goal.

I want to move towards maturity, and that happens by God's Spirit through His Word.

Let's pray again, Father.

We know that you have given us your word not to just impart information, not so that we can just have a biblical theology of spiritual gifts, not just so that we can have a biblical theology of the body.

But you've given us your word to imp to produce transformation.

This is what we need, Father.

We each of us need the Holy Spirit to make the truth click in our hearts.

That's the role that you have.

We need you, Holy Spirit, to make it stick so that it isn't just a Sunday morning thing.

We need you to help us see you.

And we understand, Holy Spirit, one of your roles is to testify of Jesus.

And we ask you to do it.

In your name I pray.

Amen.

So we're gonna start with a theology of the body.

Okay, when the Bible uses the word body, usually it's a literal reference to the body, like physical body.

And that really matters to Paul and giving a theology of the physical body.

And we've got like that was in chapter six, when he talks about sexual immorality.

It's gonna be in chapter 15 when we talk about the resurrection of the body.

There's a lot of theology about the body, but what he's talking about here, we know, is not a theology of the physical body.

It's not literal body, but a figurative use of the word body, where body is a metaphor.

And this throughout the New Testament, where the body, the church, is called the body of Christ.

It's a metaphor.

And so what is the what is this metaphor?

Well, go with me to verse 12.

And what we're gonna see is who we are and what we do.

Okay, verse 12.

For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.

For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body.

Whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, we were all made to drink of one spirit.

Then he gives the metaphor, he kind of plays it out.

We'll look at that in verses 14 to 26 in a minute, but go down to verse 27.

Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it.

Okay, so who are we?

He says this a bunch of different times in a couple different ways.

We are one body, we are Christ's body.

This is who we are.

One body, Christ's body.

How does that how did that happen?

How did we become one body?

Well, he said it in verse 13.

For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, and then next he says, whether uh Jews or Greeks, whether slaves are free, and we were all made to drink of one spirit.

So he's using images of both baptism and the Lord's Supper.

We're baptized into one body through the Holy Spirit, and we were made to drink of one spirit.

There are some who would think that the actual practice of these of the Lord's Supper of the Eucharist and baptism, that these are how we become part of the body of Christ.

Um, but I think we have better reason to believe that Paul is not thinking of the actual literal practice of communion and uh actual baptism because he's using them uh as he's using the word, the spiritual reality behind the word.

And let me show you why I think we have good reason to think that.

Flip back to chapter 10.

And he's going to use the same imagery, but in reference to the Old Testament.

Chapter 10, verse 1 says, For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses.

Is he talking about like baptism that we have in the New Testament?

No, because that didn't exist then.

And so the baptism is symbolic, like identification, union with.

Okay?

They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.

So obviously, when Paul is using these images of baptism and the Lord's Supper, he's not just thinking of them literally here.

He's talking about the spiritual reality of the Holy Spirit's work in a person's life to win a to raise, to make a dead heart start beating, to take a heart that is dead in sin and make it alive in Jesus.

This is the work of the Holy Spirit.

And what he says about who we are here by the work of the Holy Spirit, and I love the images, by the way, of the immersion, the the the like just think when we baptize somebody fully in the water, but then not just like the immersion, but to then the the drinking, like outside, inside, fully immersed and made one with Christ through the Holy Spirit.

I love the image there, outside and inside.

But it's by his doing, by the Holy Spirit's doing, that we are one body, Christ's body.

And I really think that uh when we start to press into, okay, what does this mean?

That some good things start to come out of this theology of the body, that we are one body, we're Christ's body.

First, um, when we start to press into that, one body, Christ's body, then we start to see that the scope and impact of the gospel is so much bigger than we tend to think.

One body, Christ's body.

Because here's how we tend to think of the scope and the impact of the gospel.

We tend to think of the gospel in terms of its vertical impact, its individual impact, and its eternal impact.

When we think about the gospel, vertical, what God has done to reconcile me to himself, vertical.

Individual.

Everything that Ephesians 1 says about chosen, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, informed, sealed.

This is what God has done for me as an individual.

And what God has done not just vertically, and not just individually, but eternally.

I'm sealed by his Holy Spirit for a life eternal with him.

Okay, this is the gospel, and we do write, and scripture emphasizes the vertical nature of it and the individualness of it and the eternalness of it.

But what when we look at what Paul says here and in other parts, like Ephesians 2, we see that the scope and impact of the gospel is a lot bigger than that.

It's not just vertical, it's horizontal.

That we are not just um saved, uh adopted as his sons, but we are made as one body, together, united.

It's not just vertical, it's it's horizontal.

It's not just individual.

The gospel scope is corporate, it unites us to God, yeah, and it unites us to one another.

And it's not just the scope of gospel impact is not just how it changes my eternity, but how it changes my right now present.

That we are the body of Christ here on the planet.

So the the means by which God makes an invisible God visible on the planet is through his body.

It's horizontal, it's corporate, it's right now.

Uh the Holy Spirit doesn't just make you a Christian individually, he makes you a member of a people.

Like I'm gonna change to a verb here.

What the Holy Spirit has done has membered us together.

Not just vertically, but he's membered.

He's membered us.

That's what he's done.

So this is gonna be important later.

But the Holy Spirit has membered us in the body with gifts for the building of that body, so that that body working together would serve to advance the gospel to the glory of God.

So that body working together would love and obey him together by the power of his spirit for the praise of his glory and help others to do the same together.

This is what the Holy Spirit did.

Yeah, it's vertical, but he membered us together.

Um, so the scope of gospel impact is much bigger than we typically think.

And also, if we're one body, Christ's body, then uh the scope of Christian unity is much deeper than we think, too.

Which uh this this is a little bit of a side point, but it's worth just saying that if we are one body, there is a sense where the the one body rep is captured by one local body of Christ.

But even our local body is part of a global body of Christ.

And when one part of your body wins, the rest of the body wins too.

Which is to say that uh when other churches in our city win, we win.

And we win, when we win, they win.

If we are one body, Christ body, here's what we're not competing bodies.

When a body fights against itself, what is that?

It's an autoimmune disease.

We cannot be that or contribute to that.

We've got to be able to see that, man, we are one body here, and we're part of a global body, and so when other churches are doing awesome things, be able to say, dang, that's good.

Like, there's 21 days of prayer happening right now.

I don't know, I don't know if you knew, but uh Trinity Prez, New Spring, and Strong Tower coming together for just a citywide 21 days of prayer.

So good.

I went on Thursday, I went on Friday, brought my three girls, three three of my girls, with with me.

It's from 6 to 7 a.m.

Uh at different churches hosting each week.

Last week, Trinity Press hosted this week Strong Towers uh hosting.

And then yeah, I'm real bad with details.

Okay, sorry.

This week New Spring is hosting, and then the week after Strong Tower.

Um dude, way to go those churches.

And 6 to 7 a.m.

If you want to come, I'll be there a few times, but it doesn't matter if I'm there or who's there.

The body of Christ is getting together.

Way to go those churches, and I'm so thankful for those churches.

If we're a one body, we're Christ's body, when they win, we win.

When we win, they win, we can celebrate with the church, what the body is doing together.

I'm thankful for them.

And honestly, it was so good on Friday.

I would, it was just, it was great.

And just a little context of what happens at those um, there's kind of three segments.

There's a pray up, there's a pray in, and there's a pray out.

The pray up is a uh basically singing and worship, and the the host church leads that.

And then the pray in is just a um sort of a guided that the pastor or somebody at the church will uh kind of do a little devotional and then some silent prayer time.

That's the pray in, and then the pray out is uh praying together.

And I had my girls on Friday, and it was just pray in with them, and then had other people from other churches come and pray over us.

One body, Christ's body.

When one member, when one part of the body wins, we all win.

Okay, what I'm trying to say is who we are, one body, Christ body, and the scope of gospel impact and and Christian unity is bigger and deeper than we tend to think when the gospel is just vertical and individual and eternal.

It is those things, but it's more than those things.

So if the body, if that's what the body is, what does the body do?

I want us to read verse 14 to 26 and just want to pay attention.

When the body is functioning as the body should, what is it doing?

Okay, verse 14.

For the body is not one member, but many.

If the foot says, Because I'm not a hand, I'm not part of the body, it is not for this reason any less part of the body.

Alright, we're looking for what does the body do, and you could say, what is the body not do?

And if the ear says, Because I'm not part of the because I'm not an eye, I am not a part of the body, it is not for this reason any less part of the body.

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

If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?

But now has God has placed the members, each of them, in the body.

Okay, that's the that's this.

The horizontal, membering the body.

Verse 20.

But now there are many members, but one body.

And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you.

Or again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.

Okay, pause.

We're looking, if this is who we are, one body, Christ's body, what does that body do?

And it kind of tells us what the body doesn't do.

The head cannot say to the feet, I have no need of you.

In other words, what does the body not do?

What do members in the body never do?

And never look at somebody else and go, We don't need you.

I don't need you.

Nor, and and so no part of the body can look at another part and go, I don't need you, and no part of the body can can, kind of the other side of that coin, can go, I'm not needed.

So what does the body do?

Uh, what do we do?

We value one another's unique role in the body.

That's what the body does.

If we're one body, Christ body.

None of us go, I'm not needed.

None of us go, you're not needed.

We value each other's unique role in the body.

What else do we do?

Go to verse 25.

Uh that's kind of picking up in the middle of the sentence.

Go to verse 22.

On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary.

And those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor.

I really like that.

And our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no need.

But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there be no division in the body.

Yeah, because we're one body, we're Christ's body.

But that the members may have the same care for one another.

Members may have the same care for one another.

When one body, Christ's body, is functioning as the body should, what is it doing?

Exactly what he just said.

Demonstrating God's care for one another.

That's what the body does.

One body, Christ's body, demonstrate care for one another.

What else?

Go to next verse.

Verse 26.

And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.

If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

So two more things of what we do.

Because we're one body, we are Christ's body, we suffer with one another's sufferings.

We cry with one another.

We show up.

We suffer with one another's sufferings, and what else?

We rejoice with one another's honor.

If we are one body, a Christ's body, this is what we do.

This is the outworking of gospel impact in our lives.

Now, if you're gonna try to summarize those things and go, okay, if we value, demonstrate, suffer, rejoice, are we are we like working towards an acronym here of the disfer and that?

No, we're not.

But we're gonna try to tie like what is unique about what the body does.

Here's here's the one word I want to put on this and then kind of flesh it out in a bunch of different ways.

If we're one body, we are Christ's body, here's what we do.

Verb.

No, it's not an acronym.

Verb, like truly, verb, it's it's what you do, it's action words.

So he just gave us four.

We value one another's gifts.

This verb.

Demonstrate God's care for one another.

We verb.

We suffer with one another's sufferings.

We verb.

We rejoice with one another's honor.

We verb.

Give me some other verb words that describe when the one body, Christ body, what the body ought to be doing.

Verbs.

Serve.

One body, Christ body.

We serve one another.

Sorry.

I'm sorry.

We work together, we pray together, we pray for one another.

We celebrate.

Yeah, that's kind of like the word rejoice.

We help.

We encourage.

We greet, we love.

We quip.

We verb.

Huh?

We grieve.

We grieve.

One body.

Christ's body.

What do we do?

We we verb.

Okay.

This is our biblical theology of the body.

One body, Christ's body, okay, so he's our head.

We take our orders from him, we submit to him, okay, under the authority of his word.

One body, Christ's body.

We verb.

Now, let's get let's kind of compare that to uh present reality for the body of Christ here at Sandhurst.

Good news and bad news.

What do we want first?

Because we can go in either direction.

Good news first or bad news first?

All right.

Let's start with the bad news.

Let's start with the bad news.

Alright, so here's some we'll start with the bad.

Last week I told you that uh Lifeway did a research um into churches, and pastors reported that about 42% of their church serves in their church.

Verbs in their church.

And do you know what our percentage is?

Any guesses?

20.

All right.

Well, um, our percentage is, I guess good news, higher than 42.

But not a lot higher.

45.

45% of our body serves.

The way we got to that number, just because I'm sure you're curious, is we just took the number of mend members and regular attenders and it and divided that by the number of people we have uh serving on Teams.

45%.

Last week, so that's kind of one piece of bad news.

Here's some other extra sauce for the bad news.

Um we last week we looked at first Corinthians 12 and had a push, man, let's be a serving church.

And we pointed us to a link on the website, on the homepage, serve, circled it in red.

And we had a response of people who filled out a form to be able to serve in the one body Christ body.

And uh, you know how many?

It starts with a two.

But there's no other number, just two.

Two.

So I mean we said it last week.

If forty-five percent of your body doesn't work, you're dead soon.

Or really, if forty-five percent of your body does work, you're dead soon.

So what's behind this?

Probably lots of things.

Here's maybe one.

I think that perhaps the church has embraced a a different verb, a verb that uh we're not called to.

And okay, this is the the mystery of one body, Christ's body, we verb.

Here's a verb that the church has really embraced, but is not in the New Testament for us.

You know a verb we've embraced sitting.

Yeah, a certain kind of sitting.

Reclining.

One body, Christ body.

What do we do?

We verb.

Just like this.

But it's a little bit uglier.

Um we verb.

Yep, that was the website.

Okay, so last week, we saw Taylor.

Um, and I appreciate I always appreciate sort of the feedback on or just thoughts on what we talked about in the sermon, what the text says.

And one person pointed out just a good uh a good um sort of nuance in this, that if you don't know, Taylor last week represented the church and having parts of the body uh not engaging as part of the body, and so he's bigger and stronger than me, but I could have taken him because parts of the body were disengaged.

But what in in that illustration, it was like there was some sort of external force kind of tying up the hands.

But the the problem is not that we have some sort of extra, like we are in a spiritual battle.

I really do believe that.

But we don't have some sort of like external force saying, servants you can't serve, and encouragers you can't encourage.

And we we just have we we've one body, Christ's body.

We've this is what we've had.

This is this is the better picture than what's on the screen right now.

We've just embraced a verb called recline.

And this is this is ugly, but I want to make it uglier.

Um let's just say that we have a mission given to us by God, and let's just say that um that mission you could summarize it by like love and obey God.

Like by the power of his spirit, for the praise of his glory, help others do the same.

This is the mission that we have.

Maybe you could say it um advance the gospel.

This is the mission, and that's over there, and I've embraced one body, one uh Christ's body, reverb, recline.

So uh, Taylor, where are you at?

All right, second week in a row, bro.

Come up.

All right.

We started with a biblical theology of body, and now we're just getting a little look at present reality.

All right, you represent the members in the church who are going one body, Christ body, verb.

That's your mission, and I want you to move the people in your church in mission.

So just move.

Just move it.

Are you not gonna try harder?

Bro, do you not care about the mission?

Oh.

Um I don't I actually don't move it too far because that would ruin the illustration.

But uh actually, I I want you to move it as far as you can.

So and I really I like really go.

Oh, hey, Taylor.

Hey, is there gonna be uh is there gonna be childcare at the is there gonna be uh hey, did we change the coffee?

Because I'm not sure that seems like the coffee used to be different.

Alright.

So when your kids go, Mom, dad, why was there a uh a chair on the stage?

You can tell them, it's because we are one body, we are Christ's body, we're called to verb, and we've embraced the wrong one, a bad one.

Recline.

So I really do want you to move it.

Um and because the the I want to see a bunch of people who are in a cushion who could move it, but we've embraced the wrong verb, so I want you to move it.

I want you to try.

I don't want you to stop.

I the the mission is too important for us to say we're tired.

The mission is too important.

Uh, and I know we are in seats, we could help, but I want you to move it.

I don't want you to stop.

The mission is too important.

And yeah.

Honestly, that kind of moves my heart.

Because uh I didn't know what was gonna happen there.

I didn't I didn't know if we were all just gonna watch him struggle and feel in ourselves going, I'm in a cushion, doing the very thing that we're talking about not doing.

Now I know you're you uh you're probably thinking, well, I don't know if I was allowed to.

Like, this I I didn't want to ruin it.

I get that.

But for the there for all of us, there is a sense of like, what is happening here?

Or are we watching one guy trying to advance the gospel, the rest of us sitting on a cushion, embracing a verb called recline?

We are one body, a Christ's body, called to verb to advance the gospel.

So, can I give us some good news?

Here's some some good news.

Well, before I give us the good news, I want to give us um some helps towards what we saw up here not being what we see happen in our church.

And the first thing I want to uh do to help us in that direction is to give us uh a small little gift, and that is a real-time list of opportunities in our church.

Because I understand it's hard to meet needs that you don't know exist.

That's just true.

And for a lot of us, we go, man, if if I had if I just knew where the needs were, like put me in.

Uh uh I'm ready.

And I know that's true of many of us, and so we made a list.

So on the back of your bulletin, we made a list.

We made a list of opportunities to serve in the church.

We intentionally put it on the section where we would usually take notes on the sermon, because uh we thought, okay, we could print out a separate sheet, or we could say, instead of leaving space to take notes on the sermon, let's just apply the sermon instead.

Leave out the notes, leave room for some application.

That's what this is.

It's a it's a chance for if you are not serving here, if you've embraced a verb that says, I'm just gonna kind of sit, recline, observe, spectate, critique.

But I don't want I we're I'm part of one body.

Christ has membered me in here uniquely with unique gifts, then this is for you.

You put your name on it, your phone number, email, and these are serving opportunities for the body of Christ to advance the gospel in our city.

We have kids, we have equipping life groups, we have worship arts, we have prime timers, elevate students, women, missions outreach, and then one uh a new thing that I want to talk about.

Very, very excited about.

If one body verbs, uh, and I was been reading 1 Corinthians 12 for a long time, long time, long time, long time, and thinking, man, there's there is a lot, and I'll share some stories in a moment, but a lot that our body does so well in terms of advancing the gospel and one body verbing together, taking orders from King Jesus and saying, let's go.

Not the room service to Jesus, but broken jar service to Jesus.

And if one body verbs, here are four things that have been happening organically, but I want to give more intentional effort towards, as a church, a few verbs.

One body, one uh Christ's body.

Here's first thing one body repairs.

One body repairs.

What I'm about to show are some things, like I said, they have happened organically, but we're providing more structure behind.

And that structure right now is when we have a staff owner who's over two uh a few team leaders, and that's what we have right now.

What I'm hoping happens is by the end of this morning, that we'll have people in the body who go, I want to be on that team.

Because like I said, we have staff owner, we have team leader, what we don't have is team members yet, officially.

I'm hoping that changes.

We have one body repairs.

Uh the these teams are designed to meet needs within the body.

And one of one of the responsibilities, the calls, the privileges that the body has within the body is to care for widows and orphans.

And we have a lot of people in our church who could use somebody who knows how to repair something, who knows how to uh fix stuff, to show up at their house with uh notice and with uh like good procedures and show up and say, hey, we're we're ready to help you fix some stuff.

Because one body verbs, and one way we can do that is repairs.

If so that is on the bottom of your card.

If you're somebody in here and you go, man, I'd love to exercise that gift in this body, you can join that team.

That's one body repairs, meeting needs in our body specifically, but not only for those for for our widows and for just people, people who need somebody.

That's what this team is for.

One body verbs.

Uh, here's another one.

One body cooks.

One body cooks.

This team is for uh providing the ministry of meals to people who are going through some sort of life change or grief or hardship.

One body cooks.

We have staff owner, we have team leaders, but there are some of us in here who are like, man, I love to cook.

It's been happening organically.

We're just trying to give more structure so that it can happen even more to provide better, easier on-ramps and opportunities.

One body cooks.

If you love to cook, that is such a powerful ministry.

Come back to that in a minute.

Um, one body visits.

The ministry of presence.

You can deliver a meal, but you can also just show up.

I want to have a team of people who go, hey, we're always, we're just always ready to pay a visit to somebody who could use the ministry of presence.

Last one, I'm really excited about this.

One body gives.

This isn't a team, this is a fund.

If you go on the website now and click on give, uh, you'd be able to, there's a few little drop-down menus that you could choose to give to.

One of them now is One Body Gives.

That's what it's called.

And this is a fund that's just set up specifically for the people in our body to meet the financial needs of those in the body.

So that here's the goal in all of this: that that it would be able to be said at church at Sandhurst, what is said to be true of the early church in Acts 4, there was not a needy person among them.

I want to have that thing full of money.

That when when there's a need in the church, we are ready to help with medical bills, to help with power, to help with counseling.

Want to be a body who's verbing together, advancing the gospel.

My hope is that by the end of today that this is full.

These teams are full.

Now, again, I want to over-emphasize, I'm not saying that these things haven't been happening.

They have been happening organically, and they need to continue to happen organically.

Whereas life groups, this is always on our radar to be providing and doing for people in our church.

But sometimes what I hope this serves is easier on ramps and opportunities for the church to be able to say, hey, I'm part of the body, one body, one church.

I want a verb, put me in.

It has happened organically.

Man, um when we had um when we had our miscarriage uh few years ago, well, 2021, we weren't expecting it, and it just hit me in a way that I did not expect.

I was surprised by how deeply it impacted me.

And then you know what happened?

We didn't have any repairs, but um one body cooks, and we had some people from this church just show up with food.

Not because we needed a meal, but because that's a ministry of presence and love and care.

One body cooked.

One body visited.

I got a text from Adam.

Adam was in his Jeep outside on our driveway, and he texted me and said, Hey, no need to come out.

I'm just here with you.

One body visits.

There have been so many, so many needs in our body that have come up that other people have said, Hey, I'll give to that.

I'll throw some money at that to be able to give.

It has been happening organically, and I just want to give our church lots of on-ramps.

So you don't have to be kind of in the know of what's happening in the church to be able to be engaged in advancing the gospel.

So um these are some new things that are coming up.

I'm so excited.

I can't wait, honestly.

I can't wait to be able to celebrate at the end of the year uh what we were able to give towards in terms of meeting needs in our body for the saints who are faithful to give.

Just so excited for the body functioning together, where we get to see what happened up here on stage lived out in real life.

So um that's I hope that this helps.

When I'm done, we're gonna take that out here, and I hope that you'll fill it out.

And as you leave, it's gonna be in the north x.

Just if you're not serving, we just drop it on the recliner to say uh bumpy recliner.

We don't we don't verb like that here.

Because we're one body, we're Christ's body.

Okay, so let me give some uh let me give some good news that I'm just thankful for.

We have a lot of people in this body who are serving, and I'm so thankful.

You you probably wouldn't guess how many people we have serve in a given month in our kids' ministry alone.

200 different people in our kids' ministry in a given month serving our kids.

You know what?

Um, first, that's amazing because anybody who's trying to make a difference anywhere, at some point they're gonna try to get in kids' ministry.

And we need to be awesome at that, and we are awesome at that.

And I'm thankful for it.

And uh you you know you know that story of the guy um when the president came uh to NASA when they were trying to send somebody to the moon, and he comes up to a janitor and he says, Hey, what's your job?

Have you heard this story?

He says, What's your job?

Ask ask to to the manager or to the janitor, and here's what the janitor says.

I'm sending someone to the moon.

I I hope that as as I give some of the good news of what we're doing as a church, that when you go to kids' ministry, and if somebody were to ask you, hey, what are you doing?

that you wouldn't just say, uh, well, I'm serving in nursery, or I am uh kind of A life group helper this week.

I I hope we'd be able to say, I'm advancing the gospel.

That's what I'm doing.

In nursery, I'm advancing the gospel because I'm allowing some uh some mom to be able to come in here.

Maybe this is the only time in her week that she's not having a crying baby beside her, and I'm giving her the chance to be able to come in here and be refreshed by the word of God and the people of God.

I'm advancing the gospel.

That's what I'm doing.

We have 200 people who are doing that over the course of a given month.

That's good news.

Uh worship in band tech, the 43 people who are serving in that way.

Doing what?

Advancing the gospel.

Advancing the gospel.

The people who we get to see up on stage, the people who are serving behind the scenes, tech, sound, all these people.

I I I hope can we just say thank you to them?

I I hope what we can get to a point as a church, we believe we're advancing the gospel.

That is what you're doing.

Running sound, advancing the gospel.

Running computer, advancing the gospel.

We have life group leaders and hosts.

81 people who are serving as life group leaders and hosts.

You know what you're doing?

You're advancing the gospel.

That's what you're doing.

Titus two mentors, those are our women's mentors, 27 of you who are mentoring.

You know what you're doing?

You're advancing the gospel.

Mommy Meal Train team.

So we have we have one body cooks, but then we also have mommy meal train, which is giving meals uh not to people who are going through like a grief thing, but to new families with new babies.

Um 48 of us doing that.

And speaking of meals, I wanted to put it out.

Um now I'm gonna highlight a few people in a second.

Uh greeters, like that first face of somebody that you see when you walk through the door, 35 of you.

35 of you who are advancing the gospel because our first first impressions matter.

Equipping teachers, 10.

Men and women's leadership take them together, just 26.

Elevate student leaders, 18.

I could go on and on and on to say, and if you can total up, it's 542.

542 people saying, Hey, put me in.

Let's go.

Put me in.

One body, Christ's body.

Let's go.

We verb together.

So I want to encourage you that we're we are, and I'm thankful to the Lord, we're part of a church that has that's a serving church, a one-body church, where this is happening organically.

We're just putting some structure to it.

I want to ask you to find and to where is the intersection of your purpose, of like what you love and what you're good at, and do that.

And when you look around, you see a lot of people who have kind of found what do they love, what are they good at, do that.

This all around the church.

Um, I don't know if the Smiths are here, Colin and Aaron Smith, are they here?

Boom, right there.

If you look around uh our church and see all these like great pictures, these pictures that capture moments, find what they're good, what they love is capturing moments, what they're good is taking pictures, they're good at that.

And our church has been able to see the embodiment of our culture, of our values on our walls.

Now I'm thankful for it.

That's that's not just taking pictures.

I actually believe.

That's advancing the gospel.

Ladybug, I don't know where you're at if she's in here, she's gonna hate me for this.

I'm sorry, but not too sorry.

Uh but she between April and June of this past year, she uh was part of delivering 54 meals to people.

If you've gotten a meal from Ladybug, will you raise your hand?

Like ever.

Okay, that is so no, keep them up, keep them up, keep them up.

That is so good.

That is one of our members who back in like the late 80s, you can put your hands down now, thank you.

Back in the late 80s was going, what do what do I love?

Cooking.

And making people no, I'm good at cooking.

What do I love?

I love showing people that they matter.

Cooking.

54 meals just in April and June of this year.

I'm thankful for it.

I believe that's advancing the gospel.

Man, I could keep going through.

I'm just thinking.

And my my hope is that a biblical theology of the body and a and a and a sort of face-to-face with present reality would lead some of us who have been on the cushion to do what we saw up here.

To get up and to start serving, to advance the gospel.

Here's what I'm convinced of as we close.

I'm convinced that things um I'm convinced that it's difficult to sustain things that you don't actually love.

The motivational speeches can get us only so far.

And that's why I always want to be able to teach in a way that's not a motivational speech, just being able to ground what we're doing and what we see happening in God's word.

But at the end of the day, it's always gonna come back to love for God.

And love for God is always gonna come back to his love for us, and that's always gonna point us back to the gospel and Jesus.

And if we look at 1 Corinthians 12 and go from kind of uh our body, uh, our gifts, our serving, and go back to God.

Here's what 1 Corinthians 12 reminds us that God distributes gifts individually just as he wills, he does it, he's the giver.

That God unifies people who would otherwise have little in common.

God does that.

That's why he goes like Jews and Greeks, slaves free.

He's like, let me think of the most divided people I can imagine.

And when they put faith in Jesus, God starts doing that to them for the advancement of the gospel.

God does that, he does that.

And I go, do I love him?

He placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.

He did that.

He put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked, so that there would be no division in the body.

He did that.

We won't sustain what we don't love, and if this is just kind of, hey, kind of play my part, then it won't be sustained a couple years from now.

But if this is going, hey, I see this is God's doing in the gospel and the scope and impact of the gospel is bigger than I was previously thinking, and I love God for it, then we can sustain something and we can advance the gospel in our city, in our homes, and around the world.

So, uh, two questions.

Are you serving?

Are you serving?

If not, I hope we've made it easy for you, and I hope uh better than easy.

I hope that a biblical theology would make you go, man.

Called the verb, not recline.

A second question is, are you membered?

Like is it's what the gospel does is what God, the good news of the gospel is that the Holy Spirit has taken people dead in sin and membered us together as part of his body.

But it's possible to attend church and kind of play the game and not be membered by God into the body because we haven't actually put our faith in Jesus.

We've just kind of been pretending.

And so, yeah, I want to ask, are you serving?

If so, I mean, if not, let's go.

Uh, but a deeper, harder question am I am I membered to the body through the work of Jesus?

If not, then I want to just ask, man, let's stop playing the church game and start putting your faith in Jesus.

Saying, um, I have no hope in myself except in Jesus.

Let him, through faith in him, member you, reconcile to God, and member to a body that's doing something that truly does impact eternity.

And let's move church, advancing the gospel, loving and obeying God by his power, for his glory, helping others do the same.

Stand with me.

We're to sing.

Hopefully, for some of us, we won't just be singing, we'll be filling out a card, and we can not just sing as an application, but we can get in the game and verb to the glory of God.

All right, let's go.