We Must Be One Body

If you read in your bulletin that Brother Grice was supposed to

be here, he was.

And I'm sorry you're left with me.

So sorry.

I tried to warn you this morning, but you didn't listen.

So.

No, I'm so glad that you're back.

And Brother Grice is a good friend of mine.

We actually went there.

We were members of his church.

I was on staff with him.

And it was a good time out there in Grand Prairie with Brother

Grice.

So if you don't know him, you don't want to miss him.

He's a firecracker and so he will.

He'll light it up and keep it burning, so it'll be good.

And he's a fiery preacher, a lot of fun.

But tonight I want you to open your Bibles with me.

We're going to be in the book of Romans this evening.

Romans 12, Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

And I want to speak to you, I just want to share a little bit of

my heart with you for just a moment.

And I want to let you know of some things that are taking place.

And I just going to come right out, I'm not sure how else to say

it, but I am starting talks with the men to candidate, starting

that process.

So would you pray for me?

Would you.

Would you just ask God to give me wisdom and the men as well?

And so we're starting that, that and it's underway.

And so you keep praying.

And as I was given, I've been given more opportunities to speak.

And so I thought, hey, I need to maybe try to cast a vision, let

you know of where I, where I see things.

If things were to, if I were actually to get through that candidate

process and be presented as a candidate, what that would look like.

So I'm going to try to get a head start on that.

And I, I want you to just know that I'm still a member here.

I love this place.

And regardless of what happens, I still love you.

And so Paul was dealing with some things in Romans here, and I

think it's very applicable to us today in our situation.

But it doesn't just apply to us now.

It always applies to us, but it's more prominent now.

And what I want, what Paul is addressing Here in Romans 12 is unity

in the church.

He's dealing with the church at Rome and they were having some

issues with Jews and Gentiles combating one another and kind of

getting after each other and causing a stir in the church.

And they were not able to effectively move forward for the

cause.

Of Christ disoriented.

And they needed to be unified together.

They needed to come together as what his wording is, as one is

as members one another.

And this is a series from a book that Paul Chappell wrote and

it's called One Another and it's a.

It's a study of all the one anothers in the Bible.

And so as time permits and when I have chances, you know, opportunities

to speak, probably not on Sunday morning, but on Sunday evenings

and Wednesday evenings that I get opportunities I'll probably share

from this series.

And it won't be an exact rundown of every spot, but just the

ones that I believe the Lord is kind of leading me to.

So let's pick up the reading here in Romans 12 and verse 3, Paul

is writing.

And Paul says in verse 3 it says, For I say through the grace

given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of

himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly

according to as God has dealt every man a measure of faith.

For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not

the same office, so we being many, are one body in Christ and

every one member one of another, having then gifts differing

according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let

us prophesy according to the proportion of faith or ministry.

Let us wait on our ministering or he that teaches on teaching.

And Paul is going through.

We'll finish the reading here in just a moment.

But Paul is really starting to hammer out the issues at the church.

And he's letting us know today, 2026 that, hey, there can

be some issues in the church, but that is not effectively God's

design for the church to be able to move forward and accomplish

the work if we are not working together.

I'm so grateful that my left arm does what I want it to.

And it doesn't just haul off.

Sometimes it does with my kids when they're around it just.

No, I'm joking, I'm joking.

But what if that was the case?

What if I could.

What if you can't control your body and you just have a wild limb

on you and it's just going, you know, I'm not pointing fingers

at anyone, but this is once again, an ounce of prevention is

better than a pound of cure.

And we need to make sure that we are together when we're moving

forward with whoever that man may be.

We need to continually pray that God will show us without a shadow

of a doubt would give us peace in our heart when we are viewing

who is coming before us and before we cast our vote that together

we are going to be moving forward as one unit, as one body.

And Paul is saying, look at verse three.

It says, for I say through the grace given unto me, he's letting

you.

And I know I'm starting off by not my opinions, not my preferences.

He's saying, I have received revelation from God.

God has spoke to me directly.

This is not what I think a church should be, but this is given

to me by God.

He says, now when I tell you this, there's a warning here.

He says, don't get a big head.

He said, don't think of yourself more highly than you ought

to think.

He says, because what I'm about to tell you, the, the way that

the church is to operate is that all the members of the church

are united behind one mission and they're going towards one goal

and they're pulling the rope at the same time for the same reason.

And now it doesn't matter the size of a church, it matters the

depth of a church, of how far its roots can reach down deep into

the doctrines of Christ, of.

Of who he is and what he's done.

If we get away from that, there's no hope for us.

As long as we stay true to the things of Christ, we're going to

be okay.

And Paul is saying, hey, I'm going to let you know.

Look what he says.

Verse 3.

It says not to think of himself more highly than he ought

to think, but to think soberly, according.

As God has dealt every man a measure of faith.

He says, hey, God has given every man.

Don't let anyone tell you that they can't believe in God.

They may choose not to, but they have the capacity to believe

in God.

You say, well, what about where it says the fool has said in

his heart there is no God?

Yeah, the fool says that.

But the fool is not denying the existence of God.

He is denying that he wants any right.

I just don't want anything to do with it.

After you eat a big meal and the waitress comes around, says,

hey, what are we having for dessert?

Like, oh, no cheesecake tonight.

You know, you're like, hey, I'm not denying that there's cheesecake.

I just can't handle it right now.

I don't want anything to do with it.

That's what the fool says.

So there is a capacity of faith that God has dealt everyone

that same, that same capacity.

God has put in each and every one of us special God given gifts

that makes our church unique, that makes our church strong.

That, that where every member is involved in the action and in

the work that is happening here, it's not.

Sometimes we hear 20% of the people do 80% of the work.

Is that true?

Well, I wear, I wear.

How did Brother Rigsby say it?

He said, I wear my.

He said I wear 20% of my ties.

80% of the time you're like, well, that's what actually happens.

But if we're not careful, we will just, if someone's handling

it, we'll just turn it over to someone else.

But God has placed in you and he has given you gifts, a special

gift, multiples in some cases, but for exactly what our church needs

in the time that you are here.

And so let's keep reading here in verse nine, it says, let love

be without dissimulation, a whore.

That which is evil, cleave to that which is good.

Be kindly affectionate, one to another with brotherly love and honoring,

preferring one another, not slothful in business, fervent in

the spirit, serving the Lord.

And he's letting us know that, hey, there are some gifts.

And what's unique about this portion of scripture is three times

in the Bible.

Romans, First Corinthians and Ephesians are the three areas where

Paul describes the church as a body.

Now we don't become a body when you, when we get saved, right?

It's, it's letting you know this is an analogy.

We are, he's trying to con.

He's using the physical to help you and I understand the spiritual.

And so he says, just like your body is this in the same way the

church operates just like your body.

And so there are three areas that Paul gives this analogy of these

members.

And what's unique about this, if you go through and you read for

the sake of tonight, we don't have time.

But if you go through and read every listing of the gifts that were

given, they're little different.

Teaching and prophesying are on every one.

But the others are a little different.

You say, are you supposed to have all of them?

No, I think some folks, God gives certain types of gifts at certain

seasons in life where you and I, the more that we grow in our faith

and our understanding of the, the word of God, God will bring to

light some things about you that only you have and what our church

needs.

We talked about exhortation.

Exhortation Here in verse 8 it says, or he that exhorteth on exhortation,

he okay, that's just that exhortation is a sense of encouragement

and I can tell you that there's members here that are actively

effectively doing what God has given them to do because they've

encouraged me, they've helped me.

Have you been encouraged?

Have you?

Has someone in the church helped you?

Well, something I'm going to hit a side note and this will be

I was thinking this week was reading through just in my daily

reading was about producing fruit that you and I are supposed

to produce fruit.

We are supposed to get nutrients from the word of God, led

by the spirit of God and we are supposed to produce fruit.

Right?

Do you know that a plant produces fruit, doesn't ever eat

its own fruit.

It's always for someone or something else.

Every fruit that you produce is not directly tied to you even

though you can benefit from it but you're not supposed to get gain

from your own fruit.

The word minister here have to find it here.

I lost my place here but here it's talking about ministering.

The word ministering is to serve.

We are to serve one another.

We are to see the example that Christ set before us.

What did Christ do?

Christ came put aside.

I mean just think about it for just another minute.

He left the glories of heaven to be laid in a dirt to be laid in

the dirt next to a feeding trough or in a feeding trough in

a dirty stable or where they kept animals.

That's the God of creation.

That is the all powerful, all knowing God that has stepped out

of eternity and come to earth to serve us.

He says I've come to seek and to save that which was lost.

He said I've come not to be served, but to serve.

And that is the example.

This is not something that we mustered up in ourself but we are

to help to serve one another.

We are to see a need and try to fulfill it.

And I just want to encourage you that during this time there's

some holes, there's some people that are carrying a lot of

things that are happening or all the that are happening.

There are people that are carrying a workload right now that

is heavy because there used to be four or 16 or 24 people and now

there's six.

The work you say?

Well the workload has reduced.

Well some but not all of it.

The work to workers ratio is off balance right now.

We need your help.

We need nursery workers, we need ushers and greeters, we need

security team members, we need teachers, Sunday school teachers,

we need coffee shop workers.

We need help and God has given you.

What Paul is saying is God has given you unique talents and, and

abilities.

You have the capacity to do the work that is needed.

And we need to come together and start to put link arms with one

another and start to get after it again.

And it's easy for us to say, well, we used to do it like this.

And we used to do it like this.

Well, God doesn't live in a used to.

God lives right here and right now.

And we can sit here and dwell on all the things that we don't have

or, or we can work with what we got right now.

You know, I've had some businesses and I've had guys who

worked for me and there are certain guys that come in and they

would get to the job and they would call me with every problem

of why they couldn't do something.

I'm like, I'm hanging up.

Bye.

I'm like, don't find excuses, find solutions.

My son says, dad, I have that ingrained in my head.

And I'm like, good, because we've got to keep.

We have to not worry about all the things that we don't have.

I'm going to let you know that God's mission and his vision for

Haslett, Texas and for Heritage Baptist Church hasn't changed

one bit.

There is still the commission to go into all the world and preach

the gospel to every creature.

If we are not effectively doing that, we are failing.

We are failing as a church.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

It doesn't have to be that way.

And you say so.

Are you calling us failures?

No, no, I'm not.

I'm just letting us know this is the ounce of prevention Paul is

telling the church at Rome, hey, you guys got to get it together.

You.

You guys need to come to the understanding that God has placed

in you during.

When.

When you were curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the

earth.

That he gave you not only the capacity to believe God and to act

upon it, but he also gave you unique skills and ability that would

help the local church accomplish the will of fulfilling

the Great Commission.

And that's where we're at.

We need to be.

We need to be so locked in to the work ahead of us or I'm afraid

we won't accomplish it.

So this, he starts off with the warning.

He tells us not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought

to think.

And he also reminds us of how God has designed the church.

It says in verse four, it says, for as we have many members

in one body, all members have not the same office.

Sometimes we can look at certain folks and you say, hey, some

today were very kind and said, hey, it was a great service today.

It was a great service.

Say we had a good service.

Well, there were 14 workers out from the nursery to the ushers

to the security team and then there were other ladies and folks

preparing things.

This isn't a one man show.

This is a team effort.

Everyone involved, young people to old, that we have got to

get back to the way that God has designed the local church to

operate.

And I would encourage you, I would encourage you that if there

is something that you see and you say, ah, I think I could help

there, I might be able to do something there.

Do it, do it.

That's what God wants for us.

And I'm telling you that the things that are going to be produced

out of that are going to be abundant blessings.

God is going to be able to bless you as he sees fit.

You say, well, if I join the ushers, will I get a blessing right

away?

I don't know.

Well, try it out.

You tell me, try it out.

You know, God is in the business of proving himself.

He's in the business of proving himself.

We have a come and try it out yourself religion.

We want you to see for yourself the goodness of God.

We want you to see that there is more to life than just living

for self.

That it's more than just me, myself and my family and my things.

No, this world is so much bigger than that.

And God's plan is to reach the world.

And we can't do that when we're looking inward.

We got to see this.

And so I want to let you know that after this warning, God gives

us this source that he has dealt every man a measure of faith.

And I'll remind you what James says.

James says it a little differently.

James says every good and perfect gift cometh down from above.

And so these relationships that we have, do you think that it's

coincidence that the people that you know just happened to go

to church or that God allowed you to cross paths with the members

of this church or in the community?

No, God has designed it.

God has called all of us to come in together.

And yes, we're uniquely different.

We're all different.

And by the way, this doesn't work outside of the local church.

This doesn't work in the workplace.

This doesn't work over here.

The workplace is not really designed to be ran like this.

It's good, you can model it after.

But God doesn't give his endorsement on it like he's given

to the local church.

And he's saying that, hey, there is.

There is a way that we need to do things.

And the way that that is, is every member involved.

For as we many members in one body and all members have not the

same office.

He's saying, hey, we've all, you know, don't worry.

There's another portion of scripture, I think it's in Corinthians

where Paul gives an extreme exaggeration, where he says, well,

hey, if I'm not the I, then, then, you know, then I'm no good.

Or if I'm not the hand and I'm the foot, then I'm not going to be

able to.

I'm paraphrasing now, but it says, well, basically you talk yourself

out of doing anything.

Paul is reminding us that there is no unimportant parts of

the church, that we have got to get to the point where we are

pursuing the things of God together and that we are putting

all of our efforts towards the same thing and giving people the

benefit of the doubt, not worrying.

Well, so and so didn't shake my hand today.

Well, well, come on, we've got to.

Maybe they were busy, maybe they weren't feeling well.

Maybe the baby was crying.

Maybe the, the teenager was crying.

Brendan.

No, I'm just joking, okay?

I've picked on Brendan enough today.

I'm going to leave him alone.

Okay?

So.

We need to make sure that we realize that this church and the

success of our church moving forward, regardless of who you choose

to be your pastor, we've got to come together in Ohio.

We used to live in Lebanon, Ohio.

And every day to school, we would drive past Neil Armstrong's

house.

I'm like, what's up, Neil?

How you doing?

No, I never seen him out there.

He was never home.

But he had a small little farm and some animals out there.

And I read this story about Neil Armstrong was when he was being

interviewed and they asked him after his lunar, his moon walk and

his, his trip to the moon and, and whatnot, first man to walk on

the moon.

They said, well, you did a great job and you have accomplished

much.

He says, you are, you are looking at 400,000 people who were

involved with this mission over the course of 10 years, 400,000

people over the course of 10 years to accomplish that.

And he took the credit.

He was careful not to take the credit, I should say.

And that same principle was to say, we need to not think more highly

of ourself than we ought to.

Because when we start thinking about these gifts and the talents

that we have and the things that God has given us, we could be

very high minded.

We need to be of a humility and of a lowly mind.

And so after the gifts, I'm going to hit these and then we're

going to close things down for tonight's activities.

But I want to let you know here in verse 6, look at verse 6

again it says having then gifts differing according to the

grace that is given to us.

Rather prophecy let us prophesy according to the proportion

of faith.

So prophecy, you know, do we still have that?

We know that there are some temporary gifts, some transitional

gifts that were given by the Holy Spirit.

So that's why we do not get our church doctrine out of the book

of Acts.

So the things that took place in the Book of Acts were great things,

but the church was in a transitional period.

And so there were things that God allowed for those apostles to

have.

Special types of gifts, healings and prophesying, which means

prophetic prophesying is foretelling of the future events

that has done away with.

But here it's referring to more of.

Well, that was, let me rephrase that.

It was miracles and tongues and healings that were transitional.

Now it is mostly these.

These prophesying gifts are mostly with forth telling and preaching

the word of God and teaching rightly divining the word of truth.

And you can do that.

You can do that in your Sunday school classes.

You can do that with one another.

You can share what God has placed on your heart today.

You can share that with your neighbor as you shake your friend.

Hey, I just want to tell you something that God has showed me

through the word of God, something I've been struggling with,

something I had a question about and God opened that up.

Or I found this verse.

I'd read it a hundred times, I never realized it.

And that right there builds a bond not just together, but it also

gives the church momentum because we are, we are linking arms

together.

We are unifying together beside the behind the same body of

truth.

And then we have extortation.

That's that natural encouragement.

I mentioned that before.

And that's saying the right thing at the right time.

That's being kind to people.

That is helping to encourage someone when they're down.

You look around and you say, man, there's a lot of empty seats.

There's a lot of people who no longer are here anymore.

Have you called them?

Have you text them?

Have you visited them.

Do we care?

Yes, we care.

And this is just a reminder to get back in touch with them.

Do they need to come back?

I don't know, but they need to know that we love them.

They need to know that we miss them.

And so I would encourage you.

You're sitting there.

Maybe someone else was in your row.

Give them a phone call, give them a text message, and that can

start to unify us together.

From the ground up, not from the top down.

Unity comes from the ground up.

We've got to see the same thing.

And now we can grow.

If you don't need someone pointing fingers.

From the top down.

We need this ground level.

I think if.

If we've learned anything from this situation.

I've learned personally.

I've learned personally how important deacons are.

I've learned personally, your job is so important.

Men, thank you for what you do.

Thank you.

This is that we have learned that our.

Our deacons and.

And the men who are helping us through this time.

It is not an easy.

That.

It is not an easy job.

It's not cut and dry.

But these men have come from the bottom and started to link arms

and have personal conversation and helping.

Helping our church through a difficult season.

Thank you.

Thank you for what you do.

Thank you for staying in and for not giving up.

This is part of the.

This is how.

This is.

This is the local church in action.

And we can sit here and we can ponder on the things that we wish

that we had.

But I'm telling you, God has so much more for us.

And I.

Can.

I. I'll share this with you, too.

There's.

I'm trying to think on how he described it.

I read this marriage book, and it was saying that you should go.

I think it's shared.

I can't remember what it's called, but basically it's.

If you go out and you have a difficult time with your family or

your spouse, how that bonds you closer together.

So I had the idea.

We're going to go camping in a tent.

Real camping.

It was rough.

It was rough.

Everything that I was supposed to remember, I forgot.

No.

Is what it seemed like.

All the main things, like no stakes for the tent.

So like, each night it's, like, over there, and sometimes it's

over here.

You know, the tent's kind of blowing around, and we had to move

stuff, and it was hard.

It was hard.

The food didn't cook right, and this didn't cook right.

And we just had this, like.

It was kind of painful, but you Know what?

We look back at it, we laugh at it, and we're like, oh, it's great.

It was a great time.

At the moment, it wasn't at the moment.

My wife was like, we're never camping again.

You know, she's still traumatized by it, but actually it's

what grew us together.

We had this shared experience of a hardship.

And we were able, as time progressed, the week of, we couldn't

laugh at it.

She was still the month.

I don't know, she might still be mad.

No.

But we were able to laugh at it.

And I believe that's what God is going to use us to do that.

Because we went through a traumatic.

I say traumatic.

I don't even.

We went through a season of hardship.

God is going to use that to strengthen our roots together.

And I will just say here that there are some more gifts, but for

the sake of time, I'm going to conclude by saying that.

We have so much to be thankful for.

There is far more good than bad.

There is so much to be thankful for.

The potential of Heritage Baptist Church is.

I mean, you can't even calculate the effectiveness of a

church in a growing city.

And there is so much more that we can do.

But we've got to come together.

We've got to be as one body moving forward for the cause of Christ.

We've got to put.

Maybe, maybe we need to make some phone calls this week.

Maybe we just need to have that conversation.

But I'm telling you that when we can get.

When we come together as a whole, when we are a unit moving

together, we're going to shake this world.

This church has already has world implications.

We reach.

Just think when you lay your head on the pillow tonight, the work

of Heritage Baptist Church never stops.

We have missionary in Africa and Brazil that our reach of this

church right now, your involvement right now is already

reaching around the world.

And God is going to continue to bless that effort.

So I would encourage you to.

Get involved, to ask for forgiveness, to make things right,

to reach out to someone.

Let's link arms together and move forward for the cause of Christ.

And I will just leave you with this and we'll have a short time

of invitation.

Is my personal conviction for accepting.

If we even get to that point, you know, right now, I hope I'm not

saying too much by letting you know I'm not an official candidate,

but I've started the process.

But if this moves forward and they decide to present me as a candidate,

I feel that my conviction would be, I would only take the church

at 90% approval.

90%.

And that is just the number that God has put on my heart, that

if we want to move forward as a whole, we've got to come together.

And this is not.

This is not a hoorah for me.

This is a hoorah for our church that regardless of who comes

before us, I think we really just need to stay strong together.

We need to be preferring one another.

We are members one another.

We have a church family.

And when folks that are hurting in our church, we are hurting.

When they're rejoicing, we're rejoicing.

And so that's what you.

You have a deeper relationship with folks that I don't.

You know people's situations better than others.

And that's what God has allowed you to have that access to,

to where you could minister to those people in those ways.

And so I just shared that with you.

And that's just what's on my heart.

And.

And I pray that God used it in some way.

And so at this time, why don't we stand and we're going to have

a moment of invitation, a little bit different of a.

Of a service tonight.

But let's pray as the musicians make their way forward.

Lord, thank you for your church.

Thank you for the accomplishments that you've done,

the blessings that you've given to this church and this people.

Lord, I pray that you would help us to see the vision of the

future, of the things that you're wanting to do, the things

that you're already putting in place.

Lord, I'm so thankful I've been helped.

My family has been helped from this place, through this place, by

you, through this place.

And I'm thankful for the good, all the good.

I'm so thankful.

I'm thankful for the hurt.

Because, Lord, it shows forth how real you are and how this is

nothing for you.

Lord, I pray that you be with us now.

Help us as we unite together to move forward for your cause and

for your sake alone.

In Jesus name, amen.