1 Corinthians Chapter 12 Verses 12 – 14

• Four times in the Bible the church is called and referred to as the “Body of Christ.” It’s a brilliant revelation really because the body, (as Paul is going to go into more of this in a moment), has different parts, those different parts have different functions, they look different, they have different capabilities and usages…and yet they are both outwardly and inwardly unified together as one.
• Every part of the body, although built, put together quite differently still has the same root code…the same DNA structure. The body truly is a remarkable invention!  I didn’t know this but on a genetic level, all human beings are more than 99% identical!  Isn’t that wild!  I also didn’t know that your bones are actually stronger than concrete and every day, your heart circulates your blood through your body about 1,000 times!  Pay attention, there’s a test afterwards!  HA!
• There’s really no end to the wonder of the body. If they were laid end to end, all of the blood vessels in the human body would encircle the earth four times!  100,000 chemical reactions occur in the human brain every second!  50,000 cells in your body died and were replaced by new ones while you listened to just this sentence!  This one blew me away!  You are taller in the morning than you are at night!  I knew I loved mornings for a reason!  One more, didn’t know this one…humans are the only species with a Chin!  HA!!!
• Miraculous…and Paul reveals that equally miraculous is the design of the church which he calls, “The Body of Christ.” Every part of the body, although having very different capabilities and functions all support and serve one another.  The foot supports the leg, the leg supports the mid-section, the mid-section supports the head and the head supports the foot…and round-and-round we go!  I mean everyone knows, the hip bones connected to the thigh bone and without that dem bones, dem bones ain’t gonna walk around!
• And so there is all of this diversity, all of this difference, but each part supporting each part…each part having the same root code and reason…and only together can the parts make the body. Five legs alone don’t make a body!  (Congrats mom, it’s an eye ball!)  You need all of those different parts…so Paul reveals that when you became a Christian, you took on a role, a pre-determined, gift-filled and gift-enabled role within the family of God, within the church…and you are not only gifted but you are needed!  Important!  Essential to proper operation of the church.
• That might give you pause right there…well I don’t know what I’m called to do…look, man…sometimes folks are called to be the skin…holding things together through encouragement, prayer and just presence…some are called to be tissue…letting someone just cry on you man when they need a friend…the body has to have both of those things and yet they lift nothing like the arm does…they grip no public ministry like a hand grips…I don’t want you to be discouraged if you’re not called to visible front-and-center ministry…you’re still an essential element of the body of Christ!
• And Paul will go into this too in a moment but it makes sense to mention it now…you who do the heavy lifting, if you despise those that do not, thinking they are not ministers of the manifold grace of God because they are not putting away chairs of teaching the kiddos upstairs…then you are sorely mistaken, you need to repent, stop thinking so highly of yourself, and walk in YOUR calling. Let the body be the body, man!

1 Corinthians Chapter 12 Verses 15 – 17

• And that’s how you know that teenage boys are indeed needed in the Body of Christ…because there is the smelling! HA!!

1 Corinthians Chapter 12 Verses 18 - 19

• Some folks at the church there in Corinth had decided they just weren’t important because they couldn’t speak or teach or perform as well as others…and the church had become so much about talent that it was nothing of faith… Once the church starts to go that way then it is truly lost.  The body isn’t in the strength of the hand, or the power of the ear or the stability of the leg or the facility of the eyes…the body is all of those things and yet without even one, there is great difficulty. 
• Some of the most important elements are never seen…I’ve never seen my kidneys! Some of the most vital and fundamental factors I’ve heard but never seen!  My stomach barks at me all of the time!  Sometimes in the worst moments…HA…but I’ve never seen it…and yet no body can do without them.  If God has made you to be the spleen, I get it…the eye seems cooler, but we gotta have you, you’re important…and the best part of it all is that you being that spleen pleases God!  So, don’t rupture!  HA!!

1 Corinthians Chapter 12 Verses 20 – 26

• Each is as important as each. If you drop a weight on your toe (which I have done) does the hand get with the mouth and point and say, “Toe, you dummy!  Suffer over there!”  No!  The whole body quakes!!  Big time!!  There is no part of the body independent of the other and if we would, as the Body of Christ, embrace that…if you embraced that, would you be different?  If so then you need to not only be a hearer but a doer…God is speaking to you today…  If the body would just operate as one…what kind of a powerful testimony would that be…?  Forget the testimony…what kind of power would that be? 
• “If.” I’ve been thinking about this lately.  That really is the biggest word in the world.    One day we will all meet our destiny and it will entirely be consumed by what we did with that word.  If Jesus is the Savior…if you have given your life over to the Lord…even today that’s the biggest word ever…if they do what I want, then I’ll be what I should be…if he loves me then I’ll be easy to deal with…I want to call you to unconditional existence.  That you are who you ought to be no matter what anyone else does or doesn’t do…do you know what that’s called?  Character.  Respectable, strong, solid, integrity.  And so few, if any are truly left in these last days…choose this hard and narrow path.  But that is the Way…have you ever known peace?  There it is…
• Taking the condition out of Christ and just simply giving all of who you are, good and bad, polished or poor, wake up into a life lived for the glory of God. That is when you experience the peace of God.  But so many, maybe even you…stuck on “if” like a child unable to understand the world around them.  No more conditions God…I don’t need the “ifs,” I trust You.  What kind of power would that be?

1 Corinthians Chapter 12 Verse 27

• You are the body…AND…you are an individual! This is the key verse really of what Paul is trying to say here.  Function as an individual…like it’s all up to you…AND…function as the body, unified and encouraging and supporting every other individual.

1 Corinthians Chapter 12 Verse 28a

• That’s kind-of how it all started…first, Jesus commissioned the disciples…sent them out as apostles to the world…and in that they, being filled and baptized with the Holy Spirit became proclaimers of God’s Word…that’s all a prophet really is…and finally as the net was cast with the truth of God, men and women drew near to them to be taught the grace of the gospel and the unsearchable riches of wisdom that are found in God’s Word and knowing God through His Word! And then the church boomed…

1 Corinthians Chapter 12 Verses 28 – 29

• A series of rhetorical questions. The obvious answer is no…not all are going to be these things, manifest these gifts…and does that matter, truly?  Absolutely not!  Not all are going to have the gift of church shutdown…or the gift of perimeter security!!  Or pastoral dad jokes…HA!!  They just aren’t listed here…  Here’s a very interesting next one…

1 Corinthians Chapter 12 Verse 30

• The obvious answer is If not all Christians are given these gifts by God then does that mean we have Christians that aren’t saved…no way!  Therefore, is speaking in tongues required for salvation?  Impossible!

1 Corinthians Chapter 12 Verse 31

• All this talk about gifts…all of this focus on spirituals…and yet the bedrock for anything of goodness…anything Godly…anything worth anything eternally…the way in which, from which, and to which all of the functions of the church must be from, at and go to…the greater than any spiritual gift…the king, the lead, the monarch, the majesty…the important…the everything…is love.