Chicago Preacher Alex Kurz from last Sunday morning:
Paul is really going to drill deep and get to the very crux and core of the matter, and that has to do with the type of relationships the various individual members of this one corporate whole are to enjoy and express.
Why did God create a physical, biological, material body? It was created to house a soul. We understand we're more than biological tissue mass. We're a soul; there is an invisible part to each of us.
The unseen you, the real you (again, your aspirations, dreams, likes and dislikes) that is eternal. So let's take that and appreciate why God is calling the church a body. We're not a political action group, a governmental program, a religious denomination. He describes the church as a living eternal organism.
Just as the unseen soul expresses itself through a physical medium, guess why God describes us as His body, the church the Body of Christ. Christ is using the body concept, a physical vessel, through which He expresses HIS life, HIS thinking, HIS goals, HIS likes, HIS ambitions, HIS value system.
Romans 12: [12] Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;
[13] Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.[14] Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.
[15] Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
[16] Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.
*****
When Christ looks at the corporate whole, He says, 'So is Christ.' In Ephesians 5, when Paul talks about marriage, what he's really highlighting is a relationship that exists between the Lord Jesus Christ and His people-group called the body.
Ephesians 5: [28] So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
[29] For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:[30] For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
[31] For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
[32] This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
Inseparable is the identity we enjoy. So don't merely view yourself as an independent individual possessing a biological vessel through which your soul is being expressed; we're part of a greater whole, a great purpose where Jesus Christ is expressing His life through a physical medium, which God says, 'Bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh.'
By the way, we're going to be fashioned like unto His glorious body; a new organic entity. The body Jesus Christ possesses is the same type of body we're going to possess as new creatures, the one new man through which the head, Jesus Christ, conducts and carries out His enteral purposes.
I Timothy 3:15: [15] But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
Adam was given a house. Well, Jesus is given a house. We're the house! His life is being expressed through us. God manifest in the flesh.
*****
I Corinthians 12:[15] If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
[16] And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?[17] If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?
[18] But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.
[19] And if they were all one member, where were the body?
[20] But now are they many members, yet but one body.
[21] And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.
There were people in the church at Corinth asking the question, 'Well, if I'm not like that guy or this guy, then am I really a valuable component of the church as a whole?' Shame on the Corinthians.
Our body naturally expresses this union, this oneness. The body expresses this equality. It doesn't function as though, 'You know, because the eyeball is more sophisticated and specialized, I'm a more valuable component. Little toe, you better appreciate my awesomeness.'
You see how the body begins to polarize itself? What begins to happen is you begin to value and identify yourself based upon your function. Our identity is never derived by our abilities, capacities or function.
We derive our identity from the entire whole. My little toe is as equal as my eyeball. You see, our bodies don't work that way. My little toe never decided one day, 'I don't think I'm part of the body, because look at my role; look at my quote-unquote ministry.'
*****
There are two core problems here. One problem is this false inferiority that grips members of the Body of Christ, as it gripped the Corinthians. What we've described in verses 15-20 is an inferiority complex. But is that true of your physical body when you got up this morning? Our bodies don't think like that. Only carnality begins to think like that.
Paul begins to recognize and address some of the destructive internal forces designed to produce crippling division.
Romans 12: [4] For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:
[5] So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.[6] Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith;
[7] Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching;
[8] Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.
[9] Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.
[10] Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;
Listen, there's equality within the body, but with equality there's diversity, right? There's diversity in function. Does that mean my eyeball is better than my little toe? God forbid. Paul says, 'You know what we're going to do with the uncomely part? We're going to bestow more abundant honor.'
You know what the attitude of the eyeball should be? The eyeball is one of the most remarkable organs, we understand that, but the attitude is to be, 'You know, that little toe doesn't get a lot of recognition, unless of course, something falls on it. I'm going to bestow abundant honor to the uncomely part.'
We don't do that often, do we? The eyeball should never assume, 'I'm more important.' How does the body enjoy practical unity? It's that kind of an attitude, not deeming others as either better or less.
*****
The one problem is the inferiority complex; the other dangerous problem is the superiority complex. Both are deadly to the functional body life that God expects.
Romans 12:4-5 is saying, 'You're stuck with me and I'm stuck with you.' But I don't want to be like, 'Yeah, we're stuck, but we can't live in harmony.'
Notice if we drop to verse 10, 'in honor preferring one another.' How do we enjoy functional unity? There are some truths the Holy Spirit, if we've been made to drink into one Spirit, that life which is called the Spirit of life is not restricted to positional truth.
You know what the Spirit wants us to continually drink of? His ongoing ministry which, if we're drinking from the source of functional life (the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, on and on), we've got to start drinking from the well called the Holy Spirit, and the ministry He is conducting within the ranks of the church, and what we begin to discover is that's a positional truth. 'We are one. Here's the functional working.' Verse 10 says we're to be 'kindly affectioned one to another.'
Paul, over and over again, focuses on the positional and then on the quote 'practical.'
Romans 13:8: [8] Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
Romans 14: [13] Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.
Practically speaking, am I guarding my attitude and behavior toward my brother; am I going to be a source of spiritual edification and contribute to the work of edification, or through lack of love and care and my inattentiveness, am I going to be the source of DESTRUCTION for my brother?!
That's what he's getting at. Verse 19: [19] Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.
Romans 15: [5] Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: [6] That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. [7] Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.
My eyeball better be committed to ensuring that my little toe is on the path of healthy edification. My ministry is not to exalt the ministry of the eyeball, the function of the eyeball. It's never to exalt itself, never to make a name for itself, never to step forward and present itself as something that it's not.
Romans 12:3: [3] 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 as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
What is one of the underlying dangers that can produce crippling division within the body? By the way, if my fingers--if my hand begins to live and function apart from the corporate whole, it's called paralysis.
You can command your fingers to move and they're not going to budge. You can think it, wish it, determine it, grit your teeth but the fingers will never move again. It is dysfunctional; it's in a state of paralysis.
You think about that. No body part should ever 'think of himself more highly than he ought to think.' Now, that is a plaguing problem at Corinth.
How in the world, as Paul's going to word it, can the eye say to any other body part, 'I don't need you.' That's a carnal way of viewing other members of the Body of Christ. That isn't how the Lord would think.
Romans 12:16: [16] Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.
Be not wise in your what? Your own conceits! In the context, we're all members one of another, but no one member should ever think of himself more highly than he ought to think, nor should that member ever be consumed with a conceited sense of self-superiority. Don't be conceited, now. Guess what's happening at Corinth? That is what's going on.
Romans 15:2: [2] Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification.
The body should never be polarized; it should never be isolated. That is not how our bodies work, nor should the corporate organic entity suffer that way of living.
Do you see the mutual ministry that's supposed to occur within the various members of the Body of Christ? No one is living independent of the other body parts. And shame on the body parts if they begin to identify themselves based upon external criteria.
Again, Paul highlights the practical, functional life that that union is to produce. Galatians 3:26-27: [26] For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. [27] For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
God's view of His Son operating in the universe is inseparable from who we are. We put on who? Christ, not a religious program.
(new article tomorrow)
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