Kennystix's podcast
We, Though Many, Are One Body in Christ
The following message is by pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God Ministries is available at www.desiringgod.org. Would you open your Bible, please, to Romans 12? Two and a half verses this morning, verse four, five, and the first half of verse six. Let's look at it together. Romans 12, 4, "For as in one body we have many members and the members do not all have the same function, so we though many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us." So Father, as we open these few verses for the next few minutes, I ask for your help. Grace is the key here. "According to the grace given to me, I will now endeavor to preach from these words. And according to the grace given to this people, they will endeavor to listen." And so I'm asking for great preaching grace, listening grace, obeying grace, faith grace. We are a desperately needy people. Grace is our only hope. For anything of eternal significance to happen in these minutes, don't leave us, Father, to our own resources, neither in listening nor in preaching. Come. Help me. Help us. Speak. In Jesus' name I ask it. Amen. I have three points of explanation and two points of application. Let me sum it up for you so you know where we're going. My first point is going to be that the unity of the body of Christ is created in Christ Jesus. And we're going to focus on what that little phrase in Christ Jesus means. Secondly, individuality in the body of Christ is highly valued by God. Third, God's grace sustains and differentiates all of that. Those are my three points and you can see where they're coming from. The two applications are going to relate first to racial harmony and ethnic diversity at Bethlehem Baptist Church. And the last application is going to be small groups. And the movement I hope that many of you make toward them this morning, especially with the help of this little book. That's where we're going. So point number one, unity in the body of Christ is created in Christ Jesus. Let's read four and five. For as in one body, we have many members and the members do not all have the same function. So we though many are one body in Christ. Now before I focus on the little phrase in Christ and how that creates the oneness, focus on the word body for a moment. That word body of Christ in the Apostle Paul's language has two different meanings that overlap. One you're aware of is the universal body of Christ. All believers of all ages united under the headship of the Creator Redeemer Jesus Christ. Let me read you a verse for that. Ephesians 122. He put all things under his feet and gave him his head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. So there's one great meaning of the body of Christ, namely the fullness of all the people of God that have ever existed to this very moment and will ever exist in the end. It will be one great universal body. Now the other meaning is that this universal reality comes to local expression and Paul calls churches the body of Christ. I'll read you a verse for that. 1 Corinthians 12, 27. He looks the Corinthians right in the eye as it were and says, "Now you," and you could say, "You bet with him. You are the body of Christ and individually members of it." So you've got these two meanings, the universal big meaning and the local specific meaning and they move back and forth. Now here we are in verse 5 of Romans 12 and he says, "We, though many, are one body in Christ." So he's including himself. He's several hundred miles away from the church in Rome and yet I'm sure the focus in Paul's mind is on that church as the body of Christ because of the way he opens it and develops it in terms of their spiritual gifts, their diversity, how they are members, one of another, how they're to exercise gifts towards one another. He's not just talking a big broad general way here like you belong to some Christian in China, which is true, gloriously true, but it doesn't have much to do with your exercise of gifts. Whereas this text is very much dealing with how you relate to the people in this room, the people in your small group and the people in your life. So when he says, "Body of Christ in this text," I think we can say he has in view church in Rome, you're it, but I'm included. I Paul, several hundred miles away because of the bigger meaning and included. Now what about the meaning of in Christ Jesus? We are one body. Bethlehem is one body in Christ Jesus. What does that mean? The simplest way to get at the meaning of we are one body in Christ Jesus is to take the word in and substitute in relationship with, like in, I mean in relationship with. So very simple. As you, by faith, move into a relationship with Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord and treasure. You also, by definition, move into relationships with others who have moved into relationship with Jesus. And a horizontal unity and linking is created relationally with the people who are in Christ Jesus, in relationship to Christ Jesus. If I am Christ's brother and you are Christ's sister, you're my sister, that's not hard. Everybody knows that. Look, kids know that. You get the same mommy and daddy, your brother and sister. Now that's one very simple explanation. I think it's a true one. It's just not the most important one of what it means to be in Christ. This little phrase is one of Paul's very, very favorite. Do a word search sometime on that phrase with your computer Bible program. It will blow you away what Paul does with this phrase. This phrase, we are one body in Christ means that when you have that relationship by faith, a union is established in which everything he is and has as the son of God and redeemer and judge and everything else, everything he is and has that can be shared with you is shared with you. And the reason I put in the little qualifier that can be shared with you is because there is one thing, one thing that cannot be shared with you, his deity. You don't become God when you believe in Jesus. You don't become eternal without beginning like he is when you believe in Jesus. You don't become omnipotent like he is when you believe in Jesus and you don't become omniscient like he is when you believe in Jesus. But except for his deity and those attributes which cannot be shared because they belong uniquely and only to deity, everything he is and everything he has is yours in Christ Jesus. And that is absolutely mind boggling. Let me give you a flavor by just reading some of the things that are yours because of the little phrase in Christ Jesus. I'll just bullet them. First Corinthians 1-4, we receive grace in Christ Jesus. Romans 3-24, our redemption is in Christ Jesus. Galatians 2-17, we are justified in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 4-32, we have forgiveness of sins in Christ Jesus. Romans 8-1, there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Second Corinthians 5-17, we are new creatures in Christ Jesus. Romans 2-20, Romans 6-23, we have eternal life in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4-19, God supplies all our needs according to his riches in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 1-3, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places is yours in Christ Jesus. Colossians 1-28, you will be presented to God perfect in Christ Jesus. Romans 8-32, we cannot be separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus and that's the tip of the iceberg. This is a glorious truth that we are in Christ Jesus. We have a union with him that is of such a nature that all that he has and all that he is is ours because of this union by faith alone. This should make us stand in absolute awe of Christ Jesus and all that he has become for us through the crucifixion, through the resurrection, through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and through the creation of faith in our lives which unites us to him so that everything he is and has, which can be shared, is shared. What Paul makes of this is absolutely staggering. For example, giving the illustration from 1 Corinthians. Now he was really bent out of shape about the pride at Corinth and about the way they were saying, I'm of Paul. Remember, I'm of Paul. I'm of Cephas. I'm of Apollus. They were choosing their favorite teachers and boasting in their teachers. He didn't like this at all. How would you address that issue? Listen, let no one boast in men for all things are yours. Whether Paul or Apollus or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours and you are Christ's and Christ is God's. Would Bill Gates brag that he has a cousin who owns a McDonald franchise? My cousin owns a McDonald franchise. Am I cool? I thought you were a billionaire. Oh, I forgot. That's what Christians are. I bought some land. I have some land. I have a house. I have a portfolio. Or I know somebody who does. I shook the president's hand. I thought you were a child of God. I thought your inheritance was the universe. Oh, I forgot. We don't believe it. Oh, that God would grant us the faith to believe the staggering reality of being in Christ. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. They don't brag about their little plot of ground. I don't care if it's 10,000 acres in Wyoming. Who cares? The earth is ours. The universe. There will be space travel. Blinken eye. You've got a planet. A galaxy. What is this boasting in man? All things are yours. Oh, that we could get a handle on in Christ, the maker of the universe, the heir of the universe, the upholder of the universe by the word of his power. In Christ, little Christian, know who you are and what your inheritance is and stop grabbing. I prayed with one guy after the service last night. It was just shaken and said, "Seems to me from what you said that I should just, that I should just take off and give my life away to the name of the people." I said, "I'd bless that." We waste our lives. We already own it all. Why would you want to try to own it? We own it all. It's just two seconds and then you inherit it. Life is two seconds and then it's yours forever. Everything that can be had for you are good. It's going to change us if we just believed what a change. The only thing that verse 5 adds to that bigger picture of in Christ is we inherited it all together, redeemed together, justified together, forgiven together, created anew together, every need met together, loved by God together, perfected together, living forever together. I'm telling my love standing beside you in worship this morning. We've worked together for 24 years. I loved Tom Stiller. He just kind of overwhelmed me this morning. We're going to debate this Tuesday night. He's bringing one side, I'm bringing the other. I just sat there saying nothing could ruin this relationship. You dislike anybody in this room? Get over it. You can live together forever. Ask for grace to get over it and love each other, together one body in Christ. That's point number one. Point number two, God loves individuality in Christ. So this is kind of the other side of the coin, second half of verse 5. So we know many of one body in Christ and individually members of one another. And verse 6, the beginning there, having gifts that differ. So the stress here is on your uniqueness. It's on being different from one another by grace in the body of Christ. And the amazing phrase is individually members of one another. Notice the wording. It's not individually members of the body. It's individually members of the other individuals in the body. I, John Piper, am like an ear to you, not just to the body. I'm like a hand. You're like a hand to me, not just to the body. Discovering who we are happens now. This is what impressed me new and fresh as I studied this. Discovering your individuality, who you are, that God made you to be does not happen by going into a room or going into the woods and beginning to pair, uh, peel the layers off the onion of your personhood. It won't work. I promise you, you will despair. You will go alone. You'll stick one layer off, another layer off looking for the you and you'll take another layer off and you'll begin to panic and you can't ever find you. You won't know who you are. If you go that route of individualization in terms of just me, myself, and I will find my true identity, then I'll come back and make my contribution. You will find it. You will find your being, your reason for being, your grace-given individuality when you start functioning as members of one another. That's who we are. Then with that identity and that personhood, we move out from those God-given relationships into the world to express that. You are created to be a member of the body of Christ and a member of those who are in the body of Christ and discover your individuality and your unique callings and giftings in connection with other members in the body, out of which you express your world identity and so many people get it reversed. I'm really a computer programmer. That's who I am. Now I'll come to the church and try to figure out if there's any relevance for that in the church. If there's not, I'll be my secular self. That's totally backwards. Your job in the world is an outgrowth and expression of who you are in Christ and you find out who you are in Christ in connection with the body of Christ. And if you haven't done it that way, begin to work on it. And many of you have not done it that way because you've never been taught to do it that way because you just grew up. The church was a zero in your life. Secular advancement was everything in your life. You discovered as much as you could discover in the doing of your job and now you're going to get to be 55 someday, 60, and it is not going to be enough. It's not going to be enough. Your vocational identity discovered without connectedness in Christ as the identifier of your reason for being won't be enough. So begin to turn it around who we are in Christ. We find in relations of love, ministering to one another and then all kinds of things flourish come obvious and they can be lived out in the world as well as in the body. That's point number two. God highly values individuality. The last point is very short and it is grace sustains and creates all of this. Grace does. Read verse six, first half of the verse again. I'm going to move into the spiritual gifts starting next Sunday. Lord willing, if you wonder where that is in the message, I just didn't get there. So here we are, verse six, having gifts, and that's all of you, that differ according to the grace given to us. We're all different. We're different in our bodies and we're different in our personalities and we're different in our gifts when those personalities are grace and dude and sustained by faith and begin to express themselves to channel grace and become gifts. We're different and that's really good and it's all according to grace now. Here's the only brief point I would make. There's some of you who have a really hard time believing that your individuality is gracious, to gift because you feel very broken. You may have a disability. I love the disabilities ministries emerging in this church. They're so right, so right. So you may be in that category and you may feel uneducated or verbally incompetent or you can't read very well. And for a long time you've just said, "There is no contribution that I have to make to the body of Christ." Now there are a lot of people that would put that problem in the category of a self-esteem issue. That's not the main issue. It's a God-esteem issue because the text says having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us by God. If you don't believe you have one that is essential, you're calling God a liar and that is mega rebellion. Isn't it strange that some of the most meek and broken people are the worst rebels? They just don't look that way. So I want to gently say to those of you who feel useless, you're in rebellion against God because you don't believe Him. God says, "Each of us, by grace, by grace is different from the other for good purposes." And you will look at your disability or you will look at your whatever thing that's holding you back and you'll say, "It doesn't look like grace. It looks like he's cruel." That's a faith issue. Not a self-esteem issue. That's a faith issue. Can you trust him? Some people I've worked with and watched, talked with a guy, knew a guy in Florida, took him about eight years to believe that about his daughter, about himself. So we can be patient with one another, but we won't call it names that make you feel good. It is unbelief and rebellion when you don't think you are useful and essential to this church. You are. And I'll just plead with you. Those of you who think you have the least to offer have something essential to offer. The key will be will you begin to take some risks by faith in this verse. Just take the first half of verse six, go home today and say, "God, I don't feel this. I have never seen this in myself. I don't know anything useful that I have to give at the stage in my life." But it says here, "Having gifts." We're all in Christ, one body, all of us, having gifts that differs. I'm obviously very, very different from a lot of people I see. According to grace, Pastor John said, "It's grace." There it is. It's grace. It's not cruelty. It's not partisanship. It's not partiality. It's grace. Please help me believe this and then start loving people. He'll show you. He's not eager for you to be ignorant about your gift. He's eager for you to love with who you are. And you're not somebody else. Don't measure yourself by anybody else. Just believe that verse. Those are my three points. Unity is in Christ. Individuality is varied and valued and grace. It's all grace. It's not God's mean-spiritedness that creates diversity in the body. Closing applications. The reason I think of racial harmony and ethnic diversity at this juncture is because of in my study of the phrase in Christ, I bumped into this verse. Let me read it to you. Ephesians 3, 6. The Gentiles, that's nations of all colors and facial features and languages and cultures, not Jewish. The Gentiles are fellow heirs. That means with Jewish believers now, this church is not just being formed out of Jews. "Fellow heirs, members of the same body, partakers of the promise in Christ through the gospel." See, the three ways he talked about ethnic diversity being brought together. They are members of the same body. "Fellow heirs, partakers of the promise, all of it in Christ." So every time we hear the phrase in Christ related to the corporate body, we should think ethnic diversity. Now, at Bethlehem, for some years, there has been a burden on the leaders of this church and many of you share it. I'm saying this in the hope that God will use it to cause many more of you to share it. The burden is simply this, that we would patiently pray toward and in whatever ways he guides, work toward increased ethnic diversity throughout all the campuses and increased harmony among all that diversity, to the glory of Jesus Christ, who died to make it happen. We are not God. I'm not God. I'm not sovereign. Jesus is sovereign, Jesus is God in numerous places, maybe two or three, in the New Testament. It says explicitly, God or the Spirit positions members with their diversity in the body. Therefore, I can't make ethnic diversity happen at Bethlehem. God can make it happen. I simply say, north campus, downtown campus, someday, God willing, south campus, this is a value. This is a value that we have. And I invite you to simply pray and whatever ways work toward it, it is a long road. And we're just going to stay on it. Join us on the road and daily or weekly say, Lord, make this dimension of what it means to be one body in Christ visible at Bethlehem so that you get more honor and more glory because of the kinds of harmonies and oneness that happen here that are so difficult to sustain in the world. That's application number one. Join us in it by prayer and in any other ways God leads you. Last application. This morning, David Livingston and his crew have worked hard to make these ready and available. This is symbolic more than it is anything else. There's 78 groups in there. There are a lot more groups than that at Bethlehem. These are the open ones. They are symbolic in the sense that this book says loud and clear every fall. We cannot be the body of Christ if all we are is this gathering on Sunday morning, cannot be it. If all we are is this for each other, we're disobedient because we are said to be members individually one of another. I'll be real honest. It is conceivable that that happened without small groups. If we lived in a culture where we live so far apart or in a neighborhood so disjointed and connected, it is conceivable that once upon a time this kind of body life happened without any stress on small groups. In this culture, in this day, driving from these how many zip codes we have to work at it a little harder, don't we? And therefore, I plead with you. Be the body of Christ for each other. Don't be isolated. Move toward togetherness at a level of smallness that enables some of these things to happen. I'm a member of you and you're a member of me. That's the only last application. Don't want to pray that for us and then dismiss you to go get your directory which will help body life happen and go talk to the guys and gals at the table about small groups. Any questions about where they are or what kind they are? If you want to start a new one, we would love to help you do that. So those are the two things you can do as you leave besides pray and love each other. So let me pray with you as we close. Gracious Father in Heaven, I want to thank you for Christ. I love Christ. Oh, what He paid. We'll never know what it cost to see Him there upon the cross. And He did it to gather for Himself of people so that for them He could be everything. He is except make them God and give them everything He owns, everything He sustains, everything He will inherit as God. I love you Christ. I praise you. I magnify you. I want to be in you and nowhere else. Day in your courts is better than a thousand on a ranch in Wyoming even if I own the whole state. So Lord, free your people from clamoring after houses and clamoring up the ladder and clamoring for extra toys. Free them to love because when they lie there, head down like Esther Flaton is being laid down in these months, it won't matter how many toys they have or how much land they have, they will be one second away from infinite wealth and you will be it. Lord, make it happen. Make this church a church upright in Christ. Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Feel free to make copies of this message to give to others but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission. We invite you to visit Desiring God Online at www.desiringgod.org. There you'll find hundreds of sermons, articles, radio broadcasts and much more all available to you at no charge. Our online store carries all of Pastor John's books, audio and video resources. You can also stay up to date on what's new at Desiring God. Again, our website is www.desiringgod.org or call us toll free at 1-888-346-4700. Our mailing address is Desiring God 20601 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55406. Desiring God exists to help you make God your treasure because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.
John Piper | Our true individuality is found only in relationship to the body of Christ.