1 Cor 12:12-27 – "The Declaration of Interdependence"

1:22Just like an airline needs lots of different things, pilots, flight attendants, people who sell tickets, people who push back tickets. The planes, maintenance, etc. So we as the church have many different roles and many members that all form one body. So Paul is making an analogy here in verses 12 and 13 starts, you know, for just as the body is one and has many members, and all members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. So just as the human body is one but consists of many parts, the church is one, but consists of many parts. In verse 13, there, he brings up being baptized in the Spirit into the body.

2:06So John the Baptist spoke of this in Matthew 3:11 when he foretells Jesus. He says, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Jesus also foretold the coming of the Spirit multiple times. He refers back to this in Acts 1, 4, and 5. And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you heard from me. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

2:43And also in John 14, 16 and 17. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you. You and will be in you. So, who is this we that Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians? We are baptized in the Spirit. Who are the recipients of all these promises of Jesus?

3:12Well, Christians. Okay, but then who are Christians? I mean, Christians are people who believe in Jesus, right? But what does it mean to say you believe in Jesus? So, I think that word believe has lost a lot in modern American culture. So, according to Lifeway Research, two-thirds of Americans believe Jesus was raised from the dead. But I don't think that the New Testament really talks about getting a question right on a quiz. Was Jesus raised from the dead? True, false? True.

3:48So, I want you to imagine something with me. Imagine that today, in the audience, we have Tiger Woods. And so, Tiger comes up to me after service, like, Marty, that was a pretty mediocre sermon you preached, but I've got a plan for you. Come live with me, and I will make you a professional golfer. All right, so let's roll the clock forward a week from now, and you see me sitting with my wife and children. And you're probably like, Marty, what happened? Like, why aren't you living with Tiger Woods, becoming a professional golfer?

4:27So, there could be a bunch of reasons. Reason number one, I don't believe that Tiger Woods can turn me into a professional golfer. I don't think that I want to be a professional golfer. Whatever reason that I'm still sitting in the pew, I think you would say that I didn't believe Tiger Woods. Right? I could say to you, I could say, oh, yeah, Tiger Woods, best golfer ever, like, he could totally make me a professional golfer.

5:02But I'm still sitting here. And so I think that really, if you think about what it means to believe in Jesus, it's that you are all in, that your life has changed, and that you are following Jesus. Now, it turns out that I've seen me golf. And so I think that I am basically hopeless. So Tiger Woods could spend all the time with me he wants, but it would not happen. But what the Holy Spirit gives us, right, this baptism of the Holy Spirit, this is really at the heart of the gospel. The gospel is not about the fact that you come here and we give you lots of lessons on how to be a good person or lessons on how to be the kind of person that can. Be friends with God.

6:02Just like Tiger Woods would presumably be giving me lessons on how to play golf. So we are, I am, just as hopeless in being the kind of person that God would want to be friends with, as I am hopeless out on the links with a nine iron. It is beyond my ability. But the good news of the gospel is that we are, in fact, when we trust Jesus, when we say, like, hey, I'm going to pick up and live with you. We are given the Holy Spirit. We are given the Holy Spirit who gives us the power that we don't have in ourselves to do the things that God requires.

6:56Right, so Jesus came, He paid the price for sin. We accept that we follow Jesus. It's not like we check the box and intellectually assent to some principles about Jesus. We orient our lives around Jesus. We live with Him. He gives us His Holy Spirit. We are baptized that all believers are made to drink of this One Spirit, and with the power of the Holy Spirit, our lives are changed. So in Isaiah, Isaiah 55 sort of speaks to this hopelessness that I have, that you have, that we have. And God says, come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourself in rich food. That is what the gospel offers to us. Things that we don't need to spend money for. We simply need to accept them and walk with Jesus, live by the Spirit. These things are free gifts. And so when we accept that free gift, Jesus makes us a member of his body, the church.

8:24And he gives us the Holy Spirit. God himself lives inside of us. So if you are sitting here today and you feel like my life isn't any different having put my faith in Jesus, then I would encourage you to really think about: are you believing in the New Testament sense of the word believe? Or are you simply believing as an intellectual set of facts that you assent to? Paul also wrote about the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 1, 13 and 14. He said, in him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

9:14This is an amazing thing that God sends his Holy Spirit, and God Himself lives inside of us. Now, one of the things that I have done in my life is I have bought a house. I've actually bought multiple houses, one at a time. And yeah, I don't want you to think that I'm all that wealthy, right? So when you buy a house, you put down a deposit. And what the deposit basically says to the seller of the house is, you should take this house off the market because I am promising to buy it. And if I do not buy it, you get to keep this money.

9:47That's what a deposit is about. Now, God says that He gives us His Holy Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. Now, I might be willing to cough up a few thousand dollars to get out of a house deal, but God is not going to forfeit His Holy Spirit that He has given us as a deposit, which guarantees that we will get to spend eternity with Him. And Paul emphasizes here in 1 Corinthians 12 that this is without regards to race or socioeconomic status. Whether you're black or white, Asian, Hispanic, whether you're You work in the C-suite or behind the counter at McDonald's, all Christians have been joined to be one body of Christ, and all of us have been given the same Holy Spirit.

10:42Now, in the next section, beginning with verse 14, Paul is talking about the different roles that we have and how each of those are valuable. And he first talks about how people who might not think they're part of the body are wrong, and they do this by comparing themselves to others. Now, before I came here to teach at Texas AM, I used to teach at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. And so, one of the things that was prevalent at, to pronounce it probably, Carnegie Mellon, is the idea of imposter syndrome. So, what would happen is, you know, people would get into Carnegie Mellon, they would get there, and they'd be like, wow, these people are super smart. They probably made a mistake on my admission. And once they figure out that I'm not supposed to be here, it's going to go bad. And I think some Christians sort of have that idea as well. You know, they look around and they think, gosh, you know, I don't preach like Pastor Alan, and I don't do things like Pastor Joshua and encouraging people and challenging people to grow in their faith. And I don't sing like John. Like, what am I even doing here? But God has arranged us.

12:00In his body, in his sovereignty, in the ways that he has chosen. We shouldn't compare ourselves to other Christians to see if we measure up. We shouldn't seek to be somebody else. Somebody asked me this morning if I was Pastor Allen today. I'm not Pastor Allen any day. So I'm Marty Carlisle, and God has put me in the body in a unique way, according to His sovereignty. God has put you, if you are a follower of Jesus, in the body in a unique way, and you should seek to live that way out. In Romans 12, Paul talks about this verses 4 through 8. For as in one body, using that same analogy, again, we have many members, and the members do not all have the same functions. So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. If prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service and our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.

13:15So you have unique abilities that God has given you, and you should use those to serve the body and build each other up. I had a campus pastor at the University of Delaware who had a very short time. We say broad view of spiritual gifts. And so he would talk about people who had the spiritual gift of PowerPoint and the spiritual gift of setting up chairs. But those are, in fact, important roles in the church. And so, whatever area that you see that God has gifted you to serve, you should find that place and serve. It's not all about being an eye, being like up front. It's not all about being an ear or a foot or a hand or whatever. Each of us has ways that we can contribute and serve in the body of Christ.

14:14So in this next section, Paul is going to talk about us being, this beginning like verse 21, we're called to live as an interdependent church. And so I've actually titled today's sermon The Declaration of Interdependence. It's sort of a play on July 4th coming up. So Paul talks about the eye says, can't say the hand, I don't need you, and the head can't say that to the feet. On the contrary, the parts that are weaker are indispensable. The parts that are less honorable, we show greater honor. Our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty. These weaker parts are likely referring to our internal organs like our lungs or our kidneys. And the unpresentable parts, I think that's fairly straightforward. You know, our private parts that we don't flaunt on display.

15:07And Paul challenges us here not to be prideful and look down on other members of the body as if they are less or worthless. I think that we've been sort of steeped in American independent culture, an individualistic culture. You know, we have sort of the American West hero, like the Lone Ranger. The Lone Ranger had tanno. I don't know why they really call him the Lone Ranger. But so there's this notion of like all alone. And so it's like us and Jesus and nobody else.

15:40And so while I think we probably have been to enough church that we wouldn't really be willing to say, oh, other people are less than me, we might not have been to enough church that we might think, but I don't really need anybody else. So before I even taught at Carnegie Mellon, I used to teach at the United States Air Force Academy. And at one point, I was the department head for the Department of Computer Science at the United States Air Force Academy. And so one day, my executive officer comes in and says that my secretary is really upset. And my secretary is really upset because I think she's worthless.

16:21And I'm like, well, I don't think she's worthless. But I've never had a secretary. Like, I didn't know what to do with. Secretary. Like, I guess I was supposed to give my secretary things to do for me, but that's not how I rolled, right? Like, I did all my own stuff. So, I had to learn how to best utilize the fact that I actually had a secretary in this job. There was plenty of stuff in the job that I really should be farming things out. But I was used to doing everything myself. And I think oftentimes we are used to doing everything ourselves and we don't take advantage of the body of Christ and live in an interdependent way that God intends. You know, another story I can think of is: when I became a professor at the United States Air Force Academy, now I was a grown-up, right? I had a real job, I earned a salary, and my mom came to visit. So, my mom comes to visit, my dad was there too, and she decided, Marty, you need a cheese grater.

17:31I do not need a cheese grater, I do not grate cheese. There is no cheese grating that goes down in my house. My wife now grates cheese, and we have a cheese grater, I'm sure. But, like, I never grated cheese. I was not married at the time. And so, I was deeply offended that my mother went to Walmart and bought me a cheese grater. Like, how ridiculous is that, really? Like, I got so offended over a cheese grater.

17:57But, what was going on? What was going on inside of me was. It's like, I wanted to prove that I could live life myself. I didn't need nobody, and especially not my mama. So, this is not a Christian attitude. This is not what Paul is talking about in this passage. Contrast that with what we see here in Acts chapter 4. This is the first Christians. It says, Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold, and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus, Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.

19:10So, you know, they lived in a time where when somebody needed something, people sold land or sold stuff and shared. And that, I think, is a picture of how we should be living today. And so, you know, it's hard in our culture to like even do something like share a lawnmower with your neighbor. Like, does everybody need their own lawnmower? Really? When I taught at the Air Force Academy, I still have very dear friends, the Homans, and they were moving to the Air Force Academy. He was going to teach in the physics department. And so they couldn't afford to live in the neighborhood that was right next to the Air Force Academy. And so what I said to them was like, look, I want you to live in the neighborhood with me. So I'm going to buy part of your house. And so I bought part of that house, and they lived sort of down the street, and they had me over for dinner every Tuesday, and their kids still to this day call me Uncle Marty.

20:25And I think that's sort of a picture of life together that maybe we could stand to have more of in the church. So, kids, this is the time to look up from your coloring because this is going to be the most visually interesting part of the sermon. Okay, now, what just happened? Marty foolishly slammed his hand on a metal pulpit. Now, when Marty foolishly slammed his hand on the metal pulpit, you might have noticed that his whole body winced.

21:10Right? It wasn't like his right hand was over here being like, ha ha, thanks to be you, left hand. I'm the dominant hand. That's not how it went down. Right? So we are one body, the church. When the left hand suffers, the entire body suffers. That is what Paul is telling us. We are called, as it says in Romans 12, to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep. So, what did Jesus say would set us apart? How would people know that we are his disciples? Was it our good theology? No, I see some shaking heads. Was it our works for the poor? No.

22:08Was it our holiness? No. Now, what Jesus says will set us apart as his disciples is how much we love each other. That was from John 13, 35. Now, maybe at this point, you're thinking, Wow, I really need to do a better job of loving people. Or maybe you're thinking, like, I'm pretty good at loving people. In either case, I would encourage you to hear what Paul says to the church of Thessalonica in 1 Thessalonians 4, 9, and 10.

22:51I should have a slide for that one, I think. There we go. Now, concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. For that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more. So when Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica, he's basically saying, Good job. Good job, Church of Thessalonica. I don't really think anyone needs to write to you about loving your brothers and sisters in Christ. But nonetheless, he does choose to write to them on that point and encourages them to do it more and more.

23:37So let's think here for a couple minutes about what would it look like for us to grow as being the body of Christ. So one of the things that I really appreciate about our church is the way that we share prayer requests on Church Center. And so people share prayer requests. Respond and pray, and that is awesome. One of the things that I sort of worry about for us is how well we do thinking longer-term about people who have need. Or maybe this is just me. I probably have the attention span of a gnat. So, you know, I will see the prayer request, I will pray for the prayer request, then I will have 57 emails that will come into my inbox, and it's gone.

24:37So, one of the things that we might think about is like, how do we remind ourselves to follow up with people who have needs, especially for people who have sort of longer-term ongoing needs? So, that would be something that I really think I need to think about, and I would encourage you to think about as well. I really appreciate how Pastor Joshua has been leading us and our life groups to care for one another. And I wonder how we can take those relationships to the next level. How do we really live life together in community? And especially living life together in community over things that are hard and long-term. I have a dear friend, Jeff, and Jeff had a Child who was born with significant medical issues.

25:38Jeff believed hard that God would heal his infant child, and God in his sovereignty did not. And so we are now years past that, but still every year there are seasons when Jeff grieves the loss of that child. I think in our own family we have grief and loss, and there are particular times of year which remind us of that. And so I would encourage us to think about the people in our lives, do we know when are the seasons that remind them of grief and loss? Do we know, and are we following up on the concerns that last over time?

26:52Another thing that we might need to think about is: are we willing to accept help from others? So, maybe we need some more cheese graters in our life, right? But there are times when things come up, and people are like, hey, Marty, can I help you with life? No, I'm fine. I don't need any help. Thanks. Or, you know, I'll talk to other people like, hey, can I help you with that? No, I'm fine. I think that there is a strong culture in America of, no, I'm fine. I don't need help. And maybe we really need to think about not only how we can help others, but how we ourselves are willing to accept help.

27:46Now, there are certainly other and probably even better ideas that you may have on how we can grow in loving one another, being the body of Christ, being interdependent, rejoicing with those who rejoice, and weeping with those who weep. There are probably areas in which we can grow in really being all in for Jesus and recognizing the truth of the gospel. And the gospel is not about believing a set of facts, it's about being all in for Jesus and living your life totally. For him and being empowered by him, by his spirit, to spend eternity with him. And so I would encourage you to take time after this sermon to think about those things, do those things, share those things with others. Come give me some feedback about all the ideas that I should have set up here that I did not. I would love to hear that. If you are not yet a believer in Jesus and you're intrigued by this notion of the body of Christ and what it would mean to be a follower of Jesus, come talk to me or come talk to one of the other members after the service, and we would love to chat with you about that.

29:09Let's pray together. God, we thank you for today. We thank you for this opportunity to come and worship you. We thank you for the gift of your Son Jesus, the fact that through his death and resurrection, you have made us part of the body of Christ and you have given us your spirit. Lord, I pray that you would help us to grow in that, that we would love each other more, that we would be willing to accept and give help, that we would rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.

29:49Lord, we thank you for all of these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in Carlos. College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.