Sermon
Body Building
July 29-30, 2000
Pastor Leighton Sheley

I'll invite you to open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 12 verses 12 and following: The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all of its parts are many, they form 1 body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body - whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free - and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I'm not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were and eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were in the ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

You know in His sermons, Jesus would often use the natural to explain the supernatural. One of the examples would be in the parables where, for instance, He took the sowing of the seeds and explained how different hearts and different circumstances respond. And Paul also used this teaching tool. Now you see, in order for us to interact with the world around us it requires the use of our bodies, and so Paul explained the continuing work of Christ in the world by describing His believers, His followers, as the body of Christ utilizing their God given spiritual gifts. Verse 12, the body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. Now Paul chose this because it illustrates the unity and the interrelationship of the members of the body of Christ. Now the body is one of the marvels and miracles of God's creation. It is incredibly complex with muscle, nerve, circulation, and so many other features that are all unified with one mind. It cannot be subdivided. A part that is divided ceases to function and the body loses capacities and deficiency. Now Christ's body is one that spans time and space. There might be many organizations, clubs, gatherings, or churches, but there is really only one body of Christ of which every true believer from every nation and every time is part.

Now Christ's body, that is the church, that is the real church, is not to be confused with any earthly representation or any earthly organization, even if that organization operates under the banner entitle church. No visible church organization is made up entirely of true believers or encompasses all true believers. Visible churches also contain seekers or those who are there against their will. They contain also those who are hypocrites, self-deluded, and so forth. Now when the Scriptures refer to the church it is referring to the true body of Christ. Now when Christ is referred to as the head of the church, it is always in the sense of mind control or Spirit. He is in control of His body the church.

Ephesians 4:15 says, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. Now you'll notice that growth happens when each part does its work. Now what is that work? Well the answer to that question is found in the very same chapter of Ephesians 4 in verses preceding where it says, It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers. Why? To prepare God's people for works of service. For what purpose, goal? So that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. And so the goal is that the body of Christ might be built up to unity and maturity, and that goal is accomplished through works of service by God's people.

Now how are God's people prepared for these works of service? And the answer is, through the spiritual gifts that are given by the Holy Spirit to individuals in the church to bless the church. 1 Peter chapter 4 the apostle writes; each one of us should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength that God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. So then what Peter is saying is that whatever you say, if anyone speaks, or whatever you do if anyone serves, that should bring praise to God through Jesus Christ. Now spiritual gifts are spiritual capacities given to believers to minister spiritually to others.

Paul addresses the issue of spiritual gifts in the same chapter that we are studying, 1 Corinthians 12:4, when he says, There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. Now that ‘different kinds’ is a word for allotments or proportions. Different proportions and different gifts are distributed among the believers. Now it's important for us to understand that unity and uniformity are two different things. Uniformity would be like a football team composed entirely of quarterbacks. Now they might be the world's best quarterbacks, but let me propose to you that they would not be very effective as a team. Because for a team to work effectively together you need various skills and abilities - running backs, receivers, you need effective linebackers and so forth. And so unity is diversity working together for a common good and a common goal. And that's really what God has designed in every aspect of His creation. He has diversity working in unity not uniformity. Incidentally, it tends to be an inclination of mankind to pursue uniformity, and that we see happening in this study of clones and so forth. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. Now manifestation has the basic meaning of making known or making evident, and so the proper use of spiritual gifts makes known or makes evident the presence, the power, and the working of the Holy Spirit in the midst of believers. And you'll notice here that the goal is for the common good, which means mutually beneficial. You see, exercising spiritual gifts may be of benefit to the individual in that it encourages us in our faith, but it's not really primarily designed for our edification but rather the edification of God's body, the church. It is for everyone's benefit that the spiritual gifts are exercised.

Verse 8, To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines. Now there are several listings of spiritual gifts in the New Testament, and none of them are comprehensive or conclusive. Many of them have overlaps in terms of suggesting the same categories or similar categories, but none of them are conclusive. And I think that it's important here that we learn from that, that it's really not important what categorization our spiritual gifts fall into, so much as it's important that out gifts are used for the glory of God. So then Christ is the head of the church in the sense of being the mind, the Spirit, and in control.

Now when a body loses its mind it either becomes a vegetable or a menace to itself and others. The body may still be organized and functioning, but it is without purpose and direction. Now when a body loses its spirit it becomes a corpse though all of the components of the body are present - the fluids and structure and so forth - yet still the body is lifeless. Jesus is the source of life. Jesus said I am the vine, you are the branches; if a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from Me you can do nothing. And so He is calling us to bear fruit, and we find that life, that vitality, in Him. While He was on earth, while He walked to the earth, Jesus was incarnate in a single body. He is now incarnate in another body that is the great, diverse, and precious body that is His church.

You know Paul said something really interesting. He said, for me to live is Christ. Now we would think that it would make more sense for him to say, for me to live is being a Christian or something like that, but that's not what he said. He said, for me to live is Christ, Philippians 1:21. And in Galatians 2:20, he says, it is no longer I who live, but Christ liveth in me. You see Christ lives in us and through us and we are His body that ministers to the world. Jesus said abide in Me as I abide in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. Every true believer is a part of the body of Christ His church.

Verse 13, For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body - whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free - and we were given one Spirit to drink into one body. You know one of the predominate issues that we find addressed in the book of 1 Corinthians by the apostle is the issue of divisions in that church. There were divisions like, well I'm a follower of Paul, and somebody else, I'm a follower of Apollos, and somebody else of Cephas, and somebody else of Jesus. And Paul was saying, you know this shouldn't be. There shouldn't be divisions. In the chapter that just precedes this, chapter 11, he says I hear that when you come together as a church there are divisions among you. This shouldn't be. Now what Paul is saying is it really doesn't matter from where we come from or what we bring to the body of Christ, we are one. Now it uses the word Jews and Greeks, it contrasts Jews and Greeks. Now it has two applications; one application is ethnic. And so what he's saying is it doesn't really matter what ethnic background you are from, we all become one in the body of Christ. But Jews and Greeks could also refer to a religious distinguishment which meant it really doesn't matter what religious background or persuasion you’re from, we are one body.

And then he says slave or free. Now there are two things that come to mind that distinguish the slave from the free man. One was wealth. The slave, of course, owned nothing; he was owned. And the other is education, for a free man was better educated than the slave. It doesn't matter what ethnic background, what religious background, what wealth, what education you bring; we all are baptized into one body. Now baptized has two major themes throughout the New Testament. One of them, of course, is water baptism, and the other is salvation or spiritual baptism. Now John the Baptist clarified these two baptisms when he preached as recorded in Matthew 3:11: I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful then I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And so you see John the Baptist references two baptisms, one with water unto repentance another with the Spirit.

Now Paul here is not speaking of water baptism. Water baptism is an outward expression by a believer performed by another believer that's in obedience to the Lord's command and the Great Commission - go into all the world baptizing. Right? Now some people believe that the act of baptism, that is water baptism, and salvation are directly related. That you can't have one without the other. You must have water baptism in order to be saved, but that belief does not hold up in light of Scriptures. When we look at Luke 23:39 we find Jesus on the cross between two criminals. One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him saying, "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing." And then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus answered him and said, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."

Now there is very little chance and there's no record of it in the Scripture of that man coming down from the cross and being baptized, and then put back on the cross that day. It all likelihood he never experienced water baptism, his guarantee of salvation came from none other than Jesus Christ himself. Now water baptism is an expression by the believer of the spiritual baptism that they've experienced in their life, whereas spiritual baptism is entirely the work of God and is virtually synonymous with salvation. Spiritual baptism and salvation are together. There are two words for baptize in the original language – bapto and baptizo - and James Montgomery Boice clarifies the differences when he writes, the clearest example that shows the meaning of baptizo is a text from the Greek poet and physician Nicander, who lived about 200 B.C. It is a recipe for making, of all things things, pickles. And it's helpful because it uses both words. Nicander says that in order to make a pickle the vegetable must first be dipped, bapto, into boiling water and then baptized, baptizo, in a vinegar solution. Now both verbs concerning the immersing of a vegetable in a solution, but the first is temporary. The second, the act of baptizing the vegetable produces a permanent change. When used in the New Testament this word more often refers to our union and identification with Christ than to our water baptism.

For instance, in Mark 16:16, He that believes and is baptized shall be saved. Now Christ is saying hear that more than just simply intellectual ascent is required. It's not enough. There must be a union with Him, a real change, like that which changes a vegetable, a cucumber, into a pickle. Now the use of that term baptized indicates that there are no partial Christians, and there are no Christians who are partially saved. There has either been a fundamental change or there has not.

Now I'm not particularly well known for my cooking. Alas, some of you may have suffered through it. In fact, if it was up to me to provide my own food, I would probably die of starvation or food poisoning. The Lord provides and has given me a wife who is a magnificent chef. And you now I have a knack and that's for changing food at a molecular structure, at the molecular structure level. You see I turn meat into something that resembles charcoal. You know whatever it is it's no longer meat, and it doesn't have any nutritional value. You might say it's become something entirely new, entirely different. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, entirely different; old things are passed away, behold all things become new. There has been a fundamental change.

Now just as there are no partially saved Christians, there are no partially indwelt ones either. At salvation we were all given the one Spirit to drink, and like being baptized with the Spirit, being indwelt with the Spirit is virtually synonymous with salvation. And no verse, I think, says it more clearly than Romans 8:9 which says, and if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ; indwelt by the Spirit. Now having said this the apostle Paul said there are two dangerous here, there are two dangers. The first danger is for someone to believe that the body doesn't need me. They don't need me, and so he addresses that. Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I'm not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were and eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were in the ear, where would the sense of smell be? You know one of the important characteristics of the body is how it is diversity working in unity. The body is not made up of one part, but many. If the whole body were an eye where would the sense of smelling or hearing be?

You know, the fact is that every part of our body is important and interdependent. Now he mentions the eye here. You know a mathematician one time tried to figure out the statistical possibilities of an eye evolving. And of course you know you analyze the eye, it's made up of millions of cells, millions and millions of cells, and all of those cells have, not only do they carry the DNA which is the blueprint of the entire body, but they also seem somehow to know exactly what their part is in the body, and so there are different kinds of cells. Do you know there are like 107 million cells that are just the receptors on the back of the eyeball? And 7 million of those are cones which allow us to see color and so forth, and 100 million of them are rods which allow us to see black and white. So if there are low light conditions we can still see, although we may not see the color. In fact, those are so sensitive that the smallest degree of light and the largest degree of light that our eyes can simultaneously pick up is; the larger amount of light is one billion times brighter than that small portion of light. I mean the human eye is absolutely an incredible marvel of engineering, how it can focus at so many distances, how it repairs itself as we sleep and so forth.

And do you know what? The eye is not self-sufficient. It depends on the rest of the body. It depends on a bone structure the socket so that it can move. It depends on muscles to move it. It depends on nerves from those muscles going to the brain so the brain can signal where it needs to move. It's got nerves going back to the brain that send the signal of the picture and the brain interprets the. It's part of an even more complex system. If we were nothing but an eye, where would the structure be to point the eye? Or a support system to feed it? Or a nervous system to utilize the information it gathered? You know, a disembodied eye is very limited. A disembodied eye is very, very limited. If they were all one part, where would the body be? If we were nothing but an eye, what good would it be? In the body of Christ there are many functions, some are seen some are not, all are important. Now can you imagine how miserable it would be to be part of a local church body in which everybody including you was the preacher? There is nobody to greet. There is nobody to usher. There is nobody to help. There is nobody to prepare refreshments. There is nobody to administrate. Everybody had one gift and it was preaching, and you got your chance once every six months. And while you were preaching there were other preachers, because that's all you had to preach to who were taking your notes, or not really paying attention because they were busy thinking of their own sermons. Now what makes a body strong is the diversity of the gifts.

We went up there today and we had people that had prepared that food, thank you. We had people that greeted us at the door, thank you. We have ushers that serve us, thank you. We have Sunday school teachers that are taking care of training children, thank you. So many parts, so many gifts. But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. You know like the church at Corinth so many people, members of churches today, are dissatisfied with whatever it is, the gift, that God has given to them. They'd rather have some of the more showy gifts. Ah, I'd like to be the worship leader. I'd like to be the preacher. I'd like something a little more showy. I don't really appreciate this gift that God has given to me. You know Paul talks about it, a person gifted as a foot wants to be a hand. A person gifted as an ear wants to be an eye. And because the believers in Corinth weren't operating in the spirit they were operating in the flesh, their interest was only in their self, their own edification, their own good. Paul concluded that the church was accomplishing more harm than good.

You know we have no right to exclude our self from the body just because we might be dissatisfied with the role that God has given us in it. And being dissatisfied with the gift that God has given us is like questioning God's wisdom or His goodness. We're suggesting that God made a mistake. You know God, You made a mistake here, I shouldn't have been a foot. I should have been a hand. Okay? You made a mistake. To this sinful perspective the apostle Paul says God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. In other words, your designation, whatever that might be, your gifting in the body of Christ has been chosen by God. It's not luck of the draw and you are not an accident. It has been chosen by God. Paul talks in Romans 9 he says, does a piece of Clay complained to the potter? Now you think about who we are in comparison with God that we would be like a piece of clay complaining to the potter, God, about how He's forming us and how He's making us.

So therefore questioning our portion of spiritual gift is questioning God's wisdom and sovereignty - that's sin. And not using our spiritual gifts is also disobedience - also sin. Now a Christian without a ministry is a contradiction. You know one of the things that scientists have observed in studying the human body is that the body doesn't have any superfluous parts. Now they may not understand how a part contributes to the whole right now, but as they continue to study they continue to find out how all the parts contribute to the health and the function of the whole. Do you know what that means to you? Folks, you are not an extra part. You're not a substitute. You are an essential part of the body of Christ. The body doesn't have extra parts, leftover parts, unneeded parts. All of us contribute. Now as members of Christ's body we're not supposed to do our own will. Can you imagine the hand doing its thing, and the leg doing its thing, and they're all doing their own will. That's not what makes the body function coordinated, is it? What is it that allows us to be coordinated as a body? It's when the hand and the arm and so forth subject themselves to the authority of the head. Right? And who is the head of the church? Christ, right. And because the hand and the arm are coordinated by the mind they can accomplish incredible things.

You know, we're soon going to be captivated by the, how does that saying go, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Right? Because the Olympics are coming up. Now one of the events in the Olympics is the pole vault, where a person runs down the runway and sticks that pole in the ground and they transform horizontal energy into vertical energy, and they lift about 20 feet in the air for a few seconds. Okay? Now there have been made a lot of improvements in technology that have helped, you know the running shoes, the pole, the material, the design, all of those kinds of things, but it is still up to that athlete with their hand – eye – foot coordination to be able to plant that pole and carry through. Right? Now I want you to picture, if you will, something, all right? I want you to picture that runner, that athlete, running down the runway not on their feet but on their hands. Okay, their running down the runway on their hands and they're holding the pole between their feet. Now how effective and efficient do you think that body is going to be? Something like ladies and gentlemen, we have a new world record two feet eight inches. Right? And yet, that's exactly what so many churches are having to do these days, their having to run on their hands because people, parts of the body, have said I'm the foot, but I am out of here because I don't like being a foot. I'm not going to participate, and so the body of Christ ends up walking on its hands. Every member of God's body is an essential part.

Now I mentioned two dangers. That's the first. The concept that they, or the body, does not need me. Now the second one is, I don't need them. I don't need the body. And Paul continues, verse 20, As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. Now if one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. You know when I read that verse I think of something. A couple of years ago I had a weekend with my family and some friends and we were at a lake, and my friend got one of those water toys, like ski-dos but it's the Yamaha version. So it was my turn to take it out and I forgot that I'm getting old. Older but not wiser. And so I found out that if you go through the waves it's a lot of fun because you get up and you get air and you get down, but you can't go fast. But if you get it in the flat water those things really fly. They go 40 miles an hour or something like that. And so I found a patch of flat water and I was racing back and forth, and learning how to do this thing.

And it was a cove and the cove went out to a point, and there was a point where boats would travel by once in a while on their way to another point in the lake. And it so happened that I saw this boat coming by and I thought to myself, oh wow, a wake. I can jump a wake. I wasn't very intelligent about it. Because what I did is I came through the smooth water flat open and I hit the wake, and so I went airborne and I was up there a really long time. And I told somebody I saw my life flash before my eyes, and I was up there so long I saw the rerun. (Congregation laughs) And while I'm up there the boat is rotating like this. It's going more vertical and the nose is falling off to the right, and so when the boat does come back down in the water it comes down like a break. It just hits like a water break and it stops, but I don't, and so all my weight went down this leg right here and I heard a pop, and then I went skidding off the top of the water and bounced along the top of the water. You know like people do off an inner tube? Until finally the water decides to accept you and then I get in. And by the way I want you to know those life preservers really do work. They hold you up facedown. (Congregation laughs) So my friend back on the dock is saying it looks like he's down. Yeah, facedown. It looks like he's in trouble. Do you have another Coke? No, just kidding. So in any event we were out there and I realized I had really done something wrong with my ankle. I couldn't put any weight on it, and when I did, I tried to blackout. And for a number of weeks after that I was around this place on crutches, and you know it takes over three hours to get showered when you're in that kind of condition. I mean you don't work very efficiently at all. Some of you are nodding because you've been there, you know what it's like.

And in any event, when I read this; if one part suffers, every part suffers with it. That's the picture that comes to my mind. Do you know what happened? It took several months and that ankle recovered the other ankle still hurts. It really does. Once in a while it still hurts, and it hurt longer than the ankle that was originally hurt because it was having to compensate, you see, for the ankle that was dysfunctional. And so often we have people that are trying to compensate in the body of Christ for parts that are dysfunctional and end up being injured as the result. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. You know as important as many of the more prominent parts of the body are, things like legs, hands, eyes, and so forth, it's possible to live without them. Parts that are not so prominent things like lungs, liver, heart, and so forth, are essential to life. We can live without legs, but we can't live without lungs. And yet, we have a tendency to not pay attention to those internal organs until we get a signal that there's something wrong and they're not in good health. You know some of the most essential ministries to the health of the church, the local body of Christ, are those that are not seen. I mean a church doesn't go forward without prayer, and yet it's not very often that we really know who's been praying, but it doesn't happen unless prayer happens.

Now I want to in conclusion make three observations here. Number one, you know when a local church is ministering their gift, number one, the Christian them self receives a greater blessing. You know there's probably nothing more satisfying than looking back on an event in our life and realizing at that moment God was working through us. It might have been an encouraging word to someone, and we were telling them things that we didn't know, but we knew it was right. It was the Holy Spirit speaking through us. There's just no greater satisfaction than knowing that we're actually being used by God, that God is working through us. And you know God never intended the ministry to be carried out exclusively by trained professionals while the Christians just sat in the pews? The ministry was intended for every part of the body to contribute and participate. Now there's another blessing and that is that when everyone is doing their part then the ministry of the church has a dynamic witness in the community that cannot be accomplished in any other way. People are coming in, people are being ministered to, people are being prayed for, their needs are being met, they are being trained in the Scriptures so that they can understand what God says about their particular situation, how they can deal with it, and there's a testimony that takes place in the community that God's Spirit is manifest and working in the presence of that church. Very important - another blessing - the third blessing. A church family that uses the gifts of God to the glory of God experiences a degree of joy, and love, and fellowship that cannot be manufactured. I don't care how much ice cream you put on the table, I don't care whatever it is that you try to do to manipulate the environment, the reality of true love and unity and fellowship that is the result of a body of believers contributing that which has been given to them to contribute to the body cannot be replaced. It cannot be replaced. So there are blessings to the individual, there are blessings to the community, and there are blessings to the church.

Now I'm going to invite you right now if you would to close your eyes and bow your head because I want to ask you a question in light of the Scriptures that we've been studying today. And you don't need to answer me, it's between you and God, but it's something that I think is appropriate for you to ask yourself and pursue God for the answer. And the question is this, what is your part in the body of Christ? And, are you fulfilling your part in the body of Christ? What is your part in the body of Christ? And are you fulfilling your part in the body of Christ? Now there are two dangers that need to be pointed out, and the first one is burning out, as they say, and the second one is rusting out. Burning out and rusting out. Now burning out can happen under several different circumstances. There are people who so fill their lives with working in the church that really what they're trying to do is avoid personal time with the Lord, and they think that they can give an excuse to the Lord for the lack of personal relationship by saying, well, you know God, I was really busy doing Your work. I was really busy doing Your work. There's another thing that causes burnout and that is people being in places, assignments, rolls that they've not really been called to. Instead of being a joy it's a burden. Jesus said My yolk is easy and My burden is light, if we're where He wants us to be.

And so there's a danger of burning out, but at the other extreme is a danger of rusting out, of not being involved and not fulfilling. You know in one of the books that I've been reading in preparation for the sermon Dr. Brand talks about the body as its assembled on a cellular level and he talks about the different cells and how they're all distinct, and none of them really resembles the end result which is the person, but how each of them contribute to the person. And one of the things he observed about just moving our arm and how that happens when millions of muscles cells respond obediently to an instruction from the head and contract. He says there are other kinds of cells; those that associate but those that do not contribute. Those that do not and are not obedient to the head. Those are cells that we call cancer cells. They take that they do not give. They are not obedient but they associate, and again, are you a cancer cell in the body of Christ? You know some people are intimidated, they say you know, I'm just overwhelmed by what I think God wants me to do. I just can't do it. I can't do it. I just can't do it. You know the Bible says I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. If God has called you to do it, He's going to give you the strength to do it. So it's not an excuse. It's not an excuse.

Lord as we have learned from Your Word we have sought Your insights and Your lessons for this day. We've come to realize that we're not extra parts. We're not leftover parts. We're not surplus. We're not useless. We're not superfluous. Each and every one of us is somehow essential to the proper functioning of Your body. Lord may it be that we find our place in the body and be obedient to the head which is Christ. That You might be glorified in all the earth. Lord we thank you for this family here at Church of the Highlands where we can be ministered to and we can minister. And Lord as we ponder the calling that You have given to us, individually and corporately, we are overwhelmed because we cannot possibly reflect Your glory for You are so infinitely immense in every dimension, so powerful, knowledgeable, and wise, and holy, and we are still lacking. And yet Lord that's exactly what You called us to do, to represent You, to be part of Your body. Lord help us as we go forth this day and this week to do so. Give us guidance, wisdom, direction, and protection. We thank you Lord that You would so highly value each and every one of us, in Jesus’ name we pray, and together we say, amen. God bless you.