Introduction – Back in January 2010, your elders presented the following vision for our church:
It is our desire that every member see this church as his or her church and a place where they can effectively "seek first the Kingdom of God." Every member is an important part of the body and is needed for the OBPC to advance God's will in this world. Every member should be involved with the church and participate in each other's lives.
I. What the Church Is Not
A. The church is not just an organization
B. The church is not a promotional agency.
C. The church was never intended to be a business for profit-making.
D. The church was never designed to be run by paid professionals who do all the work while everybody else watches.
E. The church was never intended by God to be a community social center where everybody goes because it's a nice place to go and it is not like a country club, you don't have to pay.
II. What Is the Church? The church is an organism.
III. Analogy for the Church in the New Testament
A. When the New Testament wants to speak of the church in terms of analogy, it frequently uses analogies of living organisms.
B. So, when God the Holy Spirit wants to show us the church, he shows it to us in organic terms, in terms that will say to us, "Everybody is a living part, nobody is a spectator."
C. But the best metaphor that has ever been used to define the church is that the church is a body, 12.
IV. The Church as a Body
A. The reason that Paul has this message for the Corinthians is because they are not functioning in that way.
B. When Paul reaches chapter 12, it's as if he says here, "Nowhere in any other area is there more discord or disunity evident than in this matter of spiritual gifts."
C. Here, Paul is saying to them, "You are a body. In a body, it isn't for the hand to say, 'If I can't be the eye, I'm leaving,' or, 'I'm frustrated,' or, 'I've been cheated.'"
V. Church as a Unity – He is going to discuss the body from the standpoint of its unity.
A. The church is one, yet it is many; it is unity and yet diversity.
B. Like the human body, the church is one and yet has many members.
C. There is no real reason for us to say, "I don't matter. I can hang loose on the fringe. I'm not really a part."
D. The church is a united as body under the command of the Head, the Lord Jesus Christ.
VI. The Church as Diversity
A. God does not want a bunch of spiritual rubber ducks dropping out of some divine mold; there has to be distinctions, 14.
B. Diversity is not accidental.
VII. The Sovereignty of God in the Unity and Diversity of the Church, 18, 24, 28
A. The dignity in the body belongs to every member, because every one of us is what he or she is by the very sovereign will of God.
B. So there is no place for discontent.
C. There is no place for selfishness.
D. There is no place for conceit because God gifted us with the gifts we have, 11.
VIII. The Church as a Harmonious Mix, 24
A. The word composed in the Greek means 'mixed together.'
B. You say, "Why am I the Bible Presbyterian Church of Olympia?" Because God mixed you in here for ministry.
Conclusion
We have to recognize that we are in a body and that the body is one. We are a part of that oneness. We must sense that. We were re-created in Jesus Christ to participate in his glorious body, the Church. May the Head of the Body give us grace to pursue this noble and glorious vision.
http://olympiabp.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-body-of-christ-1-cor-1212-31.html
Put the internet to work for you.
