1 Corinthians 12: Church as the Body
Mar 2, 2025 2025-03-02 Ben Hoyer 1 Corinthians 12The concluding message of the series on the church in Scripture, moving into 1 Corinthians 12 and recapping how Jesus fulfills Israel's priestly calling as the great high priest, making the church a called-out people who mediate God's presence to the world.
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I wanted to finish up this like looking at the story of the church in Scripture this morning. And so we're going to make our way into 1 Corinthians 12 there to think about the church. But just a reminder here, a recap of what we're talking about. We've been looking at God in this, or Jesus in this critical moment with His disciples where they have a moment of clarity that He says is supernatural, right? Who do you say that I am?
And Peter says, you're the Christ, the Son of God. And Jesus is like, flesh and blood could not have revealed this to you. The only way you can figure this out is the Spirit of God gave it to you. And He's so excited. He's like, this is working. I can now start my church. The fact that you have a flickering light of faith that turns on for a minute means we can build a church here, a called out group of people. And we went to look back and to realize that God isn't trying to build a called out group of people like the whole time. The very first ones were like, be my image bearers in the world, carry my authority,
fill and subdue the earth and go and live as my people. And they're like, cool, we'd like to be our own people. And this is the problem all the way through, right? And so He ends up calling Abram and goes, okay, with Abraham I'll do something different. We'll make a little nation. And I'll bring the presence down out of wherever it dwells infinitely. Put it in your midst, set up this sacrificial system. And then by Sinai as they leave Egypt, he's like, you'll be for me this kingdom of priests and the holy nation. And we talked about how priests mediate the holiness of God.
The priest goes back into the presence of God, experiences the truth and reality of God, and then takes that reality out into the world. The word and work of God, the holiness of God out to the world. And so God at Sinai is saying, I want to have a kingdom of priests who experienced the presence of God and take it out to the world because I want the whole world to recognize who they are, what it means to be human and not be God.
And so He's going to have a kingdom of priests and then we see that Israel fails. And so last week we talked about how Jesus says I didn't come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them. Jesus accomplishes everything Israel couldn't. He fulfills the call of Israel to be a priest for the world. This is why the writer of Hebrews calls Jesus the great high priest who goes in and pleads our case to God the Father and comes back and brings to us the word and work of God, the forgiveness of sins and then sends us out to be his priests in the world.
This is what Jesus is realizing is beginning to work when Peter for one moment has a moment of clarity and says, ah, Jesus, you are my liberating King, my Christ, the Son of God. I can live under your authority free as humanity was intended out of the bondage of my own faltering heart, my own unsubdued will, my own sense of divinity.
I can't be my own God. I'll live under your authority for just a moment. Peter recognizes it and Jesus says this is all we need. You can be a priest to the world. It's like I'm going to start a church called out group of people who be a priests to the world. This is what we're called to. It's a miracle that Peter believed and it is a miracle, not flesh and blood, that the church has persevered.
Right? It's just like it's amazing that it continues to hold together. I mean, you know, I mean, it's crazy that Peter and James and John and Thaddeus and Bartholomew that these dudes pulled it off. You know, we've talked about it before, but we are pretty sure all of them except for Peter are under the age of 21. You know, when Jesus is walking around, that they're young and they're part of this occupied
country on the wrong side of the desert. They're only good for the tribute they pay back to Rome. It's the last stop of the Roman governor after being before being kicked out, like sent out of the army. Like, you don't screw this up over there. They have no power. They're subjugated people. And in a matter of a couple hundred years, it becomes a dominant way of life, right? That's some kind of miracle that it takes a broken, faltering faith people and preserves
that people that believe sometimes and don't other times are able to, with the word and work of God, inspire others to believe. That's phenomenal. That though none of us has perfect faith, but all of us have faltering faith, and yet from one generation to the next, the faith is able to persist, that's miracle enough. But then the fact that the church has messed it up so persistently.
We talked about a couple of weeks ago, like one of the best stories is the stories of the indulgences, right? In the 1500s, that through a set of like weird theological syllogisms, all of a sudden people are buying access to heaven and the church is using the money to build St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. This is crazy, right? And each of us, maybe not all of us, though a lot of us, have seen churches fail in one
way or another. Maybe in some very simple, personal way, we've been slighted or abandoned or abused or rejected by people in the church. Maybe in some large systemic way, the church has failed and we've experienced the kind of fallout of that. You don't have to move around very long in the states to experience failure of American
church. It's all over, right? And yet, here we are. It's not an easy place to get to. Some people make fun of me. For us meeting here, it's not an easy place to get to. There's a lot of other places you could be this morning. And yet, here we are because there's something in the collective that we get, that we don't
get anyplace else. There's something in the gathered nature around the word and work of God that does something that's like the light turned on for a second. And it's hard to know exactly where it is. You ever had that experience where you're like trying to come up with an idea and you're like in a group of people and you're trying to come up with a solution and you're like
talking it through and everybody is kind of speaking. And all of a sudden, you get to the end of the conversation and there's a solution and you're like, whose idea was that? Right? Where did it? Who said that first? And it's like it was no one that came out of the aggregate of all of us, somewhere in the air between us came this idea that we all, there's something like that in the church. But not an idea, solution to a problem, not a new creation, but like something life-giving
hope perpetuating, purpose fulfilling, something supernatural. It's a miracle the church persists that you and I find ourselves here. It starts early. So this letter to the first Corinthians, if you're there, I mean, it's not the first Corinthians. That's funny.
We call it first Corinthians because we're pretty sure Paul, well, we know he wrote at least two letters to the church in Corinth. It's not like a first United Methodist. This is the first Corinthians and there's others. This is called one Corinthians because we're pretty sure this is the first letter he wrote. What's interesting is people that do a deep study, you know, books and books have been written about these letters, think that Paul may have written up to four letters to the church in Corinth. The church in Corinth was a big church for Paul and if you read the story of Acts, some
kind of crazy stories happened to him, kind of crazy situations happened to him when he's there in Corinth and he comes back and visits them once or twice because it's kind of like on his route that he's walking through a lot and he's got a good base of people there. But they write him letters because remember when Paul is going around explaining to people what it means that Jesus of Nazareth, maybe you heard of it, was crucified but unlike the thousands of people that the Romans have crucified, he was not forgotten on the cross
but arose out of the grave and appeared to 500 people, some of whom are in our midst today, Paul would say. And he is, he's coming back, he's set up an authority that we can live under now. This is the true Son of God. I've heard the Emperor say that he's the Son of God, not so because this one arose from the dead and we'll come back. You can live under his authority now. It's the fulfillment of what the Israelites have been saying. Look at the story of the Delivering King. This is in Jesus of Nazareth.
He would go to marketplace and corners and speak this out and people would gather, go to synagogues and explain it and people would gather and he would say, now how do we live under the authority of Jesus? And he would teach him and then he would leave. And maybe they had a Torah or a Hebrew Bible but probably not. Like, because that would have stayed with the synagogue and these now followers of the way would gather somewhere else. So now they've got the people who remember the teachings of Paul, the people who can
connect it to the Old Testament by their thinking and that's it. So they're trying to figure out how do we live? Can we eat the food from the marketplace even though it's been sacrificed to these other gods? What about how we used to handle the temple? Can we keep doing the Athena temple the way we used to or does that out? Right? So they would write these letters back to Paul and this is the first Corinthians. First Corinthians is really the main problem that had developed in Corinth that they're
asking Paul about is like people had started to kind of separate mostly like in the church and the gathering the same way that they would in town. We were, Beverly and I were talking about this a little bit, she delivered our clothes to the Christian service center and I was with some friends two weekends ago and we got in this conversation because a couple of the homeless services places are building
in the plans and fundraising steps to build new buildings where they are a couple of blocks from here. And several of the business owners in the neighborhood wish they wouldn't. Right? Helped the Orlando Union rescue mission move outside of town a little bit. Feel like the largest population of people living on the street is in East Orange County. And I it was interesting conversation to be and I mostly kept my mouth shut but listening
it was interesting because all the people in the conversation are actually really good folk and the conversation was very cordial and but they were on opposite sides. Right? And partly it's because they know that it'll be harder for them to do business to get people with stuff to be around people who don't have very much stuff. Right?
It's harder to get people who it's harder to get people who have a lot of things to endure the complexity and hardship and difficulty of being around people who don't have very many things for one reason or another. That's just the reality. It's still here in Corinth. That's what they were going on and the church when they'd get together they'd be like you who don't have very many things to stay over there. People who have things ended up just staying over there. It wasn't an intentional thing it just was happening.
And so someone writes Paul and says how should we handle it? And in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 he goes on sub metaphors if you want to follow along with me. Really his whole letter to the Corinthians is about this. He first says we're together because we believe in one the same Jesus then he says we're together because we're baptized into the same Jesus then he says we're together because we take communion together and then he gives this metaphor in chapter 12 about the body.
Look at chapter 12 verse 12 if you're following along. We'll read here. For just as the body is one and has many members and all the members of the body though many are one body so it is with Christ for in the spirit we were all baptized into one body Jews or Greeks slaves are free and all were made to drink of one spirit for the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say because I'm not a hand you get this you remember this where
he's like saying if you try and have a body and the foot says I don't I'm not a hand so I'm not as important I'm leaving he's basically trying to say in order for a body to work you need a lot of different body parts you can't have all noses you need eyes and noses right and so he's like we need all types church takes all types so everybody check in. So the baseline of this is like hey the cross Orlando if we are church together we need everybody.
Not only is it a place for you to belong and have the experience of something new happening the uniqueness of being gathered among the people of God with the word of God where you get something you can't get anywhere else not only that but also it's Paul is saying in order for the church to work right everybody's a little bit different and we need all of the different somehow.
And I was thinking about how I've seen this used a lot you know and this is not of any particular indictment it's just a general indictment. Most of the time when I've seen this it's about we need all of you to do things here in order that more people would come here and that they could start doing things here and that
more people would come here and they could start doing things here. Most of the time where I've seen this understood it's like what can you do that we need you to do that here can you do that we need you to do that over here can oh can you sing we need you to sing here are you nice to people come be nice to people here right can you cook please come cook here can you make something pretty make something pretty over here right it's all about do you oh has God given you a lot of stuff bring some of your stuff here
please right we need all of it to come here. I decided a long time ago I could not give my life to a church to the church if it's about trying to get people to show up someplace. I go do something else.
I don't think that's what Paul is saying. Look at what he goes he does say we need everybody he says the church needs everybody and he says that when God gathers a church pepper together we've already said it's not flesh and blood like Peter it is a miracle that a church pulls together it is a miracle that this room gathers 50 to 60 people in it on a Sunday morning you guys I'm starting to drive around and do the lawns with the kids we don't all live in the same place we're
not all neighbors God knows how we found it here and why we continue coming here it's a miracle and when God pulls off a miracle of a church pulling together what Paul is saying is all the parts of the body are there God makes sure that all the things that are needed when he accomplishes a miracle are there. Why?
Let's see. Oh yeah the end of chapter 12 he's just finished talking about he talks about the metaphor of the body and then he talks about some of the spiritual gifts that were important in Corinth at the time and probably have some relevance for us today but then the last verse in chapter 12 he says and I will show you he talks about these gifts that could be used you know healing administration apostles prophecies and I will show you a still more excellent
way he says the last verse of chapter 12 and he goes into 13 to outline the most excellent way chapter 13 if I speak in tongues of men and of angels but have not love I am a noisy gong or a clanking symbol and if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have faith so as to remove mountains but I have not love I am nothing but give away all I have and deliver up my body to be burned but I have not love I am nothing.
Then he describes love right you've heard this before love is patient and kind love does not envy or boast it is not arrogant or rude it does not insist on its own way it is not irritable or resentful it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth love bears all things believes all things hopes all things endures all things love never ends as for prophecies they will pass away as for tongues they will erase as for knowledge it will pass away for we know in part and we prophesy in part but when the perfect comes
the partial will pass away and then he goes down so now faith hope and love abide these three but the greatest of these is love Paul is doing something in his letter to Corinth and he's saying hey it's a miracle you guys are church quit fighting amongst yourself you're going to need all of you why because this call to be a force of love in the world is excellent and daunting it's really hard to be a ambassador a image bearer a priest of
love in the world it's much easier to be an accumulator of stuff to be a collector of experiences to be a perpetuator of projects is very difficult to be a priest of love in
the world Paul says it'll take all of us and some miracles along the way it's not just it's not just Paul that says that John remember the Apostle John Jesus has the twelve guys
that he calls say come follow me around for three years closely but inside the twelve he has the three remember Peter James and John who I friend text me this morning say it's transfiguration Sunday when Jesus goes up on the mountain's transfiguration it takes Peter James and John when he goes deeper in the garden of Gethsemane he takes Peter James and John he's three closest friends when John writes his gospel remember he doesn't refer to himself by name but calls himself
the one whom Jesus loved he's so enamored that Jesus of Nazareth actually loved him we think John is the Apostle the disciple of Jesus who lived the longest definitely his books that made into the New Testament were the last written maybe 90 80 long long time if Jesus ascended in 35 another 60 years after that John writes his letters to the church at large as he's aging and especially
first John is all about how do you love people in chapter four of first John starting over seven if you're following along John writes beloved let us love one another for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God Paul kind of defined love for us there he gave
us a bunch of words you hear that weddings you realize now it's not necessarily about a marriage relationship as much as is about a way of moving in the world and the definition I have been running with for the last several years of love if I take it out of the story of Scripture is a solidarity and self-sacrifice love is not an attitude or emotion as much as is an action and when I look at the story of Scripture and try and extrapolate what does love look like when it's
acting in the world it looks like standing with other people at a cost to yourself I added one more piece to it today solidarity and self-sacrifice revealing what is true solidarity and self-sacrifice in a way that reveals what is true what is what reality is I stand with you at my own expense
in a way that reveals what is true John says whoever has the capacity to love let's just in you got to get down to it here well before we do that definitely you all need to know that you are loved
definitely mostly because life has not been perfect and it will not be easy your successes are often tinged with the fear that it's not enough your failures are amplified by the concern that they will win the day definitely you all
need to know that you are loved and you are of course God of creation and life the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob the God of Christ and the church at his own expense will always stand with you wherever you find yourself to remind you that you are his this is true yes you all need to know that you are loved
and also you know people who have no idea that they are loved who operate in the world out of fear or shame or pride covering insecurity who operate in the world out of greed in reaction to a fear of scarcity like there will not
be enough you see what John tells us is he says in chapter four verse 19 we love we have the capacity to love others because we have been loved you can be the kingdom of priests in the world not because you figured it out and all is done but because you keep going back into the presence of God and there you find love and having been loved you go back out and you freely dispense solidarity and self-sacrifice revealing truth you stand with people at your own
expense that they might know they too are loved this is the call of the church together it will take us all to do it because it's very easy to forget that we are loved it'll take creativity and persistence to find ways to love it'll take each other's eyes and perspectives to know
who needs to be loved in our midst and it will take all of us speaking and exemplifying the love of God to one another in a way that empowers us to love the city I am really looking forward to this year being church together
I am like feeling really I really I've said this before I'll say it again I sounds trite now that I've been beating this horse but I love this little crew we have that we call the cross it is the center post of life for me I feel like Orlando needs little center posts like this more than ever and I have been asking the Lord and I'm going
to continue to ask the Lord this year what does it look like for the cross to take up the call really of being the church in Orlando I don't expect he will tell me the answer or that I will know but we have a whole body here and so I'm excited to see what happens as we embrace the opportunity to be the church here and now together okay let me pray hey Lord thanks that you don't leave us alone
but you tie us together as the church thank you that it gives us purpose and clarity that it gives us love and forgiveness all the things that are needed teach us how to receive love from you well that we might also share it with those around us in Jesus name we pray amen