You Need the Body, and the Body Needs You – 7/28/24

Good morning, North Hills. My name is John Cruice. I wanted to show you the most recent picture of my family. This is them from a few months ago. Everybody’s growing a whole lot, and everybody’s doing well. Our son Kellan is — he looks small there — he’s getting huge, and he’s eating all the time, and he’s grabbing everything in sight.

If we’ve not been able to meet, I get to help lead life groups here at the church and some with men’s ministry. I have been on staff a little over four years. We have just loved being a part of North Hill and I’m honored to be able to get to share God’s Word with you this morning.

In 2016, my wife Tammi was having a whole lot of trouble with her energy. On one morning she could wake up and not able to get out of bed, she was so exhausted. Or the other side of the spectrum: the next day, she could have her heart palpitating to the point where you could see it. Her hands were jittering, and we knew something was wrong.

It turned out it was an issue with her thyroid. To be clear, I didn’t really know what a thyroid was in 2016. There was a large learning curve for me. As you can imagine, in 2016, our life was jam-packed. We had four little ones. So when Tammi wasn’t healthy, our lives, my life came to a screeching halt, a stop.

It was at that time I learned that a thyroid, this little gland, is about two inches wide and sits right above our collarbones. Even though it’s little, it has an outsized impact on each one of our bodies. When it’s not functioning well, we don’t function well.

Some things about the thyroid that are just remarkable: the thyroid regulates things like blood pressure, your breathing, things like even your mood, your metabolism—and this part is incredible—the thyroid helps regulate every single cell in our bodies and determines how quickly that cell functions.

That little gland, the thyroid gland, even though it’s small and goes unnoticed most of the time, just has an incredible impact for  us to do the things that we need to do on a daily basis. Our normal bodily activities, the simple things, are all determined by these inner working systems and processes that all need to be functioning well for us to function well.

In the New Testament, the human body is referred to over 40 times in reference to the Church, the body of Christ. It’s with good reason that that particular word picture is used so many times in Scripture because it describes so well what Christ does with his Church.

We’re going to be looking at 1 Corinthians 12 and kind of focusing on that today. The main message for us today from God’s Word is this, from 1 Corinthians 12: you need the body, and the body needs you. You need the body of Christ, and the body of Christ needs you.

That sentence came from a friend, Amber Kolmus, who’s a mother of eight here at North Hills and teaches with Women’s Bible Study. She just put it so well and so succinctly: you need the body, and the body needs you.

The rest of our time here this morning, we’re going to be unpacking from 1 Corinthians 12 why that’s true. Why do we need the body? And why does the body of Christ need every single one of us? There are three main points from this passage, amongst others, but three main ones.

Number one, the body of Christ is who we are. It’s our identity. The body is who we are. Look at verse 13. It says,

“For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”

So this identity — we can learn at least three things about this new identity. The fact that this is who we are is it’s (1) given to us at salvation, (2) it’s through the Spirit, and (3) it takes priority.

Where do we see it’s given us salvation? Look down at verse 13 and notice the conversion language that “we were all baptized into one body,” we “all were made to drink of one Spirit.” These are things done as an act of faith. Once we come to faith in Jesus, these things are associated with our conversion. Every single person who’s ever placed their faith in Jesus—has turned from their sin, has handed over their life in faith to follow Jesus. Among other amazing realities that are also true, one of those realities is Jesus takes us, and he places us into his family.

Look at Colossians 1:13 on the screen. It says,

“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son.”

In the book Rediscovered Church, Collin Hansen puts it like this,

“Church doesn’t make people Christians. We become Christians at the new birth [which is what Paul was just talking about] … but churches are the embassies of heaven which Christ has tasked with affirming our heavenly citizenship … instead of handing out passports, churches baptize and share the Lord’s Supper.”

So we see this new identity happens at salvation. Also, this new identity is given through his Spirit. It’s not a physical thing that’s happening. This is a spiritual reality. Look at verse 13 when it says “in one spirit,” “made to drink of one Spirit.”

This is affirmed in Ephesians 3:17. Paul puts it like this,

“So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”

Think about at the moment of salvation: God places you into his family. He also infuses you with his Spirit. It’s no longer just you. It’s you and the Spirit of Christ in you. This is the same Spirit given to me. It’s the same Spirit given to the millions of people who have trusted their lives with Jesus Christ.

So at that moment of salvation, we are (1) placed into his family, (2) we’re given his Spirit, and then thirdly, we’re given a priority. This new identity takes priority. In verse 13 it says, “one body [referring to the church], Jews or Greeks, slaves or free.” This new identity takes priority.

All of our existing identities don’t go away. They’re still there. In this example that Paul says, Jewish believers don’t stop becoming Jewish. They’re still Jewish. Same with Greeks. Same with all the social positions that we have — our educational backgrounds, our family roles as mothers and fathers — all of those things are still a part of our identity, but they’re not our only and highest identity. At the moment of salvation, we’re placed into the family of Jesus. We’re given his Spirit, and this new identity of being a part of the body of Christ is our primary identity.

Have you ever experienced this kind of unity with somebody that you’ve never met before? But they’re a believer and you’re a believer and you have this inexplicable bond or unity with them. This kind of stood out to me in a big way last week. It was so much fun.

We got to go on a mission trip from North Hills down to Colombia, South America. We were part of a team that was doing door-to-door evangelism, sharing the gospel. When somebody accepted Christ, we would connect them with a local church. So there was an interpreter and a church member, and we were assigned to a team.

On the far right is my friend Becky Highsmith. She was assigned to Nubia, the lady standing just to her left. Nubia just became a believer about six years ago. Nubia is a mother of six from a difficult background, a difficult upbringing. Her oldest son just passed away a few years ago from drug overdose.

She was teamed up with Becky, and it was so amazing to see how the Lord orchestrated these two women from completely different parts of the world to be working arm in arm with each other. Becky would share the gospel, Nubia would follow up with new believers.

During this time, God used Becky in a lot of ways, but a couple of really special ways: one person they ran into just had ACL damage, is a grandmom with no real access, or it’s going to be a long time before she gets access to some healthcare for her knee. Becky just so happened to have a knee brace with her because she had a knee injury as well, and she handed it over to this woman.

The next day, there was an amazing instance where they gave a Bible to a woman who accepted Jesus, but she couldn’t read it. Becky just so happened that day to have reading glasses and could give them to her. It was incredible to watch. She put on the reading glasses and started reading,

“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word—”

It was incredible to see God lining this up. It was Nubia who pointed out and was drawing attention to the fact through a translator that God had lined up all of these appointments.

These two women who, on paper, don’t have much in common— but it was beautiful to watch them have the most important things in common and have that unity and walk away from each other as lifelong sisters and friends in Christ. It was just a beautiful picture of that, and the truth is that God is doing that same thing in our midst every single day, every single week. Globally, absolutely. Then locally right here in Taylors, South Carolina.

Sometimes it’s easy to miss that and think, these are just the people that I sit by in church. Or, oh yeah, they watch my kids in Kidstuff. But isn’t it true that God is doing that same thing here at North Hills? Sometimes we miss that.

Do we believe that God is really sovereign globally? Is he also sovereign over the smallest details that he’s put us here with a purpose for a particular reason in this season of the body of Christ here at North Hills? Even in this room, there’s a full array of people with different backgrounds, languages, experiences that God is putting together in a unique way for a unique purpose.

So we see that God makes it clear that you need the body and the body needs you, number one, because this is who we are. This is our identity and (2) this is who we are by design, is the second point from this passage. This is intentional. There’s intentionality behind the way God puts together his church.

We see two things from verses 18 and 24: that God orchestrates, and God allocates. God orchestrates. In verse 18, we see that it says,

“But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.”

Then in verse 24,

“But God has so composed the body.”

Then in verse 22, we see God allocates. In verse 28 there’s a long list of gifts that God allocates that aren’t in our original passage but there at the end of the chapter. Look at all the gifts that God gives the church. This is intentional. And in verse 22 he says, on the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. He doesn’t give a gift that’s not needed. If he’s giving something, it’s needed.

And verse 23, he’s not only giving gifts, he’s giving specific roles with specific purposes and functions. It says,

“And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and on our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty.”

And verse 24,

“which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it.”

So every single part of the body of Christ has a role to play. We see God orchestrating and God allocating.

A question that we have to ask ourselves is, do we believe that God is intentional with expanding his kingdom through broken people like us? That you’re here for a purpose, and it’s not a coincidence that you’re here at North Hills, part of this particular body of Christ, for a purpose. We know it applies globally. One amazing way that we saw this was in Colombia.

Our team had my two children, my two oldest and Becky’s son were part of this team. Out of 22 churches that we got to help with, we were assigned to one church, and that one church was praying specifically for kids to be a part of the missions team. Of all the Americans that came down to help, we were the one that had kids. It was incredible to watch them play soccer, to do VBS, to strike up conversations with people that otherwise would have had a closed door. But since there were kids there, they were able to do things that we couldn’t do. It was incredible to watch.

The reality is, it’s not just in other countries. That’s what stood out to me, the fact that, in our church — both in these four walls and outside in our community — the way North Hills serves and the way North Hills cares for one another, this is orchestrated by God for a specific purpose and a plan. If we miss that, we’re missing God at work, expanding his kingdom through his people.

A special note from verses 23 and 24 for challenging the way that we view other people and the way that we view ourselves.

A challenge for the way that we view other people: if we’re struggling to see the value in others around us, it’s very easy—whether it’s in life group or here on Sunday, or in serving—it’s very easy for certain people that we have friction with or don’t feel like we connect with as much, it’s easy to put them in a category of “they’re difficult” or “they just consume a lot of time,” “they’re needy,” or perhaps we’ve tried to help them in the past and they just don’t listen.

It would be easy to kind of put them in a category that they’re—to use software terminology—they’re not a bug that needs to be fixed, but they’re a feature put in the body of Christ by design. They’re not a bug that needs to be fixed, they’re a feature, a designed feature in the body of Christ. Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it like this:

“The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around him will create community.”

Bonhoeffer observed that when we only want ideal situations or ideal people around us, we create a sterile environment where community—actual, real community—can’t grow.

Someone recently was describing their trip to the English countryside — that I’d love to go to at some point — beautiful hills and shepherds and sheep. They were reflecting on the fact that there’s so much Scripture that points to Jesus as the great Shepherd and us as the sheep. There are psalms that point that out as well, and how beautiful and true that is.

But when they were standing there in the English countryside, they realized there are things that aren’t in the poems. When you’re around sheep, the thing that stood out to them was manure. There’s a lot of manure when you’re in a field with a bunch of sheep.

The truth is, when we are in Christian community, Christian community is messy. When we are only looking for the ideal, we will end up inevitably destroying those relationships, or cutting ourselves off, or isolating from people who don’t produce as much manure. That is going to suffocate true Christian community, because life in community with other sheep as we follow Jesus is messy.

So that’s a challenge for how we view others and to not avoid or run away from real Christian community.

A challenge on how we view ourselves: for you personally, you may be in here struggling with feeling unnecessary. To continue the body terminology, you may be looking around the room, or people might come to mind that you can easily see them as very productive, useful parts of the body of Christ as hands and feet and hearts and lungs for Christ. But when you think about yourself, you may be thinking of yourself as extra or like an appendix, maybe, like this extra organ that doesn’t really fit anywhere, that you could cut it out and throw to the side, and nobody would notice, and the body would go on like normal.

Sometimes, to make it more difficult, we sometimes bring the corporate worldly mentality into the church unknowingly with this way of thinking that’s summarized by “if you can’t keep up, then get out of the way,” which makes it sometimes more difficult. But for Jesus’ church, those who can’t keep up aren’t told to get out of the way. They’re called to help lead the way. This is part of Jesus’ upside-down kingdom that we’ve heard many times throughout the years from teaching up here.

According to Paul, there are no unnecessary parts. There are no parts that don’t fit. To use that same terminology of software: you aren’t a bug that needs to be fixed, you are a feature, part of the body of Christ by design. Sometimes it’s easier to say that to other people, but it’s hard to receive that. There are definitely, in a crowd this size, some that need to hear that this morning, that you’re not a bug that needs to be fixed. You’re a part of the body of Christ by design.

In the church, there aren’t sidelines. Everyone is a player in the game, and God has given every specific person a role that needs to be fulfilled for the kingdom to advance and for you to thrive, for you to be fulfilled as a person, as a brother, sister, son, and daughter.

So we see that you need the body of Christ, and the body of Christ needs you because the body is who we are by design. Then lastly, for each other. For each other. There’s an interdependence that is occurring in the body of Christ. Look at verse 21. It says,

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.”

There’s a dependent relationship that’s happening in this description of the church. Without the body, that individual member shrivels, and without the individual member, the whole body shrivels.

This idea of being dependent on each other is something that’s countercultural. Individualism and independence are highly valued. There are a lot of wonderful things about both of those. But things like dependence and submitting to others are naturally seen as weaker or not efficient or very American.

We live in such an individualistic culture that sometimes we don’t even realize that we carry that around with us because it’s the air that we live …  it’s the place we live in and the air that we breathe every single day. Having an interdependent mentality in this culture is something that’s going to take intentionality on our part, and it will feel like swimming upstream. We need to work at it because it doesn’t come naturally.

So my challenge to you is to examine the lens through which we’re viewing Church, and consider the fact that we’re carrying around that context with us. We’re carrying around with us that American culture, and also each one of us carries around with us the context of the church experiences that we’ve had in the past.

It’s very easy to carry into church the consumer mentality that we live in in our context and in our country. And it shows itself with questions like this or statements like this: “Visiting a church, it’s easy, and I’ve done this.” Visiting churches to think like, “The music’s not quite right, it’s too loud or it’s too soft.” Or nitpicking at particular preaching. Or thinking like, “I don’t connect with those people, so I’m going to keep shopping around at different churches.” Or even asking the question like, “Should I go to church today or not go to church today?”

All of those questions or statements would have been completely foreign to Paul because, for Paul, church isn’t something you go and attend. It’s who we are. It’s our identity. It’s our family. It’s our life.

There’s a pastor on the west coast who tells a story of a man who was recently saved, and he was growing a lot in their church. This man was saved from a gang background. That was his life. He was in a whole lot of trouble. Jesus saved him, and now he was growing rapidly. So this former gang member, who’s now a Jesus follower, was comparing and contrasting what he saw in the New Testament compared to what he was actually seeing in the local church.

He was making an observation that his gang background was violent. It was not good. It was broken. But one thing that can be said is you knew that those guys had your back. You knew that if you were in trouble, somebody was there. And also, it wasn’t just words. They were there for the long haul with you.

He noticed in the church there was a lot of family language — brother, sister, father, mother — but then the commitment level was very low. It was more casual and kind of like a take-it-or-leave-it mentality.

Even though the gang culture is broken, fragmented, and violent, we can’t miss what this new believer observed and just completely toss it out that Paul in the New Testament would agree with this statement: if we want connection, there needs to be commitment. There needs to be a family commitment. The same goes for us: if we want connection, we need to commit.

That connection is what’s missing for a lot of Christians. It’s usually the biggest missing ingredient in a lot of Christians’ lives today: missing that kind of connection, and not realizing that there’s a level of commitment that’s needed on their end.

We were built for connection. Every single one of us, every human was built for connection. And we will seek it out in other places. We see so many examples of this in today’s culture. I’m just listing a few, but there are thousands.

One that’s on the healthier side: CrossFit is a great example. It’s so wonderful to have that encouragement when you want to give up and the consistency where you know, at 6:00 in the morning, those people will be there. And they’re going to let you know if you miss, they’re going to encourage you to get back out there. So something on the healthier side. It can be used in an unhealthy way, but CrossFit is a good example of a strong community.

Another example of a not-so-healthy community that people seek out is the bars, bar culture.

“Sometimes you want to go where everyone knows your name.”

If you laughed, that means you’re old because you know that reference. Another example on the unhealthier side is the LGBTQ community. So much brokenness, and also so much strong community. People are seeking out community in lots of different avenues.

Another one would just be there are thousands of these strong online social media communities where people built for communities are going to seek that out somewhere.

The prevalence of these groups just reinforces the reality that we were created for community. As a follower of Jesus, your community is designed for the body of Christ. We were created for Christian community.

So from this passage, we see the body of Christ is (1) who we are, (2) by design, (3) for each other. And when we realign our view with what the Body of Christ is as our primary identity, as part of God’s intentionality, and as a vital interdependence for our thriving and for the thriving of everybody we come in contact with, that consumer mentality, the low commitment level mentality, evaporates very, very quickly when we realign our view of the Church with the view that Scripture has of the Church.

Just like that little thyroid gland seems so insignificant but has an outsized influence, so each and every member of the body of Christ is critical, is not a throwaway part, and is crucial to other people in ways we may not ever see.

Our final thought is this: in what ways is the Holy Spirit calling you to move toward the body of Christ? You need the body; the body needs you. Every single one of us has a movement to take, an action to take. My question is, ask the Holy Spirit, how do you want me to move toward the body?

Then listen. Listen to how he responds. Try to turn down the volume of other things happening. As we’re going to listen to worship music, we’re going to respond in worship and ask the Holy Spirit, how do you want me to do that today? This week? How do you want me to act and respond? It would be on Sundays or outside of Sundays. How do you want me to move toward others in the body of Christ?

As you consider that, as you listen, I want to highlight two main ways here at North Hills for this particular expression of the body of Christ. North Hills does this and would be something to consider. Serving and life groups are two main ways.

If you’re not serving somewhere, you have something that other people need. And also, this is a great connection point. As you’re serving with like-minded people, you also can grow with them and get to know each other very easily week in and week out. So you can go on the church website or use this QR code.

The other way is life groups. There are many ways to have the Christian community that Paul talked about. In North Hills’ history, it’s been life groups that have been the number one way, the designed way to have care for each other. Mutual care, mutual accountability. To pray over each other. To receive prayer. It’s through life groups that a big church feels small. It’s in life groups that we’re meeting together as a large church, but also trying to love the 10 or 12 — or, in the Bartel life group, the 30 people in our life group together.

I was just reflecting on the fact that just this past year, dozens of instances were coming to mind of life groups helping each other. When a husband or wife has been laid off, with meals, financially, cleaning someone’s house when there’s been a death in the family, marriage struggles, parenting struggles. It is that life group that knows those people the best and can be the hands and feet of Jesus, and us to other people as well in moments of need with people that we’re growing and knowing and trusting.

Do life groups carry this out perfectly? No, but it is the main way that we’re trying to live out what the New Testament has called us to do, specifically in Acts 2, what the New Testament church was doing. Week in and week out, we’re trying to live that out and realign what we do to line up with Acts 2.

If you’re not a part of a life group, I want to strongly encourage you to start the ball rolling. You can follow that QR code and go on the church website to get started. Also, Gregg Babetz will be in the lobby as you leave if you want to talk with someone and myself of course, as well.

As God is allowing North Hills to grow, part of the need is life groups are growing. As Peter mentioned, life group leaders are needed, people that love large groups but also love the people that are just in their living room.

There’s an army of people, of men and women who are doing this faithfully week in and week out for years. They’re amazing. They’re not superheroes or super Christians. They’re ordinary men and women who want to love like Jesus loved. They don’t have all the answers, but they can pray with people and give some wisdom from what they’ve experienced.

If you feel or could see yourself helping to be a part of a newly launching group, we’d love to talk with you as well. Gregg Babetz and I would love to help get that process started so that as North Hills continues to grow, we can continue helping a big church feel small and continue cultivating transparent Christian community in people’s living rooms that know each other and love each other in a very real way.

As we wrap up, I want to mention one thing: as you ask the Lord to show you where to move toward the body of Christ, in a few minutes, there’s going to be people, our prayer team up here who would love to pray with you. If you’ve been hurt either by churches in the past or North Hills or a life group, you’ve tried that before, and it hasn’t worked, I want to encourage you to keep stepping forward and would love to pray with you through that.

As we close, I want to highlight the fact that God has an action step for every single one of us. There’s no dispensable part. Ask the question: in what way is the Holy Spirit prompting you to move toward his body? Because from this passage, we need the body, and the body needs us. Let’s pray.

Lord, as we consider these truths from your word and what you designed in the church, open up our hearts, open up our eyes to however you’re leading. If there’s any type of fear, hesitation, whatever it is, apathy, a love of other things, Lord, we just put that before you. I would just ask that you would empower us to hand over anything to you that we need to and receive from you the spirit of freedom, the spirit of liberty, the freedom to step forward in faith, to receive what you have for us both for our thriving and for the thriving of your Church, brothers and sisters who need us.

I pray specifically for people who have possibly been hurt in the past and are just gun-shy to take a step in faith toward people. Lord, I ask that you’d help them to recognize that you are with them, that you’re not going to leave them hanging, that you created them for a specific purpose and a specific plan, and that they’re needed, and that they need other brothers and sisters in their life. Whatever that looks like, we just ask that you would go before us as we respond. Help us to listen clearly to your voice. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.