Paul at Prayer No.3 The Indwelling Christ

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. 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 am 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 an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an 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 honourable, we treat with special honour. 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 honour to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its part should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. Here ends the reading of God's inspired word. Well I've already made one resolution this evening.

I think for next time I shall mark the front of my Bible with a little sign saying front and top. Whenever I open it in this pulpit, I do so upside down. Remember the first time I preached here, I did this, and I didn't think anyone could possibly notice, and about four people remarked to me afterwards that I had my Bible upside down.

So I thought I'd just confess that right at the start this evening. However, if you buy the Reader's Digest edition, you will have a very pleasant, glossy cover. Somebody I know even had a circular sent to them saying, if we brought out a Bible, what sort of cover would you like? And they had about four or five different options, and you had to tick the one that you liked best.

So without wanting to be too critical of the Reader's Digest, that's the sort of thing that they seem to get up to. It would be terrible, wouldn't it, if one came into a pulpit and one said, my text tonight is such and such, and then you all shouted back, well, it's not in the book. But I trust that, well, it isn't issued until next week, so we're okay for a little while at least.

Now let's come to the Word of God, and let's just commit ourselves to the Lord in prayer. Our God and Father, we do so delight to come before Your Word. We pray now that You would speak to us through it.

We ask that You would help us to understand something of the nature of Your Church. We pray, Lord, that You would remind us of things which we learnt maybe long ago. And Father, we ask that if there be any here tonight who has yet to not know You, that You would speak to them also.

For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints.

The word church probably conjures up a variety of ideas in people's minds today. I guess most people will think at once of a building. When you speak of a church, perhaps you think of St. Mark's or St. Luke's or St. Andrew's or St. Mary's or something like that.

But in that sense, the early Christians never went to church at all, because once they'd stopped associating with the temple and the synagogue, there were no buildings set apart entirely for Christian worship until the fourth century. When you say, what is a church? Some people would think of a denomination. They'd say, well, I belong to the Anglican Church or the Baptist Church or the Roman Catholic Church.

Some people might think of the professional ministry. Thomas is studying theology. Thomas is going into the church.

And it makes it sound rather like going into law or going into teaching or something like that. But what does the word church really mean? After all, it's not so much how people use the word now that matters, but how is it used in the Bible? Now, when we speak biblically of the church, we're translating the Greek word ecclesia. Now, this word has a very interesting origin in the Greek language, and the ecclesia was the name of the place where the Greeks used to meet back in the great days of Greece in Athens.

All the citizens, they'd come together, and they'd have a big meeting, and they'd decide on the policy of the city and what they were going to do and any new laws, perhaps, which were going to be made. They would call this meeting of the whole of the citizens of the city the ecclesia. And what the word really means is that they were called together.

You see, ecclesia means called out. When we talk of the church, we're talking about those who have been those who have been called out. A herald would go around the city and would announce that it was time to go to the ecclesia.

He would call out the citizens, and they would go together to meet in the center of the city. And this is the word ecclesia, which Jesus chose to apply to those of us who have been called out. What have we been called out from? Well, Christians have been called out of darkness.

They've been called away from sin and from the inevitable judgment that awaits those whose sin is not dealt with. We have been called out from sin. But what have we been called out for? Well, we've been called out, if we're Christians, to be God's children.

We've been called to be made pure by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We've been called to enjoy a relationship with God as a member of his family. So the church is the company of those whom God has called out to be his people.

Now it's very important that we should realize that this is what we mean when we talk about the church. The company of those who have been called to God by God. See, some would suggest that all who attend a place of worship are members of the church.

Some would go even further and claim that if they're a native of this land, then they're a member of the church. You know, the way the conversation might run. Are you a member of the church? Yes, of course I am.

Which church? Well, Church of England, of course. When did you last attend? When I was christened. Are you going again soon? Well, I'm getting married next year, so yes.

Will you be going again after that? Well, I sincerely hope not. My funeral won't be for at least another 40 years, I hope. See, the sort of idea that many people have of the church, that you're a member of it by virtue of the fact that you're a member of a Christian country, so-called.

Some might think of a particular branch of Christendom. Some might think only of the Roman Catholic Church, of those who are under the authority of the Pope. And Roman Catholics, since the Second Vatican Council, have referred to those in other Christian churches not as members of the church, but as separated brethren.

Now, I refer to this only because in our creed we have reference to, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. And I remember I used to sort of try and cough at that point in the creed, because I wasn't quite sure why I, as a non-Catholic, was saying that I believed in the Holy Catholic Church. But that word Catholic originally, the word Catholic originally was referring to the whole.

When people spoke of the Catholic Church, they spoke of the whole of God's people, wherever they might be on this earth. And it was only much later on that the Roman Catholic Church took it to refer specifically to themselves. So then, to be a member of the church, you must have been called out by God.

God must have shown you your sin. He must have shown you that you, as a sinner, were deserving of eternal punishment. And he must have directed you to the foot of the cross, where there you put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Two more points I'd make briefly before I go on. Firstly, the church can, in the New Testament, can refer to two main things. First of all, it can refer to the whole of God's people, wherever they might be on this earth.

We speak of the universal church, of the whole company of believers on this earth. And even further, referring to those who already have gone to meet the Lord in heaven. The church comprising all who have so far put their trust in the Lord, and all those who now on this earth have trusted in Jesus as their Saviour.

But more often in the New Testament, it refers to a local group of Christians. You remember the Apostle Paul, when he wrote his letters, he would write, say, to the church in Rome, or to the church in Corinth, or to the church in Thessalonica. And in this sense, we, in the tabernacle, can legitimately speak about ourselves as being a church.

Not because we've got a rather splendid building, but because so many of us here know and love the Lord. We've been called out into God's church. Other thing I'd mention is this.

The Bible knows nothing at all about solitary religion. What do I mean by that? Well certainly, to become a Christian, you have to believe independently. We can't make you a Christian.

Nobody else can turn you into a Christian person. You yourself have to come before God and receive the forgiveness that He makes available to us. But as soon as you become a Christian, you're immediately a member of God's church.

Now some people might not like that. You say, well I don't want to be, I don't need to be a member of the church. I can worship the Lord.

I can be a Christian all by myself. But the Bible will not allow that. As Christians, we are, on the moment we receive Christ as Lord and Savior, we are members of the church of God.

And therefore, we must express that. We must express it. How? By being a member of a local church congregation.

Somebody has written, no one can be reconciled to God without being reconciled to the people of God, among whom his experience of God's grace immediately sets him. Now what I want to do for a few minutes this evening is to show you two ways in which the church of God is described in the New Testament. There are a number of images, a number of ways in which God in His word reveals the nature and the structure of the church.

But I just want to concentrate on two this evening, and I want to spend less time on the first. Firstly, I want to speak about the church as the body of Christ. The church as the body of Christ.

Now you remember a little while ago we had read to us some verses from the 12th chapter of 1 Corinthians, and it might help us if we have that passage open now, because from time to time this evening I should be directing our attention to particular verses from that section. 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and the section read to us began at verse 12. You'll note that in the notes and news for our title this evening, I put not only, I believe in the church, but I went on from there, I believe in the church, we belong together.

And this image of the church as the body of Christ shows very clearly that we belong together as God's people. You see the image of the church as the body of Christ indicates to us immediately our unity as God's people. It shows to us straight away that as God's redeemed people we are one.

Now someone might say, well I don't see too much evidence of that these days. There's so much disunity in the church. Even in evangelical churches there are disagreements, there's backbiting, there's squabbles, and sometimes there's splits.

I think one of the things which made the most dramatic impression on me when I was a little younger was the church in which I was converted split down the middle. And this is something which surely grieves the hearts of our God, and indeed of all of those of us who are sensitive to the will and the mind of God. But in spite of all this, whatever we might hear about disagreements among professing Christians, the fact remains that all who are born again are one.

Look at the congregation to whom Paul was writing in Corinthians. When he was speaking about the body as being all one, and that they were all gathered together as one people, you might have thought, well this must have been quite a perfect model church. But not a bit of it.

I won't point you to all the references now, but earlier on in that epistle we read of division in the church, vying for power in the church. We read of pride and envy. We read of immorality being condoned within the church.

We hear of many things which indicate imperfections within the church at Corinth. But nevertheless, says Paul, in spite of all that I have already exposed, he says, the church is still one. The church is still the body.

Verse 27 of 1 Corinthians 12, you are, and there he is speaking to the Corinthians, you are the body of Christ. Now what does that mean to us? I suggest that that is a very optimistic and a very reassuring thing for us to have in our minds here this evening. It must have thrilled the hearts of many at Corinth to hear that in spite of all their many failings, yet still, they were the body of Christ.

You see their problem, and so often our problem, is not that we're not the body, because God says that if we're his people then we are the body. The problem wasn't that. It was that they were failing to live in the light of that fact.

Paul really is saying, this is what you are. You are the body of Christ. Now get on and live in accordance with that.

This is what you are. Live in the light of that. Now Paul's teaching about the body of Christ is always of great importance and relevance to us.

It shows us, doesn't it, how we must be united in love. We must be united in our love, one for another. Love must permeate our relationships one with another.

You see every part is important. Every part is necessary within a human body. If one part is missing, then the whole of the body is affected.

If one part malfunctions, then the rest of the body is affected too. In the same way as God's church, we all need one another. We belong to each other and we need each other, and therefore we must act in unity and in harmony.

We must love one another. Now the word which is the generally used Christian word for love in the New Testament, is a very special word. It's one that we hear quite often these days, agape.

And that's a love not for the worthy, but for the unworthy. It's a love not for those whom it's easy to love and there's no problem about loving. It's a love rather for those who are difficult to love.

It's the word which is used supremely of what Jesus did for us and why he did it. In the first letter of John and chapter 4 and verse 10, we read this. This is love.

This is agape. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. That is the love which sent Jesus to the cross.

That is the love which drove him on to die as a sacrifice for our sins. And that is the love which we are to show to one another within the church, both within our local fellowship here, and as God gives us opportunity and ability, within the whole universal church of God throughout the world. It's a common problem we have, isn't it, that we find it very difficult truly to love some members of our fellowship.

It's a problem which no doubt is present here in the tab because it's present wherever God's people meet together. You know, one of the ways in which we can improve our attitudes to one another, and particularly to those who we find it quite a pain to get on with, is to seek to see them in a new way. Let's seek to see them in a new way.

And for this illustration, I'm indebted to a Dr. Milne, who I don't think he's the head of CPO, but might be related to him. Dr. Bruce Milne, in a recent book, writes this, only too often the stumbling block in our relationships lies in our seeing them through the wrong pair of spectacles. We see them too naturally, too much in the way the non-Christian world around sees them.

Now I think this is a very helpful illustration. I wear these glasses for one reason. It's to correct a deficiency in my vision.

If I take them off, then all I see around me are blurs. And in some senses, when one's standing up here, that is mighty reassuring. In fact, when I first started coming into this pulpit, I didn't think I'd ever put my glasses on there.

Even tried to read the scriptures with them off, as I remember. But I think that's rather a dangerous pursuit. I wear these glasses to correct my vision.

Similarly, when we come to Christ, God wants our spiritual vision to be corrected. You see, outside of Christ, our spiritual vision was blurred. It was distorted.

We saw things and we saw people in a way which had been heavily influenced by our sin. We saw things, we saw people in a very blurred manner. But in Christ, we have been made new creatures.

The old has gone, behold the new has come. And this carries with it the implication that we are to see our fellow believers in a new way. We've got to put on, as it were, a new pair of spectacles.

And I think this is involved in when Paul talks about putting on the new man, if you like, according to Andrew Bryant, put on the new man and his specs. Now, this isn't a question of putting on rose-colored spectacles. We're not trying to see people as something they're not, trying to persuade ourselves that they're lovely people, really, when all the time they're not.

Rather, it's quite the reverse. When we put on these new spectacles in Christ, we're seeking to see people as they really are. Or to put it another way, we're seeking to see people as Christ sees them.

Perhaps we should bear these three things in mind. They are those for whom Christ died. They are those for whom Christ went to the cross.

Remember that Christ put such a value on that Christian brother, you know, the one that is a real pain and we'd really not, you know, wish that he would feel led to go to another church. Christ put such a value on that Christian brother or sister with all their faults, with their awkward personality and their nasty tendency of interrupting us or saying nasty things about us or whatever. God, Christ put such a value on that Christian that he was prepared to suffer the horror of the cross for that person.

And if they're so precious to God, can't we find it in our hearts to begin to love them in the same way? They are those for whom Christ died. And then they are those in whom Christ lives. Every believer, every member of the church is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

And the consequence of that is if we treat them badly, then also we treat God badly. They are those in whom Christ lives. And then they are those through whom Christ will one day reign.

That's true even of the most awkward customer within the church. It's true of even the weakest child of God. One day Christ will reign through them.

The love which we are to share with our brothers and sisters within the body of Christ also has an amazing capacity to forget. Some of us suffer from very good memories. I'm not speaking now about when we're trying to learn the word of God and that sort of thing.

I'm talking about how easy we find it to recall the things which our brothers and sisters do wrong to us. We recall the hasty word, the thoughtless deed, or the broken confidence. Remember Peter and the way in which he came to the Lord, somewhat indignantly I rather think.

No doubt he'd been wronged by somebody. Perhaps it was one of the disciples who had wronged him. And he asks Jesus the question, how many times shall I forgive my brother? And we remember the answer, don't we? Seventy times seven.

In other words, limitless times. And as members of the body of Christ, we should be free of complexes as well. Oh look, complexes these days seem to be really the in thing.

We hear so much about complexes these days, you almost think that you're missing out or there's something wrong with you if you don't have one. Paul deals with complexes in this passage of scripture which we looked at earlier on. Look firstly at verses 15 to 20 of 1 Corinthians 12.

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 am not an eye, I do not belong to the body, it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. The inferiority complex within the church, within the body.

Some of us all would so like to play the organ. Some of us would so like to, I don't know, do the tapes. Some of us would so like to be the pastor.

Well, maybe one or two. Has a heavy workload this man does. Inferiority complexes, feelings that we're not really that useful within the body of Christ.

You see, Paul is correcting that as he writes in 1 Corinthians 12. He points to the fact that we have been arranged and gifted as God wished to gift us. We have been arranged and gifted in accordance with God's love to us.

He loves each of us and he's arranged each of us and given each of us abilities within the body. Verse 17, if the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact, God has arranged the parts of 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.

Praise the Lord that we're not all organists in this church here this evening. Or to praise the Lord that we're not all pastors here this evening, because it would be a rather boring company of people, wouldn't it? Yeah, I knew it would come, you know. 20 minutes in and he puts his foot in it.

What I mean by that is God has given us great variety within the body. We're all necessary within the body. We need each other.

Praise God for that. We could say a lot more about these complexes. There's a superiority complex as well.

Verses 21 to 25, 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. If we feel weak within the body of Christ, and that's probably a very good thing.

You remember that Paul spoke several times about feeling weak himself, and you remember how by the Spirit of God he was able to think that one through and to proclaim that he gloried in his weakness, for it was in his weakness that the strength of Christ was shown through. All of us feel weak at some time or another. All of us at some time or another don't feel on top of things.

God has gifted us all as he wanted to. All of us can and should be useful within the body of Christ. There's no redundancy within the body.

If we're getting on in years, there's no redundancy. We are employed right up until the time of our promotion to glory. It's good to go around some of our older friends in the tab who can't get out to the tab these days, and you rather wonder, you know, how they could possibly enjoy life, how they could possibly feel fulfilled at this time in their lives, and you see their great list on the table.

All those names that they have written down, all those people who they pray for day by day. You see them with notes and news, and they tell me what I was doing the week before, even if I can't remember myself. They knew there's always something to be done within the body, whether we be very young in the faith, and whether our duty then is perhaps just to encourage one of our friends to come along and hear the gospel, or whether we be very old in the faith, and whether our ministry is that of intercessory prayer.

God has a use for all of us. We are always employed. There should be no inferiority complex.

There should be no superiority complex. There should be no saying I'm better than him or her. We are all equally important before God in the body.

So we are all members of the body of Christ. There are other things that I could say. I would just say under this that our responsibility is to the whole of the body.

Some of us might be members of track one, or track two, or women's fellowship, or prayer and share. Praise God for that. We should meet together in these ways within groups within the church, but our responsibility primarily is within the whole of the body.

We should be learning at whatever age we might be to integrate into the whole of the church. We should be looking towards fellowshipping not just with those of our own age or interests, but within the whole of the body of Christ. The body of Christ.

And Christ, says Paul in Ephesians, is the head of the body. So as the body of Christ, let us continually be looking to our head who is Christ. And now much more briefly, another way in which the scriptures talk of the church.

We sang of this in one of our earlier hymns. The scriptures speak of the church of God as being the bride of Christ. Now this is a beautiful image, and it speaks to us of the intimate union between God and his people.

Reading back into the Old Testament, we find how Israel in the Old Testament was called by God to be his bride. And that image is carried over into the New Testament for we, those of us who have put our trust in the Saviour, are members of this bride of Christ. We all go together as the church of God to make up the bride of Christ.

What does this mean for us? Well, we should live lives which are pure. Surely if we are one day to be presented before God as his bride, we want to be a pure bride. This should concern us individually and collectively as a company of God's people.

We don't want to be blemished, tainted by sin on the day in which we together meet our God. Be ye holy, says God, for I the Lord am holy. As a fiancee keeps herself pure for her husband, so we should be seeking to be pure as we await the great marriage in heaven, which awaits those of us who are Christ's.

And then we are to feed on pure teaching. There are so many strange ideas and philosophies buzzing around the world today. Isn't it good that we can come back to the pure Word of God? As we seek to be a pure bride, we need continually to be coming before the Word of God and being built up in the purity of God's truth.

And then again, as the bride of God, we need so much to be in love individually and as a fellowship with our God. What bride does not love her husband? God loves us with a jealous and a zealous love, a love which will share us with no other, a love which will protect us from foes. Our love for our God must equally be one which is pure and which is fervent.

And as Christians, as the bride of Christ, we can look forward to a wedding. We can look forward to a wedding in heaven. Revelation chapter 19 in verse 6 and verse 7. I heard, said John, what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters, and like loud peals of thunder, shouting, Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns.

Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory, for the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given to her to wear. That is a picture of something which really is too wonderful for mere words to describe.

God gives us a glimpse of the wonder, the rapture of what is lying ahead for those of us who are his. We will be together in a great marriage feast, a glorious reunion in heaven, and as the bride of Christ let us make ourselves ready, let us prepare ourselves to be in heaven with him, when we shall join, not only with all those who are alive on this earth now, but all those who have gone before us. You remember in the creed we read, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, and the communion of saints.

The communion of saints. I think that speaks of the unity that we have, not only with other believers here now, but that unity which we already have, and which will come to glorious fulfillment when we meet with all those who have gone ahead of us into glory. The great communion of saints, all of the body of Christ when it is presented complete before God.

We've spoken tonight of the Church of God, we've identified what it is, those of us who are called out of our sin, out of darkness and brought into the light of the kingdom of God. We've thought of the body of Christ, that which we are as Christians, all united, all working together, all should be encouraging one another, building one another up, working together as one body, and as the bride of Christ, as those who are getting ready, preparing ourselves, being prepared as a fellowship to be presented holy and blameless before God. My final word this evening is for any who is yet do not know what it means to have been called out, any here tonight who has yet do not know the Lord God, any who is yet have not become his children.

You know this evening we don't say here to you, come and join our club, because this fellowship is is not a club, it is not a place where we all gather together with common interests and have a good time together, rather as I've sought to show you this evening, we meet here expressing the fact that we are the Church of God, we are those who are bound by the Holy Spirit, united together, and who are seeking to glorify our God together. We don't say to you, join our club, we don't even say to you, first of all, join our Church, for as I've explained, you become a member of the Church by virtue of your faith in Christ. What we do say to you tonight is, would you turn from your sin? Would you admit that you are a sinner? Would you ask God to forgive you for all that you have done which has been in rebellion against him? Would you ask God to make you a member of his Church? I believe in the Church.

Are you a member of the Church of God? Amen. That we are indeed the shrine of Christ's beauty, the fact that we share in his glorious triumph, and for the privilege of going out as the army of God and proclaiming your name to this world, we praise you and thank you this evening. Lord, so send us out rejoicing, we pray.

And now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us now and forever. Amen.