Well, good morning. How are you guys? Man, you guys are so much more responsive than the 9:00 AM. That is what I'm talking about. I was like, good morning, and 9:00 AM was like, is it though?
And this is the service where slowly over the next 45 minutes, we will all begin to sweat at some point. So I love that you guys are in a good mood already. Here's the good news. If you've never been here, never been to the desert, I met some folks, this is their first summer here. In El Paso in the desert and the heat.
Good news: if you are in Christ, this is as hot as it gets for eternity. So it's only downhill from here, amen?
All right, 1 Corinthians chapter 12. We're going to be in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 today. And I want to begin by telling you the story of a man named Steve Davies, or as I'm sure his friends probably called him, something more like "Stave Dives." Because he grew up cheering for the English football team West Ham.
Ever since he was 5 years old, he would pretend to be one of the players at West Ham. Actually, it's funny, it was an accident. He didn't live in the area that normally would go for West Ham, this English football club. Rather, he became a fan through a crazy series of circumstances, remained loyal, would take the train in his teens and early 20s to go see the team wherever it was in England and would sleep on the train on the way back and then go to work the next morning. Real, real fan.
But one day he went to see a preseason match of this team at Oxford. And during the game, you know how things get, he begins, how do I say this, interacting with the players. And one player on the Weston team in particular that was not playing his best football. That day, and then begins realizing, "Oh, you know what? I shouldn't be criticizing him." He begins yelling at the manager, the coach, about the player and his poor performance.
And so as the team heads into halftime, the manager looks up, 'cause he's right there, right near the field, the pitch right there, and he says, "Hey, you, can you play as good as you talk?" And he's thinking it was like a bluff. He's like, "Yeah, I can," you know? And he goes like, "All right, come down." So he looks at his friends, he jumps over, walks down into the tunnel, and thinking this is, you know, some kind of inspirational moment, basically the coach is gonna say, "Look at this guy, he can play better than all of you. Now get back in," you know. He doesn't, he says, "No, he's in, you're out.
Find him some boots, find him some shoes, right? What size are you?" So they're trying to find, he's got a uniform on, he's got the boots on. He, after halftime, he trots out with the team and everyone's like, "Who is this guy? Who is this guy?" And I read a report that the manager spread a rumor that he was a new famous Belgian striker that happened to be in the area for the afternoon. And so the whole crowd is like, "Oh, oh, the Belgian." And then everyone's, of course, going like, "Oh yeah, I know who he is.
I've been following him for years." And so he trots out there. Only his friends know, what is Steve doing on the field? This is insane. He goes into the game, plays the game, and in one glorious afternoon that is legendary, in the English Premier League, Steve Davies went from courier of packages to one of the men on the pitch for his favorite team, West Ham. He went from the stands to the pitch in the course of 15 minutes.
Now, in the American church today, I think the trend has been the opposite in many ways over the last decades. The trend has been going from the field back into the stands for much of the American church. Actually, recent stats reveal that for the first time in about 100 years, less than half of America considers themselves part of any sort of local religious group, church, synagogue, mosque thing. Like, less than half of America has any affiliation with any local group of religious believers. And I think one of the reasons for this is that somewhere along the way there began to grow up a separation between those who were on the field, as it were, and those in the stands.
And I think unhelpfully in some ways the American church leaned into it, making what's going on on stage greater and, you know, more dazzling with more lights and more things. And we have lights, I'm not against lights, you know what I mean? Began to make it more of a production and it felt more and more that, you know, the people in the stands, as it were, were watching while church went on on the stage. And the result has been that another recent statistic says that among those who claim to be Christians, more who claim to be Christians in America seldom or never attend a church gathering than frequently or often attend a church gathering. Meaning that now it is more normative if you say you're a Christian, we would expect you not to go to church than to go.
There's a widening gap between the church field and the church stands.
Now, here's my concern. Why do I say this? Well, coming out of COVID all of us, in a sense, we— every single person, including me, we have all spent some Sunday or period of time in the stands while a few folks in the church tried to keep church going in some sense through a livestream or something like that. But here is what I want us to remember emerging from this period of our lives.
The Christian life does not take place in the stands but on the field. It is normative for the Christian life to be on the field. It is not normative for us to be in the stands. So this is what 1 Corinthians 12 will tell us. We're taking a brief detour from our series on the Gospel of Mark, and we will return in just a couple of weeks.
But let's look together at 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 12. This is God's Word: "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 one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one Spirit." Now, there's much more that we'll read, but skip down to verse 27, the summary statement of the section. Verse 27, "Now you," church, you, Cross of Grace, are the body of Christ and individually members of it. This is God's Word. And, Father, I pray you give us ears to hear and eyes to see.
Amen.
And, Father, I pray you give us ears to hear and eyes to see.
Amen.
6 · Provides historical-theological context for 1 Corinthians, diagnosing the Corinthian church's fundamental problem as radical individualism ("me") that produced factionalism across every possible division, setting up the pastoral solution Paul will offer
Well, we're jumping into the book of Corinthians, and the church in Corinth was a place that was not a model church. It was a church that could theologically be classified in the category of dumpster fire. They were absolutely full of conflict and strife. There was rivalry.
There was division over ethnicity, division over income level, division over conviction, division over conscience. It was a bunch of people who saw church primarily through the lens of themselves, through the lens of me, if I could say it that way. They would arrive at church thinking, "Me, what do I like? Do I like this? Do I disagree with this?" What about this person?
How do they affect me? How do I feel about that? That's how they arrived at church. And so Paul calls them to something else. He says they're missing something in their Christian life.
7 · States the sermon's main thesis and structural outline, establishing that Christian identity is already corporate ("you are") and requires alignment of behavior with that reality rather than achievement of a new status
And so here's the big idea today. In Christ, me becomes we. In Christ, for the body of Christ, me becomes we. In the body of Christ, there are no people, or should be no people in the stands. There should be only people on the field.
And certainly nobody that does not need a team. Now, I'm gonna go through the reality of the passage and then a couple objections, and then we'll finish with some quick implications. Okay, first, the reality of the passage: in Christ, we are members of the body of Christ. Paul does not say here you should try to become something that you're not. He says, in Christ, you are something, so act like it.
8 · Establishes the biblical-theological foundation by tracing the "we" of creation through the fall's introduction of "me," using Genesis 2-3 to show that corporate fellowship was the original design and sin's primary destruction was the replacement of communion with competition
Now, the first thing we see is that the reality is that there was a corporate salvation, and that was the means by which every single Christian becomes part of the body of Christ. This corporate salvation is referenced in that phrase, "baptized into one body," right? Remember that from the beginning, there was meant to be a "we" relationship, both in our relationship to God and relationship to one another. Another, we were meant to live in active fellowship and communion. That you see God walking in the cool of the day with Adam.
You see Adam and Eve loving and relating to one another in joy and wholeness, right? But sin comes in and twists that. Sin comes in and all of a sudden Adam is not walking with the Lord and Eve are not walking with the Lord. They're hiding from the Lord in their sin. In their sin and rebellion, they're saying, "Yeah, we're gonna listen to the snake and we would rather take your job." We think we would be— no, actually, I think I would be doing a better job than you, God, so I'm gonna do that.
And then what do we see? Adam, who chapter 2 is singing a love song of poetry to his wife and just saying, "Ah, this at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh," and all this poetry in the original Hebrew. The very next chapter, God comes and says, "What are you doing?" And Adam says, "It was her." It was her fault. I happened to be there. I happened to eat some, but it was really— it was her.
And in fact, you gave her to me. In fact, if anybody's at fault, it's her and you. You are the guys to blame, right? What's he doing? All of a sudden— and his wife's looking at him like, what in the world?
What was the love song? What happened, right?
The we that was created scripturally, that dimension is twisted and broken, and there's only me, I. What do I want?
9 · Develops the doctrine of corporate salvation, arguing that Christ's atonement restores both vertical relationship with God and horizontal relationship with the body, and that American individualistic testimony patterns obscure the equally glorious corporate dimension of redemption
And that's why salvation is glorious, right? All of us, because of our selfishness, would stand guilty before God, would stand unjust before God. If God unrolled the record of our life, we would all have instances where we are completely just me, I, and I don't care about anyone else.
And that's what the Bible calls sin, right? And our sin brings us under God's justice. And yet Christ came that we might be restored, and he restores that vertical relationship with God. He dies for our sins, he pays for for our sins that we might be brought to Christ, that we might be brought back into fellowship with Christ. And the beautiful metaphor is that we're become part of Christ's body, which how— I mean, there's no metaphor that could get us closer to Christ than that metaphor of the body.
He doesn't just save us and say, "You stand over there now." He brings us in, in a sense, all the way through the curtain into fellowship with God. But salvation, while gloriously individual, while God knows the name of every single person that he will call to himself, every single person he has died for, while Christ goes after the lost, seeking and saving the lost, salvation is not just individual, it is corporate. From the very beginning, God determined to save a people for himself, not just a person for himself. Himself. When Christ went to the cross, he had in his mind a people that would be redeemed and called to himself.
And so we often as American Christians love to tell our testimony, love to say, "I was saved," and I say, "Amen! Praise God for that." But we should equally love to say, "We were saved." We together, the people in this room that believe in Christ, are the blood bought sons and daughters brought into the household of God, and it is glorious. It is glorious.
10 · Establishes that corporate identity persists after corporate salvation, using the New Testament pattern (Acts and the epistles) to demonstrate that incorporation into the body is immediate and normative, with no biblical precedent for isolated Christianity
A corporate salvation and then a corporate identity. Therefore, Paul concludes, "You are," present tense, "the body of Christ." It's not as though Christ saves us together and we're brought into salvation together and then all of a sudden We sort of, like, each limb, you know, pops off and then we wander away.
No, we remain what we are, which is the body of Christ, right? What happens in Acts right after the gospel is preached and thousands are saved? Well, they don't hand everybody a Bible and say, "Well, good luck on your individual faith journey out there, friend." "Hey, we'll see you down the road." No, no. And they send everybody out. No, they bring everyone together into a body.
They're together daily, eating, fellowshipping, rejoicing, bearing one another's burdens. This is what we see. And then when more people are saved in the New Testament, what happens? They are added to a church. Nowhere in the New Testament do we find it normal that Christians are isolated and existing apart from one another.
The gravitational pull of corporate identity is toward one another, toward those who are in Christ.
11 · Uses Kevin DeYoung's Perseus/Medusa illustration to shock listeners into recognizing the grotesque absurdity of wanting Christ while rejecting his body, the church—making vivid the theological error of severing head from body
Now, here is an illustration that I'm going to try to use to help us with this. It is a weird illustration, the first of many today, so hang with me, okay? Kevin DeYoung recently was talking to a bunch of high school— I mean, high school seniors that are about to head off into college, trying to reinforce to them the importance of finding a local church during their college years. And so he uses this metaphor to try to articulate the fact that many Christians today want to be with Jesus but don't want anything to do with his church, right?
They love Jesus, don't love the church. And so he uses the illustration, uh, from Greek mythology of Perseus. Right, so Perseus fights this horrible monster called Medusa. You've probably seen her, snake-haired lady, she's great. Hide your kids' eyes here from this part of the service.
And she had the power, her head was so, her face was so ugly, she turned people to stone. That was her superpower, right? So he kills her, separates her head from her body, sorry parents, and then takes the head and puts it in a box, and then Perseus walks around opening the box whenever he needs to turn anybody into stone, using it to defeat many other monsters, right? And so, we think, okay, that is gross, right? A story about a guy carrying a head around in a box is gross, right?
Here's his point. Kevin DeYoung says this, if you were into severed heads without their bodies, we would think something was really wrong with you. Amen. Except, it seems, when it comes to our Christian lives. Then we think decapitation is cool.
Some of us even think it is positively good and beautifully spiritual. Too many Christians think that they can have Jesus without the church. They want the head without the body. They want a decorpulated Christianity. They want a decapitated Jesus.
What's the point? The point is this: Christ saves us together, which is glorious. Then Christ keeps us together in his body.
12 · Completes the biblical-theological arc by showing that the eschatological consummation maintains corporate identity—the final state is the gathered bride, confirming that salvation's design is communal from creation through eternity
And by the way, the trajectory, as we saw a couple weeks ago, is that in the end, for eternity, we will be together, right? In the end of Revelation, Revelation 21, it says the people of God are there, all All the redeemed people for all time gathered together.
How does it describe them? As a bride adorned for the groom, right? This other metaphor of the body, right? We were meant to— we were saved together, meant to be together, and we're meant to stay together. This is the design of Christ.
13 · Turns the theological argument doxological by reframing the present discomfort of the Sunday gathering as a miracle of Christ's power to resurrect and reunite, calling the congregation to wonder at both vertical and horizontal dimensions of salvation
And so we should be overwhelmed and amazed that Christ would ever gather us to himself through the blood of Jesus Christ, but we should be similarly amazed that Christ would gather us together with one another. Church, this moment with people flipping back and forth and trying to frantically fan themselves and parents with kids running around, this moment is a living, breathing miracle that only happened because Jesus Christ came and brought dead hearts to life and brought all those zombie amazed new life people together in a room. It is glorious.
14 · Signals structural shift from establishing the theological reality of corporate identity to addressing two common objections that prevent believers from living within that reality
Two objections, though. First objection to this: "You don't need me."
15 · Reads the text addressing the first objection—members who feel unneeded because they lack visible gifts or prominence—establishing Paul's argument that diversity is by divine design and every part is necessary
Verse 14: "For the body does not consist of one member but of many.
If the foot should say, 'Because I'm not a hand, I don't belong to the body,' that would not make it any less part of the body. And if the ear should say, 'Because I'm not an eye, I don't belong to the body,'" That would not make it any less part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose.
If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
16 · Interprets the text by identifying the pastoral problem Paul addresses—members who feel unneeded due to lack of visible gifts or stage presence—and establishes the theological counter-claim that functional diversity is intentional divine design
So Paul starts here by answering the objection from many, from perhaps you today, "You don't need me." Paul starts encouraging those who don't feel like they really are part of the body, really important, really needed. You know, it's kind of like, "Well, I'm in the stands. Church is going on without me.
I'm unneeded." Paul likens it to some parts of the body feeling diminished or left out, right? Maybe the gift you have is serving in administration and you serve behind the scenes, and maybe you you don't have the gift of shredding electric guitar. And as much as you would love to be up and shred electric guitar with the team, you're like, "No, I can bake, though, so nobody needs me." Or maybe you think of the example of a master artist who has skilled hands and a skilled eye, and the feet here are thinking, "Well, I just— I don't do anything here." Or the ears think, "Well, he could paint without me." And Paul is saying, "No, no, but it is by design." that there are differences. It is by design and each part is needed.
17 · Provides a powerful personal story of Bill Russell—a man who felt useless due to age and physical limitation but became indispensable through encouragement, presence, and vocal participation—demonstrating that the body suffers real loss when any member is absent
I'm going to use the example I used even a couple months ago of Bill Russell who used to come. I think he came to the second service and he sat right over there in that section. Bill was an older man with a colorful past. He was, you know, incarcerated at one time, came out, was radically saved. In a previous life, as he said, he was a church leader. And often he would talk to me after the service and say, "Man, I am so sorry." And he had a— I can't even replicate his voice.
He had that big booming, "Ricky, I'm so sorry." I can't even get as low. He was like 2 octaves lower than that. And he said, "I just— I'm old. I can't do anything anymore. I'm sorry.
My body's broken down," right? And just his booming voice. I miss it. And I remember thinking, "Oh, Bill, it's okay. We're glad you're here.
We're glad you're here." But as he began attending, I noticed something happening. I noticed that he would— get here a bit early. He was often one of the last to leave. He had his cane.
He'd walk around. He would meet people, shake their hand, find out their story, and encourage them. He would tell them his story of how God had met them. And during the singing, he would sing out. You could hear it.
And during the preaching, his big booming voice would ring out, "Preach that," right?
Or, "Amen." And it was like 10 people, but it was just one guy. If you ever hear and were like, "Who is that section?" It wasn't a section. It was a man named Bill. And I've noticed, church, I've noticed since the Lord called him home earlier this year, as we've regathered, it's not the same.
Because Bill was a vital member of the body of Christ. And we feel the lack of his encouragement. I feel the lack of his handshake before I get into the pulpit. We feel the lack of his booming voice ringing out. And you begin to see there are no unneeded members of the body of Christ.
18 · Applies the "you are needed" argument directly to the congregation, addressing both Sunday gatherings and small groups, explicitly dismantling the stage/stands division and revealing the intentional design that makes every member's participation necessary
Similarly, every single person person here is needed in the body of Christ. And you see that phrase in verse 18, "But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose," meaning this: God has a purpose for you. God has a job for you. God has a design for you, and the body will be less effective without you, less healthy without you, less powerful without you, less able to do what the Lord has set out for it. So let me encourage you today, brother or sister, you are needed here, especially if you're thinking, "I'm not needed here." No, you're needed here.
Don't think because you're not on stage that you are not needed on Sunday. We got to dismantle that sort of American separation. I really today wanted to preach from the ground. The only problem with that is I'm too short for it to work. So, uh, just think of the stage as Ricky's box that he stands on to do this part of the message.
Don't think that if you're not on stage, you're not needed on Sunday. And everybody is needed. Every single member is needed. Don't think that, that even in your small group, if you're not the group leader or group host, then you just sort of are showing up attending. It's just like, okay, what does the group leader have for us today?
No, I want to give you a secret, okay, behind the curtain. Our small groups are designed such that if members do not participate, they will not work. If the leader is prepared and no one else participates, they will die, okay? They are designed that people fellowship together, that they study the Bible together, that they pray for one another, that they carry one another's burdens.
Church, we want to push back on that mindset that says, "Me, me, me," and realize God has made every me with a job in the larger we of Christ's body.
19 · Signals shift to the second major objection—those who believe they can thrive spiritually in isolation from the body
Second objection, second objection now: "I don't need you."
20 · Reads the text addressing the second objection—prominent members who believe they don't need others—establishing Paul's argument that God designed the body to force mutual care, with particular honor given to weaker parts
1 Corinthians 12. The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you.' This is verse 21. 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. And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor.
And our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together.
21 · Diagnoses the "I don't need you" objection as particularly American, listing its manifestations across various spheres of Christian life, then interprets Paul's body design as intentionally creating mutual dependence where individual health requires connection to the whole
Now, I think of the two, this is the more common problem for us, especially as American Christians.
We, we think through the lens of me, and we often think, I will be okay on my own, right? Now, this could look like a number of things. It can look like somebody saying, well, I don't really need to attend church anymore, or I don't really need to be in fellowship in a group or something, or I don't need any close friends, I'm okay on my own, I don't need a Christian mentor, I don't need support dealing with this sin issue or life issue, I don't need help with my marriage, I can do it myself, right? It can look like a lot of different things, but the impulse is, I can do it. On my own.
Now, Paul then uses an illustration which culturally might seem a bit weird to us about the presentable and unpresentable parts and modesty. But the point is that God designs the body in a way that forces— if you could say it that way— forces the stronger parts of the body to care for the weaker parts of the body. And why does God do that? He did that because the body The members of the body need one another. If one member of the body suffers, all suffer.
If one is honored, all are honored. If one rejoices, all rejoice. The point is this, that your health and vitality as an individual Christian is only achieved fully connected to the broader body, meaning that none of us are meant to go it alone.
22 · Uses pop culture reference to make vivid the absurdity and dysfunction of a disconnected body part, humorously reinforcing the point that isolated Christians are both strange and ineffective
Is it the Addams Family that has the hand, It, that pops off? Or is that The Munsters? I can never keep those two straight. Somebody yell it out. Is it The Addams Family?
Okay, yeah. Don't do that. It's weird, right? I mean, the hand, it's funny, we're cool, and then like 3 episodes in, you're like, but it's too weird, really. I mean, the hand is crawling around, it's motioning, it's like, I mean, and it's very limited in its effectiveness.
I mean, how much can that thing really do? And how does it float? We have so many questions about the hand. Don't do that. Don't be the hand that pops off the body and is like, "I'm good, I got this." No, that's not the scriptural picture.
23 · Provides a pastoral case study of a man whose repeated cycle of spiritual decline followed withdrawal from fellowship, demonstrating the practical reality that individual health depends on sustained connection to the body even—especially—when feeling strong
I remember a few years ago Vince was talking to somebody he was discipling, and we were kind of both interacting with this individual. And so Vince pointed out to him at one point that he had a pattern.
The pattern was he would start doing real poorly spiritually. He had some addictions that were a problem for him, and he would— he would begin to go down that road and kind of hit rock bottom and then get into counseling or get into a program or get into fellowship and then begin to climb out of that. And then all of a sudden, he would be the most faithful person at church, the most faithful person at group, the most faithful person to get with other believers. And as he began to feel good and strong, he began to get together less and less. He began to come to church less and less or make it to group less and less.
And then eventually, Ended up struggling with these issues again, falling away. And so finally Vince, just in love, and I love Vince 'cause he's just so straight on about this stuff, he's like, "Brother, do you see a pattern?" And God bless him, the guy was like, "What do you mean?" And so he walked him through the pattern, and he went like, "Oh." Right, it was just like, it was like, "Oh, I didn't, yeah, yeah." And so it was helpful 'cause Vince talked to him, okay, when he was starting to feel better, he would say, "What happens usually now?" And the guy said, "Oh, okay. This is when I usually stop coming as much or stop meeting people as much." Yes. So what should you do? Keep coming.
Yes, good. Like, right? It was one of those things.
24 · Universalizes the pattern from the previous illustration to the entire congregation, then extends the argument to reject homogenous community in favor of the diverse body, affirming that difference is the point rather than a problem to solve
But don't we all do that, brothers and sisters? Don't we all get to a point where maybe we're feeling a little bit stronger, feeling a little more capable, or feeling maybe I understand some things better than my people in my community group, I understand some things better than the rest of the body, I'm seeing these things, I know what I'm doing, and begin to wander away?
Let me encourage you. You need others. We all need— one another. Let us not think that we can do just as well or better by ourselves as we can alone, right? It does not happen.
So many soccer metaphors I want to use here, but I can't because 3 people will get them. Thank you, Neil, for being one of the 3. All right, next important point: don't think that you only need people who are your age or your specific political perspective or your specific income or your specific ethnicity or who share your pattern of life or hobbies to grow. Don't think, okay, you know what I need to do? I do need others, but I'm gonna find the bucket of arms like me.
Where's my bucket? I want all the people that think and live and look and act like me, and that's where I'm gonna be, right? Scripturally, it's like, no, that's an unhealthy bucket. Nobody wants a bucket of hands, okay? Go to a body.
And you're thinking, but I feel a little bit different. I feel a little bit weird. I feel gifted differently. I feel like people don't always have my same perspective. And Jesus says, exactly, exactly.
You're needed. You need others.
25 · Addresses wounded believers directly with pastoral concern, acknowledging the reality of church hurt while firmly rejecting withdrawal as the solution, pointing instead toward finding healthy Christian community
And let me just say, just hear my heart for you. Don't think that if you've had a bad experience in church or with Christians, the solution is to withdraw from church or Christians. It may be that you were part of an unhealthy church or group of Christians.
It may be that you need help, you know, walking through that, but the help you need is found with other Christians.
Find a group that can help you. We want to go from me to we. That's how we reach full health.
26 · Signals major structural shift from addressing objections to offering practical implications, preparing the congregation for concrete application points framed through extended metaphors
Now, some quick implications I want to walk through together today. These are specific ways in our current cultural moment that I think God wants to call us from going from thinking me all the time only to thinking we as the body of Christ.
Okay? Now, these— I'm using illustrations and metaphors to try to get these across, so hear my heart in this, even if you're like, But that metaphor doesn't work with this thing. Like, just, just go with me, okay, for a second.
27 · Addresses livestreaming with pastoral nuance, expressing gratitude for the AV team while firmly establishing that online viewing is emergency provision (protein bar/MRE) rather than equivalent to in-person gathering (kitchen table), with specific pastoral exceptions for those unable to attend
First implication: screens are a protein bar, not a kitchen table. At some point in the last year, all of us have had to watch church on a screen, even if it was just that 6 or whatever, 8-week period where that's all we had.
Now, I am and will be forever grateful for the heroic efforts of our AV team. I mean, these guys were absolutely heroic. And in particular, I wanna call out Chris Nowicki because man, when we had no plan for live streaming and we didn't even know, can we use the building? And nobody knew what was going on. He grabbed a bunch of equipment, took it to his living room.
And if you're wondering like, whose house was that? Right, it was such a nice house. It was his house. It is a very nice house. And he set up the audio, video, livestream, worked tirelessly, and made it so that in a moment where we were all separated, we could have something together.
And for that, I think this team has been heroic, and Wix in particular. So can we just thank them for the last year, man?
Absolutely heroic, absolutely heroic. Now, 1 Corinthians 12, though, says something about that. It says that is heroic and extraordinary and not normal. And the danger, I think, is a number of Christians and a number of churches have tried to move to make screen gathering as equally valid as this gathering. Almost like, "Hey, well, you can join us," like almost like an equivocation.
"Well, join us in person, or if you're more comfortable online, you know, or if you couldn't find a shirt that was clean, join us online," you know, almost like they're both good, they're both good, either one, pick one, it's fine. And scripturally, 1 Corinthians 12 says no, they're not equal. Now, we as pastors have been thinking and praying about this, and we got— let me just Behind the curtain, we got really close to saying that we were gonna end the livestream. That's it, no more livestream. Because our concern is that we don't want the church to feel as though they're both equally valid ways of engaging church.
Now, we did not decide to do that. So if you're on the livestream, thumbs up. If you're on the livestream right now, this is a weird Sunday for you, but we love you.
We decided that we needed the livestream because of— actually, because we are members of a body, because there are still some, especially there's one family in particular I'm aware of that, that their child has specific health risks for COVID. And so it's put their family in a tough situation trying to figure out how to navigate life. We have a number of folks that just have sicknesses in general that make it hard to go out or who are very elderly. We have a number of folks in that. Situation.
We also have a number of military folks in our church, and over the years we've heard from a number of our military men and women that when they are deployed, it, it is a means of grace to be able to at least gather on screen with their church family. Not the same, but still a gift. And so here's the metaphor I want to use: screens, live streaming a service, is a protein bar. It's not the kitchen table. Or if I could use a more pointed metaphor for our military service members, screens are an MRE, and nobody eats an MRE and thinks, "I want to do this forever." Right?
Like, nobody is like, "Hey, babe, come join us at the table." "No, I'm good, babe. Got my MRE. I'm all set, ready to go. It's all packaged up." Right? Nobody is doing that.
If you are doing that, please get marriage counseling. We want to serve you in that way.
Watching the gathering of the saints can be an encouragement, but it is not meant to be a long-term solution or should not be long-term life. Hear my heart there? I'm not saying that there can't be extenuating circumstances. I'm not saying that there's never a reason that you can use a livestream. What I am saying is get back to the kitchen table as often you can.
As long as you can.
28 · Systematically dismantles the Sunday spectator model by showing the dozens of servants required, then assigns every member to active roles (encouragement team, hospitality team, worship participation), explicitly eliminating the category of passive attendee
Alright, point number 2: the church has no stands on Sunday morning. Or maybe it should be, the church should have no stands on Sunday morning. Over the last year, we've had a number of Sundays where only a handful of people were able to serve or able to be active. But today, by God's grace, we have moved beyond that.
And I think our default should be that, that we all are involved in putting on the Sunday service, right? As my dad was highlighting the AV team, amen to them, right? That the worship team enables us to sing, the greeters enable people to feel hospitality, the folks with little things in their ears make sure that something crazy doesn't happen, or if it does, that we can find help, right? We have people to check kids into kids ministry, that way it's not a free-for-all of random kids being thrown into a frenzy, which we thank God for. Thank you, check-in people.
You don't get enough credit, but you should. And the kids ministry teachers, I mean, just everybody, we have, it takes, I wonder even to calculate it. I started trying to calculate how many people it takes to pull off Sunday services, and I got so confused that it is easily dozens and dozens and dozens across our two services on a Sunday, right? I don't even know. That's the scary thing, I don't even know.
I don't even know what everybody's doing. It's awesome. That is what should be normal for the body of Christ. But even outside of service on a Sunday team, the Sunday gathering should be one of active ministry. Now, do we want you to come to church so that we can encourage you, so that those bringing the Word can encourage you, so the worship team can build you up in Christ by enabling you to sing amen?
But every Christian walks in those doors taking the field. Right? And that means this: in the few minutes before the service and after the service, we have two teams that every member is a part of. The first team is the encouragement team, or perhaps we'll just call it the Bill Russell Memorial Team, right? You find people who need encouragement, find people who are struggling that week, and encourage them, right?
Find out what their needs are and take a minute and pray with them and for them. Find other parents that look as equally haggard as you do and encourage them that we can do this together. Find them, encourage them. Let not a Sunday go by that you have not given a specific encouragement to somebody in this room. Amen?
Second, hospitality team. Everybody is the hospitality team. This group is the hospitality team. And even though we have a lot of folks that come and go at our church, and even though we have new folks at our church, There is an easy way to tell who needs hospitality, okay? Here's the test.
Anybody going like this doesn't need hospitality. Anybody doing this, that's a hospitality emergency. That means you put your badge on, go talk to them. What's your story? How are you?
Who are you? Let's make it our job to do that together. And when the service starts, Oh, church, I love hearing you sing. Every member in this auditorium is on the worship team, okay? I don't care if you can't carry a tune in a bucket, I want to hear you singing.
And during the message, there should be engagement, there should be active, right? We— maybe we're not all at Bill Russell yet, that's okay, but there should be some level of engagement, some level of heart engagement, and that's what we want. We want every Christian on The field. The church should have no stands on Sunday morning. All right?
Oh, man, there's so much more I could say right there. All right, we gotta keep moving.
29 · Establishes midweek connection as the test of authentic body life, using personal examples of active group messaging and shared waiting for a baby's birth to illustrate how digital communication enables the continuous mutual care described in 1 Corinthians 12:26
Number 3, it's not life together unless your messages are blowing up. I'm taking a risk overstating this, but I want to say this, that church life, vital membership according to the pattern of 1 Corinthians 12, is not showing up for a slot from 9 to 10 a.m. On Sunday and then peacing out for the rest of the week, right? It's not as though the body comes together on Sunday and then all the pieces of it pop off and they'll wander out into the parking lot to different places.
No, we are to remain vitally connected. And an easy rule of thumb for me is whether I'm exchanging messages and life together, if I'm seeing faces from church during the week, if I'm texting people during the week. I mean, just right now, I got a— Update from a guy in my community group, the Mackenzies, oh not the Mackenzies, sorry Sean. Sean and Mackenzie Kotke, shout out to you guys if you're watching. They're about to have a baby, they're waiting for the baby, anxiously waiting for the baby.
We're praying for the baby, we're excited, getting ready to rejoice when this baby comes, but also praying for the baby's safe delivery because of some factors. And we are there, we are waiting, and we're waiting to see the news and see the picture of that little guy. We're waiting, right, that is life. Together. When one member suffers, we all suffer.
When one member rejoices, we all rejoice, right? This is— I remember years ago when we first got onto WhatsApp as a community group, and Milton and Monica's group, and our group just abused the WhatsApp thread, absolutely abused it. Pictures of cats, pictures of Roadrunners, pictures of kids. It was glorious. So go ahead, you have my permission, blow up your community group's text chain, this week, live life together.
30 · Confronts the reality of relational friction in diverse community, reframing disagreement as reason for deeper commitment rather than withdrawal, calling for stubborn perseverance through awkward seasons toward genuine fellowship
All right, fourth, the path to deep relationships is paved with stubbornness. And I say that because if all we've said is true, if people are wired differently and gifted differently, we will have differences in our perspectives. God willing, we'll be united by our theology, united by our mission, united by mutual affection, united by the Spirit in us, but We're going to think about some things differently, feel about things differently, and we will have disagreements. And if this is true, those disagreements mean we need each other more, not less. They should be places where we persevere in connection to one another.
We are to be stubborn as a church, stubborn not in me, but stubborn in we, right? Stubborn not in I demand my perspective, but stubborn in how can we live together as a body. Stubborn in covering offenses again and again, reconciling again and again, caring again and again. And stubborn in pressing in relationship. Sometimes, listen, man, I've been a part of our group, I mean, our small group ministry for decades, and some Sunday, I mean, some small group meetings, you show up and it just clicks and everybody in the group is, laughing and joking and you're like, "Yeah, this is the Christian community." And other small groups you show up and it's there and it's like— like, it just feels like that.
But I've never been part of a group that didn't get from— to excitement within a reasonable amount of time. So persevere, persevere. Your group may need you.
31 · Addresses church membership as a weighty covenant requiring intentional process both entering and exiting, acknowledging COVID's damage to relational fabric while calling the church back to covenant faithfulness, explicitly rejecting ghosting and requiring reconciliation work even in departure
All right, and last thing, this is last thing on my heart. This is brief, but I think it's incredibly important.
Joining the church body should take work, but leaving should take more.
If what we've said is true, the decision to join yourself to a church is an incredibly theologically and practically important decision. I know and I'm aware that there are churches that by checking a box from one Sunday to the next, you can become a member. That is not the way we do—respectfully, that is not the way we do membership at Cross of Grace. We want membership to mean something.
We want people to examine the beliefs of the church to see if God has given them similar convictions. We want them to know the mission of the church to see if God is calling them to partner with us. We think you should know the governance of the church, who is actually in charge, who How does this work? You should know these things. You should know people in this room, know their names, know some of their stories.
And if God leads you to join, that should mean something to us.
It means whether you've been a member for a day or a year or a decade, when you weep, we weep. When you rejoice, we rejoice. When you walk through something, we all walk through something. With you. That is what we want to be.
And I believe that the fabric of that church— let me just be straight with you— over the last year has gotten frayed. We have not been in each other's lives the way that we want to be or should be. And let's all commit together today to get back in each other's lives in that way, so that when one hurts, we all hurt; when one rejoices, we all rejoice. And if you're joining, it should mean something to you. And I hesitated to even say something about this today, but I think I need to.
Leaving the church should take work. Please do not ghost your church. One week to the next, not show up, everyone's like, "Whatever happened to so-and-so?" Now, we know there's a couple of categories here. First is, we have a lot of folks that relocate from the military or federal workers or get moved or whatever. Around or whatever, we love you, we're grateful for the season there with you, but it should take work to leave.
Let us know you're leaving, right? Encourage the people that have encouraged you as you leave and let us, or help you find a church where you're going on your way out, right? It should take work. The last line of the membership covenant says something like, if I leave, then I will quickly unite myself to a family of, a church family in similar heart and mind, right? We want to help you fulfill that commitment.
And we also know that there are those who have to leave or choose to leave because of disagreement with the church's theology or vision or leaders, or there's a relational issue or some other problem. And let me just say, look, if this is not where you're meant to be, we want you to be where God wants you to be, right? There should be no, like, "Oh." Like, our community group just sent out a wonderful couple. We sent them out to be part of a church on the West Side, Jesus Chapel. And Cam and Laura, we love them, still keep in touch a bit with them, love them, commend them.
That was a good reason to go. They felt called to be part of something God was doing there. But that's a happy reason. Sometimes there are hard reasons. Sometimes it takes work, but let me encourage you, do the work.
Walk through this with your leaders and pastors and friends. Reconcile insofar as it depends on you if God needs— is calling you to go. And when you go, go out encouraging the church body when you can.
That's, I think, being faithful to the picture in 1 Corinthians 12.
32 · Completes the opening Steve Davies illustration by revealing its bittersweet ending—a brief moment on the field before returning to ordinary life—then pivots to the contrasting permanence of Christians' call to the field, closing with a charge to sustained active participation
Alright, well, let me end by wrapping up the story of Steve Davies. Somebody's out there wondering, "How did Steve do in his game with Weston?" Well, I have good news for you. He did pretty well. He did pretty well.
The combination of fear and adrenaline powered him to run faster than he ever had in his of his life by his own admission. And at one point, the ball came lobbed out, was dropped right in front of him. He took a kick, the best kick of his life, he said, and it shot from his foot into the corner of the net. The crowd erupted like they were chanting his name. And the problem is he was like 3 yards offside, so it didn't count.
But he said no one could take that moment away from him where the ball left his foot and the crowd exploded. And yet, this is what he says. He said, "At the end of the game, I got back into the car, drove home, got in, went to bed, and went to work the next day. I guess that's the reality of being a professional football player for just one half." Meaning, he went from the stands to the field, but that was it. Not so, brothers and sisters in the body of Christ.
Every Christian has a permanent call to the field. So get comfortable in your cleats, or boots as the Brits would say, keep your uniform fresh, and let's take the field each and every week. Amen? Amen.
33 · Closing prayer turning the sermon's argument into petition, asking God to complete in practice what he has already accomplished in salvation, specifically requesting that the implications preached (Sunday teams, encouragement, hospitality, midweek connection) become lived reality
Let's stand and pray.
Father, we are so grateful. God, we are amazed by grace at what we've sung today, that you have called us to yourself, you've gathered us to yourself. It is undeserved, amazing, insane grace that sinners and rebels should be brought into the body of Christ himself, that we are so saved, if I could say it that way, God, we're so saved that you don't just save us and leave us off to the side. You save us and bring us all the way into fellowship. Lord, I pray that you, Father, you would continue what you've done in salvation to work through us practically, that the unity of the body of Christ that we know theologically would also be lived out in the day-to-day life of the church.
God, I pray that our teams on Sunday would be filled with joyful people taking the field, that every Sunday encouragement would be spread throughout the gathering, that hospitality would be spread throughout the gathering, God, that even reconciliation and working through things would be spread throughout the gathering, and that when we leave, God, our messages would be blowing up on our phones all the time, we would keep in touch with people, work with people, weep with people, rejoice with people, that we would live out what it means to be the body of Christ every single day. Lord, I pray that as we sing, you'd seal these things in our hearts. In Jesus' name, amen.
34 · Brief transition into closing worship, framing the final song as both encouragement and prayer in light of the sermon's call to active body life
Our captain. Later it says our battle cry is love, reaching out to those in darkness. So let's use this as an encouragement and a prayer today.