SPEAKER_00: Well, welcome everyone.
SPEAKER_00: It's great to see your faces this morning.
SPEAKER_00: This morning, in a few moments, we're gonna talk in the sermon about the body.
SPEAKER_00: This is one way that the Bible talks to us about the church.
SPEAKER_00: It describes the church like a body.
SPEAKER_00: And what it says about the body is that all of the parts of the body are important.
SPEAKER_00: And I have a little uh thing I want to um illustrate by this.
SPEAKER_00: And so maybe I'm gonna pick on my friend uh Carl.
SPEAKER_00: Carl, you want to come here?
SPEAKER_00: You want to you want to illustrate this for me?
SPEAKER_00: Uh all I want you to do, I'm gonna move my cheer a little bit, is I want you to walk maybe halfway down the aisle and then just walk back.
SPEAKER_00: Really easy.
SPEAKER_00: Just walk down the aisle, walk back.
SPEAKER_00: Very good.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Carl.
SPEAKER_00: All right, now I want you to do something else for me.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to remove one of your your legs.
SPEAKER_00: So just maybe just walk down the aisle with one leg instead of two.
SPEAKER_00: Good, good.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, you're good.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want you to do it with no legs.
SPEAKER_00: A little hard, huh?
SPEAKER_00: All right, no, you don't you don't know how to do that, okay?
SPEAKER_00: You can be seated, John.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be Carl.
SPEAKER_00: Now, hey, what did you learn in seeing Carl do that?
SPEAKER_00: What's one thing you learn as you observe Carl do that?
unknown: Each part does one thing.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, each part does one thing, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: What was that, sorry?
SPEAKER_00: He walked on one leg, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: It was a little bit harder than when he was walking with two legs.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so what does it tell us?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it tells us that each part of the body is very important, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: And that when even one member is taking it away, we're not as good as we're able to be.
SPEAKER_00: We don't function as well as we're able to be.
SPEAKER_00: But then take away another member of the body, and it's even harder, right?
SPEAKER_00: I only took away two members, and you saw how hard it was for Carl to move.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the body is like that, and and and we need every part of the body to be working.
SPEAKER_00: That is a good sign of maturity in God's body, the church.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want you to know that each part of the body is important.
SPEAKER_00: You, you are important, and you're important to this body.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing that we learn is that we have gifts.
SPEAKER_00: We are gifts, and we have gifts to one another that we do use for one another, so that God's body, the church, is built up.
SPEAKER_00: And so you have gifts to share with other people.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gives us gifts to share with others.
SPEAKER_00: And that is a wonderful thing too.
SPEAKER_00: I want you just to think for a moment how that happens in our body.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever tried to tie your shoelaces without your hands?
SPEAKER_00: Anyone?
SPEAKER_00: I still can't figure out how to tie my shoelaces without my hands.
SPEAKER_00: I think I want to use my teeth.
SPEAKER_00: And so our hands are very important to helping out our feet, aren't they?
SPEAKER_00: And the body is like that too.
SPEAKER_00: We need different parts of the body to function so that we can help one another and we can serve one another and we can become a more fuller expression of who God wants us to be.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's the other thing I want you to remember today.
SPEAKER_00: Not only are you important, but you have gifts to share with one another.
SPEAKER_00: And that is very important too.
SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming.
SPEAKER_00: You can be seated.