1.243 The Body of Christ

1.243 The Body of Christ

Today we talk more about the Body of Christ and how it works. 1 Cor 12:12-14

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Now I've been ministering to you out of uh 2 Timothy 4, and I want to get back into it today and exhort on it just a little bit more. From verse 3. Well, at the end of verse 2, Paul is telling Timothy, he said, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. So he was telling them be patient, but you stay with that word. You preach that word, you be instant in season, out of season if you have to. You use it for reproof, you use it for rebuke, use it for exhortation. But you keep the word of God in front of them. You keep the word of God in front of them. No matter how hard it is, don't matter where it hits, don't matter where it falls. You do not let people get to the place that Paul is talking about here in the third verse in 2 Timothy 4 and verse 3. And he said, For the time will come when they will not endorse sound doctrine, but after their own lust shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. And that word lust means desires. And you cannot let, and I've said this for many years, I've seen uh pastors get down to business with God and really uh lay down on the word, and then I've seen the deacon board uh find a way to get rid of them. That's because there's nothing in the scripture that gives carnally minded men the right to rule over spiritual matters in the church. I've been serving God uh 48 years now, been in ministry full-time, 42 going on, 43. So, and I've seen ministers that uh they would get out of business with God, they would get to seeking God, God would stir them up, they would get to preach the word and it make people uncomfortable because we're in that day that people have no desire to really buckle down and serve God with clean hands and a pure heart. There's a few out there, there's people out there that's got a heart for this nation because our nation is in trouble and we need help. If we've ever needed help from God, we need it now. If we ever needed a word from the Lord, we need it now, children. And I'm telling you that the time has come that people will not endure sound doctrine. You get down into sound doctrine, you get out into clean and holy, righteous living, and people are gonna bow up on you. This spirit is popped back up now that people are running around saying, well, I don't need no church I am. The church, no, you're not the church. There's nothing in the Word of God that tells you you are the church. There is scripture that tells you you are a member of the body of Christ, and the body of Christ is the church, but there is not a scripture that tells you you are the church. And that scripture leads to people laying out of church, it leads to them thinking they don't need leadership, they don't need teaching, they don't need edifying, they don't need to uh have people admonish them of how to overcome spirits and forces and powers simply because in this spirit it was back in the 80s, and and I've had more than one conversation. I remember I run into a man at a restaurant one night and I heard him talking to somebody and he was telling a waitress, everybody, you don't have to go to church, you are the church. And I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't have stuck my nose in it, but I said, You don't know what you're talking about. He said, Yeah, I do. I said, All right, you open your Bible and find me the scripture where you as an individual, you are the church. He said, Well, that ain't what I'm talking about. I said, Yeah. I said, but you're you're twisting the word to suit your benefit, and you're twisting the word to justify you not sitting under leadership, you're not sitting, uh finding a local church to labor in and become a part of the body of Christ. And you can't do that. We are members, we are all members of the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 12 and 13, I believe, says, for by one Spirit, we are all baptized into one body. So by the Holy Ghost, we are baptized into the body of Christ. But then Paul, I think, went on and says, we are many members of one body. And you don't get up in the morning and your hands being one place, your uh arms being another, your feet being another, and your torso. Your body's not scattered all over the room when you wake up on the morning. Your body's together. It's a unit. It's a unit, and if you're serving God, then Christ is the head. So you don't have to gather your body together every morning before you get out of bed to do something. It might be a cute trick. But what you do is you stay united, and that's the way it is with the body of Christ. You can't have people scattered all over the place and not coming together to learn, not coming together to be edified, exhorted, brought to maturity. I mean, when you read uh Ephesians 4 and you start with verse 11, and it says, and God gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, pastors, and teachers for the perfecting of the saints. That word perfecting means maturity. It means coming to the completeness in Christ. Well, if you don't come under teaching and you don't come under edifying, and you are not together as a body to be taught, then the saints can't be taught. You can't come to maturity. You can't come uh to that place where you can come in the completeness of Christ. Then he goes on and says, and for the work of the ministry, the ministry has to have five offices working together. You can't have one office uh overruling the other. There's got to be a unity. The Bible said the apostles and prophets are uh the doctrine we're built on. They would take the lead in the church. It was the apostles and the elders at Jerusalem that decided doctrine with prayer and fasting, but we aren't here to build up a lordship. We are here to labor together in the unity of the faith, come together in one mind for one accord, and do what the word says for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying, the erecting, the teaching, the building up of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith. If you ain't sitting under teaching and leadership, you don't even know what the unity of the faith is. He said, till we all come in the unity of the faith, of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect or mature or complete man. You can't have that without leadership. And if you can't get people to recognize we are many members, but we're one body, and all these many members make up one body by the leadership of the spirit, you need a local assembly. You need local leadership. You need somebody to teach you the things of God. So don't run around here. This is a spirit. It's confusion. It leads to division, it leads to rebellion. Don't run around here saying you are the church. You are a member of a church and a member of the body of Christ. I hope this helps you get your feet on the ground. I pray God bless you until our next session.