1 Corinthians 12:12-26 - Dr. Jamie Dew - May 3rd, 2026

Join us this week as Dr. Jamie Dew shares in our Sunday morning service from 1 Corinthians 12. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Amen. Good morning. All right. If you have a Bible, turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 12. I'm so glad to be here with you this morning. As mentioned, my name is Jamie Dew, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and Level College. I appreciate you, Pastor Kyle, for opening your pulpit, inviting me to come be with you here this morning. That's exciting for me. Um, if you don't know what a seminary is, let me just comment on that. He mentioned a minute ago that your giving, at least part of it, goes to support the work that people like us do. So let me a lot of a lot of Southern Baptists really don't understand the big mechanism because they're we don't have the same natural rhythms in anymore to really talk about this and to help people understand it. So let me just take a minute to kind of talk about what we do. If you don't know what a seminary is, number one, think about a university, right? Same kinds of accreditation in the in the degrees. We offer bachelor's degrees and master's degrees and doctoral degrees. So it's like a university in that sense and the same accreditation, but it's very different from a university in that we do don't do education broadly. You've got lots of great schools you can go to for just general education. Instead, we have this laser beam focus. We are a niche school. We do not exist to do education broadly. We exist to train your pastors, your worship leaders, your missionaries, your youth leaders, your counselors, people for ministry in churches just like this one. That's what we exist to do. And so we train that next generation of servants that are going to come back to churches just like this one and serve you and learn how to preach and learn how to counsel and learn how to lead worship and all that stuff. That's what we do. And to do that kind of work, as you can imagine, it is very, very, very expensive. If you were a Methodist or a Presbyterian or an Episcopal or something like that, and you wanted to go to a seminary like this one, and you wanted to get a Master of Divinity, which is kind of the standard degree that people get, that Master of Divinity would cost you about $85 to $90,000 to get that degree. And so you can imagine a lot of people just don't do it. And so what that means for churches is you have less and less people going into ministry. In your Southern Baptist seminaries, there are six of us. That same degree you can get for about $25,000, and that's before we kick in scholarships. Now, the question is, how do we do that so affordably? And the answer is quite simply, you. It's that giving that your pastor talked about a little bit ago that offsets that cost. So here's what that means. Quite literally, it's not just me and my faculty over in New Orleans training up the next generation of pastors and missionaries. It means quite literally, we you are part of that in training up pastors. You're also putting about 3,600 missionaries around the world every year through that support. So check that out. Together, we are the largest and strongest myssiological force in history right now. That's not just us, that's us. Praise God for that, right? Amen for that, right? So I serve at one of your six seminaries as the president. There's the greatest job in the whole wide world. I get to be a part of seeing men and women become who God's called them to be and equipping them and training them. And it's uh quite literally an exhilarating work that I get to be a part of. Thank you for the opportunity to do it, and thank you for the opportunity to be here with you this morning. I'm excited. Um, I don't I'm gonna talk a lot about this today. I don't know if you know this or not, because you come here every single week, and therefore, this is what you know. I go around to different churches all over this country every single week. I'm this church and then that church and then next week. I don't even know where I'm gonna be next week, but I'll be somewhere and uh I'll preach there too, which means I get to see the good, the bad, the ugly, the healthy, the strong, the not healthy, the not strong. And uh, brothers and sisters, you got a good thing going here. God is doing something right here. So praise God for this health, for this strength. Praise God for this momentum. And uh today what we want to talk about is you. Specifically, you might sit there and think, I'm too young to serve God. No, you're not. You might sit there and think, I'm too old to serve God, no, you're not. Let's talk about you. First Corinthians, would you stand with me? 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse number 12. Now let me just go ahead and tell you when we read this passage, if you've ever read this in your Bible reading, there's these sort of personifications that Paul gives here. And this is one of those passages you may have read before and said, huh? What in the world are you talking about? I'll try to explain that today. Pick up with me in verse 12. He's talking about this thing called the church. He uses a metaphor to talk about it. He uses the metaphor of a human body, all right? So let's talk about that for just a second. Verse 12. For just as the body, talking about a human body, is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though they are many, are one body. Simply put, he's saying, Hey, you got arms and feet and hands and eyes and ears, different parts, but one body. That's what he says. Now he says, so also is Christ, meaning there's something in Jesus' world and the church that's the same way. For we were all baptized by one spirit into one body. Listen to this, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we've all been given one spirit to drink, indeed the body is not one part but many. Now, verse 15, listen to this. This is where the passage gets strange. If the foot should say, and you're thinking, why are feet talking? Because I'm not the hand, I don't belong to the body, is it not for that reason any less part of the body? And if the ear should say, Because I am not the eye, I don't belong to the body, is it not for that reason any less part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God has arranged each, hear this part, God has arranged each one of the parts. He's talking about the me's and the us here. He has arranged each one of the parts in the body just as he wanted. And if the whole were the same part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. Now parts are going to start to talk again. The eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you. Or again, the head cannot say to the feet, I don't need you. On the contrary, those parts of the body that are weaker are indispensable, and those parts of the body that we consider of less to be less honorable, we clothe these with greater honor, and our unrespectable parts are treated with greater respect, which our respectable parts do not need. Instead, listen to this: God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the less honorable, so that there be no division in the body, and that the members would have the same concern for one another. So if one member suffers, then the all the members suffer with it. And if one member is honored, then all the members rejoice with it.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Could you pray with me?

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Lord Jesus, this morning we bow to you, our God, and our King. We thank you, God, for another day of life. Another day to wake up and put our feet on the floor and to breathe in and out, to have life, to have fellowship, to have each other, to have you. God, you are so overwhelmingly abundantly kind to us in every way, in every storm and every trial, and every pain and every sorrow, Lord. You have been there with us. And God, even in our sin and our rebellion, you sought us out. You rescued us, you've redeemed us, you've quite literally changed us and given us life. And Lord, now in light of those great treasures, we pause together as a people to reflect on and yet a further still blessing upon us, Lord, and that is how you, by your sovereign and providential choice, have seen fit to use little specks of dust like us for your kingdom purposes, God. It is too much for me to comprehend your grace in this. And so, God, by your spirit today and by your word, would you encourage these precious saints, young and old, new and seasoned, to just be faithful.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

We give ourselves to you and ask your blessings in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Let me begin today by asking each of you, and when I say you, I don't just mean you collectively, I mean you individually. Pretend for just a moment I'm talking just me and you. There's not a congregation here, it's just me and you, and we're having a cup of coffee. I ask you this simple question: what is your part in the church? What's your role? What's your place? What's your purpose and what's your function? Look, the reality of it is most church folk, and I speak broadly there, but I could zoom in and say, even I love being a Southern Baptist. I do. I just talked about the great blessings of it. But even for us, look, I think that if we're candid and we're honest with each other for just a minute, most Baptist folk don't actually think about themselves having actually real any real utility, any real purpose in the greater body of Christ. And so I asked that question what's your part? What's your place and what's your role inside the body of Christ? And I you might sit there today as I ask you that question and go, I don't know. I mean, look, the reality is unfortunately, and maybe your church is different. And so I should say that and preface that. I don't actually know you very well beyond what I've had the last 45 minutes in this room with you. You you seem like wonderful dear people, but in most Baptist churches, here's the deal: it typically is the case that about 85 to 90 percent of the people are what we would call shower uppers.

unknown 11:39

Right?

SPEAKER_01 11:39

And it's about 10 to 15% of people that will give and will serve. And everybody else, they are merely shower-uppers. Now, look, I need to be real careful here because what I'm not trying to do is come in here today and bonk you over the head. This is not intended to be one of those sermons where I you leave today feeling guilty. In fact, just to the contrary, I hope, I pray that you leave here today feeling inspired, called, pulled, tugged to rise up and to become something so much more than you've ever really maybe even envisioned for yourself. But we have to start where reality actually is. Most people in our Baptist churches, they are mere shower-uppers. Let's talk about what it means to be a shower-upper. And let me just say up front, the point of all this is not to say to you, stop being a shower-upper. You should at least keep showing up. Okay? It's to get beyond that. It's to get to that next step, that phase, that function, that utility where you actually will find life and flourish in it, and God will be glorified in your life. That's the goal here today. What does it mean to be a shower-upper? Well, it means that Sunday comes and the time is church time. Say 10:30, 10:15, whatever it might be, and service starts, and here goes, you show up, and you sit right there, wherever that might be, and that's your spot, and that's your role, and service ends, and we leave, and we go home, and we eat potato salad, and we go about our Sunday afternoon, and then our Monday through Saturday, Sunday returns, and we show up again, right? My goodness gracious, aren't we missing so much more? Could it be that God has for you something bigger, something more, something more tangible? And could it be that in that calling on your life, I'm speaking to every one of you, men, women, young, and old, could it be that God has something rich and profound for you, something so life-giving, the words could hardly even express it? I mean, the reality of it is it's not just our individual churches that need more from their people. Look, our churches broadly need this. 25% of our churches in the Bible belt don't have a pastor and can't find one who will meet those needs. Only the body of Christ can rise up to that. In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, the Apostle Paul talks about this thing called the body of Christ. And I want to show you a couple things about you and your role and your spot in the body of Christ. It's a strange passage. It's strange because, as I noted as we were simply reading the text, that body parts start to talk. And it's weird, right? So Paul uses, let me just say this before we jump into the text. Paul uses two literary devices in this passage that we just need to see and surface before we jump in. Two literary devices. First of all, he uses metaphor. Now let's just real quick, this is not an English class, but this helps. What is a metaphor? A metaphor is simply when you take one thing that you already understand, and you it's like this other thing over here that you don't yet perfectly understand. You take the one thing that you do understand, and you use it because of the likeness to understand something over here that you don't yet really understand. Okay? That's what a metaphor is. And so in this particular case, here's the metaphor. He takes the human body. My friends, you are familiar with your human body, aren't you? I'm not saying you're a medical doctor, some of you might be, but you know every nook and cranny of that body, don't you? All right. You take something you already know about and you use it to understand this other thing over here we don't know about the church, the body of Christ, it's called metaphorically. That's literary device number one. Literary device number two, personification. You know what personification is. It's when you take something that's not a person, not an animate object, and you personify it. You pretend for a moment that it has a human perspective, a first person perspective. You let it speak and you let it talk. You're already familiar with this. Everybody seen the cartoon version or the movie version of the animated version, I should say, of Beauty and the Beast. It's okay. I know it's Disney, but it's okay if you've seen it, right? You know Disney, right? And do you remember in The Beauty and the Beast how Chip the Cup, you remember this, comes out of the cupboard and he sings and he dances and he talks about his life and his hopes and all that. Cups don't talk, right? But in the movie it does. It's personified to give us a perspective on something. And so Paul's gonna do that. And this is the confusing part of the text. You're like, why are eyes talking? Why are ears talking? Why are feet talking? Right? Feet don't talk, ears don't talk. They're being personified to give us a perspective. And he's doing that to teach us about perspectives in the church about ourselves. That's what he's doing in the text. Make sense? You with me? All right. Having said all that, let me show you three things in this text. Just very quickly, about you and then where you fit. Number one, the first thing I want you to observe in verse number 12 through verse number 14 is that each of you fits within the body of Christ. It does not matter where you've been, it does not matter what you have done, it does not matter your background, your your ethnic or your sociopolitical background. And this is important because, simply put, there are lots of people in the body of Christ that are paralyzed into disservice to God because all they can be, all they can think of is what they're not and who they've been. Notice what Paul says here. For just as the body is one and has many parts, all the parts of that body, though many are one, and so is also Christ. Now listen to this. He goes on now to say, depending on all these different parts, it doesn't matter if you're talking about a hand, a foot, an eye. And to put that in real terms inside the church, it doesn't matter if you're white or black, young or old, rich or poor, none of those things that the world would divide over should divide us here. Does that make sense? Listen to what he says, verse number 13. For we were all baptized by what? One Spirit. There is no Holy Spirit for white people and a Holy Spirit for black people, or Hispanic people, or Asian people. There's just the Holy Spirit. There is no gospel for this group and for that group, there's just the gospel. Just this week I was giving a talk and uh I was actually talking a lot about postmodernism and our culture and the LGBTQ movement and how it kind of foists itself onto society. And I get this question every single time. The question is: well, I know Christians typically say this, but what about this group over here? I mean, they deal with this thing and that thing and the other thing. And I gently had to say, this group is not special. Why does this group expect that there's the gospel over here, but then there's our group, and there's supposed to be a different package deal. It doesn't work that way, my friends. It just doesn't. There's one gospel, there's one Holy Spirit, there's one baptism, and it doesn't matter the color of your skin, it does not matter your race, it does not matter your geo, your your sociopolitical status, it doesn't matter how much money you've got, what country you're from. Listen to what he says. We have one, we were all baptized by one spirit into one body, and he goes on to say, whether Jews or Greeks, do you remember in the first century how much these two groups hated each other? Wow. And yet they both come in one spirit. Isn't it interesting that Jesus picks, you should note this, this is something I hear nobody talk about in the Gospels. We're missing something here. He caught, look at the 12. Of those 12, there's a couple that really get my attention. I know James and John and Peter and Andrew, they get all the attention. I know that, but the ones that strike me, he calls Matthew, who writes the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew, Levi, you know who he is? He's a tax collector. He is a dirty, rotten scoundrel. The Jews hated him. He is a Jew, but they hate him because they see him as a backstabbing betrayer. He's turned on his own people, collecting taxes for Rome as a Jew and manipulating himself so that he can get profit for it. They hate this man. They call Matthew and Simon the zealot. You know who the zealots are? These are the people that declared their very being, every fiber of their existence, to kill those kinds of people. And Jesus says, Hey, boys, come here, both of you. Follow me. Jew, Greek, tax collector, zealot. One gospel. Right? One Lord Jesus. He goes on to say, not just Jew and Greeks, but listen to this one. There's even economic, socioeconomic differences. Slaves or free. What the gospel is doing here is it's saying that God does not play by our terms. God does not let our typical earthly divisive mechanisms rule in his church. He doesn't. It means this for you and from for me. There are some that come into the body of Christ and they come into the body tentatively because they feel like at the very entrance to the church, they think, I'm not real sure I belong here. Listen to what the gospel is actually going to say to you. No, it doesn't matter if you're a Jew or a Greek, a slave or free, a tax collector, a zealot, a white man, a black man, a young person, an old person, a rich person, a poor person. It does not matter. There is one gospel, one Lord, one baptism, one spirit, and all the blood of Jesus covers us all. And that means it doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter where you've been. It doesn't matter what you've done. You catch that? What? Where else can you go in this world? To whom else can you go in this world? Or it doesn't matter what you've done. Or who you've been for Christ. Right? Hey, look, I I don't know why you might be sort of paralyzed into disservice for God, stuck. But if it has anything to do with your background and your past and where you've been and what you've done, I beg you for the glory of God's sake and for your own flourishing. No, reject it and hear and embrace the actual gospel of Jesus Christ that says, in him you are free. And in him, and because of him, you are purchased and you belong, you are his. You fit into this body. Point number one, we all fit inside the body no matter who we've been. You with me? Point number two, this is the big one of the text. Point number two, not only do we all fit inside the body, each of us is essential to the body. Meaning every last one of us is gifted by God and therefore equipped by God to perform unique and essential functions within the body of Christ. Now, what does it mean to be essential? It means we can't do without it. Now, maybe the church can exist without you doing it, but hear this: the church can never be what she's supposed to be without it. And this is where the body parts start to talk. And Paul, it's very interesting how he does this. Paul is making the broader point that every last one of us has an essential function in the body. It doesn't matter who you are, where you've been, he says it in a variety of ways. Verse 22, listen to this. On the contrary, those body parts that are weaker are more dispensable. And uh he goes on to say those body parts which we consider to be less honorable on those we clothe with greater honor. All of these are essential to us. Now here's what's interesting about it. He he talks through the body parts. And what you see here are essentially two different kinds of perspectives in the body of Christ. Individual parts having a perspective about themselves. Okay? And in short, I could summarize it this way: these two groups. One group has what I would call an inferiority complex, and the other group has what I would call a superiority complex. All right, so what does that mean? An inferiority complex is someone who is paralyzed by what they're not. All these people can see about themselves is what they lack or what they're not or what they can't do. They see themselves as being insignificant, they see themselves as being unworthy, and all of us are unworthy, but they see themselves as being not being the kind of person that God could ever use. Right? So listen to how it says. Verse 15, listen to this. If the foot should say, why are feet talking? It's personification. There's some people in the body that feel this way. So listen to this. If the foot should say, I'm not the hand, I therefore don't belong in the body, just kind of like, well, the foot saying, I'm not like the hands, and because I'm not the hands, I'm not really part of the body. And notice what Paul says. He says, verse 15, is it not, if it is it not for that reason any less part of the body? Meaning that's foolish to think that. Well, here's the question: why would feet compare themselves to hands and draw the conclusion, I'm not worth much. I want you to think about what feet do. Feet that kind of have this basic, rudimentary, kind of an unseen function, right? Here's what feet do, watch. That's about it. And every now and then you get mad at something and kick it. That's about it, though. I mean, feet, just basic stuff. Compare that to hands. What do hands do? Man, hands do everything. Hands are good at everything. Hands can write this way, hands can write this way. We shake hands, we high-five hands, we fist bump hands, hands can play music, hands can build things, hands can cook things, hands can clean things. I mean, hands are the kinds of things that are they're good at everything, they're super talented, and they just are useful in every possible way. And the feet have this basic rudimentary function. Is this starting to feel familiar? What he's saying metaphorically is that there are people in the body of Christ who compare themselves to others. And here's the mindset: I can't preach like that person, I can't teach like that person, I can't sing like that person, I can't play music like that person, I'm not a leader like that person, I'm not educated like that person, and therefore, God can't use me. There's a lot of people that have this thing called an inferiority complex. And by the way, the foot's not alone. If you feel that way about yourself, you are not alone. Listen to we go on verse six. If the ear should say, because I'm not the eye, I'm not really part of the body. Is it for that reason not part of the body? The ear feels the same way the foot does. Why would the ear feel that way compared to the eyes? Well, notice ears. Well, let's talk about eyes first. We look into each other's eyes. Ladies paint around the eyes. Sometimes guys do too now. We look into people's eyes, we talk about their eye color, right? It gets all the attention. People comment about, oh, you have beautiful eyes. You know what nobody looks at? Your ears. That's probably a good thing in my case. Nobody looks at your ears unless they're big and dopey looking. And then they get negative comments. Oh, once again, this is kind of like the body of Christ, right? There's some people, man, they just get all the attention and they get all the affirmation and they get, and then there are other people that serve so faithfully and nobody sees them. They feel unseen, they feel unvalued, they feel insignificant. Oh, if they don't do their job right, they'll get critiqued. The body of Christ is like this. So here's the group number one. They feel inferior. And here's the point of the passage: their sense of inferiority causes them not to pitch in. Now let's talk about those groups. There could be a million reasons people might feel that this way, but we talk about the sort of senior Sunday and emphasizing that. Here's a couple. Some people feel like God can't use me. I'm too young. I'm a teenager. You know why I'm a Christian today? Because of a bunch of teenagers. It was teenagers that first showed me what Christian community and Christian love was like. It's not adults that did that, it was teenagers. I'm a Christian today because it was teenagers that first preached the gospel to me. I'm a Christian today because it was teenagers who first brought me into a corporate worship service and showed me what worship looks like and drew me in. Hey, young folks, you may think I'm too young. This isn't for me. This message is not for me today. Oh, yes, it is. You're not too young to serve the Lord Jesus. And then there's the older folks in the room. You feel tired, you feel worn, you feel overwhelmingly ill-equipped to engage this fancy new world with all of its technology and style and music and all I know. And then you see these young people, they're so talented and they're so good, and it's just, oh, well, let them do it. And you feel like God could not use me. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. Hey, senior citizens, listen to me. You've never been more needed than right now. Your age is a gift. It's a gift not just to you, but to me, and to your pastor, and to these young folks in this. You know what? I gotta say, physically, I don't like getting older. Physically, I can feel the ship sinks a little bit more every year. But mentally, I love it. I love it. I feel that I can see the world with such clarity now, compared to when I was 20 or 30 or even in my early 40s. I love it. And I'm telling you, your wisdom and your counsel and your encouragement and your shepherding disposition. This is a generation of young people that are craving, you know what they're craving? They're craving you. And you might think, well, I don't, you know, I don't dress and I don't have, you don't have to. You can wear dad jeans. You can be a total dork. And I'm just telling you, this is a generation of people that are parched and famished for older folks to pour their lives into them. Don't try to be something you're not. Be exactly who you are, because that is one thing about this generation. They can sniff out something that's not authentic a mile away and they don't want anything to do with it. They just want real. They won't reel. And that means, guess what? You've never been more useful than you are right now. Some people have an inferiority complex for various reasons. It might be different from person to purpose, but you feel like I God can't use me. I say to you, you're exactly the kind of people that God tends to use. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Consider your calling, brothers, not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. But God has chosen the foolish things of this world, the weak things of this world, the despised things of this world, the things that are nothing. God has chosen the nothings and the nobodies. The very people that think I don't bring anything to the table. And you want to know the truth? You don't. Because it's not about you and your gifting, it's not about you and your contributions, about the Holy Spirit of God grabbing a hold of your life and using you. Now, some people have an inferiority complex, and other people have the opposite problem. They have a superiority complex. Look at what the Bible says here. Verse 21. The eye, go back to the eye. The eye's already been spoken of. Remember, the ear felt inferiority to the eye? Well, the eye evidently has a superiority to everybody else. The eye, verse 21, cannot say to the hand. Wait a minute, the hand was one of the good guys. The hand was one of the really useful people, but evidently the eye thinks himself to be even more important than the hand. Wow. The eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you. Or again, the head, that's pretty important. The head cannot say to the feet, I don't need you. This basic rudimentary function. Look, I twice in the last year and a half I've had a pretty significant injury. Last year I blew my knee up, ended with a big blood clot in my leg, ended up hospital for five days in ICU. My bowel shut down. It was brutal. It was awful. For two and a half to three months, I couldn't walk. I was in a wheelchair and on a scooter and all this stuff. And man, let me tell you something. I was reminded of feet. Yeah, it might seem rudimentary, but lose it for a second and watch how radically inconvenient your whole life is. And if you're gonna break your leg or something like that, don't break your right leg. Because then you can't even drive. My goodness. Well, then this year I break my leg. Broke both bones. I'm wearing a little splint today because of it. I still limp. This was almost five months ago. And man, there I was again on crutches. I couldn't, man. I couldn't do anything like go to the refrigerator and make a sandwich without my wife. I mean, I'd go to the refrigerator, I'd get the baloney out because I love baloney, by the way. I mean, where's it gone? We need to bring this back. Anyway, I grabbed the baloney, but I got crutches. I can't carry the baloney. Chuck the baloney across the room to the counter and it falls off, and then I go to the pantry and get the bread and chuck the bread, you know. That's what I'm doing. Or I'm saying, Tara, for three and a half to four months. It's oh, and I I need these. You might think of yourself as being inferior, but you are needed. And the eye now, the big shot eye that everybody looks into and comments about has drawn the impression about itself that I am more important than all the rest of you. And there are some people in the body of Christ that think that way. I've been a member of this church for 50 years. Without my tithe, the church wouldn't dot dot dot. Praise God, you've been here for 50 years. Yes, be obedient with your tithe. And my point to you, Mr. or Mrs. Superiority Complex this morning. My point to you is not to say you're not needed. No, the whole point is to say everybody's needed. The point is to say, check your heart. Because if I've learned anything, I've learned this. God doesn't actually have to have me. First church I ever pastored, I was check this out. I was 23 years old. They asked me later, like, would you be our pastor? And I said, no. They said, why not? I said, I'm 23. I don't know anything about that. Anyway, long story short, I ended up becoming their pastor. And uh so there I was pastoring about halfway through, I knew for sure that the Lord was leading me away. They needed a pastor, somebody that could do more than just preach sermons. They needed a real pastor. I needed to focus on school because I really felt the Lord calling me into academics, and so I needed to focus on that. And so for six months I wrestled with God and I wrestled with them, but here's why. There were only about 35 people that came to a church service. There were about four big families, and they made up probably 30 of the 35 people. And these people, praise God for this, they loved me. And I love them. They love me a lot. And they would say things to me like, Preacher, we love your preaching. Say, Thank you. We love your we can't stand deacon so-and-so. And we, these facilities are a dump. And the worship is terrible, but we come to church for your preaching. This is what they'd say to me. I say, Wow. And they'd say things like, in fact, if you weren't the pastor here, we would not be here. And that's like the 30 of the 35 people. This is the money giving in the plate. So, guess what I did? I formed the impression of myself that if I leave, this church will close its doors. And so for six months, God's prodding my heart. It's time, Jamie. It's time. And I'm arguing back with God as the brilliant 23-year-old version of myself. God, you just don't understand. If I leave, this church closes its doors. That's genuinely what I thought. I thought in the time I was being humble about it, but I genuinely thought that. And so you know how this goes? The Lord always wins, always wins. So eventually he wore me down and I submit. But when I submitted and said, okay, I'll leave, here was my, here's how I prayed it. Okay, God, I'll leave, but just so you and me both know, this means this church dying. And so I preached my last sermon, cried my heart out, drove off the parking lot that last night. I was so upset, because I did love these people, and they did love me too. I was so upset that Tara had to drive. And I remember weeping as we pulled out of the parking lot, and I watched the church go out of my window's view, and I turned to my wife and I said to her, that church will be dead in three months. Fast forward about a year and a half, they're running about 185. And I learned that it is actually, and I'm speaking to the superiority complex people. Look, because if I have a problem, it's this one. You know, I didn't ask for this, but I've spent most of my life in moments just like this lights shining on me, people sitting down listening to me, one of these goofy things strapped over my ears so you can hear me. And you stand in that moment long enough, you just kind of start to form this impression. And so I speak to you, Mr. or Mrs. Superiority Complex. And the point is not to say stop coming. The point is not to say stop giving. The point is they check your heart. Because I've learned, yes, God, it's a privilege. Just this morning, as I was about to walk up here, I just stopped for a minute and just kind of remembered. Being that 18-year-old kid, the night that I came to faith is the moment that I surrendered my life to ministry. I knew that night that I was called. Think about that kid, broken kid from a broken home. I got arrested twice when I was in high school for drugs and alcohol, and I failed two grades because I couldn't read. And God placed that call on my life. And now, 30 some years later, 31 years later, to look back through the history of God's faithfulness, just what a profound honor it is to get to do this, right? But I cannot have the impression that I'm the essential one here. I'm the only thing that's necessary here. No, no, no, no. Every single one of us fits and belongs, and every single one of us is essential. So let me just speak to you all broadly for just a second. I don't know who you are. I don't have a crystal ball in your life. I don't understand the psychology behind what causes you to really not roll up your sleeves and now pour it into this place and into these people and serve God with all of your heart. I don't know what's causing you to not do that, but I beg you as your brother. I beg you as your brother, both for the glory and honor of our God who loves us through Jesus Christ, and for your own flourishing. I'm telling you there's life in it. So why not? Roll up those sleeves, give it all, pour it all out for God like this, and say, you know what? I want to be more than a mere shower upper. Make one more point very quickly. We all fit in the body, we all have an essential function within the body. And then the last one, just real quick, we all must protect the body. On the contrary, verse 22, those parts of the body which are weaker are indispensable. And those parts of the body which we consider to be lesser, we clothe them with greater honor. Verse 24, right in the middle. Instead, God, listen to this, has put the body together, giving greater honor to the less honorable. Verse 25, so that there would be no divisions in the body. This is what it's supposed to look like. We'd have the same concern for each other. End of verse 25. Verse 26. If one member suffers, all suffer with it. And if one member is honored, we all rejoice with it. That's what it's supposed to look like. But do you catch that statement? God has worked this way so that there won't be divisions amongst us. You know, we tend to think of divisiveness, and there's always that number or person or group of persons in any group of people that gathers, not just churches. There are those people that just seem to want to cause division. Most of the time, people that are divisive don't see divisiveness as sinful. Worse, most divisive people actually think that they're doing God a favor here. I'm in the right, I'm doing something noble, doing something good. No, you're actually doing something that according to Galatians 5, and I'm about to say something real strong and heavy, but hear me. According to Galatians 5, divisiveness is in the same category as witchcraft. So you want to go home today and play with a Ouija board? I doubt it. And yet, in the body, being a divisive person, stirring the divisive pot, it's satanic. Plain and simple. So, how about this? Don't do that. It's that simple. Don't do that. I said, Why do I say that about Galatians? You got the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness. 5, 22, and 23. But before that, he's juxtaposing fruit of the spirit with what he calls the works of the flesh. And really what he Showing is that this is what it looks like to be filled with the Spirit of God, and this is what it looks like to be filled essentially with evil forces. And there's a big long list in the works of the flesh, and big long list, but you can kind of break it into three big groups. This work of the flesh is characterized by sexual perversion, heresies teaching false doctrine, and divisiveness. Yeah. It's in the same category as sexual divisiveness. It's in the same category as heresy. It's, I mean, look, guys, this is not how you want to spend your life. Most people, though, they think it's not a sin and they think, I'm actually doing God a favor. No, no, no, this is a big problem. So what do you take away from this? Real simple. The body of Christ is a place where every single one of you, no matter where you've been, what you've done, you belong to it. In the body of Christ, every single one of you, doesn't matter who you are, has a unique offering unto the Lord that quite frankly only you can give. Why not roll up your sleeves, commit your life to say, I'm going to give that to the Lord? And if you do that, I can't promise you your life's gonna be perfect, but I can promise you this your life will be glorifying to God, and your life will flourish and you'll find joy in it. And then thirdly, look, protect. Protect the unit. You got, as I said at the beginning of this, y'all, I know I've only been here like a quick minute, but it doesn't take long to just walk into a room and see a people and say, Yep, there's a lot of problems here, or yep, there's a lot of good things going on here. I'm telling you, you got a good thing going. Protect it, invest in it, give yourself to it, and the Lord's blessings will be with you.