SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, good morning.
SPEAKER_01: Like Neil said earlier, uh, my name is Jeff.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the student pastor here at Grand Parkway.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't get to hang out with you guys in the in the 10 o'clock service often as I'm out in the warehouse with our students.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and later in the third service, we're actually gonna spend a few moments in praying over our graduates and their families and just having a moment for for them in the in the service.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but today um we're gonna look at uh a straightforward passage that I think has some profound implications for the way that we're gonna do life and the way that we do church.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and so Paul, Paul writes a letter to his friends in Corinth.
SPEAKER_01: When he was writing the letter, he's an Ephesus.
SPEAKER_01: Um and so if you're here this morning and you're not a big fan of Christians or you're not a big fan of the church, you're probably really gonna like Paul.
SPEAKER_01: Because before Paul was known as Paul, he was known as Saul.
SPEAKER_01: And as Saul, he was a Pharisee, which meant he was all about following the rules and making sure you followed the rules too, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So the Saul was such a good Pharisee that he uh he held the coats of the men who were going to pick up the rocks and stone Stephen, who's the first martyr.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe this is in uh Acts chapter 7.
SPEAKER_01: Another familiar story uh with Saul is on his road to Damascus.
SPEAKER_01: And Saul is riding his donkey, and he's on the way to Damascus.
SPEAKER_01: He has some letters uh giving him permission from the rulers in Jerusalem to go to Damascus to persecute the church, to destroy the church there.
SPEAKER_01: And so as he's on his way, uh he's blinded by a bright light.
SPEAKER_01: Uh he's kicked off of his donkey, and then he hears the audible voice of Jesus say to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
SPEAKER_01: And in that moment, his life is forever changed.
SPEAKER_01: Partly because he goes from Saul to Paul, but mostly because he goes from trying to destroy the church to trying to build the church, and he goes around the known world at that time, planting and starting new churches.
SPEAKER_01: So we find Saul, or I'm sorry, we find Paul on his second missionary journey.
SPEAKER_01: He's just left Athens.
SPEAKER_01: He's now in Corinth, and he'll be heading to Ephesus next.
SPEAKER_01: So he's in Corinth, which is a pretty strategic city in southern Greece.
SPEAKER_01: It's strategic because it sits on a narrow strip of land between two different seas, which gives it control of two ports, which means it controls the trade for north and south and for east and west.
SPEAKER_01: People that would move to Corinth moved there for a fresh start.
SPEAKER_01: Corinth was one of those cities, it was a city of dreams.
SPEAKER_01: It was a place where if you could make it in Corinth, you can make it anywhere.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Corinth, even though it was in Greece, was very much a Roman city, which meant that they would fight tooth and nail to climb over each other to get one rung higher on the social ladder.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so that's starting to make its way into the church there in Corinth.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but Corinth could also get pretty wild at times.
SPEAKER_01: You have the the the trading culture, you have the Roman culture, you have the different religions that are mixing together.
SPEAKER_01: Um and they had some some Olympic games uh every other spring that were kind of like um Woodstock and the Olympics as we know it, plus the Daytona 500, kind of all wrapped up into one.
SPEAKER_01: So you can imagine that, right?
SPEAKER_01: So that means that uh that that Mardi Gras and Spring Break combined may were like a kid's party to what would happen in Corinth.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Um so, like I said, there was there were there were there was a religious culture there in Corinth.
SPEAKER_01: They had tipples to Poseidon and Aphrodite and Apollo, there was a Jewish synagogue.
SPEAKER_01: Um there's a little bit of a rivalry in Corinth at this time because of Paul.
SPEAKER_01: Um we we Paul goes and like he always does and begins to preach and teach at the synagogues.
SPEAKER_01: Well, they didn't like that.
SPEAKER_01: And so they actually tried to get him killed and beaten and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul, um, I think he had probably has a great sense of humor.
SPEAKER_01: Because he planted the church right next door to the synagogue.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And one of the first converts in Corinth was a former leader of that synagogue.
SPEAKER_01: And so this morning, after planting the church in Corinth, Paul goes to Ephesus.
SPEAKER_01: They send him a letter asking him some questions about some different things, and so Paul responds to them and answers their questions and addresses some of those issues, one of which is going to be spiritual gifts.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So this morning will be in 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and anytime in the in the book of 1 Corinthians, you come across the phrase now concerning.
SPEAKER_01: Just remember this: that Paul is switching gears.
SPEAKER_01: He's changing topics, he's addressing a new subject.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what happens here in chapter 12, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: He says, now concerning.
SPEAKER_01: And so we know that Paul is shifting gears, and for the next couple chapters, for chapters 12, 13, and 14, he's going to talk about the spiritual gifts.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Now, in the first 11 verses of chapter 12, Paul kind of lays the foundation for everything that's going to follow.
SPEAKER_01: And he's in talking about spiritual gifts, he says that God is the source of it all, that spiritual gifts are given for the common good, and that spiritual gifts are assigned as he wills, as God wills.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a phrase I want us to remember this morning, as he wills.
SPEAKER_01: Um, because our giftedness is not sourced from our talents and abilities, but by God's grace and the Holy Spirit's power.
SPEAKER_01: So Paul transitions in chapter 12 and begins to give the Corinthians a picture of what this is going to look like.
SPEAKER_01: How in the world can we take all these different people and all these different cultures, all these different giftings, and make them into one, one team, one body?
SPEAKER_01: And so we we start in verse 12 of chapter of chapter 12 in 1 Corinthians, and I'll read that to you to the end of the chapter.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and all were made to drink of one spirit.
SPEAKER_01: For the body does not consist of one member, but of many.
SPEAKER_01: And 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 a part of the body.
SPEAKER_01: And if the ear should say, Well, because I'm not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body.
SPEAKER_01: If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing?
SPEAKER_01: If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?
SPEAKER_01: But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.
SPEAKER_01: If all were a single member, where would the where would be the body?
SPEAKER_01: As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
SPEAKER_01: Because the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.
SPEAKER_01: 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 but we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: If one member suffers, all suffer together.
SPEAKER_01: If one member is honored, all rejoice together.
SPEAKER_01: Now, you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.
SPEAKER_01: And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, and miracles and gifts of healing, helping and ministrating in various kinds of tongues.
SPEAKER_01: Are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers, do all work miracles, do all possess gifts of healing, do all speak with tongues, do all interpret, but earnestly desire the higher gifts, and I will show you still a more excellent way.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul starts off in verse 12 with a very familiar image to the Corinthians, and one that's even familiar to us today because he uses the image of a body because it's it's many members make up one part.
SPEAKER_01: And we use this language today still when we talk about the student body at a particular school.
SPEAKER_01: Um so it's whether it's 2,000 students or 800 students, or if you grew up in a really small town, like 300 students, um, however many students are in that body, they come together and make one body.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: We talk about the congressional body in Washington, D.C., which is made up of all the congressmen and the senators.
SPEAKER_01: Um they come together in the House and the Senate, and that forms the congressional body.
SPEAKER_01: We're not going to comment on our opinions on them this morning, though, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Um so uh the we talk about somebody's body of work.
SPEAKER_01: We talk about an actor like Tom Hanks, or uh a director like Steven Spielberg, or a musician like George Strait, whose body of work is far more impressive than Florida Georgia Lyon or Luke Bryan.
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm right because I have the microphone this morning, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Now, Paul was brilliant at taking a cultural common point and using it to illustrate a theological truth.
SPEAKER_01: He did this in Acts chapter 17 in Athens when he went to the market and saw a temple and saw an altar to an unknown God.
SPEAKER_01: And he's doing that now with the Corinthians, taking a very common illustration that was used in political debates and even in some of the pagan worship there in Corinth, and using it to illustrate the theological truth of how so many different people can come together and form one body.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul says the body functions as a unit, and so so does the church.
SPEAKER_01: I'll take a minute because Paul talks about many members and one body.
SPEAKER_01: I'll take just a few minutes and talk about the number one.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: When you hear the number one, I want you to think of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: And you may be wondering, well, why in the world am I thinking about the Trinity when you say the number one?
SPEAKER_01: Because there's three people in the Trinity, and it's it's all that kind of stuff, right?
SPEAKER_01: But here's the deal is that oftentimes in the Bible, when we read the number one, it's talking about individual parts coming together to make one whole, make one unit.
SPEAKER_01: And so we have God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit coming together to make the Godhead.
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's just like what God commanded Adam and Eve in the garden saying that two shall become one flesh.
SPEAKER_01: Two individuals coming together to make one unit.
SPEAKER_01: It's like what Moses said to the nation of Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 6 when he says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_01: It's what Paul is saying now with the church, that the church is one, is a unified whole.
SPEAKER_01: And so we take that idea of one and we contrast that with the idea of many.
SPEAKER_01: And that many is disjointed.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's chaotic.
SPEAKER_01: And Corinth it was very self-seeking.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul is contrasting those two ideas and says, just as our physical body is a whole unit, so too is the church.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 13, it tells us exactly how Paul can even say that and not be thought that he's and let's not think he's crazy.
SPEAKER_01: I want to read part of that to you again.
SPEAKER_01: It says, We were all baptized into one body.
SPEAKER_01: And the past tense here shows that he is referring to what happens once to an individual.
SPEAKER_01: And then later on in verse 13 he says, and all were made to drink of one spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And the word all there shows us that it has happened to every Christian.
SPEAKER_01: And so this tells us that there are no Christians that do not have the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Because at conversion, the Christian is united to the body by the Spirit and is given the Spirit to drink.
SPEAKER_01: And the image that Paul uses here is both external and internal because the spirit works on believers to unite them to the body, and it works in them as an ongoing source of life and nourishment.
SPEAKER_01: Now, as we talk this morning, we need to remember that as Paul talks about unity, we need to remember that he's not saying uniformity.
SPEAKER_01: There is a difference between unity and uniformity.
SPEAKER_01: Unity is this picture of a group of people coming together for a common goal or task.
SPEAKER_01: Uniformity means that we're all exactly the same and identical.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: That there's no diversity, which is where Paul takes the discussion next in verse 14 to the diversity of the church.
SPEAKER_01: I think Paul would even say that diversity is essential for unity.
SPEAKER_01: Now think about this.
SPEAKER_01: The most dynamic evangelistic power of the gospel comes when the world is forced to sit up and take notice that in the church, people are loving each other in ways in which the world cannot account for.
SPEAKER_01: So because we are many parts, it makes us one body.
SPEAKER_01: But in that we also have different gifts and abilities.
SPEAKER_01: Paul tells us that we cannot that nobody can function as all I or all nose or all thumbs, or because we're Baptists, all left feet.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says that we don't look at that we don't need to look at someone else's gift and think, I wish.
SPEAKER_01: I wish I had that.
SPEAKER_01: I wish I could sing like Lindsay.
SPEAKER_01: I wish I could teach like Neil.
SPEAKER_01: I wish I could be as outgoing as a coworker.
SPEAKER_01: We don't need to look at someone else's gifting and think, man, I wish I had that.
SPEAKER_01: Which is not what I did in high school.
SPEAKER_01: I played football, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Um I was a left tackle, which means I never touched the ball.
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: Never got my name called on this on the PA system unless I missed a block and the quarterback got tackled.
SPEAKER_01: Um, never got my picture in the paper, anything like that.
SPEAKER_01: I wanted, I wanted to be a running back so bad that I would walk by my coach's office every day.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, every day, would go out of my way to walk by his classroom and just say, hey, coach, you can put me in at running back today and do a little Heisman pose?
SPEAKER_01: And he would look at me and just go, no.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, come on, coach, the other teams are doing it.
SPEAKER_01: We would watch film from other teams in our district that we would play, and they had they had um in short uh yardage situations and goal line situations, they would put an offensive lineman in a running back and actually give him the ball.
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, coach, that is the best strategy I've ever heard in my life for football.
SPEAKER_01: We need to do that, and I'm your man, right?
SPEAKER_01: But he knew better.
SPEAKER_01: He knew better.
SPEAKER_01: He knew that the best thing for the team was if I was a left tackle.
SPEAKER_01: That if I did my job protecting the guys in the backfield, we could move down the field as a unit, as one body, and accomplish the goal of getting a touchdown.
SPEAKER_01: Because no part is without value or importance.
SPEAKER_01: The lack of a particular gift does not make you any less a member of that body.
SPEAKER_01: The fact that I can't run fast, the fact that I couldn't tackle, which is why I was on the offensive line, not the defensive line, did not make me any less a member of the team.
SPEAKER_01: When we won district, we all won district.
SPEAKER_01: And so in verse 18, Paul says, But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose, or as he wills.
SPEAKER_01: And so, in one way or another, Paul has said something to the effect of as he wills, three different times.
SPEAKER_01: When he says something along those lines, what I want you to think about, I want you to think about the idea of divine intentionality.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what I mean is if God took such care and detail and order into account in Genesis chapter 1, when he created the heavens and the earth, when he created everything that we know from nothing, then why would he not do the same thing with the church?
SPEAKER_01: Which is the one thing meant to show the world what he's like.
SPEAKER_01: So when you read those phrases of divine intentionality, I want you to think, as he planned and as he designed, and I want you to know that he's not winging it.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about if you have an upfront gift or behind the scenes gift.
SPEAKER_01: It's about the gifts you've been given.
SPEAKER_01: Um sorry, it's not about the gifts you've been given, but how you're using your giftedness.
SPEAKER_01: It's about how faithful are you in using your gift to the glory of God and for the good of the church.
SPEAKER_01: And before Paul moves on in verses 19 and 20, he some he gives a short summary just to make sure everybody's still tracking with him on the same page, and he says, if we're all the same, then we wouldn't be, then we wouldn't be a body.
SPEAKER_01: You'd just be a group of identical parts.
SPEAKER_01: And so from the diversity, sorry, from the unity to the diversity and now to the connectivity of the church, what I want you to do for just a minute is I want you to go back to your freshman high school biology class, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Are you there?
SPEAKER_01: You smell the the dead rat you had to dissect.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah?
SPEAKER_01: Almost threw up.
SPEAKER_01: It's a totally different story, though, alright?
SPEAKER_01: I digress.
SPEAKER_01: So think about the connectivity of your own body.
SPEAKER_01: Did you know that your nerves send impulses back to your brain in excess of 170 miles an hour?
SPEAKER_01: Which is why it hurts immediately when you smash your thumb with a hammer or get out of bed in the morning and stub your toe, right?
SPEAKER_01: Um, think about your bones, how they're made to hold and to form our skeleton and our structure so that we don't look like job of the hutt.
SPEAKER_01: Um, there are 72 different muscles that have to work in harmony at the same time for us to be able to talk.
SPEAKER_01: 72 muscles.
SPEAKER_01: And the way that God has designed our muscles and our bodies, muscles work in pairs, and so when one muscle is relaxed, the opposite muscle is contracted.
SPEAKER_01: So Paul says that we can't look at someone's gift and say to them, I don't need you.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want you.
SPEAKER_01: We have we have no use of you.
SPEAKER_01: We can't say those things, which is hard for us because we live in a culture that idolizes individualism.
SPEAKER_01: We love the stories of self-made man, the self-made billionaire, how they grabbed life by the bootstraps and and made a made a name for themselves.
SPEAKER_01: We love those stories.
SPEAKER_01: We love, we we we use words like phrases like, I got this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna do what I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do it my way.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the thing is that the sin of autonomy is an attitude that Paul finds foreign for believers then and now.
SPEAKER_01: And ultimately, we cannot say that I have no need of you because we were created in the image of God, who is existed for eternity in perfect community as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So if the church is meant to represent God on earth, then for us to say, I have no need of you, is at least unbiblical.
SPEAKER_01: At the very least, that's an unbiblical thing for us to say.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Paul goes, takes it a step further and says, we can't say things like that because the opposite is true.
SPEAKER_01: It's like there are no lone ranger Christians.
SPEAKER_01: If you remember your high school English class, no man is an island unto himself.
SPEAKER_01: Those gifts and people that you think less of, in reality, they're indispensable.
SPEAKER_01: We can't do life without them.
SPEAKER_01: We need people who make coffee.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Whether it's here on Sundays or it's Starbucks or wherever you get your coffee.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's your spouse.
SPEAKER_01: We just need we need people who make coffee.
SPEAKER_01: We need people who rock babies.
SPEAKER_01: We need people who love to teach middle school boys.
SPEAKER_01: Man, they laughed at that in the first service too.
SPEAKER_01: Why are you guys laughing at that?
SPEAKER_01: You get used to the smell of axe body spray and cheap cologne.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: I promise.
SPEAKER_01: I've I heard if you really want to get a taste of it, go come to camp with us.
SPEAKER_01: Because they sweat all day and they uh, anyways.
SPEAKER_01: Um, we need people who love to teach middle school boys.
SPEAKER_01: We need people who know how to run things in the sound booth.
SPEAKER_01: We need behind-the-scenes people because the people that we like to put on display, the folks that are up here on stage, the folks on staff, we are far from the essence of the church.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul says, but God has so composed that there may be no division.
SPEAKER_01: See, we are not the ones who decide which gifts are important or which ones we need, but God does.
SPEAKER_01: And the word composed in the Greek is a very artistic word.
SPEAKER_01: It gives us the imagery of a painter mixing and combining and blending colors to make the right uh color for his art.
SPEAKER_01: It's the idea of a musician composing a harmony.
SPEAKER_01: It's a worker combining elements into a compound.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul says that God has united or blended the members effectively into one body to fulfill his purposes.
SPEAKER_01: And one of those purposes here in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 is that there may be no division.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the word that Paul uses for division here is a very graphic, very, very violent word.
SPEAKER_01: It's not talking about being upset when someone doesn't text you back immediately.
SPEAKER_01: It's not talking about a strained relationship where you don't talk to a family member for months or years.
SPEAKER_01: It talks about literally being ripped apart limb from limb.
SPEAKER_01: So what Paul is saying here is that if we begin to value certain gifts above others, that will literally rip the church apart.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul knows this and he's experiencing this as he's writing a letter to the Corinthians because that is beginning to happen within the church there, because there's a debate, an argument in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 10, where they're trying to figure out who's the better leader?
SPEAKER_01: Is it Paul or is it Peter?
SPEAKER_01: Is it Apollos?
SPEAKER_01: And they're highlighting who they thought was more gifted.
SPEAKER_01: And so the division around who was better was going to rip apart that church.
SPEAKER_01: So Paul takes time to address that and comes along and says, hey guys, it's not Paul, it's not Peter, it's not Apollos, it's God.
SPEAKER_01: That God has so composed the body exactly how he wants it.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't want you to miss verse 26 this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Because in verse 26, Paul tells us that we are interdependent with each other, not independent from each other.
SPEAKER_01: That we are connected.
SPEAKER_01: It talks about the connectivity of the church.
SPEAKER_01: And so, guys, like it or not, we're connected to each other and we need each other.
SPEAKER_01: And as Paul continues in this verse, he says, if one of us suffers, we all suffer.
SPEAKER_01: And so a few days ago when Ziggy unexpectedly went to go home and be with the Lord, we suffered with Sherry and with the family.
SPEAKER_01: And today, as we recognize and honor our graduates and their parents, we rejoice with them.
SPEAKER_01: And that is how we are connected to each other.
SPEAKER_01: And so the greatest picture that we have of interdependence here are community groups.
SPEAKER_01: And that is a very shameless plug because tonight's a community group night.
SPEAKER_01: These are the people who become your people because we believe that life is better together.
SPEAKER_01: And it is the place you go for people who will suffer with you and who will rejoice with you.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul moves to the functionality of the church.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to read verse 27 to you again because there's no more hiding.
SPEAKER_01: Paul hits them right between the eyes.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't pull his punch and he's not doing that with us this morning.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 27, he says, Now, you are the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And individually, members of it.
SPEAKER_01: And if Paul were a Texan, he would say, Y'all.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all are the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And individually you play a part that comes together to make a whole.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's the idea of.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, just look in the mirror.
SPEAKER_01: You are a whole person made up of individual parts.
SPEAKER_01: There are the parts that we see, like our eyes and ears and nose, our hands and fingers and our arms.
SPEAKER_01: But then there are the ones that we don't see: our heart, our lungs, our bones, and our muscles.
SPEAKER_01: And so together we take the parts that we can see with the parts that we cannot see, and we bring them together, and that makes up our whole body.
SPEAKER_01: And as Paul begins to wrap up his discussion in chapter 12, he gives us a short list of different giftings.
SPEAKER_01: And now this is not an exhaustive list of spiritual gifts.
SPEAKER_01: And the way that Paul asks these questions, he expects the answer of no.
SPEAKER_01: So I just want to read them to you again.
SPEAKER_01: And I kind of want to answer them as if Paul were speaking to us.
SPEAKER_01: Are all apostles?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Are all prophets?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Are all teachers?
SPEAKER_01: Paul, we get it.
SPEAKER_01: The answer is no.
SPEAKER_01: Do all work miracles?
SPEAKER_01: Do all possess gifts of healing?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Paul, we get it.
SPEAKER_01: Do all speak with tongues?
SPEAKER_01: Do all interpret?
SPEAKER_01: Well, Paul, the answer is still no.
SPEAKER_01: Why would Paul take such time to ask questions that he already knew the answer to?
SPEAKER_01: And he knew the answer would be no.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's because he's trying to tell us that we're not supposed to be the same.
SPEAKER_01: That we're not supposed to be the same, that we need each other, that because if your whole body were hands, how would you talk?
SPEAKER_01: If your whole body were mouths, how would you listen?
SPEAKER_01: If you were nothing but knees or left feet, how would you how would you see?
SPEAKER_01: And so what does this mean for us today?
SPEAKER_01: I want to start by talking to the students in here.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a student, here's what this means for you today.
SPEAKER_01: It means don't wait to be a functioning member of the body.
SPEAKER_01: Students, one of the things I love about working with students is they have a blessed ignorance about things that forces them to ask questions like, why not?
SPEAKER_01: And why can't we?
SPEAKER_01: And what that does is that challenges those of us who are older to rethink our excuses.
SPEAKER_01: There's a kid named, he's not a kid anymore, he's actually a young adult.
SPEAKER_01: He's named Zach Hunter.
SPEAKER_01: When Zach was 13 years old, he was made aware of the problem of modern-day slavery.
SPEAKER_01: And in his blessed ignorance, he asked himself the question, well, why can't I do something about that?
SPEAKER_01: And so Zach went around his school and collected loose chains from his friends.
SPEAKER_01: And so then he named his campaign and called it Loose Chains to Loosen Chains with the whole purpose of freeing modern-day slaves.
SPEAKER_01: And Zach, and Loose Chains to Loosen Chains, and Zach have partnered together with International Justice Mission, whose sole goal was to eradicate modern-day slavery.
SPEAKER_01: Historically, students have been an integral role in the great revivals and awakenings of the church.
SPEAKER_01: Whether they were the ones to start them or not, they have always played a key role in this.
SPEAKER_01: So we're talking whether it's the Great Awakening or the Second Great Awakening or the Jesus Movement of the 70s or the Welsh Revival or the Student Volunteer Movement.
SPEAKER_01: Students have always had this why can't we?
SPEAKER_01: Why can't we worship Jesus passionately?
SPEAKER_01: Why can't we just tell people about who he is and what he does and the difference he makes in our life?
SPEAKER_01: If you're a senior or graduating here this morning, one of the things I want to say to you specifically is you never graduate from the church.
SPEAKER_01: Today we celebrate your graduation from high school, but not the church.
SPEAKER_01: Today we want to remind you of your commission to go and make disciples.
SPEAKER_01: And I would strongly encourage you to find a new church in your new city as soon as possible.
SPEAKER_01: And as you do that, I want three words to echo in your ears so that you almost get annoyed with me, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Substance over style.
SPEAKER_01: When it comes to looking for a new church, wherever you end up next, substance over style.
SPEAKER_01: Here are a couple of questions in no particular order that may help you know what to look for in a church.
SPEAKER_01: Do they love God?
SPEAKER_01: Do they love people?
SPEAKER_01: Do they preach the Bible?
SPEAKER_01: And how are they making disciples?
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you go off to college, you're going to be drawn towards campus ministries.
SPEAKER_01: And those are good things.
SPEAKER_01: I want to say that again very clearly that campus ministries are good things, but they're not the church.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a difference.
SPEAKER_01: You get involved with a campus ministry, but you get connected to a church.
SPEAKER_01: Campus ministries are not multi-generational.
SPEAKER_01: The church is.
SPEAKER_01: Campus ministries are not eternal.
SPEAKER_01: The church is.
SPEAKER_01: And so there's no silver bullet, there's no magic pill that we know of to get students to stay involved in church after they graduate from high school.
SPEAKER_01: But one key factor, according to research, is intergenerational relationships.
SPEAKER_01: So you can call it whatever you want to.
SPEAKER_01: You can call it discipling, mentoring, apprenticing, or some other word.
SPEAKER_01: The fact remains that when students are connected to adults, and research has even gotten more specific and says that when students are connected to five key adults, that the odds greatly increase that they will have a lasting faith after high school.
SPEAKER_01: So, adults, what does all of this mean for you?
SPEAKER_01: Because you're not getting off the hook this morning.
SPEAKER_01: It means don't wait.
SPEAKER_01: Don't wait to serve.
SPEAKER_01: That God has uniquely designed and gifted you for the common good of the church.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't want you to serve from a place of guilt or because you feel pity on some particular ministry here, but what I want you to do is serve from a place of calling.
SPEAKER_01: We should just serve from a posture of power and not knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: And so the questions would be: what has God gifted you for?
SPEAKER_01: And what is God calling you to?
SPEAKER_01: Because we all know that life is not slowing down.
SPEAKER_01: We know that there's never a convenient time, but I believe there is an obedient time.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I've heard someone say several times since working here that loving people is never convenient.
SPEAKER_01: And serving people is loving them.
SPEAKER_01: And so serving the church is loving people.
SPEAKER_01: So adults don't wait.
SPEAKER_01: Adults don't retire.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they had the same reaction in the first service.
SPEAKER_01: A couple of gas.
SPEAKER_01: Now, stay with me before you want me to boom me off the stage.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: So I think we would all agree that we do not want our seniors to graduate from the church when they graduate from high school.
SPEAKER_01: I think we would all agree on that this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Then for the health of the church, and for the health of our student ministry, adults, we cannot afford for you to retire from the church when you retire from your job.
SPEAKER_01: We need you.
SPEAKER_01: See, I don't think we have enough people with grandbabies and gray hair serving in the student ministry and investing in our students.
SPEAKER_01: And that word choice their hour is very intentional.
SPEAKER_01: Because this is not a me thing, it has to be a we thing.
SPEAKER_01: Because research in the I mean research, I'm not good at math, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I slept through geometry in high school.
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: Math is not my strong suit, but even I know that one is less than five, and that one does not equal five.
SPEAKER_01: And so if research indicates that students need five adults connected in a significant relationship with them to increase the odds they will have a lasting faith after high school, we need you.
SPEAKER_01: Because when I look out at you guys this morning, what I see is I see a sea of experience that our students need.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are engineers and you love math, or you're accountants, or whatever it is, and you just love math.
SPEAKER_01: You think cal can trigger fun, and I think that's weird.
SPEAKER_01: But that's okay.
SPEAKER_01: That's okay because we're not supposed to be the same.
SPEAKER_01: You see how this works?
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: Um, I have students who love math, and I think that's weird too.
SPEAKER_01: I have students who struggle with math, and I identify with that.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so they may need tutoring, and they may just want to talk about equations and stuff that I'm just kind of like, uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01: You're speaking a foreign language to me, right?
SPEAKER_01: I have students who are um who are walking down some dark, lonely roads.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you have been there yourself, and some of you have raised kids who have walked those roads.
SPEAKER_01: And what they need is somebody who loves the Lord, who will walk alongside them, share wisdom and encouragement with them, and remind them that high school is just a blip on the radar screen.
SPEAKER_01: I see a sea of experience that our families need.
SPEAKER_01: For those of you who have older students and are empty nesters, um, I can only imagine what it would mean to a young family for you to go up to them and say, Hey, I remember those days.
SPEAKER_01: Those are good days.
SPEAKER_01: And you're doing a good job.
SPEAKER_01: Keep fighting for your kids.
SPEAKER_01: For those of you that are empty nesters and you see some of our families with high schoolers, I think that same message would be just as powerful to them.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the teenage years are hard.
SPEAKER_01: But you're doing a good job.
SPEAKER_01: Keep pointing them to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So students and adults.
SPEAKER_01: Now you are the body of Christ, and individually, you are members of it.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: God, you are good.
SPEAKER_01: You are the source of it all.
SPEAKER_01: You have gifted us uniquely, and it is for the common good.
SPEAKER_01: Help us to know what you are calling us to.
SPEAKER_01: Whether that's in the community or here at the church or in our neighborhoods or in our families.
SPEAKER_01: That we are connected to each other, that we need each other.
SPEAKER_01: So we'll give you guys some time, some space, just kind of process some things you may have heard this morning.
SPEAKER_02: Walking in the spirit, there's much to be done.
SPEAKER_02: We will come reach out from our comforts, and they will know us by our love, sisters.
SPEAKER_02: We were made for kindness, we can pierce the darkness as he shines through us, we will be reaching with a song of he will know as far the time is now come church love with his head see with his eyes, bind it around you, let it never leave you, and they will know you by your love.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, and they will know you by your love.
SPEAKER_01: Would you guys go ahead and stand up for me, please?
SPEAKER_01: Um, in just a moment when we dismiss, uh, some of our pastors and elders will be down front.
SPEAKER_01: If you want somebody to talk with you or pray with you, we'd love to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I'd like to speak a blessing over you before we leave this morning.
SPEAKER_01: So if you would open, raise your hands.
SPEAKER_01: Your Heavenly Father has uniquely created and gifted you according to his will.
SPEAKER_01: And we are connected to each other through the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So go and make your neighbors scratch their head this week by loving them.
SPEAKER_01: Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.