PEOPLE CONNECTIONS, PART 6: THE BODY

1 Corinthians 12:12-30 (NASB)
David Bruce Linn, Pastor-Teacher
12 June 2005
All Rights Reserved

The story which follows is about a soldier in World War II named Max whose buddy was just killed in a firefight.

1. FIGHTING BY FAITH

The sarge ducked back reflexively as a bullet pinged off the brick at the edge of the window, showering his face with dust and bits of red stone. He blinked to clear his eyes and groaned. There was not much to be done at this point in the battle. The LT had ordered them to hold their position on either side of the main street of the French village against a small but annoyingly persistent number of the enemy. All day long they had pinged bullets off gaping door and window frames at each other, never advancing but never falling back. If a normal firefight was like having the flu, this one was just a low grade fever.

Sarge looked over to the three-story stone building across the street. It had once been an attractive cafe with apartments upstairs, but now was a smoking ruin. Its stone walls made excellent cover as did the brick walls of the building where sarge was holed up with half of the platoon. Sarge knew where every man in his platoon was--every man except one. He could take roll call in his own building simply by running up and down the stairs and calling out names. He kept tabs on the far side of the street by studying the windows and doors. Every so often a soldier would pop out, fire a shot, and then pull back. By a process of elimination, Sarge could locate the position of every man in the platoon--almost.

They had entered the village in practiced formation, moving in spurts with stationary men giving covering fire while others ran. Every building was a potential nest of enemy soldiers. Sarge and the LT directed the movement with silent hand signals and the occasional loud whisper. They had met little resistance until the Rue de Montmarte, and then they could go no farther. He remembered how veteran infantryman Max had dragged himself along like a kid forced to play football against his will. Max had refused to give cover fire when ordered, and he ran along with the others in a half-hearted way. When they deployed in the two sturdy buildings Max had ducked in across the street. That was six o'clock that morning, and the sarge had not seen him since.

As the day dragged on Sarge had time to think about Max's uncharacteristic behavior. It was just a few weeks ago when Max had to be restrained from killing everything in sight. Sarge had seen the effects of war on men before. Max, always a good soldier, was starting to become an uncontrolled killing machine. Sarge remembered how he had stopped him from shooting cows in a field, speaking as one veteran to another: "Stand down, soldier. These cows are not our strategic target for today." Max had looked at Sarge without blinking or lowering his weapon for a long minute, and then walked off down the road without saying a word.

And now Max was acting as if he was in a dream where other people were responsible to do all the fighting--like he didn't care if he lived or died. Sarge studied the windows on the adjoining building and said under his breath: "This is a death spiral. Someone's going to get killed." When darkness finally fell on their day-long engagement, Sarge whispered to the corporal who had shared the window with him: "Cover me." With a series of rifle blasts Sarge ran across the street in a zigzag pattern and dived into the darkness of the open door.

The sarge accosted the first man inside the door: "Where's Max?"

"Second floor. Been sittin' there all day."

Sarge bounded up the stairs and found him in a moment. He sat down next to him like nothing was wrong--like they were back at the base sitting on a bench outside the barracks instead of pinned down in a firefight. "Smoke?" Sarge offered the pack to Max who looked back with hollow eyes.

"There comes a time, Maxy, to fight by faith. We've got reasons to be angry about the enemy, and we can fight for a long time on the wings of outrage. But what do we do when the outrage burns away? Can't fight on ashes. Time comes to fight because it's the right thing to do. Because the people in the next village could easily have been your own momma or kid sister. Because we swore an oath. Because even if we don't care if we die, other people care if they do. Your buddies are counting on you to hold up your end. I know you think Lew got shot in the head because of you, but Lew got killed because there's a war on. Could easily have been you."

Sarge pulled a fresh clip of ammo out of Max's belt pouch, slammed it into Max's empty rifle, and handed it to him. "Cover me, Max. I'm not going to ask anyone else to do it. If you don't, I'll be dead before I cross the street. I'm countin' on you, buddy." In a flash the sarge bounded down the steps, went out the door without hesitation, and disappeared into the darkness.

[The complete story is called Boxer and Patch and is available on www.breakfree.org.]

2. THE FORGING OF PEOPLE CONNECTIONS IN THE BODY OF CHRIST

What exactly is the nature of our connection, person to person, in the church? The soldiers in a military platoon have a relationship defined by the organization of their army. They are neither a family nor a business, and neither are they a political unit. They often bond based on mutual sufferings in war and on achievements together. But the church is different from any other human organization. Paul the Apostle gave an extensive explanation of this to the church he planted in Corinth because they were having so much trouble understanding it: "For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:12-13).

God's word says that every genuinely believing individual in the church has been forged together into a spiritual unity by the Holy Spirit. Their personal characteristics are all overtopped by the new central reality of becoming members of Christ's body. Later in this same chapter Paul wrote: "And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it" (1 Corinthians 12:26). This unity in Christ makes us potentially either the most efficient group on earth or the least. When we are moving harmoniously in Christ we are the picture of elegant power. The same people connection means that if we act disobediently we become the picture of pathetic paralysis.

When we impact just one believer positively we generate a ripple effect which blesses the whole group. If we influence one believer negatively we sweep spiritual weakness across the whole body in some way which can never be totally defined. That means that our efforts are multiplied in their effect on the people who make up the body of Christ. If you and I are accustomed to criticizing others in our families or the sewing or gun club, we tend to think it's no problem--everyone just tolerates it. We know it is bad but we keep doing it because it makes us feel superior. The group seems to keep functioning in spite of our negative influence.

That logic does not work with the church because believers are forged into a dynamic spiritual unity by the Holy Spirit of God. Note that in this passage the phrase "by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body" refers to the work of the Spirit in our lives at the moment we repent and believe in Christ, not a work of special empowering. This is a sovereign act of God to bind us all together in Christ. What affects one affects all, so a decision to act positively blesses many more people than we know, and a decision to act negatively harms more people than we can calculate. It is, in fact, possible to shut down church growth simply by the way we treat each other

In other passages Paul describes Christ as the head of the body but in this passage he describes him as the entire body. When we trust Christ we are in him. That means that every positive or negative thing we say or do toward someone in the church impacts Christ himself. Jesus explained to his disciples that when he judges people at the end of the age they will be shocked to discover that the way they treated his people is the way that they treated him: "Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.' Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me'" (Matthew 25:34-40).

This is a mind-blowing reality which goes beyond any other group on earth! Every word and action done toward the body of Christ affects him and all the other people involved. If that is that case, we must look to our behavior with great care.

3. HOW TO THINK ABOUT PEOPLE IN THE BODY OF CHRIST

As a young unsaved man I found it very easy to shape the character of my relationships. I was not the sort of person who "suffered fools gladly," as Shakespeare said. I found it very easy to eject people from my fellowship by saying something hurtful or vile to them. I also was the sort who simply left any group which did not please me at the moment. The passage we are studying goes on to explain that we need to think very differently about the fellowship of the body of Christ: "For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot says, 'Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,' it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. And if the ear says, 'Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body,' it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?" (1 Corinthians 12:14-17).

This is the person who is either discouraged about where God has placed him or her in the body of Christ or else is simply displeased with the group and wants to leave. The reverse scenario is described in verse 21: "And the eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you'; or again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you'" (1 Corinthians 12:21). Sometimes the church acts as if some people are dispensable. If they are not doing what we want, or if they do not have gifts which we think are important, we try to make them go away.

The Lord rebukes both of these scenarios: "But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body" (1 Corinthians 12:18-20). If you don't like your exact spot in the body of Christ, remember that God has placed you right where you are. If you don't appreciate where someone else is placed in the body, remember that he or she is right where God put them. We cannot all be superstars, neither can every church be super-dynamic in the human sense. The reality is that God gathered a bunch of sin-fouled, broken people with no hope, rinsed them off and gave them his Holy Spirit. We are all works in progress and it is that very work of God in us as individuals and as a group that is our most precious possession.

Because the church is a living thing the rejection of others is tantamount to amputation of a body part. Broken relationships cause trauma, loss of function, pain, and bleeding. Just as an amputation threatens a human body, enough broken relationships can kill a local church. There may even be enough people to sustain the church organization but there may be simply too much spiritual bleeding to recover. We should fight to prevent and heal broken relationships in Christ's church as zealously as we would try to prevent or treat the amputation of a part of our physical body.

4. CARING FOR PEOPLE IN THE BODY OF CHRIST

Paul then gives the Corinthians a list of ways to care for our people connections in the body of Christ. He begins by telling us to affirm the importance of every person in the body: "On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary" (1 Corinthians 12:22). This should be done in both word and deed. We must never treat anyone as if they do not matter, and we must make special efforts to encourage those who need it more.

Secondly, Paul tells us to give special honor in the church to those who have less honor in the earthly sense: "...And those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no need of it. But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked..." (1 Corinthians 12:23-24). Some people are automatically going to receive more honor because of their talents and spiritual gifts. We need to make sure that we do not leave that scenario in place. We all need to be watching out for those on the short end of the stick. "All are not apostles" but all should be blessed to be members.

Thirdly, Paul tells us to refuse to be enemies with members of Christ's body: "...So that there may be no division in the body..." (1 Corinthians 12:25a). This is not a card game, a sport, politics, or even business where breaking up into teams can be taken with a grain of salt. The body of Christ is the holiest unity in the universe. One of the saddest aspects of church growth in recent years has been the willingness to speak evil of some other branch of the church in order to get people to leave that branch and join your own. The whole point of this verse is that there are no branches which matter to God! I do not say that there are not issues of great importance to be worked out, such as Bible translations, proper dress, style of worship, philosophy of ministry, and systematic theology, but these are to be worked out as one big team with variations rather than warring factions.

Finally, through Paul the Lord commands us to keep a steady, unwavering, unconditional love for one another in the body with no exceptions: "...But that the members may have the same care for one another" (1 Corinthians 12:25b). There must be no favoritism or breaking point in our love for one another short of the rejection of Christ by word or deed.

If you are not shocked and challenged to your core by these commands to care for people in the body of Christ then you are not paying attention. This is perhaps the hardest thing we do and it is the mark by which others will identify that we are members of the true church, the body of Christ, which takes its marching orders and empowerment from the head.

CONCLUSION: Max, from the story in our introduction, had no appreciation for how his unwillingness to fight put his platoon in danger. He was depressed and traumatized by the horrors of war, but members of his squad were going to die if he did not choose to fight. The body of Christ is in a war as well, and no one of us has the right to check out of the fight. The whole body will suffer if we do. The sarge knew that he could not leave Max in that condition, so he took his life in his hands to give him some human comfort and words of encouragement. Then the sarge put his own life in Max's hands to shake him from his funk. Each of us in the body of Christ needs to be alert to those who are sagging, go to them, and do whatever is necessary to build them up. Love requires no less. The body of Christ is the most important set of people connections we will ever have. Let's act like it.