Reverend Jonathan Waits
Sermon: Membership Matters (1 Corinthians 12)
Date: September 10, 2023
So, the other night we were all sitting around the table eating dinner together, and the subject came up of what the boys are currently learning in school. One of them said that he had been learning about the cell. I still remember sitting in science classes in 8th and 9th grade and learning about all the various parts of the cell. I remember rather distinctly the fact that there are a lot of parts. To be such tiny things, cells are really pretty complicated. They are a work of engineering magic that is absolutely unrivaled by anything we’ve ever created.
We didn’t use to understand this. Used to be, biologists thought cells were just little blobs of goo that really didn’t do very much except to provide the basic structure and framework for an organism. Then we built better microscopes, and discovered there’s a whole world of complexity and function down there that we are only just beginning to grasp. For tiny things, cells are a big deal. Your body is composed of roughly 37 trillion cells of about 200 different types. Any single one of them by itself doesn’t do much and doesn’t seem to matter. After all, what’s one cell out of 37 trillion? But without all of them collectively doing what they do, there would be no you. One part may not seem to make much of a difference by itself, but when you combine that one part with a whole bunch of other parts, some pretty incredible things start to become possible.
Well, this morning we are in the third part of our new teaching series, Nuts and Bolts. Coming out of our summer series looking at Luke’s telling of the story of the church in Acts, we shifted gears a bit from talking about where the church came from to what the church is and how it was designed to work. That’s what this series is all about. Even though many of us have been around the church for a very long time and may feel pretty confident we have the whole thing down pat, getting back to the nuts and bolts of how it works every now and then is a wise thing to do to make sure we are not missing anything important because of our assumed familiarity.
We started out this journey by talking about what the church is at a big picture level. We reflected together on Matthew’s telling of the first time Jesus introduced the idea of the church to the disciples. What we came away from that conversation understanding is that the church is the people of Jesus called out to be His body on earth. A couple of weeks ago, then, we shifted gears a bit from talking about what the church is to talking about what it’s for. More than that, we experienced it together as we ordained a new deacon and commissioned a missions team and introduced new members to the church. We experienced together the fact that when we get the church right, the work of Jesus is made possible.
That was all big picture stuff. And while the big picture is important, as I said a couple of weeks ago, it is the little stuff that the church does that makes it possible for all the big stuff to happen. So, starting this morning and for the next few weeks, we are going to be talking about the little stuff—the nuts and bolts—of how the church was designed to work. And, just like the basic unit of operation of a human body is the cell, the basic unit of operation of the body of Christ is a church member. So today, we’re going to be talking about church membership.
Talking about church membership, though, is a little tricky. The trick is that the concept of church membership is nowhere to be found in the Scriptures. It’s one of those things that we have added to conversations about the church, but not, I think, without due cause. There are a couple of different reasons for this. First, and like I also said a couple of weeks ago, there is no concept in the New Testament of a follower of Jesus who is not an intimately connected and fully functioning part of a local body of Christ. It’s just not there. Like I rather uncomfortably noted then, as far as the guys who contributed to the New Testament were concerned, you can’t be a faithful follower of Jesus apart from the church. Don’t believe me? Read the text carefully for yourself and see what you think. If you disagree and can point to why from the Scriptures, I’ll back off on my thinking here because being wrong would be awfully convenient right now.
But, while it is true that all the local bodies of Christ scattered across the world are connected with one another by virtue of being parts of Jesus’ body on earth, one local body—one particular church—is not the same as another church. They—we—are all different and unique. They have their own issues and challenges. They have their own personalities and characters. While the whole church is one, there is no one single part that is the same as any other part. This means that it is right and proper for us to be thinking about different churches in different places doing different kinds of ministry in different ways to connect different people with the Gospel. And, if you are a part of one church like this, then you are not also part of another church. Because of this, if you are connected with one church, you need to make sure you are really connected with that church and not adrift on your own.
The second reason it is worth our time to talk about church membership is the fact that we are not our own when we are in Christ. We belong to Him. Paul makes this clear in his first letter to the church in ancient Corinth when he is reminding his readers about the importance of sexual purity. Obviously that makes the context different than where we are today, but the point is valid nonetheless. Paul said, “Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.” If you are in Christ, then you are part of Christ’s body. You belong to Him. That belonging works itself out through membership to a local church. As Paul helps us see a little later in that same letter in the passage I want us to camp out on for a bit this morning, just like no one part of the human body exists purely for its own benefit, but for the benefit of the body as a whole, so no one individual believer exists for her own benefit, but for the benefit of the entire body to whom she belongs.
Now, that’s a lot of introduction, I know. But I wanted to make really sure that we are all on the same page together as we step forward in understanding that this idea matters and why it matters. That all being said, let’s dig in a little further together. If you have a copy of the Scriptures with you this morning, find your way to 1 Corinthians 12. Here we find Paul starting a new line of argument in the letter about the church and how it can operate in a way that allows worship and the collective spiritual growth and development of the body of Christ to happen most effectively. Where he starts here is with how God designed the body of Christ to work in the first place.
The thing about the body of Christ—the church—is that it is made up of people. And people aren’t the same. God didn’t take a cookie-cutter approach to making us. We are all totally different and unique—just like each church is from one another. We have different gifts and passions and abilities and experiences and expectations and strengths and weaknesses and so on and so forth. Because of that, any time you start gathering people together in a group—even in a specially called out group like the church is—you are going to have a bunch of people who are not the same. And while some of those differences might seem to be obviously complementary of one another, it may take a bit of work to find those points of connection among others. And so, as Paul starts to describe the church, the first thing he says—picking up on a theme he has been developing since the beginning of the letter—is that the body of Christ is supposed to be united as a group in spite of our differences.
Look at this starting in v. 4: “Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different ministries, but the same Lord. And there are different activities, but the same God produces each gift in each person.” And after identifying what some of these spiritual gifts are, Paul lands here in v. 11: “One and the same Spirit is active in all these, distributing to each person as he wills.”
Now, that is a good idea in and of itself, but Paul knew he needed to give the people a good illustration of the concept they could wrap their minds around a bit more easily. Thinking about it, he realized the human body is a nearly perfect example. So he continued in v. 12: “For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body—so also is Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all given one Spirit to drink.”
Do you understand his point? Just like there is much diversity in the human body (far more diversity, in fact, than Paul could have even begun to imagine) and yet each body is a united whole, so it is with the body of Christ, the church. That’s v. 14: “Indeed, the body is not one part but many.” He goes on to push the bounds of his illustration a little further by getting a bit silly with it. Let’s imagine each part of the body can talk. And with these words, these various parts of the body start expressing a bit of envy of other parts of the body they deem to be somehow better than themselves. Well, even beyond the idea of talking body parts, we would recognize immediately how silly a thing that is. Paul agrees. “If the foot should say, ‘Because I’m not a hand, I don’t belong to the body,’ it is not for that reason any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I’m not an eye, I don’t belong to the body,’ it is not for that reason any less part of the body.” We can easily grasp the fact that even though the various parts of our bodies are different from one another—in shape and size and location and function—we still need all of them. They are all important. If you had to go without one for some reason, the whole body would suffer for it. There are lots of parts of the body, but it is still just one body.
Next, Paul keeps with this silly extension of his argument a little more by flipping the script around on us. Just like one part of the body envying another part doesn’t make any sense, so it is with arrogance of one part of the body toward another. Look at v. 20: “As it is, there are many parts, but one body.” See how he changed things around there. In v. 14 he went from one body to many parts. Now he’s going the other way. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ Or again, the head can’t 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 less honorable, we clothe these with greater honor, and our unrespectable parts are treated with greater respect, which our respectable parts do not need.” Are you with him?
And the truly incredible thing about all of this is that it is just exactly like God designed it to be. In the mid-1800s, a guy named Charles Darwin proposed a theory for how the various animal species we have in the world today came to be and look like they do. By the mid-1960s or so, a slight variation of his thinking, updated to reflect the deeper understanding of biology we had by then, became something like the equivalent of the gospel truth in the broader scientific community. While there is lots and lots and lots to say about all of that another time, for right now the important thing to know about the modern version of Darwin’s theory is that it basically all runs on time and chance. Given enough time, the chances are that things were always going to turn out like they have. In the last several years, though, as we have come to a profoundly more detailed understanding of cells than Darwin could have even imagined, along with the volume and specificity of information life requires, the conclusion that an increasing number of scientists are being forced to accept (if they’re honest about the available evidence) is that design is the only reasonable explanation for why things are the way they are. Well, Paul understood this 1800 years before Darwin got it wrong. Look at v. 18: “But as it is, God has arranged each one of the parts in the body just as he wanted.” And what’s true about the human body, Paul wants us to understand, is true about the church as well.
Still with me? Let’s connect some dots and see what any of this has to do with church membership. In order to do this, I’m going to mix metaphors on us a bit. Let’s start by taking what Paul is saying here and plugging it into the bigger picture of the church Matthew gave us a couple of weeks ago. What is the church? It is the people of Jesus called out to be His body on earth. And what is the church to be doing? The things Jesus would have done if He were still physically present on earth. And what was the chief of these things? Proclaiming and advancing the kingdom of God.
So, if you are a follower of Jesus, you are a part of this called out group who are collectively Jesus’ body on earth. That comes with the confession. And, as Paul just told us, being a part of this body is something that is almost organic in its nature. You need this body and this body needs you. Neither of you can get along successfully without one another. But—and here is where we’re going to mix our metaphors—thinking about Jesus’ mission of advancing the kingdom of God, Paul sometimes uses the language of citizenship to talk about our connection to the body of Christ instead of physical body terms. He says that as followers of Jesus who are a part of His body, we have a citizenship in God’s kingdom.
I think pretty much everyone in this room is an American citizen. That means something. It means that our national identity is tied to this particular nation along with its laws and history and traditions. Well, while there are responsibilities that come with your citizenship, there are also some privileges. Let’s say you decide to travel abroad. As long as you have proof of your citizenship and access to the local American embassy, you retain access to all those citizenship privileges, one of which is knowing that if something goes haywire, your nation is going to bend over backwards to help you get through whatever mess you happen to be facing.
Listen: If you are a follower of Jesus, while you may be an American citizen here on earth, that is neither your first nor highest citizenship any longer. You are a citizen of the kingdom of God. In light of that, the church is like an embassy in a foreign land. As the apostle Peter said in his first letter, we’re all visitors here who are in Christ. As such, if you don’t have access to your embassy to validate your citizenship, then when something goes haywire, you’re on your own. You need to stay connected to your local embassy because otherwise you don’t have any proof of citizenship. And without proof of citizenship, you don’t get to enjoy any of the benefits that come with it. You are simply at the mercy of the laws of wherever you happen to be. A follower of Jesus who is not a member of a church is like a person traveling without a passport or an embassy. You can claim to be whoever you like, but if your host nation decides to ignore that and treat you however they want, you’re on your own to deal with it. In other words, being a church member is a big deal.
Okay, so, we should all be members of a church. Being a church member is a big deal. What do we actually do with this? Let me give you two things and then we’ll be out of here. First and for the folks who aren’t there just yet, let me state the point yet again: You need to actually be a church member. Simply attending isn’t enough. Now, listen, I know there are all kinds of reasons why a person may not be ready to take that plunge just yet. You’re still recovering from having recently left another church. You’re struggling with a bad church experience from the past. You’re not totally comfortable with the community just yet. You’re still trying to get your heart and mind around the church’s mission and vision. You may simply not like the idea of being officially tied down somewhere specific like that. I get all of that. But if what we find in the Scriptures is right, then at some point you’ve got to get over all of that. Healthy bodies don’t have extra parts that are just kind of close but not attached. In a similar, but opposite, way, detached body parts lying around is not something we look at and think, “If that’s how they want to be, that’s okay for them. No big deal.” Instead, we think, “That’s disgusting! Somebody lost a body part! Call the authorities!” The parts that aren’t attached don’t benefit from the body—or benefit the body—like the attached parts do, and so eventually they die. Foreign embassies are mostly staffed by locals who do not have citizenship with that embassy’s home nation. While they may gain some of the benefits of being associated with the nation by virtue of working at their embassy, at the end of the day, they don’t have a recognized citizenship and so they won’t gain all the benefits when it matters most.
I’m not going to make this morning a hard sell for anybody, and I’m certainly not going to tell anybody to go away as that kind of runs counter to the whole Jesus thing, but if you are someone who is worshiping and fellowshiping regularly with this particular body of Christ and you’re not a member, what’s keeping you from becoming one? Is it the lack of an invitation? Consider yourself invited. Is your heart still beating with another church? That’s wonderful. Go join there and invest in that body. They need you and you need them. Do you have questions about this community that are still unanswered? Ask them! My schedule is pretty flexible during the week, I’m an active emailer and texter, and I love talking about the church. Are you not yet convinced you need it? Let me ask you this, especially if you’ve been around here very long without having joined: are you actively growing in your relationship with Jesus in your currently disconnected state? I’d be willing to wager that you’re not, or at least your pace of growth has slowed as compared to when you were once last an active church member. While church membership is not necessarily going to wave a magic wand to fix that, you won’t make any meaningful forward progress in your relationship with Him until you are a church member—whether with this church or another one. Maybe you’re not totally sure about the whole following Jesus thing just yet. If that’s the case, you actually have a valid excuse. You can’t be a church member until you are as an embassy doesn’t do you any good if you’re not a citizen. To you I say: let’s get together to talk more about your following Jesus and we’ll work the rest out from there. Being a church member is a big deal.
Second, and this is for the folks who are already there. If you are a church member that’s a big deal. There are incredible privileges that come with that. You have a group of fellow called out followers of Jesus who collectively affirm your citizenship in the kingdom of God. You don’t ever have to wonder or worry about where you stand with Him. We vouch for you. You don’t have to bear the trials and tribulations that come from living in a broken world on your own. You have a family here that is quick to show love and support. Many of you already know this. I don’t have to convince you of the benefits of your membership. Otherwise you wouldn’t have it. What I do want to remind you of, though, is the responsibilities that come with your membership, because being a church member is a big deal.
As much as you need this body to grow more fully into who God made you in Christ to be, we need you as well. As Paul made clear, the relationship here is fully synergistic. And what do we need from you; what is it that you owe us by virtue of your membership? You owe us your presence. We need you to be here—much like you are right now. But not just here. We need you present in every part of the body. It may be horribly cliched for a preacher to say this, but showing up just on Sunday mornings and doing your own thing the rest of the week is not enough, just like a part of your body that only works some of the time, when it’s not inconvenient, is not a healthy part of your body. When that happens, the first thing you do is to try to figure out how to get some life back into it. Then you start to have an entirely different conversation. More on that in a couple of weeks.
If you are a member here, in addition to your being present, we also need you to be growing. That means both receiving life and giving life. Growing things do both. You need to be actively growing in Christ. That means being engaged with a smaller group than this one with whom you are studying the Scriptures and praying in addition to being committed to practicing those two disciplines on your own. But the other side is just as important. You need to be involved in some way in helping someone else become more like Jesus. That doesn’t mean you need to be a Sunday school teacher. There are other ways to do that. But if you are not actively pouring out into others what God is pouring into you, it will become stagnant and start to do you more harm than good over time.
Two more things. We need you serving. We need you using the gifts God has given you that are intended for the building up of His body in love put to active use in building up His body here in love. He called you here for a reason. If you’re not sure what that reason is, let’s talk about it and get it figured out together. We also need you giving. But, lest I let you believe otherwise, that’s not because we need your money even though ministry often requires money. It’s because if any of us is going to be a fully committed follower of Jesus, then we have to keep ourselves following Him and Him alone. One of the most potent temptations away from doing that is our stuff. It is frightfully easy to find ourselves owned and controlled by our stuff rather than the other way around. If you wind up in that position, you won’t be able to be an effective, contributing member of this church. The best antidote for this is to regularly, actively, sacrificially give your stuff away. You can’t give away something that owns you. Now, that giving doesn’t all have to be here, but given that this is where your primary citizenship lies, that makes a pretty compelling argument this should be at least pretty close to the top of the list.
That’s four simple things that make a great big difference. They make a difference in this community. They make a difference in God’s kingdom. They make a difference in your own life. Being a church member is a big deal. We who belong to Christ are a body. We are His body. If you are a part of His body, then you need to be connected to His body. If the church is going to work like God designed, we’ve got to get this right. If you’re right where you should be this morning, great. Thank you for being who God made you to be here. If you’re off track with this, though, consider this your invitation to get back on it. Let us together commit to being the church God made us to be. Being a church member is a big deal.