1st Corinthians – Wayne Barber/Part 86
| By: Dr. Wayne Barber; ©1998 |
| How many times have you heard the statement that you and I are free in Jesus Christ? How many times have you heard me balance it by saying freedom is not the right to do as you please; freedom is the power to do as you should? If we’re ever going to live in freedom, we’re going to have to live attached to and surrendered to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the only way to live free and empowered to do what we’re called to do. |
1 Corinthians 12:12-17
Contents
All for One, and One for All
I want to entitle this, “All For One, and One For All.” I think it was the Three Musketeers who coined that, however, we’re going to see it in light of the body of Christ. How many times have you heard the statement that you and I are free in Jesus Christ? How many times have you heard me balance it by saying freedom is not the right to do as you please; freedom is the power to do as you should? If we’re ever going to live in freedom, we’re going to have to live attached to and surrendered to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the only way to live free and empowered to do what we’re called to do.
That’s the whole emphasis of 1 Corinthians. Who are you attached to? Who are you surrendered to? If you’re surrendered to Christ, then you’re living in the purposes He has for your life. In chapter 12 Paul has clearly emphasized the one source of all the spiritual gifts. It’s God. God the Spirit, in verse 4, gives gifts. God the Son, in verse 5, gives the ministry. And God the Father, in verse 6, gives the effect. God in the three persons of the God-head is the one source of all the gifts that we have in ministry and in the body of Christ.
In verse 7 he has clearly stated the purpose of any manifestation of the Spirit of God. It is to not only exemplify the power of the Spirit but it is to give to the common good. In other words, it’s for everybody. It’s to edify and unify the body of Christ.
I hope these Scriptures will come together for you. Romans 12:1 says, “I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God”—what mercies? The mercies he’s just talked about for eleven chapters—“to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” The only way you worship Him, the only way I worship Him, the only way Corinth could worship Him is to surrender to Him, present their bodies.
In verse 2 it says, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove [the word means to test for yourself], what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” When we live this way, then what God does through us unifies and edifies the body of Christ. Now, why are we camping out there? Because this was not the case in Corinth. They lived attached to everything and everyone but Christ. As a result, Christ was not glorified, and there was disunity and confusion in the church. They were more concerned with gifts and manifestations than they were living surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ.
We come to verses 12 and 13 that have to do with us being a part of the body of Christ. The last time we peaked over into verses 12 and 13. We really didn’t teach in it. We just looked over into it. We saw that when you become a believer, no matter who it is, it doesn’t matter what you don’t have or what you do have when you come to Christ. It doesn’t matter who you are or who you’re not. When you come to Christ, immediately you are placed into the body of Christ. Each believer is a part of His body here on this earth. Jesus still lives on this earth in the people who have responded to Him by faith.
First Corinthians 12:12 says, “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.” Verse 13 starts off by saying, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” I don’t know if that does anything to you at all, but to me that’s just an incredible picture that we’re a part of the body of Christ. He says in Ephesians 1:22, “And He put all things in subjection under His [Christ’s] feet, and gave Him [Christ] as head over all things to the church”. Then he says, “which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all.” Ephesians 5:30 says, “because we are members of His body.” Colossians 1:24 tells us, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church.”
Now, we are members of the body of Christ. There are members in the body who speak other languages. You go overseas. There are members in the body who are a different color than we are. There are Caucasian, there are Blacks and Orientals. There are many people in the body of Christ. But when a person gets saved, he is birthed into the kingdom of God and placed into the body of Christ on this earth.
We are unified in one body
You say, “You said that about thirty times. We got the point.” I hope you do because if you’re a member of His body on this earth, then there are at least four things we must understand, very critical to the text of what we’re dealing with here in 1 Corinthians 12. First of all, we must understand how we are one. We are unified in that one body. We are unified in His body; fused together, if you please. Verse 12 says, “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.” In his first statement the apostle Paul is referring to the human body. You see, a human body is one. Do we understand this? Spreading into the plurality of members with different functions, each attached to another as members of the organism and each laboring for the welfare of the whole. There are many parts to the body and the many parts have different functions, but they are fused together in the body of Christ. Again, their functions are different and there are many of us, but there is only one body.
As the text goes on, the apostle Paul is not interested in picking out this part of the body, this part, and this part. He’s not interested in listing all the parts of the human body as he compares it to the body of Christ. But he is interested in helping us to realize the different functions and the different members in the body. For instance, in verse 15 he mentions those that are common to us, the foot and the hand. Look at verse 15. “If the foot should say, ‘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.” It’s a point he’s going to bring out on that we’ll look at later.
The ear and the eye are mentioned in verse 16. “And if the ear should say, ‘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.” Again, his point is the multiplicity and also the diversity. There are many members in the body. There are many different functions of the members. But also there is unity in all of them. They are fused together in the one body of Christ.
Look at verse 12. The first word he uses there is the word “for.” You say, “Big deal!” Well, it is a big deal. It’s a little word, but it’s a big deal. It’s the little word gar. This is a positive participle. It stands after a point has been made and expresses the reason for what has already been said. This is very important. Then he says, “For even as.” The little word “as” there lets us know that a comparison is coming up. He’s going to take the human body with its many members, its many functions, but its unique unity and he’s going to compare it to the body of Christ. But he’s going to take the whole thing and tie it back to verse 11.
Look at verse 11. “But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as he wills.” That word “wills” means He desires, He wishes. In other words, the Holy Spirit has a purpose in the body of Christ. What is His purpose? What He does, you see, He’s God. He’s God the Father, God the Son, all of God. He knows what the body is to do. He knows what the body is to look like. So He lives in the body to do one thing, to cause all the different functions to point to Christ and to make sure that Christ is manifested in the body.
So He does for you one thing; He does for someone else this other thing; and for me another thing. He gifts us differently, but He’s orchestrating the whole thing. He’s causing the body to manifest Christ. It’s like in a human body, the head controls the body. In the Christian life Christ controls it through the person of His Holy Spirit. So what he wants you to see is we are one and we’re caused to continue to be one by the working of the Holy Spirit of God.
In verse 12 he actually says the same thing two different ways. He says, “For even as the body is one and yet has many members,” then he turns right around and says, “and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body.” He says the body is one, and there’s only one body. Now he makes a comparison. He takes the human body, sets it up here on this shelf and says, “Okay, you see the human body? Does everybody understand?” And everybody says, “Yes, we understand.” Then he comes over here and compares something with it. Here is the body of Christ.
Look at the last few words there of the verse. He says, “so also is Christ.” I want to show you something here. Why didn’t he say, “so also is the church?” Why didn’t he say that? Because in other epistles when he’s bringing out other truths, he says, “so also is the church.” Why did he say, “so also is Christ?” I believe it’s this. I believe he wants to somehow take away anything in the mind that would in any way relate to the organized church, Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian. Get that out of your mind. He wants to take it away from the organization and keep the focus on the organism, the body of Christ. He didn’t say the church. He said the body of Christ, “so also is Christ.”
We have to hear what he’s saying here. You realize when you get saved, you’re birthed into the family of God, into the body of Christ whether you’re Presbyterian or whether you’re Methodist or whether you’re Roman Catholic. Listen, in every denomination there are those who have joined church and missed God. But also within that same denomination there are people who are a part of the body of Christ. There’s only one body. There are many churches, denominations, etc., but within that there are many who are part of the body of Christ. I know Roman Catholics who know Christ personally, have been converted and stay in the church to bring more and more people to a conversion experience. I know people in the Greek Orthodox Church in Romania who are a part of what they call the Lord’s Army who stay in the church for one reason and that is to evangelize others who do not realize you can have a personal relationship with God the Father through Jesus the Son.
So, the moment you’re saved, you’re not put into a denomination or into a church. You’re put into the body of Christ. And the apostle Paul wants to keep us thinking organism, not organization. In Corinth it was organization but in the Christian world it’s organism, the life, the body of Christ. The Bible never refers to a body of Christians. It always refers to the body of Christ. As a matter of fact, He is the church. We’re just a part of that as we are birthed into the kingdom and put into His body. Paul’s whole point is that we recognize the differences in this body. We also recognize, however, the oneness of the many members that are different. We’ve got to see this. We have been fused together.
Now, in his comparison in verse 12 he wants us to see how even though we are diverse in function, how we truly are fused together. The human body is the example that he holds before us. Back to the human body. In that human body there are so many different parts to it. Again, we can overemphasize and over illustrate any point. But the human body still continues to be his picture here that he’s comparing the body of Christ. And you see so many different members in it. But the one thing is every one of those members, even though they function differently, are tied together by the life that is in that body.
Have you ever been around somebody who is dying? I don’t want to bring up anything tender or cause anybody to have difficult times by what I’m saying but he’s using the human body. He’s using the life that’s in that body that fuses all the members together. Once you take the life out of that body, it doesn’t matter how healthy every organ and every part looks, it means it is now organized death is all it is. To be an organism it’s got to have that life in it. It is very organized, the body is, but the organism takes precedent because without the life there is no organism. That’s so key.
I’ve been with several people when they died and, you know, the Scripture says that the moment of death the spirit leaves the body. If you’ve never witnessed that, you don’t know what I’m talking about. But if you have, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You can watch the spirit leave. They called me when I was in Mississippi and asked if I would come down to the hospital. There was a man who had overdosed. He had no family and they needed me to be there.
I went down there and lying on the table there was this big strapping guy about six feet four. Looking at his body, it looked healthy. Looking at his body, it still had color in it. It looked as if everything was there and what a strong person he was. But the life that held all of that together, the life that caused it all to work was draining out of his body. I sat there and watched as that man died. I watched the spirit leave and I watched the rest of it happen. The corpse that looked so organized and looked so healthy and was so efficient suddenly became nothing but dead meat because the life had been taken out of it.
It’s the life that binds us together in one body. It’s the life of God that fuses us together. It’s the blood of Christ that binds us together. You see what he’s doing? He’s done this over and over in chapter 12. He’s not teaching gifts, I’m telling you. He’s correcting error. He’s bringing them back. Get your eyes off the gift and come back and get your eyes on the giver. If you’re not connected to Him, it doesn’t matter how organized you are. It doesn’t matter what gift you say you have. It’s absolute nothing but death. It’s the life of the body that binds and fuses the different members of that body together. So the first thing he wants them to see here is that we are one in the body of Christ. We have been fused together by the life God has put in us in the person of the Holy Spirit of God, who by the way, gives the gifts as He wills and does the manifestation as He wills for the reason of manifesting Christ.
We are baptized into one body
The second thing we see, as he comes into verse 13, is he addresses how we became one in this body, how it all happened when we are baptized with or by the means of one Spirit. Look at verse 13: “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.” The first thing we need to realize here when he uses the term “baptize” is it is not talking about water baptism. No. He says very clearly in the verse, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” That’s very clear that it is not talking about any kind of water baptism at all.
In fact, water baptism has nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Look at 1:17, and I’ll show you it has nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ. People have made it a part of the gospel, but it has nothing to do with the gospel. In 1 Corinthians 1:17, the apostle Paul very clearly says, “I’m glad I didn’t baptize most of you. As a matter of fact, I can’t even remember if I did baptize any of you. Two families, I can remember them.” He says in verse 17, “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the [What?] gospel, not in cleverness of speech, that the cross of Christ should not be made void.” In other words, if you want to nullify the cross and what Jesus did there, you add baptism to it. Anything plus grace equals no grace. You cannot add any work to what Christ has done for us. So he’s not talking about anything to do with water baptism.
Verse 13 reads, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” When you read this wrongly, it appears that the Holy Spirit takes you and baptizes you into the body of Christ. That is wrong. In Scripture there is no baptism of the Holy Spirit, as if the Holy Spirit baptizes us in Christ. Nowhere in Scripture does it say the Holy Spirit baptizes us in the body of Christ. Look in Matthew 3:11 and you’ll see who baptizes you in the body of Christ. It’s not the Holy Spirit. I’ll explain why it says, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.”
In Matthew 3:11, John the Baptist is speaking, and he says, “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you, with the [What?] the Holy Spirit and fire.” This indicates who’s going to be doing the baptism. Christ will baptize you Himself into His body with or by the means of the Holy Spirit. That’s the way it should be read. It’s by the means of the Holy Spirit. Just like you’re baptized in the water by means of water, you’re baptized into Christ’s body by Christ Himself by the means of the Holy Spirit of God. We were all placed into Christ the same way. This is his point.
Let’s don’t get way over here. Let’s come back real quickly. What’s his point? We all got saved the same way. There is no uniformity in the body of Christ, but there is a divine unity in the body of Christ because we all came in the same way. We were all baptized by Christ into His body with or by the means of His Holy Spirit. We are one by virtue of our salvation experience.
By the way, there’s no class system in Christ. Look at verse 13 again. “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.” Do you realize the gulf that spans the Jew from the Gentile? Do you realize the difference here? Here’s the Jew with all the covenants and promises of God. Here’s the Gentile, out of the pagan nations of the world, and all he knows is idolatry, which Corinth came out of. How in the world can you make these two people one? Because the Jew, who had all of his covenants and promises, had to come in by way of the cross and had to be baptized into the body of Christ with or by the means of the Holy Spirit, and the Gentile came in the same way. No matter how much you know, no matter how much you don’t know, the way is the same. He was able to span the gulf and the differences between these two.
In Ephesians 2:14 Paul, mystified at how this took place, said of the Gentiles and of the Jews, “For He Himself [Christ] is our peace, who made both groups into one, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, that in Himself He might make the two [Jew and Gentile] into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.” So He spanned that gulf. The same way the Jew gets saved is the same way the Gentile gets saved. They both came in. They’re fused together because they’ve been baptized in the body of Christ with the same Holy Spirit.
Then to carry the thought further he mentions the slave and the free man. What a difference there! The free man owned the slave. The slaves had nothing. The free man, normally, had everything and yet they both came in the same way. It doesn’t matter how much money you have. It doesn’t matter who you are. There’s only one way to the kingdom of God and when you’re in the kingdom of God, He places you in the body of Christ and baptizes you with the Holy Spirit. That’s your salvation experience. It all happens at the same time. But when we are baptized into the body of Christ with the Holy Spirit, then the gulf is spanned and we have been made one in the body of Christ. Only when we realize this can I accept you as being different from me. Only when I realize that we are one because of salvation experience, then I can accept you as being different from me, knowing the oneness is in the Spirit of God that lives in both of us. The diversity is in the way God has made us and gifted us and caused us to function. I can accept that if I understand our divine unity in the Holy Spirit of God.
As a matter of fact, Ephesians 4:3 says that the unity is already there amongst the body. He says, “preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” We already have unity. Unity was established when we were all saved the same way, came in the same way, and we were baptized in the body of Christ with or by the means of the Holy Spirit of God. We are all moved by the same spiritual breath of life that makes us one. It’s a beautiful thought.
Okay. So we’re one in the body of Christ. How do we get that way? Through our salvation experience, as we were baptized into the body of Christ with or by the means of the Holy Spirit of God. There is no other way for Jews or Gentiles, slave or free man. That’s how we were made one together. The same life in you is the same life in me. It’s the life of Christ in His body on this earth.
We are nourished by one fountain
Thirdly, we are nourished by one fountain, the same fountain, and made to drink of one Spirit. Now, being baptized with or by the means of the Spirit and the body of Christ and drinking of one Spirit are practically the same, but uniquely different. Remember the words of the Lord Jesus Christ? Go back to John 7:37, 39. It’s very significant what Jesus said. If you’ll just put this together with what He said, you’ll see the difference in what it means to be baptized with or by the means of the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ and then when He says that we are all made to drink one Spirit. John 7:37 reads, “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.’” And then verse 39 says, “But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” You see, the drinking of the Spirit, drink from the same well, drinking from the same source, the same sense of nourishment here, that took place as a result of being baptized in the body of Christ with or by the means of the Spirit of God. That’s His coming to infill us. That’s His coming to indwell us. We were plunged into Christ as we died with Him. And as we were raised to walk in the newness of His life, we were made to drink from the Holy Spirit of God. He is the nourishment that we all drink from.
That’s why, going back to verse 11, He chooses which gifts to give. He chooses the functions in the body. He is in control of everything, and He’s the one we drink from. It’s Him that produces the functions of the body and manifests the person of Christ. It’s His life in us.
Now drinking automatically draws a picture of somebody who’s thirsty and dry. I’ll tell you what. If you want to go back to the organized church, if that’s what people want, it won’t be long until you’re going to be very thirsty because there’s nothing out there that you can drink from that will satisfy the innermost needs that you have except that which the Holy Spirit offers. Picture this dry parched land and water just coming in abundance and washing down through there quenching the thirst that’s there. Every day of my life, as I come to Christ, I come to His Spirit, and His Spirit infuses His life into me. It’s like cold water on a hot day which quenches that parched throat and that dryness in the throat. Everything that we have in life that’s good comes from the Holy Spirit and we’re made to drink from that Holy Spirit.
When we were in Germany, this one little lady was so humble. She would stop us every time when the service was over and she said, “I’m not trying to be presumptuous but I’ve written some things down. Is that what you said? I want to understand. I so want to understand.” Tears would stream down her face and she would say, “I’ve been living in such a dry and thirsty land. Is this what you’re saying?” And I would say “Yes.” And she would say, “It’s just too good!” She came to me one day and said, “Let me see if this is right. I can’t be good, can I?” And I said, “No, you can’t. Ask any Pharisee.” But she said, “I can surrender to His goodness, can’t I?” I said, “Yes.” And she said, “This is so good!”
What I pictured in my mind was she would come into that meeting, coming out of whatever background she had, and she would sit there and it was like you had a huge pitcher of ice cold water on a hot thirsty tongue and throat and you’re just pouring that cool glass of water on them. That’s when you drink from the Holy Spirit of God. When you’re drinking from the nourishment that only He can give, that’s when He begins to manifest through you the life that is in you that you have been fused together with others to have. He manifests that life. That life breathes life. That’s what the whole picture is all about. We’re unified in the body of Christ. How? Through our salvation experience we were all baptized into one body with or by the means of the Holy Spirit of God. Now that Holy Spirit that lives in us nourishes us and we’re made to drink from the same Spirit.
We are essentially different
But then fourthly, we are essentially different. That’s interesting. We are essentially different. Do you realize that diversity is essential to unity? Have you ever been in one of these places that they think unity is uniformity? Have you ever been there? Everybody cuts their hair the same way. Everybody wants to look the same. Everybody must wear a tie. Everybody must wear a white shirt. Everybody must wear a blue blazer and a pair of gray slacks. This is the kind of uniformity that comes out of some of this. That’s just what people do. They always want to look alike. “Let’s look alike because we’re one.”
But unity is more beautiful in the midst of diversity. Paul said in verse 14, “For the body is not one member, but many.” The Corinthian church was divided when it should have been unified. It tried to be uniform when it should have been diverse. That reminds you of most churches in America. On the one hand it was divided over the leadership. Folks, let me tell you something. If you have been bounded together in one Spirit, don’t you ever attach yourself to a preacher. I have said this over and over again. You attach yourself to Christ, to Christ. The Corinthian church attached themselves to a preacher. Some were of Paul; some were of Apollos, his successor; and some were of Cephas. Whoa! Simeon Peter got drug into this one too.
On the other hand, not only was it divided over leadership, they were all trying to be alike in their gifts. I know that from the text and I’m going to show you. Especially the showy gifts like tongues and the things that were on the outside. They tried to copy everybody who had it as if everybody had to do the same thing to be unified in the body of Christ. That’s absolutely ridiculous and Paul tells them that.
Look at 12:27. He says, “Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.” Then look at the questions. It tells you what’s going on. “All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of miracles, are they? All do not have gifts of healings, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they? But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And I show you a still more excellent way.” By the way, when we get there it will be interesting what that should say.
The problem was, “God, you told me I was one. But look at him. He’s gifted better than me. God, I want his gift. I’m not satisfied with my gift. I want the same recognition he’s getting. He spoke in another language. Can I speak in another language? Come on, God. I want his gift.” Ridiculous! But that’s Corinth. That’s flesh. That’s the way flesh always is. Instead of accepting and receiving what God’s given by grace, we’re always try to mimic somebody else especially the ones who were out in front.
Many seemed to be unhappy with their gifts. Envy is a sign of flesh, not the Spirit. How do you know that? Look at verse 15 again. Here’s what they were saying. You know what they were saying by the way Paul addresses it. “If the foot should say, ‘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 should say, ‘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.” You see, the foot thought that since he wasn’t a hand he had been left out.
Can you imagine my foot trying to be a hand? You know, some people can walk on their hands. I think if I had been Jonah I would have walked on my hands all the way to Ninevah if I had been in a fish for three days. But some people can walk on their hands. But most of us walk on our feet. God, who made our body, knew that it needed a foot that’s going to look a whole lot different and in some cases like in our son, smell a whole lot different than the hand. The hand does certain things the foot can’t do. But the foot does things that the hand can’t do. So why in the world would the foot say, “I wish I was the hand.”? That’s what’s going on here.
Then he talks about the ear and the eye in verse 16. “And if the ear should say, ‘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.” In other words, you’ve got to hear as well s see.
Then he even brings in the sense of smell a little later on. Look at verse 17. “If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?” The whole problem in Corinth was they didn’t realize diversity is essential for unity, and the unity only comes from the fact that the Holy Spirit of God is the one who made us diverse. He gives the gifts and the manifestations as He wills.
I want to tell you something. When you start focusing on gifts, just like if you would start focusing on a certain member of your body, that automatically tells you something is amiss, something is wrong.
If you are connected to Christ and He has made you diverse, so be it. But you don’t live stressing the diversity. You live stressing the unity and as you surrender to Him, He causes the gifts to manifest not you and not the church, but it manifests the Christ who lives in the church. That’s what Paul is trying to tell them. You’re hung up in the gifts. You get attached to the Giver.
Remember where I started? You live presenting your body a living sacrifice surrendered to Him. I honestly think we have overdone gifts. With all of my heart I think we have. We must stress the Giver, never the gift, because that throws so many people out of joint when it comes to seeing how they function. But live surrendered to Christ, just a vessel, just be surrendered to Him. The members of my body do not function for the sake of my body first. They function for the sake of the head that tells the body what to do. Now, when they do, when the members of my body do what my head tells them to do, then what they’re doing is not only benefiting them because the body stays healthy, it also is benefiting the whole body.
It’s the same way in the body of Christ. You don’t go out and live for each other. No sir. You go out and live as a vessel for Christ. And once you start living for Him, then you can live for one another. Because when you say “Yes” to Him, you’re not only benefiting yourself and Him, you’re benefiting everyone around you.
Can I just bring it down to this last point to simplify it? When you say “yes” to God, when I say “yes” to God, remember what I’m saying here, it will help you down the road. When I say “yes” to God and you say “yes” to God, it not only benefits Him and the purpose it has, listen to me, it benefits the whole body of Christ. Why? Because there’s only one body and He is in control of what’s going on in that body. Hang on to that. Then and only then can it be all for one and then it can be one for all. All for one and one for all. Once I start living for Him, all for one, then it can be one for all. That’s the body of Christ.
