I want you, if you would at this
time, to maybe, if you have a bookmarker, put it in the verses that we
read there and turn back with me to the book of 1 Corinthians
chapter 12. 1 Corinthians chapter 12, the
chapter that I read earlier. I wanted to speak a little bit
this morning about the body of Christ and the care that we're
to exercise for the members of that body. Now we read in verse
13, or let me read verse 12 and verse 13. For as the body is
one, and hath many members. Now it tells us here that the
body of Christ is one. Now that means that all God's
people, all of the elect from every generation of mankind are
all in the body of Christ. They were all put there by the
sovereign act of God. They were placed there. We read
that the Lord... Let's read verse 18. Just listen
to verse 18. But now hath God set the members,
every one of them, in the body as it hath pleased Him. God has
set the members in his body, and God chose all of his people
in Christ from the foundation of the world, and it pleased
him to set all of his members in this body, all of those that
he would save, that he would bring to regeneration in life,
all of those that he would that he would love from eternity.
All of those for whom Christ would come and die, all of these
it pleased the Father to set them in one body. There is one
body. That's what verse 12 is saying. and have many members. It is
what we call the many-membered body of Christ because it's made
up of all the saved, all of the redeemed, all of the regenerate
is in this body. And all the members of that one
body, being many, are one body. so also is Christ and so Christ
as he lives in this world today he lives in his body the church
and we know that there's part of this body still on earth at
this very present time God has his people here that's part of
the body and then there's part of the body that's already been
gathered home that's gathered to glory and the Bible speaks
in Hebrews chapter 12 and 13, I think it is, of this Church
of the Firstborn, and how that it will be assembled in glory.
Now this Church of the Firstborn is made up of all of the body
of Christ. When it's all gathered home,
we'll be one body in heaven. We are now, part of the body
is here, part of it is in heaven, and then there are yet those
that will be brought into a saving relationship with Christ in the
purpose of God they're already in the body but yet they experientially
must be brought and that's what John 16 is talking about when
Jesus said other sheep I have which are not of this fold those
I must bring and they will be there will be one fold and one
shepherd and so the Lord has one body he has this one body
and that body is on earth and in heaven and some are yet to
be gathered. And in verse 13 he says, for
by one spirit are we all baptized into one body. Now this tells
us how that we experientially got into the body of Christ. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1 it
says, of God are you in Christ Jesus. That's verse 30 of 1 Corinthians
1. Of God are you in Christ Jesus?
Well here it says for by one spirit God has baptized us into
one body. Now in regeneration the Holy
Spirit of God is given. The Spirit of God comes in and
that's when we're all baptized into the body of Christ. is when we believe on the Lord
Jesus, when we're saved, when we're converted, when we're regenerated,
whatever term you want to use, when the Spirit of God comes
into our hearts and God lives in us by His Spirit, we've been
baptized into one body. Whether we be Jews or Gentiles,
whether we be bond or free, and we've all been made to drink
into one Spirit. We've been made to drink of the
blessed Holy Spirit of God and receive life and spiritual sustenance
from the Holy Spirit. All of us have been made to drink
into one Spirit. Whatever be our nationality or
whatever be our condition of life, our state of life, we are
all one in Christ. We're in the body. For the body,
again he says in verse 14, is not one member, but many. Not one member, but many. Now
listen to these next few verses. He says, if the foot shall say,
because I'm not the hand, I'm not of the body, is it therefore
not of the body? Just because the foot shall say,
I don't seem like I'm as important as the hand, does that mean that
the foot is not part of the body? Absolutely not. Now, the point
he's making here is the care that he has for those that are
in his body. Now, there are several things
that we learn from the beautiful description that Christ gives
of his church when he calls it his body. Number one, I think
we learn how precious that every individual member is to Jesus
Christ himself. How precious every believer is
to Christ. Now, we know something about
the preciousness of the believer to the Lord Jesus when we think
of the sacrifice that Christ made on their behalf. We esteem
that which we purchase, that which we buy, we esteem it to
be important when we think of how much it cost, how much we
paid for it, how much it set us back, as the expression is.
Well, beloved, when the Lord Jesus bought His church, we know
that He tread the winepress of the wrath of God to purchase
His church. The Bible says that He redeemed
the church by His own blood, by the shedding of His own blood.
The Lord Jesus went through agony and pain and suffering. The Lord
Jesus bowed to the will, the sovereign will of God, and gave
up His life in order to purchase the members of His body, in order
to save them, in order to reconcile them unto Himself. And that scripture
in John 3, 16, we often hear it quoted, God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. But we
know that the love of God is in Christ And when Christ died,
he died for the world of the elect. He died for those that
the Father had given to him. And so we see somewhat of the
price that the Lord Jesus paid, and this shows us how precious
every individual member of the body is, whether it be a foot,
whether it be the hand, whether it be the eye, whether it be
the nose, whatever part of the body it is. And we each one make
up a part of that body. God has set us in the body. He
set us in the body. He said, if the whole were an
eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing,
where would the smelling be? And so God has put every member
in the body. And if they were all one member,
then where would the body? There wouldn't be a member, there
wouldn't be a body if there was just one member. If there was
just one arm here this morning on this platform, then there
wouldn't be a body here, and a whole body. But we are here
this morning, and we make up part of the body of Christ, but
the whole body is not here in this building this morning. And
we know that some of the landmark Baptists and some of the primitive
Baptists And there is an element of truth. And look at verse 27. I want to point this out. Now
you are the body of Christ and members in particular. Now Paul
said this to the church at Corinth. And there is an element of truth
in the fact that every individual local church, that that local
church is an expression of the body of Christ. It's a manifestation
on earth of the whole body of Christ. because the Lord does
set his members in the church. Now, we know that the local church,
and this is important to distinguish between the local church and
what is commonly referred to as the universal or invisible
church, although those terms are not found in the Bible, universal
or invisible, but it's important to differentiate between the
two of those. When we speak of the whole body of the elect,
we're talking about the universal church, concept of the church,
or the invisible church, in that it's the body of Christ, and
the body of Christ is the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. each
church, local individual church, is a manifestation or an expression
of that bigger body of the Lord's people. And so Paul did say to
this church here, now you are the body of Christ. But some
of the, I was going to say this a few minutes ago, the landmark
Baptist and some of the primitive Baptists go so far as to say
that if you're not in one of these local churches, which they
refer to as the Lord's Church, that you are not in the body
of Christ, and that you cannot be a member of the body of Christ
without being in a local assembly of believers. That is not true. It is not the case. And if you
were to look and examine carefully at the local assemblies, there's
people that are in those assemblies that are tares, and there's tares
as well as wheat. in the local assemblies and uh... they couldn't get in the body
terrors never get in the body of christ even though they're
on the church books they never get in the body of christ it
can't be done and in the local assembly you have this mixed
multitude just like they had uh... in egypt when they came
out of egypt there was a mixed multitude there were some that
believed and some didn't and so on well that's a picture of
the local assembly But nevertheless, let's not get too far away from
what we're trying to talk about. First of all, we learn the preciousness
of every individual believer to the Lord Jesus Christ. They're
members of his body. He put them in his body. They may be a foot, they may
be a hand, they may be a nose, but they're members of His body. They've been baptized by the
Spirit of God into His body, and they've all been made to
drink of the blessed Holy Spirit. And the Spirit of God lives in
them. And Paul said in Romans chapter 8 that if any man have
not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And so everybody
that has the Spirit, they have it by virtue of being baptized
into the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now then, there's another
thing that we learn. And the second thing is, we learn
the way that you treat a fellow Christian in this world, and
how Christ considers our treatment of each other in this world as
being how we treat Him. Now this is so very important.
I want you to get it. Now let's read a few of these
verses here. In verse 21, And the eye cannot
see into the hand, I have no need of thee, nor again the head
to the feet, I have no need of you. This is in 1 Corinthians
12 21. The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee.
Now sometimes in the church we may feel that there's two or
three people that are leaders, there's two or three people that
have the gifts of the Spirit, some can teach, some can preach,
and we don't feel that anybody else is really necessary, and
that there's some of the members they just come and sit and they
never take any part. They don't lead in public prayer,
and they don't preach, and they don't read. They don't get up
and read the scriptures. They don't do anything. They're
in a holy office, and so therefore, maybe the eye would say unto
the hand, I have no need of thee. You're really not very important.
You don't do anything here. You're really not important.
Nor again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Now, your
head never says that to your feet, your eye never says that
to your hand, I have no need of you. Nay, much more, those
members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary. They are necessary. Now the reason
why I know they're necessary is because the Lord set them
in the body as it pleased Him. He did it. He put them in the
church. The Lord raised them up and they were added to the
church. The Lord did this as it pleased Him. And so they are
necessary. Those would seem to be more feeble. Now, I don't know how you deem
yourself, how you look upon yourself. I don't know how you figure your
own situation, whether you look upon yourself as being one of
the more feeble members of the church. You may be one of the
more feeble. Maybe I'm the feeblest member
of this church. Only God knows. But, the scripture
says that they are necessary. And how you treat a part of the
body is how you treat Christ. Now, this is so well brought
out in the scriptures we read out of the book of Matthew. And
listen to verse 23, And those members of the body which we
think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant
honor, and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. Now, I think the illusion here
is to the fact that if we've got, if there's something about
us that we deem to be uncomely, not beautiful, we're just kind
of a little bit ugly in some spots, that we will work on that. And if a fella doesn't have much
hair, maybe he will get a hair transplant, or maybe he will
get him a toupee, or maybe he will spend extra time combing
it a certain way so as to cover up the baldness, maybe if there's
other things that he could do, you know people are always, I
don't want to get too deep in this because I could get over
my head in a hurry talking about these things, but There are people,
you know, that get certain clothing that pulls them in and shapes
them up in certain ways because there are certain parts of their
body that they're not exactly so proud of, and there's certain
clothing that they wear sometimes that covers up, that makes things
to be more comely, don't you see? For our comely parts have
no need. In other words, if you've got
nice hair, you don't have to fool with it very much. It just,
you know, everything falls in place and you just, you don't
have to fool with it very much. But, and then if you've got a
good shapely body, you just buy clothes and you don't have to
worry about cinching anything up or, you know, having anybody
to step on the situation in any way, shape, or form, so you can
tighten things up to where you appear to be like you want. See
what I said? You can get in trouble here after
a while. But anyway, but God had tempered the body together,
having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked. And
I've seen many times, you see, here's somebody, they don't say
much, they don't take part in the teaching or the preaching,
but God blessed that individual with faith or with a prayerful
spirit, prayerful heart, and those people a lot of times maybe
are carrying the church in prayer. They're praying and only God
knows the support that the church has through the prayers of His
people. And they're people that are gifted far beyond what we
even know or think. And the spirit working in them
and through them They profit the church. They profit the body
of Christ. And that's what we're told here.
But the manifestation, in verse 7, of the Spirit is given to
every man to profit withal. And we know that the gifts in
the New Testament, which is mentioned here in the 12th chapter, that
many of those gifts are no longer in the church because after the
complete revelation of God is given. Scripture says that when
I was a child, I spake as a child. Well, when the church was in
its infancy, it operated and functioned with all these different
and various gifts of the Spirit. But then when I became a man,
I put away childish things. When the church grew to maturity
and the complete revelation of God was given, then these various
gifts, these gifts of tongues and healing and these gifts,
they were done away when the church matured and when the complete
revelation of God was given. But yet, every member has been
put in the church to profit. To profit with all. In other
words, to profit the other members. The body is tempered together
by God. And He knows just what is needed
in the body. And so the Lord sets them in
the church. And then listen to this. And
this is that there should be no schisms in the body, but that
the members should have the same care one for another, whether
they be the foot, or the hand, the eye, or whatever part of
the body it is. That the members should have
the same care one for another, and whether one member, listen
to this, suffer, all the members suffer with it. Or one member
be honored, all the members rejoice with it. You know, if you have
something wrong with your eye, your whole body suffers. If you
have something, if you break your leg, you suffer all over.
Your whole body is in sympathy with that affliction. If you
mash your thumb, or if you mash your toe, or something happens,
you sprain your ankle, whatever it is, your whole body is affected
by it. And so what Paul is saying here,
that if one member suffers, in the church. If there's a situation
where one member is suffering, then all the members suffer with
it. And if one member be honored,
then all the members rejoice with it. If there's a victory,
if there's an answer to prayer, if there's salvation given by
God to someone that somebody's been praying for, a great victory,
then there's rejoicing over that. Now, I wanted us to think a little
bit about how we treat each other. And in Christ's description here
in Matthew 25, and let's turn back there just a moment to Matthew's
Gospel, chapter 25, and let's look a little bit here at what
our Lord is saying, the King in verse 34, shall say
unto them on his right hand. Now we know that those that are
on the right hand are the sheep. They're the sheep of Christ. They're those that belong to
the Lord. Those that are saved. And he
says to them, he said, you come blessed of my father. My father's
blessed you in saving you. My father's blessed you in keeping
you. My father's blessed you in bringing you here to this
place. He said, come ye blessed of my Father, and the Father's
blessed you in giving you me, Christ. He said, come ye, inherit
the kingdom that's been prepared for you from the foundation of
the world. The Lord has prepared a kingdom
for his people, and he prepared it from the foundation of the
world. And then here's what he says.
He says, I was hungered, you gave me meat, I was thirsty,
you gave me drink, I was a stranger, you took me in naked, you clothed
me, I was sick, you visited me, I was in prison, you came to
me, and then shall the righteous answer him in verse 37, saying,
Lord, when saw we thee? in this condition that you've
described. When did we see you in that situation? We can't remember ever seeing
you hungry and thirsty and naked, sick, in prison. We just don't
know anything about what you're talking about. And the king shall answer and
say unto them, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done
it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it
unto me. I want you to learn a lesson
here. I tell you there's a great lesson here for us to learn. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto
one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto
me. Now what does that tell us? Well,
it tells us that when we find one of the Lord's people, one
of the members of the body of Christ, and we find them hungry
and thirsty, or we see that they're cast out like strangers, or that
they're naked and they're sick, or they're in prison for the
gospel's sake, and we go to them and we provide for them or do
what we can for them considering that they are members of the
body of Christ that they're one of the Lord's brethren and they
may be one of the least in the kingdom of God. They may be one
of the least in the family of God. We may look upon them and
say that's one of the very least of the Lord's children. We may
be able to find so many things about them that we would say, well, I don't
know whether we should attempt to show any mercy there or not,
but beloved, if they are the Lord's, if they're one of His,
if they belong to Him, if they are His children, then our treatment
of them is our treatment of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're to remember
that. Our treatment of the brethren,
our treatment of the members of the body is our treatment
of Christ. And somebody says, well, I love
Christ. I love Christ. I love Him for
what He's done for me. I love Him because of who He
is. I love Christ. Well brethren, there needs to
be and must be and will be given an opportunity for there to be
a manifestation of our love for Christ toward the members of
His body. Now, you remember there that
we read in 1 Corinthians, and I want you to see this, It's
verse 12, and notice there at the last part of 1 Corinthians
12, he says, and all the members of that one body, being many,
are one body, so also is Christ. So also is Christ. And so when we treat the members
of his body, even the very least of the brethren, when we do for
them as we can, as we're able to do for them, then You've done
it unto me. You've done it unto me. And so
that's the reason why we've got to keep our eyes open. Why we
must stay informed. Why we must make it our business
to know what and how things are with our brethren. How things
are with our sisters in the Lord. Just where are things? How are
they? Can I be of some help? Is there
something I can do? So we see from this how all of
the children of God are to treat each other. There should be no
division in the body, Paul said, but that the members should have
the same care one for another. And while the one member suffer,
all the members suffer with it. They suffer with it. They know
about it. They know what's going on. And they keep up with things. and they know what's going on.
Doesn't mean that we're watchdogs or anything like that and that
we're prying into other people's business. Doesn't mean that at
all. But it does mean that we are exercising care toward each
other and that we bear the burdens of one another. We bear one another's
burdens. Now, let's see. Take heed how you treat any child
of God. Treat them all with love, honor,
respect, and tenderness. Remember how you treat them is
literally how you treat the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Be especially
attentive to the least of these, his brethren. Do not form a clique
in the body of Christ. That member that is needing attention
is the one to whom we are to give our attention. And if a
member seems to be doing quite well, getting along all right,
then we give our attention to the one that needs the attention. And I really think that each one
of us here today are quite joyful that we're in the body of Christ.
Quite joyful that we belong to Christ, that we're a member of
his many-membered body. But there's responsibilities.
Now, you'll take note that those in verse 41, back in Matthew
25 here, that those that were on his left hand, he said, depart
from me. Ye curse it into everlasting
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. And then he goes
right over this same thing again. And they, of course, answered
him in verse 45 saying, Truly I say unto you as much, or our
Lord's, verse 44 is what I'm looking for. Then shall they
also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee a hungred, or
a thirst, stranger, naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not
minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying,
Verily I say, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least
of these, ye did it not to me. Now brethren, none of us are
given the responsibility of being a judge as to who belongs to
the Lord and who doesn't belong to the Lord. Now there are indications,
and I wouldn't in any way shape or form belittle the fact that
the fruit of one's life indicates whether they belong to the Lord
or not. There are certainly things in our lives that that would
indicate that we belong to him. But there is no real proof this
morning of our relationship with God. As far as I look out upon
you this morning, I judge that some of you are in Christ. I
judge you are, and you judge maybe that I'm in Christ. But
we need to be very careful when we make an assessment And we
say, well, I can just forget that person because, you know,
their lives haven't been all they ought to have been, and
they've made a lot of mistakes, and they've failed a lot. And
we can just, you know, get to the place where we ignore them.
And it just may be that when we get to heaven, we may discover
that that individual was indeed a child of God. We must be very,
very careful. in making judgments. And judgments
normally, you know, if we were humble as we ought to be, we
would with honor prefer others before ourselves in that that
we would make a judgment saying, well, if there's a question whether
or not it's me or him who's a child of God, I would rather say that
he was than I because of the fact that I think in honor of
preferring one another, that we must with humility face the
possibility that maybe we are deceived and maybe the other
individual isn't. And I do know that the outward
life of people, while it should be circumspect and while it should
be a life that brings glory to God, every believer's life, ought
to bring glory to God. It ought to honor Christ. But
yet there are many, many believers in this world who have fallen
into sin and traps and have gotten themselves into vines and have
fallen six times, yea, maybe seven, but the Lord has delivered
them and raised them up. And I never forget the fact that
if we lived next door to David in his day, King David, we probably
all would have turned thumbs down on him and said, that guy's
guilty of murder and adultery. We turned thumbs down on old
David. We wouldn't have nothing to do
with him. He's not a child of God. How could he be a child
of God? Well, you see, we can be wrong. We can be wrong. David was a man after God's own
heart. He was a believer, but yet he had fallen. And we want to be very careful
about that, lest we end up in this group that says, well, we
never saw you that way. And the Lord said, well, there
were some of mine And in as much as you didn't do it to the least
of mine, you did it not to me. That's the way it was. There
are old people, there's an old lady that lives in an apartment
building and there's some of you that have looked after her
and visited her and looked in on her. There's a sick man today
over in the Missouri River Manor in the What is the name of that hospice? In the hospice there, Kenny. And very sick. I believe the
Lord gave him a clear revelation of the gospel in this last year. And he, I just believe that.
I do. I've got to believe that. I've
known him ever since he was five years old. I've known him ever
since he was just a little old boy hardly able to come to the
table. I've known him. And I've known him, boy, he's
had a time in his life, and he struggled and tried to be a Christian,
thought he was, tried every way, and never had it, never had it,
never had it, never had it. But I believe he's got it now.
I do. I firmly believe that. Because
there's a hunger, there was a hunger for the last four or five months,
and in the last couple of months, he's listened to tape after tape
after tape after tape, and somebody said, well, you know, it looks
like he's waited an awful long time, but we're all that way
by nature. If God don't intervene, well,
everyone waits. The fact is, we'd die and go
to hell if God didn't intervene. And so, You just gotta believe
God, and I hope that we'll exercise some care for each other, and
that we will be humble and submissive in our own attitudes about our
own self, and that we'll reach out and be of all the help we
can be to the Lord's, to the least, to the least ones. And only God knows who those
least ones really are. Father, in the name of Jesus,
I pray that this might be used by the Holy Spirit. Thou knowest
that we want that your word would take effect in our lives. Do
thou bless us and strengthen us, and may this church learn
to exercise great care for each other, and may we pray for each
other, and may we assist in what... Mike, do you have a hymn you
can lead us in?