Application Sermon
For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ Romans 12:4-5a NASB
Function – Even in Greek it’s hard to miss the implication here. The Greek word is praxis. The implication is that each member of our physical body counts—and similarly, each member of the body of the congregation—has a practical use. Paul is getting ready to outline the gifts given by God, but the first thing he wants us to understand is that these gifts have no value if they are not used. They are not like nicely wrapped presents sitting on the shelf. You can’t store them away for another time. These gifts are just like the parts of the body. Use them or lose them.
Praxis implies something else that is vitally important for our understanding of the congregational body. A gift is not a position in the hierarchy. Men and women are not gifted to be pastors or budget directors or choir leaders or deacons or rabbis. They may play those roles, but those roles are not the kind of gifts Paul has in mind. The gifts are far more elemental and therefore, far more versatile. Our culture has a tendency to think of professional religious practitioners as “gifted” for the task, but this is not what Paul is talking about, as we will see. What Paul is talking about is the practical outcome that the gift exhibits as it is used for the benefit of others. If an arm doesn’t do any lifting, it’s not of much use. The same is true with these gifts. Until they are used according to God’s purposes, they don’t really amount to much.
Here’s the practical application. Since everyone has a gift given by God, no one should be a passive member of the body. Can you imagine your own body where most of the organs just sit around waiting for a few to do all the work? You would die. So, by the way, does the assembly when most of the congregation turns over the full functioning of the “body” to a few of the more visible members. That is not what God planned. A church with a lot of pew-sitters is boring and ready for the grave. And a staff that does not actively encourage the gifts exercised by all of the members is responsible for the boredom and the tombstone. In a healthy body, every cell gets in the action. In a healthy assembly, every member operates his or her gift for the benefit of all.
Now a word of caution. Don’t run off to do a “spiritual gifts assessment” and think that you have captured Paul’s intent. Paul is not talking about “spiritual” gifts. He is talking about the way each human being is wired from birth to be an active participant in God’s full orchestra. Paul is also not talking about particular roles (like deacon or elder). Paul’s argument here is not about hierarchy. It’s about a community where everyone is edifying everyone and all are dependent on all. Paul is being immanently practical. He is talking about praxis, what each person does according to the gift given him or her.
A woman I know said something outstanding. It’s a wake up call to all of us. “God is not boring. So, why is my church?” Paul is about to give us the answer. It starts with realizing that boredom comes from body parts that are asleep.
What about you? Are you alive with your gift, or is your gift sleeping in the back row?
Topical Index: transformation, function, role, praxis, Romans 12:4-5a
I like the way you clarify the sharing in a community context. And that is another direction that makes me think of a waterfall against the salmon ability to swim up our. So there are many fish. But only the salmon is able.So getting back to Why community is good. But because our understanding of “church” one looses that ‘good’ of community in a huge way. If one can maintain the history and reality of the tribal-life-style and it’s awesome functionality one can very easily understand the ‘good’ of community. Hebraic thinking is still the foundation of church. And therefore it started in Genesis somewhere in chapter 49. Anyway the thought that this sharing has weight could be either a rut one is in. And it certainly just goes round and round, like the wilderness wonderings of our forefathers. Or it can be a shofar blowing to get out of Babylon. Because change is a must. Much Shalom
I also like the clarity also, I am always learning to understand how I have been inaccurately taught about communion I think this is what the communion really was, we turned it into something, like a Works program oh, and we really missed what communion, or Unity really is. We are his body and he is the head..
I’ve got a question on this subject. I totally see this and love seeing it lived out. Going back to the body illustration, what about the body of Christ from other churches – what if they don’t recognize your gifts, your placement in the body (could be referring to the individual pastor or that particular church community) but instead ignore them or don’t want to involve their gifts in the greater Kingdom work.
I think of Paul. Some didn’t want him around. He was persecuted. What happens to the body when its “own” reject and ignore or even persecute? Then what? I would love to hear from you.
“Therefore I exhort you, brothers, through the mercies of God…present your bodies as a living sacrifice…holy…pleasing to God…your reasonable service.”
Is the modern church even organized and operated to facilitate the Body? If we took the modern church – from its tax-compliant ‘legal’ interface with the world all the way down through it’s corporate structure to the buildings it builds (and the way it spends its money on all the above) to the way it conducts its ‘services’: the orientation of the audience all facing one man higher than the rest and not looking at or interacting with anybody else: what in that whole situation facilitates Body function? I keep wanting to say, precious little.
To contrast, look at places where the Body is illegal and is not allowed to incorporate or to build edifices or to conduct ‘official’ services or funerals or weddings. Look at places where the Body is, essentially, underground. What do we see? I think it is something that looks far more like the church of the first century than anything we see today: at least around us here in our vaunted ‘religious freedom’. We see people who know that if they become believers they risk the welfare of their families as well as themselves. Their wives, husbands or children could be tortured, taken from them, raped or killed, as well as themselves. They are not allowed to speak about their faith to anyone else, either. Every aspect of their faith puts them at odds with society and at risk of their lives.
But, these are also the only places on the planet where the Body is growing. Even in the most horrible places, such as North Korea, where the worship of the leaders is set up to directly mimic modern church: where they have services and structures and practices that in every way look like modern Christian worship, we see Body growth. According to the Voice of the Martyrs, the average half life of a Christian in North Korea is about 18 months! But the Body is functioning and growing! I keep wanting to ask: what do they have that we don’t? I have to tell you, if the North Koreans can take the entire organizational features of the modern church and just substitute Kim Il Sung for Jesus and keep right on going, what does that tell us? Why didn’t he take, say, the structure of the first century church as his pattern? Could it possibly be that every step we take towards ‘making’ the world legitimize us (what we call “religious freedom”) is one step further away from the freedom the Body needs IN ITSELF to function properly as that Body? By the time we have ‘made’ the world comfy with us, have we made it impossible for the Body to even be one?
It is telling to me that when people who escaped from the Soviet Gulag (such as Solzshenitzyn) as well as from other countries, came over to the USA, their first reaction to the condition of the Body over here is that we need missionaries to be sent to us from these persecuted countries because we have lost the ability to ‘serve’ the gospel to ourselves: we have lost the ability of the Body to even function properly as the Body.
A Laurita it sounds as if you are saying we are not called to gather but rather to serve. Not called to congregate but to share as we go along our everyday way of living.
Skip I agree and appreciate you verbalizing what I struggle to explain because of structure rather than function.
Thank you both for sharing and not edifying but purifying the information we digest and so often do not comprehend because we were taught to be there not to be part and parcel of…
You both seem to be saying The body is full of fieldworkers, players to busy with what is happening to be concerned with the response of the spectators paying to be entertained. For this reason you shall do greater works than I, not I have done the work enjoy now the reward…
Using your gifts is an appetite of the person. When we ‘hunger and thirst for righteousness’ awakening to serve is hand and glove.
The true question is; where’s the beef?
The ‘meat’ is the desire to answer Yeshua’s call; “Come, follow me.” When we are earnestly following Him, our desires shift from inward, sitting on a pew, to outward, doing the work of His Kingdom: Thy Kinfdom, “COME”
Thy will, BE DONE.”
On THAT DAY, there will be no acceptable excuses; “my Pastor did not see my gifting and let me use them!” HA! Think about what you are doing and the excuses!
If that is you, go in the closet and shut the door.
Cry out to the Lord and He will find something for you to do, even begin by cleaning your own
Closet of selfishness. My closet needs cleaning too. Selah