Church as a Body

Well, all right. Good morning everyone. Certainly to the folks that are here in Cheektowaga with us, because that is where I am the campus pastor, but also good morning to all of those who are watching from Crosspoint Campus, Lockport Campus, the Niagara Falls Campus over in Regal, and obviously to those who are online, because that means that we are streaming live from Cheektowaga this morning. So, how exciting. Here we go. See, I like that, I like that. So to everyone else listening and watching, I did warn them though to be on their best behavior. You won't see mosh pits, right? You won't see body surfing, so they will be on their best behavior. They'll be back to doing that next week. But, for today this is what we're gonna see. So thank you so much for being here this morning. So, we're gonna be in a little bit longer text this morning, but that's okay. But I want us to read it together. And what I'll do is, I'm gonna break down the text into smaller bite sized chunks. And then I'll have a little bit to say about each of those little pieces. And then I'm gonna have a challenge or an action step for each of us as it relates to those pieces of scripture. So get ready. We are gonna be in 1 Corinthians 12. Now, if you're not familiar with the Bible, if you're not familiar with the Bible, that's gonna be in three quarters of the way, all the way towards the back in the New Testament. You're gonna see if you get to Matthew, Mark, or Luke, go to the right a little bit. If you see Hebrew, James, or Peter, go to the left a little bit, and you'll find it there. Maybe the table of contents helps you best, go to the table of contents. Do not ever get the sense that you can't use the table of contents, okay? It's there for you, it's to help you. And if someone gives you the side eye because you look at the table of contents, here's what you do to them. You say, "Hey, can you point me to the book of Nahum?" Yeah. See? That'll put them in their place right there. So, never, never hesitate using the table of contents. If there's a Bible in front of you, that you don't have one, please feel free to take that. That's yours. If you have it digitally, just key in 1 Corinthians 12, and that's where we're gonna be. So, let's take a walk through this. 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 "Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all of the many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free, and we were all given one Spirit to drink. Even so, the body is not made up of one part, but many. Now if the foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,' it would not for that reason stop being a part of the body. And if the ear should say, 'Because I am not an eye, I don't belong to the body,' it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact, God has placed the parts of the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don't need you!' And the head cannot say to the feet, 'I don't need you!' On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. And the parts that we think are less honorable, we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its part should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it." Now is that an awesome, awesome piece of text of scripture or what? I mean, if you have a human body, which you all do, you already get everything that's being said there, but we're gonna talk about that a little bit. So over the past couple of weeks, we have gone through the message series of "Church Reset" and we've talked about the church as the priest, the church as the bride, the church as the family which was super, super rich last week, right? I mean, as I'm putting this message together, I'm saying to myself, "Okay, what should I say? Man, just tell them to do what they heard last week and you should be good." But we're not gonna do that. But I'm hoping what will happen is, you'll be able to take last week's message from Pastor Edwin, my message here, and kind of put those two together, obviously listening to all of the other ones, and Pastor Jonathan is gonna wrap this message series up next week. So looking forward to that as well. So Paul's writing here under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is absolutely brilliant. He uses the analogy of the human body, having many parts to form one function all designed by God. Our body, and the many parts designed by God to form a function. He uses that to say, "Hey, listen, God put us together. Us, the body of Christ, many parts together. So work together as one body as well." Many parts of the church also work together as one and to function that way as well. But before we dive too, too far into the passages of scripture that we're gonna go over this morning, I do wanna clarify something. Let's first go to Colossians 1. "And he is the head of the body, the church, He is the beginning and the firstborn among the dead, so that in everything he might have supremacy." And then Colossians 2:9-10. "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority." And I wanted to make sure we clear that up because as we move on in the text this morning and talk about a number of different things, I wanted to make sure that no one here starts thinking that they actually are the head of the church, okay? That is reserved for Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. So I wanted to make sure that we covered that. But the analogy of the body is just absolutely brilliant that, just as the human body has many parts, the church has many parts as well. And just as the human body works together, we too are to work together as well. Let's dive way at the end now to the 27th verse, let's read that. "Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it." But again, here's what I wanna clarify, that when it says that each of us are a part of it. There is a qualification there. Each one of us is a part of it if we have already confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord and we believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead. That's who that is for. And I recognize that in our many different environments, that not everyone under the sound of my voice right now has received Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior. So while that could apply to you, it doesn't apply until you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior. So this applies to those who embrace Jesus Christ and live by His teachings, and receive Him into their hearts as their Lord and their savior. And the message we heard last week talked about that, it said "Hey, you can do that." There's an entry point into the family to become a child of God. And that entry point is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. Yes, we are loved by God. Absolutely. Even before we accept Christ as our savior, we are loved by God. As we read in John 3:16 that God so loved the world. As we read that, but here's also what we read in John, that "Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God." We first have to receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and our savior. So every Sunday that we have a message here, it's our hope and it's our prayer that if you're listening, and you have yet to be convinced of the truth of the gospel, we pray that you have seen it this morning, maybe in what we've worshiped already, or heard it in our worship, or maybe you've seen it in the folks that you around, but our hope and our prayer is that at the end of the service, when we offer the opportunity to receive Jesus Christ, that you too would receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and your savior, be considered a child of God, be considered a part of the body of Christ, because who wouldn't wanna be the pinkie toe of God, right? So, we hope and pray that this morning you would receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and as your savior. So, still staying with this analogy of the body, Paul speaks to the craziness of a body part choosing, to actually not be part of the body, the body that it is designed to be part of. Let's go then now to 15, listen again to this. "Now, if the foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,' it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, 'Because I am not an eye, I don't belong to the body,' it would not for that reason stop being part of the body." That's crazy right? To say, "I'm not part of the body." But that's just what some people do. That some people decide and choose to not be part of the body. Listen, when you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and as your savior, you automatically were now part of the body of Christ, a body that you need, and a body that needs you as well. You became part of a living, breathing body of believers, a body that needs you, as badly as you need it as well. So when you choose to extricate, or when you choose to amputate yourself from the body of Christ, we all lose out. You lose out because you aren't being able to be ministered to, and we lose out because you aren't able to minister to us. We cannot extricate, we cannot amputate ourselves from the body of Christ because when you said yes, you were now part of this body. And I wanna share a story with you about one of our family members who reached out to the staff and shared their disappointment that the church wasn't there for them. Now, they did it in such a way, with such love and respect that it's actually okay to disagree with people, and to be disappointed, but to do it in a way that's respectful. Just saying that. So that's what they did. And we had this conversation and they shared, "Listen, the church didn't reach out to me. Someone in my family died, and I went through this thing alone, no one reached out to me." So because it was handled in the right way, we were able to have this conversation, and then having the conversation, obviously there were apologies that were given, there were apologies that were accepted. So that was gracious. Then also, there were condolences given and received well, which is gracious as well. But because that conversation went well, because the heart posture of the person expressing the things that they were disappointed with was really in the right place, we were able to then ask that person a couple of questions as well. And here's one of those questions. "So what did your small groups say when they heard of your passing of your family member? Well, I'm not connected in a small group. I'm not in a small group. Okay, we get that. Everyone isn't in a small group, as much as we'd like for that to be. So what about the people you serve with, what did they say when they heard about their passing? Well, I'm not serving any place. Okay. We understand everyone doesn't serve or isn't serving. Well, what did the people around you say when they heard about that? Well, I don't really know the people that I sit around. Hmm. You're not in a small group community, you're not serving the body, and you're not connecting with the people that are around you, with all due respects, how would we know that you were hurting?" They got it at that point that they had hived themselves off from the body, and they weren't able to be ministered to, or minister to. Here's what I want you to do for reflection this week as part of your homework, if you've yet to connect to a place of service within the body or a small group, I want you to ask yourself why you haven't. I want you to really, really wrestle with that because it's likely that you are here every single Sunday. Most Sundays you are here. You're faithful attending, you're faithful listening. It's likely also that you're a faithful giver to all of the things that we give towards in the mission here, it's likely that. But for some reason, you've yet to connect to serving, you've yet to connect to the body, you've yet to connect to the people that are around you. And I want you to wrestle with that this week. Why is that the case? Now, not that you need to get together with all these things just for the sake of it, you need to get together to be part of the body for all the right reasons so that you can minister to it, and that it can minister to you as well. And I recognize that there are stages in life and there are seasons in life in which that might not really be possible. We totally get that. But I wanna challenge you this week, to just that. If you have yet to get connected in any one of those ways, what is holding you back from that? Well, there's another part that's equally as well, is it talks about, is any part of the body more important than any other part of the body, right? So let's take a look here at verses 17-20. "If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body." And what Paul is sharing with us here is that, no part of the body is greater than any other part of the body. They each have a specific function in our body to perform a specific function. And each one of us has a specific function that we are to perform within the body of Christ as well. So every chapter of Fight Club, I've got a brother Ray that assembles a group of guys to make sure they provide the worship music for us. And they knock it out the park doing that. And most of those guys to the exception of one or two, you'll never see on a Sunday morning stage, for that matter, or any place else. But they recognize that God has given them a gift to be able to play, and they just wanna serve whenever and wherever they can serve. And then on that same night, John Stankey will give us the 2:00 a.m. devotional we call it. 2:00 a.m. morning devotional, and he rocks it out doing that for us, right? Two different parts of the body, two different gifts, none more valuable than the other, but each of them super, super critical to the mission that God has placed before them. So they are faithful to that, two different things, doing what they need to do to function as a body. God has gifted you, all of you, all of us with at least one gift. Now in many cases, He's gifted us with many more than that right there. But the gifts that He's given us, He may change a gift over time, or maybe move a gift here or there. Or He might even illuminate a gift in us that we never knew we had because of a life circumstance that we may be going through. There are many, many people that we've had conversations with that will tell us that, "You know, it wasn't until the untimely passing of my loved one, that God birthed in me the gift of compassion. God took that circumstance, that life circumstance, and raised a heart of compassion that wasn't maybe there before." Or maybe we hear also that, "You know, God brought this out of me and it came out because of a bad diagnosis that now I've got that gift of mercy that I never had before." So God may take something that happens in your life, good or bad, and elevate that, and illuminate that at you, so that you again, at that point will be able to minister to the body with a gift that you may have never even had before. One of my goals this summer is to finish this book called "More Than Meets the Eye" by Dr. Richard Swenson. And in this book, Dr. Swenson takes major parts of the body and begins to explain the intricate nature of what God has done, the complexities of that. I mean, when you read the part of the body on the eye, it just blows you away, and you just put the book down and you say, "My God! I gotta worship a God that created something like this." And that's probably why I can't seem to finish the book 'cause every time I read it I'm like, "Are you kidding me God? That's what you designed." Check this out, you may not know this, but the average human body, has 60 to 80,000 miles of veins in it. 60 to 80,000 miles of veins in the average human body. I'm six foot one. How does He do that? But if God who created the human body to that kind of attention to detail and intricacy, and complexity, to design the human body, how much more do you think He designed the human body to actually worship and be part of the body of Jesus Christ, the same amount of care, and even more so, you are fearfully and wonderfully made folks. Listen, more homework. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to figure out what your spiritual gift, or your gifts are, and explore how you can use them to serve the body of Christ. Again, you may have multiple spiritual gifts, right? There's tons of places online where you can look up spiritual gifts and take some of those surveys. Some are super long, some are super short, all have some merit to them. We have some, I believe, on The Chapel's website. You can look at that as well, but I want you to really begin to explore what your spiritual gift or gifts are, and how will you be able to use that within the body. But here's the caution though. Here's the caution. Sometimes we discover this gift, we say, "Aha! God has gifted me this way. And that's what I'm gonna do. I'm not doing anything else until this is the one." Right? But when we do that, there are other things over here that you could be doing while you're waiting for this. And maybe, just maybe, God is saying, "You know why I haven't created this opportunity for you? Because you have taken a gift that I have given you and placed it so high on the scale, that you've pulled yourself out and said, 'I will do nothing but that right there'." Maybe God wants to work in you on this thing over here to get your heart postured right, so then this major one here, is something that you can actually use. So when you discover your spiritual gifts, make sure your heart is postured rightly. So, there's this one guy, Don, I met years ago when I first started at The Chapel in our Men's Ministry. And he's like, "Leroy, I need to be using my spiritual gifts. God has gifted me with the gift of administration." We were doing spiritual gift studies. "God has given me with the gift of administration." And when you read his resume, when you read all of the project management certifications that this guy has, God gifted this kid with administrations. "So how can you use me Leroy?" Pffff. "Here's the deal, Don. We simply ain't building space shuttles at The Chapel. We're not. If we were doing that, you'd be the guy. If I were in corporate America, you would be the guy. But here's the deal, though we're not building space shuttles, we are looking to build relationships with people. So if you could maybe take some time, take a season or two, and just maybe hang out in this ministry that I pointed him to, and just build some relationships with the folks there, get to know them a little bit, you may meet a little three-year-old kid with his parents, and next thing you know he's 15 years old and you've been in their life. But if you could build those relationships there while we wait and see that maybe there's an opportunity for you to use your spiritual gifting at the highest level of administrative skills, if you could do that, that would be great." And because his heart was postured right, he was like, "Pff. Hecks yeah, I can do that." So he served in this ministry way over here, completely outside of his natural gift sets to serve and build relationships. So folks, I would just ask you to make sure that as you discover what your gifts are, that you would do that with the right heart posture. But find out what your spiritual gift or gifts are, and then think of ways that you might be able to use that within the body of Christ. And kind of along the same lines, it's easy then to equate visibility with value, right? So you see that there are parts of the body of Christ that are visible, there are people that are here, there are people that are parts of the body of Christ that are doing and serving in ways that are visible. And it's easy to equate, because they're visible, there's value. It's also easy to say that maybe you're one of those people that are visible, and you've lifted yourself up to higher level of, it seems, to give yourself value. No part of the body is any more valuable than any other part of the body as well. Listen to this here in 1 Corinthians 12:21-22, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don't need you!'" I mean, that's how the eye would say it right? "And the head cannot say to the feet, 'I don't need you!' On the contrary, those body parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable." So whether a part of the body is visible, or whether a part of the body is invisible that you can't see it, they are equally indispensable of one another. They're parts of the physical human body that are visible to us. And you know those parts that we prep, we cut, we paint, we do all these things because it's visible, right? But the simple fact that they look as good as they do, is probably because of some stuff on the inside of your body that helps it look as good as it does. So no part of the body is any more valuable or greater than any other part of the body. There are people that serve in this ministry of The Chapel that you will never see. And you know what? They love it that way. They absolutely love that they will never be seen. The simple fact that I'm standing here in Cheektowaga, and you see me in Getzville, you see me in Lockport, you see me in Niagara Falls, and you see me online, the simple fact that you see me, is because of some folks that you will never meet that are completely indispensable. Now listen, take it from a campus pastor, right? That those people that you can't see that are getting it done, are indispensable, take it from a campus pastor, when I'm sitting down there next to my lovely and talented wife Iliana, and you're like, "Oh man, Leroy is taking some copious notes. Look at him over there." Taking notes? I'm looking at my phone. I'm watching the messages go back and forth about everything that's happening. And we're on time here, we're off time there. We're three seconds back. Man, if that screen goes dark, 1001, 1002, my heart rate goes from 60 to 160, just like that. Like, "Oh God, I'm up and now I gotta do the message." But then it goes 1003, and it's back up because those people that are back in those areas that you will never see, are doing everything that's necessary to make sure things work as well. There are people that serve in the body of Christ that you will never see, that are absolutely positively indispensable. If you see a Bible, and a pen, and a prayer card in your seat pack, trust me folks, that's there because when you and I are out having lunch or taking a nap, there are folks at our campuses that are putting those things in there to make sure that we're ready for next week. Folks just as indispensable that you will never, ever even see. It reminds me of one of our dear, dear friends Care. Care recently went home to be with the Lord. Care was one of these ladies that, "Hey, tell me what you need and I'll do it." So if you are a guy, and at any point in time you actually got a postcard maybe for an engaged breakfast, or a men's retreat, or a Fight Club postcard, if you ever got one of those, here's the reason you got it, because we would send Care every month, 1500 postcards for her to sticker. Every single one, every single one. Next month would come, "Hey Leroy, you got those postcards?" "Okay." Every single one. I calculated the number that she probably did in a short period of time was over a hundred thousand postcards that she would stick every single month, that you have no clue of where she is and who's doing it. But every part of the body, whether it's visible or not, is indispensable. Listen to Matthew 5:16 here, "Let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds." That they will see our good deeds. But here's the kicker, "That they will praise your Father in heaven." Not praise you, praise your Father in heaven because He's using how He has gifted you, for His glory.
So as you begin to give some consideration as to, "Okay, what's next? How do I begin to serve?" I want you to pray that your motives are right, that your motives are not motives in which you are gonna place yourself up higher. But just as we just talked about, that God would be magnified, Christ would be magnified, right? Then we think of John 3:30, that I must become less so that He would become more. So make sure your heart is right, your heart is postured as you began to think about what it means for you next, and your next place of service, or your first place of service, for all that matter. But I wanna move on to another part of the scripture here and really cover this part because it's really, really impactful when it comes to serving one another. And my hope and prayer is, as I share this with you right now that, this might actually change the way you look at a Sunday morning when you come into this building. And I'm hoping that through this bit of scripture in 24-26, that it will do just that. So, "But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it as well." Again, just another brilliant passage of scripture. Because again, if you have a human body, you know what that's like. Stub your toe, bite your tongue, right? You know exactly, the rest of the body freaks out and the rest of your body is designed so that it will actually attack anything that seeks to threaten it, right? Something attacks your body, your body, God has designed it to make sure it is attacked by the other members of the body, to make sure that it is healed. Now, in the exact same way that God designed the human body, He designed the body of Christ to do the same. For the body of Christ to come together so that any member that is suffering, whoo! That the body does what the body does, and then attacks to make sure that person comes to a place of healing, who might be hurting. That is what the body does. That is what the body of Christ is designed to do as well. I can guarantee you this, absolutely, positively, unequivocally, guarantee you this, that you are sitting, right now, within six seats in any given direction of someone who is hurting. Look around you, six seats in any given direction of someone who is hurting, someone who is suffering in silence, someone who looks good. They've got everything prepped up and it looks good and polished and all that, put on their spritz, they smell good, and they probably just shook your hand a few minutes ago as well. But I can guarantee you that everyone in here is sitting within six seats in any given direction of someone who is hurting and suffering in silence. So, ma'am, your husband. Yeah. He's getting it done, he's putting in the hours, and providing for the family. Yeah, that's right. Don't be fooled by that. Do not be fooled that he's not hurting and suffering in silence just because he's getting it done. And husbands, same thing with your wife, right? But your wife is getting it done at home, getting it done at work, loving the neighbors, all of these things, she's getting it done. Don't be fooled by that and into thinking that she might not be the one who is suffering and hurting in silence as well. Mom and Dad, maybe you're saying to your kid, "That's just teenage angst, that's just young adult, who knows?" Don't be fooled by that. It might be your son or your daughter who is suffering in silence. You are less than a half a dozen feet, or half a dozen chairs, from someone who is hurting and suffering in silence. It wasn't too long ago, maybe three or four weeks ago, I'm sitting up here on the platform, doing what I'm doing, and being a talking head and all that stuff, and I spotted someone who I hadn't seen since literally 2019. I know the whole COVID thing was what it was, but I hadn't seen them since maybe the latter half of 2019. And as I caught their eye, I'm saying to myself, "Great, I can't wait till after service so I can get out and just catch up with them, and give them a hug, and all that stuff." So service ended, boom! I made a beeline to that person. "Man, how are you? Haven't see you in a while. You look great. I can't believe it. How have you been doing. Oh, I've been doing good." So we talked for a couple of seconds. "How are you really doing? No, I'm doing okay." So we talked for a couple seconds more. "How are you really doing?" Boom! "I'm dying. I'm absolutely dying Leroy. The relationship that I had when you saw me last exploded and I'm here alone, and I'm dying, I've got kids, I'm trying to navigate through this whole COVID thing. Leroy, I'm absolutely dying." Folks, within six seats of you, you are sitting around someone who is suffering in silence, and that shouldn't be the case. We have to come around them. And we have to do what we hear in Galatians 6, which won't be on your screen, but it says, "We are to carry one another's burden." And the only way, the only way that we can carry one another's burden, is that we step into their lives. As messy is that might look, that we step into the lives of the people that are around us, the people that are our family, the people that are parts of the body of Christ, that we step into their lives. "Yeah. But Leroy, I just don't know what I'm gonna say." Good. You might not have to say a thing. Just listen, use the ear body part to just listen to what it is they have, that might be all you have to do, is just listen. Maybe, just maybe, the only thing that you might need to do, is hold their hand. They just wanna know somebody is there. "That's all I needed to know and hear." Maybe, just maybe, all you needed to do is use the other body parts and give them a hug. It might be all you need to, you may not have to say a stinkin' word, just give 'em a hug. Or maybe, just maybe, all that you need to do is to say, "Hey, hang on, one second. I know my brother over here, he went through something a little bit similar to that." You grab his hand, and you grab the hand of the person that you're talking to, put them together. "Why don't you two get together? I think you might be an encouragement to one another." Folks, that is only gonna happen when we get to know the people that are around us, when we step into their lives, when we exit our comfort zone, and step into the lives of the people that are here. Again, you've probably just shook the hand with someone who is hurting and suffering in silence. Listen to the lyrics here of the song from Pete Prefab Sprout. "Tell someone you love them, there's always a way. And if the dead could speak to you and me, I know what they would say. Don't waste another day. Show someone you love them, don't be scared to care, and if they fall into your arms, you'd be surprised to find the weight that you can bear." Your brothers and sisters need you. Do not be scared to care for them. You can do just that. We serve each other well, when we care and we love for each other well, and that doesn't happen unless we get to know them. Our hope and our prayer is this, is that when you walk into the doors of the church on any Sunday, that you are recognized that you are family, you are with family, and that you need the body, you have to serve the body, as well as the body needs to and wants to serve you as well. Then, when margin allows you to, that you would leave time for your family members when you are here, right? That you would not get here five minutes before service and bust out the door five minutes after service. Now I get it, you're like, "Leroy, I got four kids. I'm doing my best just to get to service, and now you want me to come here super early." I get that. That's why I say and I mean it with all my heart that, as the season of life allows, that you would not get here five minutes before and bust out of here five minutes after. Think of Thanksgiving dinner. If someone came to Thanksgiving dinner, and they came five minutes before dinner and left five minutes after dinner, what message would that convey to the rest of the family? Right? So I recognize that, again, not everyone has that same capacity because you have to work or you get the kids. I get all of that. But that's what I want you to really, really consider. When you walk into the doors of the church on a Sunday, be looking. Be looking and leave margin for people, because guess what? If you're doing that, and they're doing that, you might be the person that falls into their arms, and because of their margin, they're gonna catch you. And they're gonna put those things together to be around you as well. So another challenge for you here, as you begin to think about what it looks like for you to re-engage or to engage, to get connected to the body, to use your gifting for the body, and use your gifting for the church, I want you to figure out what it means for you to meaningfully engage the folks that you are sitting near. Most of you I can tell, you're gonna sit in the same spot every single Sunday. And that's okay. I mean, that's your seat, right? There's your chair you bought.
Exactly. But that's okay. But that just demonstrates your neighborhood. That's okay. You have already self identified your geography within this campus, and I'm perfectly fine with that. But if you've identified that geography, that means now, you better own that geography. You're coming right back there next week and you need to know the people that are there, and how you can come alongside them, and encourage them, and how you can challenge them. But then that also means your heart has to be ready to accept challenge from them as well. So every single Sunday, here's what I want you to know. I want you to know that you have our permission to be the de facto campus pastor. Okay? You don't get the salary, but you can every Sunday walk into any church you go to, and you be the de facto campus pastor. I would love to get to know each and every single one of you. I will never be able to do that which is probably good, because guess what? I wasn't designed to do that. That's not what the body does. I am not the most important person. All of us, equal value, are the people. And I want us to begin to know the people that we're spending a huge, huge amount of time with every single week, right? Because when we come here, this has to be in one way or another, one of the safest places in the world for you to go because I am with my family. Let's treat it that way folks. Let's treat it that way. And as we begin to kind of wrap things up 'cause I'm looking at my time and I'm saying, "Oh God, who wrote this message. This might not take." I wanna make sure I start to wrap things up 'cause there's a couple of things that we wanna do. But there's another passage of scripture that I want us to look at. We're gonna go right back to 27. "Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it." So this chair here, you've probably looking at that chair like, "Okay. Is Leroy gonna sit down on that and do the message? I hope not, it's super low. That would be really awkward." But you've probably been looking at this chair and wondering what is this chair here for. Well I can safely assume that everyone watching this message no matter where they are, that they're sitting in a chair. And we're super, super, super grateful for everyone who, week after week, they either watch us from online, or they come to one of our campuses every week. We are super grateful for that, that you come every week to worship with us. You come every week to hear God speak through us. And we just pray as we do every Sunday morning, "God please, may I do the gospel well this morning, may I say what you would desire for me to say to the folks and that they would receive it. And then you can take it from there with whatever that looks like." But we're super, super grateful for each of you that do that each and every week. However, and I say this with all sincerity, I say that with love for each and every one of you, that if this is the extent of your contribution of the body, to the body, it's not gonna work. This can't be your greatest contribution. That I come, and that I sit in this chair. Thank you for coming. We're super, super grateful. We're thankful that you come every Sunday, we're thankful that you give to the mission. It can't be done without you. So yes, super grateful for that. But this chair, it can't be the only contribution that you have towards the body, to the people that call this place home, to your brothers and sisters in Christ. You see, church wasn't designed to be done fully by staff people. Trust me, you wouldn't want a chapel to have 500 people on staff so you could just come in and do nothing. You would not want that at all. This chair cannot be the extent of your contribution to the body of Christ. Listen here to Ephesians 4. Here's what our staff is charged with doing, one of many things. We're charged with "To equip his body for the works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up." That the work of the church is to be designed, to be done by the whole of the body of church. Everyone filling in, to do the things that need to be done. Each part used, each part needed. No part more valuable than any other part of the body. So lately, you've been hearing an awful lot, every week we've been talking about our mission and our vision, right? Our mission that every man, every woman, every child would have repeated opportunities to see, and to hear, and to respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We've been talking about that every single Sunday for the past number of months, just to make sure that we're reiterating that. That, that would become the DNA that we live by, we know by, that, that is our mission. But that mission is actually God's mission. So we are just living out God's mission. And we also talk about our vision as well. And the vision here is that, "Each disciple of Jesus is transformed and mobilized as they love God, as they love the church, and as they love the world." So as we think about that loving God part, you guys knock it out the park. I get that, and I see that in you guys. And each one of us, we love God, just as we've talked about as we prayed, right? That we love God, God loved us, and we love Him. The loving the church part, that has to be something that we continue to do in an increasing manner. That we love the church, we care for the church, we serve the church, and we do that, and we do that well, in an increasing manner because listen, if we can't and don't love the church well, I don't know how we're gonna love the world well. It's not possible to love the world well if we haven't loved the church well. So I wanna make sure that we are taking the opportunities, whatever those opportunities may be, that we are loving the church well, that we are caring for the church well, and that your contribution to the body has to go beyond this chair. So whatever that means to you, you need to look through that, you need to pray about what that looks like for you, because here's what I don't want you to do. You're like, "Dude, I'm super motivated. Once we leave here, I'm running out to sign up for everything to serve." Please don't do that to that. Do not do that. How many times have you signed up for something that after you signed up for it you're like, "Why did I do that?" Right? The Buffalo Marathon is today. I actually toyed with signing up to do the marathon. "Leroy, you've never run more than three miles. Why on earth would you even consider signing up to run the Buffalo Marathon for 26 miles? Put your pen down." You see, sometimes we do it, but that's not what I want you to do, I don't want you to run out here and think, "I'm gonna start serving everywhere." That doesn't serve us well, that won't serve you well also. Here's what I actually think will serve you really, really well. Get this, pray. Imagine that. Pray about this. Maybe take this message and the one last week with Pastor Edwin and the family, and the other two messages, and maybe wait till next week when Pastor Jonathan shares, maybe take all of those messages and spend some time with it. Kick it around, read the passages in a small group, or if you're not in a small group, grab a couple of folks that are around you. Again, they're your family. You can actually have coffee with them after service. Kick some of those questions around, and then come back again, and then pray. "God what next steps would you want me to take in light of me being part of the body and not hiving myself off, me being part of the body using my gifts, me glorifying you and serving other people. How would you want me to do that? God, maybe point out specifically what you would want me to do." NoW, I say that cautiously, 'cause God may not point out something specifically. So then maybe the prayer becomes, "God you know, if you don't point something out specifically, I'm just gonna try this over here and maybe see how that might work." That's okay. There've been maybe people who have tried to serve in certain areas that, you know what? "This doesn't fit." Right? I don't know how many of you have tried to maybe serve with the little, little babies and recognize, "This is no place for me to be." That's okay. I hear it all the time. "Man, I went to serve with the high school kids. That's no place for me to be." Whatever that might be, but my hope and my prayer is that you would take time and pray on this a little bit, work through some of these messages a little bit, then come back and pray on it a little bit and decide what that means for you to go forward.