A People of a Common Need #1
Text: 1 Corinthians 12:12-27
We want to begin a new series this week which concerns the church. As God envisions His
church on earth He sees it as a called out community through the love of His Son Jesus the Christ
.
Before I begin let me just relate a story:
"For years his life had been filled with bitterness, suspicion, and loneliness. He'd hurt a lot
of people and been hurt; he'd drunk way too much and spent most of his time existing rather than
living. Then he met her. Her life was like his except for the booze. Before they knew it,
they'd become close, closer than close. The world became a different place. Only weeks earlier,
it had been purgatory without reprieve, but now there were friendly faces on every corner; the
sun shone and work was a breeze.
In a tender moment, as they looked at one another in silence, in that lovely way that
friends and lovers often do, he whispered, 'You're something else!' Her gracious response was,
'No, we're something else.'
Apart they'd both been embittered, licking their wounds and cursing life. Together they
brought the best out of each other. Apart they were loose cannons; together they moved in unison
, finding joy in pleasing one another.
But it was more than that. It wasn't only that they brought out the best in one another,
they invested each other with things the other didn't have when alone.
And it's that kind of community that we've been called to in Jesus Christ. Where the
Spirit of the Lord is and gets his way, people are coming together."1
The title of this series is a people of a common need. What we are actually going to look
at are 4 needs over the next month. If we are ever going to be the community that God wants us
to be, we need to become the people of 'common' needs!
One of the things that makes AA such a wonderful community is the shared feeling of a need.
At AA there are no such things as cliques, classes of membership and so on. Basically, there
is one type of people, a people with a need to be sober! To belong to AA it doesn't matter if
you are rich or poor, smart or dumb, have roots in the society or are a first-generation member.
If you are in AA you are in the community!
That my friends needs to be the description of the church! While we are so different in so
many ways, when it all comes down to it we are really one type of people! The good news is
when we can look at everyone around us in the same light, we will be the community of grace that
seasons the world of sin to be able to taste the goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ!
Acts 2:42-46, 4:32
Let's read some texts before getting into this morning's lesson:
1 Corinthians 12:12-27, Romans 12:3-5, 2 Samuel 9:1-13
The first common need that we as the community of God's children share is the need to belong
! Every single one of us here, needs to belong in the family of the loving Father and His
wonderful Son!
One of the problems some of us come across when talking about Christianity is this:
while there are some private things about one's faith- the Christian life is never meant to be a
private religion! Basically, when God saves one of us, no matter who it is- that person has a
relationship with all of us! Remember what Paul said- when we are baptized into Christ- we
become members one of another! (1 Corinthians 12:13)
In fact, in God's two great covenants- first the one with Abraham and then the one through
Jesus- God has called one man and from that call produced a community!
It is in this setting that we find our need today! Inside each of us I believe is a desire
to belong! Nowhere is that need greater than in the community of faith that we hold so dear!
We need to 'fit in', or 'find our place'. In 1 Samuel 20- David is fearing for his life from
Jonathan's father king Saul. David cannot go to his usual spot and hides out. Jonathan said
this to David- "you will be missed, because your seat is empty." (vs.18) Isn't that what all of us
want said about us in this community of faith?
There are a couple of things about people that are important to note:
- As a society we have developed many things to connect us with other people. We have made
so many technological advances in the past number of years that blows our minds. We have cell
phones, beepers, faxes, e-mail, palm pilots, answering machines and so much more. I mean it is
hard to not get a message to someone if you really wanted to. Which leads to a sad second thing:
- As a society we are so disconnected with each other. Perhaps we have become
overconvenienced in getting messages to each other that we're not investing anything in our
messages! We have become a very lonely people. We are around people and around so much stuff
that is supposed to be the next thing in communication- but we feel so alone!
What does this tell us?
It tells us that the family of God needs to be a community or become a community where everyone
belongs! Where everyone who enters this community indeed becomes not a member by simply doing a
few routine rituals, but is a member of each of us! What this takes is some work and at times
hard work!
Turn please to 1 Cor.12:12-27!
Vs.12-14- basically, not everyone is going to be the same Paul is saying!
We are many, but one! How do we become one Paul?
This is the ultimate question! How do we answer that question not for 1st century Corinth but
21st century Windsor?
The easiest answer is if everyone just went along with all of my ideas listened to what I had to
say all the time and never opposed anything I did! Unfortunately (maybe fortunately), we all
come from so many differences we are not always going to think, feel or do the same. Something
tells me God knew this! Listen closely enough and you have the apostle Paul answering how to be
a people of a common need to belong!
Vs.15-20- listen to Paul now. Here it is, don't join a church because everybody is exactly like
you! What kind of church is it?
It's a church where only people like you could go! In fact, Paul goes on to say you don't have a
good picture of a body there at all!
Vs.21-24- here it is now! Paul urges us all to become a community that not only accepts our
different gifts and abilities, but becomes an area where everyone belongs! In a sense,
everyone's seat would be missed!
Vs.25-27- what is the end result of a community where everyone fits in?
Where everyone belongs?
The body is one! Each member cares for each other the same way! Do you see what happens?
If we have a community where not only I belong but I can help you belong- you and I will help
each other!
What do we do for today?
- We have to get out of 'my church their church' mentality! Too often you will hear
statements like 'what are they going to do' or 'this outsider'! Paul said, this is our church!
It belongs to the outsider as much as it belongs to me! More directly it is Christ's church and
we are all members one of another!
Let me put it this way, we have it right when we look around this group and realize we didn't
choose to be part of this group, but we are part of this group because God has chosen us!
(Eph.1:3,4) It's easy to walk away when we choose the church, it's not so easy when we've been
chosen for that church!
- Everyone has the same right to be part of this community! Only when people understand that
they have the same right to membership in this family will the problem of people's loneliness
subside!
(2 ideas of 'my' church- growing up in Sudbury, it was my church. My family was the third
family in this church. I had rights that all others to follow would have to put in their time to
earn! The church in Windsor is my church as well. I will defend it from harm with as much as
lies in me. But, no matter how smart I think I am, no matter how far superior my plans are, no
matter how 'more righteous' I think I am than anyone else, everyone is equal. When Jesus set up
the table fellowship we call the Lord's supper. He never had it in his mind to be a quick pass
of bread & wine. No, he meant it to be where the one body shared in the honouring of their
head.
When King David sat at his table it is remarkable that a cripple who wasn't even his son would
be a most welcome guest! Can we do any less than that?
Especially when you consider that every one of us in reality is the cripple who sits at the kings
table!
Vision of heaven! That final community where all the saints will bask in the glory of God! I
envision Paul holding Stephen's hand in triumph. I see the Roman soldier and Mary Magdalene
singing a most powerful song. I see former masters and slaves bowing down together. I see all
of God's children from all backgrounds experiencing the most wonderful feeling of all:
the sense that we all belong together!
"Who are these that gather themselves together on Sunday? Old and young, slow and quick,
smiling and frowning, glad and sad, sick and well, alone and with families. Who are they?
Sometimes we come to hear the Story of God's search for us. If it weren't for that Story,
the size, the mystery, and the holiness would keep us from coming at all. It's there we learn
that we're 'the visited planet' and that the holy Lord would not let us roll in our sin and
misery but came to rescue us and fill the universe with joy and richness. Driving the wrong
kind of darkness from every corner of this vast universe, he makes our planet a home rather than
a whirling Alcatraz.
And so we file into our usual seats, nod in the usual directions, smiling and sometimes
fussing to get the kids settled. Then together with the saints, we become a Community of
witness for the living Lord.
All that we do, we do together as a body of people. Together we sing as the people of God!
As a congregation of his people, we pray even when one person shapes the prayer for us. As an
assembly of his people, we place ourselves under the judgment, consolation, enlightenment,
rebuke, and assurance of the Word of God as it comes to us through a member of our Community.
In previous days, we spent some of the money God blessed us with to pay honorable debts and make
honorable provision for our families--all to God's pleasure. Now as one body, we give money to
feed the poor, carry the Message, and assist the assembly to carry out its purposes.
Some days we're blessed to see a trusting and repentant person baptized into union with
Christ, and we see the gospel enacted before our gathered eyes.
And as his covenanted community and because it pleases him, we set apart bread and wine in
a covenanted renewal. It is here that we meet the living Christ, who communes with us by his
Holy Spirit who dwells among us. And while the sanctified bread and wine remains bread and
wine, it is no longer merely bread and wine. When we spread the Table, this sovereign Lord of
ours graciously makes himself present. The bread and wine become more than symbols of his body
and blood; they become signs of his holy presence. And our holy communion becomes holy
Communion, so we can whisper as we eat the bread, "He's here!" And in our eating, we become
'proclaimers' of his death, life, and his glorious return.
And not alone do we do this! We gather together as his people, and as his people we eat
the Supper with our Lord.
That's community. That's why we 'go to church.' We're needy, dissatisfied, oppressed,
overwhelmed with life, lonely, sinful, floating, and longing for better. In that condition, we
went out to Christ and do continue to go out to him to make him our Leader."2
Next week we will start talking more about being a community where everyone belongs by going
to the very heart of our community! In AA it's a struggle with the bottle, in the church it's
a struggle with sin. To be Christ's covenant community, we need to be a community where everyone
has the common need of grace!
This morning, if you see to belong to the fellowship of the redeemed. If you want to be
part of that eternal fellowship with God, Jesus & the Spirit. If you long to belong to God's
family- you need to be born again- John 3:3,5- let's stand and sing…
1. Jim McGuiggan, Where the Spirit of the Lord is…(West Monroe, LA: Howard Publishing Co., Inc.,
1999) p.164
2. ibid., p.177-181
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