Main Idea: If we want others to know they need God’s love then we need to know we need each other.

This morning is our annual celebration of what we call One Worship. For the last three years we have taken this Sunday before Thanksgiving to come together as one body of believers for one Sunday for one-worship service. Each year I get excited at the sight of the variety of programs and ministries of which we are all a part as the family of First Baptist Church. It is our time to express boldly before God our gratitude for all of his gifts and blessings for the past year as well as declaring our dependence upon him for the year to come.

As I begin this morning I want to tell you how thankful I am for you and your allowing Kathy and me to serve you for these last eleven and a half years. From the very beginning you have invested a trust and confidence in me as your pastor for which I am deeply grateful and greatly humbled. You have been faithfully supportive and at the same time willing to express your feelings with clarity and freedom. One thing I was told from the very beginning was that this was a church that loves its pastor and its staff. That has never failed to be true. We have been blessed beyond measure as a church in these years. We have as well been challenged by much that could have created discord and strife. Yet in both blessing and challenge you have been consistent in your confidence and your prayers. With all my heart I say thank you for your love and your grace, which far exceeds any thing I could ever expect or deserve. We love you and count these days as some of the most blessed of our ministry.

There are moments that sometimes define the reality of who we are as First Baptist more than others. One such moment was last week when I had the privilege of baptizing five people from the Huntington Mission into our church family. One of those individuals was an African American man named Wilbert Brown. Wilbert has been coming to the mission for quite some time and whenever I have met Wilbert I noticed that he has a certain style or cool about him. Wilbert’s story is a hard one but recently at 59 years old he trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord and desired to be baptized as evidence of his personal faith in Christ to forgive his sins and give him a new life.

As Wilbert was coming down the steps to be baptized I could both feel and hear the pain that filled his body. There was a moment that he reached both arms upward, not so much in joy but in surrender. After Wilbert’s confession of his faith in Christ I said, as I always do, "I baptize you, my brother, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Buried in the likeness with Christ, raised to walk in newness of life." As I said those words and placed Wilbert under the water, it was a physical reminder of the spiritual truth that Wilbert Brown is now our brother and a member of Christ’s body, Christ’s family that gathers as First Baptist Church. While it was my hands that touched him, all of our hands reached out to him to claim him as family, as brother with us all.

I didn’t have anything to do with Wilbert’s conversion. All I did was perform the baptism but we are brothers in the same family. Wilbert doesn’t teach very active 6^th grade boys on Sunday morning in the LIFE Center but he is a brother in the family. Paul said, "…we have all been baptized into Christ’s body by one Spirit, and we have all received the same Spirit…Now all of you together are Christ’s body, and each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it" (I Cor. 12:13b, 27). The hard question for each one of us in the First Baptist family is: Do we really believe this? Do we really believe that every person and every ministry are spiritually joined together and every person and every ministry while unique are all a necessary part of this body of Christ? Do we understand that if we want others to know they need God’s love then we need to know we need each other?

That issue was on Jesus’ heart the night he was betrayed and arrested. He prayed alone in the Garden of Gethsemane for his disciples that God would give to them a oneness, a unity identical to that that existed between Jesus and his Father. In fact, he will say that their expression of that oneness will determine the level that the world understands the depth of the Father’s love for the world itself. He said, " My prayer for all of them is that they will be one, just as you and I are one, Father—that just as you are in me and I am in you, so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me...Then the world will know that you sent me and will understand that you love them as much as you love me" (John 17:21, 23). Jesus’ great vision for his disciples then and for First Baptist Jonesboro, is that if we want others to know they need God’s love then we need to know we need each other! In other words, if others are going to come to Christ, we must understand that "we need us!"

The scope of ministries that occur in this church is staggering, from missions to music to ministry, there are an amazing number of people touched in Jesus’ name by this body of Christ every single week on the main campus. We worship at two different times and in two different ways. We have multiple levels of age appropriate spiritual growth ministries that occur each week on our main campus. We have, as well, multiple off-site ministries that meet at different times, different places, with different people, different languages and different purposes. In every one of those spiritual growth ministries there are persons from ministerial leadership to volunteers who have given their souls to people from every section of our church, community and culture.

Yet the danger is that with the scope of ministries that we are doing we can assume that our particular area of focus and involvement is more significant or important than another. For example, that my sermon counts more with God than someone filling a food order at the Care Center. I have used myself to illustrate how all of us can feel that our area of attention or focus carries more spiritual weight than any other. Now I know none of you have ever thought that, right? But just try to imagine how that attitude might feel for just a moment. If we feel that way about our service and our ministry, does that help us effectively achieve Jesus’ vision of being the evidence of God’s love for others in our community and our world? The answer is no. If we want others to know they need God’s love then we need to know we need each other. Could it be that the essential element for the effectiveness in fulfilling Christ’s mission for us rests not in our programs and ministries but in our unity? Could the key to making disciples by fulfilling the Great Commission in our context be our ability to understand that "We need us!"?

The scripture that was read to you this morning was done so that you visibly saw the scope of diversity of our church members and ministries. While everyone reading represented one facet of our church that is unique, the words they spoke all said one thing: "We need us!" That was what Paul was saying to the Corinthians as they struggled with their individual gifts, abilities and uniqueness and how they all made up the one body of Christ. There are three very simple things that those verses say to us that I want us to remember this morning.

The first idea is this: We are all essential (I Cor. 12:12-17). In verses 12-17 Paul draws the analogy between the human body and the church, which is the Body of Christ. His thought is that every part—feet, ears, eyes—are all different but all essential for the body to function properly. Every part of our human body contributes to the whole body in ways that are unique to any other part.

In the same way, every person who is a member of this church is unique and different. Yet God so gifts us that we are each special and essential to make the church, Christ’s body, function as it should. The minute I think I am more important than someone else, is the degree to which I limit others knowing God’s love. It is also true that if you believe that this place would be better off without you, that you don’t count or matter, then that as well limits others knowing God’s love. We are all essential! "We need us!"

Not only are we all essential, we are also all important (I Cor. 12:18-21). Paul stresses in verses 18-21 that just as each part of our human body relies on another part so every part of the Body of Christ relies on the proper functioning of every other part. While I am speaking , it is only the result of a variety of parts of me working together to make that happen. My brain, nerves, tongue, jaws, lips, larynx, lungs, diaphragm, heart, veins, capillaries, spine, feet and many others all have to work together for this message to happen. It may seem only one part is doing the work but all the rest of me is involved and important.

The same is true in the church. Every member is important to another. While what Mark and I do is one visible aspect of what our church does on Sunday, the unseen work that other ministers and volunteers do on Sunday and the rest of the week is just as important. There is not one part of the church that can say to another part, "I don’t need you!" Every person is important because we all depend on each other to accomplish Christ’s vision of being the doorway for others to know God’s love. God has you here by his design and for his purpose, therefore we are all important! "We need us!"

We are all essential, we are all important and we are all connected (I Cor. 12:22-26). Paul takes great care to say that the human body may have more capable or attractive parts than other parts. In other words, a person’s face is more appealing than their feet. Yet they are all connected and vital to the body. In the same way God has blended in one body those who seem more capable than others and those who seem less capable. His intention is that we see that a person with minimal gifts or capabilities is elevated to a place of greater significance and value. Why? "This makes for harmony among the members, so that all members care for each equally" (I Cor. 12:25). That means that you care about what is happening in Sanctuary Choir just as much as you do the Care Center and the area. That means that when we need Extended Care volunteers that everyone cares about that. It means that when we vote to adopt a $2.3 million budget that all of us care that we succeed because at some level every ministry of this church is sustained and supported by it. We are all connected! "We need us!"

We are all essential. We are all important. We are all connected. I love the way Paul ends this passage: "Now all of you together are Christ’s body, and each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it." (v. 27) "We need us!"

First Baptist family, today I am challenging you to see how valuable every single person and every single ministry is to make up this Body of Christ. I challenge you to refuse every attitude of self-importance or "turf" claiming or protection. I challenge you to not think that "Oh, that’s just the youth ministry" or "That’s just the Hispanic Ministry, so I won’t be concerned about that." No, if the words of Jesus are to be reality, if we want others to know they need God’s love, then we need to know we need each other! "We need us!"

"My prayer for all of them is that they will be one, just as you and I are one, Father—that just as you are in me and I am in you, so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me" (John 17:21). "We need us!"

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org