June 25, 2017 | Bob Bartlett
Passage: 1 Corinthians 12:12-27
My Church – God’s Fulfillment
“My Body” Matthew 16:18-19, 1Corinthians 12:12-27
Jesus: “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
The Fundamental (Foundational) Truth of the Church:
Matthew 16:18-19 “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it…”
- The true Church is founded on Christ alone. John 14:6
- The true Church lives with Christ’s vision. Ephesians 2:10
- The true Church lives with Christ’s mission. Matthew 28:19
The Church Body (1Corinthians 12:12-13)
Vs 12: “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.”
Truth: Christ is the head of the church body. Colossians 1:18
- ·As with a physical body, so with the spiritual body, the head is supreme.
Vs 13: “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 the one Spirit to drink.”
What’s not true: The Church is only a universal church.
- ·That’s only a convenient truth!
- ·God says (Acts 14:23) “to appoint elders in every church” and (Titus 1:5) “in every town.”
5 Truths of Christ’s Church (vs 14-27)
Vs 14 “Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.”
- I am a p_________________ of the local church body.
Vs 15: “Now if the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,”
- No part (person) is e_________________ from the local church body.
Vs 17 “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?”
- Every part (person) of the body is n______________ in the local church.
Vs 21: “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!’”
- No part (person) is e_________________ from the local church body.
Vs 27: “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”
- I have a f_________________ in the local church body.
The great danger to Christianity is the disinterested and disconnected Christian from Christ’s church.