Everyone Has a Place
Welcome to the Family
November 28, 2021
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Every Christian has a God-given role to play in the church.
The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the same thing, a corpse. —James 2:26
As followers of Christ, we all have been called to go and do, not just stay and lay.
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I urge you, brothers and sisters.
In accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.
In Christ, though many, we form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.
Be devoted to one another in love.
Honor one another above yourselves.
Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.
Live in harmony with one another.
Live at peace with everyone. —Excerpts from Romans 12
Your body has many parts, but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. We each used to independently call our own shots, but now Christ has the final say in everything. This is what we proclaim in word and action when we are baptized. Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained.The old labels we once used to identify ourselves, labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free, are no longer useful. A body isn’t just a single part, it’s all the different but similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, transparent and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. What we have is one body with many parts, in their proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? You can live without an eye, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. If anything, if you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to a full-bodied hair? The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church. Every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one-part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one-part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance. You are Christ’s body, and that’s who you are. —1 Corinthians 12:12-27
Everyone has a place and everyone’s place is
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Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us, on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. —1 Corinthians 5:17-20
Everyone has a place and everyone’s place is
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Everyone has a place and everyone’s place is
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For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. —Psalm 139:13-14
Everyone has a place but everyone’s position is
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Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought… —Romans 12:3
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. —1 Peter 4:10-11