1 Corinthians 12:11-12 “But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.”
There are different ideas you may have after reading the title of this, depending on who you are. Some of you are thinking of basketball, football, baseball, and other sports references. Some are imagining a video game character that is fresh on your mind. Others may have an even different image pop into their head. That class activity where one of your classmates pretended to be X, and you had to pretend to be Y. Soul-winning training is sometimes broken up into groups, and people are forced to “role-play” a lost person, and their partner must practice winning them to Christ. It does not matter what you were thinking, because all of them will give you an idea of what we are tilting at in this lesson.
Paul was very educated, very wise, and very experienced. He planted more than 10 different churches in cities that were as different from each other as you could imagine. He stood in the palaces of rulers at some points of his life, and then sat around the campfire of barbarians at another time. Paul was chained to a Roman guard for a while, stoned by a city of people, was the cause of an incited riot, and traveled the known world on foot and on the back of a donkey. What I’m saying is that Paul met a lot of different people. Paul instructs the diverse church in the city of Corinth with one of my favorite analogies. He first explains a bunch of different gifts that people can have. Then he reminds them that the church is the body of Christ. Just like our body has different “members,” the church is in need of all sorts of different members. Get it? He explains in detail in the rest of chapter 12. Just a piece of what he says: 1 Corinthians 12:17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?
Every successful group is made up of different people. Ball teams need tall and skinny kids, but also want to recruit shorter, stockier kids. Why? Different people play different roles on the team. Even video games have an assortment of different skill trees, classes, and abilities
available to players. Why? It would be BORING if the game did not offer options. The church, and body, of Jesus Christ is no different. Here is something every teenager in every youth group needs to hear:
1. God made you the way you are.
God has changes for every person to make in their lives, but that is between God and us. I’m not talking about sinful differences. I’m saying that God made you with your personality, your looks, your background, and He will use you with what He gave you.
2. Everyone does not have the same job.
There is only one job every person in the church is made to do: soul-winning. After that, God needs different people to fill different positions in the church. Not everyone can be an usher, because sometimes God needs a bus runner. Not everyone can be in the nursery, because sometimes God needs a piano player. Some people can do both! Just like Paul says: If all your body were an ear, then you could not see!
3. Your differences allow you to reach different people.
The only thing every single person can do the same is soul-winning. I can talk about baseball because I played baseball. I have a lot of trouble relating to girls, though, so I just let my wife do the talking there! God made you and surrounded you with the people he did
because he knew he could trust you to make the difference. Find your place in God’s will, and do it.
Jesse McCammon | Pastor
Flora Calvary Baptist Church | Flora, IL
https://www.floracalvarybaptist.com/