Empowered for Good

1 Corinthians 12:12–31

Well, if you can’t tell, things are a little different this morning. Last week was Courtney’s last week serving as the church pianist, so Gail has stepped forward this morning to offer some background music, and we’ll hear from her in a moment. Amanda has kindly stepped forward with her family as well — let’s give them another round of applause. All that to say, I am thankful for you folks who have stepped forward as we figure things out. Thank you all very much.

As we have been doing for the past several weeks, we’re going to continue a conversation. We started off talking about the idea of sainthood — that was about six weeks ago now. If you don’t remember, that’s fine, but let me catch you back up. We said that to be a saint is not a special category reserved for really, really good Christians. Instead, it is a status bestowed by God upon us — it means we have been claimed by God for God’s purposes. It’s a status, and it’s also a calling we live into. From there we moved to the personal aspects of sainthood, and then to the corporate aspects — this idea that we are saints together. That brought us to the priesthood. Scripture tells us that we are a holy priesthood who inhabit God’s house and who offer spiritual sacrifices to God (cf. 1 Pet 2:5). We noted that this priesthood can face two directions. Last week we looked at the priesthood facing God, in the offerings we bring in worship, and we saw from the apostle Paul that we are not only the priests who offer the offerings in God’s house — we become the offerings ourselves. What does it mean to offer spiritual sacrifices to God? It means we offer all that we are to God as we are transformed into the kind of people who can pursue God’s will.

Today I want to focus on the other side of that priesthood piece. It can face God, but it can also face one another — not because we need anyone but Jesus to stand between us and God, but because God sometimes chooses to work through people. How many of you have ever had someone say the word you needed to hear at just the right time, so that it was as if God was the one speaking through that person? Sometimes God chooses to use us as priests to one another. That’s where I want to camp out this morning.

To do that, I want to take you to 1 Corinthians chapter 12. Today we’re going to do things a little differently — I’d like to invite you to open your Bibles with me. It’s toward the end of your Bible. I’m going to read the entire passage; it’s a little long today, but then we’ll jump back into it and see what the apostle Paul is saying. First Corinthians chapter 12, beginning in verse 12:

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 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. Even so, the body is not made up of one part, but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I’m not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I’m not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 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? But in fact, God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. 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.” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. (1 Cor 12:12–31, NIV)

The word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

One thing the New Testament teaches you pretty quickly is that there is no such thing as a perfect church. Sometimes we like to idealize the past — if I could just get back to those New Testament times, that’s when people really understood it. But once you start reading the New Testament, you realize that quite a bit of our scripture is actually addressed to churches dealing with difficulties. Sometimes a church has a conundrum: what do we do in this situation? Sometimes churches are at each other’s throats. Sometimes there are just sick dynamics at play, and you get a letter to that congregation because that thing needed to be addressed. There is no such thing as a perfect church, and Paul is writing into one of these situations when he writes to the Corinthians.

The Corinthians are a church where some of those sick dynamics have begun to take hold. From what we can tell by reading this passage, it seems some people think they are the best thing since sliced bread — which doesn’t quite work, since there wasn’t sliced bread back then, but you understand what I’m saying. These are people very confident in their spirituality, very confident in their standing in the community. They are proud, and they posture against everyone else. On the other side, you have another group who have bought into that posturing and have begun to shrink. So you have some people with an elevated view of themselves, and some with a deflated view of themselves. When you have that kind of thing happening within the body that is the church, you have some sick dynamics at play.

So how does Paul speak into this situation — some posturing and proud, some shrinking and thinking too little of themselves? He draws on imagery very native to his time and place, but one that also speaks well to ours: he compares the church to a body. Paul takes this body imagery and uses it both to name the problem this church is facing and to point to the solution. It’s an imaginative exercise — in naming the problem, Paul anthropomorphizes different parts of the body. They begin to speak to themselves, and they begin to speak to one another. Let me show you how this works.

The foot says, “Because I’m not a hand, I’m not a part of the body.” The ear says, “Because I’m not an eye, I do not belong to the body” (v. 15–16). Now, I’ve told you there are some people in this congregation who are posturing and proud, and some who are shrinking and think too little of themselves — which one is this? This is the shrinking crew. They’re the ones who say, “Well, yeah, I’m a foot, but really the hand is where God works — God really uses that kind of person. Maybe I’m not quite a part of the community, or maybe I’m a lesser part of it.” There’s a self-talk going on that says, I am less than the people God really, really uses.

Then there are the other parts of the body — the eye and the head. They don’t have self-talk; they talk to others. The eye says to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head says to the feet, “I don’t need you” (v. 21). So we’ve got posturing, proud people, and we’ve got shrinking people who think too little of themselves — which ones are these? These are the proud people, the ones who say, “You know what? I’m pretty great, and because I’m pretty great, I don’t really need the rest of you.”

What Paul says is: let’s talk about the church not as just a bunch of individuals — let’s talk about the church as a body. When you do that, you can name these dynamics, one where people are shrinking, the other where people are overly proud. And when you talk about the church as a body, you see how absurd that is. Because the foot saying “I’m not a part of the body” doesn’t mean it isn’t a part of the body. Because the eye saying “I don’t need you” to the hand doesn’t mean the hand is any less important. All the parts of the body are necessary. If you want the body to be functioning, you need all the parts taking their place, fulfilling their function, and working in harmony. The eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The foot can’t say, “Because I’m not this other part of the body, I am not needed.” Everyone is needed. Every part is necessary, and we need to function together — which is how Paul started all this off. In verses 12 through 14 he says: “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ… 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; even so the body is not made up of one part, but of many” (1 Cor 12:12–14, NIV).

That is the point of this body imagery. It’s not okay for some people to assume they don’t need others. It’s also not okay for some people to think they are less-than and not needed. The body needs everyone to take heart. But in this imaginative exercise, Paul also points us to a reality of the Christian life we live together: we are all formed by the same Spirit. We all share in the same Spirit. So what Paul seems to be saying is that you are a part of one body because you all drink from the same Spirit. You’re all baptized into this one Spirit. You all have the same point of origin, the same nourishment. And from that Spirit, you function as a body.

This Spirit piece is really important to the church at Corinth, because the posturing and the shrinking seem to have something to do with gifts of the Spirit. Earlier in the passage — just before what we read this morning — Paul says, “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good” (1 Cor 12:7, NIV). We’re getting into this idea that the body has different kinds of functions, and the Spirit has gifted us in different ways to function within the body that is the church. What’s happening in Corinth is that some people have said, my gift is pretty great, and yours doesn’t seem like it’s all that. Corinth is a more charismatic congregation, functioning in some categories we don’t necessarily understand that well as Baptists. It seems that people with the gift of tongues — speaking in the tongues of men or of angels — were seen as the really spiritual ones in the congregation, while others who didn’t have that gift felt like they were less.

Now, Corinthians talks in some interesting ways, and it continues to exceed our categories — tongues, the interpretation of tongues, the gift of miracles, words of wisdom, words of knowledge — things we don’t really talk about much as Baptists. But I want to be careful this morning that we don’t take those things and say, well, that’s foreign to our experience, because those are not the only gifts. There are churches that testify to experiencing those gifts; Baptists tend to have a quieter way of experiencing the Spirit. Let me read you some of the other giftings at play in First Corinthians, Romans, and Ephesians: the gift of prophecy, the gift of teaching, the gift of faith, the gift of helping, the gift of guidance, the gift of service, the gift of encouraging, the gift of giving, the gift of leading, the gift of showing mercy. Now, how many of you feel like that’s a list a little closer to your own experience, one you could actually put yourself on? Yeah. It’s not so much that the Corinthians have something foreign to our experience — it’s that we’re experiencing the Spirit a little differently. And just as the Corinthians could misunderstand what the Spirit was doing among them, so can we.

Let me tell you how I’ve experienced this as a pastor of Baptist churches. The thing that comes up is that some people think what happens up here is where God is really at work — God really uses the preacher, God really uses the worship leaders, God really uses the people who can put together a prayer and pray in public. It’s these forward, public gifts. We sometimes assume that’s where God is at work, and that everyone else is apart from it — but the real work of the church is happening up here. Which is actually pretty problematic, because if all you have is what’s happening up here, you have a pretty boring community, am I right? You’ve got an hour each Sunday, but the church is so much more than an hour on Sunday. The church is who we are together in our lives throughout the week, throughout the year. That is what the church is about.

I want you to notice this: to each one the manifestation of the Spirit has been given. Why? For the common good. When you put that common-good piece there, it starts to bring things into focus. Yes, it’s important to have someone who can proclaim the word of God. At the same time, for the common good — how many of you are thankful for those who have the gift of helping? How many of you are thankful for those with the gift of guidance? Thank God for those people. How many of you are thankful for those with the gift of encouragement? Yes — of giving, of leadership. Gosh, all of us sometimes need someone with the gift of showing mercy. It’s almost as if God has said, I am going to empower each one of you with a gift of the Spirit, and I am doing that so you can all contribute to the common good. I’m going to make you priests to one another. I’m going to make you into a body in which everyone has a function, in which no one is more important than anyone else, in which everyone is necessary. I’m going to make you priests, and you’re going to minister to one another. That is who we are as the church. But it goes a step beyond that, because Paul says this at the end.

“Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1 Cor 12:27, NIV). There’s one sense in which we, as the body, are all ministering to one another — where we are all necessary for the common good of the entire congregation. We need the teachers, we need the encouragers, we need the mercy-showers, we need the helpers — we need everyone. But here Paul takes that body imagery a step further. He says somehow we’re not just a body, but we are the body of Christ. I think that is a weighty, weighty term. Because in one sense, we minister to one another. In another sense, we minister as the continuing presence of Christ in this world, to the world around us. This priestly identity can both face one another — as we encourage, as we teach, as we help — and face the world, as we are the hands and feet of Jesus to a world that needs grace.

But here’s the thing: that only works if the body is functioning. That only works if everyone takes their place. So today my challenge to you is this: take your place in the body. You are all necessary. You are all needed. And when you come together as a Spirit-formed, Spirit-empowered community, in some amazing way, you become the presence of Jesus to the surrounding world. So take your place. May it be so.

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© 2026 Michael Smith. All rights reserved.