I have a book that tells me there are 93 different images used in the New Testament to help us to describe the Church. Perhaps that is stretching the number a little, but we are all familiar with some of the most common: The Church is the city of God; the Church is a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden; the Church is the light of the world; the salt of the earth; the people of God; the temple of Jesus Christ; the bride of Christ. But I suppose the imagery that comes so often to our minds when we think about the Church is the imagery in this passage that the Church is the body of Christ.

One of the fascinating things about that picture of the Church is that it is used by only one of the New Testament writers, only one of the apostles: the apostle Paul. And nobody is very sure exactly why he used it, and apparently none of the other apostles left us any record of them using it. I suspect that at least part of the reason is the way in which the apostle Paul reflected on his first meeting with Jesus Christ on the Damascus road, and how Jesus’ strange words had fixed themselves in his memory: “Why are you persecuting me?” Saul had thought he was persecuting the followers of the way, this riffraff whom he despised. And then he discovered that he was persecuting those who so belonged to Jesus Christ that they were, as it were, the body of Jesus Christ. And he was brought to faith in Christ and slowly discovered that by being brought near to Jesus Christ and united to Him by faith, he was simultaneously brought near to brothers and sisters and united to them in faith.

And this fellowship was not simply a new organization, but a living body. An organism. Yes of course, the Church does have organization. I was wondering during the course of this week: How many lists does it take for a congregation of 2000 people to be well-organized? Dozens and dozens and dozens of them is the answer. But we are not just an organization! We are a living, breathing, growing body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course we can organize. At the end of the day, Ezekiel’s words could organize and bring bone to bone. But he understood that only God could give life, and so the bones took on flesh in the famous vision of the valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37) and, as it were, the Church stood up like a mighty army. And it is this that Paul is speaking about here in Romans 12 when he describes the Christian Church.

And it is a fascinating thing that, after eleven chapters in which he has been explaining to us and highlighting for us what he calls in verse one “the mercies of God,” it is almost the very first thing that he turns his attention to that the fruit of the mercy of God is the fellowship of the body of Jesus Christ. Now, what are some of the lessons that Paul is teaching us here that we need to try and learn?

The Unity of the Church⤒🔗

The first of them is obviously this: he speaks about the unity of the Church as the body of Christ. Verse 4: We are one body. Verse 5: We are one body. And his point is that, like the members of the human body, we belong together and we need one another. Now, I could understand somebody saying in a congregation of our size, “We are too many to be one.” But you see, the point Paul makes is: We are many, but in Jesus Christ we are also one. And we experience this wherever we go in the city, wherever we go in the country, wherever we go in the world. As we meet those who are our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, we understand that no matter how many there may be, there is a very profound sense in which we absolutely all belong together in this one body, serving the Lord Jesus Christ and needing each other to show the world the marvels of God’s grace! Serving one another to display the marvels of God’s salvation in our lives!

Sometimes I think our fathers, perhaps mistakenly, thought of the Church in what I call “The AMTRAK picture.” You buy your ticket, you get on the train, and everybody faces the same direction. You look at the back of a person’s head or you try and read his or her newspaper over his shoulder, and there is a man at the front who will take you to your destination. But Paul is saying, “No, the Church is a fellowship! It is a body!” And I can understand somebody saying, “I don’t need anybody else. I can come to worship; I came on my own steam. I don’t really need anybody else.” My friends, you have been here 45 minutes and a little more this morning, and you have needed the ushers, you have needed the sextons to prepare the sanctuary, you have needed those who prepared the order of service, you have needed the music of the organ and the organist, the preparation of the choir, the work of your ministers, the special encouragements you may already have had this morning from the loving fellowship and greetings of your fellow Christians. Every single Lord’s Day we celebrate the acted parable that we need one another in Christ.

And of course, the million, maybe the multi-million, dollar question is: What is the secret of this unity?” And Paul’s answer in verse 3 is that we think about ourselves with “sober judgment.” He does not mean “sober sighs” judgment, long faces. He means not being intoxicated with my own importance but honouring my fellow believers and, as he says, counting my fellow believers as more important than myself. What is the secret of our unity? Well, it is the humility that Jesus works in us that brings us to serve one another, having a humble estimate of ourselves that leads us to “outdo one another in showing honour” (verse 10). Isn’t that a great place to be competitive? “I want to honour others more than I am honoured myself.” Well, only Jesus Christ can produce that. And the fruit among us is a kind of unity that you do not find in any other society or any other religion in the face of the world. The unity of the Church as the body of Christ!

The Diversity of the Church←⤒🔗

But here is a wonderful thing: The unity of the Church and the body of Christ is enhanced by the diversity of the Church as the body of Christ. We are like a stained glass window through which the light of Jesus Christ shines, and the whole picture is all the more beautiful because it is multicoloured and strangely diverse. And so Paul says in verse 4 that we are one in the body but we do not have all the same function. We have different gifts. And he is saying we need to use the gifts the Lord has given us.

Now, that is kind of obvious, isn’t it? But when you think about it, this is such a penetrating thing to say. Because part of me is saying, “I wish I had his gifts,” and another part of me is saying, “I have as good of gifts as her; why don’t they recognize my gifts?” But do you see what the secret Paul leads us into is? He says that if the Lord has given you gifts, don’t stand back there saying, “Why is the church not recognizing my gifts?” Use them! “I have a great gift of encouraging others,” [you] might think. “The only problem is I never actually encourage others!” If you have a gift to encourage others, Paul is saying, then use that gift!

I love particularly what he says here when he points out that if you do acts of mercy, do it cheerfully. [We might think], “There is an act of mercy. I don’t really want to be doing this, but I am supposed to.” No! Love doing acts of mercy! The gifts He has given you, Paul says, just go and use them! And then the Church will say, “My, God has given us a gift there! Let us make sure there is place and space for this humble use of the gifts that have been given to us.”

Who do you think was the most loved member of the church in Jerusalem? Maybe it was one of the apostles. Don’t you think it was Barnabas? That was actually his nickname: “Son of encouragement.” And what was his secret? He took the gifts the Lord had given him and he came to the church and he said, “They are yours. I give them to you.” If I may paraphrase the words of one of your own presidents: Ask not what First Presbyterian Church can do for you; ask rather what you can do in First Presbyterian Church.

So there is the unity of the Church as the body of Christ. There is this beautiful diversity. Thank the Lord we are not all mouths, or all feet, or all hands, or all ears, or all eyes, but we need one another in the body of Christ! The marvelous diversity of the body of Christ.

The Lifestyle of the Church←⤒🔗

And that leads to a third thing: the lifestyle of the Church as the body of Christ. I must be getting old, because sometimes I wish that some of the old expressions would stay with us forever. For example, it is lovely to hear of an older person being described and admired because of his bearing. Younger women in the congregation, that was one of the things your grandmother said to your daughter, “Look out for a man who has a bearing – the way he carries himself.” The way he holds himself. The dignity in his life. And that is actually what Paul goes on to speak about in the body of Christ. The body of Christ, the Church, has a certain kind of bearing. We carry ourselves in a very special way.

And the thing that marks that bearing, that dignity, is the love of Jesus Christ. Verse 9: Let love be real, without a mask. No hypocrisy. Maybe, like me, sometimes you are at occasions that are religious but not truly Christian where the only thing you ever hear about is love, love, love, love, love. And if you belong to the 60s you remember the Beatles’ song: “All you need is love…love, love, love, love…all you need is love, love, love, love, love.” But this is not [wish-washy] love. Look at this kind of love: This is love that has the bearing of Christ about it. It hates what is evil; it holds fast to what is good. It has a brotherly affection. It shows honour. It is full of zeal. It is fervent. It serves the Lord. It rejoices in hope and yet is patient in tribulation. It is strong love. It is constant in prayer. It looks out for the needs of others. That is glorious love! That is old-fashioned gospel bearing that you might have seen in a man’s life (and many of you have seen in men’s lives here in this church). And Paul is saying that is the bearing of the body of Christ.

Notice how he climaxes this. I find this so interesting. The great climax of all this is at the end of verse 13: “Seek to show hospitality.” Now, you could do that! I don’t think he is just speaking about the members of the churches in Rome who had the bigger houses where the congregations met; I think he is speaking about everybody in the congregation. He is saying: practice hospitality; be welcoming. When you are together, be welcoming!

This is so important, for this reason. Here is a great illustration of why every single one of us needs every other one of us: Because if some stranger comes among us and two people do not speak to him or to her, that person may well go away and say, “That whole congregation was not friendly to me.” It takes every single one of us to practice hospitality. My dear ones, you may think of yourself just as a little old obscure lady who can do very little – you are nothing of the kind. And all it may take is a word from you to a stranger (here [in the church] especially, but in other places) for people to go away and say, “I met this marvelous little old lady and she seem to shine with love! I cannot understand why she was interested in me!” And here is the reason: because she was interested in the Lord Jesus.

I say this to you for a very personal and special reason. When I was a very shy 17-year-old boy going off to university I sat down in the church I had found, which I attended the rest of my university years. And at the end of the service, a man with a strong Gaelic accent put his hand on my shoulder and he said to me, “You must be new here.” Well, it probably didn’t take rocket science to think that, at the beginning of the semester a young boy of 17 turning up in church, he was probably a student. But that little bit of courage actually to touch me on the shoulder and say, “You must be new here.” And it does take courage! I have said to people in congregations in the past, “And where are you from?” “This church,” they have said!

(Transcription of audio file from 22:47 to 23:14 omitted.)

But you see the ripple effect of the hospitality of the body of Jesus Christ and why it is that we need each other. My friends, I have remembered that man for forty years and frequently thanked God for his kindness to an insignificant teenager! And I tried often to explain to him how much it meant; I don’t think he could ever take it in. His name was Jack Hardy. But you could be Jack Hardy! Or you could be Jane Hardy! You could do it. And the rippling effect of your love for Jesus Christ, shown in your simple Jesus-like friendliness, would be glorious.

The Impact of the Church←⤒🔗

So he speaks about the unity of the Church of Christ, the diversity of the Church of Christ, the lifestyle of the Church of Christ, and the impact of the Church as the body of Christ. And many of these exhortations (count them at your leisure; they just come to you one after another from verse 14 to the end) have to do with how the Church reacts and responds and acts in the world in a Jesus-like way. As Jesus prayed for the whole Church in John 17, “Father, I pray that this beautiful fellowship maybe seen in the world that the world may come to believe that you have sent me to be their Saviour.” You see, it spills over!

I have a longstanding friend who is a senior professor of public law in Scotland. He told me that he was at some legal conference. And as he came to the evening reception, at the beginning he came down this grand staircase in the marvelous house that this conference was in. And he fell into a conversation with a man he had never met before. And early on in the conversation the man said to him, “You don’t mind me asking you this question, I hope, but do you belong to…?” and he mentioned the name of the church that my friend went to. And my friend said, “How did you know that? I have never met you.” He said, “Ah, I thought about this as I watched the way you walked down the stairs.” I think I can explain the connection, though I won’t do it today. There was just something about his bearing that reminded that man of something about that church. He had a sense there was a connection.

Wouldn’t it be a glorious thing if somewhere in the middle of the week you met somebody and there was just something about you that made them say, “You are not a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Columbia by any chance, are you?” And you said to them, with a smile, “Why yes, I am.” Do you remember I said that almost the first thing Paul mentions is the Church, but he mentions something just before that? Because we have been recognized out there, you say with a smile, “Yes, I am a member of the First Presbyterian Church! But I am a member of the First Presbyterian Church because I have given myself wholeheartedly to the Lord Jesus Christ, and He has brought me into a family so full of His grace and power that something of the family-likeness is beginning to be expressed even in my life. And that is what you have seen.” What impact then would be made on Columbia? And who knows where else! It can happen! May God more and more bring it to pass.