{"id":3680,"date":"2020-05-28T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-28T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/?p=3680"},"modified":"2020-05-29T07:12:10","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T12:12:10","slug":"church-the-body-of-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/church-the-body-of-christ\/","title":{"rendered":"Church – The Body of Christ"},"content":{"rendered":"
We are looking at various ways the Scriptures describe the church. Word pictures, if you please. Some estimate there are as many as 100 word pictures describing the church.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Last time, we saw the church as the army of God.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Today, let\u2019s look at the church as the Body of Christ. We will simply look at <\/span>some key verses and make brief comments to guide our understanding.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Paul clearly correlates the church as Christ\u2019s body\u2026<\/span><\/div>\n
Colossians 1:24 (NIV)<\/span><\/div>\n
Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ\u2019s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n
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Christ is recognized as the head of the body, the church\u2026<\/span><\/div>\n
Ephesians 4:15-16 (NIV)<\/span><\/div>\n
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.\u00a0 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n
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As we follow the guidance of the head, all of the parts of the body work together to express God\u2019s greatest attribute in Christ: love.<\/span><\/div>\n
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As the body of Christ, each part functions according to its purpose to form a cohesive bond\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Romans 12:4-5 (NIV)<\/span><\/div>\n
Just as each of us has one body with many members and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.<\/span><\/div>\n
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As the body of Christ, this is who we are and how we are to function.\u00a0 We are to flow as one because there is only one head guiding our purpose.\u00a0 Everything each member does is to exalt the head as we care for one another in love.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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I want to emphasis how much Jesus sees the church as His body. Do you remember when Jesus struck Saul\/Paul down on the road to Damascus?\u00a0 Here is what Jesus said to him,\u00a0\u201cSaul, Saul, why do you persecute me?\u201d<\/i>\u00a0 Saul said,\u201cWho are you, Lord?\u201d<\/i>\u00a0And Jesus responded,\u00a0\u201cI am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,\u201d\u00a0<\/i>(Acts 9:4\u20135)<\/span><\/div>\n
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In what way was Saul persecuting Jesus? He was persecuting the church, which is Jesus\u2019 body.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Now fast forward to the judgement scene, where Jesus separates the sheep from the goats\u2026<\/span><\/div>\n
Matthew 25:35\u201340 (NIV)<\/span><\/div>\n
35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.\u2019 37 \u201cThen the righteous will answer him, \u2018Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?\u2019 40 \u201cThe King will reply, \u2018Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.\u2019<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n
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Did you see that? The sheep were judged based upon how they treated the \u201cbrothers\u201d of the church. They asked, when did we do all these nice things? Jesus\u2019 reply was that, as they treated each other with love, they were actually treating Him as His body with love.<\/span><\/div>\n
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There is no way to overemphasize how much Jesus loves the church, which is His bride (remember, the church is God\u2019s people not the building).\u00a0 So significant is His love for the church that He calls upon husbands to reflect that love by the way they love their wives, that is with a complete sacrificial giving of one\u2019s self for the benefit of the other.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Ephesians 5:25\u201327 (NIV)<\/span><\/div>\n
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n
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Jesus declared that His followers would do greater works than He Himself had done while on the earth.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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John 14:12 (ESV)<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cTruly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n
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Certainly, He was not saying that they would do greater miracles than He did.\u00a0 What Jesus must have meant was that, as the body of Christ, He would be able to affect more lives in more places as His church becomes His arms, His feet and His voice in reaching out to many more people.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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What a privilege we have to be a part of the Body of Christ.<\/span><\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are looking at various ways the Scriptures describe the church. Word pictures, if you please. Some estimate there are as many as 100 word pictures describing the church.\u00a0 \u00a0 Last time, we saw the church as the army of God. \u00a0 Today, let\u2019s look at the church as the Body of Christ. We will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[140],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3680"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3680"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3685,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3680\/revisions\/3685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}