Feeble members are so important. It’s fun to honor and love each other. No schism is in the Body. Body has been framed together. Body sees unity. Care is there, one for another. If we get Christ right in our heart, all else doesn’t matter. 1 Corinthians 12:22-26; 1 Samuel 30:8-22

Speaker(s): Pastor Thomas Schaller
Sermon # 11640
7:30 PM on 3/6/2019

P. Schaller

This is a day of prayer for GG worldwide. Imagine last night they started in Japan praying for GG worldwide and then moving to China around the world while we were sleeping praying for GG and then today was our turn as we were praying for the ministry. You might say how do we pray, what to pray for?

Eph. 1, Paul had a prayer Eph 3, Eph 6. Three prayers are written there. If you study them, you will know how we can pray for each other.

Tonight, I want to speak about weak Body members. It’s appropriate as we look around the room we are hitting a target! Before we do, before we say a few words, I love the worship. God said to Moses go tell Pharaoh, – I’ll read it. Go say to Pharaoh, the Lord God of the Hebrews has sent me unto you saying let my people go that they may serve me. One translation says, that they may worship me in the wilderness but you won’t hear. So far, hitherto you would not hear. This touched my heart thinking of worship. Go tell Pharaoh, I want my people to worship me. I want to say to the folks here, on a Wednesday night, here we are to put our heart and mind and focus on God. Not us, but him. He will take care of us. Let’s drop our stuff, leave it at the door, at the cross and worship him. I want my people to gather often and worship me.

I remember being a young believer in this church and a little bit lost sometimes. P. Stevens would say give me your undivided attention. If you listen to me in the first five minutes, you’ll listen in the whole message. I kind of snapped to attention and started to listen. I also watched him. I saw beyond him the H.S. speaking. I saw it in the Body. I saw it here and there in people. Lobster fisherman, their hands were huge. My hand went into theirs to shake their hand and my hand disappeared up to the elbow! Country people. The Murphy’s in Friendship, Maine in the 1950s and 60s they did not own a car, just a fishing boat. They just walked to the store and did their business in town and went out on the boat and caught lobster. They turned on the radio and heard Dr. Stevens. He was preaching in [location?] and they were in Friendship. They decided to buy a car and go listen to him in person.

When the Spirit is moving, when the Spirit speaks to you, when the Spirit gets our attention and we become worshippers of God, we lose our stuff in a way and the H.S. fills us. We start to think about God more. We start to seek him more and believe in him more. This goes on for some period of time. We gather often and not forsake the assembly. There is a warning to the Jews in this book from God. He said when you start getting busy with the people, the other nations and their ways and you marry their daughters and sons, they will be thorns in your eyes and in your side and turn your heart away from me. That happened. But it happens today here. We come and we only want to see Jesus. We want to worship Jesus and follow him. God has ordained for us to be together and assemble as we see the day approaching. But then there are ordained of God weak Body members. I think I’ll go right at the message now.

I want you to pray for a few minutes. In your seat with your neighbor or quietly by yourself, do so quietly praying. Pray before God for the next week in Poland, the spring, the youth ministry, the missionaries, your family, marriages, and Baltimore city. However God leads you. Fervent prayer.

1 Cor. Love you guys. I love you guys. Can’t help it. We love each other.

1 Cor 12:22, there are people amongst us that are feeble. We don’t tag them that way but the reality is people can be feeble. Maybe some strong ones today will be feeble tomorrow. Maybe some feeble today will be strong tomorrow. I wonder what Paul had in mind here. There is diversity and people go through things in life.

How many family members have a strange uncle in their family, or one person that didn’t get, -when God was creating something that just didn’t fall together!

There are feeble members. If you have walked with God for a while, perhaps you have noticed that feeble members are important and used by God. I don’t want to name names, but I’m tempted to. Some brothers and sisters that have passed on and received their rewards in heaven struck me this way.

On our team in Hungary, we had what we could say a feeble team member and God using them. Should I tell you the story? It’s crazy. Sid Root! Give him a hand! Praise the Lord for Sid Root! He lived with us in Hungary. He was on our team and had a heart for Chinese people. He decided to have a Bible study in a restaurant in the center of Budapest and made up a tract with a map in Chinese. He would go to the Chinese embassy and meet Chinese people and hand out the tract. One woman was very serious about this. It was about God and the map. She said she tried to find the place where the Bible study was but couldn’t. She couldn’t but found him sitting in a restaurant. After going for many weeks, she didn’t understand much. She understood this man must be a smart man to write such a thick book as this one and his name was Ephesians! You know what happened? How do we know that? That woman got saved and came into our church I think 4 years later. She told us that. I went to his meeting but I understand nothing except his name was Ephesians and he must be amazing to write a book like this one!

Feeble Body members. People that God has put with us. The imperfect ones.

vs. 23. It’s fun to love each other and honor each other whoever we are. It’s fun. God has poured honor on us just by being alive and living and moving and eat and live and have common grace and then anointed of God with the Spirit of God and given Christ in all he is. We love to honor people, don’t we? The smallest one. The weakest one, the feeblest one. It’s the nature of God. In Hannah’s prayer, it says God raised up those that are cast down. God honors us with his presence.

He humbles himself to behold the things in heaven and earth and the lowly he honors in Ps 113.

vs. 23.

1 Cor 12:23 comely parts. It’s about the eye, the ear, the foot the hand in the context. There is the comely and the uncomely part. There are Body members that are not necessarily noticed. Those that are feeble or weak or sick. Body members of all kinds but no schism in the Body because we are all connected to Christ’s headship.

vs. 24. There is some part that is lacking. There is the feeble, the less honorable and that which lacks. This is okay for us. The Body has been framed together, has been put together. The Body has an immune system, the mind of Christ, the love of God. The Body doesn’t see schism. The Body sees unity. The Body doesn’t see division. The Body sees Christ. Sees God and his life.

1 Cor. 12:25, care one for another.

vs. 26. We are one Body. We are going to go to Poland next week and not everybody is going.

This is 1 Sam 30:8-10. They were so faint they could not go over the brook. Well, we’re going to be going to Poland and minister there. P. Scibelli called last night. He was on his way to Tangiers with a contingency of French people, Body members. He was very excited about it. Those people that get to travel and minster. It’s amazing for this period of time in life. That’s the grace of God. There is a time when I’m not able anymore. P. Morrison is in that place tonight. We can identify in our hearts. It must be hard when your life changes from being out front and able to do these things and see the work of God. We can see the Spirit move and God’s ministry. But we also need to recognize too and I know we do, there are feeble ones amongst us from the beginning who are honored by God in their hearts and lives who sit with us, pray for us. The unsung heroes. The prayer warriors. People that take up the cross in their heart and set the Lord before their face. Great is their reward. Jesus said the last will be first. The weak, the feeble, those that faint are in it. They are in it. They are important it says in the Scripture. They are important. I was wondering why are they important?

It’s good for those that are strong to bear the infirmity of the weak, Rom. 15:1. It’s good for the Body to feel that there is weakness and that the mind of God is one of serving and loving, embracing and encouraging and upholding.

In this portion, it says vs. 10, 18. David recovered all. Nothing lacking to them neither small nor great.

vs. 21, vs. 22. It seems David had a group of men and they were also wicked men in the group. They didn’t have the same heart as David. They were men of Belial.

This is what they said, vs. 22. We’re not going to give them anything we have taken.

vs. 23. What is David saying? This is not us. This is the Lord. The Lord has given us this. It wasn’t us that recovered all. It was the Lord that recovered all. It was the Lord that gave it to us. They get it as well as we do. The same grace we have they have. We are one Body. It was the Lord that did it. Pride is in the human heart and when we look at someone who has need or – what was it? Uncomely, fainted, they lacked. Then we could say I don’t lack. What is your problem? I don’t have any of that going on? Why do you have that going on? This is self. This is the flesh not the Spirit. You and I have a problem because we shift from getting it right to getting it wrong. We shift from understanding what the ministry is all about. It’s made up of Spirit-filled people who are hungry and gathered in his name and looking for him. We shift to our ego and interpret each other in terms of ego and what you have done and I have done. And there is a schism.

But every time when we gather in Eurocon, so far I feel this Spirit of love and encouragement and thinking right. We are gathered in his name. He did it. He saved us. He gave us his Spirit. He shows us the way. We have victories in our local churches and have seen Christ do deep works in the hearts of people. We’ve seen Jesus exalted in the market place and seen God save the uncomely, the faint and the weak. We’ve seen God move in all kind of ways. We know this is the nature of God. When David said no, it was God that recovered everything and we are all one. They get the same thing we got. This is the nature of Body life. It’s an uncalculating ministry of love. When you and I come here and gather in his name, we are looking, wanting, desiring God and there will be a time when maybe we are not sitting there but we are sitting there. A time you are sitting there or sitting there. It has nothing to do with the essential element of gathering. Pharaoh, I want my people to worship me. And I will visit them with words, healing. I will heal them. That’s not just a Bible verse.

That’s Ps. 103. He heals us of all our diseases. I want to believe that every day of my life. I want to believe he speaks to us. I’d like in Europe and this is some prayer request, I’d like to see – Betty and Colleen were praying for Lebanon and to have some summer harvest in Lebanon. In Europe, let’s go back to the Netherlands and Copenhagen and Norway. That God would raise up young people and they would say in the Spirit as God leads and with older people. Let’s have a wave of spiritual life happen in Europe where the Europeans are coming and finding the reality of Jesus Christ, the strength of Jesus Christ, the wisdom of Jesus Christ. We need a church in Croatia, Montenegro, and Carolyn Peters is moving to join the team in Serbia. We haven’t hit Bulgaria… Montenegro in the mountains there are primitive simple villages and we can go there with the gospel. Prayer. Jesus, send laborers.

Could I send a feeble one? Yes, Lord. You will put your hand on a feeble one. We will honor the feeble one. You will use us. The little guy with Samson. Samson said put my hands on the pillar. Where are the pillars? He was blind. It was a little boy. The maiden, there is a prophet who can heal the general. The little boy with five loaves and two fish. God uses feeble, unimportant, frail, faint Body members who are coming and assembling and putting their heart and listening to what Jesus is saying. If I got that right, everything else is a detail. I could get Christ right in my heart.

You know that time through the history of the ministry there would be scuttlebutt, the chatter. Pastor Stevens from the Bible Speaks or this newspaper article or this Body member is angry. All the scuttle but that goes on in life. Let it be. Let the skuttlebutters be skuttlebutters. If you want to live in a garbage can or dumpster, that’s your call. I have something going on.

I want this book to talk to me. Maybe I’ll get something done in my life if I’m paying attention to what Jesus is saying.

Whatever is going on with the disciples, they all forsook him and me too. I’ll go down the road, I don’t need this. I don’t care about that. I have an idol for money, for sex, for my own stuff. I got all that stuff that is going on in my flesh. Where does it take you? What does it mean? When I can be, my marriage can survive hell.

Halleluiah! Let God arise and his enemies be scattered. My kids might get a chance of seeing something good instead of bad. My money might end up being enough for what I need. I can’t make any promises to you, but if we can set our heart in the right place and assemble often, that’s what he wanted in Egypt. I want my people to worship me and get out of Egypt and go into the wilderness and worship me. I don’t think he’s changed his mind about it at all. I’m going to be taking care of you. I’ll bring you out and in. I’ll help you. You take care of each other and love one another and honor each other. Every one of you and the feeble amongst you. I’ll take care of you and honor you. Your shoes won’t wear out. You’ll have a dance going on late at night. You’re living long and large. I’m taking care of you and filling you with the Spirit. Something is going on that is from heaven on the earth. Amen.

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