D I S C I P L E S H I P W O R K B O O K Lesson Fourteen
Growing Spiritually in the Body of Christ (Part One)
What is the role of the local church in the believer’s sanctification?
Our relationship with God is manifested in our relationships with others (1 Jn 4:7-13; 19-21). As John Piper says, “It is my greatest joy to experience the in-filling grace of God overflowing from me for the good of others.” This is ‘reflexive love’—which overflows from our satisfaction in Christ (1 Jn 4:19), “we love because He first loved us.” The habitual consciousness of who God is toward us in Christ in all His mercy and love is a major part of our equipping to love the brethren (Col 3:12-13).
Through ‘the word of His grace’ (Acts 20:32), and union with Christ we are made “fit” to wear the garments of grace in order that we might serve the Body. The “garments of grace” are described especially in Ephesians 4-5 and in Colossians 3-4. The “garments of grace” are the Christian virtues and behaviors which constitute our Christ-like behavior toward one another in the Body of Christ.
The language used by the Apostle in these chapters is “put on” (put on like a garment the character qualities of Christ). Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience (Col 3:12b). Our practical sanctification is lived out by replacement behaviors as we put off the old behaviors and choose to “wear” the garments of grace in our relationships with believers.
In this way, others see that we have become partakers of Christ and of grace. The Gospel of grace provides the rationale for us to love sacrificially; to be spent on behalf of the brethren; to live for the edification of others. (Illustration for put off; put on: the college student who was sprayed by a skunk had to put off the defiled clothes and put on fresh clothes before he could enter the house.)
Each member of Christ’s Body is to commit himself or herself to the Great Commission (Matt 28:19-20) which is not only directed at evangelism, but equally at discipleship (2 Tim 2:2). And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man that we present every man complete in Christ (Col 1:28). (See the book, Instruments in the Hands of the Redeemer: People in need of Change helping People in need of Change, by Paul David Tripp). The mindset is, “The Lord placed me in the Body so I can be here for others.”
Discussion Question:
Why is discipleship a kind of ‘continuum’ we never outgrow (we are always members one of another engaged in giving and receiving edification)?
The Body of Christ is made up of individuals who are complete in Christ (Col 2:10). So serious is the matter of ‘what makes us complete’ that Jesus sets up an antithesis between proposed sources of ‘completeness’. To buy into man’s system of completeness is to reject God’s work in Christ as the source of one’s acceptance with God. Again, Jesus blisters self-justifiers by proclaiming, “How can you believe when you receive glory from one another, and do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?” (Jn 5:44).
Paul placed all of the Corinthians’ carnal behaviors under the microscope of God’s wisdom in the cross and found each one of them to be symptomatic of the world’s wisdom; a wisdom antithetical to the cross of Christ (James 3:13-18). The Apostle stated in his Corinthian letters that the message of the cross-centered life is the spiritual diet of the mature. But only those who are sick of the world’s wisdom are ready for this diet (1 Cor 2:15-3:3).
The cross, the diet of the spiritually mature, produces substantial spiritual growth. The cross-centered believer increasingly perceives that his relationship with the Lord is the foundation for all of his other relationships. Thus, the man or woman constrained by Christ’s love will have all of his relationships transformed because his motives will not be dominated by self-protection and self-enhancement (the flesh by natural instinct is committed to protection from judgment, criticism, diminishment, as well as to self-advancement). The controlling, constraining love of Christ will equip the believer to love God and others (2 Cor 5:14-15).
Only the person secure in Christ’s justifying love can face his sin with courage; only the individual who solidly appropriates the word of justification can afford to hear the worst things about self. Apart from deep confidence in Christ’s justifying love—judgment, condemnation, and criticism (perceived or real) make our defense mechanisms ‘go ballistic’. Figuratively speaking, we are ready to attack, or “kill” the person who brought our failure to light and made us feel diminished.
This non-evangelical response to hearing about our sin is a destructive force that can tear fellowships apart (Gal 5:15). The foolish, and frequently the immature, cannot tolerate admonishment; it is the wise man that welcomes correction and shows gratitude for it (Prov 9:8).
If we are not made whole by Christ’s righteousness imputed, then we will attempt to find our completeness in other things. This self-deception must give way in order for the gospel to transform us. In order for gospel formation to take hold, the members of the Body of Christ must determine to be examined by the proclamation of God’s Word. Apart from the news of redemption in the cross, we tend to shoot the messenger. If the atonement is not our daily hiding place, we will have false refuges from judgment—and every false refuge has its social consequences (note how destructive the Corinthian “fig leaves” were to true community in that local church).
The believer who preaches the Gospel to himself each day will be equipped for heroism in dealing with personal sin. He will gladly make it his daily practice to ‘consent’ to be clothed by Christ’s righteousness, and thereby live by faith in Christ (Gal 2:20). As a consequence, his or her relationships will be characterized by supernatural love, humility, and unity. “Ask God to change your heart so that, like Paul said in Galatians 6:14, you can say, ‘May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ’” (C. J. Mahaney, The Cross-centered Life, p. 23).
Christ’s fulfillment has decisively met my failure. I daily exercise faith in the Word of His grace, the gospel, instead of trusting in my flesh. Living by faith in Christ exerts a powerful effect in equipping me for ministry in the Body. Again we affirm the ‘Gospel order’:
- What God expects and requires of me (Christ-like love and service)
- Why I can’t and won’t do it in my own strength and resources
- What I am, can be, and should be by His grace (Christ fulfilled perfect righteousness for me)
Questions for Discussion:
- What must happen in our Christian walk before we are willing to see ourselves as ‘instruments in the hands of the Redeemer’ for changing lives?
- What will alter our perspective so that we begin to see all of our relationships as opportunities to move people closer to Christ?
- How does consenting to be clothed with Christ each day help equip me for Body life?
- Why does feeding upon the gospel produce a willingness to confess our sins one to another?
- What biblical truths constitute the spiritual diet of the mature? (See 1 Cor 1:22-25, 30, 2:1-2.)
- How would living upon Christ’s love motivate us to wear the ‘garments of grace’?
- Only the gospel can disarm our fear of judgment. How does liberation from the fear of judgment (through the gospel) equip us for transparent, trusting relationships in the Body of Christ?
- How does the gospel impart the courage to practice ongoing self-confrontation and repentance in the believer’s life?
- Can you identify areas in your own life where the pride of life draws you away from the gospel alone as your standing, acceptance, and status before God?
The Role of the Corporate Body in the Believer’s Sanctification
I. God’s has a specific plan for the Body of Christ.
A. The church is an organism; not an institution (1 Cor 12) (Gary Inrig, Life in His Body, Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1975, p. 30). The ‘secret’ of the body is that all parts share life together. The members of the body possess supernatural connectedness by mystical union with Christ through the Holy Spirit (Rom 12:4-5; 1 Cor 12:12, 25, 27) (Ray Stedman, Body Life, Glendale: Regal Books, 1972, p. 25).
Discussion Questions:
What difference does that make in practice that the church is a living organism?
Why does the church tend to revert to behaving like an institution instead of an organism?
How does our commitment to the gospel keep the true organic nature of the church in view?
How does the gospel help check the drift toward ‘redefining’ the church as made up merely of programs, activities, and teachings?
B. The body of Christ is the corporate expression of the grace of Christ. The gifts in the body at work are each a facet of Christ’s character reproduced and made visible (1 Cor 12:4-7) (John MacArthur, The Body Dynamic, Victor, 1996, p. 101).
- God intends that the local church be a corporate display of His glory and wisdom (Eph 3:10-11; Jn 13:34-35; Jn 17:21-23) (Mark Dever and Paul Alexander, The Deliberate Church, Crossway Books, 2005, p. 26).
- God’s character is known by both the truth of the gospel and by the church’s organic union with Christ as her members function in harmony—showing collectively the character of Christ.
- God bids His people to enter His plot; His story—to be part of the big picture (Eph 3:8-12) (Lane/Tripp, How People Change, New Growth Press, 2006, pp. 93-94).
- The church is a medium of revelation—revealing the character of God. It does so ONLY when it incarnates the disposition of Jesus. Only then will nations and angels behold in it the manifold wisdom of God. Wooing, winsome, conquering grace is a function of the church manifesting the qualities of her Head (Jn 17:11) (Charles Jefferson, The Building of the Church, New York: Macmillan, 1913, p. 154).
- “Ministries have been given by Christ . . . to enable the body of Christ to attain its ultimate goal, that is, ‘the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’” (Eph 4:11-16) (Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999, p. 317).
C. The fellowship of the members of the body is proof of the divine power of Jesus—“that they may be one. . . “ (Jn 17:21-23). The unity of the brethren is evidence to the world that Christ came from heaven. The Lord declares His ministry to be that of binding men together by indissoluble bonds (Jefferson, p. 48-52).
Discussion Questions:
How are these indissoluble bonds (believer to Christ, and believer to believer) made visible in our relationships?
How strong is our desire to get to know our brethren? Why is it often weak? How is our desire to know God a desire which parallels the desire to know our brethren?
II. The members of the body are vitally connected to Christ and to one another for the
purpose of fellowship (1 Jn 1:1-10) (our common confession).
A. Justification by faith (an alien righteousness imputed to us) is the basis for true community. Without justification, we could not know our brother—intimacy and transparency would be blocked by ego. But Christ opens the way to our brother. He opens up peace, love, acceptance, and service. Christ alone is the source of all unity; He is the ground and strength of our fellowship (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1954, pp. 23-24, 30. 39).
B. The purpose of the church (to reveal the manifold wisdom of God Eph 3:10) demands: a.) that the individual members are connected to Christ, and b.) that God’s blueprint for the body be followed (Inrig, p. 11).
Discussion Questions:
How does God’s purpose for the church absolutely rule out a passive ‘spectator’ role for believers?
What message is a church sending when attendees are treated as ‘consumers?’
How would you counsel someone who complained that ‘they just don’t fit in’ at their church?
Explain why justification equips us for supernatural community life.
C. The life of the church is a group of individuals who have life in Christ in common. The members are united together in the reality of the indwelling Spirit. According to 1 Corinthians 12:7, “each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
Discussion: In 1 Corinthians 12:25 Paul joins the theme of the diversity in the body to the goals of unity and mutual care. Explain the connection the Apostle is making.
- The presence of the Spirit gives the church a supernatural dynamic which is unique among all human organizations (Robert Saucy, The Church in God’s Program, Chicago: Moody Press, 1972, pp. 21-22, 27).
- The term “members of one another” implies interdependent cooperation and accountability among believers (Rom 12:5; Eph 4:25; 1 Cor 12:21-25).
- Christ took the separation, the alienation, the disrelatedness caused by our sin, and He gave us the right relatedness of true community in its place (Land/Tripp, pp. 79-80). In redemption He gave us His own right-relatedness to the Holy Trinity.
D. The church is a true community of people who are committed to doing spiritual good to others. This is how God intends the body to function (Dever and Alexander, p. 41).
Discussion Questions:
How can we be more deliberate in getting together with another person for the purpose of his or her spiritual good?
Explain why our right relatedness to the Godhead through Christ fits us for a life of true community with our fellow believers.
Why does the individual believer experience an impoverished spirit when he or she discontinues mutual edification in his relationships in the body of Christ?
Describe as precisely as you can what growing believers must do in order to solve the problem described here by Powlison: Countless counseling crises occur because people don’t know how to get in touch with the living Lord Jesus; therefore, believers ought to labor in love to more fully connect other believers to Christ. (David Powlison in C. John Miller’s, Outgrowing the Ingrown Church, Zondervan, 1986, p. 169).
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