Theme:
Discerning the Body of the body
Text: 1
Corinthians 11:29
Preacher:
Pastor Aaron Labon Fant
We walk
before God as children of God, and we walk after God as servants of the Lord,
we walk with God as friends of God but we walk in God as members of the body of
Christ. So we going to be exploring kingdom ministries pertaining to our walk
in the body of Christ. I have come to realize that one of the killers of the
church is not Satan, but one of the major killers is the ignorance of our
identity in Christ. So if you don’t know your identity, you end as a non-entity.
You have to walk in that consciousness and know that you are a child of a
King.
1
Corinthians 11:29 – 31 For he who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks
damnation to himself not discerning the Lord’s body. For this course, many are
weak and sickling amongst you and many sleep.
God never
destined us to be weak and sick. There is a cause. Bible says that as old as
Abraham is, he lead an army at age 100 and brought Lot from the hands of their
enemy. The bible also says when God lead Israel out of Egypt, None was feeble
among their tribes and for 40 years none was sick and none was weak. And all
their resources were never diminished.
Hebrews 10:
5 b A body have I prepared for you.
So why do we
have to discern the Lord’s body? Because if we fail to discern the Lord’s body,
we will be weak, we will be sick and we may even die prematurely. Most people
have misunderstood this scripture. They say if you eat it unworthily. Which of
us reading this is worthy? And we are targeting the brother who fornicated last
week and we get to communion table we are watching out for those who will not
take communion. Then you will say to people “I tell you, that guy is a
fornicator”. And we have been taught wrongly. It didn’t say if you’re a
fornicator, don’t take it. It said if many die and many fall sick because they
don’t discern the Lord’s body so if you fail to recognize what the body of
Christ is then you are in danger.
And there
are three dimensions I will be talking about discerning the Lord’s body.
Discerning means to to know or to understand.
1. Discern Headship
2. Discern Membership
3. Discern Fellowship
Discern Headship
In the body
of Christ, there is headship and if you fail to discern the headship in the
family of God, many will fall sick, many become weak and many may die young.
And actually the heads of God’s unit or God’s family on earth are described in
the bible as angels. And some of us have a funny about angels and we see angels
are those that comes with wings and they glow and shine. And that is why we
have missed most of our angels that come our way because we fail to discern
that we have angels in our midst.
Revelation
2: 1 Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus, write.
Revelation
2: 8 And unto the angel of the church of Smyrna, write.
Revelation
2: 12 And unto the angel of the church of Pergamos, write.
Revelation
2: 18 And unto the angel of the church
of Thyatira, write.
So that
means for every church, And he wasn’t talking about heavenly angels because if
there were heavenly angels, there were with God, And God does not need a letter
to communicate with his angels. And John also did not need to write a letter to
heaven. He wrote it for the church and if the angel was a spiritual being there
wouldn’t be any need for a physical letter because spiritual things communicate
spiritually.
He was talking
about a physical angel, The overseer of the church. But many have failed to
discern the angels that God has sent to them. So because of that, many have
become weak and sick. In the military, there is high ranking. If a sergeant
meets his general or commander, he dares not to say hi but stands and salutes
but it is only in the house of God that everyone is a colleague. And this is
why you ought to be careful how you criticize men of God or elders in the
church, let God be their Judge. Even if you just completed Harvard Law School,
it is not your responsibility to judge them. And correction upwards is
rebellion. 1 Timothy 5:17 It says
count them of double honor the elders among you especially those who labor in
word and doctrine.
Discerning Membership
We sometimes
backbite and telling all kinds of lies not knowing we are actually doing it
against Jesus. And Apostle Paul was so blind he started persecuting the members
of God thinking they were just members of an organization but no Christianity
is an organism so when Jesus showed up on the road to Damascus, He said Why
persecuted thou me so. And He asked who are you Lord and Jesus said I am Jesus
whom thou persecuted. Sometimes we backbite against one another and do things
against one another thinking we are doing just mere people but we are doing it
against God.
In Mattew
25:31-46 It speaks about Christ coming back in His glory and separating the
sheep from the goats and He will say to the sheep, I was in prison , you
visited me, I was sick and you visited me , I was hungry and you fed me and
they asked but God where did we see you and He will say if you didn’t do it for
your brother, you didn’t do it for me and also condemned the goats because they
never did these for their brothers and this will be one of the reasons many
will be put to condemnation because we do not think over our fellow members but
rather we rejoice in the downfall of our members.
Discerning Fellowship.
Hebrews
10:25 – Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of
some is. Fellowship is very important. And some of us take it as if it’s a club
or a call or invite to honor. We only dress and go to church on Sundays, but
fellowship isn’t just about church because in Hebrews 12:22 it says “ye are
come unto Mount Zion to the Heavenly Jerusalem with an innumerable company of
angels, to the general assembly ……… “. And if we are told that the president
will be at church , everyone will be in haste to go to church or when it is
announced that God has turned into a man and is coming to church, many will go
but as spirit as God is and as present as He is in our fellowships, we still
don’t discern his presence.
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