One Body

Text: Ephesians 4:4-6

I.               Introduction

A.  Fascinating Facts about the Human Body

B.  Body of the Church

C.  The Seven Ones

II.            Unity and Diversity in the One Body

A.  in the Body

1.    Unity in

a.    We serve under the of Christ. (Colossians 1:18, 2:19)

b.    The brain is the control center of the body.

c.    It works subconsciously to control many of the systems in your body.

2.    Spiritual

a.    – It is Jesus who defines for us what obedience, faith, truth, worship, etc. look like.

b.    – Jesus is the WAY (purpose, vision, mission, etc.).

c.    – Jesus determines what the church looks like (leadership, work, etc.).

3.    Unity in

a.    We should serve God with the of Christ.

b.    We often refer to the heart as the emotional center of our being.

c.    Rarely do we make a decision based on logic alone.

4.    Spiritual

a.    We are to be a people that seek to love one another.

b.    Remember the traits that we talked about last week (humility, gentleness, patience, tolerance, eagerness to keep the bond in peace).

c.    Jesus loved people, and so should we (Matthew 9:36; Luke 7:13).

5.    We must follow Jesus’s example in our heads and hearts if we want to be His people.

6.    When these two get out of balance, we can become legalistic or liberal.

B.  in the Body

1.    is Useful

a.    Our diversity is meant to be a

b.    The body metaphor also reminds us that we are each different from one another.

c.    How we experience worship, serve Christ, and connect with others may look very different, but as long as we do it with the right head and heart, we’re serving the Lord.

2.    Different

a.    When we pair this passage with Paul’s other passages, we also learn that our differences can be a strength because those differences will lead to differing roles.

b.    We read about the unity and diversity of the body in 1 Corinthians 12:1-31 and Romans 12:3-8.

c.    Those two passages remind us that each part of the body of Christ is

d.    Just as the different parts of the body have different functions, they all work together. Paul returns to this idea later in our theme passage for the year (Ephesians 4:16).

III.         Conclusion

A.  The Soul

B.  Invitation