A Note from Michael Gossett | September 4, 2026

A Healthy Church:

A Church of members

Have you ever shut your finger in a door or broken a finger? It seems so insignificant and that it couldn’t be that big of a deal. One small part of you is injured or not working properly, and your entire body has reorganized itself around that one throbbing problem. A body simply cannot ignore the suffering of one of its parts, because the parts are not strangers to each other. They belong together.

That is the picture that Paul gives us about the body of Christ. 

1 Corinthians 12:12-27 says, “¹² For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body—so also is Christ. ¹³ For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all given one Spirit to drink. ¹⁴ Indeed, the body is not one part but many. ¹⁵ If the foot should say, ‘Because I’m not a hand, I don’t belong to the body,’ it is not for that reason any less a part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, ‘Because I’m not an eye, I don’t belong to the body,’ it is not for that reason any less a part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸ But as it is, God has arranged each one of the parts in the body just as he wanted. ¹⁹ And if they were all the same part, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts, but one body. ²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ Or again, the head can’t say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’²² On the contrary, those parts of the body that are weaker are indispensable. ²³ And those parts of the body that we consider less honorable, we clothe these with greater honor, and our unrespectable parts are treated with greater respect, ²⁴ which our respectable parts do not need. Instead, God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the less honorable, ²⁵ so that there would be no division in the body, but that the members would have the same concern for each other. ²⁶ So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. ²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it.” 

You Were Baptized

The moment the Spirit joined you to Christ, He joined you to everyone else who belongs to Christ. Coming to Jesus for salvation is not only gaining Christ, but gaining the church, which is His body. As we often say, we are to “Connect to Christ and His Church.” You are baptized into Christ and into a body of believers. When Paul himself was still hunting Christians down to try and destroy “The Way” of Christ, the voice from heaven asked “Why are you persecuting me?” This is significant to our understanding of the church and the way the body belongs to Christ. Paul writes that detail when he says, “so also is Christ.” The church is bound to Jesus as closely as that. If Christ is in you, then you are in Christ and that means a part of His body. 

I have had many people over the years of ministry say to me, “I don’t have to go to church to be saved.” That statement is absolutely correct. The requirement of salvation is not in anyone but Christ. It is His blood that atones for our sins and it is the work of Christ that brings us from death to life. However, those who are alive in Christ will live in Christ and that is impossible apart from His body. You can have an incredible engine that works, that functions, has all the parts, and doesn’t even leak! But the engine is not truly functioning according to its design if it is just sitting in the yard. It belongs in the vehicle to run, to function, and to be a part of something it was designed for. You are saved by Christ, and now you live in His body, the church. 

You Belong!

Paul makes this very clear in 1 Corinthians 12. Paul even uses a tender tone as he talks about this. He begins to address the insecure member, the one standing at the edge of the room already certain there is no place here for someone like them, or the one who simply feels lonely or forgotten. “If the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I don’t belong to the body, it is not for that reason any less a part of the body.” Some of us have felt and maybe even feel today that you don’t belong. You look around at the gifted people and the “up-front” people, the ones who always seem to know the right thing to say, and a voice inside you tells you that you do not really fit.

That voice is a liar. The feeling of not belonging does not have the power to determine whether you belong. You do belong. Your authority of belonging is found in Christ alone. Belonging is not for the gifted, the vocal, the married, the single, the young, the old, but for everyone who is in Christ.  God Himself has arranged each part of the body just as he wanted. This should put us at ease knowing that it is not up to our performance, our gifting, or our wealth to belong. The God who arranges the stars set you into this body on purpose, in the exact spot He wanted you to fill. A hand that wishes it were an eye is still a hand the body cannot live without.

This is really why church membership is not a tradition we keep blindly. It is actually meaningful. It is necessary. Church membership at its core is knowing who belongs and who doesn’t. Church membership is designed to know who is missing. It is designed to help us remember that we belong to the Lord.

We Need One Another

The member who is sure he can achieve God’s purpose on his own misunderstands the Lord’s church. Paul turns to the opposite end of the spectrum. You cannot say you don’t belong and you cannot say you don’t need the body. There is a kind of Christianity today that is prevalent that treats the church as an optional extra or a nice addition to life when life allows it. Just me and Jesus, the thinking goes, and I can meet God out on the lake as well as I can in a pew. Charles Spurgeon had no patience for that idea. He pictured such a Christian as a single brick sitting off by itself in the builder’s yard, refusing to be laid into the wall, proud of its independence, and useful to no one on earth. A brick was made for the wall. You were made for the body. An engine was made for the car.

“Those parts of the body that are weaker are indispensable.” The members we are tempted to overlook, the ones who cannot serve up front or write large checks or light up a room, God has woven into the very center of the body and clothed with special honor. You can measure the health of a church by the way it treats its weakest members. In the body of Christ there are no spare parts, and there is no one who is insignificant. The fact of the matter is that the Church needs you, and you need the church. We need one another. We need every generation. We need every status. We need every gift for the development and edification of the church. Do not underestimate what God wants to do with you as you put your “yes” on the table to be used by Him.

We are in it Together

God knit the body together “so that there would be no division in the body, but that the members would have the same concern for each other. So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.” This is the broken finger in the life of the church. When one of us is hurting, the rest of us are meant to feel it and move toward it. When one of us is lifted up, the rest of us get to celebrate instead of envy. 

This is one of the many reasons why I love our church family so much. I have seen our church suffer with those who are suffering and rejoice with those who rejoice. I have stood in hospital waiting rooms that ran out of chairs because this church would not let one of its members suffer alone. No program produces that. It is simply what a body does. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing from inside a fragile community the Nazis would soon scatter, warned believers to stop falling in love with their dream of an ideal church, because that dream only ever leaves us disappointed and demanding. He told them to love instead the real and ordinary people God had actually placed around them, receiving one another as a gift straight from the hand of Christ. That is what Paul is after in his final line, the one that settles your identity for good. “Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it.” You are the body of Christ, bound to him and bound to one another.

Not a perfect community. Not a perfect pastor. Not perfect music. Not perfect members. Not perfect programs. Not perfect in loving one another. But, we are bound by a perfect Savior who says you belong and we are in it together until He returns or calls us home.This is the power of Christ in us.

This Sunday we continue our study in the Gospel of Luke! We will study Luke 15:8-10, and the title of the message is “Kingdom Value” about the parable of the lost coin. This parable is about a woman who has lost something valuable to her. What does she do? She lights a lamp, sweeps the floor, and searches until the missing coin is found. Hidden in this parable are insights that are crucial to our understanding of who Christ is, and what He has called each of us to do. The God who counts His sheep is the same God who counts you, loves you, and cares for you. 

Bring someone who needs to hear that he is the very one being sought after. See you Sunday at 9:30 or 11:00. 

You are loved and prayed for!

Michael Gossett