Building the Church

“Building the Church”
1 Corinthians 12
February 15, 2026

Someone called this maze of relationships, “the theory of relativity:”

…consider the marriage mayhem created when 76-year-old Bill Baker of London recently wed Edna Harvey. She happened to be his granddaughter’s husband’s mother [granddaughter’s mother-in-law]. That’s where the confusion began, according to Baker’s granddaughter, Lynn.

“My mother-in-law is now my step-grandmother. My grandfather is now my stepfather-in-law. My mom is my sister-in-law and my brother is my nephew. But even crazier is that I’m now married to my uncle and my own children are my cousins.” [Accessed at https://bible.org/illustration/theory-relativity.%5D

You can’t make up these stories.  But this one does demonstrate that relationships are confusing.  And difficult.  And it is often tempting to just give up on some relationships:  “it’s just too hard…”  But we need relationships.  God has designed people for relationships.  And even more importantly, God has designed the church to be a model for what relationships should be.  And when they are hard, it’s tempting to leave a church and our relationships there.  But that’s not God’s plan.  He prioritizes preserving relationships.  

At the State of the Church, we will be talking about plans for expanding facilities to meet the growing needs of our church body.  But even as we talk about some real facility needs, we don’t want to forget about the priority of relationships:  it’s about people.  Ministry is about people.  It’s easy to think about facilities, tasks, and roles and responsibilities, but behind all those tasks are relationships — and the simple, shepherding care of God’s people.  [And GBC exists to shepherd God’s people.]  So this morning we are going to do a survey of a variety of passages and then end up in 1 Corinthians 12, thinking about this theme:  

The church — this church — is designed by God to care for God’s people.

As we think about the care of God’s people, we will notice four truths about relationships among God’s people in the church: 

1. The New Testament Emphasis on Relationships in the Church
2. The Church Body is One:  the Hope of What Is and Should Be (1 Cor. 12:12)
3. The Church Body is Diverse:  Complications to Our Relationships (1 Cor. 12:12b-17)
4. The Church Body in Harmony:  God’s Provision for Our Diversity (1 Cor. 12:18-26)

Download the rest of this sermon on 1 Corinthians 12.

The audio will be posted on the GBC website by Tuesday.