Well, tonight we come to and continue our study in the book of Romans, and we come to chapter 12, chapter 12 tonight, and we are looking at the gifts, the section on gifts in Romans in verses 3 through 8 tonight. Back up and read it, verse 1, and we'll read through 8, page 1126. Let's give our attention tonight to the Lord's word to us.
"I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. If prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness."
There will end tonight the reading of God's word.
Well, beloved, we have been uh considering much about uh being a servant in the kingdom of God and considering together what the sacrificial life of being a Christian looks like, and this is a wonderful text to help us with that tonight. Tonight it's challenging us to remember in context to think of the grace that we have received in our lives all this wonderful news that has been preached to us throughout the book of Romans, and to think about then the proper response of what really is a response of becoming a servant of Jesus Christ, a servant of one another, a servant in thinking sacrificially as we have been taught by him.
Remember Philippians 2: "Let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who became nothing for us all the way to the cross." That same mind is given to us, the mind of Christ. And that's what really drives this tonight in thinking about a sacrificial life.
The apostle here is challenging us to think, "What do we do now with the Christian life? What do we do? That we have been set free from bondage, that we have been set free from the law of sin and death and married to another. What does it mean now that we are no longer slaves to sin but slaves to righteousness? What does it mean that there is no condemnation for us? What does the life that follows look like?"
And this is the beautiful truth about Romans as we have been looking at guilt, grace, and gratitude. We're in this gratitude section as sin, salvation, service, to break down the book of Romans, which is what our Heidelberg is patterned off of. And so as we opened up chapter 12 last time, you'll remember that it began by saying, "I want you to think a certain way. I want you now, sacrifice still happens in the Christian life. We're not bringing bowls on the altar anymore, but we understand that there is sacrifice in the Christian life. Sacrifices are still made in the Christian life."
And he's saying, "I want you to think this way about sacrifice. I want you, verse 1, by the mercies of God, to present your very life, your bodies, as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."
We looked at service last time. "Present your bodies this way. Expend your bodies this way in sacrifice this way. This is thankful service."
Remember, we looked at some of the other passages last time where Paul used this concept of sacrifice in this life of ourselves and how we think in Philippians, where he took the Levitical sacrifices and he likened himself to that drink offering that was on the altar that when the wine was poured out over the animal sacrifice, there was a huge puff of steam. And he says, "That's what I want you to think of your life. You are to pour out yourself on the sacrifice and service of each other's faith."
"That's what I want you to think about. That's what he said: I will gladly offer my life to be poured out that way upon the sacrifice and service of your faith.
So isn't this such a wonderful truth of how our Lord works? The Lord doesn't, as has been commonly said, need our good works, but He shows His love for the neighbor next to you through your good works. This is how He works. This is how good He is.
And this is how he wants us to think. It's no longer how the world thinks. How does the world think about everything? "It's my rights. It's about what I get out of something. It's about my interest. It's about me getting noticed. It's about people not giving me the attention I deserve."
It's that it's all about me, me, me, me. And and the whole Christian life in sacrificial service is a whole paradigm shift away from that.
That's why I've always said, "When people leave the church for those kinds of reasons, I don't have enough attention, I'm not this, I'm not this, or these people aren't friendly, that's just pretext for not the real issue. It's about them. It's about them. They haven't thought about what the sacrificial life looks like."
And so Paul's helping us with that a new way of sacrifice a new way of thinking about the Christian life. As has been said, you don't really even appoint the people in your church. God has appointed the very people that surround you. God picks the person next to you in the pew. God picks your church. If we thought like that, we have a different perspective because he's fitting a body together in his way so that each part complements the whole.
Now, Jesus taught us all this. He taught us all this so beautifully when he washed the disciples' feet, asking, "Do you understand what I've done for you? You go do the same. Same mentality I want you to have in serving others."
And Jesus made those statements that we've considered in Matthew: "Whoever desires to be first shall be slave of all. You must become a servant of all."
And so notice the compassion servants must have. Servants can't sit there and be judgmental on everyone else. Servants can't sit there and pick apart everyone else for all their sins. Servants are humble. Servants care. Servants love. Servants are not highly judgmental people.
So we're looking at the life of sacrifice then, a redeemed life set apart as a servant in serving one another. So Paul now says in verse 2 (you remember), "You need to have your mind renewed to discern what is the good and acceptable, transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."
Now the question then tonight as we move into this next section is: What does that look like?
Um, sometimes we let that verse stand alone: uh "Discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect," and so we hope that somehow God will just reveal his will to us if we don't know it, right? We wait around for God to reveal the will, and I think we're missing the context of this. that The will of God for you right now, wherever you are, is to be a servant. That is His will. Discern that.
A lot of people sit around waiting for to try to discern the will of God and don't do anything. This is the context of that particular verse.
So notice here the question that comes out, and the issue that now is addressed is that of spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts it's a interesting question. The elders always ask it when there's new people who come into the church, and sometimes we'll get answers, but most of the time people say, "Well, I'm not quite sure, but I can... I can bake cookies." Well, bake cookies! That's a great thing we all love cookies but i think we have to think a little more deeply about the concepts that Paul is giving us here about gifts themselves and equipping of gifts.
Most of the time, if we're honest (and I can look at myself and say this), that the reason we don't think sacrificially and the reason we're not thinking about the use of gifts among the body of Christ is simply because we are lethargic and we are indifferent. That's just the reality. It creates all kinds of problems in the church.
Think about this problem: If we have a church that's (I'm not saying we are, okay?), but if you have a church that's lethargic and indifferent to gifts, you have a certain amount of people doing all the work, and then a certain amount of people get bitter at those who don't do the work. And so you have mass legalism that goes on. You have all kinds of problems that begin to happen with that.
And the Lord is here helping us with that, where he's calling us to use the gifts. And I really think, if you look at even the parable of the talents, that it's not so much always trying to figure out the gift that I have. It's to first think about the opportunities that are given to you. First, on the very opportunities that are given to you to serve.
If you take those talents and the ones went out and they came back, and they said, "Look, we've doubled the money," or "We've tripled the money" when they brought it back to their master it were opportunities that were given that they took and they ran with and they served in those opportunities that were afforded to them. The other man did just buried the money, didn't use the opportunities, and viewed God as a harsh taskmaster.
Opportunity really is very important here. And so what he begins to do is he's framing our mindset to think correctly as we approach service in the kingdom and using our gifts in the kingdom in the sacrificial life in the kingdom. And where does he begin?
He begins with the misunderstanding and the real danger when it comes to life in the church, and it begins in verse three "For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned."
Well, that's a problem. That's a very big problem. When it came to gifts, all throughout the New Testament, especially in Corinth (as we'll look at in a minute), but here it ties together with something that the church in Rome was facing...
We know that the church had a mixture of Jews and Gentiles. There was much conflict. That's why we're about to get into freedom, spiritual freedoms, and not using things with legalistic ways against people for practices. We'll come back to all that.
But here, notice here: You had real differences of levels of maturity among Christians in this church. You had Jew and Gentile. The Jews seek after what? Signs. The Gentiles seek after knowledge, wisdom. This was still very programmed in these people. And pride in terms of gifting in the church caused all kinds of challenges that the apostles had to address.
So the issue was with the gifts at this point. And Paul, in the New Testament, I think we can say there are three different general categories of gifts: there are sign gifts, there are speaking gifts, and there are serving gifts. If you want to boil it down, I think in the most clear way sign gifts, speaking gifts, and serving gifts. And Paul here is addressing just two of those, but it's important because, putting it together with Corinth, the issue of pride was a big issue in the church here and in Corinth.
There was something similar. We know that the Corinthians had the huge problem with the sign gifts tongue speaking dreams and visions, and these sort of things. And the prevailing opinion was (to help us with the pride problem) was that who was ever able to speak with the glossolalia the inspired speech they thought or the the the tongues these were the truly spiritual people among them the ones who had really attained to top-notch gifts in the kingdom, knowledge and gnosis, and so on. All these things that the first century church had to deal with.
So there was this problem in the churches where Paul wrote, especially in Corinth, with a worldly view of ministry, you know? A worldly view of gifts, an elitist conception uh in the church that some people are just more spiritual than others. And there were pride problems.
Paul's entire point was to argue, "If you're a Christian, then every last one of you is spiritual."
Now I believe this is similar to what was happening in Rome. You put jew and Gentiles together, and there was a conflict over really progress, who they were, past convictions, and pride was at the heart of it. But I find it interesting: there's no sign gifts mentioned here in
Romans, only speaking and serving gifts romans I believe, was written after Corinthians. If the scholars here think I'm wrong, I'd love to know, because I could be wrong. So their debate dates on these all day long, and that's what they do. But the I think it's right that Romans was written after Corinthians, and this lack of inclusion of the sign gifts, I think, make a case that they were coming to an end with the apostles. But it also seems purposely done to make a strong point: that to view the difference of gifts in some as being more spiritual is exactly what leads to the problem of pride in the church.
We know this. Who do we hold up in the life of the church as those with the greatest gifts? Well, the professors are always an easy target, aren't they? We kind of think the professors are way up here, aren't they? They've done the PhD work. They've done all the hard study work. And rightly so, they have great positions in the church. They have (we think) the top minds.
But what what develops in all of us is sort of a ladder of gifting. There's the top, and then maybe there's the pastor, and maybe there's the elder, and then at the bottom of all the offices is the deacon. Of course, you know, the deacon's just at the bottom of the rung. That's all wrong. It's all wrong. That is all wrong.
Um, by the way, I think we need to rethink the whole office of deacon. The office of deacon is an office equal in dignity and honor and in service. But then, of course, at the very bottom of all that are just you low lay people, you poor lay people you know?
And so we begin to think that that's where all the work is done. You can classify this any way you want that the responsibility then falls in the way that we have stacked it or the hierarchical structure that we have made. But it's interesting: you look at the New Testament. You
You look at the people who are celebrated. you know, you come to Acts, and there's a woman named Tabitha, or Dorcas, in the early church. And it says, "This woman was filled with good works." I love that the New Testament shows us that Filled with good works so much that when she died, it caused great pain on the church.
Well, every church has a Tabitha doing everything. She'll do it. She'll do it. giving how do we how do we sort of structure the giving? Well, God gives us all opportunities to give back in the ways that he has blessed us. But what do we often say with giving (because there's giving here mentioned here)?
"Oh, the rich take care of that. The rich take care of that. They'll take care of it."
That's not healthy. That's not a healthy view of giving, is it?
So again, you have the report that 10% of the people do 90% of the work, all on the structures that we impose, and hierarchy develops. And this is, I think, really getting at the heart of what Paul's talking about with pride.
Pride can go either way. So you see, the spiritual ones tend to take on too much, while everyone backs off, and you just have an unhealthy situation all the way through.
Paul here, in verse 4, addresses this: "As in one body we have many members and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another."
That's such an important verse. It's the same point made to the church in Corinth: "There are diversities of gifts but the same spirit. There are diversities of ministries but the same Lord. There are diversities of activities, but it's the same God who works all and all." And what the apostles are emphasizing here, which is so important, that the distinctions in the body of Christ are there because God has poured out a variety of different gifts on his people. But all those gifts matter, and all the opportunities matter to use them.
Paul says that "according to the effective working by which each part (he sees a body here) does it, share what causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love." And if you want to experience how important every part of the body is, go cut off your pinky toe. Don't do that, but do you know how that will affect your whole walk? But God formed our whole body to teach us this: every part matters. The pinky toe matters.
I think it was Dizzy Dean who, in one of the early World Series, broke his pinky toe, and the guy threw out his arm in the pitching because of the toe. So there's a perfect illustration. By the way, but now indeed there are many members, yet one body. "And the eye cannot say to the hand, i have no need of you nor again to the head to the feet, i have no need of you No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary."
This is Corinth again, First Corinthians 12: "And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor. And our our unpresentable parts have greater modesty But our presentable parts have no need but God composed the body, having given greater ony to honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it."
So God has given diversities of gifts among us as individual members to complement and make the whole, the whole body function as one unit. That's what I want you to think about, church. It's so important. The Lord's given us a large church. Every part of the church matters.
So again, think of people who don't look at church this way. They're selfish. They walk out. They don't think about this. They don't think that actually the involvement in the kingdom of God is a placement as a part in the body to serve somebody else. That's his whole point in this. Not individualistic.
So he's saying all this to evaluate the way God has has blessed us with the gifts and opportunities that he has given to us to use them. not he's saying some are not the really big spiritual giants uh (you might think), what he's saying is all are spiritual giants in this picture because you are holy and acceptable in Christ. And recognize that he has dealt to you opportunities for presenting your own bodies as a living sacrifice.
There's the tie. He has presented to every one of you opportunities to present your own bodies as a living sacrifice to support the whole, okay?
So it's not that we run around saying, "I wonder what I should do. I wonder what I should do." People say that. "What do I do?"
Well, Christ has given you gifts. We could debate whether that's singular or plural. I'm not really interested in... And I don't know if that's so helpful. This destroys the idea, though, that somebody could be inactive in service in the body of Christ. That is not his will. That's not his intention for every one of you.
So the apostle here then tonight recognizes two of the three gifts, as I said. They're sign gifts. He doesn't really address those. He addresses speaking gifts and serving gifts, if we're going to categorize it.
And in verse 6, he does this. He says, "Then, having gifts that differ according to the grace he's given to us, every one of you has received grace, but he's given gifts differently to everyone according to that grace. And so what does he say?"
"Let us use them."
Now, the context of this is not "do this and live," as we've been looking at. context is, "You're loved. You're forgiven. You're washed. You're my children. And now you have the great opportunity to serve in my vineyard."
Remember the vineyard? Some come in late, some come in early. Use the gifts. It's not hard. It's not rocket science. Use the gifts.
He starts with prophecy. I do not think this is an exhaustive list here. I think he's simply using some as an example to think about.
"If prophecy, notice what he says, in proportion to our faith."
The word means to speak forth. I think Paul is probably thinking here very strongly of the gift of preaching and the gift of speaking in an authoritative manner in the church. According to the grace that's been given to you, if you've been given that gift, use it. And this is why we pray for pastors, right? This is why we pray to the Lord to raise up pastors, to send them. The fields are white for the harvest. He is equipping men to go out and serve in this way. And what a beautiful thing to speak the word of God.
He says, "Or in ministry in the next gift, or in service..."
Actually, in our serving, here the word really has to do with the the word we use for deacon. But it's (I don't believe he's speaking explicitly of the office itself, though it definitely applies). Even so, think of what the deacon's responsibility is. One of the great responsibilities of the deacon is not just (as we think of them) as money counters or to think only about money. It is to exhort the members of the congregation to show mercy. I love that. One of the great responsibilities of the deaconate is to teach you how to show mercy to each other, which means there are a lot of people who need mercy, and that the whole spirit of service is mercy. Mercy. That's the diaconate, but that's what spills out into the life of the whole congregation.
So he says, "In service, use that gift in mercy to serve one another in all kinds of different ways that you can, showing hospitality. How many people need mercy demonstrated to them in service? The gift of service is every kind of practical help we can give to one another."
"He who (notice here) the one who teaches, in his his teaching..."
There are those gifted to communicate the truth of God's word. That's not just pastors. Um, one of the things I challenge the elders with: you have a great responsibility. It's one of the very gifts of the elder is to teach. is to teach But I'm so thankful we have so many teachers who fill our Sunday school hours to teach our children. What a blessing that is that program is vital to the success of the church, important to the success of the church.
If you have a gift to teach, use it. He says. That's his gift to you to be a blessing "to others um to the one who exhorts..."
This is a great one: in his exhortation. The word means to call to one side. So so think about this: in the body, there's all these needs and challenges and difficulties. Exhortation here means to advise, to encourage. It has a whole range here we could talk about: to warn, to strengthen, to comfort.
James speaks of pulling people off the path when they fall into sin. It's exhortation. It's giving that word that's like apples of gold to people when they need it. And that crosses boundaries of age and difference and ethnicity everything
One of the most beautiful things is when we think (as older saints) to encourage the younger. That, that, that has to be more thought about in the church. Um, we've often thought about mentorships and these sort of things, but I think it should what we say organically develop, where the mindset of the older would be, "I still am very useful in the kingdom. I can help that young person really struggling with life," right? And um, older women who see younger women struggling to raise children and these sort of encouraging things, these coming alongside of things, these these strengthening things and and like I've said before, it may even involve warning.
And like I've told you, some of the most effective people in my life were people who came along and said, "Chris, what you're doing is wrong." That's exactly what this is.
Hebrews it says, "Consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, encouraging one another all the more as you see the day approaching."
If you have that (which you do), use it. Use it. There's somebody. There's somebody, use it.
"He who gives with..."
Notice here, the next one: "He who contributes, in generosity."
Well, you could say that's giving of your monies, your time, your energies.
"Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who gives. Notice how generous God is here: who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, so God gives us all kinds of good things to enjoy in this life. Responsibility then: let them do good to all of you who've received good gifts from God. Let them do good that they may be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold of eternal life."
So there's the spirit, right? Those who have been blessed by God and given so much what do you think that's for? Hold it back? To give liberally as he does, pouring out our lives on the sacrifice and service of each other's faith.
"To him who leads, with..."
Notice: zeal. Leadership's hard. It means to stand beside. Those who are given leadership roles in the church often think it should just go really well and really easy. Really? It's going to be challenging in leadership. Why are you doing it? Do it with zeal. That's God's call in your life.
Bad leadership produces people doing what's right in their own eyes. Good leadership cares for the flock and gives the heart to it.
Finally, he ends with something nobody can say at the end: "I don't know if I have any of these."
What's the last one? "The one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness."
Well, what an interesting ending! Who can't do that?
The call to show mercy to one another, to weep with those who weep (he's going to say), to rejoice with those who rejoice. How many of you will go through some kind of sickness or trial that's coming? How many people are facing suffering? Is there anything you can do to show mercy? The list is endless, right? It's not rocket science. It could just be that cup of cold water.
And in this list, which isn't exhaustive, he says here, "These are the ways to think about a thankful life for all that God's done for you. All of you are gifted to be of great blessing in the church, to serve one another and to help one another."
And I suppose it really comes down to you first thinking about how much God has loved you and given everything for you.
Let me close with this little story to motivate you to it: "And Jesus answered and said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you. So he said, teacher, say it. There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii, and the other 50. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him more? Simon answered and said, I suppose the one whom he forgave more. And he said to him, you've rightly judged.
"Then he turned to the woman and said, Simon, do you see this woman? I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet, but she has washed my feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss my feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint my head with oil, but this woman has anointed my feet with fragrant oil. Therefore, I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little Then he said to her, your sins are forgiven
What a privilege it is to serve in the body of Christ when you know what you've been forgiven.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, thank you for helping us to understand the blessing of serving in your kingdom. Grant us the wisdom, and take away, O Lord, the laziness that often fills us, the indifference. And help us to think about, O Lord, the little things as we've been taught as the great things. And may we think about how to love one another, that we might say thank you for all that you've done for us. Bless this church in love and unity and peace, and may it be a church abounding in good works and serving one another in gladness, thankful for the grace given to us in Christ Jesus. In whose name we pray, amen.