SPEAKER_00: This morning we're going to continue our look at Romans.
SPEAKER_00: We'll be in chapter 12 together.
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 12, page 1126, if you're using the church Bible.
SPEAKER_00: 1126, Romans chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: Encourage you to turn there as we get into some thoughts together that come from our brother Apostle Paul as he's writing to the Roman brethren.
SPEAKER_00: But before we start in that section of text, sure is good to see everybody here today.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome everyone as has already been done.
SPEAKER_00: I want to do that as well.
SPEAKER_00: Appreciate your presence.
SPEAKER_00: Glad those of you, so many of you who were away last week are again and uh part of the congregation's worship period.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're a guest with us today, we're really happy that you're here as well.
SPEAKER_00: Appreciate you so much.
SPEAKER_00: Your presence shows something that we here at Milwaukee Avenue admire very much, and that is a spiritual appetite and a desire to worship the one and only great God that uh uh that that we do.
SPEAKER_00: And so glad to have you here and be part of of the assembly today.
SPEAKER_00: Invite you back every time you can come and be with us.
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about introducing the subject matter this morning that begins our section of text that we'll be uh honing in on this morning, begins in verse 3 of Romans chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: But the thought occurred to me uh to do a review.
SPEAKER_00: I know you're really surprised by that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh really very, just very brief, uh, but understanding the principle that comes from this, I think is helpful to the section of the text that we'll be looking at this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Paul has spent some considerable time, actually, all the way from chapter one all the way through chapter 11, presenting to us some great doctrinal, I would call them epic doctrinal statements that uh we pick up in other places for sure throughout scripture.
SPEAKER_00: He's not teaching anything different from the other apostles or or those who were inspired uh to write the things that we have in the letters that God has given to us to the various congregations and peoples, uh brethren.
SPEAKER_00: But but still writing to us this concept of God's love, first and foremost, we draw from those first verses, uh first chapters uh prior to where we are now, and God's grace, which has been a big part of that.
SPEAKER_00: We've gotten a kind of a double dose of that over the last few months when we were in Galatians and in Romans.
SPEAKER_00: They follow very closely together with regard to the necessity of grace.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, uh, without that, nothing else really does matter.
SPEAKER_00: And our faith, which is where we come to when we get to chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've touched on it before that, but chapter 12 really begins honing in on what that is to look like.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says living and active faith is going to be necessary.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, to he says in verse 1 of chapter 12, if you look there with me, we saw this uh last uh uh last Lord's Day morning, uh as brother George uh preached about some of this.
SPEAKER_00: Present your bodies as a living sacrifice as opposed to a dead or worthless sacrifice and an active sacrifice, holy, that is to say, set apart for God, and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, meaning that anything and everything is made to magnify, to uplift God as supreme in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Your entire life that is a living sacrifice is to be a worship to God, to magnify God, to uplift God as supreme, the reason for everything.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, do not be conformed, he says in verse 2, literally pressed into this world, but be transformed, a willing change into something more from the inside out, is what God is looking for among his people.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that touches me and and and is in and impresses my mind is that God is not trying to put us into a mold and squeeze us there.
SPEAKER_00: That's not even how God is portraying himself here in these verses.
SPEAKER_00: You'll notice that in these first two verses, especially there in verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: He uses the word, do not be conformed, don't be pressed into by force is the idea there.
SPEAKER_00: Into the world's standards, the way the world thinks, what the world wants, but instead be transformed.
SPEAKER_00: That's something that grows within and comes outward.
SPEAKER_00: And that is what that is what God is looking for, to willingly have us transform, change into something better.
SPEAKER_00: And what this is all drawing us to is to understand faith and what faith is really about, what that looks like in our life.
SPEAKER_00: What does faith look like in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you a more pertinent or piercing question, maybe, depending on your perspective of all this.
SPEAKER_00: Is your faith worth anything at all?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, is it something that actually propels or or pushes you into an advancement of something coming from the inside, growing out?
SPEAKER_00: Or is it simply just laying there?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I believe.
SPEAKER_00: A verbal consent.
SPEAKER_00: God, I'll say to you, God, according to what we're looking at in chapter 12, especially, is looking for more than that from us.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to say that any more clearly.
SPEAKER_00: God is not looking for a verbal confirmation of your belief or your say-so that he is who he is, and you can believe in his promises.
SPEAKER_00: That's good, it's necessary.
SPEAKER_00: But then it should go far beyond this.
SPEAKER_00: And that is what chapter 12 really presses on our minds.
SPEAKER_00: It helps us to understand, to go deeper into this concept of faith, so that our faith actually becomes a point of motivation based upon the love of God and the grace that God has given.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see that as we continue on in some of our thinking this morning.
SPEAKER_00: But in particular, we're going to talk about the concept of gifts and oneness, as we sang about this morning, and as Brother Keith read about already out of Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: We'll be looking at some of these concepts that come to us from our the great teacher, the Apostle Paul, and how that fits into our life personally, and how it fits into our life congregationally.
SPEAKER_00: So from here, Paul's going to help us penetrate further down into, to dig further down in to this concept of what does faith look like?
SPEAKER_00: Or as we titled it this morning, true faith means what?
SPEAKER_00: What does true faith mean?
SPEAKER_00: What does it really look like?
SPEAKER_00: Starting in verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Are you there?
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at it together.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3 of Romans chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: We'll start there and we'll go through about verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: 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 soberly, with uh or or with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that, underline it.
SPEAKER_00: Who assigned it?
SPEAKER_00: We'll hit on that a little bit more later on in the lesson.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4 For as 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 that's given to us, let us use them.
SPEAKER_00: If prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our servant, 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.
SPEAKER_00: I get the impression that one of the things Paul is trying to help us to think more on, to understand maybe a little bit more deeply, is that whatever good we are, and whatever good we bring into a congregation or into relationship within a congregation is because we are God's servants.
SPEAKER_00: We are God's body.
SPEAKER_00: And the gifts that we are proud to display at times actually are not vessels for us or trophies for us to hold up and think about how great these things are, but rather it is quite the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: Through humility, we serve God because of his grace.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to how to portray this.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's that important that it kind of goes beyond words and what words can express when it comes to the importance of what Paul is getting across here to a congregation that's going to live in unity and in peace with one another.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that God, through Paul, James, and Peter, describes the church as a body more than 30 times in the epistles?
SPEAKER_00: That's more than any other descriptive term about the church, about us, in all the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: John says in John chapter 1, verse 12, that we should see ourselves as children of God.
SPEAKER_00: What a magnificent comment that is about the church of God.
SPEAKER_00: You and me who make up the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty huge, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: In Ephesians chapter 2, verse 19, we should see ourselves as, as Brother Keith read this morning, fellow citizens with the saints, members of the household of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's a great privilege as well.
SPEAKER_00: Not to be taken for granted by any means.
SPEAKER_00: But I say to you, brothers and sisters, nothing comes close to the times that we read of how we are to see ourselves as a body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And the truth is you might be a lot more familiar with some of these places where you read this than what you might realize.
SPEAKER_00: I know that is true if you've been in a member of this congregation years after year after year for a long time, because you've heard lessons and classes and so forth out of those particular texts that teach on the oneness of the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And in particular, the oneness within local congregations, this one uh included.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like for you to notice something out of Ephesians as we as we make this, so we kind of press this point a little bit further.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians chapter 1, look there with me.
SPEAKER_00: Keep your finger there in Romans 12, we'll come right back to it.
SPEAKER_00: But in Ephesians chapter 1, looking at verse 22 of this text, he says that we are to put all things under his feet.
SPEAKER_00: Or he, I'm sorry, he put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 23, which is his body.
SPEAKER_00: He's not done.
SPEAKER_00: It's the fullness of him who fills all in all.
SPEAKER_00: Look at chapter 2, verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say there that God reconciled both Jews and Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: That's a uh a statement that we've heard uh quite a bit lately.
SPEAKER_00: Both Jew and Gentile to God in what?
SPEAKER_00: He says, in one body, through the cross, he did this.
SPEAKER_00: Look at chapter 4, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling to which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.
SPEAKER_00: There is one body, and one spirit, just as you were called, and one hope of your calling.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: Speaking the truth in love, grow up in all things unto him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes what does he say?
SPEAKER_00: Growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 5, verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is head of the church, he is the savior of the body.
SPEAKER_00: We are members, verse 30, of his body, his flesh and his bones.
SPEAKER_00: You can't read the book of Philippians and not get it.
SPEAKER_00: Like it'd be impossible to misunderstand the point that he is making.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the very same point, though he hasn't spent as much of the book on this point as what we're reading in chapter 12 of Romans.
SPEAKER_00: He's making the same point, he's doing it more briefly in Romans.
SPEAKER_00: Driving this whole how we see ourselves, brothers and sisters, how we see ourselves matters to God.
SPEAKER_00: Don't think that it doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you're one who is overly proud somewhere in between, or one who thinks very little of self, how we think about ourselves matters to God.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 3, it points out we should not see ourselves more highly than we ought.
SPEAKER_00: But with sober judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll just say to you, brothers and sisters, it seems to me that that what that means is it's humbling to be privileged.
SPEAKER_00: Some people are proud of their privilege, right?
SPEAKER_00: But actually, what God is teaching us here through Paul is it's humbling to be privileged.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we're functioning as part of Christ's body.
SPEAKER_00: That body that he gave himself to possess, then he died to possess.
SPEAKER_00: What that tells me is there doesn't seem to be anything that God thinks more of than what he's willing to die to possess.
SPEAKER_00: What he's willing to be raised to achieve.
SPEAKER_00: Has he done that for any other thing that you can name?
SPEAKER_00: God thinks a lot of it.
SPEAKER_00: God wants us to think a lot of it.
SPEAKER_00: One thing that can be observed both in our lifetime, yours or mine, if you've been a Christian for a long a long time.
SPEAKER_00: Or that you can see in Scripture, churches can fracture.
SPEAKER_00: We read about it in 1 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: Churches can fracture.
SPEAKER_00: Family members can disown other family members.
SPEAKER_00: We read about that principle laid forth for us in Luke 15.
SPEAKER_00: The prodigal son disowned his family when he chose that he didn't need them anymore and left them.
SPEAKER_00: Likewise, the older brother didn't need his younger brother anymore when he decided he wasn't worthy of coming back into the family again.
SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, the father's trying to hold all this together.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I feel for the father, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: But I'll say this to you, brothers and sisters: body parts cannot disown other body parts.
SPEAKER_00: That can't happen.
SPEAKER_00: Notice three comparisons with me from our text here in Romans chapter 12, verses 3 through 8, where Paul pushes the point that we need to see ourselves not just as a church, not just as a family, but as necessary parts of a body that Jesus died to save.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, Paul says, no member of the body can function without the other members.
SPEAKER_00: Look there at verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: The members do not all have the same function.
SPEAKER_00: You know that's that's supposed to be that way.
SPEAKER_00: You know how God took a man and a woman and he made a family out of them?
SPEAKER_00: And though they are like one another, and though they may have the same agenda as one another when it comes to home life and all of that, they're totally different.
SPEAKER_00: And it's by design, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: We see that in the book of Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is saying the same thing here.
SPEAKER_00: The members do not all have the same function.
SPEAKER_00: Now, many members might have the same function, but not all members have the same function.
SPEAKER_00: They were built to be different from one another, though they may have the same purpose as a family or a body in mind.
SPEAKER_00: Turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: I uh maybe you already likely you may already know this, maybe you don't, but 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans chapter 12 go hand in glove.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't already know that and you haven't put that in your notes in your Bible, you really should, because if you study one, it'll really benefit you to study the other also.
SPEAKER_00: So Roman, uh 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 12 of our text, look at what he says here.
SPEAKER_00: For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's no reason to have to say it that way, except that sometimes us who are readers are slow to listen.
SPEAKER_00: Because he just repeats himself there, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_00: Within one sentence, he just simply repeats himself.
SPEAKER_00: You get it?
SPEAKER_00: The body is one, there's one body.
SPEAKER_00: Though there's many members, there's one body.
SPEAKER_00: It's not difficult for us to understand that.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, which, by the way, as we pass there, if you're not yet a baptized believer, you're not in the body.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he just said.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not making that up.
SPEAKER_00: None of us, none of us are making that point.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is making that point.
SPEAKER_00: Whether Jew or Greek, whether slave or free, and have all been made to drink into one spirit.
SPEAKER_00: For in fact, the body is not one, but many members.
SPEAKER_00: If the foot should say, because I'm not a hand, I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?
SPEAKER_00: Does that make it so?
SPEAKER_00: And if the ear should say, because I'm not an eye, I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?
SPEAKER_00: If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing?
SPEAKER_00: If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling?
SPEAKER_00: But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body, just as he pleased.
SPEAKER_00: We don't function because we're the same, we function because we are different.
SPEAKER_00: Again, go to the marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Just as no individual part of the human body can work by itself, so the spiritual body of Christ, we're being told, requires the efforts of other parts that are like but different.
SPEAKER_00: If you had a speck of dirt in your eye, do your body parts, you know, the various body parts that are affected by that, whether it's a nerve system or you know, physical reaching up to try to remove whatever's in your eye, you know, whatever, like this.
SPEAKER_00: Do your body parts have to argue about who's gonna help out the eye?
SPEAKER_00: No, because it isn't the way the body works, is it?
SPEAKER_00: The body doesn't function that way.
SPEAKER_00: All the body parts may be affected by something, some event that takes place in the body, but all the body parts are on board with helping the body part that's hurt.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's the way God made the body to work.
SPEAKER_00: There is no greater prevalent illustration that God gives about the church than to talk about the body.
SPEAKER_00: We all relate to it because we all have one, and we all understand how that body is functioning, and that's why we rejoice with those who rejoice, and that's why we weep with those who weep, according to verse 15 of this text, which we're not going to get to today, but just making that point, that's how a body functions, it's all affected, every member of the body needs every other member of the body.
SPEAKER_00: I wish we could spend more time talking about that.
SPEAKER_00: Let's move on to what Paul goes on to say next.
SPEAKER_00: Every member of the body is necessary, and therefore every member of the body is important.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to notice again what we saw there in verse 4 of Romans 12 of our text here.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4, he says, For it is for as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function.
SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say in verse 6 notice having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.
SPEAKER_00: Every gift is necessary.
SPEAKER_00: There's a cross reference that comes from.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians has a lot to say, as we've said, about this unity as well, this oneness of the body.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 4, verse 15, we read the following Grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by whatever joint supplies, causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't really think too much of my joints until my joints start to hurt or quit moving.
SPEAKER_00: And it happens sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: I woke up the other morning and I almost couldn't, I felt like I there were 500 pounds on my shoulder and my back was killing.
SPEAKER_00: And I never thought about my back until it gave me a problem.
SPEAKER_00: Joints matter.
SPEAKER_00: Even joints matter.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how big how big of a deal could a joint actually be?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not muscle, it's not bone.
SPEAKER_00: How big a deal could it actually be for the body?
SPEAKER_00: Well, those of us who are getting older know it can be a big deal for the body.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the muscles don't want to work the right way if the joints aren't cooperating.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I think he uses this idea.
SPEAKER_00: Every joint is necessary, it supplies something.
SPEAKER_00: Going back to 1 Corinthians chapter 12, I know we're skipping around a little bit here, but if you just keep your finger in these places, then you can flip back and forth with me quite quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians, verse 12, Paul goes on to describe each body part as needing every other body part.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to notice verses 22 through 25 of the text, because here God says he has set each member of the body just as we all think they should be placed.
SPEAKER_00: Is that what he says?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Just as he puts them, just as he places them in the body.
SPEAKER_00: What an important part that is in this whole equation.
SPEAKER_00: You see, I'm not blessed with the gifts I'm blessed with, and you're not gifted or blessed with the gifts that you are blessed with, except for the fact that God gave them to you.
SPEAKER_00: God is the source of these things through his grace and his mercy.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, but I don't like being a toenail.
SPEAKER_00: That's just too bad because that is what he said is the gift that you're gonna get.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean we can't have other gifts supplied to us.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the fact of the matter is we can push to increase some things, and we can make what gifts he's given even better if we have a desire to use them for his benefit.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We all understand this, but I'm just saying, whatever good we bring, whatever good there is in us, it comes from our God, not because we are the ones who have achieved it all.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who achieves great things.
SPEAKER_00: And we simply institute or or or or utilize those things in order to glorify him more.
SPEAKER_00: Because we love his body.
SPEAKER_00: This water thing is really bugging me behind me here.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm a waterfall back there.
SPEAKER_00: It's so important for us to understand, brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: I really do mean it.
SPEAKER_00: We need to know that the gifts we have, and that's what Paul is pressing on our minds here.
SPEAKER_00: You believe in God, you believe in the promises he's given, you understand his grace.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to you?
SPEAKER_00: What it means to us is whatever gift he's given, I want to use that for him.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he's done for me.
SPEAKER_00: How could we not?
SPEAKER_00: But to understand where they come from, that's part of the battle.
SPEAKER_00: So that we don't think of ourselves as we ought not.
SPEAKER_00: So that we don't believe that we are the source of the goodness.
SPEAKER_00: Here again, Paul is saying every member of the body is necessary, gifted, therefore important.
SPEAKER_00: Our goal in God's church, in his household, in his family, in his body is clear.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to say this so that all of us hear it and hear it plainly.
SPEAKER_00: Our job in God's body, with whatever gifts he has given, whatever that is, great or small, somewhere in between, is never to tear one another down.
SPEAKER_00: It is always to build up the body.
SPEAKER_00: Not one place in scripture will you see or hear where we are to use what God has given in order to bring others down, but always to build one another up.
SPEAKER_00: You know what's down?
SPEAKER_00: Satan is down.
SPEAKER_00: In Scripture, you'll never hear about hell being a place that is up, but you'll hear about heaven that way.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll hear about the place where God dwells as being up.
SPEAKER_00: It's always higher, it's always achieving something better.
SPEAKER_00: But the other is always to achieve lower denomination.
SPEAKER_00: We're never meant to be people who use the gifts that God has given, whether it's our mouth, our brain, our fingers, on a touch pad, whatever it is, to bring others down.
SPEAKER_00: It is always to bring others up.
SPEAKER_00: It's important for us to understand.
SPEAKER_00: It's important in what Paul is teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe in the grace of God?
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe through uh through the sacrifice that he's given, that he fulfills his promises, he is merciful and great and good, then why don't you act like it yourself?
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul's teaching.
SPEAKER_00: That will that should propel us to look more like him, not more like the world.
SPEAKER_00: To think more like him, not more like the world, to be conformed like him, to be more like his image, not pressed into the mold of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 4, verse 16, when he speaks here of every joint supplying its share, he says it causes the growth of the body for the edifying, the building up of itself in love.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: Encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 10, verse 24.
SPEAKER_00: Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.
SPEAKER_00: I say to you, brothers and sisters, that's true face to face.
SPEAKER_00: That's true behind one another's backs.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to gossip good about one another.
SPEAKER_00: That's true out there in cyberspace.
SPEAKER_00: That's true always.
SPEAKER_00: Always.
SPEAKER_00: God and his body are concerned about the every part of the body because each part needs every other part, and hear this, to function properly.
SPEAKER_00: I need you to function properly so I can function properly.
SPEAKER_00: And you need me to function properly so you can function properly, and we do that together, not individually.
SPEAKER_00: Every part needs the other part.
SPEAKER_00: In each of the three passages that we've drawn from in our lesson this morning, Romans 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Corinthians 12, Paul emphasizes one critical component in causing the body to work as it should.
SPEAKER_00: We've read in verse 3 of Romans 12, 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.
SPEAKER_00: That has to do with thinking about what God is doing in all of this.
SPEAKER_00: Why God has provided this gift or that gift, or this ability, or that ability that we're going to talk about here in just a second.
SPEAKER_00: Why God has done it, and how I can use that for God to think soberly.
SPEAKER_00: In Ephesians chapter 4, verse 2, we've already seen there that we're to act with all humility and gentleness, with patience.
SPEAKER_00: We're to bear one another's burdens in love, eager to maintain the spirit or the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.
SPEAKER_00: And then 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: The parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.
SPEAKER_00: And on these parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow greater honor.
SPEAKER_00: You know what pleases God?
SPEAKER_00: To see someone who is working on and trying to hone in on the interests that God has given them, the gifts that God has given, and to compliment how good they're using that gift for God.
SPEAKER_00: To build one another up, even those upon uh upon uh those gifts upon whom God has not shown as great of honor.
SPEAKER_00: And our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty.
SPEAKER_00: All of that speaks to how we see ourselves in a sense of humility.
SPEAKER_00: It is true that some parts of the body have greater visibility, they have more recognition because of that than other parts might.
SPEAKER_00: For example, the face might have more activity among others than the feet.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't place value.
SPEAKER_00: Because both are actually valuable.
SPEAKER_00: Feet are just as valuable as a face.
SPEAKER_00: Some may be more visible, but that does not mean that they are more valuable.
SPEAKER_00: What good is a nice looking, healthy body without functioning proper properly its internal organs?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can have a beautiful person who's laying in a casket because the organs aren't working, though the face might still be there.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying to you that Paul is teaching us very clearly here, it's not about visibility, it's about value in the sight of God, and therefore in the sight of the body that makes up what God has given.
SPEAKER_00: Think of the damage that your personal body would have if certain members decided they didn't need other members.
SPEAKER_00: Your physical body, just consider that for a second.
SPEAKER_00: What would that look like?
SPEAKER_00: It would be a real problem.
SPEAKER_00: It's called cancer or lupus or some other disease that attacks its own body.
SPEAKER_00: Unity and health would be destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: And the same is true in the spiritual body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have supernatural gifts, for example, like prophecy today.
SPEAKER_00: Things that I'm teaching, they're not coming directly from God, where I hear him speaking in my ear, telling me what to say, and then I give it to you.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how it's working.
SPEAKER_00: I had to study on these things.
SPEAKER_00: And he speaks to us through the word, yes.
SPEAKER_00: And even there, we're told the Spirit of God will continue to help us in this direction, but but we don't have prophecy the way that they did in the first century.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to notice the rest of these things that he lists here, starting in verse 7: service, teaching, exhortation, contribution, leading, acts of mercy.
SPEAKER_00: All of these are gifts that are given by God's choice, just as prophecy was.
SPEAKER_00: In Mark chapter 10, verse 43, we read the following.
SPEAKER_00: If I could get there real quick.
SPEAKER_00: Mark chapter 10, verse 43.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Whoever, Jesus says, Whoever be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.
SPEAKER_00: For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting to me that Paul starts with prophecy, the ability to declare the truth of God from direct revelation.
SPEAKER_00: And without skipping a beat, he moves on to a gift that most people don't think anything about, or at least not much, and that's service.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't mind prophesying, I'll be noticed for that.
SPEAKER_00: But I don't really like serving.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that might be behind the scenes or something.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't think it's a coincidence here that what we're seeing is taking some great thing that people thought a lot of and quickly moving to something that people don't think much of, not only that, but doesn't require inspiration from God directly.
SPEAKER_00: We'd say it's a little more common of a thing then.
SPEAKER_00: Effective use of what he's given is what he's talking about, actually.
SPEAKER_00: And whatever it is that you have, great or small.
SPEAKER_00: Teaching.
SPEAKER_00: There are all kinds of teaching that take place.
SPEAKER_00: Our mind may go to public teaching, but there are many teachers sitting here among us, even right now this morning.
SPEAKER_00: From the youth over on this side, a big big part of you are anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Teaching isn't always something that's done in a public fashion.
SPEAKER_00: Teaching is simply to proclaim and apply the truth.
SPEAKER_00: What about exhortation?
SPEAKER_00: This same Greek word is translated appeal up in verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: It's the exact same word.
SPEAKER_00: To urge, in other words, the ability to drive something home with passion and conviction, literally to stir the heart of another toward a common endeavor or action.
SPEAKER_00: That's probably you.
SPEAKER_00: You might have that ability, you might have that gift given to you by God.
SPEAKER_00: You can cause people to boil up inside in a good way.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about to really to really get involved, to be engaged.
SPEAKER_00: That's a gift, God says, from Him.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8: the one who contributes in generosity.
SPEAKER_00: While not all are able to contribute to one another's needs the same way, God says, I've specially fitted some for that purpose.
SPEAKER_00: May not be more wealthy, but they are certainly more observant.
SPEAKER_00: Their God-given faith propels them to willingly see the needs of another and seek to meet those needs with whatever they've got.
SPEAKER_00: Likewise, those who lead do so with zeal, he says, as opposed to lazy or half-hearted diligence.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's something that elders should take thought of, deacons should take thought of, preachers should take thought of.
SPEAKER_00: All of those who are in public eye, teachers should be thinking about these things as they lead a congregation, worship leaders should think about these.
SPEAKER_00: Don't do so with laziness in your mind, half-hearted attitudes.
SPEAKER_00: Well, somebody's got to do it.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if that's the way you feel about it, it should not be you.
SPEAKER_00: Because God is looking for zeal in that gift.
SPEAKER_00: Do so with zeal, as opposed to half-hearted attitudes.
SPEAKER_00: It's true of all, though, to whom God has given an ability to be a leader in some way or another.
SPEAKER_00: That's true for you if you are a parent.
SPEAKER_00: That's true for you if you are among your peer group and they look at you as one of those who are older and maybe one of the leaders.
SPEAKER_00: Do it the way God wants it to be done.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be conformed to the way the world thinks about these things.
SPEAKER_00: Be transformed to think the way God does about them.
SPEAKER_00: And then finally, he speaks of those who give mercy, deeds of kindness, genuine care, cheerfulness, not grudgingly, but with good cheer.
SPEAKER_00: Paul uses every reader who is a Christian, helping them to see God as the source of these gifts and to use these gifts for the betterment of the Christian body.
SPEAKER_00: Elders, deacons, preachers, song leaders, Bible class teachers, and on and on the list can go, are often more visible and therefore more vocal.
SPEAKER_00: But I just want to point out something to you before we move from this point.
SPEAKER_00: Public worship is so small of a point of time in our life.
SPEAKER_00: Think about how often.
SPEAKER_00: I heard a statistic the other day that if your children attend Bible class, that'd be like on a Sunday morning, Wednesday night, it'd take them something like 10 years to clear the first grade if it was if the first grade was only twice a week, the way that we the way that we have our Bible classes twice a week.
SPEAKER_00: It'd take them like 10 years to get through.
SPEAKER_00: So what that tells us is we got we got to be more active than just when we're here, right?
SPEAKER_00: We got to be doing things more than just when we're here.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Paul is using all these things to identify.
SPEAKER_00: He's not talking about a public worship service where you can be a face and you can be seen and heard because you're in this leadership role or you've got this special uh ability or gift that God has given.
SPEAKER_00: That's not even what he's talking about here.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not saying it would exclude it, but it's just not all that he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Consider the teaching and the exhortation, the leadership of an elderly saint who shuffles in because they are they are they are having difficulty health-wise into the building?
SPEAKER_00: They sit down on the pew in spite of all the infirmities and the problems that it took for them to get here.
SPEAKER_00: What does that represent to you and me as observers?
SPEAKER_00: That represents someone who falls into these categories that we're looking at, maybe multiple of them.
SPEAKER_00: And what about the one who has zeal as a newborn babe in Christ?
SPEAKER_00: They know very little, they haven't been around very long, but they desire to know much and they want to be part of it all.
SPEAKER_00: They see God's family as awesome and want to excel in zeal.
SPEAKER_00: Consider the service and the teaching, the exhortation, the leadership, the acts of mercy of the godly mom who has a toddler or two.
SPEAKER_00: You might be wondering every time she walks in the door, I don't even know if this is doing any good.
SPEAKER_00: Does it really make a difference?
SPEAKER_00: It makes a difference because you're using the talents God has given to impress the next generation with what God wants.
SPEAKER_00: It's important.
SPEAKER_00: All parts are important.
SPEAKER_00: Brother Paul reminds every part is necessary to the overall good of the whole body.
SPEAKER_00: We are serving one another, brothers and sisters, but more importantly, we are serving God by our faith.
SPEAKER_00: Our faith is active.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Paul has been getting at all the way up to chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you the way you are?
SPEAKER_00: What makes you think the way you do?
SPEAKER_00: It is the grace of God, it is the mercy of God that causes us to want to be this kind of person that is totally different from the world.
SPEAKER_00: You notice in all of this, it's all about one another.
SPEAKER_00: None of this is about, well, I want this gift because this benefits me.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, I I mean I mean, I guess in a way it does benefit me, right?
SPEAKER_00: It does, in a sense, because in benefiting others, I also am benefited.
SPEAKER_00: I understand that.
SPEAKER_00: But really, the point he's getting at is the one another aspect of all of this.
SPEAKER_00: To not see one's own.
SPEAKER_00: Self improperly, but to see the body properly.
SPEAKER_00: In 1 Corinthians chapter 13, we read about all kinds of gifts.
SPEAKER_00: Many of them are gifts like interpretation, prophecy, uh, you know, all of these things that are like really big gifts.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be like, wow, that's a big gift you got there.
SPEAKER_00: That's directly inspired kind of gift.
SPEAKER_00: After all the talk that Paul has done about understanding God better in the book of Romans, when he's completely almost done with the letter, he turns to the reader and he says, This is what faith looks like because of all that we've seen in God, and you understand God better now.
SPEAKER_00: And do you notice that only one of these gifts is a miraculous gift?
SPEAKER_00: Everything else here are gifts that we can excel in still today.
SPEAKER_00: They don't require the direct hand of God to give you the information that you're now going to expound on, that you're going to use and benefit the church with.
SPEAKER_00: They're all gifts that we would call common.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, everyone can have it.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone can have it.
SPEAKER_00: Some are going to have it better than others, but we all probably have all of these gifts to some degree.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone in the body, everyone in the body can benefit from that gift that you have if you just use it for the body.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's customary when a couple marries for there to be this extended trip.
SPEAKER_00: We call that, you know, a honeymoon.
SPEAKER_00: They go off on their on their honeymoon, and soon after their honeymoon, they they come back to real life in the real world.
SPEAKER_00: Uh responsibilities are there, work, gotta make ends meet, you gotta uh take care of the house and all the other things that go along with marital life that are uh often seen as responsibilities.
SPEAKER_00: If they're gonna keep the honeymoon alive, they're gonna have to try.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna have to try.
SPEAKER_00: Like it won't happen on accident.
SPEAKER_00: If you just get married and you go off on a honeymoon and everything hunky-dory is great because honeymoons are great, right?
SPEAKER_00: You come back to the real world, if you're not gonna try, your marriage is gonna fail 100% of the time.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta try, you gotta work at it.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to say to you, brothers and sisters, the same is true as a principle in the local church of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It may seem like a honeymoon if you're one of the newer members among us, but I'll say to you this that if you're gonna last, if you're gonna be who God has actually designed you to be, you're gonna have to work at that.
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna come easy all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Such things as in a marriage will will destroy it, just like in the church, a lack of attentiveness, taking care of one another, taking one another for granted, putting self first, thinking of only one's self or one's own immediate group within the church, selfishness, even unfaithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Those destroy marriages, they destroy churches.
SPEAKER_00: They're part of that mold of the world that we try to let go of and leave behind while we become transformed in something different and new, better, something that reaches up instead of down.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul tells the church here that we're reading of in Romans is still the remedy.
SPEAKER_00: I get two main points out of this text.
SPEAKER_00: I know there's a lot more, but I get two main points.
SPEAKER_00: One, know who your gifts come from, and two, use those gifts for whom God made you apart.
SPEAKER_00: Use those gifts for others.
SPEAKER_00: One last text that we think of as uh as we as we close this morning together.
SPEAKER_00: Appreciate your good attention and and uh and uh following along this morning.
SPEAKER_00: If in Philippians chapter 2, verse 2, Paul says it this way complete my joy.
SPEAKER_00: That tells us something great, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Paul found joy in Christ, complete the joy like he has in Christ, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord, and of one mind.
SPEAKER_00: Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
SPEAKER_00: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13, if you're following along, for this, for it is God who works in you.
SPEAKER_00: That's the same thing Paul said uh in uh Romans 12.
SPEAKER_00: Both to will and work for his good pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: Do all things without why would we want that anyway?
SPEAKER_00: Because of his grace and his mercy, the love he's shown us.
SPEAKER_00: That's that what that's what causes us to want to think the way God's thinking on this matter.
SPEAKER_00: For his good pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: Do all things without grumbling or questioning.
SPEAKER_00: That word questioning there is inward reasoning that results in disputes.
SPEAKER_00: That you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Good church bodies of Jesus will not happen on accident.
SPEAKER_00: And I will say to you, brothers and sisters, it is not our hobbies that will keep us in one another's good graces.
SPEAKER_00: It is Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You may have the same amount of children as somebody else, and you get along good because of that.
SPEAKER_00: That's fine, that's great.
SPEAKER_00: You may have the same golf hobby or some other hobby that you enjoy.
SPEAKER_00: You might have the same kind of taste in clothes, or we could name off a thousand things, and I'm telling you, that will not make the body what God describes the body must be.
SPEAKER_00: The only thing is Christ, and that one good thing in common with one another causes us to propel beyond where we thought we could be with the gifts that God has given us.
SPEAKER_00: It truly is good and pleasant when brothers and sisters live together in unity, Psalms 133, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: For there, in that place, with that kind of people, the Lord bestows his blessings even life forevermore.
SPEAKER_00: If you're ready to be part of that church that we've been talking about, reading about from the scriptures this morning, then I'll tell I'll tell you this: this place is for you.
SPEAKER_00: This is a body who wants to be just what we were looking at this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Might have sounded like I was speaking in condemnation, but actually it was just edification.
SPEAKER_00: Pushing one another to grow, pushing one another to go beyond where we find ourselves currently, and reaching forward to the ideals for which God has given us these gifts.
SPEAKER_00: He loves it when we excel.
SPEAKER_00: God wants unity with you, he wants unity with me, he wants us to have unity together.
SPEAKER_00: And you need to know it's not because he lacks showing love for you.
SPEAKER_00: He's given his son, he suffered, he shed his own blood, he's died on the cross to make that happen.
SPEAKER_00: He loves you more than anything else that he's created, and he wants you to be in unity with him and his people.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not there this morning, I hope you won't leave this place before you get there.
SPEAKER_00: Turn to him, walk with him.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've already become a Christian, but you've not been emphasizing the way that you're supposed to live, the way God wants you to.
SPEAKER_00: You can do that.
SPEAKER_00: You can change that this morning.
SPEAKER_00: You can do it right there in your pew.
SPEAKER_00: Or if you need the prayers of the congregation, you can come forward.
SPEAKER_00: If we can help you in a spiritual way this morning, I hope you realize God's only wanting to give you the best of blessings because that is the only thing he has to offer you.
SPEAKER_00: The best of all blessings.
SPEAKER_00: Be a partaker in that this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Let us help you in that.
SPEAKER_00: If you're subject to his call, won't you come now?
SPEAKER_00: While together we stand and as we sing.