In today’s sermon, Khaleef Crumbley teaches from Romans 12 why a Christian should be motivated to serve God and how a Christian should work out his sanctification. Khaleef Crumbley reminds believers that they all have at least one spiritual gift and that they are to use their gifts well for the benefit of the church and the advancement of God’s kingdom. Khaleef Crumbley ends with an exhortation to joyfully use God’s gifts.
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uh this morning we’re going to turn our attention to romans 12 verses 1 through 8.
and i’m actually going to read it for you and then we’re going to have a word of prayer romans chapter 12 verses 1 through eight and paul says there therefore i urge you brethren by the mercies of god to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to god which is your spiritual service of worship and do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of god is that which is good and acceptable and perfect for through the grace given to me i say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think but to think so as to have sound judgment as god has allotted to each a measure of faith for just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function so we who are many are one body in christ and individually members one of another since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us each of us is to exercise them accordingly if prophecy according to the proportion of his faith is service in his serving or he who teaches in his teaching or he who exhorts in his exhortation he who gives with liberality he who leads with diligence he who shows mercy with cheerfulness let’s pray our great god we just come to you asking you to show us what it means to be a living sacrifice show us god how to be well pleasing to you how to know your will show us how to use the gifts that you’ve given us for your glory in the building up of your kingdom i pray god that you would help us all to be motivated by the mercies of god and to live lives that are solely focused on pleasing you it has this in christ’s name amen so the first thing we see here is this first word that we see a lot especially in paul’s writings therefore therefore lets us know that what he is about to say is a direct result of what he’s already said he uses therefore often to make a connection between what he has taught out as far as doctrine and how we are to live in response to that so in the book of romans he gives them 11 chapters of teaching and then says okay now this is what you’re to do with it but this pattern of course is not just in romans but in galatians galatians 5 1 he uses this this therefore galatians 5 1 says it was for freedom that christ set us free therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery and then he goes on to talk about what the christian life will look and we get this famous passage about um not fulfilling the lust of the flesh and being filled with the spirit and what it actually means to to live out a spirit-filled life and then again in ephesians 4 1 therefore i the prisoner of the lord implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called and then for the next three chapters we learn what that worthy walk looks like colossians 3 1 therefore if you have been raised up with christ keep seeking the things above where christ is seated at the right hand of god philippians 2 1 therefore if there be any encouragement in christ if there is any consolation of love if there is any fellowship of the spirit if any affection and compassion and then he goes on and tells us how to live especially in the direct context of being humble and looking at christ as our example of humility and then we come to our passions today therefore i urge you brethren by the mercies of god to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to god which is your spiritual service of worship so he’s urging us to present ourselves as a living sacrifice because of the theology that he already taught in the first 11 chapters now one thing has to be pointed out here i think it’s important we see who he’s talking to he’s not just talking to random people walking down main street in rome he says brethren he is talking to believers he is talking to those whose souls have already been submitted to god those who already belong to god so there’s a few things that we need to keep in mind with this romans 8 8 a few chapters before you don’t need to turn there he says and those who are in the flesh cannot please god first corinthians 13 3 says and if i give all my possessions to feed the poor and if i surrender my body to be burned but do not have love it profits me nothing ephesians 2 1 lets us know that we were dead in our trespasses and sins so it’s not that god sees humanity as neutral and we get this picture you know that statue of justice you know there’s a woman who’s blindfolded and she has a scale and you know the idea is that there’s evidence stacked on of guilt and evidence of innocence and god kind of weighs it out and says okay they have some good deeds here and then oh there’s a bad deed the scale is coming this way up there’s a couple really good deeds here oh man look what they did here and just break broke the scale that’s not what god is doing god is not looking at our lives and saying hmm am i pleased with this person or not let me just watch what they do if they feed the homeless enough i’ll be pleased with them no matter what they do in their marriage that’s not what god is saying if you read throughout these first 11 chapters paul is very clear in what one must do to get right with god paul is very clear of not only the benefits that come from salvation but what it actually takes and the fact that we have no control that we’re not able to give enough gifts to god we’re not able to do enough things to please god on our own in romans 3 verses 10 and 11 he’s actually quoting uh from a few places in the old testament paul says there is none righteous not even one there is none who understands there is none who seeks for god so he makes it clear throughout the book of romans and all of his other writings that this isn’t just an open call for all of humanity to come and do a bunch of good things so we can all please god and then we can party in heaven later so as we go through this passage understand that if you’ve not given your life to christ none of these things will matter none doing you can do all of these things listed here and you can go on through the other chapters and romans and do all these things going forward but if you’ve not submitted your hearts and your life to the truth of everything he preached before that the only way to god is through christ then doing all this stuff is meaningless so that’s the first thing that needs to be set up and he uses that term brethren to let us know that he’s only addressing believers here that you have to make this first step you can’t be an acceptable sacrifice unless you’ve been justified unless you’ve been cleansed he says here therefore i urge you and the word urge i think will be a familiar word to us is parakalel in the greek and it carries with it also the idea of comfort and we know that in that passage where christ promises to leave us with a comforter uh that the holy spirit is called the paraclete one who comes alongside to offer comfort and encouragement and other things as well the holy spirit but in that in this word that’s what’s all wrapped up in it so paul uses that word he doesn’t say it’s a command it’s imperative but he doesn’t he doesn’t use his apostolic authority in in this section and says look you must you have to do this or else he comes alongside just almost as a counselor to encourage us to live a life that’s going to please god he urges us in the king james to say he says i beseech you i implore you it’s another way we this could be translated and he tells us to do this in light of the mercies of god the mercies of god what are the mercies of god well he spends 11 chapters unpacking the mercies of god that’s really what this letter to the romans is it’s showing us all of the mercies of god that in salvation we now have so a few of them love in chapter 5 he says the love of god has been poured out within our hearts chapter 8 we are told that nothing can separate us from the love of god the holy spirit it’s another mercy of god the holy spirit was given to us in chapter five chapter eight the spirit of god dwells in you the spirit of god makes us sons and daughters we’re adopted into the family of god even though we didn’t deserve it god saw us and we became the object of his love and we were given the holy spirit we also have peace chapter one it says peace from god our father in the lord jesus christ in chapter two he says there will be glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good in chapters 5 and 8 we learn about the peace of god that we have within us only because we are at peace with god and that we are no longer enemies of god so we have peace glory and honor in chapter 2 we just read that there will be glory honor and peace to everyone who does good grace i’m not even going to spend time giving you a bunch of references here the book of romans you can’t have the book of romans without grace chapters 1 3 5 6 even though the word isn’t mentioned in chapter 8 i dare you to read chapter 8 and not think about god’s grace there’s lots more that just are mentioned in the book of romans faith hope kindness patience eternal life freedom from sin comfort adoption as we mentioned forgiveness intercession from the spirit security assurance all of these things are the mercies of god all of these things are what we now have as children of god and what should be our response well turn to psalm 103.
and no doubt the psalmist had these things in mind in this section psalm 103 look at verses one through four he says bless the lord o my soul and all that is within me blessed his holy name just think about that that’s how we should be responding to the mercies of god they should never get dull for us we should never get bored thinking about what god has done for us we should never get tired of serving or tired of meditating on the goodness of god look at verse 2 he says bless the lord o my soul and forget none of his benefits well how is that possible to forget none of its benefits if anybody knows me you know i am very very forgetful i have a task list that is filled with a bunch of stuff that normal people don’t put on their task list because they remember them but i forget them and amy is laughing because she saw my task list before and some of the things that i have to put on there but how can we remember studying god’s word reading his word speaking his word with other people being encouraged by it meditating on his word praying his word praying his mercies his benefits that’s how we don’t forget them we keep them on our mind constantly and listen to how he describes god who pardons all your iniquities who heals all your diseases verse 4 who redeems your life from the pit who crowns you with loving kindness and compassion and then we can go on and on we’re actually gonna stop there so we get out before three o’clock but the benefits the mercies of god should stir up this reaction in us and let’s flip over to psalm 116 a few chapters over and look at another great reaction and i love this because this is a question and our text today answers this question so just think about all those things that we just said all those things that we get from god in salvation and sanctification in the psalm 116 verse 12 it says what shall i render to the lord for all his benefits towards me what could i give him what could i possibly give god and you know what the answer is your life everything everything that makes up you god here is calling for living sacrifices he no longer wants the dead sacrifices he no longer wants animals hebrews 10 4 says it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins we’re not looking at making these physical sacrifices anymore we’re now giving ourselves up to god and there’s another distinction that needs to be made that i think uh dr ho has made before from this from this section uh hey you shouldn’t give me a mic if you don’t want me to say that a distinction is how god and us cooperate with each other in terms of salvation and sanctification and salvation there was very little cooperation he calls us he gives us the faith to believe and we believe we are objects of his love and there’s a fancy term that’s you know it’s our relationship and our salvation is monologistic it’s a one-sided relationship god does the work but our sanctification we work together with god it’s synergistic we’re working together with god and for our sanctification and many times we can confuse them and when we start seeing that we need to do work for god or he expects things of us we begin to say oh wait that’s legalistic no that’s sanctification that’s that’s us saying like the psalmist what shall i render to the lord for all his benefits toward me so the the action on our part is to present our bodies a living and holy sacrifice and even the word itself will present is a term that’s used in the septuagint which is just a greek translation of the old testament ancient one and it referenced the old testament sacrifices when the priests would place the animal place of sacrifice on the altar it’s the same word here the way we should present our bodies and there are two ways that we can present ourselves well there are a lot more but we’re just going to look at two today the first one is striving for holiness verses 1 and 2 again of we’re back in romans 12 now verses 1 and 2 says therefore i urge you brethren by the mercies of god to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to god which is your spiritual service of worship do not be conformed to this world but transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of god is that which is good and acceptable and perfect so this idea of presenting our bodies here’s the way paul put it in romans 6 13.
it says and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness but present yourselves to god as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to god so that he’s talking about us continually putting our sin to death and using our bodies to serve god we are free from sin so we no longer have to serve sin we are no longer slaves to sin we have power over sin god has given us victory so we no longer have to sit under the bondage of sin before we came to god we had to we had no choice we were sinners it was in our nature as ephesians 2 1 said we had to sin now we have victory we don’t have to sin now we choose to sin in light of the mercies of god we are to stop using our bodies using our members as instruments of sin and now use them as instruments of righteousness become a living sacrifice and the word holy means that we are now set apart for god we are to pursue holiness in every area of life we are to be set apart everything that we do everything that we think we are to be set apart and it’s not just this idea of i can’t submit i can’t commit the big sins anymore being set apart means that we’re not even in that area anymore we’re not even playing over here in the mud and expecting to not get dirty because somehow god is gonna put some halo around us that’s not how we approach life we now remove ourselves from the that the areas that cause constant sin and temptation and we place ourselves over here almost god is the one who shifts us and moves us but we cooperate with that we don’t want to go kicking and screaming right we don’t want to be holding on to this like no god wait but i love my sin we don’t want to do that right we want to put out sin to death we want to hate our sin the sin that nailed christ to the cross we want to hate that sin so we’re to be holy we’re to pursue holiness we can’t simply just add christianity to the rest of our selfish sinful lives and think that we’re now pleasing god we can’t be the same way that we were before we came to christ but now we just do something different on sunday mornings that’s not being submitted to god that’s not being a living sacrifice where everything else comes first before god and what may be worse is when we think that mere duty is what makes us right before god when we think that hey i can live the way i want to live but you know what i’m in prayer meeting i’m in sunday school i’m in home group i come to church all the time i come up and talk to the pastor afterwards i tell the worship team they did a great job i respond to every email that the church sends out i and we can go on and on and all these things i check off the list of holiness and those things are things that can help us in our walk but those aren’t those things themselves aren’t being holy so understand both sides we don’t want to put aside the things that god has given us in order for us to grow but we don’t want to think that we can be spiritually dead inside but do all these things and we’re okay because on the outside we look great because on outside we smile all the time we’re very helpful but the inside we’re still dead and here in verse 1 we are to be a living holy sacrifice acceptable to god the word acceptable in the greek literally means well pleasing but we can’t be well pleasing to god if we’re not set apart to him we’ve seen that we have to heal ourselves up in every area and i’ll probably say this 10 times while i’m up here because it’s so important because we all have these little areas that never mean we don’t allow god to touch sometimes we just think it’s hopeless i’ve been this way 30 40 50 60 years i can’t change now this is who i am this is my personality i’ve always been a little spicy a little saucy you know somebody come in my face i’m gonna tell you what’s up that’s not the attitude that we should have as christians and i know i’ve i’ve threatened to punch a few throats in my in my christian walk but you know we cannot have this this mindset that says god just made me like this i just i just have a temper it’s just who i am no god said put off the sin in one place he says don’t be angry in another place he says hey be angry but don’t sin so i think i would just be really safe and just don’t be angry i mean when we talked about that passage in home group and also pastor preaching you know we looked at it and and seeing that there are times that things will drive us to anger sin will drive us to anger but our response to anger is not is to not sin even if sin is the cause of the anger the response is not sin and i think anger is a good one because we all have anger just because you may have never been in a fight in your life we all have anger and we all react to it differently some of us don’t have outbursts but i think that’s that’s the sin that everyone carries and we especially in this culture we think we can just kind of get away with it because the world tells us we can they tell us sometimes it’s a good quality to have that’s how you get what you want right just keep being contentious keep being angry keep complaining and the squeaky wheel gets to greece right and the only way to to get respect is to demand it and we have these lessons from where early on in life and then we come to christ and then we just keep living that way and say but i go to church on sunday so it’s okay doesn’t matter i curse this person out to cut me off i’m coming from church so it’s okay so we need to think about this in every area and there are many uh our addictions and some of us don’t look at them as addictions because it may not be illegal substances that we’re addicted to but there are things that consume our minds even more than christ there are things that consume our minds so much that we can’t wait to get it again we can’t wait to see it again we can’t wait to do it again and we don’t feel that way about coming to the word of god and we’ll put those things above our service whatever it is our talents our loneliness our cultures our political affiliations god wants every part of our lives up on that altar we are to be living sacrifices and i love this part paul says it is your spiritual service of worship that word for spiritual some may have it translated as depending on what version of the bible you’re using the word in the greek is logical it’s where we get the term logical the logical reasonable sensible response to the mercies of god is to present yourselves as a living sacrifice so you get that it’s the logical thing to do as a christian one who has been born by the blood of christ the logical reasonable thing to do is to submit yourselves as a living sacrifice so you know what it means if you’re not doing that you’re being unreasonable and illogical if we look in the book of proverbs we can say you’re being foolish by not submitting yourselves to god in every area then he talks about how to do this you know it’s one thing to say that those are those are kind of concepts you know submit your life to god put become a living sacrifice put you what does that look like day to day what does it look like when i’m in work and i’m in this meeting i really don’t want to be in because i’m hearing the same thing for the 10th time that we’re not going to act on what does it mean then to be a living sacrifice well in verse 2 paul says and do not be conformed to this world that’s the first thing he says the world here is talking about age the system of this world we cannot let non-biblical views shape our thinking on any issue whether it be about parenting or how to handle conflicts or even what to do with your life you cannot let the thinking of the world system which hates god which is set up to tear down everything associated with christ we cannot let that system control the way that we think and so he says do not be conformed so if we’re no longer allowing the world to form and shape our thinking what will well paul anticipates that and he says but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so it’s not merely refusing to conform to the world because just because something isn’t found in the bible doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any use just because you find a tip on how to be more productive or a way to express love to your to your wife that doesn’t come from the bible it doesn’t mean oh this is garbage it’s a trash it wasn’t found in this book so we don’t want to take that attitude just to throw things out just for for the sake of throwing them out and thinking that’s that’s all we have to do we have to use wisdom but the real key is no longer letting the world control your thinking and now having your mind renewed the idea of of renewing your mind talks about this inward renewal sometimes this word the greek word for for renewing was used in terms of renovating so and i’ve mentioned before that sometimes i find myself hog tied to a chair in my bedroom and forced to watch hdtv where they have a bunch of shows about renovation and you know while i’m trying to like break free and try to see if i can like get some friction to kind of cut the rope um and i’m watching these shows you know i see the amount of work that’s done in the first phase which is demolition and they just ripped these houses apart maybe they tear a room apart you don’t have anything but studs left and that’s what needs to happen in our mind we need to tear apart everything that we built our thinking on when we come to christ and it doesn’t end this is a constant thing these are present tense verbs here the presenting and the renewing these are things that are done over and over and over daily hourly minute by minute if we have to we’re constantly having this this renewal happening on the inside so that we can be transformed on the outside in a word transformed the transformation is where we get our metamorphosis so that’s what happens to us because of what’s happening on the inside philippians 2 12 how the last part of the verse puts it this way work out your salvation with fear and trembling work out what god has already put in your salvation was done it’s a it’s a fact in the past but every day our salvation is working out we’re working out what god has put in we’re being renewed on the inside and it’s transforming who we are on the outside and of course this renewal of the mind happens as we read god’s word we study god’s word we meditate on it and the holy spirit uses that to change our thinking to change our behaviors to change our reactions so what’s the result of performing or refusing to conform and then having our minds renewed towards the end of verse two he says so that you may prove what the will of god is that which is good and acceptable and perfect so the idea here behind proof is not that someone comes along and says i don’t think that’s god’s will prove it it’s the idea of experiencing or demonstrating what god’s will is so do you want to know god’s will allow your thinking and values and your reactions to be renewed by god’s word that’s how you know god’s will there are places in god’s word where it says what his will is first thessalonians 4 3 is the first one that comes to mind sexual purity our sanctification in the area of sexual immorality being pulled away from that being saved from that sin given the power to overcome that sin that’s the will of god that we be pure so that’s one thing that we know right off the bat that’s god’s will we don’t have to search i wonder what god’s will is in this situation and i’m doing this god’s will is to be pure says so says this is the will of god but even when it doesn’t say this is the will of god we can know god’s will in most situations when we’re living this type of life paul then uses words that bring back the idea of living sacrifice because that’s still the focus here he says that which is good and acceptable and perfect and it brings our minds back to the sacrifices that were done in the old testament and the fact that the animals had to be without blemish and they had to be perfect and there was other things about the animals that had to be done so much so that when it wasn’t done in that way god would send a message through the prophet that i don’t want any more of your of your sacrifices like in the book of malachi we saw that you know you’re giving diseased animals to god god wants what’s good and acceptable and perfect for our lives so paul came alongside us he encouraged us he urged us he showed us the only logical reasonable response to the mercies of god presenting ourselves as living sacrifices by having our minds renewed rejecting the world’s thinking and living out the will of god so now he highlights another way that we’re to respond to the mercies of god and that’s found in the rest of this passage serving the body going on verse 3 for through the grace given to me i say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than they ought to think but to think so as to have sound judgment as god has allotted to each a measure of faith so what i love here is because he’s he’s really you know telling them don’t be arrogant don’t be cocky and so even though he’s appealing here to his apostolic authority now as he moved on he’s still showing great humility and he says for through the grace given to me and he’s talking about the grace to become an apostle the grace through the grace given to him he’s able to make this command of everyone he’s able to speak what he’s about to say through that grace that that god gave him which is good i would hate for him to sound pretty arrogant and puffed up when he’s telling us to not be arrogant and puffed up about our gifts so what the way he does this he highlights a few wrong attitudes we can have about the gifts first and then he goes into the gifts and if you just look he spends very little time talking about the actual gifts they don’t matter that much in this passage so he highlights a few things that would stop us from using our gifts effectively the first one is pride he says don’t think more highly of of yourself than you ought to think and we know that especially those who have been in in home group or anyone just has a memory with first corinthians um you know that the corinthian church had a problem with thinking too highly of themselves based on what gifts they had to the point that they would put others down who didn’t have those gifts and paul says no don’t do that don’t think too highly of yourself but then he quickly turns to something else that a lot of us do even in the church don’t think too lowly of yourself or don’t have a false humility says you should be sober in your thinking but to think so as to have sound judgment as god has allotted to each a measure of faith everyone has a gift everyone has gifts a combination of gifts everyone every one of you if you are a believer you have a gift so don’t walk around say oh i don’t have a gift i’m just one of these people to just show up and shuffle out of church and that’s it and i don’t have anything to offer to the body of christ and just say it that’s that’s that’s not what we’re supposed to do or when someone comes and says wow you did a great job oh no what was me oh it was so awful i don’t know how you got anything out of that oh it was a train wreck i tried eight times to get it right and i just couldn’t no god says don’t do that because god gave you the gift so what are you actually saying we’re not talking about your abilities here we’re not talking about something that you just conjured up out of nowhere we’re talking about a gift that god has given you and to sit and say oh no this is terrible i’m so bad at this i’m awful i can’t do anything do you remember one of the few times that the the bible is very explicit in talking about god’s anger to an individual it was moses and what was what was moses doing god said i want you to go speak no i can’t speak and you know the story goes on and on with that and no i can’t you know i stutter too slow my tongue’s swollen i can’t i can’t do this i can’t do anything i can’t speak to people and finally he just said you know what all right look i’m gonna give you aaron aaron going to speak for you now what’s your excuse it actually says that the anger of the lord was kindled and because he just kept saying no what you’re giving me isn’t enough because i think so lowly of myself that i think the inefficiencies that i have and the the terrible way of speaking and everything else that i’m gonna put up as an excuse is more powerful than the gift that you’re giving me almost saying i’m bigger than you god you can give me something good i’m gonna mess it up anyway that’s that’s that’s what he was saying and that’s what we say and we don’t think of it that way and paul says look you need to have sound judgment you need to be sober minded when you think of of your gifts you need to really assess yourself and we’ll talk about at the very end just a couple things you can do quickly to go through to say if you can if you can have your gift or not if you can know what your gift is and whether that’s really that important and then he says uh as god has allowed its very end of verse three is god has allotted to each a measure of faith and here this faith refers to our capacity to use the gifts the resources that we have the abilities not everyone is going to use them at the same level he later on talks about that as grace that was given the level of grace or measure of grace that was given and so this isn’t talking about faith in a general sense it’s not talking about even the spiritual gift of faith that we see in first corinthians 12 it’s not talking about the faith here there are a couple more things that he mentions so there’s kind of two that i think are lump lumped together but going on to read verses four and five for just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function so we who are many are one body in christ and individually members one of another almost sounds like a riddle there the way that he he lays it out but here are two things we see from that trying to be what you’re not and being dissatisfied with what you are so think about one thing trying to be what you’re not i mean now musical ability really isn’t a spiritual gift in a in a sense um but that would be like me trying to sing you see me over there a lot you’ve never seen me behind a mic that’s not my area that’s not my function i don’t belong behind the mic i know i don’t belong behind the only time you ever see me sing is when i’m surrounded by a bunch of good singers then you’ll see me try to do something but all in actually first corinthians 12 and if any of you are part of the best i’m sorry the somerset home group then um we’ll actually be going over some of first corinthians 12 today hey i’m allowed to do commercials up here right we’ll be going through some we’ll be going through the wrestling of first corinthians 12 that we didn’t do last week and there he brings up the body analogy even more and one thing in verse 15 it says that the foot says because i am not a hand i am not a part of the body so the foot there there there was actually two things that were highlighted and throughout the whole chapter one was some body parts saying hey i can try to be this body part you know one thing paul says hey if everything was an eye if your whole body was an eye you wouldn’t have any hearing i mean it sounds weird but when you think about that every part of our body has a function every part of the body of christ has a function but this foot here would say because i’m not a hand i am not part of the body because i don’t have that particular gift or i can’t do what they do then i’m worthless and that’s the assessment there just being dissatisfied with what you are and that leads to not serving because you say i’m i’m nothing if i can’t do it like this person you know we’re all called to evangelize and there are some people there’s some people here who do it better than i do most people probably do it better than i do there are people here who you know i mean sharian and i talked about just how many people have given testimonies up here getting baptized who have said yeah i started hanging around the sodos and rebecca started talking to me about the gospel and then i just gave my life to god and i just got saved it’s it’s a gift or someone like paul or amano or even jenny who has this gift of just meeting someone and giving them the gospel giving them exactly what they need to hear to start thinking about eternal things you know it’s funny we have i think at least four people here who like do hair and stuff like that and all four of them are evangelists so now you got it if you want to evangelize learn how to do hair and you’ll have people in your chair where they’re gonna go where they’re gonna go they can’t do especially especially with armando because you could just he could do some more quickly i mean the women there’s ways to kind of hide if you get like a bad haircut you know you could do something about it but a man nah you got to sit there and listen the clippers are right here so if you want to evangelize do hair but because you because so for me i can’t look at armando i can’t look at paul i can’t look at rebecca and say you know what i’m just not going to give people the gospel i just can’t do it you know what let me see if paul busy and i can just bring him over his house and do now there may be time for that there may be times where we have to bring in the heavy artillery but out but we’re supposed to evangelize as well and that’s why i love the downplay of the actual gifts because it’s not about just you have this gift and this is the hole you’re in you have this gift you’re here you have this gift there’s a wide array and so he doesn’t focus on this is how you detect this gif and this is exactly what you do with it he says if you have this gif use it if you have a gift use it and guess what everybody has a gift so everybody should be using a gift or mini gifts so the last one of course that he points out is failing to use your gift at all and that’s how he closes this section verse 6 says since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us each of us is to exercise them accordingly use your gift then he goes into detail if prophecy according to the proportion of faith and he goes on from there so the first thing we note about this gift is that it’s different than the two lists or the type of the list it’s different than the two lists of gifts that are given in first corinthians 12.
i mean there’s one that’s an official list in verses 12 through 14 but then in verse 28 there’s one that’s a sort of list more of gifts given to the church through people having the gifts so it’s kind of a double thing there but we see two lists where people have been gifted to serve the body in first corinthians 12 and all these lists are different so that tells me that these lists are only representative of what god has given us they’re not exact things and hey if you don’t have something on this list of 22 things right here then you don’t have a gift from god no it’s everyone has different measures of different gifts and combinations of gifts so the focus is not on finding the perfect match but it’s faithfully serving wherever you are and it’s done in response to the mercies of god so prophecy is the first one here found in towards the end of verse six and the word just means speaking forth this public proclamation of the word of god it’s preaching no matter what the content is in home group we got specific and talking about the content and with some content that’s used more than others i will say that the word prophecy does not need to have a uh understanding of only telling future events actually most of the time when you see messages from the prophets they may be telling future events but it’s not new revelation so many of them were saying look how sinful you are israel and because of the covenant god made with you this is what’s going to happen to you and some will go into great detail but then every day they’re out there preaching and they’re not bringing a new message every time it’s the proclamation of god’s word and if he says if you have that gift then you should use that gift according to the proportion of your faith now faith there can this time it can refer to the whole body of the christian faith it could refer to you know as jude 3 says the faith that was delivered once for all to the saints the the you know the the gospel and everything that comes out of it or can refer to the capacity of the one who has a gift to use the gift the measure of faith that they have how much of this gift they’ve been given or it can even refer to their level and understanding of the faith so someone who knows 10 verses a scripture and tries to preach should not be preaching on the deep things of god yet and someone who is going to preach has to have a method message that’s consistent with the message of the bible so i think both of these understandings can be taken here i don’t think there’s a need to really fight one over the other i think both of these things can be understood here the basic message is if you have the gift of preaching and you need to preach service is the next one he says if service you have to get the service in his serving that’s how you’re going to glorify god right and you’re serving and the word here is diaconia it’s where we get our word deacon from so the verb originally meant to wait on tables so there’s been people hearing me say that recently just because i’ve been preparing for this sermon and you know asked me to do something like i can’t wait on tables today you know i mean that’s that’s that that was the original sense and then it took on this wider understanding to mean serving in in a big sense it’s similar to the gift of helps mentioned in first corinthians 12 28 i think one one of the differences and maybe a slight difference is that the the gift of service may be a little bit more oriented toward organizing as well and the gift of helps is just being there to lend a hand to a group organization or person but the gift of service may be more of organizing servants and serving alongside them so if you have the gift of service then get busy serving it’s that simple he doesn’t go into a big thing serve teaching say or he who teaches in his teaching so teaching is the ability to understand and explain in a systematic fashion god’s word so the main difference between this and prophecy would be that teaching may involve going through a kind of a formal system to bring someone along in a certain doctrine where preaching is just standing and proclaiming a message there is teaching involved but the methods may be different so there’s a quick note or a two about teaching that i want to say so the bible is clear all elders must have the gift of teaching but not all will have the gift of prophecy and they definitely won’t all have it on the same level i don’t want to be graded against pastor bobby or you know john mcarthur or someone like that and say your summer was okay but it wasn’t up to what i’m used to hearing every sunday you know because we all have different gifts so teaching is something so that you that you see it ha elder has to be able to teach but not every elder is going to be able to preach or preach at the same level also many people have the gift of teaching not just elders many people have to get to i’m looking at people here and know that they’re great teachers in here many people have the gift of teaching so that isn’t something that you can say oh well you know what i’m not an elder not a sunday school teacher all right i’m out ain’t talking to me you know we don’t get to do that because again even if you don’t have it at the same level as somebody else you have the ability to teach if you’re a parent you better have the ability to teach where else are your kids going to learn about god from who else is going to teach them about god in this society you have the ability to teach and those who have it have enough of a measure where they can affect you know more than just one-on-one you should be serving in it but of course a a word of warning about that comes from james three where he says don’t rush to be a teacher you know not too many people should be teaching just because you you know taught one person how to hold a wrench one day doesn’t mean that you can now you know lead sunday school you know there’s there’s different areas where you can where you can teach and be effective but when you’re coming to teach the word of god just says be careful because you’ll face a stricter judgment as a teacher i hope i didn’t just scare everybody away from teaching but it’s something that that needs to be taken seriously exhortation we get that greek word i love greek i don’t know if you can tell i love greek but you get that same word para kaleo the the idea of coming alongside and calling someone encouraging them counseling them imploring them now this one can be for correction or comfort we looked before at the comfort part but this word is actually used to talk about calling someone out on their sin and calling them into obedience so either way we want whoever has this gift for exhortation you’re calling someone to obedience to the scriptures whether it’s someone who is weighed down by by sin or someone who is weighed down by their life circumstances you’re coming alongside them calling them to have their eyes fixed on christ giving says he who gives with liberality giving is a sharing of possessions or resources even your time or energy to meet the needs of others and if you want to see a great example of that just look at second corinthians 8 verses 1 through 6 the macedonian church and you’ll see that except with liberality this word means simplicity or can mean simplicity and it refers to having a single mind when you give don’t give looking for thanks don’t give looking for recognition and accolades or your name to be put up on some board give for the glory of god give because you see a need and you know you have what it takes to fill that need and people who have the gift of giving and in in in here the word is actually intensified in the original language and it really means abundantly giving or super giving you have this ability to just give and give and not think about what you’re losing when you give all you’re thinking about is god gave this to me all that i have here belongs to god and he wants me to use what he’s given me for this purpose giving leading so he who leads with diligence this word is used in scripture to refer to leading both in the home and in the church and a good example of that is in acts chapter 6 when uh the apostles had the call had to tell the congregation set up find servants and that’s kind of the model that we have for for deacons is using using that scripture find people who can administer the distribution of food because we can’t handle that we’re focused on prayer and studying and preaching the word of god and we can’t focus that this the word earlier that we looked at for serving they literally said we can’t wait on tables and study and preach the word of god and pray for all of you so find some men who have godly character and wisdom and get them to lead the distribution of the of the food for those who were in need so wherever you’re called to lead do it with diligence is what he says whether it’s in your home or it’s in the church wherever you lead do it with diligence showing mercy is how he ends he who shows mercy with cheerfulness this is demonstrating kindness to those in need and especially those who are easily cast aside those who usually don’t have a big support system around them and you see them and immediately there’s something in your heart that just says i have to go to them i have to help them and we desperately need people like that in the church there are so many hurting people who are smiling your face week after week until you get to know them and you come alongside them and you see their hurts and those are the people who need people who can show mercy the people who have catastrophic things happen in their life and and some of us will just say i’m gonna pray for you and and we may we may pray for them it’s one of the things on my to-do list it’s people i have to pray for too but we pray we may even pray for them but there are people who are moved to do so much more whatever you need whatever i could do for you however i can comfort you i will do that so if you have the gift of mercy please show mercy there’s two things about this gift one all believers are expected to show mercy so again this isn’t a thing where it’s like i had a gift i took a test and mercy was like down here so i’m good everybody is to show mercy because everybody i believe has been given a measure of this gift anything that we have all been called to do like evangelism like showing love like showing mercy i believe we’ve all been given a measure of that gift the second thing is you have to use this gift with cheerfulness have you ever seen somebody try to show you mercy and they don’t they’re not cheerful i mean it just feels like it makes you feel like a burden right if someone comes and they try to be merciful and just like here here you go all right you good now all right you know that’s that’s not how we’re to be and we’re not to be so burdened down with our own problems that we can’t even smile that we can’t bring those people joy and we have people like that here we need even more you know you want to be the type of person that people can’t help the smile around you know no matter what type of day you’re having you go to certain people and it’s just like you’re brought out of that and you need those type of people to be able to show mercy so people who need mercy are truly hurting or in situations where they seem to have little help little recourse and by you serving them in that way and showing them mercy you point them back to christ not to yourself but you point them to christ so as you can see he didn’t spend a lot of time on the gifts he didn’t go through and give us big definitions of them he didn’t he just said look these are some of the gifts you may have serve that’s what he’s focusing on serve why because you should be motivated by the mercies of god and in putting these things together there was a it was a quote by john mcarthur i don’t remember where i got it from my i don’t know where not to say but he said prophecy proclaims the truth teaching systematizes the truth and exhortation calls for a right response to the truth and he said in serving puts the truth into action and i think that’s a great way to look at it i would add that giving mobilizes the truth all those things are great but if you don’t give of yourself and give resources the truth kind of just stays there and that leading guides the response to the truth especially if you’re leading in the home and mercy helps others to focus on the truth rather than the temple needs so real quick say five quick things i mean quick so you know if you want to write these down yeah i got to be quick um how can you know your gift some things you can do present yourself as a living sacrifice it’s the first thing he says right i mean that’s basic i know that’s a little disappointing because i didn’t tell you to take a test or go to this website or something right so present yourself as a living sacrifice two know that you have a gift probably many gifts in different levels pray for wisdom and examine your desires a lot of times god puts the desire in your heart that you want to serve in a certain area because you have that gift sometimes it’s not or sometimes you can be misdirected in it start serving and serve with everything you’ve got put your all into serving in any area serve and see how god works out the development of your gifts and then ask for confirmation go to the people who know you the best go to people that you know have wisdom spiritually and ask them what are my gifts or maybe what isn’t my gift and if somebody comes to you like that be honest you don’t want to tell someone oh yeah i think you’re a great do you have the gift of teaching oh yeah it’s great it’s wonderful yeah because you don’t want to put them down then they go somewhere and kind of make a fool of themselves because they didn’t have the gift you don’t want to put them in that position or tell someone they have the gift of mercy because they’re nice to you because they happen to like you and then they go somewhere else and that gift of mercy isn’t there and they’re not as effective as they would be if they were serving where they should be so those are the five things present yourself a living sacrifice know that you have a gift pray for wisdom and examine your desires start serving and put your all into it and seek confirmation and i believe as we do that we will see this church transformed as we all put our gifts into action and we all start serving and i’m grateful for those who do serve make sure that you’re serving in the right areas and that you are serving with everything you’ve got because ultimately your service is for god and you’re doing this as because you’re motivated by the mercies of god this is your response this is your logical reasonable rational response to the mercies of god let’s pray our great god we are so thankful to you for your mercies we thank you god for your word because from it we know how to respond to your benefits we know how to respond to the question that the psalmist posed we know god what you desire from us and we pray lord that you would be pleased with our efforts without service that you will guide us to know how to serve you lord that we would be in your will because our minds are being renewed and we are being transformed i pray god that you will get glory out of our lives you would help us to think rightly about our gifts and the gifts of others and be encouragements to the body and we ask this in christ’s name amen