Going to be in Romans chapter 12.
We're going to continue our sermon series looking at the importance
of theology, knowing God.
And part of knowing God is understanding what he has done for
us.
And that's what we've been looking at, really, from Romans 1
all the way through Romans 11, we've seen the Gospel.
To us, the Gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ.
The Gospel is the news that Jesus came to this earth.
He died on the cross for our sins.
He.
He lived that perfect life.
He conquered death through the resurrection, now extends the gift
of grace to us.
That is the good news that we see in the book of Romans and throughout
all of Scripture, the Gospel to us.
But now In Romans chapter 12, we begin to see the gospel through
us.
Because just as much as the gospel changes our heart by giving
us new life, it gives us a new way to think.
It gives us a new way to live.
It gives us a new way to love.
And we as Christians now must understand that the change that God
makes to our heart now should be seen to the world.
The world should see the difference.
The world should understand that the goodness of God is something
that we all must have.
And not just that we want it, but we all need it.
Why?
Because the Bible says that all have fallen short of the glory
of God.
There is none righteous.
No, not one.
But there is one who is righteous above us, and that is our
Savior.
And So Romans chapter 12 was all about walking in the way of God,
walking in the will of God.
And so we looked last week at verses one and two.
Paul said, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, now remember,
therefore means what is this?
Therefore, what is he talking about?
Well, he's been talking about all the things that he's mentioned
in Romans 1:11, the things that God has done for us.
Romans 5:8.
But God commendeth or demonstrated his love toward us in
that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
What an amazing message that is, that God loves us enough to send
his only begotten Son for us.
And so he says, because of the gospel, because of salvation.
He says, brethren, by the mercies of God, because by the way,
all of those things that we've learned about so far have been because
of the mercy of God.
And we're in desperate need of the mercies of God.
He says the next step is this, that we present our bodies.
Your bodies, a living sacrifice.
And that's what we talked about last week, presenting ourselves
a living sacrifice to the Lord.
Not a sacrifice that dies, but a sacrifice that lives for the Lord.
And he says, do that because why?
He says, that's holy.
That's.
That's separate, that's special.
It's acceptable unto God.
He says, which is your reasonable service.
The.
The Greek word there for reasonable is the word we get the
word logical from.
It's only logical that we would give God everything in our
lives because he has given us so much.
His abundant grace upon our lives leaves us with the sense of
gratitude.
Some call it the attitude of gratitude that we're called to live
in our lives.
And so if we are thankful, we just sing a song.
Jesus, thank you.
And I would encourage you, as we sing any song within the church,
to think about the words.
Don't just sing the song, but think about the words and make it
a testimony for your own life.
And in that song, it says, jesus, thank you for all the things
that you have done for us as believers.
And so he says, here we present our bodies a living sacrifice,
which is our reasonable or logical service.
And so we get the verse 2.
And then he says, okay, in that service, don't be conformed
to this world.
Don't be pushed into the mold that the world is trying to put you
in.
The world is trying to tell you that it's normal, it's okay.
Live the way that you want to live.
And Paul says, reject that thinking.
Don't be conformed.
Don't buy into the lies.
And then he says, but be ye transformed.
By way of review, that word transform means to change.
We get the word metamorphosis from that Greek word.
And the idea would be that we're completely new, we're completely
changed.
And he says, be transformed.
And how do you transform?
Well, you don't transform yourself.
You don't go in and really try hard, read more books, or become
more disciplined.
No.
The Bible says that we're transformed by the renewing of our
mind.
How do we renew our mind?
Well, we renew our mind by walking with God and allow God to
cleanse our mind through the word of God, through prayer, through
fellowship, through service.
And he says that you may prove or demonstrate what is that good
and acceptable and perfect will of God.
It is God's will for us that we live for him.
It's not enough just to say, well, I'm saved.
I've got my ticket to heaven now.
I'm just wanting to do my own thing.
I just want to coast.
I've got my security.
And though being saved is a measure of security, that's not the
end of the story.
By the way, the Scriptures tell us that salvation is just the
beginning of the story.
It's now about living for Him.
It's now about reaching others for Him.
And so now that's what he's going to talk about here in verse
number three.
How do we do this?
How do we walk in sacrifice?
How do we serve Him?
And so the sermon here this morning is called the Sacrifice of
Service.
The Bible says that we're to give ourselves a sacrifice for the
Lord, a living sacrifice.
But sometimes Christians are like, how do I do that?
Does that mean I just go to church?
Does that mean I read my Bible?
Does that mean that I just come every single day and walk around
the building and think that that's a service?
Well, the Bible clearly tells us what we're supposed to do, how
we become servants of God, how we sacrifice ourselves for Him.
And so here in this introduction, I want you to look
at verse number three.
He says, for I say through the grace given unto me to every man
that is among you not to think high of himself more highly than
he ought to think.
So what does he tell us here?
He tells us that the first step of understanding how we are
to serve him is by identifying our place in the relationship with
God.
He tells us to have humility.
And by the way, we got to go back and remember salvation.
Salvation is through faith and faith alone.
It's the greatest gift that we could ever receive.
So if God just gave us salvation and ended it there, that
would be enough.
That would be the greatest gift of grace.
But God doesn't just stop with saving us from hell.
He doesn't just stop when it comes to the idea of giving us everlasting
life.
What he does now is he gives us everlasting life.
And.
And then he gifts us.
He equips us with gifts of grace that we can serve him and be
a part of his work.
You ever think about that?
You ever think about the blessing and the privilege it is
to be part of kingdom work, to be part of the plan that God has
for the redemption of this world?
Though we're not the ones bringing redemption, we get to be
a part of that.
We get to join in.
We get to be partners with God.
And so he says here very clearly that salvation is enough,
but he gives us more.
God's grace does not stop at salvation.
He graciously gives believers for service.
And so he says, just as you can't boast about your salvation,
remember Ephesians 2, 8:9.
For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves.
It is a gift of God, not of works.
Lest any man should boast, none of us should boast about our
salvation.
None of us should look around at other people and go, well, look
how much I did to save myself.
Look how much God loves me because I'm so lovable.
No, the Bible actually tells us the other side of that.
We're not lovable, but God still loves us.
We didn't do anything.
We trusted in the work of Jesus Christ.
And so just as much as we can't boast about the gift of salvation,
we cannot boast about these spiritual gifts that are given to
us for service.
Sometimes we're, maybe we're not tempted to boast in our salvation,
but maybe we're tempted to boast in the areas that God has gifted
us to serve him.
And so he says here the first step of understanding the sacrifice
of service is to realize that we are not the ones that have brought
this gift to ourselves.
He says in verse three, don't think of himself more highly than
he ought to think.
Now it doesn't tell us to think lower than we are.
It tells us to have the proper viewpoint of who we are in the eyes
of the Lord.
And so the Christian life is not merely about sitting around and
spectating, but, but it's now about sacrificial service.
And so the spiritual gift are not earned abilities, but they're
grace given opportunities to minister for the glory of God.
And so for the next foreseeable future, what we're going
to be doing in our study in Romans is going through these spiritual
gifts, number one, understanding what they are, understanding
what the individual gifts are within our spiritual walk and then
understanding how we can live those out in our life properly.
And so before Paul explains the gifts completely In Romans chapter
12, he addresses the heart behind the gifts.
And that's what we're going to be talking about here this morning.
And what I want you to think about is this God gifts people in
a spiritual way.
We're going to talk about all of these gifts that God gives.
But with those spiritual gifts must come spiritual maturity.
Because people can be gifted but not be mature and not live out
these spiritual gifts properly.
So God gives us gifts which we're going to talk about in this
study.
And then we're going to look at how we can grow in our spiritual
maturity so that that can equate spiritual sacrifice.
So think about it this way, maybe some of you are math people.
Think about it as an equation.
Spiritual giftedness plus spiritual maturity equals spiritual
sacrifice.
The spiritual sacrifice that God is looking for us to live out
in our lives.
And so that's a long Runway.
We're going to get right to the text, but let's go ahead and
pray and we'll ask God to give us some clarity on the verses here
this morning.
Lord, I pray that you be with us this morning as we look into your
word.
Lord, I pray that we can see first and foremost the necessity
of service in our life.
The, the goal for service, the heart of service, and ultimately
the harmony of service.
And so, Lord, I pray that we can walk in your truth here this
morning.
I pray that anyone here today that does not know you as personal
savior, that today can be the day of starting that walk of believing
and trusting in you so that we can understand what it means to walk
in forgiveness and walk in salvation.
So Lord, I pray that you get me out of the way, remove any distractions
from our minds and from our hearts, and may we clearly see you
here this morning in Jesus name.
Amen.
Verse three says, for I say, through the grace given unto me to
every man that is among you.
So the idea would be this, if you are a believer, you have a gift,
at least one gift, maybe more.
But God has given every believer specific spiritual gifts
to serve with within the church.
And so he says, this is all Christians.
No one's exempt from this.
It's not like pastors are gifted or deacons are gifted, but
the church member is not gifted.
No, the Bible says that all believers are gifted.
And so he says, through the grace given unto me to every man
that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than
he ought to think.
And so first of all, he says here, to understand service, it's
the understanding of the humility of service.
Paul reminds every believer that ministry opportunities are acts
of grace.
Therefore, the spiritual gifts are no reason to boast.
There are no reason to have pride.
They're not self produced.
And so everything that we have by way of gift is received by God.
So he says, don't think of yourself higher than you ought to
think.
Believers are taught to have the appropriate view of themselves.
So it's not too high, not too low.
We'll see.
Sometimes people fall off the road on either side.
One side is, you know what, I'm so great.
Life's all about me.
I'm the center focus of church.
I'm the center focus of the Christian life.
It's all about me.
Everyone should serve me.
What's it all about for me, right?
You see that theme going on in a lot of people's lives.
And he says, don't think of yourself higher than you ought to
think.
But then he also doesn't mention this.
But what we also understand is he says probably have the proper
understanding, not too low, because there's sometimes people
that will say this, well, I'm nothing, I, I have no hope.
I, I have, I have no skills, I, I have no chance, I have no potential.
And the Bible says no, it's to have the proper viewpoint of what
God has gifted you in.
So, so it's not about allowing yourself to get too prideful, but,
but it's not allowing yourself to get to a self defeatist attitude
where you don't believe you can do anything because God has given
us everything that we possibly need for the service that he's called
us to do.
So what is humility?
Humility is simply seeing ourselves truthfully before God,
having a proper viewpoint of ourselves, not to exalt ourselves,
but not to deflate ourselves, to see it for the way that God sees
it.
And as a believer, you have an identity in Christ.
You could call out to him.
Acts chapter 8 tells us that we can cry out to him, abba, Father,
Daddy.
We have that personal relationship with him later on in
Acts chapter or excuse me, Romans chapter 8, it tells us that
nothing can separate us from the love of God, that we're more
than conquerors as we are in Jesus Christ.
And so the Bible tells us that we don't need to live a self defeatist
attitude.
But at the same time we don't need to get to a place to understand
ourselves to a degree that we are doing everything.
So service flourishes through humility and pride destroys ministry.
I want you to see that when, when ministry is hindered is when
pride seeps in a lot of times we can see it come in in very distinct
ways.
Oftentimes it's not always addressed.
Sometimes it's something very small, something that might come
in unawares at the very beginning.
But ultimately pride manifests itself in ways that are very destructive.
We even know the, the proverbs in the Old Testament that talk about
the destruction, the devastation that comes along with
pride.
So pride, if pride destroys ministry or anytime I say the word
ministry this morning, think about it this way.
Service ministry just literally means service.
So serving the Lord, serving others.
So if pride destroys ministry, humility strengthens ministry.
Want you to think about that here this morning.
Pride destroys or limits my ministry, but humility strengthens
ministry.
We see that over and over again.
With the life of Jesus.
Think about all the ways in which Jesus demonstrated his humility
before his disciples.
If anybody could have demonstrated pride, it was Jesus.
But yet he comes in a humbled stance.
John 13 has the disciples come in and washes their feet.
That's the lowest act of a servant.
But yet Jesus was willing to do so, do so to show his servant
humility.
So we, we see more.
Humility strengthens ministry.
But then we also see ourselves when it comes to the truth of the
word of God.
It brings us to a place to have a humble stance.
Pride loses grip in our life when we see what the word of God
has to say about our salvation.
And so we see passage of Scripture throughout the New Testament
that talk about this principle.
But one that you could maybe jot down and note is first Peter,
chapter 5, verse 5.
Peter is writing to the church, and particularly leaders
in the church.
And he talks about them having the proper stance and having the
proper way of leading and shepherding.
And then he ends verse five with a statement.
He says, and be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud
and giveth grace to the humble.
Says in verse 6, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty
hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.
The same principle is given to us here in Romans, chapter 12.
Paul says, don't think more highly of yourself than you ought
to think.
But then he says a phrase here.
He says, but think soberly.
That word sober or soberly means to have the proper focus on
the proper things, to be serious about the right things, to
to have self control, to have discernment, to know.
This is something that I need to be serious about.
This is something that I need to spend time on.
So he says, don't think of yourself higher than you ought to
think, but have the right thinking.
Think properly about yourself.
Think properly about your service.
Think properly about all the things that you're doing for the
Lord.
And he says, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure
of faith, meaning God is giving us the opportunity to know
him in a personal way through service, through sacrifice, through
study.
And so he says, understand that and grow in your faith.
You're only going to be able to serve at the capacity of your
faith.
Like if I don't truly believe in something, I'm not going to serve
it, I'm not going to sacrifice for it.
I'm not going to buy into it, so to speak.
So he says, if you want to understand God's gifts working through
you, grow in your faith.
And grow in your understanding of him and how he works in your life.
And so he says the starting place for that is renewing your mind,
thinking soberly, thinking properly.
And so the, the first step of this sacrificial service is having
humility.
And humility comes from seeing ourselves from where we are and seeing
where God is and seeing the distinction between that this morning
we say, behold our God and, and.
And think about all of those things that are said in that song.
All the things that we can attribute to God we cannot attribute
to ourselves.
There are things about God that we can never obtain.
We're not all knowing, we're not all powerful, we're not all present.
But the One who has given us salvation is, and the One who is
equipping us is.
And so therefore we come to a place of humility when we understand
how big God is and how limited we are.
And we come to him saying, lord, he, it's you that are working
through me.
Not.
It's, it's not.
It's not me working for you, it's you working through me for you.
And so we get to this place where we see him say in verse four,
for as we have many members in one body.
What is he talking about here?
You might read verse four and say, what.
What is he.
What is he saying here?
He says this.
He.
He's likening the church to the physical body.
Some of you are familiar with First Corinthians, chapter 12.
He uses the same analogy.
He says the.
The church is the body of Christ.
And just as the body has different parts or different members,
so does the church.
The hand doesn't do the job of the foot.
Now, some of you might have a lot of talent and be able to grab
things with your feet.
I don't know.
But the truth is, is that most of us, our hands are not designed
the same way as our feet.
They both serve a purpose.
Our eye is not our ear.
First Corinthians, chapter 12 says that.
He says, if the whole body was the eye, how could it hear?
If the whole body was the ear, how could it see?
And so the idea here that Paul is mentioning is that there is one
body.
The church is unified, but it's not uniform.
And so he says here in verse four, for as we have many members
or many parts in one body, and all members have not the same office
or the same job.
You know, God is a God of clarity.
He is not a God of confusion.
So let's say today all of you said, you know what I believe that
God has given me the gift of preaching right now.
And all of you got up here on this stage and started preaching.
When I'm preaching, and we're all preaching different things, that
would not be a time of clarity.
That would be a time of confusion.
But there are instances in the church in which we see people serving
all at once, but not all in the same capacity.
And so what does he say here?
He says we are all part of one body, and all the members don't have
the same job.
And that's a good thing.
And so the church is unified, or at least it should be unified.
The way that God has ordained it to be is that we would be working
as a church, as one body moving together for the same.
Same purpose, not for our own individual purpose.
Because if one part of the body is off, though, we might know
or we might not know, it definitely affects the whole body.
Some of you may have had in your life an instance where you had
a sickness, or for me, I always use this as an analogy.
I had a kidney stone one time, and that little tiny thing, even
though I didn't see it, it was affecting my whole body.
My.
My hand wasn't hurting, but let's say it was hurting because
everything was hurting.
And sometimes within the church, we don't necessarily know
what's going on, but if one part of the body is hurting or deficient,
it affects the whole body.
And that's what Paul is talking about here.
He says, don't think that all of us have the same job.
All of us are unified, but we have differences.
And so what we would say is this.
The church is unified, and we are unified upon what?
Not upon our similar interest.
Because if that was the case, some of us might not be unified here.
How many?
I won't ask this, but I was going to say, how many of you like
to watch sports and which teams you like?
And we can see how divided we really are.
Thank the Lord that we're not all here, because we're one fan of
one team, okay?
But the idea would be this.
It's not about just, hey, we have similar interests.
We like the same sport, or we like the same food, or we like whatever.
The Bible tells us that there really is one common bond that we
all have, and that is our common ground in Jesus Christ, our
common hope in Jesus Christ.
So we are one body in him.
So think about it from this perspective.
If you and I come together and we have some differences, we could
either resolve those differences by fighting about those
differences or understand that, that we have a common bond,
or at least we should have a common bond in our relationship with
Jesus Christ and try to build off of that.
And so that's what he's talking about here.
He says, we're all one body, but all members are distinctly different.
So I've said this before, but unity does not mean uniformity.
Think about the difference between those two words, unity and
uniformity.
Unity is we're working together as one.
Uniformity is we all look the same and we all do the same things.
That wouldn't be effective.
That.
That wouldn't be what God has called us to do.
So we are called to be unified, but we're not called to
be uniform.
We're actually called to be different.
We're called to be distinct.
I want you to see that in another passage, if you go to First
Peter, chapter four.
We just looked at it here this morning in our scripture reading.
You see the very same principle given to us by the Apostle
Peter.
And he says in verse number 20, verse number 10 of First Peter,
chapter 4, the idea that, yes, we are all gifted, as every man hath
received the gift.
And then he says, even so, minister the same one to another
as good stewards of the.
In the King James, it says manifold.
But this could also mean various or different grace of God.
Meaning you and I might be different, differently gifted in
our service to the Lord, but at the same time, we're to minister
one to another.
He goes on to say in verse number 11, if any man speaks.
So there's these gifts of speaking.
There's these public gifts.
Speak of the oracles of God.
If any man minister that's talking about service, maybe behind
the scenes, let him do it.
Of the ability that God giveth.
But ultimately we see who is glorified, not the servants, not
the preacher.
He says that in all things, God may be glorified through Jesus
Christ.
And so the idea for this would be that we're working together.
We.
We're different, but at the end of the day, all of us are uniquely
gifted so that we can serve the Lord.
So every believer is uniquely gifted by God.
And there's distinct roles that do not diminish equal value.
In First Corinthians, chapter 12, it actually tells us that every
part of the body is needed.
He actually talks about, in some cases, the ones that are not
as attractive are necessities there.
There are certain service opportunities within the church that
might not get as much praise as others.
Does that mean we just forget about them?
Does that mean that we neglect them.
No, we actually say that those are needed.
And so he says, as God gives us, we are all to work, not thinking
about the praise of man, or the payments or the position, but
to do it in such a way that we think about the ultimate goal of
glorifying God.
And so in verse number three, he reminds us that it's to be done
in humility.
And verse number four, he reminds us that it's to be done in
harmony.
Service within the church.
Service for the Lord should be done with a humbled spirit, and it
should be done in harmony.
Unified together for the cause of the gospel.
The church is one body.
The church should not be fighting against itself.
Think about how weird it would be if someone walked into the building
today and they were punching themselves, kicking themselves, tripping
all over themselves.
Right away, we like, something is wrong.
We need to identify that it might be a mental problem.
It might be something going on.
Maybe they're seeing things we don't know.
But we know that a person is not healthy if they're fighting against
themselves.
And we even see that in other ways.
When.
When the body maybe has a disease, it fights against itself
and it isn't properly aligned.
And we know that needs to get fixed.
That's the same thing within the church.
And we've seen this before.
You've seen it maybe in another church.
There is going to be times when we have difficulties in our
service that we might fight against ourselves.
Well, you know what?
When the body fights against itself, it's never going to be effective
for the cause of the gospel.
It's never going to be effective for the ultimate purpose
of pushing forward the kingdom of God.
Jesus in John 17 has this prayer.
It's his high priestly prayer.
One of the things that he asked the Lord is, Lord, that they
would be unified, that the church would be unified like you
and I are unified.
It is the heart of God that we walk in humility and we walk in harmony.
The church has to work together.
We make a huge mistake when we neglect unity without individuality.
But then we also make a huge mistake if we neglect individuality
without unity.
Meaning this.
Sometimes we want to celebrate the individuality of the person within
the church.
But then we forget about the need that we need to come together
and unify.
There's other times where we celebrate unity so much and uniformity
so much that we forget that there are people that are going to
be distinctly different.
And it's okay that they're different.
It's okay that someone serves a different way.
It's okay that someone teaches a different way.
I mean, one of the things that I love about our classes at our church,
our Sunday school classes and our small groups is that there's
a style for you.
Okay?
There's video series, there's lecture series, there's discussion
classes, there's book studies.
Look, there's not one particular way to teach a class.
There's a lot of ways to get to the truth.
And what we have to understand that as Christians, not everyone
has to do it the exact same way as me.
Now, what I will say is this.
Sometimes people might misunderstand that and say, are you
saying that we can all just worship the way that we worship and
we can all just do what we want to do?
No.
Are a particular set of things that God has laid out for us that
we must follow.
There, there's.
There's framework there, there's guard rails.
That's scripture.
But where scripture doesn't speak, that's where we have the ability
to have levels of freedom, to have levels, levels of liberty, which
we're going to talk about in Romans chapter 14.
So.
So when we get back to this idea of service, we see that God
has designed the church to function together for his glory.
So verse five, Romans, chapter 12, verse five.
So we, being many, are one body in Christ, in Christ, and everyone
members one of another.
So the reality of service within the church looks like this.
Our gifts are to minister to others, not magnify ourselves.
Some are called to plant, some are called to teach, some are called
to encourage.
Some are called the lead.
Some are called to be quietly behind the scenes serving in that
capacity.
But every gift matters to the body.
And so when we get into the study, I want you to understand we
are going to talk about specific gifts.
And I believe that the word of God clearly teaches that every Christian
is gifted at least one of these ministering gifts.
Here In Romans chapter 12, the truth is, is that there's a lot of
Christians that are Christians that are in churches, that are maybe
even serving in churches.
And if we were to ask them, what's your spiritual gift or gifts?
They would say, I had no idea.
Never been taught that.
I didn't know that we had individual gifts.
The Bible very clearly teaches us that there are those things.
And so what we need to do as a church is we need to dig in and understand
that God, if I'm a believer in Jesus Christ, he has gifted me for
a specific purpose in a specific way so that I can serve
at that capacity in a way that's effective for the cause of
the gospel.
Now, I will say this.
Some of these gifts that we're going to talk about are going to
be natural for you.
You're going to understand that, you're going to see that.
But there's going to be other gifts that you're not as inclined
to follow in your life.
So, for example, there's one gift called the gift of mercy.
And let's say one of us here this morning says, you know what?
I'm not gifted in the gift of mercy.
So I just, you know what?
Don't need to do it because that's not my gift.
Well, that's not true because we're all called to have mercy.
So we're all called to work at some capacity within these gifts.
But other gifts are going to be more supernaturally gifted to
us so that it happens where others are going to be something
that we have to strive for and grow in and ask God to give us strengthening
and teaching in.
And so we're going to go through that, through this study.
And so what I want you to do as we go through the study is honestly,
authentically go through this study in Romans chapter 12 and identify
how God has gifted you so that you could say, yes, I am gifted in
this area.
And as I'm gifted in this area, how could I use that within
the body of Christ?
Because that's really the purpose.
If I was to disciple you, if I'm discipling you, I don't just
need to give you information, even though I love to do that.
I love to teach.
I love to give facts.
I love to give all the things that Scripture tells us about the
Word of God.
Those are good things.
We all should be teaching or learning from the Word of God.
But at the end of the day, discipleship doesn't just stop with
facts.
It goes further.
Right?
It goes further.
And one of the aspects of discipleship that must happen within
the church is that we need to help others find the way that God
has gifted them so that they can use that for the cause of the
kingdom.
Paul does that with Timothy.
Paul says, don't neglect the gift that was given to you.
Don't forget about it.
Don't.
Don't put it aside.
And so for us, if we are going to be a church that embraces the
discipleship direction, it's this that we identify.
Number one, where God has gifted us in these spiritual gifts
and how I can lead other people, number one to salvation,
but then number two to service and sanctification.
So the way it would practically look is that I could
sit down with a brother or sister in Christ and say, amen, you've
trusted in the Lord.
Now it's time for you to turn everything over to Him.
Now we're going to identify how God has blessed you and how he
has gifted you.
And you can see, okay, yes, they're gifted in teaching.
Now, where do we take that?
Where, where do we go with that?
And it's plugging people into the areas that are needed within
the church.
And so I, I want us to see this not just as a, A, a lesson about
preaching, about theology, even though theology is so important.
But, but part of theology is practical theology.
Practical theology is applying what we know about God.
And if you know about God, certain things, it's applying that
to our lives.
And so we're going to get to verse number six, and we're going
to see gifts like prophecy.
We're going to dive deeper into that, the proclamation of the
Word of God.
We're going to talk about gifts of ministry.
That's service.
We're going to talk about gifts of teaching.
We're going to talk about gifts of exhortation.
That's challenging.
That's, that's encouraging.
There, there's, there's the gift of giving.
There's the gift of administration or ruling.
There's the gift of mercy.
And some of you might say, let's get into those right now.
Well, for time's sake, we're not going to dive into each one of
those, because what we're going to do is we're going to do
a deep dive into each one of these gifts.
And we're going to talk about how God has equipped certain people
in certain ways.
And we're going to look at examples of people in scripture that
have lived out these things in their life so that we can see examples
in our life.
But one of the things that I would really challenge you with is
that before we even get started with understanding these
gifts and applying these gifts to our life is that we have to come
with the right perspective.
We have to come with the right purpose.
And the purpose is always to encourage others and glorify God.
So we have the humility of service.
We have the heart of service.
And that's really what I want us to close with here this morning.
Mark, chapter 10, verse 45.
Go, go with me to Mark, chapter 10, verse 45.
Jesus, again, is the greatest example that we could ever have in
anything that we do in our lives.
And we think about what Jesus tells his disciples here in Mark
chapter 10.
And I think that this could be summarized as the heart of our service
to the lord.
Mark chapter 10, verse 45.
Jesus says, for even the Son of Man, talking about himself, came
not to be ministered unto, but to minister and give his life a ransom.
For many, Jesus models sacrificial service.
Think about two words here.
Service, sacrifice.
We see it right there in that verse, verse 45.
The son of man came not to be ministered unto.
So Jesus focus wasn't who's going to serve me at least in his
earthly ministry.
Now let me make this clear.
One day every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord.
We will worship him.
We should serve him.
But Jesus's earthly ministry was not designed so that he could
just come and everyone would serve serve him as he was sitting
on the throne.
He says, no, my purpose was this, to minister that service, to
serve and to give his life a ransom.
For many, that's sacrifice.
So Jesus models the sacrificial service example for us.
Jesus didn't come demanding position.
Jesus came giving himself to others.
And we know the ultimate example of that type of sacrifice
is, is Calvary is the cross.
Jesus basically says this, I love you so much that I will give
myself for you.
And in any of these ministering gifts that we're going
to talk about In Romans chapter 12, it all starts with that
type of heart.
I'm willing to put others needs before myself.
I'm not going to preach or teach or give or serve or administrate
without the proper response.
And that is the response of hey, I'm doing this for you because
of him, not I'm doing this for you because of me.
Because a lot of times we enact the spiritual gifts within
our church in the flesh.
What does that mean?
That means I want to administrate properly so that no
one causes me any issues.
I'm tired of all these headaches within the church.
So I got to administrate this way so that I don't have any more
problems in my life.
Or I need to preach the word of God so that people will notice
me.
Or I need to serve so that people will serve me.
Or I need to give so that there can be strings attached.
No, those are all living out our spiritual gifts in a fleshly
way.
And by the way, we can exercise these spiritual gifts either
in the heart of service in the spirit or a heart of selfishness
in our flesh.
That's the danger.
It's like in anything in our Christian faith, we can exercise
in our flesh or we can exercise in the spirit.
So it's not just about identifying our gift, it's not just
about serving in the church, but it's doing it with the right
heart.
And that's what we see here in this passage.
He says, do it with humility, do it with harmony, and do it with
a heart of service and sacrifice.
So the three points are very simple here this morning.
Number one, we are to serve the Lord in our spiritual gifts with
humility.
Secondly, we're to do it with harmony.
Thirdly, we're to do it with a heart of service and sacrifice.
Faithful service honors our master.
There's the classic parable of the talents in Matthew, chapter 25.
If you want to jot that down for your notes.
Matthew 25, 14:30 Tell us this amazing parable of how God gave a
certain denomination of money to three individuals, and two of
them used it and were good stewards of it.
And by the way, a steward means that you don't own it, but
you're managing it.
And so God gave two different people money, and they used it, they
grew it.
And God said, well done, thou good and faithful servant.
But then there was one, if you remember, he didn't do anything with
it.
He buried in the ground.
And because of his fear and because of his fear of failure, he
didn't do anything with it and he wasted it.
And of course, God wasn't happy with that.
The question for all of us this morning is that those things
that God has given us in our life, are we going to bury it and
just sit on it?
God's never pleased with that.
God wants us to be stewards of it.
He wants us to multiply it.
Are we going to serve it for our own praise, our own power, our
own purpose, and selfishly use those gifts?
Or are we going to say, lord, whatever you have given me, I want
to give back?
I want to understand how you've blessed me, how you've gifted
me, and I want to push forward in that.
Now, I do need to note a few things here.
One, a lot of times I use this analogy in my Sunday school class
this morning, I was talking to a dear lady a while ago, a long time
ago, and I was asking her about her spiritual gifts.
And she said, and don't take offense to this anyone, but.
But we're going to get there.
So my spiritual gift is cooking, Pastor.
I'm a cook, and that's my spiritual gift.
And I wanted to be nice, and I said The Bible never talks about
us.
The a spiritual gift is cooking.
That's a natural talent that God has gifted you with, and that's
different.
We need to distinguish between natural talents and spiritual gifts.
Now, can somebody use the natural talent of cooking and their
spiritual gift?
Of course.
You know what I'm really encouraged when someone cooks me
something and gives it to me.
That's that.
That would be.
That would be a gift of exhortation.
Right?
You would, you would encourage me with that.
But.
But what we need to distinguish between the two is that
there are certain things that God has naturally gifted people in
saved and unsaved.
Like, can an atheist cook?
Yeah, I'm sure that I've had a cook at a restaurant that's an atheist
that cooked me a really good meal.
There are people that don't believe in God that can sing really
well, that can build things with their hands.
So we take all the things that God has gifted us naturally, and
then we think about how we can use those natural talents in the
realm of the spiritual gifts.
And that's what we're going to work on through this series as well,
is okay, yes, God's given me the gift of singing.
He's given me the gift of cooking.
He's given me the gift of building.
He's given me the gift of whatever.
And how can I use that now as it's as a redeemed person and having
the Spirit guiding me, how can I use that in the realm of encouraging
people for the cause of the gospel?
That's the exciting thing.
Because God brings people from all different backgrounds and all
different skill sets.
And he can say, you know what?
He can use you, who maybe can work behind the scenes with your
hands.
And maybe God can use others in capacities of teaching and capacities
of giving.
But the true question would be this.
If the first step of have you taken that step and say, lord, whatever
you want from me, I'm willing to give that to you?
God expects faithfulness because he has entrusted us with
so much.
We're not responsible for someone else's gift because this
is what sometimes happens.
I look at somebody and I look at their gift and I go, wow, I wish
I had that gift.
That gift's way more important.
That gift's way more valuable.
No, we're not to look at other people's gift and covet their gift.
We're not to look at my.
Our own gift and say, you know, I'm better than that person
because I'm gifted this way.
No, we're responsible for what God has given us.
And we're responsible for the stewardship thereof.
And that's a word that we're going to be using a lot in this study.
Stewardship.
Stewardship is God has given me something that it's not something
that I earned.
And now I get to manage that and use that and multiply that.
For him, he's the owner, I'm just the manager.
And so service is sacrifice, Service is worship.
Service is everything.
And we're thinking about it from the perspective of a believer,
but as an unsaved person, an unsaved person can try to do as much
as they can, but there's always going to be that cutoff.
There's always going to be that limit.
Why?
Because true biblical service starts with the Spirit.
And if you're an unsaved person, you don't have the Spirit
living within you.
So.
So serving God is not merely an activity, it's sacrifice.
We talked about this at the men's meeting last night.
Service is not just an activity.
Ministry is light.
If we are Christians, we don't just look at our ministry as this
is a Sunday morning thing or a Wednesday night thing.
We look at our life as a sacrifice.
And we look at every element of our life to be a ministry opportunity.
And so Romans chapter 12 begins with presenting our bodies
as a living sacrifice.
And it begins to grow in teaching us how we can do that practically
within the church.
So sacrificial service is the response to saving grace.
And so I have a few questions for you here this morning.
Number one, are you saved?
Do you know what that even means?
The Bible says that all of us are lost in our sin.
We are all dead in our sins.
And so to start this process of spiritual growth, to start this
process of spiritual service, you must start with faith.
And so the Bible says, first and foremost, have you trusted in
Him?
Have you put your faith in Him?
Have you said that he is the only one who can save me and not
myself?
Have I recognized the sin in my life?
Have I repented of my sin?
Basically turning away from my good works and turning to his work
and trusting in him?
Is that something that you have done in your life?
If so, great.
If not, get that taken care of today.
But secondly, if you have received the grace of God in salvation,
are you willingly and openly ready to be used by God in your spiritual
gifting?
Are you ready to be used by God?
Are you willing to be used by God?
If not, prepare yourself.
Get ready.
Dive deep.
Understand.
Identify what God has blessed you with.
Within your service gifts and use those for the kingdom.
And so if you do know your gift, are you serving, are you using
the gifts that God has given you for his kingdom and, and not
our own?
And so the closing challenge here this morning is this.
Do you know him in a personal way?
Have you trusted in him as Savior?
Number two?
Have you identified your spiritual gift?
Number three, if you have identified your spiritual gift, are
you using that gift within the church, within the community, within
the world?
So may we have the same heart as our Lord, Humbled in spirit, unified
in purpose and sacrificial.
God has not given us the gifts to sit on the sidelines.
I think that many of us understand this principle.
We have some sports teams here at our church that we have, and it's
great.
It's an awesome ministry.
And if someone came out here, let's say, let's say I'm not a Phillies
fan, but let's say for whatever reason, Bryce Harper started
coming to our church, say, okay, great, you know, I would be
fine with that.
It's like, Bryce Harper, you need Jesus Christ.
Some of you are like, who is Bryce Harper?
He's a good, well known baseball player, okay?
And he started coming to our church, right?
And he sat down here in the pew and we're like, oh, amen.
You know, that's great.
Let's.
He gets saved.
And I don't know what his spiritual condition is, but let's
say this case, he gets saved within our church and he's here and
we tell him, hey, there's a church softball team.
If you get any free time in your week, you know, we'd love for
you to come out, like.
And he would be like, no, I'll just come out and watch.
We would say, like, what, What a waste.
What a waste.
We got an MLB player here, we can't use them.
And, and we laugh.
And that's.
It's.
We get that.
But think about, like, every single one of you that come to this
church and trust in Jesus Christ as your savior, have that
holy spirit living within you.
The same spirit that rose Jesus from the dead, the same spirit
that led David on the battlefield against Goliath, the
same spirit that brought fire down from heaven through Elijah,
the same spirit that was able to give peace to Stephen as he was
being stoned as a martyr, the same grace that was there for Paul
to preach the gospel to the lost and dying world is the same
spirit that lives within us.
And so when we sit in the pew and we don't utilize the Spirit of
God in our life.
And it's just as crazy as a professional baseball player sitting
here and not getting on the field.
It's like, why are we sitting on the sidelines?
Let's get in.
Let's get involved.
And some of you say, pastor, I've been involved, but it's been
a long time and I've lost my skill set.
Okay, well, you know what happens?
Let's say we don't have Bryce Harper come out, but who's an old
Phillies player.
That's way beyond their years.
Okay, someone tell me, was that Mike Schmidt?
Okay, Mike Schmidt comes here.
Mike Schmidt's like, pastor Josh, you don't want me on the softball
field.
You might have to have liability.
I might blow something out.
But you know what?
If I had Mike Schmidt out here, I said, you better start teaching
those guys.
Get them out there.
Get those young guys out there on the ball field and start teaching
them.
It's the same thing with us.
Some of us might not have the same skill set as we used to physically,
but now we're able to pass that torch on to the next generation.
I'm not able to get out and knock on those doors.
I'm not able to get out and build those things.
But I can walk a young Christian through that same process
of what I went through in growth.
And so do you see that?
Sometimes the role changes, but the same purpose is there.
It's to lift up the cause of the gospel.
It's to encourage other people to come to know Jesus and to teach
them how to walk in that path that Jesus has called us to walk
in.
And so, though this is just an introductory sermon, God has not
called us to sit on the sidelines.
He's called us, and he's equipped us to serve within the church
and to reach our community and to glorify Christ in this world.
And so today, have you trusted in Jesus?
If you have, praise God.
The Bible tells us, theologically speaking, that the
Holy Spirit now lives within us.
The next question is, how am I living that out in my life?
How am I serving?
How am I sacrificing?
Is it with humility?
Is it with harmony?
Is it with a heart of service and sacrifice?
This morning, you have an opportunity to respond.
I hope that you come back in the future, because we're going to
dive deeper into some of these elements of the gift of service.
And so let's go ahead now and have a time of invitation, time of
response.
If you're able to stand with me, every head bowed, every Eye closed
as the music plays here.
I don't want anyone looking around.
I don't want any distractions.
But what I do want is a time for you to respond to the word of
God here.
This morning, the first and biggest question that we always ask
is this.
Do you know Jesus as your personal Savior?
Have you trusted in him and him alone to save you from your sins?
If that be the case, praise God, we have a reason to rejoice.
We have a reason to celebrate this morning.
But secondly, if you've trusted in Jesus as your Savior,
have you taken that next step of saying what I want to serve him
at the best I can in the most effective and efficient way for the
cause of the kingdom.
If so, praise God.
Keep up the good work, keep the faith, keep serving, keep sacrificing.
But if not, it's never too late to get started.
It's never too late to put to practice what God has blessed you
with in such a great way.
If you are serving, are you serving with humility?
Are you serving with harmony?
Or if you serving with the heart of sacrifice and service?
If not, get that right with him today.
Get that right.
Get your heart aligned with him so that we can walk in unison.
As the body of Christ.
Lord, I pray that you be in this time of invitation, working
hearts and lives.
I pray that you can speak to those who need spoken to today, that
you can comfort those that need comforting today, that you can
challenge those that need that challenging today.
We ask all those things in Jesus name.
Amen.
And some have already come.
Follow as the Lord leads here this morning.