As was pointed out last week, Romans 12:1-2 are a key point of the letter. Paul has explained the gospel in all its fullness, launching it with Romans 1:17-18 and now after exploding in a song of praise at he draws breath and reflects on our reaction to God’s grace and glory.

It is vital we get the perspective right. There is nothing I can do to win God’s favour, he offers it freely through Jesus. It is to be received by faith. Everything that follows is an act of worship, an expression of praise and thanksgiving. And we are beginning to look at what that means in terms of being church, in terms of being part of the community, in terms of being part of our country and so on.

 

 READ Romans 12:1-8

 

  So having set the scene last week, we now begin to examine the detail.

 

The idea that what follows is a set of rules about how and when and what to do is clearly not on because Paul has said that we need to let God change the way we think. Or in

NIV speak ‘be transformed by the renewal of your mind.’ And the first aspect of your mind renewal in the way you think about yourself.

 

Self evaluation – What am I worth? Next week we are going to do a small exercise about our gifts of service. On the form is the comment “in identifying gifts, try to be honest rather than modest”. We tend to go one of two ways. We either have an inflated view of our ego and see ourselves as superior to others, able to do everything or we have a poor self-view and think of ourselves as rubbish, not able to measure up to others, ashamed of ourselves and our actions, incapable of pleasing God.

 

The glory of our gospel is that the very basis of tour self-esteem is changed. No longer am I measuring myself by what I think of others or they think of me, or by what I think of myself but we see ourselves in God’s view, sinners, love and needing to be saved. God, the creator, created you for love and good works. He sent Jesus to take away the destruction of sin and triumph over death and he sent his Holy Spirit to empower you to live, as he would have you live. God’s verdict on us all is that we are all sinners and we all need his salvation and he gives is as an act of grace, to be received by faith. And that principle should colour everything we think. Life is to be seen as receiving grace by faith and living it out. So instead of valuing yourself by what you think others think of you or what you think of yourself we should measure ourselves by the grace that has been given and the faith that has received it. Have you put your faith and trust in Jesus? Yes! Then you have faith. How am I meant to live? By faith!

 So we are to measure ourselves by the measure of faith not any other measure.

“Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.”

 So ‘how tall are you?’ Should be ‘what measure of faith have you’.

 

The key point here is that the measure is not in comparison with others. It is that YOU have been given a measure of faith and so have I. What is yours and what is mine should not be a matter of superiority or low self esteem but of understanding.

 

This is so difficult for us to get out of our heads because envy and covetousness are part of our world. So step out of the mould, in the power of the Holy Spirit and be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Reject every thought that compares your faith with others. The living sacrifice does not seek itself but the praise of the Saviour even Jesus Christ. Your object in life is to be a thank offering for all that he has done in bringing salvation and all that he is doing in your new life and all that he will do in eternity. And what he is doing in your life is giving you a unique faith that is a part of the whole picture of faith. Just as the Holy Spirit divided itself to each of the disciples, so also we are given different faith in keeping with our personalities. God is not boring. He does not make endless clones. He created us to be different and to be different living sacrifices, different expressions of worship and praise.

So to understand the measure of faith you have is to get rid of the concept of measuring it with a ruler and entering to an understanding that God wants you to express your faith, which he has given you, in the way that he wants you to.

 

Part of the body - Belonging to each other

  The second point is that your faith and my faith belong to each other as we belong to each other. “You are the body of Christ and each one of you is part of it.”  Now again, our unregenerate thinking is to make belonging into get control of. In marriage we like to exert power over one another and get satisfaction from one another. In family life the same applies. At work control and getting something from others is apparently the way to success. But that is not the response to the love of God in Christ Jesus. Let God change the way you think. The living sacrifice wants to reflect the love of Jesus, who gave rather than received, who wrapped himself in the towel of service rather than the mantle of a king. So in every social grouping, our thinking has to be transformed. In marriage it is not what I get out of it but what can I give.  In family the interrelations are the same each is looking to help the other and build them up. At work you are looking to enable all your workmates to succeed not for you to rise above the rest. In church we are not looking for what we can get but what we can give. Our pleasure is in seeing others expression of faith. That is why testimony is such a valuable part of church life. It is when we share each others faith and are able to rejoice in it. House Group is so important for you because it is where you are able to express your faith and the difficulties you have with faith and pray over one another’s struggles and joys. We belong to one another. Lets see that as an enriching and deeply spiritual part of our lives, not church just as a social event on our busy calendars.

 

 Different gifts Exercised in proportion to faith

 Thirdly there is a diversity of gifts given so that the combined effect of the church gives the full picture rather than the work of the individual.

 

We need to understand that what Paul is saying in these verses is that the gift or gifts you have been given are to be used in proportion to your faith not just prophecy but also serving,  teaching, encouraging, contributing to the needs of others,  leadership or showing mercy. Back to the measure thing. Knowing the faith that God has given you, not whether it is bigger or smaller than others but what faith you have leads you to use the gifts in a direct relation to the faith that you have.  So there is no big faith that produces big gifts. Moving mountains only requires little faith, supernatural gifts are a response o one with faith to use them not that we work our way through a hierarchy to get to the top. In fact, because we believe in the priesthood of all believers we believe that any member of the body of Christ is capable, in the power of the Holy Spirit to express supernatural gifts or other gift. So Paul links two questions together What faith have you been given? to What gift have you been given? and says Use it!

I must repeat that you have faith, God has given that to you. That is how you come into the blessing of salvation. By receiving the grace of God by faith. By saying to God, I am sorry for the sin in my life, please forgive me. I receive the new life you have given me and the Holy Spirit to be with me. Amen

Without faith it is impossible to please God. We all suffer from the temptation to think that our faith is no good. But our faith is given to us. It is sufficient for salvation and it is sufficient for life. It is sufficient for what God has called us to. So live by faith and, in the church exercise that faith by exercising the gifts God has given you.

 

The list that follows is not a definitive list. In fact there is no definitive list in the Bible. And it is not always clear where one gift ends and another begins. Here prophecy and teaching are identified but sometimes teaching is prophetic and prophecy is always to develop our understanding.

 

Here the only apparent supernatural gift is prophecy. This is a gift that can easily be abused as a means of power or wealth. But Paul actually does put it at the top of the lists because of its strategic place in the development of the body. It is not as some think future telling or fortune telling. It is forth telling. Expressing, in the Holy Spirit, the truths that God wants to reveal.  Experimentally it is either words or pictures that come into the prophet’s mind. We are taught as a church to test prophecy against the revealed Word of God. In practice the church encourages prophecy but it has to be within proper bounds. So in a service if someone has a gift of prophecy, in other words, has  some words or a picture they believe comes from God, not their own mind, they should share it. Paul in 1Corinthians say only two or three at a time. It is the practice of the churches where prophecy is common for the prophecy first to be told to the designated leader or elder and they are to affirm if it is of God, then it should be shared with all.

 

But right alongside prophecy is serving. It is not the other end of some human scale it is another expression of the measure of faith and a gift of the Holy Spirit. Do not be persuaded that the serving tasks in the church are somehow not supernatural. They may be imitated in the world but never equalled. The service of a Christian is driven by  more than human love. It comes from a realisation that God has loved us so wonderfully and fully that we want to express that love and the best way of expressing and praising him for his love is to share that love with others. So stewarding or making teas or putting out chairs is part of this service of worship and praise this morning. Each server is just as much worshipping as Sylvia was by leading or  I am by teaching. Those who wash up worship at the kitchen sink, those who dry up praise the Lord with tea towels. And it goes further than Sunday morning.  Worship carries on throughout the week as living sacrifices ring each other up to encourage one another,  offer to shop for others, visit, help out or whatever God gives you as a gift to do. The NIV is slightly ambiguous here but I think we know that our contribution is to reduce the needs of others! And we are called to do it generously because of the overwhelming grace that we have received. The key point about each of these gifts is to use them. Know what gift God has given you, recognise it as the measure of faith you have and use it freely as you have received.

The leadership Team meets tonight its agenda is the summer activities – Summer Specials, Refresh, Bourne School Fair, reviewing Fellowship and serving in the church, the use of these spiritual gifts in the church, exploring how to develop Youth Work and appoint a  Youth Worker. Are you going to support them in first prayer, second financing what God leads them to invest in and in encouraging them in their leading.  You notice that encouraging is in the centre of this list. The world thinks of it as generating ‘Team Spirit’. But we have a living Person who is the Holy Spirit in us. Encouraging is an expression of your faith to someone else, it is a gift you can give, even when it is received with embarrassment! Don’t give up just because the recipient is preoccupied or even offhand. It is your spiritual act of worship to the God who gave you the gift and it will change the whole tenor of our fellowship. You can encourage by saying ‘Thank you’ or by sharing a word of scripture you have or an experience of God you have, or a word of prophecy or by contributing to the needs of others by friendship, meals, shopping, finance or whatever you are given that you can use to encourage others.

 The final gift is a bit of a surprise. In my mind it is God who merciful, not me. It is the role of a judge or magistrate to temper justice with mercy. So what is going on here? Who needs mercy and who gives it?

Logically we who have received mercy are the ones who, in imitation of our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, would want to be expressing his mercy to others as an act of worship.

We are all sinners saved by grace and we are called to be part of the body of Christ made up of saved sinners. And among those saved sinners will be murderers, thieves, prostitutes, child abusers and even bankers and MPs. And we have to demonstrate the love of God in mercy. Those whom God has forgiven and have paid the just and lawful penalty and are repentant of the sin or crime that they have committed should be welcomed as brother or sister in Christ.

We would take steps to protect the members of the fellowship, so for example, someone with a history of child abuse would be required to agree a contract preventing them having contact with children and so on.  

However, we welcome all in the name of Jesus, We are commanded to love our enemies and that means showing mercy and not vengeance. We receive all immigrant groups and refugees without rancour about them being here to get our benefits, houses, jobs, etc. We show mercy. In fact we are to show it cheerfully. That is the opposite of grudgingly. Our gospel is about sinners saved, runaways come home, refugees who have found a home. They belong to us as part of the body of Christ.

 

 So in summary the first area of change in our thinking is in the area of our view of self, the second is in the area of belonging to the body of Christ our dependence on each other and thirdly we have to let God change the way we think in regard to gifting. And we have only started on the outcome of being the living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. Don’t wallow in self-pity or arrogance, have a proper view of yourself based on what God thinks of you. Having a proper view of the church as a place of expressing thankfulness by serving one another. Have a proper view of gifts, based on the measure of faith, not the desire to compare with one another. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good , pleasing and perfect will.

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