Good morning friends, I hope this finds you well

I hope that you’re enjoying your morning I hope that you have just a blessed day of rest in Christ And you spend time with your families And just enjoy a day of worship This morning is going to be a little bit different than normal It’s going to be more of a devotion Just a little shorter in format Nonetheless, I hope it will be encouraging to you And I hope that will be built up by it So we’re going to be in Romans 12 this morning And the main idea that I want to communicate to you Is how we serve the Lord in serving the church And so if you have your Bible We’re going to be talking about the Bible With you, or your phone Would you turn with me to Romans 12 And we’ll read through the passage

Paul in Romans 12 He says this, starting in verse 1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God To present your bodies as a living sacrifice Holy and acceptable to God Which is your spiritual worship Do not be conformed to this world But be transformed by the renewal of your spirit By the rule of your mind That by testing you may discern What is the will of God What is good and acceptable and perfect For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think But to think with sober judgment Each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned For as in one body we have many members And the members do not all have the same function So we, though many, are one body in Christ And individually members one of another Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us Let us use them If prophecy in proportion to our faith If service in our serving The one who teaches in his teaching The one who exhorts in his exhortation The one who contributes in generosity The one who leads with zeal The one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness

So the backdrop of all this Paul has already explained From the beginning of Romans until now God’s plan of salvation And what is salvation He lays out that everyone is guilty No one is righteous He explains how one is justified in Christ And how we’re joined together Jew and Gentile into one body, no more dividing line. And now he sort of ends up in this spot of, okay, in light of all of that, this is what you do. If you got the prayer guide in the email, I pointed you to Ephesians 2 at 8, 9, and 10, where it says that you’ve been saved by grace, through faith, unto good works. So that being the backdrop, if God has saved you by his grace, he has recreated you unto good works. Ephesians says that you are his workmanship. And so again, that being the backdrop and sort of the foundation to move into, okay, God has saved me, he has recreated me, and he has given me strength, some tool, he has given me some gift of grace to serve his church with, to serve his kingdom for the betterment of the body as a whole. And I just want us to consider that this morning. It’s something that I’ve prayed a few times just in our services at Providence. I think it’s important that we really understand who we are, we understand what we have to offer, and we offer it cheerfully. As Romans says, to present our bodies as living sacrifices. And that’s pleasing to God. And so, just to start out, in verse 3, he says that everyone ought not to think more highly of himself than he should. But we should be sober-minded. We should think, think and do and act according to the measure of faith that God has assigned to us. And so, I think there’s probably two different avenues that you can go down that would take you off of the main highway where you don’t want to go. So, you could veer off to the left and you could do exactly what Paul says here and think too highly of yourself and you can go outside of the bounds that he set for you. And how he wants you to serve and help build his kingdom. Or you can go off on the other side of the road and you could have sort of a false humility or really just a too low of a view of yourself where you just don’t do anything and you’re of no use to the body anyway. And I want to share a story with you.

In my own life, of the first example, when we were at the Brook, Pastor Chad and I and a couple of the other elders, we were at this training

at someone’s house one night and it was pretty late and I was driving back home and I got to the red light just before my neighborhood and I had been thinking about some things and sort of had a light bulb moment and I was like, God revealed to me that I was coveting someone else’s gift. I had a desire to have a certain style of rhetoric or preaching. I wanted to be something or have a skill that someone else had that I did not have. I was coveting someone else’s gift from God. And that was sinful. And I’m glad that God revealed that in me because it caused me to think through it and repent of that and it caused me to really seek out and desire to know who is it that God has made me to be in Christ and what is my role in building up the body, in building up the church. Who has God made me to be in that way?

And so I have done some searching there and I think probably more common, maybe I’m wrong on that, but I think more often people tend to leave it up to those who are called or leave it to the pastor or leave it to the chosen few or however you want to phrase it. And those people end up being, I don’t want to say consumers because I don’t think that’s their intention, but those people just sit back and let the select few do the work. And they think that’s what they should be doing, but probably not.

And Paul, Paul lays out here, again, go on from verse 3 into verse 4 and he says, for as one body we have many members and the members don’t have the same function, though we are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. And so if you are a blood-bought saint, if you are redeemed in Christ, you are a member of his body and so you are not without a role, you are not without a function.

It may be true that some members are more vital than others, not in value or importance, but just in the way that we serve the church. Some are called to be preachers of the word. And that’s a high calling. Some are called, to be teachers of the word and shepherds and guard the doctrine and guard the flock. And that’s a weighty task. And so I guess if I had to keep the analogy of the body, you know, if I take my own body, for example, my heart is more important to my body’s life than my left hand. I can live without my left hand, but I can’t live without my heart. And that’s not to say that we can live without some members of Christ’s body. It’s not at all what I mean. But sometimes we have to, in humility, as Paul said right here, sit back and say, okay, this is the measure that God has given me and I’m okay with that. And that’s what I had to do that night in my car. I had to. Take a step back and in humility say, you know, God has given me a certain role. God has given me a certain function. And I’m okay with that because in his great wisdom, he has decided that to be the case. And so, again, we are one body. And so we are all vitally important to one another. We all have a function. We all have a function and a purpose. And so I just really want to encourage you this morning to spend some time thinking about that. And Paul goes on to list different gifts that we have. And he mentions prophecy, preaching, proclaiming the truth, serving and teaching and exhortation. And so I think some of these are… Some of these are more pastoral. They are more shepherd driven. And they are roles only for those people who have been called to that. And then there are other roles that are more administerial. They’re helpful for maybe deacons in serving those who give themselves to prayer and preaching of the word. But both are necessary. And each one has his own role given by God. And so one can’t look at the other and say, I don’t need you. And vice versa because we all need each other. Because God has not given any of us a full measure of all of the gifts that we can be self-sustaining. And so I need you and you need me. And it’s a beautiful thing. It’s a beautiful thing, really. And I also want you to notice that all of these gifts are common. These aren’t the gifts that you see listed out in the letters to the Corinthians. Such as healing or tongues or interpretation of tongues. No, these are just… These are common. And that doesn’t change their importance.

Or their goodness. But they’re just perpetual in the church. And they’re common everyday things that we have to do to continue building the church and keeping her healthy.

And so, again, I really want us to consider now and continue to. And especially as we prepare to start… Start meeting again. I want you to be thinking about what it is that God has gifted you with. How can you assist Pastor Chad? How can you take part in… As he preaches the word to us and guards the doctrine and prepares us for service. How can we turn around and assist him in that service? That might… That might look like teaching the children. That might look like visiting sick people. That might look like counseling someone who is having trouble in their marriage. Or just relational troubles as a whole. That might look like serving in a ministry that one of our members has. You know? On his own. And we just go and help him there. That might look like helping with church finances. On and on and on.

That’s why we need you to consider what you’re talented at. What God has gifted you with. What he’s made you passionate about. And present yourself as a sacrifice and offer that up to him. And that is a pleasing thing. And it is for the… The good of the body as a whole. And we need to be body minded. We need to be conscious of the other members. Not only ourselves. And so I just want to encourage you with that. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out and ask. If you want us to be praying with you and for you. And talking through what it looks like for you to serve in God’s kingdom. We would be glad to do that. If you have any other questions, again, please feel free to ask. And just know, as I mentioned in the prayer guide, that the driving force of all of this is love. Don’t do it out of compulsion. Don’t do it out of anything. But I just love the Lord. And I want to serve his church. And so, let me just pray for you. And we will be done. Father in heaven, we thank you that by your grace we have been saved. We thank you that you have come down. And that you have rescued us. We thank you that we now have a joyful song to sing. And Lord, we know that you’re still gathering in all of those who are the bride of Christ. And that you… That you use us. And we thank you that you use us. And we thank you that you’ve not left us up to our own power or devices or schemes. But that you’ve given us gifts. You’ve given us pastors and shepherds. You’ve given us people with wisdom and discernment. You’ve given us people who are good with money and good with ideas and administration, Lord. You’ve gifted us. And so, we just ask that you would help us to know what it is that you’ve gifted us with individually.

Help us to employ that in our daily lives and in the life of our local church at Providence. And that you would just make us successful, Lord, as we seek to grow your church. Lord, as we seek to win souls for Christ. And as we seek to build one another up into mature Christians. And I just pray that you would be with us. And I pray that you would keep us. And I pray that you would just comfort us, Lord. And we just love you. And we worship you in Jesus’ name. Amen.