Your Place in the Church

Your Place in the Church

“Your Place in the Church”

(Romans 12:3-8)

Series: Not Guilty!

Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD

First Baptist Henderson, KY

(10-25-09) (AM)

 

  • Take your Bibles and open to Romans, chapter 12.

 

We are preaching our way through the Book of Romans, verse-by-verse, expository preaching through books of the Bible.  I will be in Thailand with our mission team for the next two Sundays but we’ll continue our study through Romans.  We have two very able expositors on staff, Brother Rich Stratton, our minister of education, whom you have been blessed to hear regularly in my absence.  And more recently, Brother Matt McCraw, our new minister to students.  These two men will pick up where we leave off today and take us on into chapter 13.  Brother Matt will preach next Sunday morning and evening and then Brother Rich will preach the following Sunday morning and evening and I’ll pick up where they leave off.  Among other things, this demonstrates our belief that power comes not from any particular preacher, but from the Word of God.

 

Romans 12 begins a new section of material in the Book of Romans.  Paul gives us 11 chapters of doctrine and now tells us how all of that great teaching about the many mercies of God applies in our lives.  So he opens chapter 12 with, “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.” That is, in view of all that God has done for you in Christ Jesus, live this way.  And he tells us how we are to live.  He says in verse 2, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  That is, you’re a Christian now, so you think differently from the world.  So verse 3 and following gives us specific ways we are to think and act in the church.  Listen for that as I ask you to stand.

 

  • Stand in honor of the reading of the Word of God.

 

3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

4 For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function,  5 so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.

6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith;

7 or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching;

8 he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.

 

  • Pray.

 

Introduction:

 

Last Sunday evening, during our wonderful deacon ordination service, we were blessed to hear the personal testimonies of our two new deacons, Brother Sid and Brother Dave.  And both also did a fine job answering doctrinal questions put before them.  You will recall that when asked the question, “What is the church?” that neither man spoke of the church as a building, but as a body.  I realize it is common to speak of the church as a building.  I have done that.  Someone asks, “Where is your church?” and I reply, “It’s on the corner of Center and Elm streets,” but of course that is only where is located the church building.  First Baptist Church of Henderson is wherever this body of believers gathers together.  That’s the church.  Had we gathered outside this morning over in Central Park, then First Baptist Church would not be at the corner of Center and Elm, but in Central Park.  If we met over at the Fine Arts Center for an evening of worship and praise then, for that evening, First Baptist Church would be located at the Fine Arts Center, because a church is not a building, but a body; a body of believers.

 

Having given us 11 chapters of solid teaching about how we are justified by grace through faith in Christ alone, the Apostle Paul now turns to the practical ways this teaching works in and through the church body.  We have a very succinct and straightforward teaching about the church and about our place in the body of Christ.  The passage, these six verses, verses 3-8, call for three commitments of every church member.  Every single member of First Baptist Church must make these three commitments.  First:

 

I. Commit Yourself to Humility (3)

 

3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

 

Humility is the ability to get ourselves out of the way to the benefit of others.  That each of us regularly humbles himself and herself is essential to the health of First Baptist Church.  Look again at verse 3:

 

3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

 

Remember that verse 3 follows the teaching of verse 2 which is, “Be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” that is, change your way of thinking—thinking that includes the way you think about yourself and about others.”  Paul says, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but think soberly.”

 

Some people think too highly of themselves.  The word in the Greek is something like, “Hyper-thinker,” or “Super-thinker” of oneself.  In effect, Paul says if you are a “Super-thinker” of yourself, you need to sober up!  He says at the end of verse 3, “Think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.”

 

The Phillips translation puts it this way: “Don’t cherish exaggerated ideas of yourself or your importance, but try to have a sane estimate of your capabilities by the light of the faith that God has given to you all.”

 

This probably expresses the gist of what Paul means here.  On the other hand, that last phrase, “as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith” may refer to the enabling power or ability God has given us to each of us as we serve in the church.  The context supports this idea as we’ll see in a moment.

 

One thing is clear: We must not think of ourselves more highly than we ought!  We must commit to humility.  We’ll see one of the reasons Paul calls for humility later in chapters 14 and 15, as Paul addresses particular concerns of the churches in Rome.  Humility in the church is essential to our health.  We cannot be all God would have First Baptist be until each of us commits to and practices humility—getting ourselves out of the way to the benefit of others.

 

As this applies to working in the church, it means that no one of us regards ourselves as more valuable to God than any other.  Such self-importance and self-promotion is antithetical to the Christian cause.  Do you remember how Paul scolds the foolish church of Corinth in this matter?  In 1 Corinthians 3, various church members were boasting, “Well, I’m a follower of Paul” and the next guy says, “I’m a follower of Apollos,” Paul asks (1 Corinthians 3:5-7):

 

5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one?

6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.

7 So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters (is anything), but God (He’s everything!) who gives the increase.

 

If you’re “not anything,” then you’re really “nothing.”  This is not said to make us feel badly about ourselves, but it is said to make us think rightly about ourselves.  We must get ourselves out of the way to the benefit of others.  First Baptist Church does not revolve around you and your wants.  First Baptist does not center upon you and your talents.  The moment you begin to muse with pride, “Where would this church be without me?” you are in danger of the same fate that befell Satan, that evil devil who was once Lucifer, a good angel whose pride got the best of him and caused him to fall.  Commit yourself to humility.  Secondly:

 

II.  Commit Yourself to Unity (4-5)

 

4 For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function,  5 so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.

 

That last phrase, “and individually members of one another” in the NIV is, “and each member belongs to all the others.”  That probably captures the application of our interdependency in the body of Christ.  Church members are not independent, but interdependent.  We need each other.

 

The New Testament takes for granted that every Christian is a member of a local church.  It’s just a given in the New Testament.  Christian baptism illustrates our break with the old life and, through the power of Christ’s resurrection; the ability to walk in a new way of life and all of this is done in and through the body of Christ.  Baptism is the means by which we identify with a local church.  Being an active church member is just a given in the New Testament.

 

The peculiar contemporary problem of persons somehow professing to be Christians but not actively involved as members of a local congregation is completely foreign to the Bible—completely foreign!  This problem is likely the result of the lack of clear preaching and teaching from the Bible.  We read these texts and we read nothing of an “option” when it comes to church membership.  Nor do we read anything of being in a state of limbo or being a member of a church back where we grew up and not uniting with a church where we actually now live.  We moved everything else from that community years ago—our family, our job, our home—but we have not moved our church membership!  There’s nothing like that at all anywhere in the Bible.  It is completely a cultural contrivance with absolutely no Scriptural basis whatsoever.

 

Worse is the person who cannot find a church suitable to join.  When I spoke with Dr. Danny Akin a week and a half ago at Southeastern Seminary, he was telling me about meeting one particular scholar many years earlier when he was younger.  Danny asked him where he went to church and this scholar and writer of books said with a great deal of arrogance, “Oh, I don’t go to church.  I haven’t found one I agree with.”  Such arrogance!

 

We need one another.  We cannot grow and know Christ and be blessed as God would have us until we interrelate with one another.  The “Great Commandment” of Matthew 22 has both a vertical and horizontal dimension.  Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-39).”

 

If your Bible reading seems dry and dull, let me ask, “Are you intentionally talking with others about the things of God?”  I am not asking, “Do you talk baseball, or do you talk football, or even do you talk about church activity.”  I am asking, “Do you talk intentionally about doctrine, about the Bible, about Jesus Christ, the cross, the atonement, the resurrection—you know, the things you read about in your Bible?”  You belong to one another.  You were meant for relationships with one another, to grow with one another.

 

When Paul prays that the Christians in Ephesus, “may be able to comprehend…what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that (he says) you may be filled with all the fullness of God,” he prays that this would happen “with all the saints” (Ephesians 3:18-19).  I pray that you may be able to comprehend this “with all the saints.”

 

We were meant to study and grow together.  I find it tragic and sad when I talk with someone who professes to have been a Christian for decades, but does not even speak so much as a syllable of the things of God.  They can talk for hours about sports, or community events, or even some activity they used to do years ago in the church, but try to talk to them about the significance of Christ’s death on the cross and there is silence.  Try to talk about evangelism and missions or the reality of hell and there is a blank look on the face.  Try to talk about the righteousness of Christ imputed to us freely by grace through faith and again, nothing!

 

We are meant to study and grow together as an unified body, an organic unity.  Unity is not like a train with a bunch of cars joined together.  You have the engine and another car and another car and finally the caboose.  That’s not it.  The train can run without several of the cars.  The church is not united like a train, but like a living, breathing organism, an organic unity like a human body.

 

Paul says in verses 4-5, “For as we have many members in one body,” that is, just as a human body has many “members” or many “body parts,” but all the members do not have the same function, so we (church, so we) being many, are one body in Christ.”

 

See the connection now between humility (3) and unity (4-5)?  We are not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought.  No one is to go it alone.  We need one another, like a healthy human body needs all of the body parts to be whole.

 

The moment any part of my body acts on its own independent of the entire body, then my whole body suffers.  If a person suffers from a regular twitching or a tick of some kind, what is happening is that a part of that person’s body is acting independently of the rest of the body.  The person isn’t do it himself.  That’s why it is called an involuntary movement.  A part of that person’s body is acting independently of the rest of the body and therefore causing discomfort to the whole of the body.

 

So if a person in the church body begins to act independently of the body, rather than interdependently, but rather stands apart from the congregation on some matter then that person is like a bad tick or twitch to the church.  “Well, I don’t believe in FAITH evangelism,” or, “I don’t like that music,” or, “I don’t like this,” or, “Well, the church may do it this way, but I’m going to do it my way!” you’ve become like a bad eye twitch to the body!  And the whole body is adversely affected because of you.

 

We’ll study this point a little more fully tonight in our “digging deeper” message and maybe take a closer look at how this passage in Romans 12 parallels much of what Paul says about the body in 1 Corinthians 12.

 

But one more thing before we move on.  One of the purposes of unity is that, according to Jesus Christ, it is through unity that the church evangelizes the world.  In John 17:21, Jesus prays this way for His disciples, “that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.”  One of the major purposes of unity is evangelism and world missions.

 

No church whose heart beats for evangelism and missions has a problem with unity.  Jesus instructs us in Acts 1:8 to take the Gospel to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the utter ends of the earth.  Our Jerusalem is our community—Henderson.  Our Judea is our commonwealth—Kentucky,  Our Samaria is our country—the United States.  And the ends of the earth are the continents—across the globe.  We’re to take the Gospel to these four areas of community, commonwealth, country, and continents not sequentially, but simultaneously.  Jesus doesn’t say, “First take the Gospel to your Jerusalem, and then take it to Judea,” and so forth.  There is no sequence.  It is to be simultaneous.  We are to be working these four areas simultaneously.  And we cannot do this effectively until we are united together as a congregation.  No church whose heart beats for evangelism and missions has a problem with unity.

 

We must commit ourselves to humility and we must commit ourselves to unity.  Thirdly:

 

III.  Commit Yourself to Ministry (6-8)

 

Every member of First Baptist Church is a minister.  Did you know that?  Not everyone is a pastor, but everyone is a minister.  We all have various gifts and talents and we’re to use those gifts and talents through the church for the glory of God.  Paul mentions seven gifts that are given by God to various church members. Because they are given by way of the Holy Spirit, we call these gifts “spiritual gifts.”  He says in verse 6 that we have “gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us.”

 

Probably too much is made about the exact moment these gifts are given by God to the Christian.  Truth is, every gift we have is that which comes from God.  Paul asks the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 4:7, “What do you have that you did not receive?”  Whether it is characterized as a spiritual gift or a natural ability, it comes from God.  It may be a so-called natural talent a person has before becoming a Christian or a gift a person has discovered since becoming a Christian.  In either case, it comes from God and should be used for the glory of God.  James says in James 1:17, “Every good and perfect gift comes from above.”

 

So Paul lists seven gifts here.  This list is not meant to be exhaustive.  There are other gifts and you may wish to write down these other references: 1 Corinthians 12 and then Ephesians 4 and 1 Peter 4.  Two 12s and two 4s: Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12 and then Ephesians 4 and 1 Peter 4.  You’ll read there of other spiritual gifts given to members to be used in the church.  But even with these other passages, it is important to remember that no list is exhaustive.  Spiritual gifts are given by God to particular members as required in particular churches.  The point is that every single one of us has a unique talent or gift or ability to be used for the glory of God.  Well let’s look at these seven gifts mentioned here:

 

6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith;

 

In the New Testament, prophets may have told of future events, but the gift of prophecy was not so much “fore-telling” as it was “forth-telling” or “telling-forth.”  It was primarily revealing the truth of God, or revelation.  Vocal revelation of God came before the written revelation of God.  Before the Bible was fully assembled into the 27 books of the New Testament, prophets spoke much as the Old Testament prophets of God.  With the New Testament in our hands now, the gift of prophecy is largely that of proclaiming the truth of God’s word, as in pulpit proclamation or preaching to groups of people, or even of speaking the truths of the Gospel to small groups.  This is the primary sense of New Testament prophecy as a gift.

 

Verse 7, “ministry” is the gift of serving.  The word there is the word from which we get “deacon.”  Deacons are servants.  But a person may have the gift of serving who is not a deacon.  Do you have the gift of serving?

 

The word “teaching” in verse 7 refers to the careful interpretation and explication of Scripture.  A person with the gift of teaching loves to take a passage of Scripture and explain its meaning and its application.  Every pastor must have the gift of teaching, a requirement stated in 1 Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:9.   Do you have the gift of teaching?

 

Verse 8 lists four other gifts.  First, “exhortation.”  This is also translated as “encouragement.”  But this is not encouragement only in the sense of, “Well, keep your chin up.  Things are bound to get better.”  A person with the gift of exhortation encourages people in the ways of God, to apply the truths of God, to live in accordance to the truths of Scripture.  Sometimes it takes the form of loving warning and rebuke, but all with the aim of edifying a person in the ways of God.

 

Then there is “he who gives.”  Every member is called to give to the church.  We all should give at least a tithe, at least 10%.  God owns everything.  Christian giving begins with the tithe and grows beyond the tithe through offerings.  But God has uniquely gifted some persons with the special ability to increase in wealth for the purpose of giving that wealth away.  That’s the gift of giving.  Do you have that gift?

 

Then, “he who leads.”  The word means, “To stand before” others.  God has gifted some individuals in the church to lead others in a winsome and engaging way.  I am grateful for the many volunteer leaders who join alongside the ministerial staff and deacon body as we together fulfill God’s call upon First Baptist Church.

 

Then finally, “he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”  Some have the gift of showing mercy to the downcast and unfortunate.  Note this carefully, however.  It says, “he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”  This is not commiserating with the downtrodden so that the one becomes as downcast as the other!  Some people have the spiritual ability to show mercy with cheerfulness, to encourage the downtrodden but not in a way that gets them entangled in the emotions of the other.  Do you have the gift of mercy?  Can you help others in distress without getting yourself emotionally entangled?

 

What is your spiritual gift?  Maybe it wasn’t listed here.  What do you love doing?  How can you do that in and through the church body?  If what you are doing doesn’t bring you joy, you’re probably not using your gift, but you’re using someone else’s gift.  “All members do not have the same function (v.4).”  Discover your gift or gifts and then use them in and through the church for the glory of God.

 

Every member is a minister.  Every believing child who has received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, every teenager has a gift.  Every mom has a gift.  Every dad has a gift.  What are doing in the church?  How are you ministering to the body of Christ?  Are you teaching?  Are you greeting?  Are you welcoming people?  Are you working with babies?  Are you singing in the choir?  Are you playing that instrument?  Are you speaking words of encouragement?  Are you serving?

 

  • Stand for prayer.

 

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