Welcome to this message from the teaching ministry of university Presbyterian Church in Orlando, Florida, under the leadership of senior pastor Mike Osborne. While they're sitting down, if you want to turn with me and your Bibles to Romans, chapter 12, we're going to take a look at the first eight verses, Romans 12, 1 through 8, it's on page 1123, if you're using one of the Bibles that we do provide for you. Let me now read God's holy and inspired word. Paul writes, therefore I urge you brothers in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices. Holy and pleasing to God, this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will. For by the grace given to me, I say to every one of you, 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. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith, if it is serving, let him serve, if it is teaching, let him teach, if it is encouraging, let him encourage, if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously, if it is leadership, let him govern diligently, if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. The word of the Lord, let's pray. Father, we long to see in this text what you would have us see. We pray that your spirit would fall fresh on us, open our eyes and our ears. We pray that you would, as Brad asked earlier, use what we see in your word to change us, to transform us. And we ask that you would do this for your glory, and also for us to be better equipped to run with the gospel to our neighbors and to the nations, for it is in Jesus' name and for his sake that we pray. Amen. Well, we are continuing our sermon series on the Holy Spirit, been talking about him for several weeks now, who he is and what he does. This morning we are going to be talking about the fact that as followers of Christ, we all have certain gifts or abilities that every one of us is given, and it is a huge part of our faith. That is one of the things I want us to walk away with today, to realize that a huge part of following Christ is identifying our spiritual gifts and then serving the church and the world accordingly. Why do I think this is so big? I will tell you. We are looking at a little part of Romans 12, and at the beginning of this chapter Paul uses the word therefore, in a good rule of thumb, when you are looking at Scripture any time you see the word therefore, look and see what it is therefore. Good. So if we do that, we realize that the commentaries would say that he is not just talking about what he said in chapter 11, which should be right before 12, but actually 1 through 11. This is a major therefore, because in 1 through 11 he is talking about all sorts of stuff, he is talking about the righteousness of God and the sinfulness of man and the necessity of a Savior. He is talking about justification by faith, and then he is talking about how Christ is the new Adam, and then he moves into the 6 and 7 all, 6 and 7 of Romans. On sanctification, then 8 and glorification, 9 election, 10, he is talking about faith coming by hearing in 11, talking about his promises, and then he says therefore.
So it is big, and he, after saying that therefore, ends up talking about this fact that we all have gifts, we are given gifts, which means that you and I, every person in this room is uniquely gifted, uniquely able to meet some sort of need in the church, in our community, or somewhere in the world.
That makes me smile, I think it would make you smile too, the reality that every single person in this room, every single follower of Christ has been given abilities with which they can meet people's spiritual and physical needs. So let's talk about that, we are going to look at this in 4 things really, I want to just walk through and look at what Paul says, we are just going to walk through this passage, it is beautiful. We are going to talk about the right view of God's mercy, and then we will talk about the right view of the influences in our life, then we will talk about having a right view of ourselves, and that gets us ready to have a right view of what it means to have a spiritual gift. So let's jump in and look at Romans 121, therefore he says, I urge you brothers and view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing, this is your spiritual act of worship. This is an incredible thing for him to say, he's telling us that if we view God's mercy, the proper response is to say in our hearts, man I owe God everything. Absolutely everything, and that is what he's getting at here, and this phrase, spiritual act of worship is a notoriously difficult Greek phrase to translate into English, and what the NIV does is fine, it's great, it says that spiritual act of worship, but it also has the sense of truth, so other translations will say this is your true worship. It also has the sense of something rational or reasonable, something that makes sense, and so ultimately what he's saying here is if we look at God's mercy, if we realize that we really do deserve God's wrath yet, God has chosen to be gracious and pour out that wrath on his son, instead of you and me, and set us free from the penalty of sin as we think about that, as we realize how glorious Christ is for what he has done. God's mercy, the only response that makes sense is you and I would say, at your service Lord, everything. I give everything over to you. I want all my life, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year to be for you. Paul says that's the only thing that makes sense when we really get it, and he uses this phrase, sacrifice. It's really, he's wanting us to think of and remember the fact that in the Old Testament, the sacrifices were alive but then would die because they would take an animal to pay for their sin, to a tone for their sin, basically they would take animals, put them up on an altar and kill them and sacrifice them to God. So it's that imagery that you and I are basically laying our lives on God's altar and saying, do with me what you will and giving our life to God in the same way that those animals gave their life to God. One pastor says the problem with living sacrifices, they keep crawling off the altar. And that's kind of what repentance is as us coming back to God saying, I see your mercy, I realize I really should be giving everything to you and pursuing that again. And so that's what Paul is showing us here, that if we, in view of God's mercy, the only thing that makes sense is complete surrender to God, that we would do everything he would ask. And the beauty is, even though we fail to do that, he continues to love and forgive us, which again adds to the beauty of God's mercy. But that's big, it's important that we have that in our mindset, that we remember we owe God everything as we head towards understanding what it means to have a spiritual gift. So he talks about the right view of God's mercy. And then in the next verse, he looks at the right view of our influences. Look at verse two, he says, do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. It's wanting us to remember that there are competing forces for who we are. And he's using these words. Now, in the NIV it says, do not conform any longer but it's actually a passive verb. So both verbs are passive and so it would literally read, do not be conformed any longer but instead be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And what he's getting at is here there's the primary influences they're trying to get us to do things their way are the world and God. And that's huge that we understand that we think about that being the case because we have to realize that we're constantly being attacked by the world, the world wants to keep conforming us to itself. God, whoever wants to transform us into a person much more like him and it's interesting that he uses the words conform and transform because there are two different things. To conform something is to kind of take what's there and manipulate it however you want it to transform something is to take something and turn it into something else entirely. I'll give you an example, Legos. I am thankful that I am a dad because that means I get to play with Legos and it's not creepy because it's my kids are playing with them. But my sister lives up in Minnesota and Hannah and I got married and then had our reception in a beautiful building called the Landmark Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. And my sister remembering that that's where we had our reception saw a replica of the Landmark Center beautiful building made out of Legos. And so she texted Hannah and me that picture yesterday and it's pretty awesome. And here's the thing about Legos when you're building something with Legos and then you want to build something else. You only have so many pieces. And so you have to take apart what you had built and then build something else. Here's the difference between conforming and being transformed. We start out in this world sinful. Remember he's saying don't continue being conformed. The world conforms us to its image which is opposite of what God would have us be. And so the world's attempt is to try to keep us who we are to keep conforming us to itself. God is transforming us. He's taking apart all the pieces and rebuilding us to look and act a whole lot more like his son. And so there is a command to not be conformed by the world anymore to say no. And then open ourselves wide open to God and his mercy and let our minds be renewed by Scripture and experience that change. And here's the thing about that that's so interesting. In verse two, or I'm sorry in the second part of verse two, he says then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is. His good pleasing and perfect will. And what he's saying is that it takes transformation. Our minds do need to be renewed before we will actually see how good and glorious God's ways and God's will truly is. I talked to nonbelievers on occasion and I'm interested in the fact that very often when I'm speaking to people who don't believe what we believe, they ask me about what the Bible says about a certain topic. And so I tell them and very often their response is well, I don't agree with that. And it's so huge that you and I understand that God doesn't call us to agree with him. He calls us to submit to him big difference. But what Paul showing us here is as we fight against the world's influence on us and let God transform us. What happens is, as a living sacrifice, we say, okay, you win God, I surrender what you say is right, what you say is wrong is wrong, what you say is right is right. And I'll submit to that. And then over time, what he does is he helps us see how glorious and amazing and good and pleasing his will truly is. We're not called to agree, we're called to submit and then in time we will see how glorious he is. And so that's a big part of this. We've got to have that right view of the influences so that we understand the task is to realize the world's always trying to get us to go back into our sin, back into that misery. And God is graciously always seeking to transform us by the renewing of our mind, primarily by calling us to submit to what he says is right and over time after we've submitted to that we start seeing, wow, he really is right. These ways really are good. So it's not like Jesus Christ came, lived and died and then said and rose from the grave and then said to us, here's what's right and here's what's wrong and if you agree, I'll save you. No, he came and lived and died and rose again to show us that we're so confused by the conforming of the world that we need to be saved and we need to have our minds renewed. And so submitting is huge and being that's part of being a living sacrifice. So we're almost ready to talk about gifts. Paul has helped us remember what it really means to view God's mercy that we owe God everything. He helps us make sure we have a right view of the influences in our lives. It's the world is still trying to work on us. God is graciously more powerful than the world. And then third, we need to have a right view of ourselves. Look at verse three, for by the grace given to me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought. But rather think of yourself with sober judgment and accordance with the measure of faith, God has given you human beings because of the influence of the world. We all have a certain proclivity in how we view ourselves. And we always go to one end of a spectrum. And some of us go to the end of pride. Some of us walk around thinking we're pretty awesome. And others walk around feeling more desperate or like they're worthless. And that's that the world does to people. The world makes them feel like they're either great or they're worthless. And that's why we have to keep pushing against that because what Paul is showing us here is that we shouldn't think of ourselves more highly than we ought. He's saying there's no reason for us for you to be prideful. And then he says to think of yourself with sober judgment. What he's getting at is there's no reason to think less of yourself either. And so how does that happen? How do we fight against pride and then not feel worthless? And it's the gospel that doesn't. And that's why he says look back there again. He says that you do this in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Now think about that word measure. Your mind will normally jump to something having to do with quantity. But if you think of it that way that it might sort of backfire because if he's saying think of yourself according to how much faith you have. And if you think you have a lot of faith you're probably going to think pretty highly of yourself. And if you don't have a lot of faith you're probably going to think pretty low of yourself. And in the commentaries it shows that that word has another way to be translated which is actually standard. The type of faith. He's saying think about yourself in light of what your faith tells you. What does our faith tell us? Well one it destroys our pride because it says that we are so sinful, so wicked that the son of God had to come and be tortured and killed and hung on across. So that we could be forgiven. That's the ultimate pride killer. You're so sinful somebody had to die for you and so am I. But our faith also does not let us feel worthless because back to the gospel. It's not only that Christ had to die for you and me but he was willing to. He wanted to do it and what that does is it humbles us and makes us feel invaluable at the same time said that on Twitter and Facebook yesterday only Jesus can humble me and make me feel invaluable at the same time. I mean isn't he amazing. It's powerful. What else can do that? Nothing. So that's another facet here that we need on our journey towards understanding gifts. That beautiful picture of the fact that we need a savior and that should kill our pride and we have a savior who is willing to bleed for us which should help us to see that we are absolutely invaluable to God. Then you have a right view of God's mercy and then Paul gives us a right view of the influences and then he makes sure we have a right view of ourselves and now. Now he knows our hearts are ready for him to say what he wants to say about gifts and I love this. He says basically here's the right view of gifts everybody has one and therefore everybody matters. The world's idea of seeing someone sing on TV and saying wow that lady really has a gift is not biblical what's biblical is everybody everybody has some sort of spiritual gift an ability a capacity a talent. A way that they're able to serve the church and serve people everyone nobody in this room right now that believes in Jesus can think that they don't have some sort of gift it's not allowed the Bible doesn't allow it it's beautiful. And he gives this example look at verse four five and six justice each of us has one body with many members and these members do not all have the same function so in Christ we who are many form one body and each member belongs to all the others we have different gifts notice he doesn't say some people are real really gifted and others not so much no that is not the route that Paul goes. He says we all of us followers of Christ we have different gifts meeting that everybody has one but not everybody has the same gift and this and this illustration that he uses of the body is just perfect because what he's saying is like imagine my car broke down I had to push it to get some gas happens to me way more often than you want to know. Imagine I'm going to do that I'm going to push on the back of my car my whole body is going to be engaged here my hands are working my legs are working my eyes are working everything about me is going to be pushing on that car or it's not going to go anywhere or I'm going to push it into a ditch everything has a I don't know why I chose a car I couldn't push a car of my life depended on a small ball needs to be rolled down the way but you see what I mean it's like you everything has to work together but everything is is functioning in a different way and he's saying that's how the church is. Every one of us is uniquely designed to do some unique thing that helps proclaim and demonstrate the gospel to a world that's dying for it that's incredible news and the see the world will will try to take that out the world will try to get you in me to think that there are important people and not so important people the world will try to get you in me to think that some gifts are really important some are not that big a deal and again this is why Paul set us up by making sure we realize no don't listen to the world. You let God tell you about you and what God says about you is that there's something special and unique about every single one of us that we are uniquely wired to meet some need in our community or in the church or in the world absolutely none of us should ever ever say about ourselves I am worthless nor should we say I'm awesome. Okay neither one. Instead we're again right view of ourselves we are humbled by the fact that someone had to die for us but invaluable knowing that he did and so realizing that we all have these different gifts and they're all important then what he does in six through eight as he lists some gifts prophecy teaching encouraging serving giving and I would love to go into some of those we don't have time to do that today we can come back some of those. We can come back some other time and do that and this is not the only list there's other lists of spiritual gifts in scripture there's one in first Corinthians 12 which you can look at and most of the scholars would tell you that it's probably neither list is probably exhaustive because what we're learning is that whether or not there's a specific set of spiritual gifts and there may be but the main thing is that every one of us has a gift every one of us has an ability with which to serve with which to bless people with which to bless people. To work towards our mission see our mission again is to make disciples of all nations and the beautiful thing about that is everybody plays a part every single one of us we don't all do the same things but every single one of us has a different function as we move forward striving to make disciples of all nations and it's so amazing to know that God has not only redeemed you in me and not only is he making us all more like his son by the power of the Holy Spirit but then he's given each of us a little boost a little more Christ-likeness in one area of our lives with which we can serve with which we can love and bless it's almost shocking. And so while I'm not going to spend time on the gifts I want you to realize that we are really excited as a session and Mike and I have been talking we're really excited about helping make sure everybody understands what their gift is. We want everybody to be serving out of their unique wiring and meeting needs really only they can meet. I mean those needs exist because you have the gifts or you have the gifts because those needs exist either way. We want to sort of blow the categories for what serving is and make sure that people understand that you don't have to serve only through some specific program or ministry. Any way that you are using the unique wiring that you have to serve people to proclaim and demonstrate the gospel that is serving that is part of how you are living sacrifice. And we want people to know how they're gifted and then unleash them to kick some you know what and take some names in the kingdom of darkness. We want to do some serious, serious work here now. I want to here's the challenge. Ready? Here's the challenge. If you know what your spiritual gifting is and you are using it then we want to enlist you to help teach others how to do that. If you know what your unique wiring is what your gifting is and you're not using that to serve the church or the community or the world in some way we want to challenge you to do that. If you don't know what your spiritual gifting is we want you to find out and we're going to be doing some things in our life groups and things even from the pulpit. We want to do some things to make sure that everybody knows everybody knows what their unique wiring is and then they're unleashed to do that. We're excited about that. See I have this theory. I think that there are a lot of people who really want to serve but they don't really know how God has uniquely wired them to do so and so it sort of is a hindrance. I also have a theory that there are several people who have tried to serve but maybe weren't in the area of their gifting and it didn't work out so well and they sort of got burnt out on it. And what we want is for every single person to know how they're uniquely wired and then unleash them and encourage them and help them develop that gift and use that gift to have an incredible impact on our city and even on the world. You, every one of us because everybody matters and that's what we're going to one of the things that we're going to be focusing on as we move forward here. Now because keep this in mind, everything we're talking about is in view of God's mercy. Let's see how Paul started this. In view of God's mercy which means that as we're thinking about all these things we're going to be thinking about the fact that we have a living sacrifice for us. Jesus lived his entire life in complete submission to God so that he could be our living sacrifice. He willingly went up onto a cross and suffered the wrath that you and I deserve and then rose again so our sacrifice Jesus is living. He's alive. And the one who is alive and powerful enough to rise from the dead is telling you and me that he's given us abilities with which to serve, which with to make an impact on this world with which to fight hard to make our contribution to the completion of the great commission. And the reality is the more we view God's mercy, the more we see that and see the glory of Christ in the scriptures. The more we view the fact that Christ laid his entire life down for God and for people, that's what gives us power. That's what transforms us. That's how the Holy Spirit works in us to help us to more and more lay our life down for God. And for people knowing that we all have different gifts and every gift matters, I have this idea just from my brain. So take it for what it's worth. But every week, most weeks, except for this week, ironically, there's some inserts in the worship guy. The week I want to use this as an illustration, not there. But normally, there are inserts in your bulletin or in your worship guy. And I know the person who has been doing that for years, years. I'm not going to say who they are because they don't do it for the recognition. They do it to serve. But what we're seeing here, what I want you to realize, here's what I think about when I think about stuff in bulletins and what Paul is saying here. I just kind of have this imagined idea that when that person is standing before Christ and hearing the words well done, good and faithful servant. I feel like Jesus is going to say, hey, by the way, do you even know how many lives were changed because you put inserts in bulletins? And of course, since this person is so humble, she would say, oh, no, I'm sure that that's not the case. And then he would point to some astronomical number. You see that? That's the difference between the world and the kingdom of God. There are no insignificant people in the kingdom of God. There are no insignificant tasks in the church of Jesus Christ. There are no small things. Everything matters. Everything is working together. Everything is showing that God has gifted all of us in unique ways. And the more we see that and embrace that and run with that, the more we will make an incredible contribution to the completion of the great commission, even if we don't even see half the ways or a quarter of the ways in which God uses our efforts. But to think about that, in view of God's mercy, his mercy not only includes that if we put our faith in Christ, we are made new. We are we are declared righteous and we are we are on a path being made more like Christ and one day will be delivered to the new heavens and new earth where everything will be awesome all the time, not only that, but also he's given us something that's unique about us. You just you. Everybody matters. Everybody's significant. So as you leave here today, when you leave, you walk out the walk out the door saying, I matter, God is going to use me. And he will. Let's pray. Father, we are we are prone to wander and leave the God we love. Here are our hearts, Lord, take and seal them. Seal them for the courts above. Father, would you continue to change us and make us more like your son, set us free from the power of sin as you have set us free from the penalty of sin. We want to be living sacrifices, Lord. We want that. And even when we don't, because you've made us new creations, we know deep down we want it, but we need you. We need your transforming grace. We need you to renew our minds. Continue to make us new and then show more and more of us how you've uniquely wired us to meet needs. Unleash us and let us watch you work. And then let us turn back and give you all the glory. All the praise for you alone are good and you alone are worthy. What can we say? What can we do? But offer our hearts. Oh God. Completely to you. In Jesus name. Amen. We at University Presbyterian Church thank you for listening to this message. Our mission is to help people know God, grow together and serve others. To learn more about the church or how to have a vital relationship with God, visit our website at www.uPC-orlando.com or call our offices at 407-384-3300.