Romans chapter 12. Last Sunday
morning, we spent most of the Bible study setting up the fact
that in the first 11 chapters of this book, the Apostle Paul
laid a firm foundation that salvation is by grace and not by works. Don't turn, but he said in chapter
3 verse 28, a man is justified by faith. Faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Just looking to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Just seeing what he did. Believing
that he did what he said he did. When he said it's finished, believe
in it. He said a man is justified by
faith without the deeds of the law. The deeds of the law are
the commandments of the Bible. It's not our obedience that starts
the work of salvation. It's not our obedience that finishes
the work of salvation. There are many people who fall
into both ditches. They fall into both errors. Some
think it's our works that start the work of salvation. It's not.
And some believe it's our works that finish the work of salvation.
It's not. It's not. Salvation was started
in the mind and the will and the purpose of God the Father
before the foundation of the world. And it was finished by
the obedience of the Son on the cross of Calvary. So our actions
did not and do not help Him And thank God our actions did not
stop him. Salvation was totally of the
Lord. Now, with that being said, every
sinner that Christ in mercy has brought and brings grace to,
the grace, the gift, When we speak of grace, we're speaking
of a gift. When we're speaking of gifts,
we're speaking of graces given. This gift of his salvation, this
gift of his blood, this gift of his spirit, every sinner that
Christ wrought grace for and brings grace to, every one of
them will possess this grace. If Christ wrought it for them
and brought it to them, they'll have it. And that grace will
be seen. It won't be seen and it won't
be performed perfectly, and the reason is because it's still
going to be mixed with this sinful flesh that we have to drag around
with us until the Lord finally delivers us from it. But the
grace of Christ to us That'll create a desire for the grace
of Christ to be seen in us. I have a desire for that grace
to be seen in me, and I know you do too. It creates a desire. We're exhorted to put on and
to promote and to exercise that grace, those graces, the fruits
of the Spirit. With that, we will stand fast
in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. Paul is about
to exhort things. He's going to tell us to do things.
He's going to say, this is how we ought to be and this is what
we ought to do. And as we listen to this, we're going to stand
fast by God's grace. We will stand fast in the liberty
where with Christ has made us free and we're not gonna be entangled
again with the yoke of bondage. We're not gonna make any of these
good works a dependent factor on our salvation. That's what
it means. Christ finished our salvation on the cross of Calvary. That's period, period, no buts
about it. God given faith in His blood
is the evidence of that. Not one of the evidences, it
is the evidence of the fact that He shed His blood on us and He
saved us in it. Faith, that's the evidence. Faith,
that's the evidence. I can perform the greatest works
this world has ever known. But if I don't have absolute,
total, I mean absolute, total faith in the blood of Christ
to be my only hope, I mean that's all, that's all. His blood is
all. If I don't have that, if any
part of my faith is in my works, any part of it, there's no salvation
in that. If I add a little bit of leaven
in there, it'll leaven the whole lump. No salvation in that. and my works will bring no eternal
good to me. God's people know in the heart
that that's so. They know it's so. They have
a loving, thankful desire to strive for the works that he's
exhorted to them, but their works will never add to, and they'll
never take away from, the great work of Christ on the cross.
They just won't do it. They will not do it. I'm trying
as hard as I can to really lay this foundation. Hopefully I'm
doing it. I mean, before we go into this, let's make sure we're
settled on this because we can ruin this in a heartbeat the
moment we say now, okay, here come our works. In the midst of all of our efforts,
By His grace, we're gonna cry, thy work alone. As we endeavor
into this, we're gonna cry, not unto us, not unto us, only unto
you, that's it. So, with that being said, let's
look at these exhortations, all right? Let's see if the Lord
will teach us these, cause us to do these for love's sake,
thankfulness' sake, Christ's sake. Last week, we looked at
verses 1 and 2, which say, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by
the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service. and not be conformed to this
world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God. To that we must say, thank God
for Christ. That's what we have to say to
that. Thank God for Christ. Because we could not accomplish
that in this flesh. We could not, because we could
not do what it just asked of us. Christ came and presented
His body. He said, a body hast thou prepared
me. He presented His body, a living
sacrifice. I couldn't, so he came and did
it for me. He presented his body, a living
sacrifice, holy. I couldn't be that, so he was
that for me. Holy and acceptable unto God. I couldn't be that,
so he was that for me. And in the perfect mind of his
spirit, he proved what is the good and acceptable will of God. So thank God for Christ. That's
what we have to say to that. Now, because of him, Paul said,
it's our reasonable service to strive for the same things. May
we continually present ourselves before God in Him, in Christ. And may everything that we are
in body and mind and heart be a living sacrifice unto Him. I'm gonna go ahead and interject
that everything I have to say this morning is to me first. I need to be taught. I need to
be taught these things. I want to be taught these things.
May God teach me, and may God teach us to sacrifice. All right, now Christ made the
sacrifice. But in light of that and because
of that, may God teach me to sacrifice. May God teach me to make sacrifices. Sacrifices for the sake of His
worship. It's important, isn't it? The worship of Christ is eternal. It's an eternal matter. There's
never gonna come a time when we stop worshiping Christ, never.
All of these things down here are temporal. They're nothing. May he teach us to make sacrifices
for the sake of his cause. Sacrifices for the ministry of
the gospel. May he teach us to be sincere
and to strive for the things that he says are acceptable to
him. There are some things in here that he says, this is acceptable
to me. I can't do it perfectly, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't
try. May he teach us to not conform to the ways and the desires of
this world. It's empty. It is empty. It is so empty. Once you get
it, it won't be good enough. It won't be what you thought
it was. You'll move on to the next thing because you'll find,
well, that was empty. I thought that would satisfy
me, but it didn't. May He teach us to be transformed
to the mind of Christ. I want to know the mind of Christ.
I want to have the mind of Christ. I want to know the will and the
desire of my God concerning me. And I know you do too. All of
God's people do. This is our exhortation. Now
Paul's about to expound on that in the next few verses. Let's
read verses three to eight. Verse three says, for I say 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. but to
think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure
of faith. For as we have many members in
one body, and all members have not the same office, so we being
many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of
another, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is
given to us, Whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to
the proportion of faith. Or ministry, let us wait on our
ministering. Or he that teacheth, on teaching. Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation. He that giveth, let him do it
with simplicity. He that ruleth, with diligence. He that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness. All right, now let's not see
one word of this concerning ourselves until we see it concerning our
Lord. It's where we start, it's where
we always start. He said, don't think more highly
of yourself than you ought to think. The one who had every
right to think highly of himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, equal
with the Father, The one who had every right to think highly
of himself humbled himself. He said in verse five, we're
all one in the body of Christ. That's only because Christ joined
himself to us and made us to be a part, made us to be members
of his own body. In verse six, he mentioned prophecy. Christ came to be that prophet. They asked John the Baptist,
are you that prophet? He said, no, but he's coming.
He's coming. He mentioned ministering. Christ
came to minister to his people. He said, I did not come to be
ministered to. I came to minister. I wish I
could get ahold of that. Doesn't this flesh want everybody
to minister to it? I'll just sit here and you minister
to me. Christ said, I didn't come to be ministered to. I came
to minister. He mentioned teaching. Christ
came to teach his people. John 6 45 says, they shall all
be taught of God. He mentioned exhortation. Christ
came to exhort His people. The word exhortation means, we
use it a lot, you know what the word means? It means to call
near. Christ came to call His people,
it's to exhort. Christ came to call His people
near. He mentioned giving. Christ came
to give. That's why He came. He came to
give to His people. And that's what He did. He abundantly
gave. Abundantly gave. He mentions
ruling. Christ came to rule. He was born
king. He died king. He arose and ascended and is
seated on his throne as king. Of his kingdom, there shall be
no end. He mentions showing mercy. Christ
came to show mercy. That's why he came. Mercy on
the cross. And he did every bit of that.
If you look at the last two words there, verse eight, he did every
bit of that with cheerfulness. I love Hebrews 12 verse two.
It says, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith, who for the joy that was set before him. endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the
throne of God. Thank God for Christ. Everything we see in
the Word, thank God for Christ. We personally strive for these
things looking unto Him. In light of Him now, let's see
us in it. Verse three. I say 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. What
that means is let's squash pride. I don't know of a place where
pride exists more than in religion. I don't know of a place where
it exists more than in religion. Everybody wants you to know what
I know. Let me tell you what I know.
Let me see if I can throw out some hard words you've never
heard before. I'll throw some isms and schisms out there and
make you ponder for a minute what I'm thinking. I don't know
where pride exists more than in religion. Everybody wants
to be a preacher, except God's called preachers at first. They
all say, Moses said, I can't speak. Send Aaron, call Aaron. Isaiah said, woe is me, I'm undone.
I'm a man of unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips. But in the flesh, everybody wants
to speak. Everybody wants to, I don't know of a place where
it exists more than in religion. Let's get together and hash doctrine.
How about let's not? How about let's humble ourselves
and not tell each other our names? I won't ask you what your name
is if you don't ask me what my name is. That's what a conversation
with John the Baptist would be like. Let's make a competition here.
Who can decrease more? I bet you you can get lower than
me. I'm pretty full of pride. You see that? Let's squash pride. Let's squash pride. The first
person this applies to in the congregation is the pastor. I
mean, we could just dwell totally on me right now. The pastor. All flesh is so quick to think
that it's something when it's nothing. All flesh is. But the
moment you put a man, the moment you put flesh in the actual position
of authority and you say to him, why don't you talk to us? We'll
sit here and listen and you talk to us. The moment that happens,
a whole bunch of squashing needs to take place. For your peace
of mind, I cannot speak on behalf of men who have not been truly
called of God. I just can't. But for a true
God called preacher, For your peace of mind, you can rest assured
that if the pastor doesn't squash his own pride, God will squash
it for him. So you don't have to worry about
that. If he gets a little too high on himself, God will knock
him down. You don't have to worry about that. But starting with
me, filtering down to every person in this congregation, we would
be so wise to squash all pride that we see in ourselves, not
in each other. I don't need to go around squashing
your pride. That promotes pride. That's all
it does. God will deal with another just
like God will deal with me. I only need to be concerned about
me. But we would be wise to fight and to strive to put away the
pride that just so naturally and so quickly wells up within
us. Verse three says, I say 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, but to think soberly. That means sanely
with a correct mind. We need to think of ourselves
soundly, rightly concerning what we are. That will squash pride. Just acknowledging and remembering
rightly what we truly are. That will squash pride. What
are we? Sinners. That's what we are. Sinners. The end of verse three says,
according as God has dealt to every man, the measure of faith
is according as God has caused us to believe, believe his word. Now, second Thessalonians three,
verse two says, all men have not faith. God has not given
faith to every man, but to every man and woman that he has given
it to. They will believe soberly. They'll believe what He has said
to them and they'll believe what He says about them. They'll believe
what this Word says about them. Verse 3 says, I say 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, but to
think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man the measure
of faith. For as we have many members in
one body, and all members have not the same office, so we being
many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of
another." He is giving an illustration that if you look at your own
human body, if we look at our own human bodies, we can see
many parts, there are many members that make up the whole. God has
ordained for us to have organs, veins, bones, muscles, all of
these different things. And they are all for the good
and the service and the prosperity of the body. I beseech the Lord
to teach me this. I truly do. I beseech the Lord
to teach me this. Everything in here is working
for the good of everything in here. Everything. The brain tells the heart to
beat. But the brain needs the heart to beat in order to tell
the heart to beat. Everything is working together.
for the good and the service and the prosperity of the whole
body. And he's saying spiritually speaking,
God has ordained the same thing. Verse four says, as we have many
members in one body and all members have not the same office, so
we being many are one body in Christ and every one members
one of another, having then gifts differing according to the grace
that is given to us, where their prophecy let us prophesy according
to the proportion of faith. Now this is what he's saying.
We have all been given different gifts to be used. To be used for the good and the
service and the prosperity of the spiritual body. Now let me
tell you how the flesh is. I know from first-hand experience.
The flesh wants to take everything that it has been given, not earned,
Our jobs were given to us. Our families were given to us.
Our health is given to us. Everything we have, what do we
have that we haven't received? This flesh wants to take everything
that belongs to Him and everything He's loaned to me and the flesh
wants to consume it all on me. That's what the flesh wants to
do. This is for me. That's mine. That's mine for me so that I
can have what I need and I've got my thing going and hopefully
you guys will be okay too. That's what the flesh wants.
But that's not why we were given the gifts. Whatever gift we have been given,
we need to use it with all of our might, with all of the ability
that he's given to us in the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the reason the earth rotates
one more time. It's for the service and the
prosperity of his spiritual body. That's why the gift was given. It wasn't given so we could consume
it of ourselves in the service of ourselves for the prosperity
of ourselves. God did not make us to be what
we are and he did not give us what we have for the service
of ourselves. It would be so good if we could
learn that. It'd be so good. Everything He's
given to us is for the service of Him. And we need to recognize
that, and we need to give our all to that service. Whatever
our hand finds to do, we need to do it with all of our might
as unto the Lord. as unto the Lord, not as unto
our boss, not as unto ourselves, as unto the Lord. And he's going
to go through some of these gifts and he's going to tell us that
if God has given us this particular gift, then we need to not disgrace
him in his gift to us. We need to honor him in it by
using it for his glory. And the first gift he points
out is preaching. That's where he starts, and I'm
so glad. It's easy for me to deal with me, and I mean it.
I'm about to get on me. But honestly, I'm so glad. I want to learn this. I want to
learn this. He's going to deal with preachers
first. Look at verse six. It says, having then gifts differing
according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophesy,
let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith. Prophecy
means prediction. It means preaching, preaching
the mystery of Christ. Now I'm going to run out of time.
I'm going to go ahead and tell you that I'll come to a point
and just stop because I have some things I really want to
say about this. And I don't want to rush through them next time.
We'll pick back up on them. I'll go as far as I can, but
go ahead in your mind. We've been given more than one
gift. Let me fast forward to giving money. I have money. I
have money. I'm a giver. That's a gift given
to me. I don't have a lot, but it's not just that I've been
given this gift and that exempts me from all other gifts. So whatever
you feel and see the Lord has given to you, apply this to you
as I apply this to me, okay? All right, preaching. If this
is the gift that God has given to me, then what a dishonor, what a
dishonor and what a disgrace and what a disservice it would
be for me to study and to glean and to gather and to write notes
and to prepare messages only to consume it on myself. Sometimes
I'll tell you, man, I fed today. I fed in the study today. The
Lord blessed my heart today. What a disgrace and a disservice
it would be for me to not use that. and give that for the benefit
of God's congregation. I get up on Sunday morning and
I go over my notes. I like to highlight my notes
and I really want to make sure I have my mind around what I'm
about to say. What a disservice it would be.
What a disgrace it would be if after I'm done on Sunday morning,
I said, that's good enough. I'm not going to the service.
I'm just staying home. I did it. I prepared the message.
I preached it in my mind. Sometimes I like to say things
out loud. I preached it. That's it. What a disservice that would
be. What a disgrace that would be. If I'm not going to use the
gift that He's given to me for the service and prosperity of
His people, then there's no point in Him giving it to me. None whatsoever. If I'm not going
to use it for the purpose that he gave to me, if he gave me
this gift, why did he give it to me? For the service of his
people. Our Lord gave a parable one time
of passing out these talents to servants. And one of the servants
took his talent and buried it in the sand. And this is what
the Lord said to him. He said, you are an unprofitable
servant. I gave that to you. And he said,
you're an unprofitable servant. And he took that talent from
the servant and he gave it to the one who put his talent to
usury. So I'm just talking about preaching
right now. May God teach me something, especially
in preaching, especially in preaching. We can see how critical it is
that such an eye-opening example that we must, we must use the
gifts that God has given to us for his service and for his glory. And I'm not going to go back
into salvation's finished. Salvation's finished. But it's
our reason, this is what Paul's talking about, our reasonable
service. And all of God's people love it. They say amen. I'd be
happy to. By His grace, by His doing, by
His work, I'm happy to. I'm happy to come on down and
preach the message He's given to me. But everything must be
used for His service. Let's do one more, okay? Verse
six, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is
given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to
the proportion of faith, or ministry, let us wait on our ministering.
Ministry means service. It's the word used for the office
of a deacon. Service. A deacon is someone
who handles work that needs to be done. Maintenance. That's what a deacon is. With
the building that we are right now currently in, and with the
building that we are currently working on, everyone is running around like
a bunch of deacons. We also call it chickens with
our heads cut off. But everybody's running around
deaconing, and it's wonderful. It's a blessing to watch. It's
a blessing to my heart. A group will show up and help
Brother Jared. A group will show up and help
Brother Tony. A group went out last week with a bunch of weed
eaters and weed-eated their hearts out. That's wonderful. Many of you are handling all
these things that take place for us to have worship here,
the streaming and the, I like, thank for that water. It's wonderful. It's wonderful. You're doing
the right thing. Keep going. Keep doing. Keep ministering. When you see
a need, do it. Do it. As unto the Lord, for
the glory of God, for the prosperity of His people, do it. We'll finish out verse 7. It
says, He that teacheth on teaching. We have some teachers here of
our children. And I mentioned this to them when I first asked
them to do it. I believe they've taken it to heart. They teach
those children as though their souls depended on it. We're not
just doing Sunday school. If a teacher has been called
on to teach, it doesn't matter what age it is. That teacher
needs to be prepared. That teacher needs to study.
That teacher needs to point to Christ. And our teachers do. They do study. They do point
to Christ. Sometimes Hannah will tell me what she's, show me the
lesson she's working on. I've had Lauren and Tracy call
me before and they'll say, this is what I'm thinking about doing
for the children. And after they tell me, I think, that's incredible.
I want to tell the adults that. But anyway, if we're called to
preach, let's preach with all our might. If we're called to
minister, let's minister with all our might. If we're called
to teach, let's teach with all our might. And I'll go over this
next time, but let me just say in closing, the next one is exhort. That means call near, invite.
Some have been given that ability. Go invite everybody you can,
every door that opens. The next one is giving money.
He said, do it liberally. I mean, he said with simplicity,
that means generously, bountifully, liberally. Give, give, give. What do you mean give? Don't you want to tiptoe around
that? Nope, give. It'll be our blessing. It'll
be his unto the Lord. We can't out-give the Lord. It's
better to give than to receive. What do we have that shouldn't
be for the service of the ministry? He went on to say, ruling, that's
presiding over the service. Whichever of you men are called
on to stand up here, do it, take it seriously. Read, pray, sing,
whatever, take it seriously. And then he's talking about showing
mercy. That means compassion to each other. And this congregation
is so good about being there and showing kindness to each
other and keep doing it. Keep doing it. It's a real blessing. It's a real service to the spiritual
body. All right.