Membership has its privileges!
Romans 12:1-8
Since he is writing to gentiles he seems to be trying to help his readers to understand what would make the God of Israel God move from having an exclusive relationship with Israel and reach out to the Gentiles that lived nothing like the Jews.
Last week we saw where Paul said that he was supposed to preach the good news plainly. And in this letter to the church in Rome…a place that he has not visited before he tells them that God is reaching out to the Gentiles for one reason and how that should affect how they live.….
Because of God’s MERCY we are to offer ourselves as living sacrifices.
MERCY
Back then, everyone knew why you sacrificed.
If you were a Jew it was for atonement…forgiveness. Your sins were transferred to the animal and it was killed for your sins against God. The gift of represented a tangible cost that was offered to pay the penalty.
Or it was as celebration of what God had done for your family, harvest, healing, escape from enemies and even future blessings. Your gift represented your acknowledgement and even trust in God as you brought the first and best for your worship
But Paul is writing to Gentiles in Rome…people with pagan back grounds.
You sacrificed to please the gods. You sacrificed to receive favor. You sacrificed to feed the gods so, that they would do something for you. You sacrificed to gods depending on your needs and desires.
So, everyone understood a need for a sacrifice but they had a different understanding of how and why they sacrificed.
Paul explains that they and we are to present our bodies as Living sacrifices…..
That is a bit different, normally as sacrifice was killed to consumed in the act of giving.
Paul is describing something different. We are to offer our selves as living, holy and pleasing to God.
-- Holy means, exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness right…?
-- Have you been able to make yourself holey lately?
I have some holy shirts and pants and I was able to make them that way.
But, I would never feel right wearing them to church on a given Sunday.
So how can I present myself as being holy? Let me say, that depends
When I look at those old faded jeans with wholes in them and I decide that I am only going to use them when I work on a dirty job around the house I am making them holy. I am setting them apart par a special use.
--- In the scripture context, Holy means to set apart for service or worship of God.
We can start the process of making ourselves holy by giving…sacrificing...our own lives to God.
We are not to kill ourselves or allow others to kill us in service to God to become holy. God makes us holy when we actually make the commitment. Then we are to LIVE a life that is given to God and that is pleasing to God.
In those first few verses we find another expected response to God’s mercy, we are to stop being anonymous and comfortable in THIS WORLD.
This holy life will transform us into people that can start to understand what the will of God is.
I don’t know about you, but I ask God to help me know His will all the time. And sometimes it happens.
Paul is explaining that they only way we will really start to understand the will of God is for us to allow Him to change us. He will change our minds, our views of the world, the views of what we see on the news the views of some of the people we know.
Then Paul describes how we should view ourselves, “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.”
We can’t have pride in our judgment or how much faith we have compared to others. Because even our judgments and faith were provided by God. We only came to faith by the actions of God in the first place so we can’t take any credit because God gave us what we have for a purpose.
We are to be the living body of Christ in this world, which means that many believers come together to create a healthy representation of the body of Christ. With all our similarities and especially our differences we belong together.
Let me remind you of some words that we have recited a little while ago.
As members of this congregation we will faithfully participate in its ministries, by our prayers, our presence our gifts and our service.
-- When we boil it all down this is what it means to be a member of a local church.
Consider this, how well are any of us keeping those four simple requirements of membership?
Why do they seem so hard to keep?
I wonder what really happens if we don’t keep our covenant vows.
Now don’t get me wrong, I know this pledge is not a guarantee that any one of us will always be perfect.
In fact, I don’t even believe that a single one of us is capable of keeping this pledge for even a short time as individuals.
The purpose of the body of Christ, a congregation, is that together we will come closer to representing Christ in this world better than any one of us will ever do alone.
Paul starts talking about gifts next.
We have different gifts, according to the grace given 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.
In high school, I was a member of a band …Cool right…..Well it was not a rock band. It was the school band which is not quite as cool.
For a while I played trombone and in the last two years I played the sousaphone. Even less cool, right?
In a band there are many levels of expertise. I was never a great musician. But there were some that were really pretty good at playing their instrument. And there were a few that were great, they got the solo parts.
To be a member to the school band you had to sign up.
You had to get your instrument and come to practice.
If you did the basic stuff, you got some privileges.
- We went to foot ball games.
- We got out of school for band competitions and special concerts.
If we committed to being in the band and met the basis rules, show up for practice and for the performance, it did not directly matter how good we were.
We were in the band.
As for what Paul is talking about, each member of a congregation must act on the grace given to him or her.
Your gift is your instrument that you bring to practice and concerts.
Whatever our gift or gifts are we are to use it.
If we don’t know our gifts then our first job is to figure out what they are.
If we know our gift, or even suspect what our gift is, we need to do something with it.
We can’t dread what we are called to do in the congregation claiming no ability.
We can’t ignore that we are each called to help the body of Christ be healthy and to prosper.
To me a member of a church you have to show up for practice and as a group combine our talents for something bigger than ourselves.
That is what a band isn’t it?
A group of people with drastically different talents that come together to play something more complex and bigger than any single person can do alone.
If we are to preach then preach be a lay speaker, if we are to teach then for the sake of the body of Christ take on a Sunday school class or a bible study.
If we know how to encourage, by all means then we need to be cheer leaders for our church family and make calls and send notes or pat people on the back for their work. Most importantly we encourage and comfort people in times of trouble with no limits.
Theses walls should never slow or stop our encouragement or mercy or grace.
And not that it is any more important, but if we have been called to lead then we need to take that position seriously and get in front of the group not in the middle or back waiting to see what will happen.
Let me make something clear. In a church, every member is called to service.
Every member makes a pledge to the congregation and the congregation makes a pledge to every new member to be active in ministry. You aren’t paying dues to have someone else minister to people. You become a member of a church to be in ministry. To live as part of something that God is doing and to be pleasing to God.
-- When only a few take their pledge seriously, then some people’s living sacrifice is exhausting and unfair.
-- Some peoples sacrifice starts to become deadly as they burn out from doing all the work.
If only a few people share their gifts in the church the ministry slows and maybe even stops as the bills become more important than outreach and evangelism.
Folks the only way a person can really know that they are a Christian is that at least occasionally put their trust in God.
They agree to a job, they offer a suggestion; they agree to teach or lead.
They take a risk and talk about their church, their faith their love of God to a stranger.
I am not asking for a show of hands, with this, but please think carefully about this:
Do you pray?
Do you pray as a member of a congregation should pray?
Do you offer prayers for the people of our church, our community on at least a daily basis or does it happen only on Sunday when you are here?
Folks, we are called to sacrifice our time in prayer. We are called to be generous with our time and humble ourselves and talk to God…
Man that is a big job! It is an important job! It is a job that every member of the church has committed to do. We are committed to pray no matter how good we thing we can pray, no matter if we think out prayers never leave the room. We are to pray even when we think we don’t know what to say.
Prayer is an awesome responsibility! It is also and awesome privilege we receive as a member of a congregation.
With privileges come responsibilities…
We are to love our church family and people in general so much that we can’t help but to offer our joys and concerns to God almost constantly.
As a person of God, you are called…called to talk to God. Not just for your self but for the people you love, the people that you look down upon, the people that hurt.
The second part of the pledge speaks of presence……It means being here.
There is more that one kind of being here. The kind of presence that I don’t mean is just showing up for church.
Anyone can take the time and effort to get up on Sunday and warm the pew.
But presence is not just coming to church to answer the roll call.
You know, there are lots of kids that go to school and yet are not present. They show up for school and even attend classes but don’t participate. They are not interested in what is being taught. They show up because they have too.
And too many people that call themselves Christians do the same thing on a Sunday.
Some feel they have too because of family.
Some feel they have to, to make God happy and to get to heaven.
Some show up just because they have always done it.
But if there is no participation, no interaction then they are really not present.
A church with a cemetery always has a lot of members present. But they are not interactive. They are not able to be a living sacrifice.
If members of a church that fail to be active in the body of Christ, then church is like a person that is very ill and their organs are failing.
Their lungs barely capture enough air, the heart barely pumps blood, and the kidneys leave impurities in the body.
When a person’s body is barely functioning it does not take much for complete failure to come.
The same is true for the body of Christ. If too many people do the minimum the church starts to die.
Last week our message had to do with listening to God’s voice. Recognizing that when the shepherd speaks he is calling us to do something.
Follow Him.
Today our message deals with our role and even duty as a member of the body of Christ.
As a member of the body, we don’t have to be perfect for the body to be healthy, we just have to participate.
We just have to do the best we can and join with other people to work toward our purpose.
In a band there are different sections, there are the brass instruments, the wood winds and the percussion section. Each section of the band holds opinions about the people in the other sections.
- The percussion section, drums, gongs and other instruments that you hit were generally thought of as being insensitive, less intelligent and hard of hearing and the least serious and most fun loving.
- The brass section was pretty big and as a group were considered loud and sub sections perhaps the trumpet section had the added adjective arrogant.
- The wood winds were considered to have the most class, they were considered quiet and meticulous.
When I think about my high school band I remember a broad spectrum of differences and abilities. I remember traits which clashed within the group. Then I wonder how we ever were able to produce any kind of music that could be recognized.
But I realized that every member of the band agrees to use their talents and abilities for one goal.
The problem is how does the group agree on the goal?
That is where the band director comes in. The members of the band yield their will and give their talents under the direction of the conductor.
When we respond to God’s call on our lives and agree to join the band, the church, we are agreeing to do the best we can do under the direction of Jesus Christ. It is his body that we make up. He is the head and we in order to receive the privileges, agree to live for Christ.
We all have a choice.
We don’t have to join the group.
But if we do, then our leader has expectations of us. He calls us to play our part and be present. Pay attention to his direction and leadership.
He would love to see perfection in our church but more importantly he wants to hear the music of love that we can only make when we come together as one body.
All Glory be to God!
