Trinity Baptist Church August 17, 2008
Combating Complacency
Christ, His Body and You
Romans 12:3-8
There was a Danish philosopher named Kierkegaard whose writings are weighty and tough to read. But that deep thinker one time told a simple parable that describes how easy it is to slide into complacency.
According to his parable, one Spring, a duck was flying north with a flock. In the Danish countryside that particular duck spotted a barnyard where tame ducks lived. The duck dropped down and he discovered these ducks had wonderful corn to eat. So he stayed …for an hour….then for the day….a week then went by and a month. And because the corn and the safe barnyard were so fine, our duck ended up staying the whole Summer at that farm. Then one crisp Fall day, some wild ducks flew overhead, quacking as they winged their way south. He looked up and heard them -- and he was stirred with a strange sense of joy and delight. And then, with all his might he began flapping his wings and rose into the air, planning to join his comrades for the trip south.
But all that corn had made the duck both soft and heavy -- and he couldn’t manage to fly any higher than the barn roof. So he dropped back to that barnyard and he said to himself, “Oh well, my life here is safe and the food is good!” After that in the Spring and in the Fall, that duck would hear wild ducks honking as they passed overhead -- and for a minute, his eyes would look and gleam -- he’d start flapping his wings almost without realizing it….but then a day came, when those others would pass overhead uttering their cry -- and the now tame duck would not pay the slightest attention.
Last week we began talking about how the American Church has been attacked by the diseases of apathy and complacency. It seems that like that barnyard duck -- American Christians have gotten tamed….and spoiled…in the process, we’ve often forgotten -- whose we are and therefore who and what we’re to be about. Complacency is a disease that sneaks up on us. But in Romans chapter 12 we find God‘s prescription for it. We began there last time in verses 1 and 2, and I’d like encourage you to turn there as go on today.
You heard Matt read verses 1 and 2 along with our verses for today. You remember in 1 and 2 that Paul began by urging the Roman Christians to respond to God’s mercy and grace. John’s gospel tells us that grace and Truth were revealed in Jesus Christ. God’s plan in Christ’s first coming was to take all the sin of mankind -- along with its penalty -- and lay it on His Son when He died on the cross. God then took Christ’s righteousness and apply it to everyone who would put their trust in Christ alone.
That’s the story of grace that Paul spent 11 chapters in Romans explaining. It’s the story you and I became part of when Christ’s death was applied to us and we were made alive in Christ.
God’s mercy and grace then become the great motivation for NT believers. We’re not under OT Law -- God’s full favor and covenant love became ours because of Christ. We don’t work for God’s favor, we respond in devotion because of God’s favor.
And in 1 and 2, Paul called for the commitment of all of life to God, because of His mercy. But there’s more. Commitment isn’t commitment at all when it has not legs -- when it doesn‘t result in life change. That’s the backdrop of verse 3 and following.
Paul writes, through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think. He begins by doing what he’s teaching. Just like his readers -- like us -- Paul experienced God’s grace. And like them, he has spiritual gifts and a calling -- he’s an apostle someone who taught and revealed Christ‘s message with authority. So he’s fulfilling his role -- he serves the body, teaching by writing. So, by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, don’t think more highly of yourself than you should, but think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each one a measure of faith.
This is for everyone who believes. He’s going to tell all of us about our connection to the church and our commitment therefore to serve in the church -- but he starts with a foundational approach: very simply he says, Think soberly and humbly about yourself.
Before you can begin to think about the amazing topic of spiritual gifts and realize we each have supernatural capacities as believers -- before you go there, you need to come here -- do some sober thinking about yourself. It’s easy to dive in and get involved, but there’s a foundation you need first. He gives us a key component to this sober thinking: don’t think more highly of yourself that you should. That’s because, when it comes to spiritual gifts -- when it comes to functioning in the church ministry and serving -- well, some gifts are very public, others get exercised in the background. And so, first -- don’t ever get pompous about what you are or who you are. Never get into thinking highly about your spiritual gifts -- especially as you consider their source and their purpose.
The reason of course, is when it comes to gifts, we tend to go toward one extreme or the other. The first extreme: We overvalue some gifts and people. That’s described happening in the church in Corinth -- it’s happened throughout church history -- it happens today in the renewal movements. John Maxwell describes how it happened to him personally. He said he’d just delivered a message to a large crowd -- he greeted people afterward and one person told him: “John, you are a really great communicator!!” He said it went straight to his head. So when he got to the car he had to tell Margaret about the comment. As they drove away, John said wistfully, “I wonder how many really great communicators there are….” His wife helped him out by saying, -- “One less than you think!!” We can be hot-shots, we can be proud of what God has gifted us to do -- and when that happens, our old nature takes control of that capacity and we begin to use it for our purposes.
The opposite extreme: We undervalue other gifts and people. The Western Church has historically valued the more public gifts -- teaching, preaching, evangelism -- we’ve made those the great ones. And we fail to notice the non-public gifts. That tells us we’ve forgotten that all of them come from Christ -- and we’ve forgotten that every gift has a corporate purpose -- honor Christ and build up His body.
There’s another way to think of yourself improperly. That’s when we say things like, “I’m not really gifted, I’m just a helper.” Or, “I don’t really have any great gifts.” Worse yet, maybe we have an idea of how Christ has equipped us, but we hold back those capacities from the Body. Others might think we’re humble. But if Romans 12 is true, we’d have to say it’s counterfeit humility. In reality it’s really just a form of pride and selfishness to hold back, or withdraw or never offer ourselves and all God gives us to Christ and His Church.
Let’s hear it again: the right response, the worshipful response to grace is all-out commitment. If you are an object of God’s -- that’s the only way to respond and rightly worship God. And so, out of that comes this fundamental attitude to hang on to. Think humbly and soberly, think rightly about who you are and Whose you are -- that will help you understand what comes next.
First, Paul writes,
1. God placed and connected you in the Church. (12:4-5)
Look at verses 4 and 5. Paul picks up one of his all-time favorite word pictures. I’ll paraphrase verses 4 and 5: Just like you’ve got many parts to your human body, and every one of them has a different role to play, we many different Christians compose Christ’s Church -- and we also are part of one another.
We’ve got our own ideas about what church is or how it ought to operate. But we need to realize that it was by Christ’s design and doing and power that the Church came into being. It happened that day in Jerusalem when every believer received God’s Spirit. The NT informs us, by God’s doing we are in Christ Jesus. But we American Christians usually stop right there. It’s “I’ve believed, I’m in Christ, I relate to Him directly.” God goes further. Like we just read, we are both part of Jesus Christ and we are also placed into His Body. Verse 5, we are members of one another.
We’re all very different, just like the parts of your body are unique and different. But it’s in relationship to the Body that individual parts makes sense -- that’s where they find purpose, and draw life and have dynamic. And -- it’s the Body for which the members exist, not the other way around. There’s an implication of your very real connection to the Church.
2. God gave you unique capacities to serve. (12:6-8)
Paul applies what he said about the Body in verse 6. Just like verse 4 told us each body part doesn’t have the same function or role, verse 6 says, we have different gifts. So, what are these spiritual gifts? Off the top of our heads, most of us could list four or five of the gifts mentioned in the NT -- and again, mostly the ones used publicly, or the ones we sometimes retreat to -- like helping or serving.
You should know that four major passages have lists of different spiritual gifts. We’ve got the ones in Romans 12 -- then 1 Corinthians 12-14; Ephesians 4 and 1 Peter 4. Between those passages and other gifts mentioned in other verses, there are as many as 26 or more spiritual gifts in the NT. The Greek word in 1 Corinthians for them charismata -- that word just means graces. It’s one more reminder -- if God has “graced” you -- meaning you know Jesus Christ, then He has “graced” you in this way. Whether you know it or not, whether you exercise them or not, you have from the Holy Spirit supernatural and good ways by which God means for you to serve people and Christ’s Church.
People define spiritual gifts as abilities. I don’t -- I prefer Ray Stedman’s definition: he said
"A spiritual gift is a divinely-given capacity for service."
The reason ability doesn’t work well, is ability suggests the power to do something. But a spiritual gift is not the same thing as the power to use it. See, again, power can come from one of two sources: either the power of God’s Spirit -- or, like we talked about earlier, the power of your flesh -- when that’s our power source, use or misuse our gifts even though they are God-given. A spiritual gift is best described as a capacity to do a specific ministry under God‘s power. That’s why Paul says, exercise your gifts according to your faith.
Many of us tend to think we just have one single gift -- maybe a couple. That concept is also not reflected in the NT passages. It’s more likely that God has provided each of us with a number of capacities and roles through which we can very effectively serve each other and build up His Church. It’s also likely that it’s over time, when you’re growing as a believer over your lifetime that you discover them all and put them all to use. We’ll talk in just a minute about how to begin to go about that. But first, Paul again applies what he’s just taught.
He says, since you’ve got those God given gifts, therefore,
3. Exercise your God-given capacities to serve. (12:7-8)
The first point verse 6 makes: exercise them accordingly. It‘s possible that you might have the same kind of gift as someone else, but you will exercise it differently than someone else.
The point of Romans is, whatever your gift is, exercise it properly and pointedly and wholeheartedly. He uses seven examples out of all the gifts the NT lists. The first gift mentioned is prophecy. He writes about that one, exercise it in proportion to your faith. We could also translate it, in agreement with your faith. While the NT was being written down, that said to anyone who was a prophet -- someone declaring God’s Truth -- you be certain that your message comes out of a clear and faithful word from God. For those of us who speak since the NT was compiled that exhortation tells us, your message must align with God’s Word.
The other six gifts mentioned are serving, teaching, encouraging, contributing, leadership and showing mercy. If your gift is giving, he says, do that with generosity, don’t hold back. If your God-given capacity is leading or managing -- do it with diligence -- in other words, take care with how you lead. If your gift is mercy, exercise mercy with cheerfulness not sadness. With teaching and serving, verse 7 simply tells us, exercise those gifts accordingly. In other words, make sure that when you teach or serve, the outcome in people’s lives is in line with such a gift from God.
In every illustration Paul uses, this is the repetitive idea: these gifts aren’t about you, as a gifted person. You’re not like an Olympic athlete, who gets applauded and heralded and interviewed. You don’t brag about what you bring to the table. Authentic ministry is serving -- that’s the root word -- and authentic ministry is always about simply doing what God has given you to do. We‘re servants, we‘re stewards, using what God has provided, for the benefit of the Body. Paul‘s words to young pastor Timothy were faithfully fulfill your ministry. To that same person, Paul also had to write, Stir up the gift that is in you….
There is a tendency to allow a gift to not be identified, to not be an active and a capacity which is available and useful to the God Who gave it. That happens for a number of reasons. We get lethargic spiritually; maybe we get worn out doing things outside our gift areas. Maybe we’ve not practiced thinking of ourselves soberly -- or we forget -- I’m a child of grace who’s been further graced and blessed in order to bless people and bless the Body.
And so like the duck in the barnyard, things kind of….subside and diminish and recede. Desire no longer flourishes. Faith wanes and vision gets dim. It doesn’t have to be that way. That commitment in verses 1 and 2 is the beginning place. The commitment to identify and set your capacity loose -- for the benefit of the Body, is the second step.
You say, how could I not only identify my gifts accurately but also exercise to build up the Church? I’ve never thought that the first step was to go take one of the spiritual gifts tests that are available. Those are helpful, but not as the first step.
I’d suggest to you first, to Learn about the gifts and how they‘re used. Go to God’s Word. Study the 4 passages I mentioned earlier. Look at the gifts in the NT -- and then, study how different men and women like Priscilla and Philip and Paul and Lydia and Timothy used their gifts so people would grow spiritually and so the Church would advance. Then,
Try out some different kinds of ministry. Again, let me give you the key word used to describe the function of every gift -- and a word that teaches us about thinking soberly as well. The word is serve. Do it -- serve with others, meet needs, serve alone, serve in different places and in different capacities. Serve people and trust God to begin to speak to you and focus you then in how and where you could best serve. Along with that,
Connect with people who are doing ministry. Don’t imagine for a moment, that sitting at home, contemplating your navel, you’ll ever learn what your gifts are, or how best they can serve the Body. Instead, put yourself in a position where you can watch people -- observe how they teach or encourage or visit people in need; how they serve a widow or share Christ‘s gospel. Ask someone if you can tag along when they’re using their gifts. Ask God to make you observant. Then ask people to observe you. Don’t assume you know what your gifts are. There may be others you’ve never discovered. Mature Christians can give you input into how you interact and what your spiritual gifts might be.
Steps I will take
I’ve got some helpers who are going to come and put something into your hands. Just one to a customer! When our kids were young, we lived in Germany. We had lots of cold gray days in Germany, but we were blessed to have a great finished space up in the 3rd floor of our row house. That’s where it happened, day in and day out. Especially our boys enjoyed building and creating things with Lego. Lego could keep them busy for hours at a time. We’d hear them talking, but there wasn’t a lot of movement up there. Just two happy boys, laying on the floor building away.
Like those little pieces you get in your hand, each little piece -- different colors, different numbers of connecting nubs, different shapes and sizes -- found a spot in an amazing structure, all first envisioned in the mind of a young creator and then placed where it belonged. Once you have your Lego piece, I have an assignment for you: take it with you wherever you go this week. Put it in your shirt pocket or your purse, somewhere you’ll see it often. And every time you touch it or look at it -- think about the Truth that -- alone, unconnected…that little piece serves no purpose, fills no role, has to function. Imagine some great design that a kid somewhere might be building. And there’s some piece missing. A hole where your piece belongs. Then review what we’ve talked about today. And imagine -- Christ’s design -- the Church -- magnificent -- effective -- growing, building, advancing, serving, meeting needs.
That’s a vision of what can be when youth and kids and women and men step up and say, “enough with complacency; enough with holding back, and staying disconnected. I will respond to grace appropriately. I will give over all of life to God’s Son -- and out of that, I will think soberly about Whose I am, who I am. I will then begin to offer my service and discover how best I fit into Christ’s Church. I will use what God gave me wholeheartedly.”
