Title: Generous Living and Giving of Ourselves
Text: Romans 12:1-8
Thesis: We are uniquely positioned to generously give of ourselves for the glory of God and the good of others.
We are on a Pathway to Congregational Vitality. We want to be a Healthy Missional Church. By Healthy we mean we are pursuing Christ. And by Missioinal we mean we are pursuing what is important to Christ or Christ’s priorities.
In order to understand what being a Healthy Missional Church looks like, we are unpacking a series called: The Marks of a Healthy Missional Church. Researchers have found that there are at least ten marks, characteristics, traits, qualities, etc., that are consistently found in Healthy Missional Churches.
To date we have noted that The Marks of a Healthy Missional Church are:
• Compelling Christian Community
• The Centrality of the Word of God
• Life Transforming Walk with Jesus
• Global Perspective and Intentional Evangelism
• Transforming Communities through Active Compassion, Mercy and Justice Ministries
• Heartfelt Worship
• A Culture of Godly Leadership Through Fruitful Structures
Today we will unpack an eighth Mark of a Healthy Missional Church. We believe the Scripture teaches Healthy Missional Churches are characterized by Generous Living and Giving of Ourselves.
Introduction:
This week I read an anecdote from the life of Mary Queen of Scots. I do not pretend to be particularly knowledgeable of the history of the UK. But apparently Mary was loved by the Scottish people. They respected her grace and dignity. They honored her for the way she rose above the disappointments and challenges of her life.
She was so loved by the Scots that she could move about in public without the benefit of protective escort. One day while walking with some children, she ventured a bit farther than she’d planned and found herself caught in what was to be a rain storm. So she stopped at a nearby house and asked if she could borrow an umbrella, promising to return it the following day. The lady of the house was reluctant to lend the lady her best umbrella so she lent her one destined for the trash bin.
The next day the lady heard a knock at her door and when she opened the door she was greeted by a royal guard who returned the tattered umbrella saying, “The Queen sent me and asked me to thank you for loaning her your umbrella.”
Of course the woman was mortified to think that she had missed the opportunity to give the Queen her very best. Today I want to talk about what is entailed in giving to God our very best.
We are uniquely positioned as Christians, living and serving in the body of Christ, to please God.
I. Positioned to Please God
Give God your bodies - “…be a living sacrifice – the kind he will find acceptable. This is the true way to worship him. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” Romans 12:1-2
Offering our lives as living sacrifices to God puts a new spin on our understanding of sacrifice. This is not about the taking of life as an offering to God. It is about the giving of life as an offering to God.
The word worship or service is an unusual word. Typically when we think of service we think of working for hire. The employee gives his body to an employer who gives the employee pay in return.
In our capitalist culture we understand the concept of service and services. There are business services, financial services, consulting services, legal services, educational services, food services, personal services, telecommunication services, lawn services, transportation services.
When our A/C failed last summer and we had a “serviceman” check it out we discovered we also needed a new furnace. So we needed the services of what they call HVAC guy for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning. The HVAC guy we hired promised to give us good service before and after the sale. His bid was very reasonable. There was no thought of trying to “chisel” him. (I hate it when pastors try to weedle a “clergy discount” from business people, as if God needs a good deal!) There is an understanding that when someone provides a service there is the expectation of remuneration.
But that is not what our text means by our giving of ourselves as living sacrifices as being our reasonable service of worship for God.
In this case… It means to give oneself completely to something. It means to give your body and all that you do with it, to God - everywhere and at all times.
The idea is captured in I Corinthians 10:31 which says, “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
Everything we do in our homes, in the marketplace, in the classroom, the neighborhood, on the job… wherever and whatever – it’s done as one who has totally dedicated his or her life to living for and serving God.
It’s not without motivation.
A. We are motivated to please God
Paul begins chapter twelve, “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give you bodies to God because of all he has done for you…” 12:1
As Christians who really want Heritage to be a Healthy Missional Church, it is important that we, with all who would serve Christ and his Church, understand that the desire and willingness to give of ourselves and our resources to serve God and others finds its basis not in our own inherent goodness but in the goodness of God.
“I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you.”
I recently read about a lady who was still going strong at 105 years of age. Dorrie Aber Noyek has been a volunteer at the Memorial Regional Hospital in Florida for 38 years. She shows no sign of slowing down and on the occasion of her 105th birthday she said, “I feel I want to give back. I think I’m very fortunate, very lucky, very blessed.”
The apostle Paul begins this discussion of living life as a living sacrifice to God on the precedent of goodness God has set for us in Christ. We are so blessed that we feel we want to give back.
B. We please God when we serve with distinction.
If we are to be good at serving God and pleasing God we need to understand some things about our bodies. The bible teaches us in I Corinthians 6:19 that the body of the Christian is the temple of the Holy Spirit. “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?”
So the Holy Spirit of God lives in every Christian. Our text today from Romans 12, along with I Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4, teach us that God, by the Holy Spirit has given every Christian a spiritual gift or gifts to do certain things well. (Romans 12:6) In I Corinthians 12:4-6 we are taught, “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us.”
So we are positioned to please God in serving because:
The Holy Spirit lives in us. The Holy Spirit gives us abilities to serve. Therefore… we are instruments of service through whom God works
As followers of Christ we are compelled by heartfelt gratitude to be instruments of service through whom God works.
In his book Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, Eugene Peterson tells the story from the fourth century church… though it is a story over two-thousand years old; it is a story that rings true today.
Church Father Gregory of Nyssa was assigned the position of Bishop of Cappadocia by his brother. Gregory objected. He did not want to be stuck in such an out-of-the-way place. But his brother insisted, “I do not want you to gain distinction from the church you serve but rather bring distinction to the church you serve.”
This being a living sacrifice to God is not about us… it is about God. Whatever we do is for the glory of God – not for our own distinction.
When we are seeking distinction we are not likely living out our lives as living sacrifices to God. As living sacrifices we serve with distinction when we are in that place which is the good and pleasing and perfect will of God.
Not only are we uniquely positioned as Christians to please God, God positions us to serve others.
II. Positioned to Serve in Sync with Others
“Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.” Romans 12:3-5
Having just challenged us to give our lives completely to be lived out in service to God, Paul injects a caveat. Just to make sure we fully understand what it means serve God he reminds us that we need to be humble about it.
A. Serve God Humbly
Interestingly, immediately after challenging us to offer our lives as living sacrifices to God, we are given a warning. It is as if to say, “Now that you are living out God’s good, pleasing and perfect will of God… don’t get a big head.”
You may be too young to remember those old-time, coin-operated scales like those occasionally restored to their original condition on American Restoration.
Once a man, who had a rather high opinion of himself, stepped on such a scale that dispensed a card giving his weight and a comment on his personality. After reading the card he handed it to his wife and said, “Here, look at this!” She took it and read aloud, “You are dynamic, a born leader, handsome, and much admired by women for your personality.” She looked at it a moment and then she said, “Hmmm, I see they got your weight wrong too!” (Our Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI)
It is pretty easy to have a sense of self-importance. Not only do we sometimes have a sense of self-importance or influence or even power and control because of things like tenure… we can feel a bit smug about what we do in the life and ministry of our church.
It is imperative in the life of a Healthy Missional Church that we bring who and what we are and what we do and place it all on the altar for God. It is imperative that we understand that what we bring is first and foremost a gift given to us by the Holy Spirit. And as the body of Christ we humbly bring what we have to the body and do what we do in the body to serve each other and the world.
If our gifts or abilities are humbly given to glorify God and bless others, God is hopefully pleased and others may be grateful and say so, We may certainly be appreciative but we have done it all as our part in the functioning of Christ’s body.
Our text also says that what we bring is to work in sync with or in harmony with the other parts of the body of Christ.
B. Serve God in Sync with Others
If the local expression of the body of Christ is our church, we can expect that the gifts God has given to those who are part of Heritage, are sufficient to do the work of mission of our church. We are Healthy in our relationship with Christ and we are most effective MIssionally when we function in sync in doing the work of Christ.
Haddon Robinson tells of a concert violinist whose brother was a bricklayer. One day, a woman began gushing to the bricklayer about how wonderful it was to be in the family of that violinist. Not wanting to insult the bricklayer, she added, "Of course, we don't all have the same talents, and even in a family some just seem to have more talent than others."
The bricklayer replied, "Boy, you're telling me! That violinist brother of mine doesn't know a thing about laying bricks. If he couldn't make some money playing that fiddle of his, he couldn't hire a guy with know-how like mine to build a house. If he had to build a house himself, he'd be ruined."
Robinson observes, "If you want to build a house, you don't want a violinist. If you're going to lead an orchestra, you don't want a brick-layer. No two of us are exactly alike. None of us has every gift and ability. Our responsibility is to exercise the gifts we have—not the ones we wish we had."
In my experience, my observation is that God works best in and through the church in which those who serve, work in harmony with each other. Healthy Missional Churches work like well-oiled machines. But when someone throws a wrench into the works the ministry is seriously hindered. When we free-lance or flex our importance muscles or even step in where we are not equipped to serve it isn’t a good thing.
However, when functioning as it should the body of Christ, the church, is positioned to serve God and others as intended.
It isn’t surprising that the remaining part of our text encourages us to serve God and others by giving our very best.
III. Positioned to Give Your Best
“In his grace God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well… serve well, teach well, encourage others, give generously, take responsibility, show kindness to others, do it gladly.” Romans 12:6-8
Depending on how to slice the subject of spiritual gifts you may say there are a select few like apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastor/teachers. But that narrow definition is short-sighted. It relegates spiritual gifts essentially to professional clergy types. The bible speaks of there being a variety of gifts and if you were to make a list from Romans 12, I Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4 and a few other select passages you could put a list of thirty together. But I don’t believe the enumerating of a list is the point… the point is that there are a variety of ways we go about serving God.
Our text speaks of gifts of prophecy or proclamation, service or helps, teaching, encouraging, giving, leading and showing kindness. This is by no way a complete list…
I think that among the thoughts to be unpacked in this text is the way we are encouraged to do whatever we do as best we can. It is important that we take our places of ministry and service seriously and try to always bring our A-game and do our best. The emphasis is on serving well.
I suspect that whatever smart phone you get accustomed to using is the best smart phone. I started with a Droid so I love my Droid and will not likely be persuaded to go to an iPhone. Buy I have family members who will die for any and every Apple product because Apple really is a great company.
However, in September Apple CEO Tim Cook offered a public letter of apology to Apple customers. He said, “At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Apple Maps last week, we fell short of this commitment… we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard.”
Let’s face it… sometimes we don’t always do it well. And in cases where we consistently do it poorly we may give some thought to the possibility that we may not be serving in our gift area. But we can “keep working non-stop until our lives live up to the incredibly high standard of giving our lives generously as living sacrifices to God.
Conclusion
It was mid-summer and this story unfolded very quickly. David Cerqueira is a pediatrician. One Sunday morning his wife taught her Sunday School class that everyone can be useful. She told the students that usefulness is serving God and doing so is a worthy honor. The kids quietly soaked up her words and when the lesson was over a little girl named Sarah asked, “Teacher, what can I do? I don’t know how to do many useful things.”
He said his wife was caught a bit off-guard but quickly looked around and spotting a bud vase on the window sill said, “Sarah, you can bring a flower and put it in the vase. That would be a useful thing.”Sarah wasn’t so sure… it did not seem very important to her but his wife insisted that if it is helping someone it is useful.
The following Sunday Sarah brought a dandelion and placed it in the vase. Week after week she placed a bright yellow flower in the vase.
When she told their pastor about the vase he brought it into the sanctuary and placed in on the pulpit using Sarah’s vase as a sermon illustration on the honor of serving others.
The week had begun well but by midweek Dr. Cerqueira had to begin treating little Sarah for leukemia. It was a painful time for Sarah and her family. It was a painful time for the doctor and his wife. It was a painful time for Sarah’s friends and for the church family.
The last time Sarah’s parents brought her to church they helped her make her way to the pulpit where she placed a yellow flower and a note in the vase…
Four days later she was with the Lord. Following the funeral and as the family and friends were leaving the graveside the pastor caught up with Dr. Cerqueria and said, “I have something I would like for you to see.” He pulled out of his pocket the piece of paper Sarah had placed in the vase. Holding it out to the pediatrician he said, “You should keep this; it may help you in your line of work.”
In pink crayon Sarah had written:
Dear God,
This vase has been the biggest honor of my life.
Sarah
In Healthy Missional Churches the biggest honor of all is to generously give of oneself to the glory of God and the good of others.
