Romans 12:1-8 Part 2

Romans 12:1-8 Part 2

1Therefore, 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. 2Do 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.

3For by the grace given 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. 4Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6We 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. 7If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8if 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.

Paul breaks up chapter twelve in four parts:

Verse 1 – Our relationship with God

Verse 2-3 – Our right evaluation of ourselves

Verse 4-8 – Our relationship in the Body of Christ, the church

Verse 14-21 – Our relationship with the world

We talked last week that Paul is now heading in a new direction. His focus is transitioning from more Christian theology to now in these next five chapters, how do we now as Christians, apply Christ’s attributes to our own lives?

God expects as it states in verse one, everything from us. He expects us to give ourselves to him as a living sacrifice, to serve Him for the rest of eternity rather than serving this sinful world. He expects us to have a transformed life both in heart and in mind by establishing a strong relationship with Him through the hearing and reading of His word and by being dedicated to prayer.

And if we do this, we will be able to better see what Gods will is for us. It will all become much clearer.

3For by the grace given 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.

Paul recognizing the grace God has given him now extends that same grace to all of us by telling us to be careful of how highly we think of ourselves. Paul knows how corrosive this can be in a church so he gives us this caution with love and concern.

We know that the church in Rome was a fairly new church. We are also a fairly new church. Do you think that we can learn something here from Paul? I know we can.

As we keep growing we need to be careful so that we can maintain that humbleness and remember that it is Christ’s church not ours. We are just His loyal servants.

I have seen churches that have made the mistake of thinking that they were something special. That God had given them something extra that He didn’t give any other church. I have seen God humble them.

God will keep us humble. If He sees that we are thinking to highly of ourselves as a church He will humble us. Believe me we are better off being humble ourselves rather that God having to humble us.

Verse three tells us “think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.” I think that when we become Christians we come face to face with the fact that God loves us enough to shed His grace on us, to have given His perfect Holy Son as a sacrifice for our imperfection. I think that as we progress through our sanctification process that we I hope are becoming more and more humble. As our faith and knowledge of God grows stronger, through this we should see more clearly how great Gods grace for us was.

In Christ’s church (which is also known as the body) we are all a part of this same body. Not one of us is in any way more important than the other. We all serve an equal importance in this church. My job is no more important than anyone elses here.

We are a part of the overall body of Christ. All of His true churches, those that believe in Gods infallible word, are part of one body.