Stewardship - Talents Series

Romans 12:3-8

For 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. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a person’s gift is prophesying, let them use it in proportion to their faith. If it is serving, let them serve; if it is teaching, let them teach; if it is encouraging, let them encourage, if it is contributing to the needs of others, let them give generously, if it is leadership, let them govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let them do it cheerfully.

1) Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought

2) So in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belong

3) We have different gifts according to the grace given us

4) Making the most of our Gifts

5) (So What?) If we use the gifts God has given us… God will bless us tenfold!

1) (3) Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.

Like I said last week, this verse here stings a bit because I think we could all be found guilty of it a little bit. Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought. It is something that I have to keep reminding myself of over and over and over. Every once in a while I my head gets bigger than it ought to… and God bless my wife… she reminds me. I get to thinking things like, you know that sermon WAS really awesome. I’m pretty darn good. But who do you think gave me the gifts that I use to write, prepare, and give that sermon?

Furthermore, who do you think sat by my side to help inspire the message? And how about this… who wrote the message in the first place? I’m not much more than 9 o’clock news… when you’ve already listened to the 12 o clock, 5 o clock, and 6 o clock news. You’ve heard it before… I’m just giving it back to you again. So when my head begins to get a bit big I remember this verse… Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself in sober judgment… and realize and honor where each of our gifts come from. God is the give of every great gift we have… and we have to remember that.

Now… this is the first part of Paul’s message… we need to remember where our gifts come from… and then he pushes the idea a little further by reminding us of something else…

2) (5) So in Christ we who are many form one body

We are not in this alone. We have an entire family here… one body in Christ, called to this church to serve as disciples. If we all work together, and do what we are supposed to do, we can do some amazing things. And it is an awesome thing that we are not in this alone… imagine if you had to do everything this church did… all by yourself. It couldn’t be done. Not only that… but nobody has the talent to do everything this church does... Brothers and sisters… we complete each other. And this gets us to the heart of Paul’s message as we get into our third point.

3) (6) We have different gifts according to the grace given us

1 Corinthians 12:15

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many part, but one body.”

We each have unique talents… we each have unique gifts… we are all asked to contribute in a special way… As the body of Christ… everybody here needs everybody else… we each need to figure out what our purpose is within this body of Christ. “God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be!!!” God has given you your talent specifically so you could serve as a very specific part of the body of Christ. And what do you suppose happens if you aren’t doing that job? More often than not… that job doesn’t get done. We are supposed to figure out what gifts God has given us, and then do our best to make the most of those gifts. And this gets us to the fourth and final point of Paul’s chapter…