Paul writes his letters very differently than Peter. Peter, he writes as his personality is. He jumps back and forth. He'll give you some doctrine, and then he'll give you an exhortation, and then he'll go back and give you some meaty doctrine again, and then go back to an exhortation. He jumps back and forth somewhat impulsively, like his personality. Paul, I think you can recognize, is so different. He'll write eleven chapters of telling you what the true grace of God is before he ever really says, now stand firm in it. A very different way that his mind works, and the way that he writes, and the way that he communicates. But he's been spending eleven chapters talking about the grace of God, and there have been some imperatives earlier in the book. But he basically saves them for the end of the book, after he's laid out his doctrine in a very methodical way. He then gives you the exhortations on how to apply what you have learned. And that's what we have, chapters 12 through 16, in Romans. Verses 1 and 2 of this chapter, Paul gives the basic principle on the Christian life. That is, that we be transformed by the renewing of our minds. God's truth transforming the mind will develop godly character, and then that godly character will result in godly behavior, in actions, in feelings, and so the key to all of this is to have our minds transformed by And so, in the first two verses, he tells us to think about God's will and about God's truth. Just to give an overview of the rest of the book, what we'll look at tonight, verses 3 through 8 of chapter 12, he tells us to think about ourselves. Think about yourself, where you are in the body of Christ. And then verses 9 through 21, he'll tell us to think about other people that we encounter in life, both friends and enemies. How do we interact with other people? Chapter 13, think about the world in which you live, especially those that are above you in terms of authority, like the civil government, but other people that you interact with. There seems to be a major emphasis in this letter on how we are to think about weak, Christians, the weak and the strong Christian, how they interact with each other. And so we'll find that in chapters 14 and 15. And then a lengthy conclusion, chapters 15 and 16, Paul basically says, don't forget to think about me. And he talks about a lot of personal matters, but reminds them to pray for him. So, tonight we'll just be looking at these first eight verses of Romans chapter 12, where Paul tells us to think about the will of God, think about ourselves, think about our place in the body of Christ, and then think about the part that we play in that body. So, let's pray and ask for the Lord's direction on our study this evening. meditate upon your word, and that you would use this word to transform our thinking, and to form our characters, and to direct our feelings and our behavior. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Verses 1 and 2, Paul says that we are to know God's will. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy. To offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform 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. It's as though Paul had been reading Psalm 1 or Jeremiah 17. Don't do this, don't conform to the world around you, but do this, be transformed in your mind. Delight in the law of the Lord, meditate upon it day and night, and find yourself being transformed. Don't let the world dictate what kind of person that you will be, your behavior, your values. Instead, let God's truth renew you and transform you. Paul is saying, take everything that you have heard in Romans 1 through 11 and let that be going through your mind constantly. Think about what he has said. You don't just jump into Romans 12. The verse is very powerful, the principles are very applicable if we do that, but Paul is assuming that you have worked your way through chapters 1 through 11, and so that you have that in mind when he says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, think about these great truths, Paul would say, that he's just written about. Everything that he has said about sin, grace, faith, Christ, freedom, duty, election, assurance, promises, everything that he has said throughout these eleven He says, now draw upon that so that you will know the will of God. Without this, everything is lost. You know, you'll just be wandering about, not knowing what's right, what's wrong. But with this, if you meditate on these truths, you'll enter into God's good, pleasing, and perfect will. You will experience that blessing that is described for us in Psalm 1. And so know God's will. Secondly, he says, know yourself, verse 3. For by the grace given to 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 faith God has distributed to each of you. Paul clearly tells us that we are to think about ourselves. Years ago, there was a great controversy in the Christian church over the whole matter of self-love, self-esteem, self-image. What is a Christian supposed to be thinking about all of this? It came to a head in 1982 with Robert Shuler's book entitled Self-Esteem, The New Reformation. And he mailed free copies to pastors all over America so that they would get this message. He was calling for a new reformation. He was calling for a redefining of sin. Sin is, we would find it in the catechism, but rather sin is anything that keeps you from having a good self-image. It would be anything that would detract you from accomplishing God's goals in your And it created quite a stir when it came out, that somebody would say something so blatantly that we just need to redefine what sin is, and begin to see sin as basically anything that causes you to have a low self-image. Many books were written to counteract this thought. Some authors wrote that to have a high self-esteem is instead sin itself. Christians should have a low self and have a high view of God. Another book that I read said that Christians should have no self-image at all. You shouldn't even think about yourself. You should be thinking about God. You should be thinking about other people. Just don't think about yourself. Paul clearly says in this verse, think about yourself. You do have a self-image. Whether you want to realize that or not, you have a self-image. The way that you think about yourself, it is there. And Paul would say, make sure that you have a biblical self-image. And so, he says, avoid pride when you think about yourself, for by the grace given to me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought." In the early church, they came up with a list of seven deadly sins. Why people think these things up, I don't know, but it's become ingrained in our culture to know the seven deadly sins of the early church. Anybody can rattle those off. That's the only one that we're really worried about tonight here. Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride. Pride was identified very early on as one of the seven deadly sins. Augustine said it was the sin that caused Adam and Eve to sin in the garden. Luther tended to think that it was unbelief calling into question God's goodness. Augustine said it was pride. Here you have Adam and Eve wanting to know better than God and to know things that God had put off limits. The opposite of pride is humility, which is the key to the Christian life. Humility is required if we are to make any progress. in the Christian life, and so we need to avoid pride when we're thinking about ourselves. Humility as we think about ourselves in relation to God, and humility as we think about ourselves in relation to one another. Jerry Bridges, in one of his books, said, Humility opens the way to all other godly character traits. It is the soil in which the other traits of the fruit of the Spirit grow. Humility is the soil out of which the fruit of the Spirit will grow. Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, all of these grow out of this fundamental sense of humility, not thinking of ourselves more highly than we should. I think you can see the wisdom of Paul saying this right here at the beginning of chapter twelve, as he's going to talk about our place in the body of Christ, our place in society. In chapter 13, how we deal with the weak and strong Christians over matters that we might disagree about, chapters 14 and 15, he lays down this basic principle of how we're going to interact with others. The only way to effectively serve others in the body of Christ, to love others, to care for the weak, is to practice humility, avoid pride. But he says, avoid pride and avoid false humility when you think about yourself. 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. False humility says, I can't do anything good. I can't do anything right. I have nothing to offer. I'm just a nobody. I come to church, but I just take up a space in the pew. I really have nothing to offer." Now, if you were to say that out loud to somebody, you know, I have nothing to offer. And if people say, well, yeah, we agree with you, you'd be highly offended. It's false humility. Often it's fishing for a compliment, for someone to say something to encourage you. But we need to avoid pride and avoid this false humility. John Murray, in his commentary on Romans, said, if we underestimate, then we are refusing to acknowledge God's grace, and we fail to exercise that which God has dispensed for our own sanctification and that of others. You don't want to underestimate yourself. And so Paul says, think of yourself not with pride, not with false humility, but through the lens of biblical faith. 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 faith God has distributed to each of you. Faith is seeing the truth as God has revealed it. You're grasping the truth as God says. You know, as Christians, we believe in Christ. But as Christians, we also believe what God says about us as in Christ. It's more than just believing in Christ. It's believing that God has done something when he has placed us in Christ. And so that's part of our faith. We're to think with renewed minds. We're to think along the lines of God's truth. What does God say about us? Well, that's why Paul has written Romans 1 through 11. He gives us what we're supposed to be thinking about when we think of ourselves. And so, a renewed mind will recognize personal sin and inadequacies, the dangers of sin and corruption. The renewed mind will be thinking about what God has done in making us new creatures in Christ. The freedom that we have, free from the wrath of God, free from slavery to sin, free from the law, free from death, will have all of this that God has said about us as a part of our faith. And so I believe that a Christian's default self-image should primarily be a positive one. A Christian should have a positive image of him or herself in terms of, I'm in Christ, you know, I'm not a totally depraved sinner that can't do anything right. A biblical self-image will believe in sin and the continuing struggle that we have with sin, but primarily we will see ourselves as in Christ with all of those blessings. I don't think it's helpful to talk about self-love that has so many problems with it. I think it's even questionable to talk about self-esteem unless you very quickly add that that esteem is to be found in Christ himself. Probably the best term to use is just the term self-image, the way that we think about ourselves. And Paul would have us understand that we're to think of ourselves as in Christ. know God's will, know yourself, then he says, know your place, verses 4 and 5. For 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, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. He says your place is in the body. It's important to see that verse 4 is an illustration, and verse 5 is the reality. He uses an illustration. He says, you've got a body, and it's got a lot of different members, and that's the illustration, Paul says, that I want to use. But verse 5 is the reality. Verse 5 is not a figure of speech. Verse 5, Paul does not say we are like a body, he says that we are a body. The illustration is in verse 4, but the reality is in verse 5. He says we really are a body. He's stressing the reality of the relationship that we have as Christians in the body of Christ. This is a real living connection. that we enjoy between us as fellow believers with the head Christ. It's not something that's just physical, it's deeper, it's more real than a physical connection. I think one of the primary differences that I see between the Old Testament and the New Testament is in this area of how we relate to each other. In the Old Testament, God's people were joined together by external things. It was race. It was national laws. They were a state of Israel. It was ceremony. It was religious laws and customs that they had. It was something that was external. You wanted to become one of God's covenant people. You became circumcised, you began to follow the law, you went to the synagogue, you did external things. With the New Testament, the change that seems to take place is that we actually become the body of Christ. Once the head, Jesus Christ, is given, the body begins to exist in that sense. There was a church, there was people of God in the Old Testament, but there seems to be existence as a people, in terms of being a body, having communion, communion of the saints, deriving our life and our direction from the Head, Christ, the Holy Spirit given to be that bond that unites us together, as Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 12. The church is a body, that's what he's saying in verse 5. It's not just an organization. It's not a corporation. It's not a company. It's not a club. It's not even a religious affiliation. It's a body where believers are united one to another. There's just one body. God does not have different plans. for different people. He doesn't have a plan for Israel and then a plan for the New Testament church for Gentiles. Ephesians chapter 2. We call this Catholic. I believe in the holy Catholic church. That is, that it's general. That it's not restricted just to Rome. It's not just restricted to Italians or to white people. The church is Catholic, it's general, it includes people from every nation, every race. One body that includes all believers. Your place is in one body in Christ. Verse 5, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. One body with one head. Jesus Christ. All of God's blessings are to be found in Christ. All of the promises are found in Christ. He says, your place, my place, is in this one body. He says, we. He's not just talking generically about truth. He says, we are one body. So in Christ, we, though many, form one body. I think Paul, at this point, is really trying to drive this point home to the Roman Church as they need to see themselves in a practical way as being one body. Not just think of doctrine, or what may be true generally, but to see this in real life. We are one body. And then, as one body, we belong to one another. The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 12, has a nice chapter on the communion of saints, which stresses the fact that we're all united to the Head, Jesus Christ, we're all united together, and so we share in each other's gifts. All of this is held in common. A very useful chapter to study. And then the final thing that Paul says here is to know your part in this body, verses 6 through 8. He says, we have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith. If it is serving, then serve. If it is teaching, then teach. If it is to encourage, then give encouragement. Giving, then give generously. If it is to lead, do it diligently. If it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. Paul says that you have something to offer, you have a gift. Gifts are something that you can do, something that you enjoy doing. It's something that you do and other people are, they're God-given gifts. It's not what we choose to do. It's not what someone asks us to do. It's an ability or a talent that God gives. It's a spiritual gift because it's produced by the Holy Spirit. And that's basically what the word spiritual means when you run across it in the Bible. Something that is produced by the Holy Spirit. Some people shy away from thinking about gifts. Do I have a gift? That's pride. Paul just said, don't think too highly of yourself. To say that I'm gifted means that I'm better than everybody else. But Paul says, don't think less of yourself than you should. And to not recognize your gift, or that God has called you and gifted you to do something in the church, is disbelief. It's disobedience. You're not taking what God has said. If He has given you a gift, if He's given you an ability to say that I'm not gifted is a form of unbelief and disobedience. Notice the grace aspect in verse 6. Three different ways Paul says this that you can see even in the English translations. We have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. All related to the same basic word for grace, something that is given freely, unmerited. You have a gift. Paul does not say ten percent of you out there have a specific gift and so you should start using that. He does not say twenty percent of you have spiritual gifts, now do eighty percent of the work. Every Christian has a gift, every Christian has something to contribute, something to use, some part to play in the body of Christ. You have something unique to offer. We have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. You don't have to do everything. There's only one person who can do everything—Lord Jesus Christ. He's the head. You don't have to do everything. You have something unique to do. God gives us different interests, different concerns, different abilities. Sometimes that becomes frustrating because we want everybody to buy into what we're interested You know, I need to go out here and do this. I want everybody else to come and join me, because if we don't do something, it's not going to get done. But different people have different gifts, different concerns. They see different needs in the church or in the community around them. Some people are interested in working with children, some with evangelism, some are working with their hands. They want to do something tangible. But God has given us different gifts. You're to do what God calls and gifts you to do. There are seven gifts listed in this passage. It's not an exhaustive list. It's questionable whether we have an exhaustive list throughout the New Testament. I do think that the first two gifts that are mentioned here are general categories. and that every spiritual gift will fall into one of these two categories. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith. If it is serving, then serve. I think basically you have speaking gifts and then you have ministry gifts, serving gifts, and that all spiritual gifts will fall into one of those two areas. Some people are gifted at teaching, at preaching, or counseling, or exhorting, or writing ministry. Other people, it's going to be ministry. It's not going to be speaking in front of people, but rather it's going to be helping out in some other fashion. But I think that all of the gifts can be grouped under one of those two categories. And then finally, you have something now to do. Do it, Paul says. Use your gift. That's really the main point of what Paul is saying. Go home and try to figure out what your gift is. Or he doesn't say, take a survey of 280 questions and try to come up with your gift. I've taken all of those tests, and I'm sure that many of you have taken those. There's no real surprises on those tests. It's basically what you think about yourself. But Paul doesn't say that. What he says is, use your gift. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith. If it is serving, then serve. If it is teaching, then teach. If it is to encourage, then give encouragement. If it is giving, then give generously. If it is to lead, do it diligently. If it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. Paul is simply saying, be good stewards. Start with where you are, with what you know, what you believe God has called you to do, and do it. Just start on it. Don't go home and try to work this out for months and get frustrated. Get going. Work at it. Perfect it. Rekindle it. Look at your life and find areas where you used to be involved. If you're struggling right now thinking about what is my gift, what did you used to be involved in? What are some things that you have done in the past? Perhaps what you need to do is to rekindle a gift that you had. But Paul is basically saying, get to work, start exercising those spiritual gifts for the benefit of the body. Be transformed by God's truth. Know and do God's will. Know yourself. Know your place in the body of Christ. And know what part God is calling you to play. Let's pray.