not your own

Romans 14:1-9

I think it’s fair to say that most of you here today would be considered regular church goers.  Especially those of you that are visiting from out of town.  The fact that you choose to go to church while on your vacation is commendable, and is evidence of the fact that you’re probably consistently in church when you are at home as well.

If I were to guess, I would suppose that many of you, like me,  were raised in a home where you were expected to be at church every Sunday. In my case, I was a preacher’s kid.  I was in church every time the door was opened.  Sunday school, Sunday morning service, Sunday evening service, Wednesday night service, youth group on Saturday and anything else that was going on.  And if you’re my age or older, then chances are you were brought up in the kind of home where one dressed up for church.  Women wore hats and some of them even wore gloves.  The men wore suits and ties.  We were told we should look our best for church.  And so people wore what they called their Sunday best.  And if you didn’t dress up  for church, then you stood out like a sore thumb.

But as you are all aware, back in the late 60’s and the early 70’s, we had something of a cultural revolution in this country.  The hippy movement inspired a whole generation to grow their hair out, jeans and t shirts became the popular dress, and there was a colossal culture shift in the way people started thinking about things.  Young people in particular were calling for freedom to do whatever felt good, freedom from what they considered the hang ups of the previous generations.

Freedom and individual rights became the mantra of the Civil Rights Movement, the Equal Rights Movement, the Peace Movement, and the Sexual Revolution and it all was set to a musical cocktail blending booze, drugs and rock and roll.  And if you were alive at the time, it seemed like everybody was drinking the koolaid.

Coming somewhat late to the party, so to speak, was the church.  Some hippies discovered Jesus and began what became known as the Jesus Movement.  That led to more and more churches doing away with many of the social standards that were at odds with barefooted, longhaired Jesus freaks.   Gradually, the mainstream church in America began to change along with the culture.  Some of the changes were good and some of them have not been so good.  In our rush to be culturally relevant, the church in some cases threw the baby out with the bath water. 

Today the Jesus Movement and hippy inspired culture has been replaced by whatever the latest trends and fashions are today.  But there is one hallmark of that time period that still is a pervasive attitude of not only our culture today, but also of the church today.  And that is this fixation over what we perceive to be our freedoms, our rights as an individual.  It became ingrained in our society in the hippy generation, and it still continues with us today.

But the freedoms that inspired the hippy generation to try drugs and free sex and all these things that once were considered taboo just turned out to be an empty promise of the devil that enslaved a generation to alcoholism, drug addiction and wasted lives.  Kris Kristofferson wrote a song about this freedom called Me and Bobby Magee which was sung by the late Janis Joplin who eventually died of a drug overdose.  Ironically, Kristofferson was one of the first rock musicians to produce what would become known as “Christian rock”, with a song called “Why Me Lord” and another hit called “Sunday Morning Coming Down.”  But he didn’t last long in that genre and began a career which was known for heavy partying and drinking. But in that song “Me and Bobby Magee,” there is the line that says a lot about what the freedoms of the 60’s ended up revealing.  It says, “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose…”  A generation lost their innocence, lost their virginity, many of them lost their sanity and even their lives trying to exercise their freedom to live like they wanted.

Maybe it’s an uniquely American phenomenon, I don’t know.  But there is still this overarching attitude that our personal freedoms are something we have a right to exercise, no matter what.   And what I think that Paul is getting at here in this passage, really starting all the way back in chapter 12, is that this idea of personal freedom is at odds with mature Christianity.  When we as a church are overly concerned about exercising our personal freedoms and protecting our personal rights, then it goes against the teachings of the Bible.

At the root of this problem with freedoms is the concept of grace.  If you were here last week, then maybe you will recall that I spoke about our misconception of what grace really means.  It’s not a license to sin.  It’s not freedom to do whatever we want without fear of condemnation or repercussion. Romans  6:1 says, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”

But rather grace is the loving gift of God whereby He redeemed us from the price of sin, by paying the penalty for our sin with the blood of Jesus Christ. “God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Jesus.” 2 Corinthians 5: 21   That was grace.  God paying for what we could never pay for.  God giving us what we could never get on our own: righteousness, holiness, made acceptable to God.

Now then, having been made righteous by grace, 1Cor. 6:19 says “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”

Well, wait a minute, you say.  I thought Jesus said He came to set the captives free?  And that if He sets us free we shall be free indeed.  What happened to our freedom? 

Well, the answer to that is if you have exchanged your old life for new life in Jesus Christ, if you’ve exchanged your sins for His righteousness, if you have been changed from death unto life, then you are free.  You are set free from the wages of sin.  Jesus paid the price of it.  You are free from slavery to sin.  Sin no longer has dominion over you.  You are free from the condemnation of the law.  Jesus fulfilled the law for us.  And you are free from death, because Jesus has given you eternal life.

This passage we have been looking at in the past couple of weeks and are continuing in today is only really understood when we understand what it means to be bought with a price, our bodies are no longer our own, but we are the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. 

There is an Old Testament illustration of this principle in Exodus 21.  And in this passage there is a law written regarding a Hebrew slave that must be set free in the seventh year.  "But if the slave plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man,' then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.”  

The slave was set free, by law he was a free man.  But because of the love that he had for his master and his master’s house, he choose to live with him permanently, forever as his bond servant.  And Paul uses this terminology repeatedly in his gospel.  He starts off in Romans 1 identifying himself as a bond servant of Jesus Christ.  In Philippians, Jesus is described as a bond servant.  James called himself a bond servant.  Moses was called a bond servant, as was Peter and Jude, and  many other disciples.

And this is the principle of freedom then that must be preeminent in our lives.  We have been set free from the condemnation of the law and from the bondage of sin when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,  and yet we become because of our love for God and by choice bond servants of Jesus Christ, willingly relinquishing that freedom, our rights, for the sake of the church and the work of the kingdom.  We realize that we have been bought with a price.  Therefore our body is not our own.  And so we offer to God our bodies in chapter 12 verse 1 as a spiritual sacrifice for His purposes, to do His will.   The Holy Spirit indwells our bodies so that Christ may live in me.  That Christ may live through my body here on earth. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, that is such an amazing thought.  It should galvanize you into action.  It should humble you.  It should energize you.  That God has chosen you to be indwelled by His Spirit so that your body would be the vehicle through which Jesus Christ lives on earth.  This is the underlying foundation of these last four chapters of Romans.  That in becoming Christians there is this great exchange; Christ gives us His righteousness and we give over our lives to Christ to be used for His purposes.  We no longer live according to our desires.  We no longer live according to our purposes.  No longer live according to our will.  But we willingly surrender  our bodies, even our freedoms, even our rights, to Jesus Christ to be used for His will. 

Listen, if we got hold of this principle and really, fully accepted it, and lived it, we would see another cultural revolution that would put the hippy movement to shame.  If Christians embraced this concept the way that the world embraced the hippy movement, then we would see a world wide revival that has never been equaled.  Instead of the sham love that the hippy movement proposed which ended up in disillusion and destruction of lives, we would see agape love that would impact the world to turn their lives over to God. 

But unfortunately, the church is a far cry from any sort of bond servant mentality today.  Somehow, Satan has duped the church  into thinking that God is our servant, He is our genie in a bottle, that we can rub it and say a few special words in  a special way and presto, God pops out and says, “Your wish is my command.”  And preachers are preaching that if you just have enough faith, God will be at your beck and call to do your bidding.  The gospel has been turned on it’s head.  It’s upside down.  It’s me first and God only to be used in the case of emergency.

No, the gospel according to Paul is summarized in his statement, “for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”  He’s saying, if I am going to live, it’s going to be for Christ.  He is my reason for living.  He is my purpose.  His will be done in my life as it is in heaven. 

So how is this bond servant kind of love lived on a practical basis?  How do I live as Christ would live, how do I let Christ have the preeminence in my life?  How do I live in the Spirit and not in the flesh?  Well, Paul said first of all in chapter 12:1 that I will offer my body as a living sacrifice to be used by God for His purposes.  Then in 12: 3-8, I will serve the church using my spiritual gifts that God has given me for the building up of the body.  Then in 12: 9-21 he tells us to love those that are even persecuting you and not take revenge, but rather helping and showing hospitality to those in need, to overcome evil with good. 

And then in chapter 13 verses 1 to 7, he talks about our relationship to the government. We are to be model citizens; submit to the governing authorities and pay our taxes. Then beginning in verse 8 of chapter 13, he talks about the relationship we're to have to our neighbors.  We are to love and serve our neighbors the way we used to love and serve ourselves.  If we really love God, we will love our neighbors the way we say we love God, therefore we can’t sin against our neighbor.  He tells us to live in the light of Christ, constantly looking for His appearing, constantly putting on Jesus Christ and putting to death our fleshly desires.

And now in chapter 14, Paul begins a section which will take two chapters to cover, and that is the subject of serving the weaker members of the church in order to prevent them from being offended and to keep them from stumbling.  And here is where my freedoms are tested.  Where I am tempted to resort back to the worldly attitude of exercising my rights and freedoms and if someone’s got a problem with that then that’s too bad.  No, Paul will show us in these verses that the strong in the faith, must give way for the weak in the faith. If there is a possibility that something I do in the exercise of my freedom will be a stumbling block to another brother, then I won’t do it.  Because I love my brother more than I love my freedom.

In the church in Rome, there were new converts coming to Christ from all sorts of backgrounds.  And we don’t have time this morning to go into all of these details.  We will address them more fully this Wednesday evening at our Bible study.  But suffice it to say that you had converted pagans who had been involved in idol worship and temples where they had all sorts of feasts and ceremonies and then at the other extreme, you had converted Jews coming out of Judaism and the Mosaic law with all their dietary restrictions and special days that they observed.   And when these new believers came to Christ, some of them had a hard time embracing the freedoms that others seemed to embrace.  The converted idol worshippers may have not had any problem learning to worship on Sunday instead of the Sabbath, and weren’t concerned about Jewish feast days.  But maybe they had a big problem with meat that was sold in the marketplace which had once been offered to idols and then resold by the temple to the meat market down the street.  And so some Christians in Rome were offended that others were buying meat from the market that resold sacrificial offerings, and some new converts from Judaism were still struggling over a lifetime tradition of keeping the Sabbath or other important feast days. 

And so Paul, rather than addressing all the do’s and don’ts and trying to give these new Christians a bunch of rules to live by, just continues with the principle of agape love that the church is supposed to have for one another.  The principle of giving preference to one another out of sacrificial love.  He is saying that rather than exercising our rights and freedoms under the banner of grace, we submit to one another out of love and restrict or control our freedoms for the sake of the weaker brother.

Vs.  1.  Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. 2.  One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only. 3. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. 4. Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.    5.  One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.    6.  He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord, and he who eats, does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who eats not, for the Lord he does not eat, and gives thanks to God.

Paul simplifies this in a way that is instructive for us as well here today.  We may not have the same traditions and cultural backgrounds that these Romans had.  But we still have the same attitudes and the same temptations to put our priorities above someone else.  To hold to our freedoms and our rights at the expense of another. 

But the key to this whole passage is found in the next couple of verses. Romans 14:7 “For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.  For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.”

And so the question that I would leave you with today, that I pray you would examine your hearts over this morning, is this.  Are you really living your life for the Lord or for yourself?  Paul says the Christian is living for the Lord, that we do not live for ourselves anymore.  We are bought with a price, we are not our own, the life we live in the flesh we live for God.  And I would ask you to examine your heart and ask yourself if that statement characterizes your life today?  Is Christ living through you?

I’m not asking you if you prayed the sinners prayer at some point in your life.  I’m not asking you if you have been baptized or joined a church somewhere.  I’m asking you have you responded to the redemption offered by the blood of Jesus Christ by offering back your life to Him as a living sacrifice?  Are you putting to death your flesh so that Christ is able to live in you? 

Or are you still trying to hang on to your freedoms, your rights to live life the way you want to live?  Or do you just want to keep God on the side to help you achieve your purposes, but you haven’t got much interest in living sold out as a vessel for Jesus Christ?

Listen, I’m not your judge here this morning. I am not deciding who is born again and who isn’t.  But verse 11 says one day we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.  Our motives will be made known on that day.  God will reveal our hearts.

You may be here today and you can’t say for me to live is Christ.  You know that Christ is not the purpose or the center of your life.  But He can be.  He wants to be.  And if you will just humble yourself right now and call on Him for forgiveness He will come into your heart and live in you and you with Him.  He will change you from the inside out.  Call on Him and invite Him into your heart today.  The psalmist David said, “a broken and contrite heart you will not despise, O Lord.”  Invite God to take over your life today.  To live in you and through you to do His will. 

Jello love

 Romans 13:8-14

For many of you here today, this will be your last service at the Beach Fellowship this season.  You’re going to go back to your normal routines and hopefully your regular churches back home, wherever that may be.  And I have somewhat of a heavy heart about that.  We will continue here, on the beach, Lord willing, through sometime in October, and then indoors at the Christian Conference Center through the winter.  Our numbers will gradually diminish, but God has called us to be faithful in season and out of season.  And God helping me, we will continue to preach the gospel to whoever is here.  I hope that some of you who are local and have been fellowshipping with us here this summer, will consider continuing on with us this winter.  I believe that it is the year around support and fellowship that allows us to be able to do this during the summer season.  And so I would ask you to pray about continuing with us throughout this winter.

That being said, I think that this message this morning is fitting for this particular time.  It is a message that does not offer a finale or farewell, but urges a deeper commitment,  a continuing on, to urge this fellowship to keep on keeping on, renewing your commitment to the things of the Lord.  Because just as  summer passes into fall, so this scripture warns us that the day is fast approaching when the Lord will return.  Our time here on earth is passing quickly.  And the time for renewing our faith and our fervency for the Lord is now.

I often feel a kinship in this ministry to that of John the Baptist.  To paraphrase John, I am not worthy to tie his shoelaces.  So I don’t mean that somehow I am comparable to a John the Baptist.  But I do feel a certain stirring in my spirit that we are in the end of days.  As in the case of John’s ministry, he went before the Lord, saying “repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”  Jesus was coming.  And John was urging the people to repent, to ready themselves for the Lord’s appearing, to be washed and ready.  And I feel a certain stirring in my spirit, as I stand out here in this wilderness, so to speak, as an oddity perhaps, a curiosity to many, but I feel a need to preach, “repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”  The present age is drawing close.  Jesus is coming back.  And those that claim to be saints of God need to get their houses in order.   We need a revival of repentance.  Of renewing our commitment to be about the business of the kingdom of God.  

We need this wake up call today because the church is wallowing in apostasy.  It is wallowing in self centeredness.  It is wallowing in a shallow, superficial religion that is all about feelings and emotion.  But most of all, it is immersed in a religion that is all about me.  Our religion is self centered.  What God can do for me.  How God makes me feel.  I heard someone on a Christian radio station the other day offering a message that God loves you and wants what’s best for you.  And he just wants to have a relationship with you.   And all of that sounds pretty good.  And then he said, He loves you and wants you to succeed.  To be happy.   And that was it.  That was the gospel as far as this guy is concerned.  Just know God is love, He loves you, wants you to be happy, wants the best for you, and wants to have a relationship with you so you can be successful.  And the problem with that theology is the problem with all false theologies, there is just enough truth in the bait to taste good and get you to swallow the hook as well.

But I want to tell you what Paul makes very clear here in Romans, and that is that the truth of the gospel is following God in obedience.  It’s not about feelings, it’s not some romanticized love affair with Jesus, it’s not about reaching some emotional high that is passed off as feeling spiritual, but the gospel the Bible teaches is  about believing in the truth, committing to the truth, and being obedient to the truth.

My wife and I have had more than a few conversations about salvation and the gospel.  My poor wife has to be the sounding board for my theological debates with myself.  But one of the things I have been thinking about and discussing for a while, is the question, when did the disciples get saved?  At what exact moment did they become born again?  Receive righteousness?  Was is when Jesus called them?  Was it when they followed Him?  Was it when they were commissioned to go out in His name?  Was it when Jesus breathed on them to receive the Holy Spirit?  Or was it on the day of Pentecost when they were filled with the Spirit?  And we spent a lot of time discussing this question, because we are concerned about the salvation of some people that have been in contact with our fellowship.

And as I was studying for this message, I believe that I received the answer to that question.  They were saved, they received righteousness, when they believed in Christ and left everything and followed Him. They may not have known all the doctrine, but they recognized Jesus was the Messiah, that He had the truth, and they were obedient to what was revealed.  They were obedient in faith to the truth that was revealed.  And after that it was a continuing journey of revelation and sanctification.  They may have faltered at times, they even ran away in fear a time or two, but they continued.  They came back in obedience.

See, I can’t see the heart of man.  I don’t know your heart.  But God does.  God said man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.  And David said that  “a broken and contrite heart, O Lord, you will not despise.”  Romans started off telling us how Abraham was saved.  It was when He believed God and followed God in obedience.  And Romans 4:3 says, “For what does the Scripture say? "ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS."  Obedience was the proof of Abraham’s faith.  He could have all the faith in the promise of God in the world, but until he was obedient to the call of God and came out of that land of his father and traveled to where God told him to go it would have been worthless.  And so we see that faith and obedience go hand in hand.

Now the text that we’re  looking at today really must be considered to be a continuation of the application that Paul started in chapter 12.  Paul spent  the first 11 chapters telling us about salvation, the foundations of our faith and the mercy and grace of God that provided for a lost world to be saved from eternal damnation and instead be given eternal life.  It took him 11 chapters to give us all of that in detail.  And then he starts out a new segment, which is what we are still in by chapter 13, of what we do now that we have received grace.

See, grace is so misunderstood today.  We think grace is a license to do whatever we want to do and we get away with it.  We have no more punishment, so we can do anything we want without fear of divine repercussion.   Modern Christianity is sort of like jello.  You know what jello is, don’t you?  It’s neither hard nor soft.  It’s neither liquid nor solid.  It’s too thick to sip through a straw, but it’s too unstable to hold any real weight.  It’s just kind of jiggly.  It looks kind of cool.  And it tastes sweet.  But it has no nutritional value.  If you eat it as a meal, it may make you feel full at first, but then you get hungry again 15 minutes later.

The Christian life is not a jello kind of experience.  No, in fact, in Romans 5:2 it tells us that we stand in grace, and then the next verse says we exult in our tribulations.  In other words, because of sin we were dead, but God raised us up from the dead to stand in righteousness, it’s the gift of God, what we call grace.  We are standing now, as opposed to being dead, only by grace.  But grace is not some kind of panacea for all the world’s ills, no, tribulations are going to be part of the Christian experience. Grace is not some beneficent jello existence where we do nothing, are good for nothing, and nothing bad ever happens to us.   Grace is merely the means by which we are able to become sons of God, fit for the work of the kingdom.

So what is our life supposed to be like now that we have received grace?  Where do we go from here?  What’s next?  Well Paul tells us, actually he urges us, compels us to take the next step in obedience, and that is to lay ourselves down on the altar as a sacrifice to God for spiritual service.  This is the next step.  To take our agenda, our goals, our pride, our selfishness, our fleshly desires and lay them down on the altar and give ourselves to God in spiritual service. Romans 12:1  “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

Now what I want to show you today in the time we have left is the relationship between 12:1 and 13: 8, 9, 10. We can’t understand 13:8-10 unless we undestand that it is predicated on 12:1.  “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, "YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET," and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Rom. 13:8-10)

Now I preached when we were in chapter 12 about love and I won’t have time to review all that I said then.  But what I will say by way of summary is that the love that Paul is referring to here is not romantic love.  And unfortunately, that is the basis of most of our concept of what Biblical love is like.  We somehow can’t help but think of love in a romantic context.  I think that is particularly true for women.  And I think it becomes somewhat of a stumbling block for men.  One friend of mine once remarked that he had a hard time listening to modern Christian music because he felt like it was the kind of love song you would sing for a woman for a man.  And being a man, he had a hard time singing songs like that.  And he had a point, because most of our concept of Christian love is based on romantic love.

But what this kind of love is, is agape love.   And it’s different from what we tend to think of in terms of love.  It is a selfless love as opposed to a selfish love.   And maybe to be fair to the ladies, the best type of romantic love is supposed to be selfless.

But that is why that Paul started off this section in chapter 12 vs. 1, that the first thing we are to do in response to God’s love for us, in response to His grace and mercy, is sacrifice ourselves on the altar.  We lay self, the me first agenda, my pride, my desires, my passion, my goals, we lay it all down on the altar and offer up our bodies to be used by God for His purposes, and in His service.  See, Christian love is the opposite of selfishness.  And so the first part of obedience now that you have faith in Christ is to present your self love on the altar and now love others the way you used to love yourself.   Now serve others the way you used to serve yourself.  This is the mark of genuine Christianity.

Look at verse 8, love your neighbor as yourself.  I’ve heard a dozen messages or more on that verse, and they all try to explain it like you need to love yourself first, and it’s healthy and natural to love yourself first and then you need to love others like you love yourself.  No, I don’t think that is what the Holy Spirit is saying when you keep it in context with chapter 12.  I think the Holy Spirit is saying when you are really obedient to Christ, you will love the way Christ loved the church, giving himself for her.  Eph. 5:25 “just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.”  See, Christ gave up His body, His rights, His throne, His will, in order to serve the church and that is our example of love.  And we are called to love one another as we used to love and serve ourselves, now instead we serve the church, we serve one another.

And when you understand that properly, then the rest of 9 and 10 is self explanatory.  If you love your neighbor the way Christ loved the church, you won’t commit adultery with his wife.  If you love your neighbor with a selfless, Christ like love, you won’t murder your neighbor, or the equivalent, according to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, you won’t hate your neighbor, hate being equated with murder.  If you love your neighbor with a selfless love, you won’t steal from him, you won’t covet his stuff.  Because love is the root of the law.  All the commandments, Jesus said, can be summed up in selfless, Christ like love.  Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus said in John 13:34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”  See, the OT law was summed up in the 10 commandments.  There were 613 laws that came from those first 10.  The first four of those commandments were man’s relation to God, and the second group of six were man’s relation to man.  And what Jesus is saying in the New Covenant is that of the second group of six about our relation to man, they can all be summed  up, not in the negative, as in thou shalt not, but in the positive, do this; love your neighbor as yourself.

You know, maybe we need to stop right here and ask ourselves, “How are we doing so far?”  How are we doing with these two new commandments for the NT church.  Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.  And don’t say, “well, I’m not under law but under grace.”  No, we still have an obligation to God’s law.  God’s law is good, it is perfect.  Christ said I didn’t come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.  In other words, He came to keep it.  And He has given us a new law for us to keep.  And to help us keep it, He has given us the Holy Spirit who is to be our helper, when we rely on Him and submit to Him.

You know, it’s easy to say I love God.  Because if love is just a feeling, just an emotion or just some romantic viewpoint that I have, then who is to judge my feelings?  But it’s another thing to say I love my neighbor as myself.  I give the kind of preference to my neighbor that I used to give to myself.  I no longer live for myself, I live for my neighbor’s benefit.  How are you doing with that one?  Or here’s a better question, how would your neighbor say you  are doing with that one?  How would your office workers evaluate your love for them?  How would your business contacts say you were doing in the love department?  How would your church body say you were doing?  How would your pastor say you were doing in selfless, serving love for others.  How would your family say you were doing.  How would your enemies say you were doing?

Jesus said in John 13:35 "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you  go to church regularly at the big church down the street where everyone can see you. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you put a Christian sticker on your bumper. Bt this all men will know you are my disciples if you play KLOVE real loud in your car.  No, it says "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."  Not just liking people or certain people, but loving people the way Christ loved the church and gave up His life for her.

Verse 11 gives us another imperative, another command.  Look at it,  “Do this…”  Do what?  Do this, love your neighbor, love the church, love your enemies, love God, don’t be selfish anymore, but be selfless, loving others the way you used to serve yourself.  The way you used to give preference to yourself, give to others now as unto the Lord.  Paul’s not making a suggestion.  He’s not giving you a choice.  He says do this.  Do this.

And then he adds the urgency to that command.  “Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.  The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.  Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy.  But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.”

Peter says it this way in 1Peter 4:1 “Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries.”

Both Peter and Paul are saying the same thing.  The selfish desires and passions of the flesh are incompatible with love.  Grace is not a license to sin.  Love is not a romantic or patriarchal view of a God who just wants a relationship with us at any cost.  No, God wants obedience.  And the command that we are to be obedient to is to sacrificially love one another the way Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.

The time already past is sufficient for your selfish pursuit of the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life.  The night is almost gone, and the day is at hand.  Jesus could come back today.  He could come tonight while you are sleeping.  And suddenly you’re going to find yourself face to face with your Master and Lord. Romans 14:12 “So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.”

Someone once said, that enthusiasm is easier than obedience.  There is a lot of false teaching out there about an easy believeism, a permissive grace, a Christian life filled with earthly rewards.  But listen, I can tell you from experience, the Christian life is difficult.  It is costly.  You’re going to give up some things now, for the sake of gaining the glories of God revealed in eternity.  You’re going to have tribulation.  The Christian life isn’t a cakewalk.  It’s going to require sacrifice.  It requires selflessness.  And that doesn’t come naturally or easily.

But I want to encourage you that one day it will be worth it all, when we see Jesus.  Life’s trials will seem so small, when we see Christ and He ushers us in victorious to all that He has gone on before us to prepare for His bride, the church.  I pray you will be ready when He comes.  You won’t be caught like the 10 virgins, unprepared.  You won’t be caught like the unfaithful steward, with what God entrusted you with buried in the ground, unused.

Listen, you may not be where you should be today.  Perhaps you took inventory and said, no, I’m not living the way Christ wants me to live.  I’ve been living for myself.  For my purposes, my pride, my agenda.  But I want to change. I want to live for Christ, starting today.  What should I do, Roy?  Well to start with, the Bible says that a broken and contrite heart God will not despise.  Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.  Right now, you can call on God and confess to Him your selfishness and pride and ask Him to help you, to cleanse you from all unrighteousness and give you the power through the Holy Spirit to live the kind of life He has called you to live.  Believe in Him, trust Him, commit to Him, and purpose to be obedient to Him, no matter what the cost.  And God will hear you and answer you and count it to you as righteousness.

submission to government

One need only to turn on the news today or pick up a newspaper to be reminded that we are in an election year.  In November, we will be voting to determine who will be our president for the next four years.  And I’m sure that you, as well as I do, follow closely what is going on in our national politics, as we are aware of the tremendous impact government has on our lives, on our families, on our children’s future and for the direction of our country.

Today we are constantly told of the need for separation of church and state.  The left is afraid that the church is going to try to mandate morality and try to cram it down their throat, and the church is afraid that the government is going to stifle our religious freedoms and tell us what we can and cannot teach and believe.  And yet this tension is not something new.  This see saw has been going on for thousands of years.

In our text today, Paul is going to tell us what our responsibilities are as a church to the governing authorities.  And next time we are going to see what authorities God has given to government and what our response is supposed to be.

But what we need to understand at the very outset is that from a Biblical point of view, the hope for this country, or for that matter any country, is not going to be found in the political arena.  The only hope for the world is found in Jesus Christ.  Only when men’s hearts are changed, transformed to the will of God, by the supernatural power of God, can there be any lasting hope for man.

That is why Paul has spent the first 11 chapters of Romans telling us how we can be transformed by God.  How we must understand first of all that all men are depraved and lost in their sins and in need of a Savior.  And that God made it possible through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross for our sins to be atoned for, so that we who believe in Him will be credited with righteousness as a gift of God.   And how having been made righteous we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the spiritual presence of God to live in us, so that we might be able to do the will of God.  We become part of the body of Christ, the church.   And the church as the manifestation of Christ is the only hope for the world.  So what exactly is the church?

In Matthew 16:18 Jesus said to Peter, “Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” The church is  God’s spiritual house. The church is the earthly representation of God’s Kingdom of Heaven. Peter says in 1Peter 2:5, “You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Now that we individually have become transformed into living stones, indwelled by the Holy Spirit, then both individually and corporately we are made into the dwelling of God, to be God’s chosen people, God’s instrument whereby He is made manifest to the world.

Peter goes on to say in 1 Peter 2, “You are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God's OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.”

See, when God called out Abraham from the land of his pagan fathers and told him that He would create from his seed a chosen people and a chosen race from which the world would be blessed, God was prophesying that 400 years in the future He would bring out a race of people from slavery in Egypt  and separate them from the world.  He would be their God and they would be His people.  He would be to them both God and King.  And this nation was ruled by what is known as a theocracy.  God set forth laws at Mt. Sinai for this people, governing every aspect of the way that they should live. 

But a few hundred years later, Israel rejected God from being their king and wanted to have a king like the rest of the world.  And God warned them of the consequences of that decision, but they insisted in their call for a king and finally God gave them what they wanted. God allowed them to have Saul, and then David, and then Solomon, and there was a certain amount of blessing under David and Solomon.  But after Solomon things quickly fell apart until the kingdom became divided into a northern and southern kingdom, each with their own monarchy, and then eventually the northern kingdom became completely overthrown and the people were taken into captivity and eventually dispersed.  By the time of Christ, there was only the southern kingdom left, basically made up of the tribes of Benjamin, Judah and the Levites, and they were under the iron rule of Rome.

So the Roman Empire really was the governing authority for Israel at the time which Paul wrote this letter.   And I believe it would help us understand this passage if we first of all understand the historical context in which it was written.  Herod was the king of the Jews, and yet He wasn’t even a Jew, He was appointed by Caesar.  And these rulers of that day had practically absolute power.  They were tyrants.  If you remember, at the time of Jesus birth, Herod had every male child under the age of 2 killed throughout all of Israel.  He was able to do this solely by his own authority without any fear of repercussions. 

And Caesar, if you remember just before the birth of Christ, was able to make a decree whereby all people had to travel to their birthplace to register for the census for the purposes of taxation.  And so everyone in the Roman Empire had to make this journey to their homeland.  The Caesar’s had unbelievable authority.   Not only could they do whatever they wanted, but they also were worshipped as a god. 

In the time of Christ, slavery was the law of the land.  It was an established and accepted practice and all sorts of abuses happened in the name of slavery.  Taxation was especially oppressive.  Tax collectors like Matthew and Zaccheus were given the authority of the Roman government to collect taxes and to add on exorbitant charges which went directly into their pockets.  That is why tax collectors were hated so much in those days.

And not the least of these abuses of power was the persecution of the church.  Christians were blamed for the burning of Rome and for causing insurrections.  And  as such they were routinely rounded up and thrown into prison or worse, used as entertainment for the Coliseum amusements in which they were thrown to the lions or sent to be butchered by gladiators.   The emperor Nero was one of the worst, he tied Christians to stakes around his palace grounds and set them on fire to illuminate his parties.

And into this cauldron of political excess and abuse of power, Jesus Christ came declaring that the kingdom of heaven was at hand.  At first, there was a great interest by the Jews because they were looking for a Messiah who would deliver them from the political oppression and restore the throne of David to the prosperity and dominance that it once enjoyed under Solomon.  But Jesus never came to bring about a social revolution. His appeal was always to the hearts of men, it was always to the souls of men, not their political freedoms. It was not social justice that Jesus sought. He didn’t participate in civil rights. He wasn’t involved in a crusade to abolish slavery. He preached the gospel and He knew that the only real justice and the only real solutions to man’s problems would come when hearts are changed. He was not interested in a new social order, He was interested in a new spiritual order. And so Jesus didn’t come to establish an earthly kingdom, He came to create the church. 

Jesus was saying earthly kingdoms will come and go.  But the church will endure forever.  Because the church is the spiritual kingdom of God in which He rules in His people.  And as a result of Christ living and ruling in our lives, the world will not only hear the truth, but witness their changed behavior, and that testimony will be to the glory of God, that others might be called to surrender their will to God, by believing in Jesus Christ.

And so in that context we see that this text in chapter 13 concerning political and governing authorities comes out of the previously stated theology regarding the church.  As living stones, as living sacrifices, as temples of God, as God’s chosen people, as the Kingdom of God, we are to live our lives in such a way as to be a testimony to the world, to show them Christ.  By the way, Peter confirms what Paul is saying in 1 Peter 2:“Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.  Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.”

Today we find ourselves as the modern day church living in a political situation that is not that different from the days of  Peter and Paul and Christ.  If anything, we are living for the moment in a much more tolerant environment, at least here in America. But there are people living in certain places of the world today who are under highly abusive systems. Their problems, and the problems of the people in the New Testament time, and the problems of people who are under severe duress in the nations in which they live are much more severe than ours. We can complain about the way things are in America, but no minority group in America has had their infant children massacred. Nobody in Washington  has made an edict to kill all the baby boys under two, while mothers stood around and wept.

And even those that are struggling with difficulties in life seem to be able to find certain luxuries like a TV set, a hot meal, running water, electricity and transportation that could not even have been fathomed 2000 years ago.  We  cannot allow the fact that everything isn’t the way we would like it to be to cause us to turn our attention away from our God directed responsibility to government to a self directed one. Nor can we turn away from the urgency of the  message of the gospel to a social gospel. We are obviously called to live godly lives in the world. We are obviously called to demonstrate righteousness, to pursue righteousness, call for righteousness, and uphold righteousness. We are obviously called to speak the revelation of God into this society so that this society can enjoy more of the common grace that God provides when people live according to His laws, even non-believing people.

We are obviously called to do all of that. The church is designed to be the very manifestation of divine righteousness in the world, in the culture. But our responsibility specifically to the government is stated here in this text. Be in subjection.  Romans 13:1 “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.”  Now notice the parallel between what Paul said to what we read earlier from Peter in 1 Peter 2; Verse 13, “Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.”

Peter goes on to say starting in vs. 15, “For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.  Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.  Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable.”

Wow! Submit, even to a master who is unreasonable, even to a king that’s unreasonable, even to a governor that’s unreasonable. “For this finds favor if for the sake of conscience toward God, a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly.” Amazing. There is something to be gained for the gospel even when you suffer unjustly in silence, for the sake of keeping a pure conscience before God. You want to be an influence for peace, we read that in Romans 13, you want to do right and thus silence the ignorance of foolish men, do right as that society and as every man knows because right is written in the heart, you want to honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God and honor the king.

So Peter and Paul agree on this, as we would expect since they are both under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We have a mandate, a responsibility to live out our justification by grace through faith, our self-sacrificing lives should be models of submission to government authority, no matter whether that government authority is what we want it to be or not. This is a biblical pattern for all people. Our responsibility is to be subject to the higher powers, the governing authorities. 

And the word subject is from the Greek verb hupotasso which means under, essentially a military word which means to line up under a commander, speaks of soldiers lining up under the one who commands them. Get in line underneath the powers that govern the governing authorities, the existing civil government without limitation here, without qualification, whether they be reasonable or unreasonable.

And Peter says in regards to subjection that we are to do it for the Lord’s sake, as unto  the Lord.  Not for our sake.  Our rights may be violated.  Our privacy may be violated.  But we are to render unto kings and authorities the submission due them, as if we were submitting to the Lord.  This can be hard.  It offends our sensibilities.  It sometimes offends our sense of justice, of righteousness. 

We’ve had the luxury in this country in the past of sometimes seeing our values upheld by society as the norm.  And yet today we are seeing our values growing further and further apart from American society.  And yet we are to submit to the governing authority.  That doesn’t mean we are to conform to the world’s values.  No, that would be the direct opposite of the foundation Paul laid in Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, for this is your acceptable, spiritual service to God.” 

Now there are times when we’re allowed not to obey the government.  In Acts 4. Acts 4 starting in vs. 13, we see Peter and John were told by the Jewish leaders that they were not to speak any more in the name of Christ. verse 19, “Peter and John answered and said to them, ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge. We cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.’” Here is where the authority of the government ends, when the government forbids you to do what God commands you to do, you do what God commands you to do. When the government tells you to do what God has not allowed you to do, that’s where you stop. When the government mandates what God forbids, we obey God. And then accept the consequences. We don’t start a violent revolution, we simply refuse to disobey God. We do what God has commanded us to do and we accept the consequences.

Go to the fifth chapter of Acts for a minute. They brought them before the Council. The High Priest comes in now and is trying to shut them up. They’re preaching Christ. They haven’t stopped. The High Priest says to them in verse 28 of Acts 5, “We gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this name and yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man’s blood on us.” Not only did they fill Jerusalem with the teaching, but they blamed the Jews for the murder of Jesus. Here’s Peter’s and the Apostles’ answer, verse 29, “We must obey God rather than men.”

You may come to a point where you have to disobey the government when the government tells you to do what God forbids you to do, or mandates that you stop doing what God commands you to do.

But here is the key, as much as it is possible, chapter 12 verse 18;  “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.”  So far as it depends on you.  The government is corrupt?  Submit to the government.  The government is unreasonable?  Submit to the government.  The government charges too much taxes?  Submit to the government.  The government demands you stop declaring Jesus Christ?  Obey God, but you still submit to the government in regards to whatever consequences they have for your disobedience. 

Of all the missionary work and travels that Paul did in his life, I would suggest that his greatest work, his most enduring work was done in a prison, shackled to a Roman guard 24 hours a day as he wrote his letters to the churches under divine inspiration.  Whatever consequences we face as Christians, let it be suffering as Peter said for doing right, not for doing wrong.  And let God take care of using those consequences for His glory and to advance His kingdom as He sees fit.

Jesus could have called 10,000 angels to His defense, as he told Pilate, but He submitted himself to the Roman and Jewish authorities and achieved the greatest, most enduring work of creation, the redemption of mankind. 

God’s ways are not our ways.  His wisdom is so far above our wisdom.  He sees the past, the present and the future in a way that we can never even fathom.  And in His wisdom, He has chosen the weak things, and the foolish things to confound the mighty.  So the guiding principle in our life and conduct  is to be like Paul’s found in  2Cor. 12:9            “And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

God's blueprint for the church

Now in our ongoing study of Romans we have almost finished chapter 12, and we have been looking at it verse by verse.  But today I want to try to go back over this again in a summary, because I believe it is such an important passage regarding the church and I want to make sure that we don’t lose sight of the forest because of the trees.  In other words, we need to stay focused on the big picture.  And the big picture that is presented here is the life of the believer within the church.  Too many times when we come to this chapter and others like it, we want to cherry pick certain subordinate themes such as spiritual gifts or love, and focus on them.  But it is extremely important for the health of the church to take this whole chapter in context, and see how each section works together to achieve one common goal.

The word church is never mentioned in this chapter, but the idea of the body of Christ is clearly presented, and we should all know that the church and the body of Christ is synonymous.  Now it is clear from the context that Paul having laid the groundwork of the doctrine of salvation in the first 11 chapters, in other words, how you become part of the body of Christ, he is now presenting in the rest of the book how the church should function. But I believe that this first chapter of application, chapter 12, has been overlooked in it’s importance for straightforwardly giving us the guiding principles for church life.

This is God’s blueprint for how the church is supposed to function.  And yet I am afraid that today the church as a whole is so far off track that we are in very real danger of  being completely ineffective, if not altogether useless for the Kingdom of God.  Consequently, in spite of the church’s efforts to figure out new ways to be relevant to the world and our culture, we actually have become of almost no influence whatsoever. If anything, the church is being influenced by the culture, rather than the church influencing the culture. As a result, the modern church is of little use to the culture, and sadly, in many cases of little use to God either.

This is why we are losing the culture war.  This is why churches are failing to win the hearts and minds of our children and our youth.  This is why thousands of churches across our country are dying along with their aging congregations made up almost solely from the ranks of  the elderly from previous generations  while our children and young people abandon ship at an alarming rate.  The most often heard request I get from people after a service is asking me to pray for their kids who have abandoned the faith.  The exodus has reached almost catastrophic proportions.

But the solution to the church’s problems isn’t a better praise band, or creating more of a night club atmosphere in our churches which we hope the world would be more attracted to, or trying to recreate a Disney movie set in our children’s church, but the only solution, the only hope for the church is found right here in this passage.  The church needs to become relevant, not to the world, but relevant to God again, and relevant to the rest of the body, and only when that happens will the world be drawn to the church. 

In the second chapter of Acts, we see the first church.  It came into existence in the midst of a culture not that different from ours.  Jerusalem was multi cultural. It was heavily influenced by pagan religions and Greek and Roman culture.  Every type of sin was rampant.  Immorality of every kind was common place.  Homosexuality was openly practiced by the Roman Emperors and much of the upper class of Greek society.  And yet notice what it says about the early church in Act 2:42  “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”  What?  That’s it?  No concerts?  No skits?  No drama?  Just a bunch of preaching and prayer and fellowship?  How archaic.  It must have been a dismal failure.  But no, after God saved 3000 people the first day, it says, “Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart,

praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

So right there God’s blueprint for the church was instituted.  And Paul just takes that and unpacks it here in this chapter.  And he basically says, God’s blueprint for the church can be broken down into three parts.  1.The church’s attitude  to God, 2. The church’s attitudes toward fellow Christians, and 3. the church’s attitude toward the world. 

Now first off, understand that the body of Christ or the church is not an organization, it’s not a building, but is made up of individual believers.  Look at vs. 4 and 5, “For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”  We individually are the body of Christ, and corporately we make up the church of Christ. 

1Cor. 6:19 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”  You have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body.   So as a result of  becoming righteous and holy through faith in Christ, the Spirit of Christ lives in our bodies, so that we become the living stones which make up this spiritual body we call the church. 1Peter 2:5 “You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

Here is the principle then: having been saved, having received righteousness by faith in Christ, I am transformed from a dead stone to a living stone and now I live to offer up sacrifices to God through the power of Christ who lives in me.  And Paul begins this passage by affirming first and foremost that our attitude as a member of Christ’s church should be that of offering your body to God as a living sacrifice in spiritual worship.  And very briefly, that means that as we already stated in 1 Cor. 6:19 that since we are bought with a price we no longer consider our body as our own. 

We offer back this redeemed life to God to be used in service of His will.  Vs. 2, “that we may do the will of God.”  This is our purpose.  This is our mission for the time left on this earth. So the attitude of the church towards God should be to offer the service of their lives to God as a living sacrifice to do the will of God. Not my will but His will be done.

Then secondly, Paul tells us what the attitude of the member of the church towards the rest of the church should be, towards other believers.  And the first thing we should notice is that God doesn’t call us to do something without providing the means for us to do it.  It doesn’t mean that everything God calls us to do is going to be easy.  No, far from it.  It is usually going to take some sacrifice.  That’s why Paul’s first point was that we offer ourselves as a sacrifice.  Sacrifice is a hallmark of service.  But the good news is that He will not call you to do something that He doesn’t equip you to do.  And in this passage, Paul lists seven general gifts, or I think a better word would be empowerments, to enable us to do what God has asked us to do.

Now we looked at this subject in great detail in our last couple of studies, so I will not belabor the gifts again.  But note just a couple of points.  First of all, he says you need to exercise the gifts.  Not only is our salvation based on faith, but our gifts are based on faith as well.  And remember we don’t want to confuse our natural talents with spiritual gifts.  They are not necessarily the same thing.  This mistaking natural gifts for spiritual gifts is the origin of a lot of confusion in the church today.  We’ve got people running around masquerading natural, fleshly talents as spiritual gifts.  They may be gifted at attracting attention to themselves, but in most cases I believe natural talents and spiritual gifts are diametrically opposed.  God uses the weak things of the world to shame them that are strong. 1Cr.1:27

What Paul is talking about is God giving you an opportunity, such as service, and then God providing you  the resources and strength to serve as He has given you opportunity, provided you exercise it in faith.   That’s why it says, Rom 12:6            “Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”  Notice the way Paul presents these gifts, it’s all about practicality.  You have an opportunity to serve, then serve!  You have an opportunity to give, then give!  You have an opportunity to teach, then teach!  The emphasis is on doing it.  Just get on with it.  God gives you the opportunity, then trust Him to provide the ability to do what He has called you to do, and step out in faith and do it.

Please understand something this morning that is fundamental for the effectiveness of the church.  Gifts are not given to measure our spiritual significance or for our spiritual security, but for spiritual service.  It’s the practical supply from God of the power to do what He wants you to do in service to the church. No gift that is given in this list is something that is to be used for yourself.  It is something that is to be used in service to other Christians. 

And I’ll tell you another principle to remember in regards to these gifts;  they are all tied back to sacrifice.  That’s where it starts and you never really get away from it in the Christian life.  That’s why Paul chooses to continue in this blueprint by using the word love, specifically agape love.  And agape love is the most often used word for Christian love, and it means a selfless, sacrificial love.  Remember Ephesians 5:25?  It says, “As Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” That’s the short definition of agape love. Sacrificial, serving love.

Listen, this goes right back to my original point about the church’s ineffectiveness in the 21^st century.  We use the word love as a euphemism in Christian circles today.  It’s used as a euphemism for God, or Jesus.  A lot of modern Christian songs today have substituted love for God, and I believe it’s because they think that it will be less offensive to the world.  But the problem with that is, Jesus came to be offensive. Rom 9:33  “Just as it is written, "BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED."

We think in our human reasoning that we need to help God out.  We need to make Him a little less offensive.  We need to soften the tone of His word.  If the church is going to succeed, we say, we need to make it more inclusive.  Stop talking about hell, for goodness sake.  We wouldn’t want to be accused of scaring people.  Stop talking about judgment.  And above all, don’t talk about sin.  Just talk about love, love, love.  And the world, not knowing we’re talking about a different kind of love than John Lennon was talking about, will somehow be drawn into the church.

The amazing thing to me is that God does actually want us to help.  He encourages us to help establish the kingdom of God.  He asks us to be His ambassadors to the world.  Knowing full well that our flesh is going to work against us. Knowing full well our natural reasoning and wisdom is going to work contrary to his wisdom.  That’s why He says in verse 2 that right after offering ourselves as a sacrifice we need to change our way of thinking.  “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  In other words, don’t let the wisdom of the world make the blueprint for the church.  Don’t think according to human reason and take a survey and plan according to what the best minds think, or try to copy what the biggest churches are doing and hope that works.  But instead we need our minds transformed according to God’s will and His plan.

So the 2^nd point,, which is the church’s attitude to other Christians and the 3^rd point, which is the church’s attitude to the world, both flow out of agape love that is presented in the last half of the chapter.  And Paul starts out by saying that love must be without hypocrisy.  And this is probably the biggest criticism that outsiders lodge against the church.  We hear this all the time, don’t we?  “I don’t want to go to church, it’s filled with nothing but a bunch of hypocrites.”

And Paul knows that  hypocrisy is one of the greatest detriments to an effective church.  Because too often, the church is marked by selfishness rather than self sacrifice.  See, we can’t get past that sacrifice part, can we?  The modern church is all about me.  We think of going to church the same way we think about going out to dinner at a restaurant.  “Where do you want to go this week, honey?”  How about Outback, or Ruby Tuesdays, or this place or that place?  Hey, I heard they have an early bird special at that restaurant down at the beach.  Let’s try that this week.”

But the church is not to be treated like going to a restaurant, but rather like going to a pot luck supper.  We used to have a lot of pot luck suppers when I was a kid growing up in church.  And everybody there would bring something.  I remember there were always a lot of deviled eggs.  As a young boy I really liked deviled eggs, and I always thought it was kind of sinful that they called them deviled eggs and we ate them at church.  And I always ate a lot of them, and they usually caused me a lot of trouble later on, if you know what I mean.  Maybe that’s why they are called deviled.   But the bottom line is, pot luck dinners were not just about eating, they were about serving others and fellowship.  And that was one of the characteristics of the first church that we read about a few minutes ago in Acts.

So we aren’t called to be spectators in church, but participants.  We are part of the body, and we have a part to play.  We have a role to fill.  So Paul says, don’t say you love God with your mouth, but live like you don’t.  Let your actions speak louder than your words.  That’s the problem with our children in a lot of cases, by the way.  We tell them that God should be the most important thing in their lives, and yet when they watch our lives they don’t see that.  We tell them they should go to church, and yet they don’t see that commitment lived out in our lives.  And then we are surprised when the grow up and leave the church.

But here is the amazing thing;  God makes us holy and righteous by His grace in response to our faith.  And then He puts the Holy Spirit to live inside these fleshly bodies, so that we might be the body of Christ on the earth.  And now as the body of Christ we are to be about the Father’s business, just as Jesus was.  Jesus tried to hammer home that point to Peter three times before He was taken up into heaven.  Three times Jesus asked Peter, “Peter, do you love Me?”  And Peter answered, “Yes Lord, you know that I love you.”  And Jesus answered, “Feed my sheep.”  “Tend My sheep.” “Feed My Sheep.”  If we love God, then we will love His sheep and feed and tend His sheep.  That is God’s definition of love.  Taking care of His sheep.

John Stott said that love is a servant of the will, not a victim of emotion.  We are called to love the brethren whether we like them or not.  Jesus said in John 13, “Love one another as I have loved you.  All men will know that you are my disciples is you love one another.”  Agape love is defined in the rest of the chapter starting in verse 9 all the way to the end. And our first responsibility is to love the brethren. 1Ti 5:8  tells us,  “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”   So our first responsibility is for the fellow believers, the other parts of the body.  And we are all dependent upon each other, just as the physical body is dependent upon all the parts for good health.

Life in the Christian church without this kind of love is worthless.  No matter how awe inspiring you may think your spiritual gifts are, without a self less, sacrificial love for the brethren your gift is worthless.  I Cor. 13 tells us that without this sacrificial love I am a noisy nuisance. “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.”

 Without this serving, self sacrificing love we are nothing.  The biggest problem with the effectiveness of the local church is the absence of agape love.  We’re not called to love people we like.  We aren’t called to just love those of our social strata.  But the test of God is the motivation of our hearts to serve Him, not the physical attraction to others.   I Cor. 13 tells us that religious  activity, without agape love, is nothing.

So starting in vs. 9 then of Romans 12 we see another description of love:  without hypocrisy love the fellowship, give honor to the other person, don’t look for honor yourself, love by being diligent – don’t be a fair weather Christian.  Be diligent about the things of God. B fervent in spirit.  Serving the Lord by serving the church.  Rejoice in hope, no matter what the tribulation, but becoming ever more devoted to prayer.  Share in the needs of other believers, practicing hospitality to those who are hurting and in need.  This is agape love towards the believer in the church. 

And then finally, the church’s attitude we should show to the world.  And guess what?  We’re supposed to love them too.  We may not like what they do, or like what they stand for, but our attitude towards them is going to be marked by love; in other words, willing to sacrifice our rights for their sake and the sake of the gospel.  Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them.  Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.  Be above reproach in the sight of all men.  Wasn’t that what they said about the church in Acts?  It said that everyone spoke well of them.  They had favor with all the people in town.  Wow.  Would that could be said about the church.  Would that could be said about us.  Then maybe we would see the same results of the Lord adding to the number those that were being saved as they did. It goes on to say don’t take your own revenge.  Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good. 

I will close with this story I heard about President Lincoln. When Abraham Lincoln was campaigning for the presidency, one of his archenemies was Edwin Stanton. They were both lawyers and had been rivals in a bitter trial.  Consequently, Stanton hated Lincoln, and used every ounce of his energy to degrade Lincoln in the eyes of the public, often using the bitterest diatribes in an attempt to embarrass him. He called him names, even describing him as a long armed gorilla.

But after Lincoln was elected, in the process of choosing his cabinet after his election, Lincoln selected Stanton for the important post of Secretary of War. The president's inner circle erupted in an uproar when they heard his choice. Numerous advisors came to Lincoln saying, "Mr. President, you are making a mistake. Are you familiar with all the ugly things he has said about you? He is your sworn enemy."

Lincoln replied, "Yes, I know.  But I believe that  Mr. Stanton is the best man for the job."

As Secretary of War Stanton gave invaluable service to his nation and his president. After Lincoln was assassinated, Stanton rushed to his bedside and said through his tears, there lies one of the greatest men who ever lived and said, "He now belongs to the ages."  Lincoln won over his one of his sworn enemies by showing him kindness.

Folks, God has called us to a higher purpose.  If you have been born again, then you’ve been born into the spiritual body of Jesus Christ.  Your physical body houses the Spirit of Christ who has equipped you for this great call to be about the Father’s business;  the business of tending His sheep, feeding His sheep, serving His sheep.  Church isn’t a spectator sport.  Jesus said in Mat 16:24, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”

Listen, when the world sees Christians acting like Christ, and loving each other the way Christ loved the church, and then showing that love even towards those that hate them, then the world will be drawn to Christ through the church.