-15-
What Now?
Romans 12
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.
The Apostle starts this section with the word, “Therefore”. We can replace and summarize verses one and two with, “Because of what I have just said, … do not be conformed to this world.”
And now, I need to summarize what Paul has just said in the previous couple of chapters: The Jews have had their commission taken from them1 and it has been given to us, the church. What the church has been charged with, is the very serious commission of bringing the gospel to the world. Because we have this very serious commission, we cannot be conformed to this world. To adopt this agenda will mean to sacrifice our own agendas. Do we have agendas? We most certainly do. Let me mention a couple of agendas that went very wrong.
Lu 12:15-20 And he (Jesus) said to them, "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." 16 And he told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry."’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’
In these verses Jesus is not explaining who this farmer was … was he a believer? A weak believer? A total non-believer? He does not elaborate on that. So all we know … a farmer planned for a future that was all about himself. His life did not consist of caring or giving or reaching out to anyone with the good news of eternal life in Jesus. It was just about himself.
Jesus said that our lives do not consist of the abundance of our possessions. As Christians, what do our lives consist of?
Here is another example of an agenda that can take a bad turn.
James 4:13 - 15 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit" 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."
“If the Lord wills”, or in other words, “If it is in the Lord's agenda for me, then I will ...”
So Paul is urging us to sacrifice our own agendas and adopt God's agenda. To repeat, it is the agenda that He places upon the church. That is, to go and make disciples of people in every nation, baptize them and then continue teaching them the word of God. And the last part assumes, 'teaching them to adopt the same of agenda of reaching the world with the gospel'.
To many of us, this may seem like some kind of a new twist on our Christianity. Perhaps some of us may have 'bought into' Christianity, thinking only of the new home in heaven that we will move into some day. So Paul is asking us to allow our minds, our thinking to be renewed. It is the word of God that will ultimately transform our thinking.
There are two extremes that need to be addressed.
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. 4
So what part of commission do you personally adopt?
In the next section Paul points out that if the church is to effectively spread the message of salvation to the area in which we live, it will involve a list of things. For the church body to function, there must be preaching, teaching, serving, encouraging, giving, leading, showing mercy.
Whether this is designed to be a complete list, we are not told. But what we are told, or rather, what is implied is that no one person does it all.
Here is Paul's list:
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; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. 6-8
Notice that all the above are called 'gifts', and that these gifts are distributed by God's grace or favor. All of these gifts are ministry type of gifts. When they work together properly in the church, that is when the church will be most effective in completing God's agenda to reach the world with the eternal salvation message. None of the 'gifts' are designed to be 'Lone Ranger' gifts … outside of the local body of believers. It is the gentile church that has received this ministry. It is not individual members who have received this ministry of Salvation.
God placed these gifts into the church Himself.
1Co 12:28 And God has appointed (set) in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.
It doesn't require much analyzing to see the importance and usefulness of all of the above, to empower a church to really be involved in reaching the lost. As Paul stated in verse 4, the church is a body and the various body parts have unique functions. But when all the body parts are healthy and do their part, the whole body is healthy. Paul's analogy of a healthy body implies that, as a church, when we are at our healthiest state we can be the most effective in fulfilling our mission.
In verse 3 Paul said that, when it comes to your particular spiritual gift, that you are not to think of yourself too highly. That can be a problem. We can develop a prideful attitude about our gift. We forget that it was a gift and begin to think of it as a talent that we have worked at and developed. So Paul warns us of that possibility and tells us to think soberly.
But in verse 6-8 Paul addresses the opposite attitude or tendency. So the opposite of 'showing off' with our spiritual gift can be to not use our gift at all. There can be a number of reasons that we do not use our gifts. Perhaps we did what we felt led and gifted to do, and then got criticized for it … by some Christians, no less! That could stop us. Another reason for not using our gift could be indolence … laziness. Perhaps we just don't like work. Another reason for not using our gift could be a wrong view of ourselves. We might think, Who am I to do this or that? I am really a nobody compared to some other Christians that I know. It would look so wrong for me to step out to do ...this or that.
And so for some reason, we turn off our gift. So Paul is speaking about that. He says, if your gift is prophecy … then prophesy. Don't turn it off. If your gift is encouragement … then encourage. Don't turn of the gift.
Paul said in verse 6, “We have different gifts”. Diversity is important. In our bodies it is very important that one part is different from another. They have to be different, otherwise we would be very crippled. The same holds true for the church body. We have to be different, have different gifts, or the body will be severely crippled and limited.
The gifts mentioned in scripture fall into three categories: Sign gifts, Speaking gifts and Serving gifts.
The total of all the gifts is to equip the church to fulfill the Great Commission - Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." Mt 28:19-20
The 'sign' gifts are not mentioned in this list here in the book of Romans. And there is a reason for that. They were given to be signs … given to the Jewish people, that they have lost the commission to evangelize. In Isaiah we read, “For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the LORD will speak to this people” Isa 28:11
What this means is, the Lord Himself will speak … but the Jews would not understand it. That would be a first. Up to now everything that God said, He said to the Jews. Jesus had told the Jews (Matthew 21:43) what was going to happen.
Then, on the day of Pentecost … there was the sign. God was speaking and … for the first time, He was not speaking to the Jews. Hearing … but not being able to understand, was a sign … a bad sign, for the Jews.
The sign gifts continued for a period of time during the writing of the New Testament, and when the need was no longer there, they ceased. For more of an explanation please refer my notes on First Corinthians.
In any case, the sign gifts are not listed in the book of Romans. Romans was written a few years later the Corinthians. Paul gives a similar list in Eph 4:7-16, again leaving out the sign gifts.
Peter mentions gifts: “whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” 1Peter 4:11
Notice that Peter mentions only two kinds of gifts, speaking and serving.
One of the gifts in Romans , prophesy, could be considered a sign gift, but in this case it is not. Prophecy, in the Old Testament and also in the New, has always meant, the words that you are hearing are coming from God. Each of the Old Testament prophets began by saying, “Thus saith the Lord”. That phrase appears 413 times in the Bible. After the prophet stated those words, the very next words out his mouth would be God's words. We often think of prophecy as foretelling the future. We need to stop thinking of it that way. It very simply means, repeating God's words.
In the early New Testament church they did not have a New Testament. And yet the early church had a desperate need for teaching that applied to the new age in which they found themselves. So God set first in the church the gift of prophecy. This means that the earliest of preachers could open their mouths and speak God's words, His new and present and fitting words, to the congregations.
That still happens in our day, but it looks a little different. Our pastors stand before us and tell us God's words … only difference? They are getting the words from the Bible. It is still prophesying. It is the gift of telling forth the words of God. We call it preaching.
So Paul would be saying to us … Did God call you to preach? Did He give you that gift? Then use it! Don't quit.
What have we covered so far? Present your selves as living sacrifices. Be prepared to use your gift in the body. The church must march forward and that can only happen if you do not bury your gift.
Paul now adds some very important details.
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality
9-13
Here are some visual signs that you have become a living sacrifice. You will have sincere love for each other. You will hate evil. You will cling to what is good. Do we get the picture? Devoted to one another … honoring others ABOVE yourselves. Signs of genuine sacrifice.
Most of these signs have applied to what happens within the church. Now Paul gives more signs, but these apply to our attitude toward the outside world.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. 14-21
For us to effectively reach a lost world and bring them to the saving knowledge of Jesus, the Savior of the world … we need to be seen by the world. We need to be noticed. We need to be different. And Paul lists some of the differences. Can you imagine being persecuted … and then telling the persecutor to have a blessed day … God loves you? Can you imagine telling an observer, No, its fine. I have no desire to pay them back.
Can you see the value in being careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone? How many times have we heard (and maybe said), 'You can't please everyone, so why even try?' Paul says, “ If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” Live at peace with everyone. Do you suppose that will go unnoticed? People will see that.
A great part of 'soul-winning' (bringing people to salvation) is letting them see what God has done in the way of your having a very different attitude from what they are used to seeing in the world.
If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink
This is quite a clear instruction, but there are some background questions we probably have. For example, Does this apply to me ALL the time? What kinds of enemies … only those who are enemies of the gospel? What about someone who is breaking into my house? What about enemies of the country that I am living in … can I join the army and go shoot them?
A lot of questions may be answered in the next chapter.
1 Mt 21:43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.
The Apostle starts this section with the word, “Therefore”. We can replace and summarize verses one and two with, “Because of what I have just said, … do not be conformed to this world.”
And now, I need to summarize what Paul has just said in the previous couple of chapters: The Jews have had their commission taken from them1 and it has been given to us, the church. What the church has been charged with, is the very serious commission of bringing the gospel to the world. Because we have this very serious commission, we cannot be conformed to this world. To adopt this agenda will mean to sacrifice our own agendas. Do we have agendas? We most certainly do. Let me mention a couple of agendas that went very wrong.
Lu 12:15-20 And he (Jesus) said to them, "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." 16 And he told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry."’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’
In these verses Jesus is not explaining who this farmer was … was he a believer? A weak believer? A total non-believer? He does not elaborate on that. So all we know … a farmer planned for a future that was all about himself. His life did not consist of caring or giving or reaching out to anyone with the good news of eternal life in Jesus. It was just about himself.
Jesus said that our lives do not consist of the abundance of our possessions. As Christians, what do our lives consist of?
Here is another example of an agenda that can take a bad turn.
James 4:13 - 15 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit" 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."
“If the Lord wills”, or in other words, “If it is in the Lord's agenda for me, then I will ...”
So Paul is urging us to sacrifice our own agendas and adopt God's agenda. To repeat, it is the agenda that He places upon the church. That is, to go and make disciples of people in every nation, baptize them and then continue teaching them the word of God. And the last part assumes, 'teaching them to adopt the same of agenda of reaching the world with the gospel'.
To many of us, this may seem like some kind of a new twist on our Christianity. Perhaps some of us may have 'bought into' Christianity, thinking only of the new home in heaven that we will move into some day. So Paul is asking us to allow our minds, our thinking to be renewed. It is the word of God that will ultimately transform our thinking.
There are two extremes that need to be addressed.
- Thinking that Salvation is all about me and what I will ultimately get out of it.
- Or – thinking that salvation's goal, heaven, is a long way off. I will just relax and enjoy the pleasures of the world in the meantime.
So Paul says, “Do not be conformed to this world”. If we are to be ambassadors, people with an agenda, a mission … we cannot have the same goals and life-style as the average unbelieving neighbor. Many of those worldly goals will totally side-track us from God's mission.
Paul mentions one other problem that needs to be addressed. Not only will being conformed to the world's way of thinking totally side-track God's real mission for us, but Paul addresses the matter of pride. Pride can really distort our thinking. Here is how Paul said it, 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. 3.
Do Christians ever think of themselves more highly than they ought? As a matter of fact, when we serve well, the temptation is always there to let praise go to our heads. When we think of ourselves too highly, it shows up when we think thoughts like, “I am not going to be a part of this. I have more important things to do.”
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. 4
So what part of commission do you personally adopt?
In the next section Paul points out that if the church is to effectively spread the message of salvation to the area in which we live, it will involve a list of things. For the church body to function, there must be preaching, teaching, serving, encouraging, giving, leading, showing mercy.
Whether this is designed to be a complete list, we are not told. But what we are told, or rather, what is implied is that no one person does it all.
Here is Paul's list:
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; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. 6-8
Notice that all the above are called 'gifts', and that these gifts are distributed by God's grace or favor. All of these gifts are ministry type of gifts. When they work together properly in the church, that is when the church will be most effective in completing God's agenda to reach the world with the eternal salvation message. None of the 'gifts' are designed to be 'Lone Ranger' gifts … outside of the local body of believers. It is the gentile church that has received this ministry. It is not individual members who have received this ministry of Salvation.
God placed these gifts into the church Himself.
1Co 12:28 And God has appointed (set) in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.
It doesn't require much analyzing to see the importance and usefulness of all of the above, to empower a church to really be involved in reaching the lost. As Paul stated in verse 4, the church is a body and the various body parts have unique functions. But when all the body parts are healthy and do their part, the whole body is healthy. Paul's analogy of a healthy body implies that, as a church, when we are at our healthiest state we can be the most effective in fulfilling our mission.
In verse 3 Paul said that, when it comes to your particular spiritual gift, that you are not to think of yourself too highly. That can be a problem. We can develop a prideful attitude about our gift. We forget that it was a gift and begin to think of it as a talent that we have worked at and developed. So Paul warns us of that possibility and tells us to think soberly.
But in verse 6-8 Paul addresses the opposite attitude or tendency. So the opposite of 'showing off' with our spiritual gift can be to not use our gift at all. There can be a number of reasons that we do not use our gifts. Perhaps we did what we felt led and gifted to do, and then got criticized for it … by some Christians, no less! That could stop us. Another reason for not using our gift could be indolence … laziness. Perhaps we just don't like work. Another reason for not using our gift could be a wrong view of ourselves. We might think, Who am I to do this or that? I am really a nobody compared to some other Christians that I know. It would look so wrong for me to step out to do ...this or that.
And so for some reason, we turn off our gift. So Paul is speaking about that. He says, if your gift is prophecy … then prophesy. Don't turn it off. If your gift is encouragement … then encourage. Don't turn of the gift.
Paul said in verse 6, “We have different gifts”. Diversity is important. In our bodies it is very important that one part is different from another. They have to be different, otherwise we would be very crippled. The same holds true for the church body. We have to be different, have different gifts, or the body will be severely crippled and limited.
The gifts mentioned in scripture fall into three categories: Sign gifts, Speaking gifts and Serving gifts.
The total of all the gifts is to equip the church to fulfill the Great Commission - Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." Mt 28:19-20
The 'sign' gifts are not mentioned in this list here in the book of Romans. And there is a reason for that. They were given to be signs … given to the Jewish people, that they have lost the commission to evangelize. In Isaiah we read, “For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the LORD will speak to this people” Isa 28:11
What this means is, the Lord Himself will speak … but the Jews would not understand it. That would be a first. Up to now everything that God said, He said to the Jews. Jesus had told the Jews (Matthew 21:43) what was going to happen.
Then, on the day of Pentecost … there was the sign. God was speaking and … for the first time, He was not speaking to the Jews. Hearing … but not being able to understand, was a sign … a bad sign, for the Jews.
The sign gifts continued for a period of time during the writing of the New Testament, and when the need was no longer there, they ceased. For more of an explanation please refer my notes on First Corinthians.
In any case, the sign gifts are not listed in the book of Romans. Romans was written a few years later the Corinthians. Paul gives a similar list in Eph 4:7-16, again leaving out the sign gifts.
Peter mentions gifts: “whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” 1Peter 4:11
Notice that Peter mentions only two kinds of gifts, speaking and serving.
One of the gifts in Romans , prophesy, could be considered a sign gift, but in this case it is not. Prophecy, in the Old Testament and also in the New, has always meant, the words that you are hearing are coming from God. Each of the Old Testament prophets began by saying, “Thus saith the Lord”. That phrase appears 413 times in the Bible. After the prophet stated those words, the very next words out his mouth would be God's words. We often think of prophecy as foretelling the future. We need to stop thinking of it that way. It very simply means, repeating God's words.
In the early New Testament church they did not have a New Testament. And yet the early church had a desperate need for teaching that applied to the new age in which they found themselves. So God set first in the church the gift of prophecy. This means that the earliest of preachers could open their mouths and speak God's words, His new and present and fitting words, to the congregations.
That still happens in our day, but it looks a little different. Our pastors stand before us and tell us God's words … only difference? They are getting the words from the Bible. It is still prophesying. It is the gift of telling forth the words of God. We call it preaching.
So Paul would be saying to us … Did God call you to preach? Did He give you that gift? Then use it! Don't quit.
What have we covered so far? Present your selves as living sacrifices. Be prepared to use your gift in the body. The church must march forward and that can only happen if you do not bury your gift.
Paul now adds some very important details.
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality
9-13
Here are some visual signs that you have become a living sacrifice. You will have sincere love for each other. You will hate evil. You will cling to what is good. Do we get the picture? Devoted to one another … honoring others ABOVE yourselves. Signs of genuine sacrifice.
Most of these signs have applied to what happens within the church. Now Paul gives more signs, but these apply to our attitude toward the outside world.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. 14-21
For us to effectively reach a lost world and bring them to the saving knowledge of Jesus, the Savior of the world … we need to be seen by the world. We need to be noticed. We need to be different. And Paul lists some of the differences. Can you imagine being persecuted … and then telling the persecutor to have a blessed day … God loves you? Can you imagine telling an observer, No, its fine. I have no desire to pay them back.
Can you see the value in being careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone? How many times have we heard (and maybe said), 'You can't please everyone, so why even try?' Paul says, “ If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” Live at peace with everyone. Do you suppose that will go unnoticed? People will see that.
A great part of 'soul-winning' (bringing people to salvation) is letting them see what God has done in the way of your having a very different attitude from what they are used to seeing in the world.
If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink
This is quite a clear instruction, but there are some background questions we probably have. For example, Does this apply to me ALL the time? What kinds of enemies … only those who are enemies of the gospel? What about someone who is breaking into my house? What about enemies of the country that I am living in … can I join the army and go shoot them?
A lot of questions may be answered in the next chapter.
1 Mt 21:43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.