God’s Will for The Church

If you don’t know that tune,
you should learn it. Even just hearing that tune,
I just cannot help but think of the words that it is well
with my soul. It doesn’t matter who loses the
election. It doesn’t matter what goes on
in the world. It doesn’t matter what goes on
in my life. It is well with my soul, and
that settles it. What a beautiful, thank you,
a beautiful lead-in. Would the Lord’s people please
turn to Romans 12. Romans chapter 12, kind of our
landing spot for a couple of weeks here. As we’ve seen from
our review thus far, Paul has made an effective transition
in chapter 12 from theological matters in those first 11 chapters
to more practical matters in 12 and following. The great doctrinal
themes that Paul has expounded upon in the earlier 11 chapters
have now given way to, here in chapter 12, more practical considerations. And what he’s addressing here
in chapter 12 is the appropriate response of those who have received
God’s magnificent work of salvation. In verse 1, Paul introduced this
new theme, sacrificial living, as we have titled that verse. We’re called to sacrificial living
by Paul’s admonition there to present our bodies a sacrifice,
to commit our entire personhood to God out of gratitude for the
salvation that he’s bestowed upon us. God’s abundant mercy
is a powerful motivator to do this, as we look back on who
we were outside of Christ, and God’s mercy, instead of striking
us, blessing us. And this sacrifice we saw is
not a literal atoning sacrifice. We don’t pay for our sin. We
don’t pay for anyone else’s sin. It’s a living, holy sacrifice
acceptable to God. It’s a daily sacrifice. Our lives are offered up to God
as an act of worship. And Paul proceeds to develop
that theme throughout the whole rest of this chapter. Then in
verse two, we saw that Paul is building upon that theme, and
here he intensifies his language. He issues here back-to-back commands. Do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed. In issuing those commands, Paul
details for us what sacrificial living looks like. He exhorts
believers to welcome, even to embrace the change that is begun
in their lives by the Holy Spirit. If we are to really grow in grace
in the outworking of this sacrificial living, we must realize the direction
that we’re headed. We are either being more and
more conformed to the world, or we are more and more being
transformed into the image of Christ. There are only two possible
directions. And Because this is such an important
pursuit, Paul lays out the means of this transformation. Transformation,
he says, true and lasting change is only possible by the Spirit’s
work in our life, using God’s Word. And when we are actively
in the midst of being reformed by God’s Spirit, into the image of God’s Son,
then and only then are we said to be living examples of the
good and acceptable, perfect will of God. We are exactly as
we should be. But Paul isn’t finished. He wants
to show his readers, including us, in clear, unambiguous terms
what a church that is comprised of such transformed believers
looks like. And he does this in verses three
through eight. For our purposes, let’s take
it from the beginning in verse one. We’ll course down through
verse eight. I urge you, therefore, 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. And do not be conformed to this
world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that
you may prove what is the will of God, that which is good and
acceptable and perfect. Through the grace given to me,
I say to every man among you, not to think more highly of himself
than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment,
as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. 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 of one
another. And since we have gifts that
differ according to the grace given to us, let each 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. Isn’t it exhilarating to consider
what a church full of transformed people would look like? I would
suggest that it would look a lot like this church, our church.
But for this young, rather unrefined church in Rome, Paul wanted to
lay out explicitly what a gathering of such people would look like.
what it should look like. And not just to the casual outside
observer, but what it would look like objectively to the Christians
themselves. They should know and they should
be able to observe the telltale signs of gathering a truly changed
people. This is what Paul lays out for
us in verses three through eight, a picture, if you will, of a
grace-changed body of believers. This is God’s will for the church. And Paul begins to lay this out
in verse three. A grace-changed body of believers
is going to produce three things, Paul lays out. A grace-changed
body of believers is, first of all, a church that thinks rightly. A church that thinks rightly. It’s important to understand
the structure of this passage, how it fits together with the
previous verses. And we know that Paul is explaining
something here in verse 3, and we know that by the lead-off
word, for. Paul is providing an explanation
of something he has just said, but what? The only connection
that makes any logical sense is Paul’s exhortation in verse
two, be transformed. Be transformed for, be transformed,
this is the reason why. You should not think more highly
of yourself than you ought, is his continuing thought. That’s
the reasonable connection. If we didn’t have these subsequent
verses, we might not even really know what Paul means by a transformed
life. It becomes kind of ethereal and
undefined. But that is just what Paul is
detailing here. He’s telling us what a transformed
life looks like when people gather. Now, what Paul says next seems,
on the face of it, rather unnecessary. He says, through the grace given
to me. On the face of it, it seems like an odd place to suddenly
insert such a phrase, to talk about himself when he’s talking
about the church. What does he mean by this? There is the grace that Paul,
he could be talking about the grace that he received, like
every believer does in his salvation. It was all by grace, nothing
of him. He didn’t deserve this kindness
from God. And of course, after that, there
was equipping grace, the grace that Paul had received in order
to serve God and his kingdom. There was that grace. And there
was yet another measure of grace for Paul. It doesn’t happen for
everyone. Undeserved favor that Paul had
received in the grace of apostleship. Paul knew and often acknowledged
that he didn’t deserve such a calling. That too was all of grace. So
which of these three elements is Paul referencing? I would
suggest to you all of them. That he was saved, that he was
equipped, that he was called and tasked with being an apostle.
He’s calling to mind the grace of God in all of those things.
And he’s doing so as a humble reminder that he deserved none
of it. The two strong admissions of
verse two. might have led some people to
believe that Paul is just being harsh now or overbearing to issue
us these commands. Who are you anyway? If his readers
think that his commands are weighty, they are. They, too, can only
be implemented by God’s enabling grace. He was asking nothing
of his fellow believers that he himself had not been enabled
to do by God’s grace. Now, I want you to see what happens.
Watch this. Instead of throwing out a blanket explanation or
singling out only a few people in the church, It’s as if he
looks around the room and points to each individual believer as
he speaks. Listen to this. Just glance at
verse three again. Four, through the grace given
to me, I say to every man among you. And by this phrase, every
man among you, no one is especially singled out, but neither is anyone
exempted by these warnings that he’s about to give. Here’s something
for all of us, he says, including me. The practical outworking
of transformation is to be seen in everyone. Men, women, rich,
poor, white collar, blue collar, new convert, seasoned Christian,
powerfully gifted, meagerly gifted, everyone is to show a transformed
life. He says what he says to every
man. Now, this clear gender reference
here in the New American Standard, every man, is, in this case,
very unfortunate. Because women are not exempted
here. Literally, he says to all, to every person, To every believer,
this is because every person very much needs the reminder
that Paul is about to give. Would you look again at verse
three? For through the grace given to me, I say to every man
among you, not to think more highly of himself than he ought
to think. You see what I mean? There isn’t a person alive that
doesn’t need that reminder. We’re born and we naturally grow
into this warped mindset that we are, without a doubt, the
most important individual ever. The world revolves around us,
or so we think. That’s why we’re so easily offended
by others. I can remember years ago when
we started, I believe it was Romans 14, I announced to the people, that
chapter is dealing with people, showing us how to deal with people.
And I announced to the church, I mused aloud, that I would be
the most godly man ever, if it just weren’t for other
people. Because they bug us. They irritate us. They provoke
us. They offend us. And all of this
is due to the fact, as Paul says here, that we think more highly
of ourselves than we ought to think. We think too highly of
ourselves and we think too little of others. That’s just the fact.
It’s hard for us to even begin to justify thinking of others
as highly as ourselves. And make no mistake, when Paul
speaks of our thought life here, what we think of ourselves, he
isn’t talking about a fleeting thought here and there, a passing
high opinion of ourselves. As one scholar defined it, it
is to have the thoughts and feelings habitually turned into a certain
direction. This is our settled conclusion
about ourselves. This thinking is the settled
perspective that we’ve developed. We really believe that we are
better or superior in some way. In some cases, we believe this
in every way. We’ve allowed ourselves to develop
an inflated opinion of ourselves. Maybe it’s because of our family
name. Maybe it’s because of our denomination. Maybe it’s because
of our strength, physical or political. Maybe it’s our outward
appearance, our education, our popularity, our wealth, something. Anything can lead to pride. And
the moment that pride begins to take root in our lives, the
peace and the effectiveness of the church is endangered. That’s
what Paul’s addressing. There’s another way that this
sin presents itself. You see, there’s nothing more
destructive to the church than when someone begins to look around.
They begin to look around in the church, and in their pride,
they begin to covet some gift, some ability, some ability to
influence others, some prerogative that they personally don’t possess.
Lloyd-Jones sounded the alarm in this fashion. Listen to this.
Now, trouble arises because of what men and women think of themselves,
that much we’ve established. Quarrels, disputes, jealousies,
envies, and wrangling are all the result of people’s wrong
and conceited opinions of themselves. Now in this verse, Paul is employing
an intentional overuse of a word. The word is phroneo, to think. It’s used alone or as a compound
four times in this verse. And unfortunately, our modern
translations typically obscure at least one of the uses of this
word. Here’s one translation that captures
Paul’s deliberate repetition here. Listen to this. That we
are not to be high-minded above what we ought to be minded, but
to be so minded as to be sober-minded. That’s essentially what Paul’s
doing here. Whether we catch this play on words in our respective
translations, the message is clear. Paul’s concern is our
thought life, and immediately following his negative statement
about our thinking, he makes a positive statement. What we
should think about, every man ought to think so as to have
sound judgment. And the compound here, sofroneo,
is variously translated in the New American Standard, sensible,
to be in one’s right mind, or as here, sound judgment. The word sound judgment is used
numerous times in Paul’s letter to Titus. It’s an indispensable
quality for elders. They have to be sober-minded.
They have to be of sound judgment. It’s an indispensable quality
for elders. It’s expected of older men. It is to be modeled by the older
women to the younger. It is to be developed in time
by the younger women. It is expected of everyone. We
are called to be of sound mind. A person of sound judgment is
a person who is objective. They are balanced. They form
an accurate assessment of themselves and others and their abilities.
They see the big picture that I can’t possibly function in
this church without every gifted believer. They neither embellish
their perspective nor do they disparage it. The whole string of these words
functions as a call to humility. When Paul speaks about thinking
here, he’s addressing our practice of cultivating an estimation
of ourselves in comparison with others. Why do we do that? He’s cautioning us against a
presumptuous overestimation of ourselves, of our giftedness,
of our usefulness, of our importance, of our so-called status. It’s
as if Paul says, don’t get big-headed. It’s a warning against pride.
As believers, it should be easy for us to recall that everything,
and I mean everything, Every last little thing is a gift from
God. How can we be proud? Our salvation,
our capabilities, our giftedness, our opportunities, they’re all
God-given. Every good thing given and every
perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.
James 1 17, right? If we look at things from that
perspective, our estimate of ourselves will always be humble. I’m just doing what God gifted
me to do. How then can we ever be proud
to think that we are qualitatively better than someone else? Especially
when we do not deserve what it is we’ve received. If we view
ourselves correctly, that alone should humble us, that’s Paul’s
challenge. And essentially what he says
is that a church that is functioning optimally, a church is functioning optimally
when her people are humble, when her people think rightly, when
her people realize that they are but one player on a team
of many. when her people remember that
all they have is an undeserved gift from God. I’d like you to
notice one last thing in verse 3. Paul addresses this to everyone,
all believers, just as Paul began this verse addressing every man,
every person. So also he reminds each individual
that God is sovereign. And what he addresses here is
the issue of divine enablement. We cannot begin to think rightly
and function optimally until we understand this truth. God
is sovereign. And God’s sovereignty touches
not only our salvation, but our giftedness, our usefulness, the
opportunities that we’re given, our understanding of our place
in God’s church and program, I’d like you to see this in context.
Would you just look at verse three one more time? For through
the grace given to me, I say to every man among you not to
think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to
think so as to have sound judgment as God has allotted to each a
measure of faith. Do we grasp what Paul’s saying
there? This is fantastic. And it’s very important, God
is sovereign and he has not only displayed his sovereignty in
who we are and how he uses us, but he has also enabled us by
the faith that he has allotted to each of us to understand our
place in his church. When Paul says allotted, he’s
pointing specifically to God’s sovereign distribution of his
blessings. And this faith to which Paul
alludes here speaks, and it encompasses not only the giftedness that
he bestows on us, but the commensurate humility needed to exercise those
gifts. Can you imagine if we really
began to believe that it’s us? That it’s all about us doing
these things? How arrogant we would become?
So first of all, a grace-changed body of believers is a church
that thinks rightly. There’s another distinguishing
feature in verses four and five. A grace-changed body of believers
is a church that thinks rightly, and secondly, it’s a church that
functions unitedly. A church that functions unitedly. Look at verses four and five,
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 of one another. What Paul does
in verses four and five is to begin to explain what thinking
according to sound judgment looks like, practically speaking. What does it look like in relation
to other believers in the body of Christ? How should we relate
to our fellow Christians, especially with regard to their very unique
gifting and usefulness? They’re not doing it like we
do it. You see, here was this fledgling church, this Church
of Rome, a young, relatively untaught body of believers. No
one had come to them and explained the gifts of God. No one had
outlined to them some kind of order as to who possessed what
gifts and how they were to be used. No one had done this. And
that’s Paul’s purpose here, to begin to explain to the Roman
church God’s gifts, the reality of them, the reason for them,
the purpose of them. Now, for those of you who have
been with us for a while, we went through this very same issue
just about one year ago in our study of 1 Corinthians chapter
12. Paul addresses many of the same
things that he does here in Romans 12. Listen to this. Here in verse 4, just glance
at verse 4 once again. I’m not going to take you back
and forth to 1 Corinthians, I’m just going to give you some of
the touch points. Here in verse four, Paul says
we have many members in one body. It’s Christ’s body. We’re all
individually members of it. We have different functions.
He says the same basic thing in 1 Corinthians 12, 12. Listen
to this. Even as the body is one and yet
has many members, and all the members of the body, though they
are many, are one body, so also is Christ. Many members, one
body, he makes that point. Look, if you would, at the second
statement in verse four. All the members do not have the
same function. No big surprise. Well, Paul says that too in so
many words in 1 Corinthians 12.1. There are varieties of gifts,
but the same spirit. Varieties of ministry, the same
Lord. Varieties of effects, but the same God. All the members
of the church do not have the same function. Look, please,
also at verse 5. We who are many are one body
in Christ. That’s basically an echo of the
first statement that Paul makes in verse 4. He says that also
in 1 Corinthians 12, 12, as we saw. But look at the second statement
of verse 5, that we are individually members of one another. We fit
together, we belong together, together we comprise the body
of Christ. Paul basically says this too
in 1 Corinthians 12 14. The body is not one member, but
many. A body is made up of many parts. All in all, the metaphor about
the church being like the human body is identical. It’s exactly
the same. Just as our human bodies, in
our human bodies there is diversity, hands, feet, eyes, so also in
the church there is variety, diversity, and in that diversity
there is to be unity because we’re all one body. All of those
individual members, uniquely gifted, are still part of one
body, the church. If they refuse to acknowledge
that they are all part of one functioning body, disintegration
and disunity immediately begin to follow. They cannot function
without the other members and their gifts, each person’s gifts
are just as important as the next person’s gifts, just as
all the various parts of our human body are necessary for
us to be whole and complete and functioning. Would you glance again at verse
four? When he says all the members
do not have the same function, Here again, this idea was news
to this young congregation in Rome, a totally fresh idea, that
they all had a different function, that they weren’t all going to
preach. They wouldn’t all be Sunday school teachers. They
wouldn’t all be excellent evangelists. They would not all serve in the
same capacity with the same intensity. Each member was different. You
see, socialism puts its roots down into the fertile soil of
our hearts very easily, doesn’t it? Many of us would like everything
to be perfectly equal. That would be fair. In that case, I’d preach like
once every two years or something like that. Many of us would like things
to be perfectly equal, that we’d all have the same gifts, the
same influence, same temperament. Same measure of ministry, but
the reality is that each believer’s gifts and skills and personality
and life experiences are different, they’re unique, and that is God-ordained. We don’t have the same gifts,
we’re not the same people, and so our role and function in the
church varies from person to person. This is essentially a
functional version of the first point. many members, one body,
diversity in action, the dignified usefulness of every person in
the church. Every believer is as necessary
as every other believer. There are no nobodies in the
church, so they cannot be idle, uninvolved members. Each person
counts, each believer is gifted, each should and will be used
in the healthy body of Christ. Would you glance at verse 5 one
more time? Two more times. Just as we have many members
in one body, all the members do not have the same function,
so we who are many are one body in Christ. Because of our common
Savior, the Lord Jesus, who is the head of the church, the head
of the body, in Paul’s metaphor, we are joined together with all
the other members of the church. You are individually Christ’s,
or you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it. That’s
exactly the way he says it in 1 Corinthians 12, 27. As believers,
we have been placed into Christ by the grace of God. We are in
relation to Christ our Savior, but we are also in relation to
one another in Christ. We who are many are one body. As Paul reminded the Corinthians,
we are made and we are gifted and called to function as a member,
a living portion of his body, the church. It’s not a man-made
organization, it’s divine, it’s the body of Christ. Now would
you look at verse five one more time. We who are many are one
body in Christ and individually members of one another. This
last statement is that which indicates that we can never think
of our gifts and calling in isolation of our fellow believers. We are
not a force of one. I remember during COVID, the
early COVID, when we were forbidden to meet. I remember coming in
here and preaching alone. It was the strangest experience
of my life. Neither is the body of Christ
some kind of loose, mere association of separate parts as we just,
like a human junkyard is what that sounds like to me. Each
of the members, each of the individual members, is vitally related to
the rest of the members in living fellowship. Together with our
fellow believers, we are united together for God’s purposes. When we operate that way, the
whole body enjoys the benefits. We enjoy the blessing of serving
the strongest churches are not comprised of a few superstars
with underlings who sit and watch. Rather, the most effective church
will be comprised of a membership that is fully engaged, each exercising
their own gift to the best of their ability. In that excellent
section on the same subject, Ephesians 4, Paul says two things
related to our discussion here. Just listen. In verse 12, he says this, that
the saints are the ones who are equipped for the work of service.
That’s all of us. That’s my job as a shepherd,
is to equip the saints for the work of service. That’s a radical
departure from the typical professional pay-the-pastor-to-do-it mentality
of most churches. Secondly, verse 16, he tells
us that the whole body, every member, is fitted and held together
by that which every joint supplies. So if you get someone who is
not functioning, or not functioning optimally, the church will suffer. There are no unnecessary parts
in the body of Christ. So a church full of people touched
by the grace of God is a church that thinks rightly and functions
unitedly, and thirdly, a church that serves enthusiastically. Paul addresses this third point
in verses six through eight. Here in verses six through eight,
Paul basically applies the principles set forth in verses four and
five. One body, many members, all designed to function optimally. He’s established the fact that
we are part of one body, the body of Christ, the church. Even
if this body is comprised of a myriad of different parts,
different people, different gifts, the argument is over. Paul has
made his point, and so he speaks of it in concrete terms here.
Since we have gifts that differ. Literally, he says, having gifts
that differ. The question is settled. There’s
to be no more debate on the question. We have gifts that differ. And
Paul adds for emphasis that this is according to the grace given
us. That’s a repetition of a point that Paul’s already made, God’s
sovereignty, that these gifts, each one of them are God-given,
they are God’s gift by his sovereign grace. Here, above he refers to this
gifting as a measure of faith, remember that? Here he refers
to it as a gifting of grace. It’s not the same for every person.
That’s Paul’s point, this is God’s sovereign prerogative. By God’s doing, each believer
is differently and uniquely gifted. And now Paul finally gets to
his point. Glance at the verse if you would,
verse six. Since we have gifts that differ. But he never finishes his sentence.
That’s the most remarkable thing. It just drops off and Paul proceeds
to apply a short list of gifts. Some translators don’t address
this incomplete sentence at all. They don’t touch it. Since we
have gifts that differ, dot, dot, dot. Some translations just leave
it blank. Some of our more modern translations
sometimes accommodate these uncomfortable gaps by supplying a reasonable
suggestion to complete the sentence. If you have an honest translation,
it will italicize the words that they have supplied. In the New
American Standard, they complete the sentence this way. Since
we have gifts that differ, let each exercise them accordingly. Both the ESV and the New King
James say, let us use them. Since we have gifts that differ,
let’s put them to use, shall we? Through a process of interpretation
of what Paul has been saying, translators have filled in the
blanks, so to speak, And we might think of this as Paul’s overarching
directive for this entire section. Exercise your gifts. As part of the body of Christ,
you have a gift. Use it. In the remainder of verses
six through eight, Paul lists seven such gifts. This is not
an exhaustive list. This is not the complete spread
of all of God’s gifts to the church. Seven representative
gifts. And with each gift mentioned,
there is a corresponding exhortation. The formula is simple. If you
possess such and such a gift, use it in this manner. Simple,
right? The first means of service that
Paul mentions at the end of verse six is prophecy. And we talked
all about the gift of prophecy at length during our study of
1 Corinthians 12. We saw there that prophecy is
not merely or not exclusively the prediction of future events.
That’s what most people think of when they think of prophecy. It refers primarily to the proclamation
of God’s word. whether in direct revelation
from God or through principles derived from scripture, expository
preaching, the prophet’s message was an exposition that was aimed
at the human heart. These are those who function
as God’s spokesmen. And since God’s revelation is
complete in the New Testament, the Bible is the exclusive source
for the prophet’s declarations. And Paul says that the manner
of the prophet’s ministry is not unimportant. Look at the
verse again. He’s not there to do things his
way. He’s to exercise his gift, as
Paul says, according to the proportion of his faith. You believe you’re
called to do this? Do it like God would have you
to do it. He’s not to go about proclaiming his own message,
but God’s. He’s not there for his own glory,
but God’s. He’s a man who is deeply convicted
and fully convinced that the word that he brings to God’s
people is God’s word. He’s there by faith and in faith. Not only prophecy, but secondly,
serving. We’ll zip through these fairly
quickly. The next gift in focus we find
in verse 7. It’s the gift of serving. This
is the same word that is used for deacon. This office, you
may recall, was inaugurated in Acts chapter 6. A skirmish arose,
remember, at the church’s potluck supper. Some were being skipped
over. The apostles said, we cannot possibly be expected to wait
on tables and preach and teach God’s Word. Can’t do it all.
And so deacons The office of deacon was born. Deacons are
identified by the church as men of character who serve. Service
is not limited to deacons. Any and all believers must and
ought to serve one another by serving their Lord. In fact,
even ministry in general is occasionally referred to as service. Here, It probably has the more
general idea of serving, the kind in which every believer
should engage. And note here, Paul doesn’t mince
words. Look at how he says this. If
service, in his serving, if service is your gift, serve. The Corinthians, as you will
recall, were caught up in desiring and seeking the more spectacular
gifts. They wanted to be seen, they
wanted to make an impact. And that undoubtedly left the
more basic needs of the church undone. Paul says, if this is
your gift, embrace it, do it, serve. The next gift he mentions
is teaching. Paul deals with this in exactly
the same way as the previous. He who teaches in his teaching.
This is the notable and vital office of instruction to the
people of the church. Christ was called this. He was
called a teacher. The apostles did this, teaching. And in a way, the work of ministry
itself is referred to as teaching, Colossians 128, teaching every
man. But there is a sense in which
Every believer is called to this. In fact, we read this passage
this morning, Colossians 3.16, with all wisdom, teaching and
admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs. It’s everybody’s job. Everybody’s a teacher in the
church. The teacher in the New Testament is not the same as
the prophet, the proclaimer of truth, or the evangelist, the
proclaimer of the gospel. The teacher is the more methodical,
systematic, even expositional instructor in the truths of God’s
word. According to Ephesians 4.11, pastors and teachers, teaching
is closely related with shepherds or pastors of a flock. And as
straightforwardly as he can put it, Paul says, if teaching is
your gifting, if that’s your calling, teach. The next gift, verse eight, that
Paul mentions is exhortation. And this sounds very much like
that of teaching or preaching, but it is different. We might
think, incorrectly, of someone who exhorts someone who just
goes around scolding everyone in church. We used to have somebody
who would almost smack the hand of any young person who reached
up and touched a donut with their fingers. Kind of like a proverbial cross
den mother, right? But as we learned when we came
across this word in verse one, it can have a variety of meanings,
this exhortation, to exhort, to encourage, to urge, to comfort,
to appeal. There are people in the church,
and what would we do without these? What would we do without
these people? They just go about encouraging
everyone with whom they interact. They’re always eager to come
alongside and just listen or pray. They always seem to have
a verse, a good word, according to the need of the moment. How
refreshing is that, right? Would that we were all more like
that. And this grace too is a special element of pastoral ministry.
Paul says to 2 Timothy 4 to reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience
and instruction. Titus 1.9, exhort in sound doctrine. Titus 2.15, these things speak
and exhort and reprove with all authority. Part of ministry. Next, Paul mentions giving. And
I know what you’re saying. I know what you’re thinking.
Here comes Frasco’s annual message on stewardship. Not so fast. I mean, it’s right here in our
passage. What am I supposed to do? Not preach it? The giving
here is talking about giving in general, and no, there is
no special office in the church called giver. This is something that is expected
in various measures from all believers. And it might include
financial giving, but it is not limited to that. We might include
giving of our time. giving of our belongings, our
tools, men, our bounties, even bare necessities. The word just
refers to a willingness to share with our brothers and sisters
in Christ. It’s something given out of what
we possess with a remembrance that God is the one who gave
us everything. Paul adds that the one who is
a giver is to do so with liberality. The word there is aplotes, just
speaks of someone who is able to give out of sincerity of heart,
wanting nothing in return, not grudgingly, not with ulterior
motives, but open-hearted and open-handed. Here, take it. Paul adds yet another there in
verse eight, he who leads with diligence. And here, he certainly
had men like the apostles in mind, elders too. Their office
is being established, even as Paul writes. Using the same word
translated here as lead, Paul develops quite a picture. Listen
to this. Elders are those who have charge over you. First Thessalonians 5.12. He who leads, or he who manages
his house well, 1 Timothy 3, used of both elders and deacons
there. Again, in 1 Timothy 5, 17, elders
who rule well. A leader is someone who leads.
Someone who isn’t afraid to make a tough decision. Someone who
isn’t reluctant to have others follow their example. That’s
a leader. So it’s not so much an office, so much as it is a
role that a person is willing to fill. And if someone steps
up to lead, he has to do so, as Paul adds, with diligence.
This word speaks of an earnestness, of an efficiency. This is not
one who is reluctant to the role, who shies away from it, or does
it under compulsion. The last means of service remaining
here in verse eight is mercy. The one who shows mercy is to
do so with cheerfulness. Mercy is the ministry of compassion,
one who shows practical sympathy for someone who is suffering
or in need. They minister to others often
unseen and unknown and often out of their own private means.
And Paul speaks to the manner in which this mercy is to be
shown. It’s to be shown with cheerfulness. That’s an interesting
addition. You see, the ministry of mercy
is hard. Going to a hospital is hard. I don’t know many people
who enjoy going to a hospital. But it’s a necessary ministry. But no one who is sick or in
distress Once a grump showing up to their door to bring them
mercy, grumbling about what it is they do, irritable for the
inconvenience. It almost goes without saying,
but Paul does say it. Show mercy with cheerfulness,
literally with hilarity. Be happy about what you do, a
special joy, an exuberant spirit. This is the mercy giver that
you want to show up at your door in your hour of need. Paul doesn’t
address every gift, but every gift that he mentions, you could
just append this simple statement. Do all that you do to the glory
of God, no matter what your gift. If you approach it from that
standpoint, you will please him in it. You will glorify God in
the exercise of that gift. You will serve the church. Paul
urges that as believers, we are to be transformed by the renewing
of our mind, by God’s spirit, with God’s word, so as to prove
the will of God. What is God’s will for the church?
The church that thinks rightly, functions unitedly, and serves,
enthusiastically. Would you humble yourself before
our God?