The Body of Christ

study in which we’ve been engaged since really the beginning of the summer when we got into Paul’s epistle to the Romans, and if you please turn once again to Romans chapter 12. Now here in chapter 12 of Romans, we are at the very beginning of Paul’s address regarding what we have termed service, sin, salvation, sanctification, sovereignty, and service.

And this is the fifth section and final section of Paul’s letter. And as we observed last week, Paul has made a very smooth an effective transition from chapter 11 into chapter 12. He’s moved from theological matters now to more practical matters. The great doctrinal themes that he has expounded upon in the earlier 11 chapters have now given way to more practical exhortations. And what Paul is addressing here in chapter 12 is the believer’s response, an appropriate response, for those who have received God’s magnificent salvation. And so in verses 1 and following, Paul introduced this new theme.

What I would kind of term as the essential steps of a Christian who is called to walk in newness of life, We’re called to walk in newness of life, but there are steps, there are incremental steps that we are to take. And so a believer’s life, we saw, is marked, first of all, by a favored devotion to the Lord. Because we have received God’s grace, we are to respond in devotion because of it. God has shown us mercy by saving us, and our only appropriate response is a heart and life of devotion to him. Our entire lives, Paul goes on to say, are to be offered up to God as a sacrificial act of worship.

And this sacrifice, Paul, remember, describes in three ways, living, holy, and acceptable. It is to be living this sacrifice in the sense that it is perpetual, ongoing. It’s not just a one-time thing. It’s a holy sacrifice in that the believer consecrates himself or herself to the Lord, sets themselves apart to the Lord, and then even morally, a pursuit of holiness. And then finally, it is an acceptable sacrifice because it is pleasing to the Lord himself. And as such, it is, as Paul calls it, a spiritual service of worship. This is an act of worship, but it’s a perpetual, ongoing act of worship.

Paul says that a Christian’s life should be marked by an alerted resistance to evil influences. Do not be conformed to this world, Paul insists. And here Paul details what sacrificial living looks like by issuing two commands. Do not be conformed, but be transformed. It’s a catchy and a rather enduring translation. That first portion, do not be conformed, refers to the tendency that we all have to be influenced by the culture in which we live, to be imprinted by the world and its ways.

And so here he exhorts believers to welcome and even embrace the change that has begun in our lives by the Holy Spirit when he calls us to transformation, the second exhortation. Not only are we to resist the evil influences of our culture, we are to intentionally pursue the spiritual transformation that God seeks to affect in us. He works into the believer a true and lasting change, which he accomplishes 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 with God’s Word into the image of God’s Son, then and only then are we living examples of the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. That’s what God desires for us, and that’s exactly what we should be. If we are to really and truly grow in grace in the outworking of our sacrificial living, we must realize the direction in which our lives are headed. We are either being more and more, little by little, conformed to the world, or we are being more and more, little by little, transformed into the image of Christ. Which is it? And there are only two possible directions.

And this is such an important pursuit that Paul lays out the means in front of us. A believer, a child of God walking in newness of life, marked by a favored direction to the Lord and alerted resistance to evil influences, an intentional pursuit of spiritual change, in short, That’s what a Christian is. Devotion, resistance, pursuit. It’s the marvelous work of God in a sinner’s life.

Now, can you even imagine what it would be like? I mean, we’ve all had good days as Christians. Can you even imagine what it would be like if a bunch of these kinds of people were to be gathered together, all walking in newness of life, What a fantastic thing that would be. Can you imagine the joy, the sweet fellowship, the collective worship, the exhibition to the world of the change in our lives, devoted to Christ, resistant to the world’s evil, pursuing spiritual change?

Why, you would think that you had died and gone to heaven. And in a sense, That is appropriate because that’s who these people are. These people, the ones that are being transformed just like you, are believers in Christ. The very ones with whom you will spend all eternity.

And this gathering is no other than Christ’s body, the church. This is what Paul intends to show his readers, including us. He wants to present to them a picture of the church, a gathering comprised of transformed believers. This is Paul’s intention in verses three through eight. And for our purposes this morning, let’s take this subsection in its entirety, chapter 12, verses one through 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 the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. 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. 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.”

This is just a beautiful description of a church, isn’t it? It’s a gathering of transformed people. And honestly, I think such a gathering would look a lot like our church. But Paul is writing to this young and rather unrefined church in Rome, and he wanted to lay out explicitly what such a gathering would look like. not just to the outside believer, but even objectively visible to the Christians themselves. They should know and be able to observe the telltale signs of a gathering of truly changed people.

This is what Paul lays out before us in verses three through eight, a picture of a grace-changed body of believers. That’s the church. That’s the body of Christ. And so in beginning to observe what it is God is doing or has done in the course of transforming a group of people called the church, he lays out three observations, three detectable features of the body of Christ.

First, let’s go back to verse three if we could. A church is a gathering of transformed believers who, first of all, live humbly. They live humbly. Would you look at verse 3? 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.

We know immediately that Paul is explaining something here in verse three and following. And we know that because of the little word for. Paul is explaining what being transformed means, what it looks like. And the first thing that he tells us is that a person should not think more highly of himself than he ought.

The interesting thing is that Paul couches his explanation here with a very humble admission. He says, through the grace given to me. That’s a very humble statement. He effectively rejects all credit that might go to himself, and he gives all the glory to God. He says that what he does and says is not of himself. It’s not his own creativity. It’s not his own, oriented from his own passionate heart. It’s from God.

But what kind of grace exactly does he refer to here? There are a number of different ways that we could understand God’s grace. Every believer is a recipient of grace. That’s our salvation. So it at least refers to that when Paul says that it is only by God’s grace. He could be referring only to his salvation.

But in Paul’s case, as with every servant of the Lord, there is also an equipping grace. the undeserved calling and equipping to serve God’s kingdom in some capacity. And Paul had great capacity, and so great was God’s grace in his life. But there is also sustaining grace, the ability and the energy to persevere in service of Christ. And here, Paul is likely lumping all those three aspects together, saving grace, equipping grace, sustaining grace, because God had saved him and called him to serve as an apostle that enabled him to serve his fellow believers.

So why does he mention it? Well, after two strong exhortations in verse two, do this and don’t do that, His readers whom he had never met may have felt as he was being a little bit harsh or overbearing. And so the reminder that who he was, what he did, what he said was only by God’s grace. And so it’s with the authority granted him by God himself that he identifies those to whom he is speaking.

And in this, he’s very bold. He addresses his thoughts to every man among you. And we shouldn’t be so tied down to that masculine reference there, because this is literally for every person. He’s addressing every individual believer. No one is especially singled out, but neither is anybody exempted from his warnings. The clear gender reference here in the New American Standard, every man. In this particular case, it’s unfortunate because women are not exempted here. Literally, he says to all, every person.

His message is for everyone. Every Christian is to manifest the practical outworking of transformation in their lives. Men, women, rich, poor, white collar, blue collar, new convert, seasoned Christian, powerfully gifted, meagerly gifted. What he says, he addresses to all. And that’s because every person needs the reminder that Paul is about to provide.

Would you glance again at verse three? For through the grace given to me, I say not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think.” And he says this to every person, every man among you. There isn’t a person alive that doesn’t need to hear that reminder.

We’re born and we naturally grow into a warped mindset that we are more important, we are more to be valued, and therefore to be respected than those around us. Our self-centered thoughts take us to lofty heights of self-importance, and this is why we are so easily offended by others.

They’re not treating us like we deserve to be treated. We take umbrage to the way that others treat us or talk to us because we have an elevated perspective of ourselves. If we didn’t have so high a view of ourselves, we wouldn’t take notice of near as many things that we consider offenses. I’m not saying that it isn’t possible that someone else could possibly irritate us or offend us, but it isn’t likely as prevalent as we sometimes think it to be.

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 too little of others. It’s hard for us to even begin to justify thinking of others as highly as ourselves. And so we don’t even try. 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 that comes and goes, a passing high opinion of ourselves.

It’s a sustained and elevated perspective of ourselves. We begin to carry ourselves this way, that we don’t deserve this treatment. This thinking is the settled mindset that we have developed. And we really believe that we are better or superior in some way. We’ve allowed ourselves to develop an inflated opinion about ourselves.

Maybe it’s because of our family name, maybe it’s our denomination, a physical or political strength, or some outward appearance, or education, or popularity, or our wealth, something, anything can lead to pride. And the moment that pride begins to take root, the peace and the effectiveness of the church is endangered. There’s another way that this presents itself. You see, there is nothing more destructive to the church than when someone begins to look around and in his or her pride begin to think that some, they begin to covet some gift that another has, some influence, some prerogative of service. Those things begin to crowd out the unity of God’s people. and it leads to real problems. It leads to perceived offenses, arguments, harsh feelings, strife, jealousy, bitterness, and all the rest. And Paul suggests that it’s all due to inflated thoughts about ourselves.

And in this verse, Paul repeatedly employs this word think. The word is froneo, to think, and for effect, he uses one form or another of it four times in this verse. Our modern translators typically obscure at least one of the uses of this word. Here’s one translation, older translation, that captures Paul’s deliberate repetition.

Listen. He cautions us not to be high-minded, above what we ought to be minded, but to be so minded as to be sober-minded.” That’s a very accurate translation, and it captures that intentional repetition that Paul uses. Now, whether we catch that play on words in our translation, the message is clear. Paul’s concern is our thought life. And so he says first, negatively, that we are not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought.

And he immediately follows that with a positive statement about our thinking. Every man ought to think so as to have sound judgment. The compound there is sofroneo. It’s variously translated in the New American Standard as sensible to be in one’s right mind or hear sound judgment. This word, sound judgment, is used numerous times in Paul’s letter to Titus.

It’s an indispensable quality for elders. Elders have to possess this quality. It’s expected of older men. It’s modeled by older women. It’s to be developed by younger women. It’s expected of everyone. A good person, rather, of sound judgment is a person who is objective. They are balanced. They form an accurate assessment of themselves and of their abilities. They neither embellish their perspective, nor do they disparage it, because it’s God-given.

The whole string functions as a call to humility. When Paul talks about thinking here, he’s addressing our practice of cultivating an estimation of ourselves in comparison with everyone else. He’s cautioning us against presumptuousness, against an overestimation of ourselves, of our giftedness, of our usefulness, of our importance, our 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, everything we have is a gift of God. our salvation, our capabilities, whatever spiritual gift we have. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, as James says, coming down from the Father of lights. If we look at things from that perspective, that everything is God-given, our estimate of ourselves will always be humble, because everything is from God. How can we ever be proud or to begin to think that we are qualitatively better than anyone else, especially when we do not deserve what we have received in the first place.

If we view ourselves correctly, that alone will humble us This is Paul’s challenge to his readers, including us. You see 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 the team, when her people remember that all that they have is an undeserved gift of God.

I’d like you to notice one more thing about verse three here. Paul addresses this to everyone, all believers. And just as Paul began this verse by addressing every man, every person. So also he reminds each individual that God is sovereign. That God is allotted to each a measure of faith. 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, that God is sovereign. And God’s sovereignty not only touches our salvation, but our giftedness, our usefulness to the Lord, our understanding of our place in God’s church and his program. This is why Paul can say that we should not think too highly of ourselves, because God made us who we are, and we should embrace that. God is sovereign, and not only has he displayed in his sovereignty in who we are and how he uses us, but also how he has enabled us.

And he refers to it here as the faith that he has allotted to each. And given the context, what he’s pointing to is our usefulness, our giftedness, which issues forth in service to Christ. When Paul says allotted, he’s pointing specifically to God’s sovereign distribution of his blessings. That some are gifted to serve in this capacity, others are gifted to serve in others. That’s God’s design. Paul encompasses not only the giftedness that he bestows on us, but also that commensurate ability to exercise such gifts.

And so first of all, a grace-changed body of believers is a church that thinks rightly. But there’s another, a second distinguishing feature in verses four and five. A church is a gathering of transformed believers who live humbly, but who also work in harmony. And haven’t we seen that this past months? 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. So what does thinking according to sound judgment look like, practically speaking? What does it look like in relation to other believers within the body of Christ? How should we relate to our fellow believers?

Especially with regard to their particular gifting, unique as it is. Paul begins to explain that here in verses four and five. You see this fledgling church in Rome. They were young and relatively untaught as a body of believers. No apostle had come to them and explained the gifts of God. No one had outlined for them an orderly ranking of the various gifts or whether there should be such. And so Paul seeks to explain God’s gifts, the reality of them, the reason for them, the purpose for them. Several years ago in our study of 1 Corinthians, we studied the very same issue. 1 Corinthians 12, Paul addresses many of the same exact things that he does here in Romans 12.

Just listen. Here in verse 4, Paul says we have many members in one body. He says the same basic thing in 1 Corinthians 12, 12. 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. Same exact thought. The second statement he makes, look at verse four, all the members do not have the same function.

And aren’t we thankful for that? When Paul says that too, in so many words in 1 Corinthians 12 verse one, there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit. Varieties of ministry, but the same Lord. Varieties of effect, but the same God. All the members of the church do not have the same function. And that is by God’s sovereign design.

Look at verse 5 of Romans 12. In verse 5, he says, we who are many are one body in Christ. And that basically is an echo of the statement in 1 Corinthians 12, 12. In verse five, he says, we are individually members of one another. Isn’t that a beautiful thought? Paul basically says that too in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 14.

A body is not one member, but many. That’s what a body is. The body is made up of many parts. And all in all, Paul’s metaphor about the church being like the human body is the very same illustration that he uses in 1 Corinthians 12. Just as our human bodies, in our human bodies rather, there is diversity, hands and feet and eyes, so also in the church there is variety, many members, one body. And in that diversity there is still to be unity as a body at the end of the day.

We are still part of one body, the church. And if they refuse to acknowledge that they are part of one functioning body, disunity and disintegration are sure to follow. The church cannot function without the other members and their gifts. Each person’s gifts are as important as the next person’s gifts because all the members do not have the same function. We need one another. Just as all of the various parts of our human body are necessary, so also in the church, every gifted believer is needed.

Now here again, this idea was news to this congregation in Rome, a totally fresh idea, that they all had a different function. They weren’t all to preach. They weren’t all to be excellent evangelists. They wouldn’t all serve in the same capacity or with the same intensity. This was all news to them.

Many of us would like to think that all things are perfectly equal in the world and in life, that we all have the same gifts, the same influence, the same temperament, same measure of ministry. The reality is that each believer’s gifts and skills, personality, life experiences are all different, all unique, and that’s God-ordained.

We do not have the same gifts. We’re not the same. And so our role and function in the church varies. This is essentially a functional version of the first point that Paul makes, many members, one body. Diversity in action. the dignified usefulness of every person. There are, in the church, no nobodies. So they cannot be idle. They cannot be uninvolved members. Each person counts.

Each believer is gifted. Each child of God should and will be used in the healthy body of Christ. because of our common Savior, the Lord Jesus, who is the head of the church, the head of the body, we are joined together with all the other members of the body of Christ. Paul says it this way, you are Christ’s body and individually members of it. As Paul told the Corinthians, as believers, we have been placed into Christ by the grace of God. We are in relation to Christ, our Savior. and we are in relation to one another. We who are many are one body. We are made and gifted and called to function as a member, a living portion of his body, the church.

This is not a man-made organization, it’s divine, it’s the body of Christ. The last statement that Paul makes there at the end of verse five, if you’d glance, it indicates that we can never think of our gifts and callings in isolation from our fellow believers. We’re not a force of one. Neither is the body of Christ some kind of loose association of separate parts, like a human junkyard.

Each of the individual members is vitally related to the rest of the members. Together with our fellow believers, we are united together for God’s purposes. And when we operate that way, the whole body enjoys the benefits. And we enjoy the benefits of serving.

The strongest churches are not comprised of a few superstars with so many underlings who just sit and watch, rubber stamp everything the leaders want to do. Rather, the most effective church will be comprised of a membership that is fully engaged, each believer exercising their own gifts to the best of their ability. In his excellent chapter on the same subject, Paul says two things in Ephesians 4 that I never shy away from reminding.

First, he says that the saints are the ones that are equipped for the work of service. God’s people are equipped to do ministry. That’s a radical departure from the typical professional pay the pastor to do it mentality of most churches. Secondly, he tells us that the whole body is fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies. Everyone is gifted. All are to be contributing. All together produce service to Christ. There are no unnecessary parts in Christ’s body.

And so the church is a gathering of people touched by the grace of God, a church that lives humbly, a church that works in harmony, and thirdly, a church that serves appropriately. Paul addresses that third point in verses six through eight. A church is that which The believers serve appropriately. Look at verse six. And since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let each exercise them accordingly, a 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. Here in verses six through eight, Paul applies the principles that he just set forth in verses four and five. He has 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 now he speaks of it in concrete terms here, since we have gifts that differ. The question is settled. There’s to be no more debate.

We have gifts that differ, and Paul adds for emphasis that this is according to the grace given to us. And Paul reiterates the truth that he’s already established, that these gifts, each one of them, are God-given. They are gifts of God’s sovereign grace. Above in verse three, he referred to them as faith. God has allotted to each a measure of faith. Here he refers to them as grace. It’s not the same for every person. This is God’s sovereign prerogative, and by God’s doing, each believer is differently and uniquely gifted.

And he gets to his point here. Since we have gifts that differ, And then he never finishes the sentence. It just drops off like a typical pastor’s conversation does. It drops off and he proceeds to begin to apply to a short list of gifts. Some translators don’t even address this incomplete sentence. Some translations just leave it blank. Some of our modern translations try to accommodate for Paul by filling these gaps and supplying a reasonable suggestion to complete the sentence.

That makes us more comfortable. And they do so by, if you glance at your Bible translation, they’ll do this by putting the words in italics. The New American Standard, for instance, completes the sentence this way, let each exercise them accordingly. We can rest now. The King James, the ESB, both say, let us use them. Through a process of interpretation of what Paul has been saying, our translators fill in these blanks, so to speak.

Paul’s basically saying here, use your gifts, As part of the body of Christ, you have a gift. Use it. And in the remainder of verses six through eight, Paul lists seven such gifts. It’s not an exhaustive list. This isn’t all there is to do in the church, but it is generally representative of the gifts bestowed upon believers for their use in the church. And with each gift mentioned, there is a corresponding exhortation. The formula is simple. If you possess this gift, use it in this manner. Look first at verse 6. Paul mentions at the end of verse 6, prophecy. Prophecy is not used exclusively of the prediction of future events.

It refers primarily to the proclamation of God’s Word. Whether by direct revelation from God or through principles derived from scripture, the prophet’s message was an exposition aimed at the human heart. These are those people who function as God’s spokesperson. And since God’s revelation is complete by means of the New Testament, the Bible is the exclusive source for the prophet’s declarations. We might call it preaching.

Paul says that the manner of the prophet’s ministry is important. He’s not there to do things his way. He’s not to chart his own course. He’s not to preach his own message. He is to exercise his gift, as Paul says, according to the proportion of his faith. He’s not to go about proclaiming his own things. 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 of God he brings to the people is there by faith and in faith. Not only prophecy, but serving.

This should capture most of us. Paul says in verse seven, if service in his serving. This word serving is the same root word from where we get our word deacon. Deacons are identified in the church as men of character who serve. Service is not limited to deacons, though, and all believers may and ought to function by serving one another in their service of Christ. In fact, even ministry in general is occasionally referred to in the New Testament as service. Here, Paul probably has in mind the more general idea of serving, the kind in which believers, all believers, should engage.

Paul doesn’t mince words. If you have the gift of serving, serve. Paul says, whatever your gift is, use it. Nowhere is that more important than in the most basic needs of the church. Paul says, if this is your gift, embrace it, do it, serve. The gift of teaching, he mentions next. Paul deals with this in the exact same way as the previous. He who teaches in his teaching. This is the noble and vital office of instruction for the people of the church. Christ was called this, teacher.

The apostles did this. In a way, the work of ministry is teaching every man, Colossians 128. But there’s also a sense that this is something that we’re all called to do. We’re all called to instruct, whether it’s our own children or one another. 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 the expositional instructor of God’s word.

According to Ephesians 4.11, pastors and teachers, teaching is closely related with shepherds, pastors of the flock, but it’s not limited to that. Paul says, if teaching is your gift, teach.

The next gift, verse 8, exhortation, sounds very much like teaching or preaching, but it’s different. We might think incorrectly of someone who exhorts someone, anyone and everyone, just goes around scolding everyone. But as we learned when we came across this word in verse 1, this word has a variety of meanings in the New Testament. Exhort, encourage, urge, comfort, appeal, There are people in the church that go around encouraging everyone with whom they interact. And this grace is too special of an element of pastoral ministry. Paul says, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. What would we do without such people who just come along and give us the word that we need to hear. They’re always eager to come alongside, to listen, to pray. They always seem to have a verse, a good word, according to the need of the moment. Would that we were all more like that.

Paul next mentions giving. The giving here is just really general. There’s no special office in the church called the giver. This is something that is expected of us in various measures. And so Paul says it might include financial giving. It might include the giving of our time, our belongings, our tools, our bounties, even our bare necessities. It might include those things.

But the word just refers to a willingness to share. It’s a remembrance that God is the one who gives us everything that we have. Paul adds that the one who is a giver is to do so with liberality. Someone who is able to give out of the sincerity of their heart, not grudgingly, not with an ulterior motive in order to get something back, but open-hearted, open-handed.

Paul adds yet another in verse 8, he who leads with diligence. He certainly may have had men like the apostles and shepherds in mind. But using the same word translated as lead, Paul develops quite a picture in his epistles. Elders are those who have charge over you, who lead you in the Lord, 1 Thessalonians 5, 12. He speaks of both elders and deacons as those who manage, that is lead in 1 Timothy 3, 4, and 12. In 1 Timothy 5, 17, elders who rule, lead 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. It’s not so much an office, there is no office of leader, rather it’s the role that a person is willing to fill. And if someone steps up to lead, he is to do so, as Paul says, with diligence and earnestness, efficiency. Not as one who’s reluctantly placed in the role, doing it under compulsion.

There’s one last means of service, mercy. He who shows mercy 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, unknown, except to God, often out of their own private means.

And Paul speaks to the manner in which mercy is to be shown. It’s to be shown with cheerfulness. He says the ministry of mercy is hard, A few people enjoy visiting those that are in the hospital, but no one who is in sick or in distress wants a grump showing up to their door in the hospital, grumbling, irritable for their inconvenience. It almost goes without saying, but Paul says, if yours is the gift of mercy, do it with cheerfulness, literally with hilarity. an exuberance of spirit.

This is the mercy giver that you hope shows up in your hour of need. All this to say we are to serve appropriately. We are to serve according to our own giftedness, not in comparing ourselves to others. We are not to covet others’ gifts and opportunities, trying to press ourselves outside of our God-ordained function. Rather, we are to seek to fully cultivate our own gifts in the service of Christ and his body, the church. Paul urges that as believers, we are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, by God’s spirit and the word of God, so as to prove the will of God, what God’s will is for the church. The gathered group of these people is a church that lives humbly, works in harmony, and serves appropriately.

Would you humble yourself before him? Our merciful King, we rejoice in the privilege of serving you. And Lord, if it were only our salvation, every day of our life, we would have new occasion and cause to rejoice before you. But in addition to our salvation, you have gifted us in various ways to serve you. Lord God, grant us humility in this service. Grant us peace and an expressive harmony towards one another. And Lord, use us for your glory as we serve according to our giftedness, appropriate as it is. Lord, we thank you for your grace in our lives, and we ask your blessing on our week in Jesus’ name. Amen.