Living Sacrificially: The Call to Service in Christ

Going to be in Romans chapter 12.

We're going to continue our sermon series looking at the importance of theology, knowing God.

And part of knowing God is understanding what he has done for us.

And that's what we've been looking at, really, from Romans 1 all the way through Romans 11, we've seen the Gospel.

To us, the Gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ.

The Gospel is the news that Jesus came to this earth.

He died on the cross for our sins.

He.

He lived that perfect life.

He conquered death through the resurrection, now extends the gift of grace to us.

That is the good news that we see in the book of Romans and throughout all of Scripture, the Gospel to us.

But now In Romans chapter 12, we begin to see the gospel through us.

Because just as much as the gospel changes our heart by giving us new life, it gives us a new way to think.

It gives us a new way to live.

It gives us a new way to love.

And we as Christians now must understand that the change that God makes to our heart now should be seen to the world.

The world should see the difference.

The world should understand that the goodness of God is something that we all must have.

And not just that we want it, but we all need it.

Why?

Because the Bible says that all have fallen short of the glory of God.

There is none righteous.

No, not one.

But there is one who is righteous above us, and that is our Savior.

And So Romans chapter 12 was all about walking in the way of God, walking in the will of God.

And so we looked last week at verses one and two.

Paul said, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, now remember, therefore means what is this?

Therefore, what is he talking about?

Well, he's been talking about all the things that he's mentioned in Romans 1:11, the things that God has done for us.

Romans 5:8.

But God commendeth or demonstrated his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

What an amazing message that is, that God loves us enough to send his only begotten Son for us.

And so he says, because of the gospel, because of salvation.

He says, brethren, by the mercies of God, because by the way, all of those things that we've learned about so far have been because of the mercy of God.

And we're in desperate need of the mercies of God.

He says the next step is this, that we present our bodies.

Your bodies, a living sacrifice.

And that's what we talked about last week, presenting ourselves a living sacrifice to the Lord.

Not a sacrifice that dies, but a sacrifice that lives for the Lord.

And he says, do that because why?

He says, that's holy.

That's.

That's separate, that's special.

It's acceptable unto God.

He says, which is your reasonable service.

The.

The Greek word there for reasonable is the word we get the word logical from.

It's only logical that we would give God everything in our lives because he has given us so much.

His abundant grace upon our lives leaves us with the sense of gratitude.

Some call it the attitude of gratitude that we're called to live in our lives.

And so if we are thankful, we just sing a song.

Jesus, thank you.

And I would encourage you, as we sing any song within the church, to think about the words.

Don't just sing the song, but think about the words and make it a testimony for your own life.

And in that song, it says, jesus, thank you for all the things that you have done for us as believers.

And so he says, here we present our bodies a living sacrifice, which is our reasonable or logical service.

And so we get the verse 2.

And then he says, okay, in that service, don't be conformed to this world.

Don't be pushed into the mold that the world is trying to put you in.

The world is trying to tell you that it's normal, it's okay.

Live the way that you want to live.

And Paul says, reject that thinking.

Don't be conformed.

Don't buy into the lies.

And then he says, but be ye transformed.

By way of review, that word transform means to change.

We get the word metamorphosis from that Greek word.

And the idea would be that we're completely new, we're completely changed.

And he says, be transformed.

And how do you transform?

Well, you don't transform yourself.

You don't go in and really try hard, read more books, or become more disciplined.

No.

The Bible says that we're transformed by the renewing of our mind.

How do we renew our mind?

Well, we renew our mind by walking with God and allow God to cleanse our mind through the word of God, through prayer, through fellowship, through service.

And he says that you may prove or demonstrate what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

It is God's will for us that we live for him.

It's not enough just to say, well, I'm saved.

I've got my ticket to heaven now.

I'm just wanting to do my own thing.

I just want to coast.

I've got my security.

And though being saved is a measure of security, that's not the end of the story.

By the way, the Scriptures tell us that salvation is just the beginning of the story.

It's now about living for Him.

It's now about reaching others for Him.

And so now that's what he's going to talk about here in verse number three.

How do we do this?

How do we walk in sacrifice?

How do we serve Him?

And so the sermon here this morning is called the Sacrifice of Service.

The Bible says that we're to give ourselves a sacrifice for the Lord, a living sacrifice.

But sometimes Christians are like, how do I do that?

Does that mean I just go to church?

Does that mean I read my Bible?

Does that mean that I just come every single day and walk around the building and think that that's a service?

Well, the Bible clearly tells us what we're supposed to do, how we become servants of God, how we sacrifice ourselves for Him.

And so here in this introduction, I want you to look at verse number three.

He says, for I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you not to think high of himself more highly than he ought to think.

So what does he tell us here?

He tells us that the first step of understanding how we are to serve him is by identifying our place in the relationship with God.

He tells us to have humility.

And by the way, we got to go back and remember salvation.

Salvation is through faith and faith alone.

It's the greatest gift that we could ever receive.

So if God just gave us salvation and ended it there, that would be enough.

That would be the greatest gift of grace.

But God doesn't just stop with saving us from hell.

He doesn't just stop when it comes to the idea of giving us everlasting life.

What he does now is he gives us everlasting life.

And.

And then he gifts us.

He equips us with gifts of grace that we can serve him and be a part of his work.

You ever think about that?

You ever think about the blessing and the privilege it is to be part of kingdom work, to be part of the plan that God has for the redemption of this world?

Though we're not the ones bringing redemption, we get to be a part of that.

We get to join in.

We get to be partners with God.

And so he says here very clearly that salvation is enough, but he gives us more.

God's grace does not stop at salvation.

He graciously gives believers for service.

And so he says, just as you can't boast about your salvation, remember Ephesians 2, 8:9.

For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves.

It is a gift of God, not of works.

Lest any man should boast, none of us should boast about our salvation.

None of us should look around at other people and go, well, look how much I did to save myself.

Look how much God loves me because I'm so lovable.

No, the Bible actually tells us the other side of that.

We're not lovable, but God still loves us.

We didn't do anything.

We trusted in the work of Jesus Christ.

And so just as much as we can't boast about the gift of salvation, we cannot boast about these spiritual gifts that are given to us for service.

Sometimes we're, maybe we're not tempted to boast in our salvation, but maybe we're tempted to boast in the areas that God has gifted us to serve him.

And so he says here the first step of understanding the sacrifice of service is to realize that we are not the ones that have brought this gift to ourselves.

He says in verse three, don't think of himself more highly than he ought to think.

Now it doesn't tell us to think lower than we are.

It tells us to have the proper viewpoint of who we are in the eyes of the Lord.

And so the Christian life is not merely about sitting around and spectating, but, but it's now about sacrificial service.

And so the spiritual gift are not earned abilities, but they're grace given opportunities to minister for the glory of God.

And so for the next foreseeable future, what we're going to be doing in our study in Romans is going through these spiritual gifts, number one, understanding what they are, understanding what the individual gifts are within our spiritual walk and then understanding how we can live those out in our life properly.

And so before Paul explains the gifts completely In Romans chapter 12, he addresses the heart behind the gifts.

And that's what we're going to be talking about here this morning.

And what I want you to think about is this God gifts people in a spiritual way.

We're going to talk about all of these gifts that God gives.

But with those spiritual gifts must come spiritual maturity.

Because people can be gifted but not be mature and not live out these spiritual gifts properly.

So God gives us gifts which we're going to talk about in this study.

And then we're going to look at how we can grow in our spiritual maturity so that that can equate spiritual sacrifice.

So think about it this way, maybe some of you are math people.

Think about it as an equation.

Spiritual giftedness plus spiritual maturity equals spiritual sacrifice.

The spiritual sacrifice that God is looking for us to live out in our lives.

And so that's a long Runway.

We're going to get right to the text, but let's go ahead and pray and we'll ask God to give us some clarity on the verses here this morning.

Lord, I pray that you be with us this morning as we look into your word.

Lord, I pray that we can see first and foremost the necessity of service in our life.

The, the goal for service, the heart of service, and ultimately the harmony of service.

And so, Lord, I pray that we can walk in your truth here this morning.

I pray that anyone here today that does not know you as personal savior, that today can be the day of starting that walk of believing and trusting in you so that we can understand what it means to walk in forgiveness and walk in salvation.

So Lord, I pray that you get me out of the way, remove any distractions from our minds and from our hearts, and may we clearly see you here this morning in Jesus name.

Amen.

Verse three says, for I say, through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you.

So the idea would be this, if you are a believer, you have a gift, at least one gift, maybe more.

But God has given every believer specific spiritual gifts to serve with within the church.

And so he says, this is all Christians.

No one's exempt from this.

It's not like pastors are gifted or deacons are gifted, but the church member is not gifted.

No, the Bible says that all believers are gifted.

And so he says, through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.

And so first of all, he says here, to understand service, it's the understanding of the humility of service.

Paul reminds every believer that ministry opportunities are acts of grace.

Therefore, the spiritual gifts are no reason to boast.

There are no reason to have pride.

They're not self produced.

And so everything that we have by way of gift is received by God.

So he says, don't think of yourself higher than you ought to think.

Believers are taught to have the appropriate view of themselves.

So it's not too high, not too low.

We'll see.

Sometimes people fall off the road on either side.

One side is, you know what, I'm so great.

Life's all about me.

I'm the center focus of church.

I'm the center focus of the Christian life.

It's all about me.

Everyone should serve me.

What's it all about for me, right?

You see that theme going on in a lot of people's lives.

And he says, don't think of yourself higher than you ought to think.

But then he also doesn't mention this.

But what we also understand is he says probably have the proper understanding, not too low, because there's sometimes people that will say this, well, I'm nothing, I, I have no hope.

I, I have, I have no skills, I, I have no chance, I have no potential.

And the Bible says no, it's to have the proper viewpoint of what God has gifted you in.

So, so it's not about allowing yourself to get too prideful, but, but it's not allowing yourself to get to a self defeatist attitude where you don't believe you can do anything because God has given us everything that we possibly need for the service that he's called us to do.

So what is humility?

Humility is simply seeing ourselves truthfully before God, having a proper viewpoint of ourselves, not to exalt ourselves, but not to deflate ourselves, to see it for the way that God sees it.

And as a believer, you have an identity in Christ.

You could call out to him.

Acts chapter 8 tells us that we can cry out to him, abba, Father, Daddy.

We have that personal relationship with him later on in Acts chapter or excuse me, Romans chapter 8, it tells us that nothing can separate us from the love of God, that we're more than conquerors as we are in Jesus Christ.

And so the Bible tells us that we don't need to live a self defeatist attitude.

But at the same time we don't need to get to a place to understand ourselves to a degree that we are doing everything.

So service flourishes through humility and pride destroys ministry.

I want you to see that when, when ministry is hindered is when pride seeps in a lot of times we can see it come in in very distinct ways.

Oftentimes it's not always addressed.

Sometimes it's something very small, something that might come in unawares at the very beginning.

But ultimately pride manifests itself in ways that are very destructive.

We even know the, the proverbs in the Old Testament that talk about the destruction, the devastation that comes along with pride.

So pride, if pride destroys ministry or anytime I say the word ministry this morning, think about it this way.

Service ministry just literally means service.

So serving the Lord, serving others.

So if pride destroys ministry, humility strengthens ministry.

Want you to think about that here this morning.

Pride destroys or limits my ministry, but humility strengthens ministry.

We see that over and over again.

With the life of Jesus.

Think about all the ways in which Jesus demonstrated his humility before his disciples.

If anybody could have demonstrated pride, it was Jesus.

But yet he comes in a humbled stance.

John 13 has the disciples come in and washes their feet.

That's the lowest act of a servant.

But yet Jesus was willing to do so, do so to show his servant humility.

So we, we see more.

Humility strengthens ministry.

But then we also see ourselves when it comes to the truth of the word of God.

It brings us to a place to have a humble stance.

Pride loses grip in our life when we see what the word of God has to say about our salvation.

And so we see passage of Scripture throughout the New Testament that talk about this principle.

But one that you could maybe jot down and note is first Peter, chapter 5, verse 5.

Peter is writing to the church, and particularly leaders in the church.

And he talks about them having the proper stance and having the proper way of leading and shepherding.

And then he ends verse five with a statement.

He says, and be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble.

Says in verse 6, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.

The same principle is given to us here in Romans, chapter 12.

Paul says, don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to think.

But then he says a phrase here.

He says, but think soberly.

That word sober or soberly means to have the proper focus on the proper things, to be serious about the right things, to to have self control, to have discernment, to know.

This is something that I need to be serious about.

This is something that I need to spend time on.

So he says, don't think of yourself higher than you ought to think, but have the right thinking.

Think properly about yourself.

Think properly about your service.

Think properly about all the things that you're doing for the Lord.

And he says, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith, meaning God is giving us the opportunity to know him in a personal way through service, through sacrifice, through study.

And so he says, understand that and grow in your faith.

You're only going to be able to serve at the capacity of your faith.

Like if I don't truly believe in something, I'm not going to serve it, I'm not going to sacrifice for it.

I'm not going to buy into it, so to speak.

So he says, if you want to understand God's gifts working through you, grow in your faith.

And grow in your understanding of him and how he works in your life.

And so he says the starting place for that is renewing your mind, thinking soberly, thinking properly.

And so the, the first step of this sacrificial service is having humility.

And humility comes from seeing ourselves from where we are and seeing where God is and seeing the distinction between that this morning we say, behold our God and, and.

And think about all of those things that are said in that song.

All the things that we can attribute to God we cannot attribute to ourselves.

There are things about God that we can never obtain.

We're not all knowing, we're not all powerful, we're not all present.

But the One who has given us salvation is, and the One who is equipping us is.

And so therefore we come to a place of humility when we understand how big God is and how limited we are.

And we come to him saying, lord, he, it's you that are working through me.

Not.

It's, it's not.

It's not me working for you, it's you working through me for you.

And so we get to this place where we see him say in verse four, for as we have many members in one body.

What is he talking about here?

You might read verse four and say, what.

What is he.

What is he saying here?

He says this.

He.

He's likening the church to the physical body.

Some of you are familiar with First Corinthians, chapter 12.

He uses the same analogy.

He says the.

The church is the body of Christ.

And just as the body has different parts or different members, so does the church.

The hand doesn't do the job of the foot.

Now, some of you might have a lot of talent and be able to grab things with your feet.

I don't know.

But the truth is, is that most of us, our hands are not designed the same way as our feet.

They both serve a purpose.

Our eye is not our ear.

First Corinthians, chapter 12 says that.

He says, if the whole body was the eye, how could it hear?

If the whole body was the ear, how could it see?

And so the idea here that Paul is mentioning is that there is one body.

The church is unified, but it's not uniform.

And so he says here in verse four, for as we have many members or many parts in one body, and all members have not the same office or the same job.

You know, God is a God of clarity.

He is not a God of confusion.

So let's say today all of you said, you know what I believe that God has given me the gift of preaching right now.

And all of you got up here on this stage and started preaching.

When I'm preaching, and we're all preaching different things, that would not be a time of clarity.

That would be a time of confusion.

But there are instances in the church in which we see people serving all at once, but not all in the same capacity.

And so what does he say here?

He says we are all part of one body, and all the members don't have the same job.

And that's a good thing.

And so the church is unified, or at least it should be unified.

The way that God has ordained it to be is that we would be working as a church, as one body moving together for the same.

Same purpose, not for our own individual purpose.

Because if one part of the body is off, though, we might know or we might not know, it definitely affects the whole body.

Some of you may have had in your life an instance where you had a sickness, or for me, I always use this as an analogy.

I had a kidney stone one time, and that little tiny thing, even though I didn't see it, it was affecting my whole body.

My.

My hand wasn't hurting, but let's say it was hurting because everything was hurting.

And sometimes within the church, we don't necessarily know what's going on, but if one part of the body is hurting or deficient, it affects the whole body.

And that's what Paul is talking about here.

He says, don't think that all of us have the same job.

All of us are unified, but we have differences.

And so what we would say is this.

The church is unified, and we are unified upon what?

Not upon our similar interest.

Because if that was the case, some of us might not be unified here.

How many?

I won't ask this, but I was going to say, how many of you like to watch sports and which teams you like?

And we can see how divided we really are.

Thank the Lord that we're not all here, because we're one fan of one team, okay?

But the idea would be this.

It's not about just, hey, we have similar interests.

We like the same sport, or we like the same food, or we like whatever.

The Bible tells us that there really is one common bond that we all have, and that is our common ground in Jesus Christ, our common hope in Jesus Christ.

So we are one body in him.

So think about it from this perspective.

If you and I come together and we have some differences, we could either resolve those differences by fighting about those differences or understand that, that we have a common bond, or at least we should have a common bond in our relationship with Jesus Christ and try to build off of that.

And so that's what he's talking about here.

He says, we're all one body, but all members are distinctly different.

So I've said this before, but unity does not mean uniformity.

Think about the difference between those two words, unity and uniformity.

Unity is we're working together as one.

Uniformity is we all look the same and we all do the same things.

That wouldn't be effective.

That.

That wouldn't be what God has called us to do.

So we are called to be unified, but we're not called to be uniform.

We're actually called to be different.

We're called to be distinct.

I want you to see that in another passage, if you go to First Peter, chapter four.

We just looked at it here this morning in our scripture reading.

You see the very same principle given to us by the Apostle Peter.

And he says in verse number 20, verse number 10 of First Peter, chapter 4, the idea that, yes, we are all gifted, as every man hath received the gift.

And then he says, even so, minister the same one to another as good stewards of the.

In the King James, it says manifold.

But this could also mean various or different grace of God.

Meaning you and I might be different, differently gifted in our service to the Lord, but at the same time, we're to minister one to another.

He goes on to say in verse number 11, if any man speaks.

So there's these gifts of speaking.

There's these public gifts.

Speak of the oracles of God.

If any man minister that's talking about service, maybe behind the scenes, let him do it.

Of the ability that God giveth.

But ultimately we see who is glorified, not the servants, not the preacher.

He says that in all things, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

And so the idea for this would be that we're working together.

We.

We're different, but at the end of the day, all of us are uniquely gifted so that we can serve the Lord.

So every believer is uniquely gifted by God.

And there's distinct roles that do not diminish equal value.

In First Corinthians, chapter 12, it actually tells us that every part of the body is needed.

He actually talks about, in some cases, the ones that are not as attractive are necessities there.

There are certain service opportunities within the church that might not get as much praise as others.

Does that mean we just forget about them?

Does that mean that we neglect them.

No, we actually say that those are needed.

And so he says, as God gives us, we are all to work, not thinking about the praise of man, or the payments or the position, but to do it in such a way that we think about the ultimate goal of glorifying God.

And so in verse number three, he reminds us that it's to be done in humility.

And verse number four, he reminds us that it's to be done in harmony.

Service within the church.

Service for the Lord should be done with a humbled spirit, and it should be done in harmony.

Unified together for the cause of the gospel.

The church is one body.

The church should not be fighting against itself.

Think about how weird it would be if someone walked into the building today and they were punching themselves, kicking themselves, tripping all over themselves.

Right away, we like, something is wrong.

We need to identify that it might be a mental problem.

It might be something going on.

Maybe they're seeing things we don't know.

But we know that a person is not healthy if they're fighting against themselves.

And we even see that in other ways.

When.

When the body maybe has a disease, it fights against itself and it isn't properly aligned.

And we know that needs to get fixed.

That's the same thing within the church.

And we've seen this before.

You've seen it maybe in another church.

There is going to be times when we have difficulties in our service that we might fight against ourselves.

Well, you know what?

When the body fights against itself, it's never going to be effective for the cause of the gospel.

It's never going to be effective for the ultimate purpose of pushing forward the kingdom of God.

Jesus in John 17 has this prayer.

It's his high priestly prayer.

One of the things that he asked the Lord is, Lord, that they would be unified, that the church would be unified like you and I are unified.

It is the heart of God that we walk in humility and we walk in harmony.

The church has to work together.

We make a huge mistake when we neglect unity without individuality.

But then we also make a huge mistake if we neglect individuality without unity.

Meaning this.

Sometimes we want to celebrate the individuality of the person within the church.

But then we forget about the need that we need to come together and unify.

There's other times where we celebrate unity so much and uniformity so much that we forget that there are people that are going to be distinctly different.

And it's okay that they're different.

It's okay that someone serves a different way.

It's okay that someone teaches a different way.

I mean, one of the things that I love about our classes at our church, our Sunday school classes and our small groups is that there's a style for you.

Okay?

There's video series, there's lecture series, there's discussion classes, there's book studies.

Look, there's not one particular way to teach a class.

There's a lot of ways to get to the truth.

And what we have to understand that as Christians, not everyone has to do it the exact same way as me.

Now, what I will say is this.

Sometimes people might misunderstand that and say, are you saying that we can all just worship the way that we worship and we can all just do what we want to do?

No.

Are a particular set of things that God has laid out for us that we must follow.

There, there's.

There's framework there, there's guard rails.

That's scripture.

But where scripture doesn't speak, that's where we have the ability to have levels of freedom, to have levels, levels of liberty, which we're going to talk about in Romans chapter 14.

So.

So when we get back to this idea of service, we see that God has designed the church to function together for his glory.

So verse five, Romans, chapter 12, verse five.

So we, being many, are one body in Christ, in Christ, and everyone members one of another.

So the reality of service within the church looks like this.

Our gifts are to minister to others, not magnify ourselves.

Some are called to plant, some are called to teach, some are called to encourage.

Some are called the lead.

Some are called to be quietly behind the scenes serving in that capacity.

But every gift matters to the body.

And so when we get into the study, I want you to understand we are going to talk about specific gifts.

And I believe that the word of God clearly teaches that every Christian is gifted at least one of these ministering gifts.

Here In Romans chapter 12, the truth is, is that there's a lot of Christians that are Christians that are in churches, that are maybe even serving in churches.

And if we were to ask them, what's your spiritual gift or gifts?

They would say, I had no idea.

Never been taught that.

I didn't know that we had individual gifts.

The Bible very clearly teaches us that there are those things.

And so what we need to do as a church is we need to dig in and understand that God, if I'm a believer in Jesus Christ, he has gifted me for a specific purpose in a specific way so that I can serve at that capacity in a way that's effective for the cause of the gospel.

Now, I will say this.

Some of these gifts that we're going to talk about are going to be natural for you.

You're going to understand that, you're going to see that.

But there's going to be other gifts that you're not as inclined to follow in your life.

So, for example, there's one gift called the gift of mercy.

And let's say one of us here this morning says, you know what?

I'm not gifted in the gift of mercy.

So I just, you know what?

Don't need to do it because that's not my gift.

Well, that's not true because we're all called to have mercy.

So we're all called to work at some capacity within these gifts.

But other gifts are going to be more supernaturally gifted to us so that it happens where others are going to be something that we have to strive for and grow in and ask God to give us strengthening and teaching in.

And so we're going to go through that, through this study.

And so what I want you to do as we go through the study is honestly, authentically go through this study in Romans chapter 12 and identify how God has gifted you so that you could say, yes, I am gifted in this area.

And as I'm gifted in this area, how could I use that within the body of Christ?

Because that's really the purpose.

If I was to disciple you, if I'm discipling you, I don't just need to give you information, even though I love to do that.

I love to teach.

I love to give facts.

I love to give all the things that Scripture tells us about the Word of God.

Those are good things.

We all should be teaching or learning from the Word of God.

But at the end of the day, discipleship doesn't just stop with facts.

It goes further.

Right?

It goes further.

And one of the aspects of discipleship that must happen within the church is that we need to help others find the way that God has gifted them so that they can use that for the cause of the kingdom.

Paul does that with Timothy.

Paul says, don't neglect the gift that was given to you.

Don't forget about it.

Don't.

Don't put it aside.

And so for us, if we are going to be a church that embraces the discipleship direction, it's this that we identify.

Number one, where God has gifted us in these spiritual gifts and how I can lead other people, number one to salvation, but then number two to service and sanctification.

So the way it would practically look is that I could sit down with a brother or sister in Christ and say, amen, you've trusted in the Lord.

Now it's time for you to turn everything over to Him.

Now we're going to identify how God has blessed you and how he has gifted you.

And you can see, okay, yes, they're gifted in teaching.

Now, where do we take that?

Where, where do we go with that?

And it's plugging people into the areas that are needed within the church.

And so I, I want us to see this not just as a, A, a lesson about preaching, about theology, even though theology is so important.

But, but part of theology is practical theology.

Practical theology is applying what we know about God.

And if you know about God, certain things, it's applying that to our lives.

And so we're going to get to verse number six, and we're going to see gifts like prophecy.

We're going to dive deeper into that, the proclamation of the Word of God.

We're going to talk about gifts of ministry.

That's service.

We're going to talk about gifts of teaching.

We're going to talk about gifts of exhortation.

That's challenging.

That's, that's encouraging.

There, there's, there's the gift of giving.

There's the gift of administration or ruling.

There's the gift of mercy.

And some of you might say, let's get into those right now.

Well, for time's sake, we're not going to dive into each one of those, because what we're going to do is we're going to do a deep dive into each one of these gifts.

And we're going to talk about how God has equipped certain people in certain ways.

And we're going to look at examples of people in scripture that have lived out these things in their life so that we can see examples in our life.

But one of the things that I would really challenge you with is that before we even get started with understanding these gifts and applying these gifts to our life is that we have to come with the right perspective.

We have to come with the right purpose.

And the purpose is always to encourage others and glorify God.

So we have the humility of service.

We have the heart of service.

And that's really what I want us to close with here this morning.

Mark, chapter 10, verse 45.

Go, go with me to Mark, chapter 10, verse 45.

Jesus, again, is the greatest example that we could ever have in anything that we do in our lives.

And we think about what Jesus tells his disciples here in Mark chapter 10.

And I think that this could be summarized as the heart of our service to the lord.

Mark chapter 10, verse 45.

Jesus says, for even the Son of Man, talking about himself, came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and give his life a ransom.

For many, Jesus models sacrificial service.

Think about two words here.

Service, sacrifice.

We see it right there in that verse, verse 45.

The son of man came not to be ministered unto.

So Jesus focus wasn't who's going to serve me at least in his earthly ministry.

Now let me make this clear.

One day every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

We will worship him.

We should serve him.

But Jesus's earthly ministry was not designed so that he could just come and everyone would serve serve him as he was sitting on the throne.

He says, no, my purpose was this, to minister that service, to serve and to give his life a ransom.

For many, that's sacrifice.

So Jesus models the sacrificial service example for us.

Jesus didn't come demanding position.

Jesus came giving himself to others.

And we know the ultimate example of that type of sacrifice is, is Calvary is the cross.

Jesus basically says this, I love you so much that I will give myself for you.

And in any of these ministering gifts that we're going to talk about In Romans chapter 12, it all starts with that type of heart.

I'm willing to put others needs before myself.

I'm not going to preach or teach or give or serve or administrate without the proper response.

And that is the response of hey, I'm doing this for you because of him, not I'm doing this for you because of me.

Because a lot of times we enact the spiritual gifts within our church in the flesh.

What does that mean?

That means I want to administrate properly so that no one causes me any issues.

I'm tired of all these headaches within the church.

So I got to administrate this way so that I don't have any more problems in my life.

Or I need to preach the word of God so that people will notice me.

Or I need to serve so that people will serve me.

Or I need to give so that there can be strings attached.

No, those are all living out our spiritual gifts in a fleshly way.

And by the way, we can exercise these spiritual gifts either in the heart of service in the spirit or a heart of selfishness in our flesh.

That's the danger.

It's like in anything in our Christian faith, we can exercise in our flesh or we can exercise in the spirit.

So it's not just about identifying our gift, it's not just about serving in the church, but it's doing it with the right heart.

And that's what we see here in this passage.

He says, do it with humility, do it with harmony, and do it with a heart of service and sacrifice.

So the three points are very simple here this morning.

Number one, we are to serve the Lord in our spiritual gifts with humility.

Secondly, we're to do it with harmony.

Thirdly, we're to do it with a heart of service and sacrifice.

Faithful service honors our master.

There's the classic parable of the talents in Matthew, chapter 25.

If you want to jot that down for your notes.

Matthew 25, 14:30 Tell us this amazing parable of how God gave a certain denomination of money to three individuals, and two of them used it and were good stewards of it.

And by the way, a steward means that you don't own it, but you're managing it.

And so God gave two different people money, and they used it, they grew it.

And God said, well done, thou good and faithful servant.

But then there was one, if you remember, he didn't do anything with it.

He buried in the ground.

And because of his fear and because of his fear of failure, he didn't do anything with it and he wasted it.

And of course, God wasn't happy with that.

The question for all of us this morning is that those things that God has given us in our life, are we going to bury it and just sit on it?

God's never pleased with that.

God wants us to be stewards of it.

He wants us to multiply it.

Are we going to serve it for our own praise, our own power, our own purpose, and selfishly use those gifts?

Or are we going to say, lord, whatever you have given me, I want to give back?

I want to understand how you've blessed me, how you've gifted me, and I want to push forward in that.

Now, I do need to note a few things here.

One, a lot of times I use this analogy in my Sunday school class this morning, I was talking to a dear lady a while ago, a long time ago, and I was asking her about her spiritual gifts.

And she said, and don't take offense to this anyone, but.

But we're going to get there.

So my spiritual gift is cooking, Pastor.

I'm a cook, and that's my spiritual gift.

And I wanted to be nice, and I said The Bible never talks about us.

The a spiritual gift is cooking.

That's a natural talent that God has gifted you with, and that's different.

We need to distinguish between natural talents and spiritual gifts.

Now, can somebody use the natural talent of cooking and their spiritual gift?

Of course.

You know what I'm really encouraged when someone cooks me something and gives it to me.

That's that.

That would be.

That would be a gift of exhortation.

Right?

You would, you would encourage me with that.

But.

But what we need to distinguish between the two is that there are certain things that God has naturally gifted people in saved and unsaved.

Like, can an atheist cook?

Yeah, I'm sure that I've had a cook at a restaurant that's an atheist that cooked me a really good meal.

There are people that don't believe in God that can sing really well, that can build things with their hands.

So we take all the things that God has gifted us naturally, and then we think about how we can use those natural talents in the realm of the spiritual gifts.

And that's what we're going to work on through this series as well, is okay, yes, God's given me the gift of singing.

He's given me the gift of cooking.

He's given me the gift of building.

He's given me the gift of whatever.

And how can I use that now as it's as a redeemed person and having the Spirit guiding me, how can I use that in the realm of encouraging people for the cause of the gospel?

That's the exciting thing.

Because God brings people from all different backgrounds and all different skill sets.

And he can say, you know what?

He can use you, who maybe can work behind the scenes with your hands.

And maybe God can use others in capacities of teaching and capacities of giving.

But the true question would be this.

If the first step of have you taken that step and say, lord, whatever you want from me, I'm willing to give that to you?

God expects faithfulness because he has entrusted us with so much.

We're not responsible for someone else's gift because this is what sometimes happens.

I look at somebody and I look at their gift and I go, wow, I wish I had that gift.

That gift's way more important.

That gift's way more valuable.

No, we're not to look at other people's gift and covet their gift.

We're not to look at my.

Our own gift and say, you know, I'm better than that person because I'm gifted this way.

No, we're responsible for what God has given us.

And we're responsible for the stewardship thereof.

And that's a word that we're going to be using a lot in this study.

Stewardship.

Stewardship is God has given me something that it's not something that I earned.

And now I get to manage that and use that and multiply that.

For him, he's the owner, I'm just the manager.

And so service is sacrifice, Service is worship.

Service is everything.

And we're thinking about it from the perspective of a believer, but as an unsaved person, an unsaved person can try to do as much as they can, but there's always going to be that cutoff.

There's always going to be that limit.

Why?

Because true biblical service starts with the Spirit.

And if you're an unsaved person, you don't have the Spirit living within you.

So.

So serving God is not merely an activity, it's sacrifice.

We talked about this at the men's meeting last night.

Service is not just an activity.

Ministry is light.

If we are Christians, we don't just look at our ministry as this is a Sunday morning thing or a Wednesday night thing.

We look at our life as a sacrifice.

And we look at every element of our life to be a ministry opportunity.

And so Romans chapter 12 begins with presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice.

And it begins to grow in teaching us how we can do that practically within the church.

So sacrificial service is the response to saving grace.

And so I have a few questions for you here this morning.

Number one, are you saved?

Do you know what that even means?

The Bible says that all of us are lost in our sin.

We are all dead in our sins.

And so to start this process of spiritual growth, to start this process of spiritual service, you must start with faith.

And so the Bible says, first and foremost, have you trusted in Him?

Have you put your faith in Him?

Have you said that he is the only one who can save me and not myself?

Have I recognized the sin in my life?

Have I repented of my sin?

Basically turning away from my good works and turning to his work and trusting in him?

Is that something that you have done in your life?

If so, great.

If not, get that taken care of today.

But secondly, if you have received the grace of God in salvation, are you willingly and openly ready to be used by God in your spiritual gifting?

Are you ready to be used by God?

Are you willing to be used by God?

If not, prepare yourself.

Get ready.

Dive deep.

Understand.

Identify what God has blessed you with.

Within your service gifts and use those for the kingdom.

And so if you do know your gift, are you serving, are you using the gifts that God has given you for his kingdom and, and not our own?

And so the closing challenge here this morning is this.

Do you know him in a personal way?

Have you trusted in him as Savior?

Number two?

Have you identified your spiritual gift?

Number three, if you have identified your spiritual gift, are you using that gift within the church, within the community, within the world?

So may we have the same heart as our Lord, Humbled in spirit, unified in purpose and sacrificial.

God has not given us the gifts to sit on the sidelines.

I think that many of us understand this principle.

We have some sports teams here at our church that we have, and it's great.

It's an awesome ministry.

And if someone came out here, let's say, let's say I'm not a Phillies fan, but let's say for whatever reason, Bryce Harper started coming to our church, say, okay, great, you know, I would be fine with that.

It's like, Bryce Harper, you need Jesus Christ.

Some of you are like, who is Bryce Harper?

He's a good, well known baseball player, okay?

And he started coming to our church, right?

And he sat down here in the pew and we're like, oh, amen.

You know, that's great.

Let's.

He gets saved.

And I don't know what his spiritual condition is, but let's say this case, he gets saved within our church and he's here and we tell him, hey, there's a church softball team.

If you get any free time in your week, you know, we'd love for you to come out, like.

And he would be like, no, I'll just come out and watch.

We would say, like, what, What a waste.

What a waste.

We got an MLB player here, we can't use them.

And, and we laugh.

And that's.

It's.

We get that.

But think about, like, every single one of you that come to this church and trust in Jesus Christ as your savior, have that holy spirit living within you.

The same spirit that rose Jesus from the dead, the same spirit that led David on the battlefield against Goliath, the same spirit that brought fire down from heaven through Elijah, the same spirit that was able to give peace to Stephen as he was being stoned as a martyr, the same grace that was there for Paul to preach the gospel to the lost and dying world is the same spirit that lives within us.

And so when we sit in the pew and we don't utilize the Spirit of God in our life.

And it's just as crazy as a professional baseball player sitting here and not getting on the field.

It's like, why are we sitting on the sidelines?

Let's get in.

Let's get involved.

And some of you say, pastor, I've been involved, but it's been a long time and I've lost my skill set.

Okay, well, you know what happens?

Let's say we don't have Bryce Harper come out, but who's an old Phillies player.

That's way beyond their years.

Okay, someone tell me, was that Mike Schmidt?

Okay, Mike Schmidt comes here.

Mike Schmidt's like, pastor Josh, you don't want me on the softball field.

You might have to have liability.

I might blow something out.

But you know what?

If I had Mike Schmidt out here, I said, you better start teaching those guys.

Get them out there.

Get those young guys out there on the ball field and start teaching them.

It's the same thing with us.

Some of us might not have the same skill set as we used to physically, but now we're able to pass that torch on to the next generation.

I'm not able to get out and knock on those doors.

I'm not able to get out and build those things.

But I can walk a young Christian through that same process of what I went through in growth.

And so do you see that?

Sometimes the role changes, but the same purpose is there.

It's to lift up the cause of the gospel.

It's to encourage other people to come to know Jesus and to teach them how to walk in that path that Jesus has called us to walk in.

And so, though this is just an introductory sermon, God has not called us to sit on the sidelines.

He's called us, and he's equipped us to serve within the church and to reach our community and to glorify Christ in this world.

And so today, have you trusted in Jesus?

If you have, praise God.

The Bible tells us, theologically speaking, that the Holy Spirit now lives within us.

The next question is, how am I living that out in my life?

How am I serving?

How am I sacrificing?

Is it with humility?

Is it with harmony?

Is it with a heart of service and sacrifice?

This morning, you have an opportunity to respond.

I hope that you come back in the future, because we're going to dive deeper into some of these elements of the gift of service.

And so let's go ahead now and have a time of invitation, time of response.

If you're able to stand with me, every head bowed, every Eye closed as the music plays here.

I don't want anyone looking around.

I don't want any distractions.

But what I do want is a time for you to respond to the word of God here.

This morning, the first and biggest question that we always ask is this.

Do you know Jesus as your personal Savior?

Have you trusted in him and him alone to save you from your sins?

If that be the case, praise God, we have a reason to rejoice.

We have a reason to celebrate this morning.

But secondly, if you've trusted in Jesus as your Savior, have you taken that next step of saying what I want to serve him at the best I can in the most effective and efficient way for the cause of the kingdom.

If so, praise God.

Keep up the good work, keep the faith, keep serving, keep sacrificing.

But if not, it's never too late to get started.

It's never too late to put to practice what God has blessed you with in such a great way.

If you are serving, are you serving with humility?

Are you serving with harmony?

Or if you serving with the heart of sacrifice and service?

If not, get that right with him today.

Get that right.

Get your heart aligned with him so that we can walk in unison.

As the body of Christ.

Lord, I pray that you be in this time of invitation, working hearts and lives.

I pray that you can speak to those who need spoken to today, that you can comfort those that need comforting today, that you can challenge those that need that challenging today.

We ask all those things in Jesus name.

Amen.

And some have already come.

Follow as the Lord leads here this morning.