Serve God with Spiritual Gifts (Romans 12:3–8) — A Sermon by R.C. Sproul

0:40 For I say through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.

1:28 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. If prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith, or ministry, let us use it in our ministering. He who teaches in teaching, he who exhorts in exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness. The Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. Let us pray. Again, our Father, as we undertake the task of interpreting this text that You have given to us through Your Apostle by the supervision of the Holy Ghost, we ask for Your aid to illumine the meaning of it to our minds and to open our hearts to embrace it in its fullness.

2:46 for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Several years ago, I met with a consultant, and he asked me some unusual questions. He asked that I take out a piece of paper and number it from 1 to 10, and I thought a pop quiz of some sort was coming. And he said to me, what I'd like you to do is write down on this side of the paper the ten most meaningful compliments you have ever received. And he said, I want you to just write down what the compliment was, how old you were when you received it, and who it was who gave it to you. And he said, don't worry about being too meticulous. You don't have to tax your memory unduly. If it may make it simpler, just write down the first ten compliments that cross your mind. And then when I was finished with that, he asked me to turn the page over and to write down the ten most painful criticisms or insults I had ever received, How old was I and who it was who made them? And that simple little exercise, which I would commend all of you to do in your own time, was exceedingly revealing to me. What stood out in my list of compliments that I had received was that two out of the ten came from the same person, my eighth-grade English teacher. And I know that had this consultant started his analysis with, not with this exercise, but if he would have simply said, write down the hundred people who have most influenced you in your life, I never would have thought to include my eighth-grade English teacher among them.

4:53 But when he asked for compliments, I included her twice. And the one that first came to my mind was one that, as I indicated, took place when I was in the eighth grade, a little background. We went to the same school, elementary school, from grade one through grade eight, and we always had art class. And in art class, we were given certain projects to do. and at the end of the project, the teacher would select eight or ten of the students' projects and post them on the bulletin board for all to see. And in the eight years of my tenure in art class, I had the dubious distinction of not once ever having anything that I had created placed on the bulletin board. I didn't have a very strong self-image about my artistic ability, as you could see.

5:51 But we had an assignment in English in eighth grade where we were asked to write a one-page descriptive essay. And I wrote mine and turned it in and waited for it to be returned the next day. And instead of simply returning the papers, the teacher stood up in the front of the class and she said, before I return this assignment to you, I want to take a moment to read one of them to the class. And to my utter astonishment, she read my essay. And then dramatically, she turned around and walked to the bulletin board and with a thumbtack affixed it to the cork thereon. She said, this deserves to be here because it is a work of art. And so after class, I walked up to the bulletin board to admire this tremendous achievement, and she had written on the top of the page, A+, and then on the bottom, she had written, R.C.

7:00 hey, don't ever let anybody tell you that you can't write. Do you have any idea how many people have tried to tell me that over the last 40 years? But I took that woman's compliment to my heart, and I trusted in it. This is the thing about true compliments that are different from flattery is a true compliment is one that we believe, that we trust in, because it comes to us from somebody that we regard with a certain authority. And so this woman's generous compliment to me became a part of my life story. Now, obviously, if you were to look at somebody's page and saw the 10 most important compliments they had ever received, you peered over their shoulder, and you noticed that next to one of those top compliments, when the space was provided as to who gave it, and you saw your name on the paper, what would that mean to you? You would think, wow, you mean that comment I made to that person was one of the ten most affirming things that they had ever heard in their life.

8:26 Then there's the other side of it. Imagine if you turned the page, and you looked over a neighbor's shoulder, and you saw the ten most painful, cutting insults or criticisms that they received in their lifetime, they included your name on that list. That would certainly be a terrible, terrible thing to discover, wouldn't it? Well, what does this have to do with the text here of Romans? We live in a culture, dear friends, that is obsessed with self-esteem. It's become almost cultic to develop a good self-image. A few years ago, an international test in mathematics was administered to children from ten different nations, including the United States, but the test had two parts.

9:30 The first part of the examination had to do with mathematical competency, and the second part of the test had to do with the student's feeling of self-esteem with respect to their performance. Two ironies stood out. Number one, the Korean students were last in their estimation of their performance, but first in the actual competency level. Because along with the rigorous pursuit of excellence in the science of math, the Korean students were also taught principles of humility.

10:22 Conversely, and to our national shame, The American children scored tenth or last in mathematical competency, but they led the list where number one in self-esteem. They had a high view of their competency in spite of their miserable performance. And so we see that this business of self-esteem, as important as it is, because we are not to brutalize people by tearing them apart with unnecessary criticisms and insults, and yet at the same time, we can do equal damage to people by giving them a higher opinion of themselves than they should have. Now, this is how the apostle begins this segment of Romans 12. He says, for I say, he doesn't just say it on his own, not simply out of his own background, but he said, I say this through the grace that is given to me. That is what the apostle is saying this, I'm writing to you now as an apostle. I've been gifted by God to that calling to which I had no merit, and I still count myself the chief of sinners, but by the grace of God, I have been called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, and you are part of my apostolic concern. And so what I'm about to say to you, I want you to understand that it is coming out of that grace that the Lord has bestowed upon me. And herein is the admonition that

12:30 to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly. To all of those who are in our midst, the apostle makes this admonition, don't think of yourself more highly than you ought to, but let your evaluation, let your self-analysis and estimation be done soberly. Unfortunately, in English, Paul is juxtaposing the word to think too highly with the idea of to think soberly, and we can't translate into English the play on words that is present here in the Greek.

13:30 But to think soberly is the same word that the first word to think is, but with a different prefix added onto it. And again, the idea here is that Paul is not talking about an intellectual enterprise or analysis of our skills or ability or status. But connected with the cognitive aspect of thinking in the text here is that aspect of affection. He's really not talking about estimation so much as he is esteem. And what he's saying simply is don't esteem yourselves too highly. Don't esteem yourselves above the level that you ought. Don't get carried away with your own self-affection, but let your estimation or esteeming be done cogently, or yes, soberly and carefully. Now, there are many applications about this.

14:52 On the one hand, when the apostle calls us to a sober evaluation of ourselves, particularly with respect to our abilities. He's putting a tremendous responsibility on us when He says to think soberly. I have young students coming to me all the time and saying, how do I know if I'm called to the ministry? How do I know if I should accept the office deacon in the church? How do I know if I'm qualified to be an elder? Because, again, the context in which Paul is giving this practical instruction is the church.

15:37 And with those who are looking to a vocation in the ministry, I said, well, first of all, before you think about the glory and the drama of the ministry, you need to sit down and be sober and have a sober analysis of your gifts. Do you really have what it takes to be a minister? Do you have what it takes to be a deacon? Do you have what it takes to be an elder? Do you have what it takes to be an engineer, a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker? That's one of the good things that we get out of the secular world when they give us psychological testing and profiles and seeing whether we have the necessary equipment that would be required to enter into a certain vocation. There are lots of people I have seen in the course of seminary teaching who come to seminary with stars in their eyes about going into the ministry, and you wonder whoever encouraged them to come in the first place, because they obviously do not have the most rudimentary gifts that are required for the service of God in this particular vocation. Somebody perhaps has flattered them, or they have flattered themselves, because along the way the evaluation was not a sober one.

17:17 And when that happens, people are doomed to failure, frustration, disappointment, discouragement, and sometimes lifelong depression. I told you before that each year in the United States, 16,000 clergy demit the ministry, some for moral reasons, but most because they deem their job as a bad fit for their abilities. And that's a dreadful, dreadful experience for a person to have. And it starts because we have been intoxicated rather than sober with our own self-esteem. And again, Paul is directing this because there are particular problems that he anticipates in the church at Rome, and the closest follow-up to this instruction that we find here in Romans 12 is in Paul's letter to the Corinthian community, which was torn apart with strife, where everybody was elevating their own gifts and their own offices over everybody else. And in the church at Corinth, there was this ongoing battle for power and for status.

18:55 And that can happen in any church. If that can happen in a first-century church, it can certainly happen in our churches today. And so both to the Corinthians and to the Romans, Paul uses one of his favorite metaphors for the church when he sees the church as a body, a body that is made up of many functions, many parts, and each part needs the help of the other. else where Paul says, can the eye say to the ear, I have no need of you. But in this unity, in diversity, grace is given to everybody in the church, and everybody in the church has a role to play. And we are not to despise the roles that other people play, or are we to elevate our own roles as the be-all of the life of the church. Well, here's how he spells it out to the Romans.

20:05 You are not to think of yourself more highly than you ought, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. Paul elsewhere said, were we not all baptized into one Spirit. One of the things that troubles me in the awakening of people to the presence and power of the Holy Ghost in the church today is that there is this persistent idea that some believers are gifted by the Holy Spirit while others are not. Now, obviously, every Christian has the Holy Spirit insofar as you can't be a Christian unless God the Holy Spirit regenerates your soul and dwells within you. But apart from the Spirit's work of regeneration in the life of the Christian, the Spirit also distributes gifts or abilities, and every Christian has been gifted of the Holy Spirit. And one of the most important things for the church to do is to help you find what your gifts may be, so that we are all working together in this common task of Jesus' church. For we have many members in one body, diversity and unity, but all the members do not have the same function.

21:40 So we, being many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. Let me speak in a parenthesis here a little bit candidly and personally. Ten years ago, when I was leading two different Bible studies where there were some people that were common to both, these folks came to me with a harebrained idea of starting a church, and they asked me if I would be their pastor. And I laughed, you know. I said, wait a minute, I've got a day job, and I can't be involved full-time as a pastor. And so I said, no. Well, they persisted, and they came again and said, well, look, we don't want you to be a pastor in the traditional sense.

22:34 We don't expect you to do hospital calls and counseling and all of that. All we want is for you just to preach for us, and we'll hire Bert to do everything else. And so I thought about that, and I said, I don't know whether that would really work. but I knew that there was something missing in my ministry and I knew it was having a pulpit where I could be with the same people week in and week out. And so after much discussion and prayer and consideration, and I hope a sober analysis of my limitations, we agreed to do that. And that's how St. Andrews was born almost 10 years ago. But since that time, I've spent so much time with pastors from all over the country in pastors' conferences and now have an ability to hear their cries in a way I just was not able to hear before.

23:40 And one of the biggest cries that they get all the time is that they're expected to be a jack of all trades and master of none. They're expected to be administrators. They're expected to be statesmen. They're expected to be psychological counselors. They're expected to be biblical experts, theologians, preachers, teachers, and all the rest. And now I say to them, I said, you've got to get it settled in your churches when you go on staff. we need a reformation in the church in terms of the church's expectation for their minister.

24:19 That the number one task of the minister is the preaching of the Word of God, the feeding of the flock. And I say to these young men, I said, 90% of your time should be involved in preaching and teaching. God hasn't called you to be a psychological counselor. He hasn't called you to be a brilliant administrator. He's called you to preach the Word and feed the sheep. And so what I say is, not that I'm trying to take the model that I have at St. Andrews and then just impose it on everybody else, but what I thought was an aberration when I came here, I've soon discovered that it's the model that the church should have, that the pastor should be free to spend his time in preaching and teaching, because what you need more than anything else is to be nurtured in the Word of God. And so, everyone has a task.

25:29 We are members of one body, but not all have the same function. So we being many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. Now listen to this part, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. Isn't that a strange admonition. If God has given you a gift, He's not given it to you to waste.

26:02 He's not given it to you to set on the shelf. He's not given you a gift to bury in the ground. But if God has given you a gift, He expects you to use it. The admonition is simple. If God gives you the gift of teaching, what should you do? Teach. If you have the gift of preaching, preach. If the gift of evangelism, evangelize, and so on. But let's look specifically at the gifts that he mentions. having the gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us. Let us use them. If prophecy, let us prophesy. Well, I have to confess I stumble a little bit here.

26:59 This is probably the toughest part of this section of chapter 12, because what does Paul have in view when he talks about the gift of prophecy? If we go up the street, the church up the street, they have no hesitance to interpret this text. they say, well, that gift of prophecy refers to the immediate supernatural Holy Ghost endowed ability to interpret tongues and to make predictions of the future today, just as prophets in the Old Testament did. And then you come down the street to this church, and we struggle with that because one of the great debates is whether the supernatural gifts of the apostolic age ceased with the death of the last apostle, or whether they persist even to this day. But being one of those who believes that the gift of apostleship, for example, was for the first century and only for the first century, was not even capable of being passed on to the next generation, then I often think that in one sense this gift of prophecy that Paul is describing here also only describes the immediate time of the apostolic age. But there are other problems involved. In the Old Testament, the supreme agents of Revelation were the prophets.

28:28 And if you want to look at the New Testament counterpart to the Old Testament prophet, it's not the New Testament prophet. It's the New Testament apostle. There is a parody between the Old Testament prophet, the New Testament apostle. Both are authoritative agents of revelation. And yet, here's Paul speaking about the gift of prophecy, which obviously he distinguishes from the gift of apostleship. Now, one of the ways scholars have looked at this is to make a distinction between the term prophet with a capital P and the term prophet with a smaller case, P. The same thing is done with the term apostle. In the New Testament, when the term apostle describes an office, we're referring to those who were selected by Christ and endowed with His authority like Peter and Paul and John and so on. But yet at the same time, all of the church was involved in the apostolic mission of spreading the Word of God to all nations. In that sense, every member was an apostle with a little p. Now, the same thing could be said about this office of the prophet. Well, let's look, first of all, at the primary task of the prophet in New Testament terms. The primary task of the prophet in New Testament terms is to function as an interpreter of the Word of God. Even in the Old Testament office of prophet, the prophet, we like to think of the prophets of the Old Testament of those who predicted the futures of what we call foretelling. And yet their primary task was not predicting the future, but it was foretelling, communicating the Word of God to the people. They were God's

30:36 prosecuting attorneys to a covenant community that had broken their vows. And so they were called upon to interpret God's Word to the people. Now, in like manner, in the New Testament, the prophet, the lowercase p, is first of all one who is gifted in interpreting or expositing the Word of God. What we could substitute here in the text is in contemporary terms the office of the preacher. It is the preacher who fulfills this task of interpreting and expositing the Word of God. Now, you could also add the dimension in the first century of those smaller case prophets who also had individual, for a time being, special anointing by the Holy Spirit, but I'll leave that for another time.

31:40 What continues to this day about this text is that the role of the prophet in the sense of interpreting the Word of God and expounding it to the people is the primary task of the preacher. Now, what does that mean? If your vocation is to be a preacher, then what is Paul saying? then quit messing around and start preaching. Quit coming into the pulpit on Sunday morning with your latest analysis of the culture or with your agenda for entertainment and trying to turn the church into an ecclesiastical Starbucks. You are here to interpret the Word of God and to expound it to your people. When Paul gave his final message to Timothy, as I've told you, the last injunction he said is, Timothy, preach the Word in season, out of season. So, if you have the gift of preaching, you have with that gift the awesome responsibility of preaching, of preaching the Word of God.

33:08 Or if the gift is for ministry, let us use it in our ministering. In the text here, what is in view principally is the ministry of the deacons, the ones who serve, the ones who take care of the poor, the ones who deal with orphans and widows. And you know, there are certain people that have a servant's heart. There are certain people whom God gifts to be deacons. And it's a marvelous gift in the church. And no church can be a healthy church without a heavy commitment to service, for taking care of the oppressed, for taking care of the poor, for taking care of the lonely, for taking care of the widow.

34:03 it's not just preaching the Word of God. Remember, in the apostolic community, the apostles were set apart so that they could preach and not be encumbered with these other tasks, and deacons were appointed to take care of the business of serving the needs of the people. But not all the deacons were content with being deacons. They wanted to establish the policy. They wanted to rule the community. They wanted a higher status than that of being servants. Now, if God gives you the gift of being a deacon or being a servant, then be a deacon. Last Wednesday night when we looked at Isaiah chapter 6, and I gave a brief overview of the history of the monarchy of King Uzziah, who was crowned when he was 16 years old in Jerusalem and reigned for 52 years, and how his monarchy for the most part was so marvelous because he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, but then in his later years, his status went to his head.

35:30 He wasn't satisfied with being king. He wanted to be the priest too. And so he goes into the temple and tries to offer the offerings, and the priests were horrified. And when they tried to stop him. Uzziah went into a wild rage, screaming at the priest. At that moment, God struck him with leprosy, and he died alone, cut off from the temple, cut off from the royal house in shame and in disgrace. You know why? Because he was not content with the office that God had given to him. Dear friends, this happens in every church, in every age, and in every part of the world. Paul is saying, don't let it happen here.

36:28 Find out what your gift is, and then exercise your gift. Don't be jealous of other people's gifts, and don't try to elevate your gift over everybody else. over my life in the ministry, over 40 years, I've seen this again and again and again. You see people that God has gifted with evangelism, and with that gift has come a passion. They eat, drink, and sleep evangelism. And so many of these I've seen, they say, well, if you're not doing evangelism, I wonder if you're really a Christian. Why should we spend time in education in the church. What matters is winning souls, not learning doctrine, not studying the Word of God, but saving the lost.

37:24 And like men are those who God has gifted with a heart that is filled with compassion for the poor, for people who suffer in the inner cities, and they do their job so well, sometimes they'll come back and say, if you're not in the inner city, you're not with it. You're not really in the work of Christ. And if God gives somebody the gift of teaching and the zeal for learning and communicating truth and doctrine, and I include myself in that category, we have the tendency to say, what's wrong with these people? Why don't they care about this? Why are they caring about evangelism? What good is it if we evangelize these people and don't teach them anything and let them be spiritual infants forever? Don't they realize that there are a thousand evangelistic groups going on right now and nobody's doing the follow-up of grounding people in the Word of God? That's the way the teachers think from time to time, as the teachers want to elevate their office as the one that really matters. That's human nature.

38:39 The eye wants to say to the ear, I don't need you. Ears don't help me see anything more clearly than I see already. and the ear said I don't have to see it just let me hear it who needs the eye how foolish that would be in the function of a human body if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith or ministry, let us use it in our ministering. He who teaches, let him teach. He who exhorts in exhortation. Here's one I love. He who gives with liberality. You know, everybody has the obligation to give.

39:39 But, you know, some people really have the gift for it. You know that? There are people who not only give, they give generously. They give beyond what is required. They give liberally. And we get the added statement from the lips of Jesus that the Lord loves a cheerful giver. Who wants to get a gift from somebody who's hanging on to it? Who wants to get a gift from somebody that's going to be taken back at any second? who wants to get a gift from a sourpuss who can't stand to have his money separated from him god doesn't want your gifts if that's how you feel about it you know i i really respond to this text for this reason i grew up in a home where the most generous person i ever knew and have ever known since was my father.

40:53 My father was relatively affluent, extremely blessed financially in his era, before his years of debilitating illness took that away. But in the meantime, if he saw somebody in need, he would reach into his pocket and he He wouldn't give a quarter or a dollar. He would give lavishly. And I watched that as a boy.

41:34 And what I never saw was a selfish spirit. I saw a man who loved to use what God had given him for the sake of the kingdom and for the sake of his neighbor. And I just had so much respect for that. And I realize now that was a gift. Not everybody has it, but it's a wonderful gift, and it's how churches are able to accomplish what they do accomplish because there are people who are liberal, not in their theology. that never accomplished anything but in their giving he who leads with diligence. I think I told you the story once when we did a tour of the Reformation, and we were in Germany, and we'd been to Wittenberg and to Erfurt and the different places of importance in Luther's life, and we went to Worms and had examined the spot where the Diet of Worms had been assembled, and we had a break for lunch, and we were told to return to where the buses were parked, and some people went in one direction and others went in another, and I was with a group of about 15 people that had lunch off one of the town squares there, and we finished our lunch, and I couldn't remember how to get back to the bus.

43:15 But there was one girl in our group. Her name was Mary. She was wonderful. She said, I know how to go. So all you have to do to be a leader is to know the next step, and Mary knew the next step, and so we all got in line behind Mary, and she started marching with great confidence back towards the bus, and I didn't recognize anything familiar. And I said, Mary, are you sure that this is the right way to the bus. She said, yes, R.C., I'm sure, and kept going. And then she stopped, and then she said, you know, I'm always sure, but seldom right.

43:59 Mary hadn't done her due diligence. She needed to spend some time with a map. But when God gives the gift of leadership, if the leader is going to be in front at the point where other people are going to follow, the leader better know where he's going. He has to do His diligence. And so, Paul said, if you have the gift of leadership, do it with diligence. He who shows mercy… with cheerfulness. Isn't that a strange conjunction? have you ever received mercy from somebody who looked at you sternly and said, all right, I'll let you slide. You got the mercy, but you felt the wrath of the person who gave you the mercy.

45:06 Paul said, that's not the way mercy works. when we receive the mercy of God, we receive it from a heart that is glad to give it. And to be gifted in mercy is a wonderful thing. It's as much needed among the people of God as the preaching of the Word, because the Word tells us that there is a love that is to cover a multitude of sins. And there are people in every congregation that are nitpicking. They want to make a federal issue out of everything with which they disagree. They want to bring church discipline to bear against any peccadillo that has been committed by a member of the congregation. They have no sense of charity, no sense of mercy, no sense of grace. Beloved, we exist by grace.

46:02 we can't do anything apart from the tender mercy of God. And if you've been gifted with that quality of mercy, it is never to be strained. It is to be dispensed with cheerfulness. us. Paul is mapping out for us what it means for the church to be the communion of saints. And what does that word communion mean? Calm is the prefix which means with, union, with oneness. That is, the idea of the communion of saints is for there to be a communion of saints, there has to first be a plurality, that it has to be many, but that many are united.

47:11 And that union works like this. If I am a Christian, that means supernaturally that I am now in Christ. And if I am in Christ, Christ is in me. But the relationship that I enjoy with Jesus is not simply a unilateral relationship. But it works like this, that if you're in Christ and I am in Christ, if I am joined in union with Jesus and you are joined in union with Jesus, what does that say about our relationship one to another? If you participate in the union with Christ and I participate in the union with Christ, then we have a supernatural bond, a union among ourselves, which flows out of Christ himself. If you don't like me, like me for Christ's sake, because I'm in him and you're in him, and we're stuck with each other forever. That's the communion of saints, warts and all. Let's pray.

48:38 Father, we thank You that though You have saved each one of us as an individual, the moment You have saved us, You have put us into a corporation, into a body, which is Your church. Thank You for the wonderful gifts of grace that You have given.

49:08 And we pray that You would give us that sober evaluation and esteem of the gifts and offices that You have distributed among Your people, that we ought not to think too highly of ourselves and yet not to be filled with false sense of humility and to think too lowly of ourselves so that we would despise the gifts that You have given. but let us esteem the gifts that you have given not only to us but to all of those who labor in your body the church.

49:51 Thank you, Lord, for tying us together in yourself. Amen.