Sound Judgment

Okay, so today we are, we're in, get the right slide up here. We're gonna study Romans 12, three, four, and five today. And although it points towards spiritual gifts, I'm not gonna talk about spiritual gifts until next week. And then the next two weeks, we're gonna concentrate on those.

But at this point, in the book of Romans, it's good to understand that Paul has completed the treatment of the subject of God's message in reference to salvation. He's done all of that. Salvation is accomplished by the, he did it by mercy and grace. First eight chapters, that's what that's all about.

So, you have to ask yourself, What then is to be the proper effect of this upon us as the saints? How are we supposed to react to that? When you look at the last five chapters of Romans, it gives us a code of conduct that mercy and grace rightly understood and valued produces. And notice that it's not, it's a result of our true place coming from salvation but not before it.

Lots of times the focus is on do this and you will be the body of Christ and the word of God says be this and you will do. So it's in the character of blessing to take a look at how is it introduced. And last week and last couple of weeks, Roger was talking about how it doesn't say you shall do this.

There's no place for law here. This is all grace. And so instead of the tenderly concerned heart of Paul goes out towards his brethren in a petition Not an order. See that? I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. He didn't have to start it that way, but that's the way he does start it. Because it fits the pattern of grace through the whole book of Romans. It's not, I demand you therefore, brethren, by the law of God. He doesn't say that. And he doesn't mean that. Oh no, the heart that has learned the grace of God has also learned the language of grace. There's a language of grace. And when we discuss and talk, we talk the language of grace most of the time.

It's so much more effective to our hearts than the demands of the law would be. You know, we'd love to have somebody tell us what to do, but we realize that it isn't long before we can't live up to what we've been told to do. So it's all based on mercy, all the way to the end of Romans 11, and nothing is to cloud over this blessed reality in the stirring up of the hearts of believers to the proper sense of responsibility. You know, grace, is the greatest motivator in the world. Nothing is more motivating than that, way more than law is. Mercy and grace are the very basis of how we walk. Appreciation of the mercies and the reception of the grace of God is to be the motive of everything we do.

Those of you who are married and love your spouses, you do things for them because you want to, because you love them, and not because there's a list on the refrigerator. So let's keep in mind, though, as we go through these verses, that this is the beginning of the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ, the great pure mercy that has saved us from the dreadful guilt And the ruin in which we were bound exposed to eternal judgment and bitter misery. That's where we were all headed.

Is it too much to ask then? Or rather is it not wholeheartedly desire of every saved soul to think often and deeply about this blessed mercy? To think of him who gave himself a suffering, bleeding sacrifice for our eternal redemption? Will this not have results far beyond all that our own energy can determine and our willpower can even hope to attain? Answer, yeah. For the resulting work will be God's work and not ours. We'll let him do what he wants to do, Our hands, our feet, our lips will respond gladly to his sovereign work within us. Notice that the verse that Roger covered last week said, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Just for you Greek geeks, what do you think the tense is of transformed? Is it active or is it passive? It's passive. So what's God saying? Let me do it. Just let me do it. I'll transform your mind. And transforming of the mind is really important in what we're talking about today.

Activity, diligence, and labor for his sake will not be lacking, nor will it be merely fleshly activity. We see enough of that. For the heart will be found delighting in the wonderful, glorious truth. It is God who works in you to both to will and to do of his good pleasure. He does that. And when you realize that, you realize you put a lot of trust in God to do what he says he's gonna do. And if you don't trust him, guess what? It doesn't happen. But if you do trust him, he will work in you. to do his will and his good pleasure. It's really cool how he does things.

That's why these verses don't start with the law, they start with grace. So first verse today, for through the grace given to me, I say to everyone 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. From verse three on, to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, the mind is applied to the practical service, which is the subject that we're gonna talk about all the way to the end of verse eight. Paul speaks through the grace given to each individual saint. It's all grace.

That our thoughts not be self-important, not self-exalting, but sober according to the measure of faith given by God. So here we are in a situation where he encourages us not to think more highly of ourselves. because he's about to expound on spiritual gifts and other things, but it's based on the grace given.

If we understand that it's by grace, that understanding alone will go a long way to keep us of thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to because we're gonna realize that everything that we have is from him. Even our attitude, even our minds, the way we look at things. So our thoughts mold our actions, and these must ever be guarded and guided by the vital principle of faith, not by your determination.

If the mind acts apart from faith, what do you end up with? Pride, self-conceit. And there's a danger of going beyond the measure of the faith that God gives you. Lots of us try to do more than God has called us to do. What another may do by faith, I may not have the faith for doing it. So I shouldn't attempt to imitate somebody else's actions.

Notice that when you start going down this road, it's good for us to see the grace of God working in another, but your gift is from God himself. So what does it do? It puts you in a position where you have to spend time with the Lord about what he would have you do. And it doesn't necessarily mean something big. It can be something so small that no one really sees it. It's better to go quietly and act according to our own measure.

Ephesians 4.7 speaks of the measures of the gift of Christ. He measured it out.

This is a different, but it holds the same principle for us, because we shall totally fail if we try to imitate somebody else's gift. And you've all noticed that within Christian environments. My gift is measured out by Christ in glory, and so is yours. And God has given me a certain measure of faith for that gift, so has he for you. So you have to remember that the source of all gifts and power and acts is personally subject to him. Whatever you can do to serve the Lord is something God gave you to do, not something you thought up and thought you could really get busy and do this one thing.

Probably the best example is when somebody joins the church and he's, like Gary Harris, he's a teacher. Oh, there's a teacher who's gonna be, we ought to make him a Sunday school teacher. Question is, is he gifted for that? Did God call him to be a Sunday school teacher? We have different lines, but our limitations ought to be noted. They are a reminder of our dependence and should certainly keep us humble.

Verse two says, in order to prove practically that good and acceptable and perfect will of God, God has decided that you and I should present our body to Christ and that our minds should be transformed. And he's gonna prove it out in reality by the grace that he gives each one of us. There's no need, on the one hand, of being continually on the lookout against the methods of this age. How do they do it in the world? The spirits and habits of men, where men's opinions rule. On the other hand, of continually on the watch of being transformed.

I remember years ago, this sort of blew me away when I first heard it, but as time went on, it started making sense to me. It was that Tuesday men's Bible study, and Miles Stanford was teaching it, and somebody had asked him a question about spiritual growth, and he just quietly said, if your focus is on spiritual growth, you haven't figured it out yet. The focus is me and my growth. The focus is him, and that's the figuring out part. And that's what he does.

So it's not after a mere outward behavior, but by the renewing of your mind. It takes a renewed mind to live the Christian life. It is through the practical exercise that one grows in the learning of the Lord's will and proves that it and only is good and well and pleasing and perfect. You prove it out in your life.

So here again you see a contrast with the Gentiles on the one hand who knew not God and therefore they didn't know what his will was or on the other side with the Jewish people subject to known definite requirements independent of spirituality. the whole course of man outside of Christianity. Even if it professes to recognize God in outward acts, it's wholly ignorant of the relationship with him. And having no faith regarded as the presumptuous assumption of believers. You realize that as you grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus, your friends who aren't believers think you're presumptuous.

How can you believe what you believe? It doesn't work in this world system. No kidding. The Holy Spirit is calling us to a path of separation from the ways of men. He doesn't lay down lines of outward differences. What he does is he follows the mind renewed and in this in steps of enlarging obedience of faith. In other words, what the Holy Spirit does in expanding us as believers is so that we can enlarge our capacity to trust the Lord and to believe him and to walk. He expands us so we can do that more and more.

Therefore, as Jesus learned obedience for the eternal Son of God, all he knew what to do is to command, because he was God, he learned it in the path of suffering, unequaled. Might give you a reason why you have trials, and I have trials. That's where we learn things that are important. Lo, I come to do thy will, O God, and God's will he did and suffered at all costs to himself, as we know now, to everlasting joy. I often think that maybe while I'm here I'll never realize that I'm here to do God's will and only his will. Boy, but there'll be a day. So we live in this present evil age, Divine life must swim upstream, or like a bunch of salmon trying to get up the Columbia River.

Equal is the blessing of faithfulness to the name of the Lord when his throne is unknown, except to faith, and disregarded by men by itself. If therefore the way of compliance is impossible for the old nature, the old man, but pleasant to the new man directed by the spirit that glorifies Christ, who the only way through the wilderness of the earth to the Father, he's it. Self will be detected and not accepted as that good and accepted perfect will of God is more and more discerned through the transformation of your mind. It can't happen when the spirit of this age governs, because there's no rest for him.

So from the more general principles of Christ's devotedness and submission, we descend to the reason that the apostle gives. He says, I say to every man, among you do not think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment. High-mindedness is incompatible with either devotedness or compliance to think beyond what is necessary to think.

None of you have ever had that problem, right? It's the very opposite both of love, which energizes Jesus Christ in giving himself for us, and offering in a sacrifice to God in a sweet smelling savor. If you'll notice in Christ's life, he was never high minded. He never thought of himself more than he ought to think, never. and of a compliance which he secured in the death of the cross.

To think more highly of oneself hinders both the doing of our own responsibility and others theirs. According to the measure of faith dealt out by God. Each one of us, each one of us, each member would act with humility but with firmness knowing it was God's will and his own service. I observe and we talk about here of people who have, who know what God would have them do and they do it willingly and happily and don't complain and can't imagine doing anything else.

I was talking to a guy on the phone last night that is a Sunday school teacher and he said to me, he said, you know, he said, have you ever thought that being a Bible teacher is just the coolest thing. I said, why? He said, it's not the teaching, it's the preparation for the teaching. I get to sit three, four, five hours alone with the Lord and his word and put it together so that I can teach it the next day. He said, that's where the value is. is spending time with the Lord. I said, I know what you mean. I really do. And I know other teachers that know exactly what that is.

So unbelief seeks great things and overlooks the one important thing of the moment. Our own responsibility assigned to us of God without going beyond its measure or outside its nature. So we remember, we have to remember, however, that there is a false humility that fails to act and that there is as well as a lack of humility which goes too far. It's important that we stay in tune with that. Besides, we can't forget the differences.

God has allotted to each a measure of faith, a measure of faith. Yours is different than mine. that the grace which was given has made one measure different from another. But it's also each is necessary to the others as all in one body. We're all in the same body and we all contribute I'll show you in a second why it's kind of cool. Whatever we have from the Lord, let us all use in subjection to him for the object he has in view, the edification of the body of Christ, to glorify himself.

In 1 Peter 4.11, Peter says, whoever speaks, let him speak as it were, the utterances of God, whosoever serves, let him do so by the strength which God supplies, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and dominion forever and ever. So if a man's allotted allotment in ministering to the saints, not by speaking, but just serving them, otherwise in love, his wisdom would be to occupy himself with this as also a teacher is to occupy himself with studying. The exhorter has their own work, to occupy themselves with the Lord, and not in the service for which they had no divinely given fitness for. There are people in this congregation, this body, that are exhorters and I'm thankful for them because if I'm walking in here on a Sunday morning and I'm kind of down, if I spend five minutes with them, I'm glad I saw them. They don't even know they did it, but they lifted me up and you do that, all of you.

For just as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function. Here Paul touches on the body of Christ in a practical way. To illustrate the importance of various members in one body being mutually helpful. There are many of us, but there's only one body in Christ. individual members one of another.

Even though Lindy's moving, she's still here. Each of these measures of faith is distinct, though, of course, God might give more to someone more than one, but generally, each would have his own proper divided measure of faith. Now, this is my first experiment with AI. But I read this and I thought, this is an AI describing a human body which has, I'll read it to you.

The human body is a biological machine made up of body systems. These systems work together to produce and sustain life. The body's function are ultimately its cells' functions. And survival is the body's most important business. Several survival depends on the body's maintaining or restoring homostasis, I can't say it, homostasis, a state of relevant consistency of its internal movement, environment. The different organ systems each have different functions and therefore unique roles to perform in physiology. These many functions can be summarized in terms of a few that we might consider definite of human life. Organization, metabolism, responsiveness, movement, development, and reproduction.

Does that sound like the body of Christ? Sure does to me. We're all there, and I don't know what Dr. Eccles thinks of that. Anyway, it fascinated me because it described, to some degree, how the human body all works together. And what illness is is one of the parts decide to act independently. One decided, well, I don't need the rest of you. So just as we have many members in one body and all the members don't have the same function. Paul mentions the doctrine of the body of Christ, a doctrine which he alone, among the apostles, sets forth, he being that one chosen, the minister of the church, the body of Christ. relating to its real, heavenly, and that's important, and corporate character.

Note now the comparison. Our human bodies have many members. These members constitute a unity. They're one body. Each member is a member of all the others, and all the members have not the same work to do. So, Comparison with us in Christ, we are many, but we are one body in Christ Jesus. So the body here is not an illustration, but it's an actuality. That's what we actually are.

If you look at Ephesians 5.28, it says, he that loves his own life loves himself. even as Christ also the church because we are members of his body.

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great because I speak in regard of Christ and of the church, one with him. The church which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all in all. Newell says, this union is so absolute that Paul writes, as the body is one and has many members and also members of the body being many are one body, so also is Christ. Boy, you can dwell on that verse for a long time.

The word body concerns only the church of God, only the true elect members of Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And the consciousness should be held by us continually to the exclusion of anything earthly, merely local or denominational. We're members of the body of Christ. Therefore, we should find ourselves at once in fellowship with true believers everywhere.

For they with us are members of Christ, and they and we are members one of another, and individually members of one another. Just because Lindy's moving to Washington, D.C., this doesn't change. This is the same. So the next time you talk to her on the phone, this will be the reality. Being members of the body of Christ, we necessarily are members of one another.

I was gonna say, do a joke right here, but I thought I probably shouldn't do it. We necessarily are members one of another as my right hand, being a member of my body, is a member of my left hand. And my right hand has never had a fight with my left hand. On the contrary, each constantly helps the other.

And all you have to do is have one of your limbs not work too well, and you have to compensate with the other one. You realize God gave us two for a reason, and they have to work together, just like your legs work together so you can walk. Take note that Paul says, membership one of another, an additional though necessary truth to the fact of we're all one body.

And note that scripture never speaks of church members as men today, nor of membership in or a local assembly. It doesn't talk about that, but only membership in the body of Christ and membership one of another. We're members of the heavenly head, Christ Jesus, our Lord, and therefore, members of one another. by an operation of the Holy Spirit, not the action of a man. In local churches, according to scripture, we have fellowship as members already of Christ and of one another, each one of us. So the importance of seeing this is really immeasurable because for the great fact that we are actually members of other believers, And this is where the joke was gonna be. I look around and think, am I a member? We are, we are.

Is made by the spirit of God on the basis of our love towards one another. My right hand doesn't hate my left hand. My right hand loves my left hand and is really appreciative that it's there. Ephesians 4 25 says therefore laying aside the falsehood speak truth each one to you of you with his neighbor for we are members one of another so that's the message today and next week we'll talk about spiritual gifts how God has taking each member of each body of believers and gifted uniquely each one of them for the health of the body.

The health of the body. And I think we have to remember that no matter who you are, look at the person next to you. You are members one of another. Let's close. Father, how we thank you for your grace. How we thank for this design that you've put together in the body of Christ and how we're learning how it functions. We're pretty excited about that and we're thankful. We pray in your son's precious name, amen.