No? How’s that? Okay.
So, Romans 12:1-5—verses 1 through 5.
I was going to share all the way through to the end of Romans, but from the announcements at the end, they said we were going to have a meal right away. So I was just told to be very quick. I’m just going to do chapter 12 today.
Let’s read Romans 12:1-5.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service;
and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
For I say, through the grace which hath been given to me, to every man that is among you, not to think more highly than he ought to think; but so to think as to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to each man a measure of faith.
For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members have not the same office:
so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another.
I want to read the phrase from the end of verse 3 again, where he tells everyone that is among us not to have high thoughts above what he should think, but to think so as to be wise, as God has dealt to each a measure of faith.
Let’s pray.
Lord, we all together worship You and praise You this morning. Thank You for bringing us into Your presence in the breaking of bread. Thank You that we can all freshly behold Your face.
Lord, we come to You with Your Word. In the past, You spoke and there was light. When You speak, it is powerful and real, and something happens. We pray today that You would speak in our hearts; that as we consider Your Word, it would be You who speaks to us directly.
Lord, if You speak today, something is going to happen with us. Without You, we do not have anything. So we cast ourselves on You, Lord. We pray that You would speak to us, breathe on this Word, and make it real and alive in our hearts.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
We have been going through Romans with a specific view, which is preaching the gospel.
At this point, we are touching into the last main section. So far, we have talked about the preacher of the gospel, the gospel that he actually preaches, and then we got into Romans 9-11, talking about the purpose and plan of the gospel, especially for the individual.
Now we want to talk about the product of the gospel. Basically, when the gospel is preached, what is produced? What is God after in a broader way?
We have been considering it more for ourselves: how we have been saved, how we are able to live this Christian life and overcome, and how the good news is so powerful to lead us to overcome sin, the world, the flesh, and the self. We are being made right with God—justified; we are being sanctified; we are being glorified.
For us ourselves, the Lord has purposed to conform us to the image of His beloved Son. This glorious good news that we have been considering now turns to a broader scope. There is something God is after that is bigger than just one person.
It has been said that if you were the only sinner, the Lord Jesus would die for you. As far as His love, this is true. But as far as what God is after, you are too small.
As far as the product the gospel is producing, one person is too little. So we should not think so big of ourselves. We are actually very small, and the product God is after is actually the church.
Here in Romans 12-15, it begins to talk about what the gospel is actually producing. This is what He is doing with those individuals who have been saved. They are growing in the Lord, being brought together under the headship of Christ, and the Lord is building His church.
Here especially, Paul is talking about the church in time, locally, here on earth—the specific nitty-gritty of the local church, where we are not perfect yet.
In Revelation, at the very end, we see the glorious church. We see the church that has no spots—or, we say, pimples—no wrinkles or flaws. There is no sin, no shame, and no immaturity. The church is glorious and perfect, and she perfectly shines Christ.
In the book of Revelation, at the very end, all of us who are born again are there. Everyone in this room is part of that glorious church, but it is not finished yet. Still, to come, we are all going to be there.
Teaching-wise, the book of Ephesians brings us into a revelation of the glorious church. It talks about the church and this mystery of Christ, which is the church. But here in Romans 12, Paul is talking about the church before it is perfect. We are getting into the body of Christ as we know it here on earth, as we are experiencing it.
This preacher of the gospel, Paul, is not only trying to help individual believers. Just as he tells them in Romans 1, he had been praying that he could come and visit them, establish them, share the grace the Lord had given him, and help them.
His heart is that the saints would be established and that together there would be a testimony of the Lord. In the book of Acts, when Paul traveled around preaching the gospel, many souls were saved in different cities. But then he did not just leave them. He went back another time, and elders were appointed. Basically, he went back to establish the church.
Even though he is a gospel preacher, his heart is the same as the Lord’s heart. His heart is that there would be an expression of the church in their cities.
It is not enough merely to be saved. The Lord does not leave you just saved. He brings you on. He gives you new resurrection life to live by, but not only that, He wants us to be gathered together to experience a taste of the New Jerusalem that is to come.
In a sense, the local testimony of the church—the local church, the experience of the church here in time on earth—is like a miniature model of that great New Jerusalem that is to come.
Now we only get glimpses of it. We taste the eternity to come in the joyful, real fellowship that we have with one another. When we come and actually experience being under the headship of Christ, with Him being the light of our life, and we experience the love of the brethren, this is like a taste of the joy of eternity. It is not at all close, but it is a taste of it.
In this dark age, in this dark world, the Lord brings us together, and the product coming out of this glorious gospel is the church—the assembly.
The church is something to be experienced. As Paul gets into this, he talks a lot into the specifics: do this, do not do this, here is how to do it. He is not so much explaining so that we all understand about the church. This is more, “Let’s do it. Let’s church it.”
Church is a verb, right? Sometimes we use the active word fellowship in lieu of the word church, which is a good replacement. In 1 John, the word fellowship is used a lot, and fellowship is the experience of the church.
Basically, what we want to talk about today is actually churching it, actually fellowshipping it, being the body of Christ here and now.
In Revelation, there are seven local churches mentioned in Revelation 2-3. Those are churches in time. They have problems, and they are still growing; they are still being built up.
Romans 12 seems to be something that we have been stuck with in this last year. It seems like the Lord has written this note to us as a love letter amongst us.
I have been paying attention because I have been preparing for this message and thinking about this series on Romans. Even since last year at Camp Willow Run, the whole conference theme there—the whole camp time—was on Romans 12.
Throughout this year, a lot of messages have brought this in. The series on spiritual exercise—almost every message touched into this chapter. At the conference, Brother Lance shared and touched into this chapter in one of his messages.
I feel like the Lord has already been sharing with us. Then I heard this week that at the brothers’ meeting tonight, they are looking at Romans 12. I do not think that was planned out, because somebody was asking, “What are you sharing on?” So, we are in Romans 12.
When the Lord is speaking to us, we want to hear Him. When the Lord writes something to us, we should read it. I want to encourage us: read this chapter even after today. Just read it and consider it.
There are 21 verses. If you took a verse every day to consider for three weeks, you would go through it. But there is so much in here. I am not able to share on all of it today, and I actually do not know all of it either. Newly, we are all discovering more and more of the riches in here.
When we have a love letter, we should read it. I remember when Catherine used to write me, I read her letters over and over—especially the one where she almost proposed to me.
I memorized it. That is debatable, but okay.
In this chapter, we want to split it into two parts. The first section, verses 1-5, we are going to call “bodies and body”—or, “bodies equals body.” Many bodies, one body. Many bodies, one body.
Then the next section, verses 6 through the end, we are going to call “gift and grace.” These are just terms we can remember and keep in mind. That is how it is sort of laid out, at least from the view we are looking at.
There are many bodies, one body; and after that it flows. It is all one flowing thing, but for the sake of separating it, there is gift and grace. Really, though, you cannot separate it much.
So, many bodies in verse 1. Here, what we have been exhorted to do throughout this year is to present our bodies. There are many bodies. It is plural, and in this room there are lots of bodies—physical bodies. This is actually talking about our real, physical body.
Who is in control of your body? You are. So for you to offer up your body is really to offer up your whole life. It means it comes all the way down to the physical. That is what he is getting at.
Then, if you look in verses 4 and 5, you see one body.
For as in one body we have many members, and all the members have not the same office:
so we, who are many, are one body in Christ.
When I say “members,” I am talking about members of a body—body parts. We may think of members as people in an organization, but here it means body parts. There are many body parts, but one body.
Just as in a physical body there are many body parts and one body, so in verse 5, we being many are one body in Christ.
Right here in the beginning, the picture is these many bodies. Imagine all the bodies in this room: they all give their lives over to the Lord, every single one. Gradually, through these five verses, you see these many bodies become many body parts of one body.
We tried this as an experiment at Willow Run. We were doing a workshop, and a workshop is more like a laboratory instead of a lecture. So I tried a laboratory experiment on all the youth. They were the lab rats—and I was part of it too.
All of them were given a rope, and the rope represented that they have the new life of the Holy Spirit. As they were given the rope, that was like being born again.
Then there was a doorway that led outside. As they walked through the door, that was the doorway of consecration—the doorway of verse 1 of Romans 12. This was the doorway where they presented their bodies as a living sacrifice to the Head, who is Christ.
As they came through the doorway, the head—in this case, Mr. Odburn, because he had the assignments and directed us—gave each one a slip of paper that told them where they should go in the body: left foot, pinky toe, that kind of thing.
We all went out into the field. Everybody had a slip of paper and a rope. At first, they were just whipping each other with the rope, and it was a mess. But then Mr. Odburn came out and got us all under control.
We all got into our places in this big blob. It was very gross-looking. It did not look like a body, but eventually you could see two legs and the feet. These many bodies morphed into this strange creature that was one body, all connected by ropes.
They were bound by the Holy Spirit. They were holding onto each other. There were eyes that kind of curled up like eyes. Then he would give orders or tell of situations, such as, “The whole body has to move over to the right,” or, “The left foot is hurting.”
Then all the hands went down to the left foot and comforted it, while the mouth was saying, “Ouch, ouch, ouch.” We have a video of it.
This is the picture, though: many bodies given over to the Lord equals one body. This is what is happening here in these verses.
As it goes through, the centerpiece is verse 3—the connecting point, I guess. After they are consecrated, after he says, “Do not be conformed to the world; be transformed; have your mind renewed, so that you can discern the Lord’s will,” in verse 3 he talks about not being high-minded.
Do not have high thoughts above what you should think. Do not think in a proud way, but think to be wise, as God has dealt to each one of us a measure of faith.
When we give our lives over to the Lord, when we are laying down on that altar as living sacrifices, it is not just for ourselves, between us and the Lord. Suddenly, the Head of the body is now your Lord.
He gives you your measure of faith when you are born again, but it is basically unusable unless you present yourself to the Lord, because He is not going to force you like a robot. A consecrated Christian can be part of the experience of the body of Christ. An unconsecrated Christian does not experience it.
That should be obvious, but I am not talking about the New Jerusalem eventually. Eventually, somehow, you are going to get banged around and become a beautiful stone. It will be perfect. But in this time, unless we lay down our lives on the altar, we are not going to experience being part of the body of Christ.
We are part of the body of Christ, but we are as if we are dead. So do not be high-minded.
One thing about being proud is that we are mainly focused on ourselves. Either we do not give our lives to the Lord for this reason, or when we give our lives to the Lord, we want to ignore the church because we are mainly thinking about our own relationship with the Lord.
Maybe you are focused on your failures: “I failed 50 times. I just give up.” Or when you come to the Lord, you are mainly thinking about being the super-Christian yourself. Maybe you think because you have given your life to the Lord, now you will go out and do great things.
We have this mindset of one person conquering all. But this is actually the mindset of the world.
In verse 2, it says, “Do not think the way the world thinks. Do not be conformed to the world, but have your mind renewed.” Renewed means make it brand new; think a different way. This new way of thinking is the way Christ thinks—the mind of Christ.
As it says in Philippians 2, have the mind of Christ. This is the mind of humility.
The way of the world is, “I am going to climb to the top. I am going to be the best person. I am going to be it.” It is always, just as it mentions in 1 John 2, the pride of life. The way of the world is the pride of life—that you will be number one, that you will be something more special than anyone else.
But the way in the church is lowly-minded: not thinking of ourselves. If anyone gets the glory, it is the Lord Jesus. It is the Head, because we are just part of the body of Christ.
All of us have our portion, our measure of faith. He measured it out, like when you are cooking and measure two of something, then put two eggs in, and so on. I do not cook anymore. Ounces, right? He measured out just a little bit.
Do not be proud, but realize you only have a little bit. Even Paul the apostle only had his measure. We may say it was a big measure, but he himself knew he needed help from the other Christians.
In Romans 1, he says that he hopes to come to them so that they could be mutually edified, each by the faith which is in the other, both theirs and his. He wants to come, he wants to be helped by them, and he wants to help as well.
This is a new mindset. Instead of you as an individual being the lone Christian, now you are part of a bigger thing. If you have given your life to the Lord, you are a member of the body of Christ. You are one part of a bigger deal.
In a local assembly, where there is a local experience of the New Jerusalem, you have one part to play. You have a measure of grace, a measure of faith, and this is your part to play in the house of God.
The push here is: yes, you are part of the body of Christ, but you must do it. We must do our part in the body of Christ. We must be a living sacrifice.
A living sacrifice is alive. When there is a sacrifice, usually the sacrifice is killed during the sacrifice. In this case, we are living sacrifices.
I do not know about you guys, but when I have at times given things over to the Lord, it is easier for me to give up something than to commit myself to do something. It may be easier to lose something carnal or worldly than for me to be diligent, because then I have to do it. I have to get the Lord’s grace and do it.
Basically, it may be easier for us to cast ourselves on the Lord, lay down and die, and fall asleep for weeks than to rise up the next morning and serve the Lord and serve His people.
But what He is calling for is to be a living sacrifice. And He helps us.
In Hebrews 4:12, there is a similar picture. There is a High Priest. When there is a sacrifice, there is always a priest sacrificing the animal—or, in this case, us.
Our High Priest, the Lord Jesus, takes those living sacrifices that are laid down on the altar, and He cuts them up. He divides with the sword of the Holy Spirit, which is the Word of God, a double-edged sword. He divides between soul and spirit. Everything is exposed before God.
All of us, individual bodies, come and give our lives over to the Lord. We lay down there. In a sense, we have gone through death, because we have been crucified with Christ. But we have the new life, the resurrection life of Christ within us, and that is how we are living. This is why we are living sacrifices.
When you come, you are not living your old life; you are living the new life. But the way it happens is that the Lord helps us. We are not coming once we are ready; we are coming at His mercy. We are casting ourselves on the Lord, and we offer up our lives.
Then the High Priest exposes what is of the soul and what is of the spirit. He exposes the thoughts and intents of your heart. Laying down before the Lord, in His presence, as a living sacrifice, He works on us first.
The Bible says in Ephesians 2:10 that we are His workmanship. He is first dealing with us. It is true, and we have read that in the whole book of Romans: after we have been saved, He is conforming us to the image of His beloved Son.
But in this process, do not forget: from the beginning all the way to the end, we have our measure of faith and our part to play in the body of Christ.
There is that flow from being many bodies into being one body.
As in one body we have many members, and all the members have not the same office.
That means we do not all have the same place. All of us individual members have different spots. That has to do with perhaps where you are literally, physically, in time, but especially spiritually. Each one of us has a different part.
That goes on into the next section: gifts and grace. In verse 6, it says:
Having different gifts, according to the grace that was given to us.
Then it goes on and mentions a few gifts—maybe seven, I think. This word different is connected with the fact that we have different offices. We are all different members.
When we talk about gifts, one thing to recognize is that they are different. We should not be high-minded. We should not be proud. We should not think we need this type or that type. We all have a different spot.
We may not even know where it is, but be content that, “I have my place. I have my part to play.” We have different gifts, and they are according to the grace that has been given to us.
There is something in that of recognizing that the Lord has given us this. But if you read on, the emphasis is: serve in your spot by grace.
If it is prophecy, prophesy according to the proportion of faith. Basically, if you have some spot where you are often used by the Lord—some gifting—it is possible for you to do it without His grace. But it does not help anything.
If Paul the teacher were gifted in teaching, and he taught us just from himself because he had studied so well and had all his Bible notes, he could give us a lecture and explain things. He would probably get it right according to correctness. He teaches without grace.
But we would only be helped mentally and not helped spiritually, and the body of Christ would not be built up. We call that being hedified instead of edified. Your head gets big, but your spirit does not. We do not need hedification; we need edification.
This is a danger. When he lists the gifts here, it is not an exhaustive list of gifts. The point is: if you are doing this, do it by grace. If you are doing this, do it by grace.
Even when he talks about service—“let us occupy ourselves in service”—or exhortation, giving, leading, and showing mercy, the point is the same. He that gives, give with simplicity. He that leads, lead with diligence. He that shows mercy, show mercy with cheerfulness.
Let us say you have the gift of mercy. Maybe because you are so gifted, you can actually do merciful things naturally. Not everyone can be naturally merciful, but maybe you can.
Yet when you are functioning in mercy in the body of Christ, the soul being shown mercy is built up. Other times people are comforted, but they walk away and no help was given. It is the same with all these things. We have different gifts, and he is saying: do them, and do them by grace.
With gifting, it is essential that when we function in it, we function by grace.
When we go on to verse 9, the list is very big. These are like proverbs or something. There are so many of them. I counted about 16, give or take one or two. These are not gifts.
He starts out, “Let love be unfeigned.” Do not be fake with love. Hate evil; cling to good. As you read on all the way to verse 21, this is grace.
Functioning in the body of Christ is not limited to some area where the Lord has specifically gifted you. Everyone in this room should show mercy by grace, right? We cannot all say, “I do not have the gift of mercy. Sorry.” That would be bad.
Even with teaching, Hebrews 5 says that you all should be able to teach these basic things. You ought to be teachers at this point. But he is not saying that you ought to have the gift of teaching.
Even though we do not all have this or that gifting, we all have the grace of God. In the body of Christ, there is a broad, general, grace-filled building up of each other in almost every aspect.
Even with giving, if you do not have the gift of giving, whatever that looks like, it does not mean that you should not give. If you do not have the gift of evangelism, it does not mean you should never testify of Christ, and so on.
Even hospitality may be a gift, but does that mean the rest of us shut our homes off? No. There is gift and there is grace, but with the gift it must be by grace. With grace, all of us can function right now, today, according to the grace of God in a broad and general way.
This is what it looks like. When we come to church gatherings—even at a Bible fellowship time—all of us are sharing. All of us have our portion, and the body of Christ is built up. We may not even know who is gifted with what, but the body is built up.
Then, when we finish and get to the lunchtime that everybody enjoys, we all put away chairs or put out tables. Maybe we have two people here gifted with helps, but we all put up the chairs, right? We are all doing this by grace.
At the prayer meeting, we are all coming. We are all serving the Lord. We are all here breaking bread. Outside the gatherings, people are visiting others.
Most of this has mainly to do within the body of Christ. You will notice that almost half of it has to do with people doing you wrong, because this is an experience in the body of Christ.
He starts out saying, “Do not let love be fake.” What happens when love is fake? One thing is that even though something is evil, you do not seem to hate it.
This is all one sentence: “Let love be unfeigned. Abhor evil. Cleave to good.” If we are going to be real with each other, when someone is doing something off or wrong, if we really love them, we will love them enough to help them—even to mention things in a kind way, in a gracious way.
We will love each other enough to speak up so that we will all be able to go on. But we have experienced the type of love where basically, “I love myself, and I do not want to lose any friendship.” So because of that, I never want to step on anyone’s toes. Even though they are doing something evil, I do not want to say anything. I just stay quiet.
But do not let love be fake. Real love by grace really loves and cares that that soul would be helped, even if they do not like you for a week, even if they get upset.
This happens to parents. They have to be real with their love when they raise up kids. If they just love themselves and do not love the child, they will never discipline because they never want to lose the friendship with the child. It is the same with us and one another.
We want so much to keep smiling at each other that we never frown. I mean, we never talk to somebody and say, “This was wrong.” I think all of us are guilty of this. Our love is often fake.
But if we would, by the grace of God, be consecrated to the Lord and serve in the body of Christ, I think we would all help each other. We would often be forgiving each other, and we would often be experiencing the body of Christ being built together.
As to brotherly love, be kindly affectioned to one another.
Something happens in the body of Christ when we are together, really serving the Lord together and really helping each other. Something is created, which is brotherly love.
It is even different than the pure love of God—the selfless love that will love you no matter what. Brotherly love happens when this connection starts to bond with the life of Christ in you and the life of Christ in me, and we actually experience Christ with each other.
It becomes a kind of closeness. It is a bond from the Holy Spirit. It is a spiritual brotherly love, similar to a family type of love. It is different from merely social friendship or even a human family type of love, but it is similar. That is why they call it brotherly love.
It is an attachment. We actually become attached to each other in a spiritual way. We begin to love Christ in the other person, and we begin to say, “I am stuck with these people.” Even though they do me wrong, persecute me, and hurt my feelings, it is brotherly love.
Verse 11 says, “Not slothful; in spirit fervent; serving the Lord.” All of us are serving the Lord. All of us are consecrated; all of us are serving the Lord.
Verse 13 says, “Distributing to the necessity of the saints; given to hospitality.” Giving and hospitality can be mentioned as gifts, but in this case all of us are called to live by grace and do these things by grace.
Verse 14 says, “Bless them that persecute you; bless, and curse not.” I want to apply this in this case to Christians. It applies to everybody, but even in the church, to love one another by grace means that sometimes you may taste a bit of persecution.
Maybe it is for righteousness’ sake because you are going a certain way, or because of some conviction you have that others do not have. But the attitude is not to be proud. It is to realize that we are part of the body of Christ, to love the brethren more than we love ourselves, and not stand up for ourselves, but bless them that persecute us.
This solves many problems in the church. To bless somebody, you have to forgive them. When they persecute you, we forgive them and bless them.
“Rejoice with them that rejoice; weep with them that weep.” One problem we have is that we have run out of all our tears on ourselves. Our emotions are so limited—and the amount of water next to your eyes is a little limited too.
When you cry a lot for yourself, you lose your ability to weep with those that weep. Notice when you are crying at times: is it selfish crying? Sometimes I have been crying like a baby, and then I realize I am crying like a baby. Babies cry so selfishly. Even though it is cute and you do not mind, they are so selfish.
We lose all our tears on ourselves when we are so concerned, so high-minded, so focused on our own issues, problems, and things. We are not considering what the Lord is after. We are not considering His people, His church that He is building, or others and what is going on with them.
We do not have any more room for tears. You will notice, when you are going through something, it is hard to find somebody who will listen. Many people have a hard time paying attention or listening.
Also, when you are rejoicing—say you are at a wedding—the bride and groom are rejoicing. Some people are rejoicing, but some people are not rejoicing. The people who have been praying for the bride and groom are rejoicing. They are so happy.
Rejoice with those who rejoice. You can really jump into their joy. But maybe there are those high-school guys who wish they had married the bride instead, and they are weeping.
If we are humble and selfless, we can do this. By grace, we can be the body of Christ and care for one another. Just as in the body, if one part suffers, everybody suffers.
With the youth at Camp Willow Run, when we did that, when the foot was hurting, we all hurt. Even the backbone had to bend a little bit so the hands could go comfort it. Everybody was in on it.
When we all rejoiced, we all jumped up and down. The mouth, I think, was yelling something. The whole body was rejoicing. We are all in this together.
Weep with those that weep; rejoice with those that rejoice. This is possible if we will give our lives over to the Lord and be about what He is about—not about ourselves, but about what the Lord is about.
It is a selfless thing to be in the body of Christ, but it is a glorious thing, full of love and grace.
Verse 16 says:
Be of the same mind one toward another.
Set not your mind on high things, but condescend to things that are lowly.
Be not wise in your own conceits.
This is just like verse 3. Do not mind high things. This verse should be matched up with verse 3. Basically, have the mind of Christ. Think of others.
Like the Lord Jesus, consider two things: He considered us—He laid down His life and died for us—and He considered the Father. He considered the Father’s will.
In Philippians 2, He was obedient to the Father all the way unto death, because the Father had a purpose, and the Lord Jesus gave Himself for that purpose.
When we consecrate ourselves as living sacrifices, we are giving ourselves to something very big: God’s will for all of time, all of the ages, what He has been after. This is what we are giving our lives over to.
We may not even know it. Our minds might not get it at first. But with consecration comes the renewing of the mind, like it says in Romans 12:2.
When we give our lives to the Lord, gradually our mindset starts to change. We stop thinking like the world thinks, puffing up our lives, and we start to think as Christ thinks. Our mind is renewed.
Then it says in Romans 12:2 that we can discern this good, acceptable, perfect will of God. This is the will of God: for this church to be built. This is what He is after.
If you turn to just before the maps in your Bible, you will see in Revelation, at the very end, what God is after. This is what He has been doing. It is that New Jerusalem.
When we come to the Lord, He will put us in the spot that He has for us. This is what we will be about.
Verse 17 says:
Render to no man evil for evil.
Take thought for things honorable in the sight of all men.
Those are actually two different things. Then verse 18:
If it be possible, as much as in you lieth, be at peace with all men.
And then:
Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto wrath: for it is written,
Vengeance belongeth unto Me; I will recompense, saith the Lord.
Imagine this actually in the body of Christ: us all functioning and serving by grace. As far as depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
If you have been in an argument or disagreement before, if one person really tries, it is very hard for there to be a major separation. If one person, as far as depends on them, tries to live at peace—if they have done anything wrong, even if it is smaller than what the other person did—they go ahead and apologize. They go ahead and forgive the other one.
In the church, do we all in this room have peace with one another? Think of ourselves. Is there some part, as far as depends on me, that I can live in peace with this person, even though they may hate me? Is there anything I can do?
I cannot compromise in following the Lord, but if I have done something wrong, I can apologize. If there is some way I can talk to them about it, if there is some way we can get peace, then as far as depends on us, let us live at peace with each other.
Then, recompense to no one evil for evil. Vengeance belongs to the Lord. This is probably the experience once we start functioning.
If we are not serving the Lord, if we have not consecrated our lives to the Lord, we are not really experiencing this too much. But when we start to do things in the church, somebody does us wrong.
In our righteous mindset, there should be evil for evil, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. We want, in a sense, to take vengeance. We want to make things right: “If they did this wrong to me, they should make it right.”
But the Christian way—the way of grace, the way of love that holds us together in the church—is that we are often wronged by each other. Even then, we leave vengeance up to the Lord. He can make it right.
The biggest safeguard in all this is to pray for your enemies. Now, I am talking about Christians as your enemies. I do not mean you hate them as an enemy, but in a sense they have been like an enemy and done you wrong. Pray for them.
Pray for those who persecute you. As we pray for them, the Lord may take vengeance, in the sense that something may change. They may be helped, but also our heart is changed. We begin to touch again the selfless heart of the Lord Jesus.
When we are praying for those who have done us wrong, we are in the body of Christ. Many people are making mistakes, and most of us often do not even know that we did something wrong. Maybe a year later, we realize, “Oh, that was wrong,” and then we go back and apologize.
Thankfully, the other person had already forgiven us and had been at peace with us all that time. We have to leave many things to the Lord if we are actually going to experience church in this way.
He says, “If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink. For in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head.” Take that for what you think it means, but the attitude here is caring for the enemy.
I have experienced it where I was the enemy. I did someone wrong. I did not understand that I had done them wrong, and I was probably upset too—I thought they had done me wrong. But they were so gracious to me that it stole my heart.
Then the Lord cleared me up, touched my heart, and showed me, “I am the one who did something wrong.” Then I came back and apologized, and they were so gracious to welcome me back.
In the church, this is an experience. Many of us are doing each other wrong, and we do not even know it. Some of us are doing each other wrong, and we do know it, but maybe we reason it out in our minds.
With grace, there is no excuse. With gift, many people say, “I do not have the gift for that. I am not going to do that.” But with grace, all of us can do a little bit of everything.
Sometimes the problem comes up: “I just do not know what to do.” It says there are many different gifts, many members, and all have a different office. “I do not know where my office is.”
Just like the gift requires grace inside of it—if you are functioning according to gift, you should do it by grace—in the same way, when you serve by grace, gradually the gift will become obvious.
There is no need for a spiritual gifts test. I took one one time, like a personality test. I filled the whole thing out, and it said, “Oh, you have this, this, this.” I do not think it was right, but it does not work that way.
If you are not doing anything, nobody is going to know what your gifting is. We should be a little wary of some intuitive revelation: “Oh, this is my gift.”
It should be more natural that we are just serving in almost every area that we see we are able and are put into. We are put here; we are doing this. We are in a Bible study; we are sharing. We are taking up the chairs. We are doing all the normal day-to-day things.
We see a believer in need, and we call them or visit them. We are just doing things as we see what is going on, by grace—not questioning every time, “Well, I do not know if I should call them. I do not really have a gift of mercy.” We are just doing it by grace.
Naturally, gradually, the Head is working through all of us by grace, and we start to fit into our right places.
It is just like that blob of teenagers that went out to the field. It was a mess, but gradually they were asking, “Okay, are you the foot?” As they started to do things and connect, there was more of a flow, and there was one body in experience.
If everybody in this room, every physical body, consecrated ourselves to the Lord and started serving from this day on by grace—just by grace, doing whatever the Lord leads us to do by grace—gradually different ones would fit into different places.
There may be gifts we do not even know about that are not listed in Scripture. There is no list that is exhaustive, maybe purposefully. The point is that there is a place for you very specifically, and do not think you need to go beyond your place.
As all of us are serving by grace, gradually it will become kind of obvious—sometimes not as obvious. Maybe there will be confirmation from other believers: “You seem to always do that well,” or something like that.
Even as there is maturing in the body of Christ, and by grace you are fitting more and more into a certain spot where the Lord seems to constantly use you, where there is more anointing, you are still doing a broad thing with the whole body of Christ.
Do not be puffed up. Do not be high-minded. We only serve in those ways by grace.
It is still nothing to say, “Well, I have discovered I have this gift.” Then we go out and try to do it in a certain way, in a certain spot, and we get excited and proud about that. Instead, our mindset is for the saints.
There may be a person like Paul the apostle. Say he is an evangelist and a teacher—I do not know. But the Lord does not always use him only for evangelism. When he went back to some churches, maybe he was not even preaching the gospel. Maybe he had opportunities, but perhaps he was mainly using another gifting of teaching and helping the saints.
You may be in a place at this time in your life where the Lord has you doing certain things, whereas at another time in your life you were doing other things. We do not need to get limited either.
We do not say, “Fine, I took the spiritual gifts test. I know what I have. This is my area. I cannot do anything else.” All of us today can actually serve by grace.
As I have been considering this consecration in light of the body of Christ, one thing that has really stood out to me is this verse of being beseeched by the compassions of God.
The call for consecration is different here. We are being called upon to come to the Lord by His mercies. Some translations say mercies.
Right before verse 1, at the end of Romans 11, the word mercy is used a lot. Also in Romans 9, the word mercy is used.
In Romans 9, he says, “It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy.” Basically, how are we here where we are? It is because of God’s mercy.
It is not because your willpower is so strong that you have made it this far. It is not because you have run so well by yourself. God has had mercy on us every step of the way.
If you take the picture from God’s viewpoint, not from the righteous viewpoint, there is a righteous side to consecration, but the merciful side is a different thing.
When it talks about giving your lives over to the Lord in Romans 6, it is more of the righteous concept. You have been bought by the Lord. We are owned by the Lord, and we have been crucified with the Lord. Why go on living for the world?
Offer up your members; offer up your body to serve the Lord righteously. Be His bondservant. That compelling call for consecration is more on the righteous side of things. You see the glorious gospel and say, “Let’s do this. Let’s step into it.”
When you first come to the Lord, the call for consecration is baptism. The response, “I give my life to the Lord,” is baptism. It is an overwhelming response to His love.
Later on, there may be a deeper consecration where specifically you know what you are getting into. At first, you may not know what you are getting into. You do not even know how to consecrate everything.
But later there may be a deeper dealing where every single area of your life is coming to the Lord, and you are looking to the Lord to live through you in all these things, that by His grace you would walk with Him.
This seems to be even different. I am not saying this verse cannot be used for all three of these, but here there seems to be something that goes deeper down.
Even though you gave your life to the Lord when you were baptized and said, “Take everything, Lord,” and even though maybe later you came to the Lord in a definite way, giving every aspect of your life over to Him, something happens.
Maybe at that time we have some confidence that we can do it. But eventually we fail so much. We get broken down so much. We realize that except for His mercy, we cannot go anywhere.
Except that I cling to the Lord, I am not going to be able to serve Him. Except that He gives me grace for right now, except that I have His presence, it is not going to work.
Maybe some of us are in this state of despair, where even in the past we tried serving in the body of Christ and have been discouraged. We gave up for whatever reasons—maybe because of our own failures, or maybe because of what others have done to us.
But I beseech you by the compassions of God, by the mercies of God.
In Romans 11:31, speaking of the Jews who were shut up in unbelief, it says:
Even so have these also now been disobedient, that by the mercy shown to you they also may now obtain mercy.
For God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that He might have mercy upon all.
When we know the Lord is conforming us to the image of Christ, with that in mind, He is working all things for this good. He is using everything in our lives to break us down, shape us, and push us into that mold of Christ.
He is tearing down the things of our selfishness, the things that distract us from the Lord, taking away all the dirt, everything pushing us in this way.
When this is going on with us, many of our hearts want to give up. At that time there may also come depressing thoughts from the enemy. He is the accuser of the brethren. He likes to squash us when we are down, kick us when we are down.
At this point, though, the Lord calls us just to come and lay down our lives on that altar. We do not even need to consider all the grand things that are ahead. We do not need to consider how we are going to overcome.
The need for today is: lay down your life on that altar.
The Lord is not calling us based on our past victory. He has not chosen you because He saw that you had a good track record and would be good on His team. By His mercy, you are an object of mercy.
It is not by us who have run. It is not by us who are trying. It is because of God’s mercy, because of His compassions.
He wants us to be part of His big plan. He wants us to experience the body of Christ now. He wants us to come, but we cannot experience it unless we lay down our lives to the Lord. Unless we have Him as our Head, it will not work.
I feel in my heart that the Lord has often been beseeching recently, by His mercy, that even though we feel like giving up, even though we feel, “I just do not know if it is my time to do that,” this is not the case.
Can you admit that God has had mercy on you? I am not asking how much you have overcome. But can we all in this room say, “I am an object of mercy. I am here by God’s grace. I am blood-bought. I am redeemed. The Lord loves me”?
Can we just lay down and give up on the altar? He is responsible after that.
We can come to Him today, lay down our lives, and respond to His mercy. We are not looking at what we are going to do. We are not thinking about ourselves. We are thinking about the Lord.
Today we should think of and consider the Lord. What is on His heart is His church. What is on His heart is His people.
As we come in this way, at His mercy, we say, “Lord, I am unusable, but I cast myself upon You. I know I cannot do anything, but here I am.”
The Lord just calls us to come. Just come and lay down our lives and be part of the body of Christ. I believe this is something on the Lord’s heart for all of us. It is a bigger thing.
Here locally, I feel like the Lord has been so merciful to us and has brought us here. Who are we not to lay down our lives before Him? By His mercies, we should do this.
Let’s pray.
Lord, thank You for Your precious blood and Your such loving sacrifice on the cross.
Lord, when we look at You, we cannot run away and we cannot stay away.
Lord, together we want to turn our eyes away from ourselves and all the vain things that have been stopping us from being in the body of Christ in experience.
Lord, we confess our sins before You, that You would wash us clean from all this.
Lord, we pray that You would expose us by Your Word, divide us up, and show us the real things going on in our hearts.
Lord, we confess that Your plan is so perfect, and we want to be part of it today.
We commit ourselves to You, Lord. We cast ourselves on Your mercy.
In Jesus’ name, amen.