Romans 12:6-8

Let's look together tonight again in Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12, we'll start reading at the first verse again just to refresh our minds and the connection. Romans 12 and 1, I beseech you therefore brethren by or through the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

And be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think soberly according as God has dealt to every man or to each one the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body and all members have not the same office so we being many are one body in Christ and everyone members one of another.

Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us whether prophecy let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith or ministry let us wait on our ministering or he that teacheth on teaching or he that exhorteth on exhortation he that giveth let him do it with simplicity he that ruleth with diligence he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness. Now it seems evident that the verses that follow are exhortations given to all of us in common whereas what we are looking at tonight there's an individuality about it because God has dispersed he has distributed gifts to us and so it is having then gifts differing according to the grace that is the individual bestowal of God to us. I'm going to just read a verse or two over in 1st Peter chapter 4 because there's a nice connection there with this passage 1st Peter chapter 4 and verses 10 and 11 it says as or according as every man or each one has received a gift even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God if any man speak let him speak as the oracles of God if any man minister let him do it as of the ability which God giveth or supplieth that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever amen.

Now in this short little passage in 1st Peter chapter 4 it's not so much talking about different individual gifts as two broad categories of gifts what we could call the speaking gifts and the serving gifts and you notice that the primary thought that I want to emphasize is in 10 where it says according as each one has received a gift even so minister the same as good stewards of the manifold grace of God and that emphasizes what I mentioned just in closing last night whether we use the word glory as we have at the end of Romans 11 or the word grace as you have in 1st Peter chapter 4 as well as glory what is emphasized is that God in all his fullness in all the beauty of his being he has entrusted to us the responsibility of representing him of fulfilling what he is like of manifesting him in the visible realm that goes right back to our our fundamental stewardship which is to represent God that comes right from Genesis chapter 1 so God put us into the creation in the first place as human beings to govern to rule to administer to manage the creation and we were to do it for him and to reflect what he is so in other words all of God's character is meant to be reflected in us but his abilities in all their greatness and variety are distributed to us and we are administrators or stewards of the grace of God the abilities of God the generosity of God and so I'm going to suggest then that what we have in this list of gifts and this is not in Romans 12 even an exhaustive list there are others that are not mentioned here notably evangelism which is a very important one is not given in this list directly but each one of these in some way reflects on God is a part of God's glory part of God's grace now I want to make a few comments first of all just about this concept of having a gift and knowing it from 1st Peter chapter 4 where we read you'll notice that it says according as you have received a gift minister it use it so what do you do if you don't have a clue what your gift is actually I find it a strange thing that certainly from what I remember growing up I don't know if I ever heard teaching on spiritual gifts there certainly was not much emphasis upon thinking about and recognizing what abilities has God bestowed upon me upon you with which to serve him I'm not sure why whether it was kind of a humility of not wanting to claim that you are gifted in some way it's not pride to recognize you have a gift it's faith surely we know the difference between faith and presumption when it comes to salvation salvation is a gracious gift bestowed upon us and we lay hold of that and claim it in faith in just the same way for our Christian life God has distributed to us gifts now what are these gifts they're really abilities the kind of gifts that we're talking about is not a gift that you get wrapped up and you put it on your shelf and it's a trinket or something to wear as an ornament it's a tool a tool to use to serve with and so the emphasis in every passage that touches on spiritual gifts makes this assumption that we all have a gift and I would suggest that many Christians have more than one gift God is not stingy he wants to enrich us he wants to equip us to fulfill his work so he is going to gift some of the believers particularly with speaking gifts he is going to gift others particularly with serving gifts acts of service and I believe personally that the passage in Romans 12 as it opens up really gives us the pattern for the discovery and development of spiritual gift in other words if you want to know what God wants you to be doing the very first thing is to present yourself to him to make yourself available to God to be used and then to recognize that you can't serve God with your heart in the world if your heart desires and ambitions is owned by this present age you're not going to be there for God and his service and so there is the challenge of our spiritual condition the sanctification of our minds but then that leads to the outcome of experiencing the will of God in our life and so it should be very logical then that we would pray to God that we would seek to know his will in our service and then being available to his service you know the discovery and development of gift is intertwined you may be the last one to realize what your gift is other Christians will probably be able to recognize how you are serving God and the abilities which are of God that you're using and so I would suggest that we need to expose ourselves to the spiritual gifts in the sense that we would study it in the scriptures we would understand the distinctions of the gifts and that we would see examples in the Bible of ones who served according to the gifts of God and then to look at mature and developing Christians and say how does this brother serve God what kind of gift is he using what kind of gift is she using and acquaint yourself with it and I believe also that we should expect that the Lord will lead us into the area that he wants us to fulfill he will put desires within us to serve him every passage relates the divine with the human 1st Corinthians 12 emphasizes the Holy Spirit distributing the gifts and working in this passage it is God and his will in Ephesians 4 it is the risen Christ who is distributing the gifts so you have this wonderful reality that God in all his fullness is hovering over us and working within us to make us useful servants effective servants to serve him now whenever I think about the subject I think about a dear young Christian who was saved up in the Kapuskasing area where I was privileged with brother Murray Pratt to be involved back in the early years of 1980 1979 actually up through about to 1984 85 and there was a new work established there and there's a young man who was saved from quite a wild background he was actually in the drug business and he was going with a policeman's daughter which made for some interesting relationships and anyway after he got saved in fact we hardly knew that he had gotten saved because it happened and he moved away to Calgary for work because he basically didn't have too much chance of getting a job around Kapuskasing he was too well-known so he moved out to Calgary and and then he came back to visit about three years later I suppose it was and we sort of got to know him a little bit more then from when he actually got saved but Gaston was one of those who is kind of an all-or-nothing guy and whatever he was involved in he was just over-the-top and when he got saved he was just completely on fire for God once he got especially going and in the assembly out in Calgary for some time he studied his Bible furiously he didn't necessarily have a lot of wisdom he had a tremendous amount of zeal his heart his mind his he was just all for God and then he moved back to Ontario and he moved to a community in southern Ontario and and started working in his trade and he continued his zeal and he testified to his employer and his wife and the wife of his employer got saved and she's in the assembly in that area in Peterborough but Gaston got into business got into his own business and then he got into another business and he had three businesses running at one time and what happened is that that zeal got taken over by business and to me it has always been a very sad thing because eventually he ended up just fading out leaving the assembly and it was a small assembly there's only a handful of people there he could be a very valued brother there today but instead he's completely away from the things of God here's an example of somebody who was in the world he was caught in the world system and the grace of God rescued him and he responded and it was very evident that he had spiritual gifts and abilities to use and then he got sidetracked and another aspect of the world claimed him a very different aspect but it still claimed him and his spiritual life has been hampered not only did he lose out but God's people have lost because of it and so this is one of the hindrances to spiritual gift is our preoccupation with other things there are necessities of life we have to make a living and it's nothing wrong with being successful and working hard that's part of godly character we should have a testimony at work as being an excellent worker we should be consistent but here's a priority that we must acknowledge and should acknowledge that his service deserves the best of our heart and life now there's another aspect to this that as well affects all of us and that is that we can all suffer from overextension and we find ourselves just carrying on struggling because we've lost our zeal our hearts are not in it anymore and sometimes that's because of problems assembly problems I don't think there's an assembly that hasn't suffered greatly from the influence of tensions and conflicts and problems that have just seemed to creep in and take over and affect relationships and we get hurt we withdraw ourselves we isolate ourselves and we become like a limb that is no longer functioning if you think of how much loss there is among God's people because individuals who could be very helpful very useful are not functioning today there's a tremendous waste and loss in God's work so the emphasis that is given to us in verse 6 to 8 is this having then a gift having then an ability entrusted to us let's be occupied in it let's involve ourselves in it let us be active in it having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us whether prophecy let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith and that I think that the list here is probably deliberately mingled between the public preaching and teaching kind of gifts with other gifts that may be in the background because we need to learn that each one is valuable each one is necessary it's not just the public teaching gifts that matter there's there's many facets of service that are vital and important and so prophecy was clearly one of the primary essential gifts at that time it's listed in 1st Corinthians 12 following Apostles as being of primary importance in the church why because the revelation of the New Testament was being communicated the Word of God obviously is essential and foundational to our spiritual lives so the the teaching of the Word of God but prophecy and I would believe that that the gift of prophecy has passed that it was a gift of receiving revelations directly from God and communicating them to the people the New Testament is distinct from the Old Testament very clearly in that the Old Testament was given progressively over many many generations over many centuries whereas the New Testament the whole New Testament canon is given to us in one generation and so the gift of prophecy is 1st Corinthians 13 actually teaches us was going to fail it was going to run out and come to an end because the communication of God in the New Testament was to be completed and so the gift would come to an end but it was a very important and vital gift you know the reason I'm mentioning that to you I expect you understand that very clearly is that there are even among evangelical Christians today an idea that we are to seek these gifts such as prophecy and speaking in tongues and so on and to try to revive what they call the apostolic era not recognizing that that was the foundation being laid for the work of the church and you don't have to keep laying the foundation every generation the foundation is laid it is established and then there is building that goes on based upon that foundation but then the next one that is given to us here is ministry now the word ministry is used in the New Testament in a wide variety of ways it is used of both speaking Timothy is referred to as being a good minister of Jesus Christ the same word used as a noun as a person and so it's the word to serve and I'm going to suggest that in the context here that it is acts of service serving as we would think of taking care of someone and I'm going to give you a few examples from the scriptures in 2nd Timothy 1 and 16 Paul refers to a man named on a syphilis and he mentions that he often refreshed me and he says that when he was in Rome he sought me out very diligently and found me and then he follows it with saying and in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus thou knowest very well a very common example of Martha and Mary who hasn't heard of Martha when she said to the Lord Lord don't you care that my sister has left me to serve alone that's the very same word so you might say this sounds like a pretty ordinary gift well there's a lot of very ordinary service that the Lord wants done and he gifts he enables he supplies the capacity and the desire to believers to serve another well-known one in the scriptures is the house of Stephanus 1st Corinthians 16 we're there to be acknowledged because they are those it says who have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints so in other words here are people who have given themselves over that's quite an addiction to have isn't it to be addicted to serving people you see this is a very very vital character of God it's a character of Christ he says I am among you as one that serves so that servant character should be in all of us but it is manifested in particular as a particular spiritual gift someone has said that a person with this gift will loathe the limelight but will be the backbone of an effective church one question that you could ask that might identify yourself as one of these is that do you see things that need to be done when nobody else seems to notice for a long time this is one of the pet peeves of my wife because she is this kind of a person and she was able can't they see that this needs to be done you might not be too happy to realize that that might identify you as a gifted person in that way but yes some of us are more oblivious but this is certainly a very valuable very worthwhile and so there are many many avenues of service it could be providing transportation for Sunday school children for visitors coming to the meetings the recording tape ministry Sunday school materials fixing the chairs looking after the hall all of these avenues that are beneficial to the people of God they're not just ordinary they are spiritual service of God now the next one that is given to us here is teaching and in some ways teaching is a gift that is of slower development than some of the other gifts you wouldn't quite expect that someone who has just gotten saved is going to be standing up teaching everybody immediately there is a need of equipping with knowledge and so there is a sense in which there needs to be some growth and development before this gift will be fully developed and manifested and yet it is also obvious even in relatively young believers of some who have this capacity and I would suggest that someone with a gift such as this would be someone who would show evidence of being skilled in teaching it's actually one of the qualifications given for overseers and first Timothy 3 apt to teach because those who shepherd teaching is a critical part of the shepherding role so shepherds and teachers are brought together in Ephesians chapter 4 as one of the gifts to the church first Timothy chapter 4 is a is a very suitable chapter to to meditate in because there's a lot of key principles given to us in that passage and I'll just mention a few of them in first Timothy 4 and 6 he says nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine to which you have attained nourished up so if we are going to be equipped to teach God's people we need ourselves to be nourished we need to be fed our lives individually must reflect the value of the teaching we're giving so we ourselves must become a model an example of the teaching and Timothy is encouraged in that same chapter of verse 12 you become an example of the believers in word and behavior and so on and that's one of the challenges isn't it especially for younger believers that sometimes our head gets a little ahead of our feet and as they say if your head gets a little too much ahead of your feet you're going to have a fall you're going to trip so we need to show by our walk first that we are truly learning the truths of God and they're becoming part of us and then we can impart them with moral authority and as well as skill in that same chapter there is the strong emphasis of exercise thyself unto godliness train yourself in godliness so again these are all valuable for everybody but absolutely essential for anyone who is going to take the place of teaching other believers in that same passage the there's an exhortation to not neglect the gift that has been given but to be in it to be involved in it and so there is no substitute for getting into the scriptures and studying and I know that even in my own life and my own experience one of the things that stirred me and drew me towards this aspect of the work of God was being exposed to the Mimico Bible readings in Toronto for a number of years when I was a young Christian I had gone down to the Toronto conference I mean I lived way up in the backwoods of Northern Ontario a long ways away when travel was not quite as free as not that travel is free today but we didn't seem to travel as far or as freely in those days as we do today and so yes Toronto conference was a big drawing card but the Mimico Bible readings was a weekend of Bible readings just like Mount Sterling conference and when I started going to those and listen to able men teaching the Word of God expounding the scriptures that really stirred within me the desire to study the scriptures more fully and to be more equipped in the Word of God and one of the things that I did personally in devoting myself to this was when I was in high school actually in the final year I had been studying somewhat before that but I made a choice to devote two hours a night to the study of the scriptures we were still on the farm I was farming and there wasn't a lot of time but from I made that choice that I would try to do my homework I would try to study as much as I could and I used my noon hours at school and so on to study so that I would have the opportunity from 9 o'clock till 11 o'clock every night to devote it to the Word of God and I am grateful for that foundation in my own experience and once I was finished high school and and working on the farm and my brother David actually came home from University at the same time because he was thinking about the Lord's work in Chile and dad was kind to us I guess or considerate and that he let us during the winter months spend the mornings studying the Word of God and so those were important foundational times of groundwork of getting to know the scriptures studying intensively and so on but it's a lifelong challenge and so whatever particular spiritual gift God will incline your heart in that direction he will give you conviction about its importance he will make you see that it's important to be doing this and if we if we respond then the Lord will bless and make us useful for himself now there's a lot more that we could say about teaching but I want to just notice with you the next one which is exhortation and maybe I should make one more comment about teaching and that is when I was commended to the Lord's work which I would have been about if I can get it straight I was about 27 I guess at the time the new work in capuscasing was had started had opened up and God blessed very richly very wonderfully and an assembly was started within a very short time and these people were completely from the world with no background whatsoever and so Murray Pratt and I were suddenly responsible to shepherd and to care for these new converts now neither of us had had very much experience in teaching ministry as I'm doing tonight basically our training in teaching was Bible reading and there's nothing wrong with that but there is a difference in how you can handle the scriptures in a consecutive way in ministry as we call it a ministry meeting then in commenting back and forth in a Bible reading and so that's how we started teaching in fact if I remember right I think I had only spoken publicly in ministry four times as far as teaching before I was commended so that's not a lot of development in that aspect of my service so it was really in the Lord's work in teaching these new believers that I began to develop in my own gift in that way and so I have thought that it is important in assemblies that there be opportunity in the assembly meetings for there to be development of this of the gift of teaching in ministry and so for some years we encouraged assembly in cap and then in Timmins more particularly where we spent a longer time that there would be and this turned out to be on the on Lord's Day that there would be a minister meeting every week half hour three quarters of an hour and that gives the local brethren opportunity to develop in this particular aspect of teaching gift now the other one exhortation how do you distinguish between teaching and exhortation well teaching is interpreting and explaining the scriptures giving the sense the meaning exhortation the word is sometimes translated encouraging comforting exhorting so it's stirring up consoling comforting different words that are used and I'm sure some of you at least would be familiar with this that this is the same word that is used for the Holy Spirit as the comforter so again this shows that this gift is a precious important gift it partakes of the very character of the ministry of the Spirit of God to us and so it's not enough just to explain God's Word it's not enough just to be educated to understand but we also need to be stirred we need to be encouraged we need to be comforted so this has more to do with the state of the Lord's people and it's obviously a very important part of shepherding as well one of the great examples in the Bible is Barnabas we almost forget what his regular name was because Barnabas is how we know him he was surname Barnabas which means son of consolation son of encouragement so here's a man whose spiritual gift and character was primarily that of encouragement and if you go through the references to Barnabas and his influence upon believers you can see this character coming out when Saul of Tarsus was saved and nobody wanted anything to do with him it was Barnabas who picks him up Barnabas comes to Antioch when the gospel goes out to the Gentiles and there's a flourishing and it says when Barnabas had seen the grace of God he was glad and he exhorted them he taught them and he encouraged them but you notice that when there was a lot of an emphasis on teaching given he went and sought for Saul the other outstanding example of his ministry is when the story of Mark unfolds with Mark's failure and then Mark's recovery whatever we think of Barnabas and Mark in Acts chapter 15 Barnabas evidently sought him out and recovered him and enabled him to become a useful servant of God once again I think we could say that counseling is a blend of teaching and exhortation now the next one that we have in our list is is giving he that giveth and again you might say well isn't this what everybody's supposed to do well yes we have a responsibility to give it is part of our response to God for his greatness his goodness to us that we would give to the Lord but this may be more in the sense of the word really is just he that imparts he that gives let him do it with simplicity now some translations suggest the idea of liberality or generosity so whichever sense we would take from the word that is given here as simplicity both characteristics are very important simplicity means that there would be single-hearted motivation generosity would reflect on the nature of God as the one who gives us richly all things to enjoy the God who is rich unto all that call upon him the God who has given unto us his unspeakable gift the gift of a son so you can see again that every one of these gifts is really reflecting back on God's character and God's greatness and so whatever spiritual gift that is being looked at here it is really a manifestation of God in what he is showing through his Saints in first in first Timothy chapter 6 where that verse was that I quoted that he gives us richly all things to enjoy there's a particular charge given to those who are rich in this world which would suggest that if God has bestowed upon us an abundance that that may be an indication to us that he has entrusted us with a particular stewardship of being one who gives and reflects the character of God but we would have to say that the widow with the temple in Luke chapter 21 would show us that those who are poor are not excluded from this grace because she manifested a wonderful character of giving everything that she had everything she had to live on in her expression of love and devotion to God now the next one that is given to us here he that ruleth with diligence again this is a very important one the word that is used here he that ruleth is is literally to stand before to take the lead and so the example the importance that we would see in this is that we ourselves must become an example for others to follow and you can call this servant leadership if you want because the Lord himself made that clear to his disciples that he was among them as one who serves and those who are going to become prominent among the disciples in leadership of God's work we're not to become like Lords over but as examples to the flock so this is a very high privilege and in the in the sense just remembering back again to Genesis chapter 1 where God in his entrusting of the whole creation under the headship of man is really showing that in the assembly again there is a divine authority there is a divine administration and the assembly is meant to be an expression of God's kingdom where God's rule and God's principles are what guides and nourishes the Saints and so there must be those who in themselves are true followers of Christ who partake of the character of Christ and so are fitted to stand before the Saints and to lead them in the ways of God one thing I would say is that when God gives a responsibility as he does to those who are given this charge of leading he also gives authority there is an authority that is part of the charge of taking the lead or he that ruleth so the emphasis that is given here is he that rules let him do it with diligence with carefulness with consistency and I am sure it's no secret among the assemblies of God's people that this is often one of the greatest weaknesses that our shepherding of the Saints is more often on like the emergency room at the hospital where we respond or react to crises rather than maintaining and sustaining good health I have often made the comparison of the health care system which in Canada has supposed to have been broke for a long time I don't know if it's any better here or not but they're always trying to figure out how to fix the system but it just seems to be characteristic of us in in our lives that we respond better to emergencies than we do to ongoing maintenance but this diligence shows that there is the watchfulness the ongoing diligent care and feeding that supports and sustains and protects the Saints of God so one of the things that is important is to have vision to to see opportunities to further the work of God to have initiative in getting them started and personally that's one thing that I am quite poor at when it came to gospel work I was very happy to work along with brother Murray Pratt but I was never really the one who would be much of the initiator and there are a lot of us like that where we are not the visionaries we are not the initiators but we can work with someone who is and so I would just like to encourage if there is anyone here with that ability of initiating that has vision there are those who will help if someone will initiate and start now there's many examples that we could think about with that and I remember in visiting the assembly in Portage le Prairie being quite impressed with the character of a lot of what I saw going on there because there was the seed sowers and all that that has been such a blessing to so many assemblies in so many areas and so many new areas the via or via magazine however you choose to pronounce that all of those have their origin in brethren in that assembly and there was other it was called Scripters Unlimited before the seed sower texts were more well-known and even in the working cap we made use of those beautiful beautifully done texts which a brother in the Portage assembly was providing and so on so that's a very very wonderful thing that can stretch beyond just the local assembly even where someone who has vision can be a beneficial effect for stirring up God's people to God's work over a wide range of even over more than one country now thinking about the last one that we have in this list for just a few moments he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness now it suggests that the word mercy as it's used here is not so much thinking about forgiveness as we would say showing mercy instead of pouring out judgment on somebody but rather showing compassion and there's certainly many examples David and Mephibosheth would be a wonderful example from the Old Testament the Lord and Bartimaeus blind Bartimaeus along the side that was his appeal Oh Son of David have mercy upon me you know I think we would acknowledge that this character of showing compassion is a very very precious expression of God I was mentioning that that is the underlying power that is given to us in Romans chapter 9 to 11 of the sovereign workings of God throughout the generations throughout the world that he might have mercy upon all and so someone who is showing mercy showing compassion to people in need is really showing the heart of God and if you're to try to ask yourself which is the most important gift here well let me just say this long after the preaching is forgotten and all those fine sermons with all their alliteration or whatever else is has gone by the way the memory of a kindness can touch someone and affect someone encourage a weary saint touch someone who is not saved and make them inclined to the gospel so we cannot put a value upon upon the value the preciousness of this gift ministries and opportunities helping aged and firm saints as a wonderful example handicapped people people who are in distress people who are suffering there certainly seems to be a lot of opportunities despite all of the benefits that we have in our Western nations so there's such a range isn't there of gifts that are referred to here and if you haven't found yourself yet just keep thinking about it and recognize that God has gifted you and in gifting you he has entrusted you with a capacity to show his character to to do his work to fulfill his words that he might be glorified shall we pray our father we would draw near to thee and give thanks for the glory that is thine that infinite capability that infinite goodness but we do thank thee that in each one of our lives something of thy glory can be manifested and we would pray that the Saints might be strengthened and mutually serve one another that we might have a love for each other and that we might have a desire to be helpful and useful strengthening encouraging instructing guiding so that there is a healthy development of spiritual life we would commit ourselves to the thought us know our weakness let us know the things that have hindered us the things that have hurt us we pray that we might be able to overcome every hindrance and serve the effectively we look to the for this as we commit ourselves to the in the precious name of our Lord Jesus