How Church Works (Romans 12.3-8)

Introduction

If you were here last Sunday, I am sure you will have enjoyed the baptism service. I loved it.

I think it showcased really powerfully the amazing blessing we are seeing in our children’s and youth ministries. We are seeing 9, 10 and 11 year-olds as well as 17 and 18 year-olds saying, “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back.”

I need to say that our vision for children’s ministry is not just Noah’s Ark and felt-tip pictures of Jesus. Youth ministry is not all video games and sulky teenagers. No, in both cases, our teams are committed to making effective disciples of Jesus in the teeth of sometimes ferocious peer pressure. And they are seeing great fruit in these ministries.

In both children’s and youth work, we are doing a lot but we want to do more. We want to enlarge our teams. We intend, under God, to win more young lives for Christ. We are praying and working towards the goal of seeing every young heart converted and filled with the Holy Spirit.

If you want to be part of that story (and no one serves in these ministries every week; everyone takes Sundays off to recharge) then see Jan, Kathryn, Paul or me to learn more.

Kathie and I both want to lead from the front on this; we can’t commit to being regulars on the team, but we are standing in this summer when our team are taking a break and we look forward to that very much.

Well, the last two times I preached, I covered 11 chapters in about an hour. To be honest, I struggled to keep pace with myself so I have no idea how it must have felt for you.

Today, I’m covering just 7 verses. So, as with last week, it’ll be like going from a wide-angle panorama to a macro zoom lens.

Last week, Kevin shared with us from the first couple of verses in Romans 12, which are about being a living sacrifice. Laying down our lives in a way that is always giving, always serving, always sharing and standing out from what the world around us expects and demands.

Today, we’re going to explore a bit more what that looks like as a member of a church.

Legend has it that the founder of the Persian empire, (which I’m sure you all know was Cyrus the Great), once captured a prince from a neighbouring kingdom. In normal circumstances, that would mean certain death. All rivals had to be ruthlessly crushed.

But when this prince was dragged before the King, together with his family, Cyrus the Great asked him a question. “What would you give for me to grant you your freedom?” The prince thought for a moment and then said, “Your Majesty, I would give away up to half my kingdom.”

“And what would you give to make me spare your children’s lives?” “Your Majesty, I would give you all that I have.”

“Hmm. And what would you give me in exchange for your wife’s freedom?”

He looked at her, is if cherishing her beauty for the last time, then he turned and looked straight at the king. “Your Majesty, I would give my own life and I would die content knowing her life was spared.”

The story goes that King Cyrus was so moved by the spirit of sacrifice shown by that young prince that he released the entire family.

Sometime later, after they had returned home, the prince said to his wife, “You know, King Cyrus is an impressive and fine-looking man, don’t you think?”

She turned to look at him, her face radiating the purest love, and she said, “I didn’t notice. I had eyes only for the one who is ready to lay down his life for me.”

It’s a beautiful story. And because Jesus laid down his life for us, brothers and sisters, so also are we called to lay down our lives for one another. That’s a beautiful story too. The rest of Romans 12 expounds in detail with many practical examples how that story unfolds in the life of the local church.

Next week, we’ll wade through a list of 26 different and varied exhortations packed into a few short verses.

But today, we’re just going to focus on just two key issues; charisma and character because that’s what v3-8 are all about. Charisma and character.

Charisma is to do with people’s giftedness, whether supernatural spiritual (like prophecy) or more natural aptitudes (like encouragement and giving).

Character

We’ll look at those in a few minutes but, first of all, I want us to focus on character. No one is born with character. It has to be shaped and developed. You can grow in character. It’s about maturity and uprightness, and wholesomeness; basically, it’s about being Christlike.

I have to say, as a church leader, when I’m looking to give people responsibility and release them in ministry (as I practically always am) I look - not for qualifications, or physical attractiveness, or raw talent, or force of personality – first, I look for godly character.

Here are the sort of questions I ask myself:

• Are they servant-hearted or not that helpful?
• Are they happy to see others do well or jealous of their successes?
• Can I count on them or do they tend to go missing?
• Are they interested in others or wrapped up in their own world?
• Do they work with leadership or are they unteachable?
• Are they self-aware with the opposite sex or do they behave inappropriately?
• Are they sensible with money or wasteful?
• Do they admit mistakes and apologise or make excuses and blame others?
• Are they even-tempered or emotionally explosive?

Those are the sorts of things I look for. Not so much ‘what do you know?’, or even ‘what can you do?’ but ‘what are you like?’ That goes to the heart of the matter.

The Theological Seminary lecturer Burk Parsons once said, “If I have all my theology right, but have not love, I have none of my theology right.”

And v3 is all about character. Let’s take a closer look at it. “For by the grace given me, I say to every one of you: do not think of yourself more highly than you ought…”

We hear a lot about humility in the church. Quote me on this; “When I die, I would like the word 'humble' to be inscribed on the plinth of my statue!”

In Rome, as today in Britain, there was a culture of throwing your weight around and a well-defined pecking order.

The London-based church leader Phil Moore says of first century Rome, “The patricians looked down on the equestrians. The equestrians looked down on the plebeians. The plebeians looked down on the freedmen. The freedmen looked down on the slaves. Men looked down on women. Elders looked down on youth. Jews looked down on barbarians.”

Every Roman knew their station and made sure everyone below them got the message. And here, right at the beginning of the practical section of this letter it starts off by saying if you’re part of God’s people, the Church, these status games have to stop.

People sometimes imagine a pyramid structure in the church: archbishops, bishops, cathedral deans, archdeacons, other clergy, churchwardens, PCC members, everyone else. In other churches it’s organist, pastor, elders, deacons, ushers, everyone else.

But the truth is that every one of us is a sinner, saved by grace, when God had mercy on us and gave us what we could never earn, still less deserve.

God’s word says, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought.” If anyone had good reason to consider himself above others it was Jesus.

The incarnate Son of God, equal in glory and majesty to the Father, the alpha and the omega, the most fantastic life ever lived slept rough, having no place to lay his head, ate with outcasts, touched lepers and had time for crooks, tarts and beggars.

No other rabbi of his day even noticed women or children, but Jesus took women seriously. He went out of his way to talk to and bless children. He told his disciples off for shooing them away. He said, “What do you think you’re doing? Let them come to me. I want to hear what they say.”

I sometimes imagine that if Jesus came here one Sunday, we’d get the place nice and tidy, give it a lick of paint, and we’d all be eagerly awaiting his sermon, but he would leave at 11 o’clock to go out with the kids instead.

“Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought.” God calls you to be like Jesus and not be full of your own importance. But the verse goes on to say, “don’t think too little of yourself either.”

I’m sure you must have come across pretentious displays of false humility. Here’s a little poem I found recently about this.

Once in a saintly passion, I cried in desperate grief;

“O Lord, my heart is foul and dark, of sinners I am chief.”

Then stooped my guardian angel, who whispered from behind,

“O, don’t exaggerate so much; you’re nothing of the kind!”

“Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought… but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.”

Remember, a large proportion of the earliest church were slaves. People looked down on them. Rights and privileges - none. Self-esteem - zero. They might think to themselves, “Who am I? What am I worth? I was born a slave, I’ll die a slave. I’m a nobody.”  

But it says here in v3, “Think of yourself in terms of the measure of faith God has blessed you with.” Forget social status. A wealthy landowner with little faith is less use to God than a domestic servant with great faith.

Actually, a church filled with men and women of godly character is a church one step closer to revival.

In the early church, there were societies of men and women who called themselves ‘the gamblers’, and they ministered to the sick and those in prison. Cyprian, a bishop of Carthage for example, showed incredible courage during an outbreak of the plague, which began in AD 250. Everyone else deserted the sick and the dead, but Cyprian and other Christians, at the risk of their own lives, buried the bodies and nursed the sick.

Those cared for and nursed by Christians at that time, according to historian Rodney Stark in his book The Rise of Christianity, were two thirds more likely to survive than those who weren’t.

Survival rates were sometimes attributed to miracles, signs and wonders. Other times, it was just good hygiene, basic nursing care and proper nourishment.

But the thing is this; those who survived, because they survived, developed immunities. So before long, Christian communities were no longer suffering from the same diseases as the rest of the Roman Empire. People started saying “I want to be part of that. How do I get into that community they call the Church?”

That’s the gospel; good news for the poor, proclaimed in word and deed by humble people who don’t think of themselves more highly than they ought.

Somebody once said (I think it was about John Wimber), “I like his way of doing it better than your way of not doing it.” People have had it with empty words and spin. The Bible says, “The kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but power.”

Charisma

Which brings us to charisma. What about charisma? When we talk of charisma, we maybe think about people with a magnetic personality, we think of stars with stage appeal. We think of individuals who just effortlessly light up a room with their charm and wit.

But Charisma is a Greek word and it literally means “gift.” There are dozens of gifts from God listed in the New Testament, and every Christian, no exception, has at least one.

Take a look at v6; “We have different charismata (that’s charisma in plural - gifts) according to the grace given to… [who?] each of us.” There are no exceptions. What’s your gift or gifts? Do you know? Do you ever put your gifts to use? Do you neglect to do so?

There are seven different gifts listed here. It’s just a little selection. But let’s run through them, one by one, and attempt a brief definition.

Prophecy; this is a special ability God gives to receive and communicate thoughts from him to bring about strengthening, encouragement and comfort in others.

Serving; that’s an eager attentiveness to cheerfully meet the practical needs of others.

Teaching; is a competence to explain and model the word of God so it is clear and points to Jesus.

Encouragement; this is an ability to see God at work in people’s lives and to cheer them on with words of affirmation.

Giving; the gift of giving is a pronounced tendency to take pleasure in blessing others with time and money. If that’s your gift, do it generously.

Leadership; is the God-given ability to inspire people and churches to get from where they are to where God wants them to be. If that’s your gift, do it diligently.

Mercy; this is a particular tenderness and knowhow in giving dignity to the sick, the poor, the dying and the heartbroken. If that’s your gift, do it cheerfully.

Ending

All this is describing the practical workings of a revolutionary new community; the body of Christ, the church. As it says in v5, “In Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”

That’s not ‘pie in the sky’. All the evidence is that the recipients of this letter in Rome took this message to heart. It shaped how they lived their lives and they passed it on to the following generation.

How do I know? Because in AD 125, about seventy years after this letter was written, a philosopher called Aristedes wrote to the Emperor Hadrian, about the Christians in his city.

This is an extract from what he wrote. It is striking how many echoes of today’s passage there are. See if you can spot them:

They go their way in all humility and cheerfulness. Falsehood is not found among them; and they love one another. They do not despise widows and they deliver orphans from those who treat them harshly. Those who have give liberally to those who have not, without boasting. And when they see a stranger, they take him in to their homes and rejoice over him as a very brother; for they do not call them brothers after the flesh, but after the Spirit and in God. And whenever one of their poor passes from the world, each one of them according to their ability gives heed and carefully sees to their burial. And if they hear that one of their number is imprisoned or afflicted on account of the name of their Messiah, all of them anxiously minister to their necessity, and if it is possible to set them free, they do so. And if there is among them any that is poor and needy, and if they have no spare food, they fast two or three days in order to supply to the needy their lack of food. They observe the word of their Messiah with much care, living justly and soberly as the Lord their God commanded them.

This is who we are and this who we aspire to be.

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 14 July 2019