Gifts That Glorify God

I had been in full-time ministry for over 10 years prior to coming to Redeemer and after resigning from that position, we stumbled into Redeemer. After being here for a few months, I reached out to Brandon Gilbert, one of the Elders and we sat down at one of the local coffee shops that all the cool college kids go to. Now, in my mind, I wanted to impress Brandon, but I was frankly still fighting the symptoms of disease in my spiritual life. I wanted him to be impressed with my background and how I was wanting to use that background to serve the Church. Flattery is what I would call that. I wanted flattery from Brandon and I didn’t get it. Instead, I got a response from him that I would call the “grace of God”.

He said, “hey that’s all cool and awesome Seth, but if you want to serve, then do it! There are needs and you can help!” Brandon wasn’t and still isn’t impressed with my ministry background. He’s thankful, but he’s not impressed. And on that day, he reminded me that neither is God.

Brandon was actually calling me to believe and practice this truth in Romans 12:1-8 that Paul is reminding the early church of – we have gifts and we have a role to play, but before we can ever use those gifts to serve God, we have to remember that they were God-given. Before they can be of eternal and valuable use, they must be sacrificed to God. Our lives are God's and our gifts are God's. 

Paul uses that word “mercy” and I think it’s absolutely crucial for us: “by the mercies of God” (Romans 12:1). What is God’s mercy? It’s His love, compassion, and steadfastness towards us. Let’s just understand it as His “deep-in-the-soul” kind of commitment towards us as broken people. 

Because of God's mercy, Paul appeals to us to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. I think Paul is hitting at something really important for us. Since you are presently alive, give your life daily to God. Your whole life. Something you care deeply about. Something that’s holy and acceptable to God.

Now Paul is not saying, “Hey, Jesus is coming into your life, but you need to make sure you tidy up before he comes over! Be sure and scrub your sin toilet so He doesn’t gag!”

If my wife, Chelsea and I were to invite you over to our house for dinner, we would spend hours and hours trying to clean up our house. With 3 boys and 2 golden retrievers, our house can get messy really quick. If you came over to our house and we didn’t clean anything, you would probably be grossed out and you would leave. 

But with Jesus, it’s quite the opposite. Jesus wants our lives. Not our version of a “cleaned-up” life. He wants our mess. Not because he needs it, but because he alone can redeem it, restore it, and turn it into acceptable and pleasing spiritual worship. So Paul is calling us to lay down our lives and hand them over to God.

Paul then tells us to think about our lives with “sober-judgment” (v. 3). We all have this natural bend to be pretty self-centered. We “love us some us” as I’ve heard Dusty say in a sermon before! When we conform to the world, we’re comparing ourselves to the world and its standards. And that can even happen within the local church.  When Paul says, “having gifts that differ according to the grace given us…(v. 6)”, we see that we (and the early church) can absolutely struggle with comparing our gifts in serving to the gifts of others! But Paul is calling them to not compare themselves to one another, but to be sober-minded by comparing themselves to God. It is sobering to think about your life and how quickly things fail, but then consider God that never fails. How does that make you feel? Small? Weak? This is the starting place for thinking of yourself with "sober judgement".

As a body, we all have different gifts that God has given us. Not all of us have the gifts that Dusty has or that girl in your Gospel Community! And not one of us has all of the gifts, to meet every need. Instead, functionally, God has diversified those gifts for the building up of His Church! 

So, what gifts of service is God calling you to practice? Is there someone in your circle that needs to be taught the Word of God? Do they need to be encouraged by you? Is there someone in your Gospel Community who wants to learn how to read the Bible? Is there a family you know walking through grief, suffering, loss, etc.? Do you have an open room in your home? Do you have the ability on a Saturday morning to mow an extra lawn? How can you sacrifice your life and your gifts as worship to God? 

Spend some time today and ask him. He’ll tell you. He’ll reveal it. James 1 tells us that He’ll give us wisdom if we ask with the right motive. And here’s a comforting thought: you can tell Him your desires and confess your wrong motives and, because through Jesus sacrifice you are now the righteousness of God, I think He’ll honor your request for wisdom and actually transform you into the kind of worshipper that Romans 12 describes. 

When you do, you are being conformed to the image of Jesus, who laid His life down for us. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) God shows us, in Christ, the example of giving up one’s life for the church. Philippians 2 tells us that Christ emptied Himself of His deity and gave Himself up for the Church, for you and me. That’s our example, Church! That is why our worship of God looks like laying down our lives for one another and serving one another. God is in it with us! And He will surely do it.