Body Thinking

Scrab our bibles. Scrab our bibles and turn to Romans chapter twelve. Romans

chapter twelve. You're like, yay, we're back in Romans. Yeah.

If you don't have a Bible with you, just raise your hand, keep

it up. We will hunt you down and give you a bible. And

if you don't have a bulletin, that's also helpful because there's sermon notes on

the back of that. So just raise your hand and keep it up if

you need a Bible or a bulletin, and turn with me to Romans chapter

twelve. We're gonna be in verses one through eight. Romans twelve, one

through eight. As you turn there, let me start this way that I

truly believe that for Christians today, in this time and in this place,

one of the most profound st of maturing will happen when Christians in our culture

make this mindset shift, the mindset shift from church is some place that I

attend to. Church is a body that I'm a part of. When that

shift happens, church is a place that I attend to. Church is a

body that I am a part of. That's what we're going to see expressed

in Romans twelve amongst other things. It's actually one of the most practical chapters

in all of Scripture. Romans Chapter twelve. After the theological heavy lifting that

Paul has been doing in chapters one through eleven, he gets to the therefore

in chapter twelve, and he gives us in twelve and thirteen and fourteen and

fifteen practical instructions for Christian living, especially for living as a body. This

chapter is so practical that it's one of my dad's favorite chapters in all the

Bible. And he challenged his church in Corpus Christi. My dad is a

pastor of a small church in Corpus Christie, and he challenged his church,

his entire congregation, to memorize the whole chapter. And I was there that

Sunday night. They do a Sunday night thing. You remember that I was

there that Sunday night as people just stood up in the pews, Remember those

stood up in the pews one at a time, and resigned the entire chapter.

It's beautiful. Let's read together, Romans Chapter twelve, verses one through

eight. We'll just go one through eight this morning. As we look at

how Paul builds this argument towards this end. Amongst other things, and we'll

get to those other things, but towards this end that we are a body

reads this way. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the

mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and

acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to

this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by

testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and

acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me, I say to

everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think,

but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith

that God has assigned. For As in one body, we have many members,

and the members do not all have the same function. So we,

though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us

use them if prophecy and proportion to our faith, if service in our serving.

The one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his

exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal,

the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. This is God's word.

Here's what I'm shooting for this morning. What I'm shooting for this morning

is that you would take in and adopt for yourself a certain way of thinking

about being a part of a church, a certain way of thinking that we

are a body. We are actually members one of another, We belong to

each other, we're part of each other. And for some of you this

is not a new thought. And so for you who to whom this is

not a new thought, I would say, I would see this, the

importance and the implications of this advanced in your heart. And for some of

you it is a new thought. I don't know what I'm doing. Not

good. For some of you it is a new thought, and I would

challenge you to think differently and live differently in accordance with scripture, the fact

that we are a part of one another, that we are a body that

functions together. This is not my idea. It's not a church idea.

It's God's idea. That's that is in fact Paul's whole argument. Here.

Here, here's the here's the outline of the argument. I appeal to you

based on the mercies of God. You're like, well, what mercies.

Well, we've haven't we haven't been in Romans for a while. So if

you just look north of twelve one, you'll see that he is talking about

mercy throughout the end of chapter eleven. These mercies, the fact that you

were once far from him, you were disobedient and astray, and because of

the death of His son and his resurrection, you have been grafted in to

an ancient people of God across the world by his mercy alone, The great

and glorious God who holds the oceans in his hand, by his counsel and

his alone, has opened your eyes to see the truth of grace in Jesus

Christ. And by faith you have been implanted into this people. That's mercy.

Based on that, Paul says, based on that, give yourself,

give yourself to God completely, present your body as a living sacrifice. Don't

leave a toe behind, give yourself to him. And when you give yourself

to him, this is a progressive argument. What I'm doing with my hands

here is building layers based on the mercies of God. Give yourself totally to

him. And when you do that, a key aspect will be your mind

changes you think differently, the transforming of your mind, and one of the

key aspects of that transformation of thought will be how you think about the people

who are in this building with you. You'll stop thinking about the people in

this room as just people who, for whatever reason, gather at the same

time, the same day of the week, in the same room, and

you come to think of them as brothers and sisters, as stones who have

been fitted together with you, as part of a body of which you are

just one part. That's his argument, presenting your whole body, transforming your

mind. Thinking of the whole body, let's jump in like you haven't started

yet. I know, I know. Presenting your whole body, it only

makes sense to go all in on God. That's Paul's point. It just

makes sense by the mercies of God. He says, I appeal to you.

You were once disobedient and astray, and you've been grafted in through the

death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and so accordingly based on those mercies,

those mercies that we just sang about well, by the way, that's to

you, right, my compliments. You just sang about those mercies very well,

but based on them because of them. Present your bodies as a living

sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Your whole life, don't leave a

tow behind. This is pleasing to God that you would walk with a clear

conscience one hundred percent given over to Him. It's not only pleasing to God.

I can tell you it's pleasant to you to live wholeheartedly for him.

Paul says this is your spiritual active worship, or in other translations, would

say this is your reasonable, this is your true, this is your proper

active worship. In other words, it's what's fitting. This is what's fitting

based on spiritual reality. If God has so handled you by his mercies,

who else are you gonna live for? What else is gonna make sense?

What's gonna fit that you would live for your own selfish ambition? Does it

make sense that you would live for momentary pleasure, or or for accomplishments,

or for the approval of others? How does that make sense? When God

has handled you like this, you belong to him. Your life and your

heart and your mind is laid open before him. He has loved you and

laid his life down for you. Why wouldn't you go all in? Why

wouldn't you go all in. You know, baptism is a picture of exactly

that you'll You'll notice next time we do baptisms. They go all the way

down. I don't let part of them stay dry. You're all in.

You have died to yourself and died to sin. You've been raised to Christ

completely by the way, as regards baptism, and as regards the extent to

which you live entirely presented to God. That doesn't save you. Jesus saves

you. The grace of God through Jesus Christ, embraced by faith. That's

what saves you. Not baptism, and not a life wholly pleasing to God.

That doesn't save you. It's just what save people do. You're saved

by grace and you get completely wet in response. You are saved by grace,

and you give yourself completely in response. But if you're here this morning

and you would say, you know, I don't think I'm a Christian,

I don't. I'm thinking about it. I'm here, but I don't think

I'm trusting Christ like you are talking about by faith. I do want you

to notice the all in nature of the Christian faith. To become a Christian

is not to add a little Jesus to your life. It's rather to turn

your life over to trust him, to trust him for who he is,

and who he is is Savior and Lord. He's Lord. We trust him

as King. So if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian,

I want you to see that what Jesus requires of you is everything, and

what he gives you is everything. He'll give you everything if you're a Christian

here this morning, I just want to point out something that you probably already

know. Christians who are in the act of resisting their reasonable worship, of

giving theirselves wholly and completely to God are miserable people. And those who are

walking with Him with a clear conscience, in repentance, in regular repentance,

presenting their bodies as a living sacrifice wholly unpleasing to him. It is the

most joyful with sacrifice. It is the most joyful life there is. Presenting

your whole life just makes sense. And when you do, here's the next

step in the argument. When you do it will be it will include transforming

your mind. A big part of presenting our whole selves to God is swapping

out our old ways of thinking for God's ways of thinking. Swapping out our

old ways of thinking for God's ways of thinking. Check out verse two.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of

your mind. The renewing of your mind. In other words, there's a

contrast. There's the way the world thinks and the way we naturally think,

and there's a transformation to a different type of thinking. You say, well,

can you give me some examples of that different type of thinking. I'm

so glad that you asked, because you can just glance over to's like verse

ten. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

Verse twelve. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constantin

prayer. Verse fourteen. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not

curse them. Verse seventeen. Repay no one evil for evil, but give

thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. It's different.

It's different. That's a process, just say, process called the renewal of

your mind, the process of replacing the way we think about things with the

way God thinks about things. You know, when we start off especially and

this is just true. If you come to faith. Later in life,

you have a whole mess of ways of thinking that the Holy Spirit is in

the process of replacing. Like, my body is mine to do with what

I want. Two, my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

It belongs to him. I worship Him with my body from my stuff is

mine. It's just for me to enjoy and to make me look good.

Two. There is nothing I have that I did not receive as a gift

from God. It's not just for me to enjoy. It's also for me

to share with those in need and to extend into the lives of others so

they might also share what's been given to me. Over and over again,

God changes the way we think. He swaps out our thinking. This happens

from time in scripture right time in scripture, where the scripture is exposing thoughts

in our hearts that contradict the scripture, exposing even motivations in our hearts that

the Spirit brings to mind as we meditate on scripture, as we pray through

scripture, and we realize, this is what my heart should look like,

but my heart looks like something else. God, it's time for some replacement

work. Please. This comes from discipleship, which is to say, this

comes from time together with other believers who are helping us to learn a Gospel

way of living. Time with other believers helping us learn a Gospel way of

living that happens in the core studies that we do on Sunday mornings here,

that happens in our small groups, that happens over coffee, that happens over

tacos. The old term for it is katechiss eh caatechiss learning the truth.

And there are so many people in this body who are a part of helping

you with this renewal of your mind. But let me just ask you,

what are your habits when it comes to the transforming or the conforming of your

mind by What are you regularly catechised? And is that catechisis a transforming of

your mind towards the way that God thinks about things? Or is it a

conforming of your mind to the way the world thinks about things? Because I'll

tell you I get you for about thirty minutes a week and your phone has

you for four and a half hours a day. Are you being catechized by

Internet influencers, political pundits, journalists who are all may have interesting, even

valid points to make, But are they actually a part of the transforming of

your mind into these Romans twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen ways of

thinking? Are there discipleship efforts of God. I'm not saying we can't read

the news. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just saying,

let's attend to let's pay special attention to the renewal of our mind and who

is actually discipling us day in and day out. That by testing you may

discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

The verse ends that by testing, testing, is it similar to what

Paul says in Ephesians five right, try to discern the Lord's will? Also

Philippians chapter one that by love and knowledge you may approve what is excellent.

There's a testing. What does that mean? I think? I think a

good way to describe the testing that Paul has in mind is developing a palette,

right, developing a taste for what is good in the sight of God.

You know what I mean by develop a taste, Like there's some people

they can drink a glass of wine and they can tell you, I don't

know things about it, like the notes. I think they call it the

notes that are present in that glass of wine. All my wine comes from

boxes. It's just for the purposes of relaxing on the back porch with my

wife. That's the only note, and it's the only thing I'm paying attention

to. Couldn't tell any difference. But there are some people who have developed

a taste. And this may be true in any field of expertise. You

may be experienced in a certain field. You have a certain eye or taste.

You understand what is good and what is less good, is what's strong

and what's weak, just based on some actually subtle things that you can perceive

over time. Because you've developed a palate and the renewal of your mind is

you are discipled in the Lord, should develop in you a palette for tasting

and discerning what is good in the eyes of God that you want to That's

what you want to become expert at. You can discern, you can discern

the will of God. I'm reluctant to use the phrase the will of God

in this context because I know it comes loaded with a lot of connotations that

are not actually meant here. I really like the phrase discern what is good

in the eyes of God. Because whenever I use the phrase will of God

come rushing in all of these ideas about decision making. I know that for

me, for a long time, the idea of the will of God was

dominated by this idea, that of making the right decisions. That there was

some secret play book that God had hidden called his will, and then if

I prayed hard enough, I would see the little dots I needed to step

on in life to know what decisions to make, what city to move to,

what girl to date, what job to take. And that's my entire

prayer. Life was obsessed with can I make the right decisions and step on

the dots called the will of God? And that's not at all what Paul

has in mind. Here. Paul's talking about developing a taste for what is

good in the eyes of God, the will of God. And then he

spends the next three chapters giving us very willy things. God's will It's present

right there. Humble yourself, live as a body, submit to the authorities,

serve one another, out do one another in showing honor, Bless those

who curse you. This is the will of God. This is the will

of God. I can tell you, though, if you are now where

I was, then that there's an intensity and desperation of prayer that goes into

trying to divine the will of God and decision making, such that if you

come to realize that what God has given you is His will and that we're

instructed to make our decisions with wisdom and godly motives, and sometimes it can

feel like your prayer life is gone. What am I gonna pray for now?

And I would just I would pastorally advise you to replace desperation about decision

making with a desperation to know and love and live out the character of Jesus

Christ. That can be a desperate prayer. To paraphrase Mark Twain, it's

not what we don't know about God's will that bothers us so much as what

we do know about God's will, because he tells us right here. Have

you developed a taste for how these things will become the manner of your life?

Because it's these things humility out doing one another and sing, honor,

hospitality and all the rest will get into the next couple of weeks. These

things are the will of God, and by transforming our minds, we will

discern how to live in these ways. So back to my levels. I

appeal to you based on the mercies of God. Because of Jesus Christ,

you have been welcomed in. I appeal to you. Therefore, give yourself

entirely to Him. Don't leave a toe behind. And a part of that

is going to be the renewal of your mind. You're going to think differently.

You will progressively think about things God's way as opposed to your old way.

And a part of that that thinking is going to be the way you

think about the people in this room. That's where Pulse getting to thinking of

the whole body, says this in verses three through five. For by the

grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of

himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment,

each according to the measure of faith that God is assigned. For as

in one body, we have many members, and the members did not all

have the same function. So we, though many, are one body in

Christ, and individually members one of another. Evidently it's common to think more

highly of ourselves than we ought. Some of you have noticed, right.

We think our sacrifices are deeper than others. We think our contributions are more

significant, or the offenses we receive are more severe, or our insight is

more profound, and we're instructed rather than to think too highly of ourselves,

rather think with sober judgment or sensible, sound, accurate judgment. It's interesting

that the instruction you think too highly of yourself, so think low. It's

think accurate, because although it's true that most of us, most of the

time tend to think too highly of ourselves, it is also true that some

of us some of the time think too low of ourselves. That I don't

have a gift to give, I don't have a place in this body.

I don't have a role to play, I don't belong. That's a nonsense.

And so the Bible says, think accurately about yourself as a member of

this body. Both are a problem if God's people are going to function as

a body. But I will tell you that this truth, this truth that

we are a part of one another, we've been put together, is one

of the greatest missing pieces of contemporary Christian life. It affects everything. It

affects our relationships, our hospitality, our hearts, and our homes. Are

barely open for the most part across the board. It affects our view of

what we're doing right now. Sunday Service American contemporary Christianity has reduced the Christian

faith to a Sunday morning event and the church to a Sunday morning gathering.

If you notice, when Josh Collins or anybody else comes to welcome you and

give the announcements, as he'll say this, welcome to this gathering of Crossway

Bible Church, he doesn't say welcome to Crossway Bible Church. Because this ain't

it, folks, This is our gathering. This is family dinner. The

family dinner does not equal family life right now. If you say I'm very

involved in family life and you don't show up for family dinner, then we

have something to talk about. You should be here. We care that you

are here. If Mom cares that you're the table, if you're not there,

she might send somebody to go find you. You know, that's actually

like, this is one of the biggest reasons why we do connection cards the

way we do them. Yes, if you're a guest here, we want

to get your contact information and connect with you. We want to welcome you,

want to we want to reach out to you. Yes, we want

to pray for you. If you give a prayer request, there's a whole

prayer card team that's praying over those. But we want to know that you're

here by name. We want to know that the family is present for dinner,

because we belong to one another. It's not about how many people are

here, it's about that you're here. You think we can just swap out

at different six hundred people and it's all just fine. I mean if if

I can't remember who used this example, but if if you were at six

Flags and you're like, okay, family, let's meet at this spot at

two o'clock, and you show up to that spot at two o'clock and there

were six people, They're like, you know what, it's not our family,

but it's six people. This works. Let's keep on going and doing

our thing. That's not the thing. Gosh, where am I? We

belong to one another. We belong to one another, And for some of

you, that is a weird way of thinking. For some of you,

that's a weird way of thinking. If you're honest, you might say that

you have really thought of church as something you attend more than what you belong

to, and if that's you, this could be one of the best days

of your life, because, without exaggeration, let me just tell you,

a shift in that way of thinking will be one of the most meaningful and

life altering steps of Christian maturity that you will take. I heard some amends,

and I expected some amends because I know that for many of you,

this is a shift you have already made. You know that this is true,

You've experienced it. So allow me a moment of warning to you.

The pull to be reconformed to the mindset set of disconnection is strong. It's

strong. Sometimes we know better than we live. Sometimes we experience the truth

of body life, the fact that we are connected one to another, because

we go through a season of need and we realize, I'm being nurtured by

the rest of the body, I'm being nourished. I needed this, I

need the church. And then we exit a season of need, or we

exit that church planting time, or we exit that time where other Christians were

helping to disciple our kids, and suddenly the pull of that mindset of disconnection

sets in and we take a big step back, and before we know it,

we are we know better but we're not living it. We are one

body, and how we think about that affects how we think about the gifts

that God has given us to serve one another. Look at Verses six through

eight. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let

us use them, if prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in

our serving. The one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts

in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads

with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. In other

words, everyone has a role to play, and the fact that everyone has

a role to play means usually that two things need to happen. One of

two things need to happen. For many of you, you need to step

up. You need to recognize that you have a role to play. Find

it. I'll help you. You have a role to play. For some

of you, you need to take a step back, because you have to

realize that other people also have a role to play. We have. We're

called to function as a body. Ever heard of the eighty twenty rule in

church? Just quick, all right, Yeah, that's the twenty and I

am already running behind. So if you want to know about the eighty twenty

rule, you can see me at step one. Listen roles, these roles,

these gifts are often not official. They're often not official. You see

some of these exhortation giving mercy. Can you imagine if we had an exhortation

giving and mercy ministry teams? Right, they're not they're not always official,

they're not always offices, but they are gifts. They're there. You have

a deeper capacity in something than most people have. You have a deeper capacity

in something than most people have. It may be mercy, maybe exhortation,

it may be money, and it's all meant to to serve your brothers and

sisters. Here. Always, when we come across this term in our text,

people ask about prophecy, like how does that all work? Like what's

what's going on with prophecy? So I want to take a moment. I

will say that I agree wholeheartedly with doctor Thomas Schreiner in his excellent book on

the Spiritual Gifts. Prophecy is the reception of spontaneous revelation from God which is

communicated to God's people. Thus saith the Lord in that way, prophecy in

the New Testament and prophecy in the Old Testament aren't different. Prophecy is inerrant

and it is authoritative, and God used prophecy very prominently in the early Church.

Prophecy was foundational, as Paul says in Ephesians too, the church was

built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, speaking of New Testament

prophets, and the purpose of prophecy was to instruct the church and to confirm

the word of the Gospel, right, confirmation of the sword that was also

provided by other sign gifts as well. So it's because of that it's not

unusual to see less prominence with the establishment of the New Testament scriptures. Right

they are the final instructive authority and confirmation of the word of the Gospel.

Or the question always comes up, could God provide prophecies and other sign gifts

today? Absolutely, God can do anything he wants. And yet also I

would expect that in places where they are without the scriptures, places like South

Sudan where they do not have the New Testament scriptures or the Old Testament scriptures

for that matter, in South Sudan to instruct and confirm the word of the

Gospel, and in that way in those places, the same purposes by which

for which God used prophecy and sign gifts there would match exactly with the way

God used prophecy and sign gifts in the early Church. Accordingly, for our

purposes, I think it's important to not confuse prophecy with impressions. Let's not

confuse inerrant, authoritative prophecy with impressions. Listen, Impressions are good. Praise

God for impressions. Impressions that come to your conscience, Impressions that help you

discern your motives. Maybe scripture comes spontaneously to mind, or you get a

picture in your mind of a way that you can meet a need or help

somebody. We should value those things. The Holy Spirit is at work.

God is renewing our minds. Only let's not overly elevate those impressions and call

them prophecy, which would be inerrant and authoritative. But also let's not overly

lower them and say, well, that's just an impression. I shouldn't pay

any attention to it at all. Impressions are absolutely good for exactly what they

are. We don't need to call them something else. For them to be

good, for them to be godly, for them to be helpful. So

then you might ask how do I find my gifting? I find my gifting

and execute with excellence. You know long ago, I say long ago,

It feels like a long time ago. What was popular was these spiritual gift

inventories. Spiritual gift inventories was like this, like you would take this little

test. Now. I'm not against them. I took these tests multiple times

because I don't know why, because reasons, y'all, but imagine, spiritual

gifts are for the purposes of serving who the body right, and we take

spiritual gift inventories by ourselves. The spiritual gifts are to be used with humility,

And usually at the end of these spiritual gift inventories are like, awesome,

congratulations, you have the gift of I don't know fill in the blank.

Just don't find them very helpful. Rather, what I have found over

the course of life in church is the very best way to go about discerning

your spiritual gift that you can use to help others is to start helping others

serve away and then over time you will see what you have the deeper capacity

to do. Let others affirm you in that, let others come around you

and with humility, listen to them to recognize that you've got some capacities that

maybe you didn't recognize. You thought they were down here, but they're really

up here. Or maybe you thought they were up here and they're really down

here. This gets back to Paul's point about humility. You want to find

your gifting, Serve your brothers, serve your sisters, and to Paul's last

point here, do it with excellence, generosity, cheerfulness, zeal because based

on the mercies of God, you have gone all in on God. And

if you're all in on Him, then you're all in on one another.