Romans 12:3-21 • Mercy on Mission

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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)

 For now, let's return to the book of Romans, the book of Romans chapter 12.



 As you get there, you will recognize in chapter 12 familiar words opening the chapter, "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." Here is this gospel train that the apostle is putting in front of us, that there would by a reception of mercy be a perception of heart that would transform not only our minds but our lives as we begin to test and to prove what God's will is.



 But that train only works if it's got some cargo.



 After all, what is the transformation that's expected? What is God wanting us to do as a consequence of perceiving the mercy that has claimed us and now renews our minds and transforms our lives? That understanding is verse 3, I'll read to you through verse 9, though I'll go a bit more broadly than that in the sermon. Paul writes, "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 of one another.



 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.



 Let love be genuine.



 Appore what is evil.



 Hold fast to what is good."



 Do you recognize these rubber bracelets that have four letters on them? What are the four letters? W-W-W-J-D.



 What would Jesus do bracelets? So popular a few years ago, it was established by actually a youth minister who wanted his young people to answer the question, "What does it mean not to be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind? What does that actually require?" He wanted them to ask the question, "Well, what would Jesus do in the circumstance or the situation which you find yourself?"



 The unlikely question became something of a cultural phenomena, and W-W-J-D bracelets got worn not just by Christian kids but by sports figures and movie stars and models and fashion magazines.



 In fact, they became so popular that in many ways they began to lose their significance for believers and then for the rest of culture. After all, the reason I ask you if you recognize them, you know they've gone the way of pet rocks and VHS tapes and Beanie Babies. I mean, how did all that happen?



 Because they became so popular, so used by everyone that they actually got used by everyone, kind of like a gold cross around the neck of Madonna or Miley Cyrus.



 No longer a signifying devotion, just decoration, about not glorifying the Lord but bringing attention to me, used just for show.



 And the reason the Apostle Paul begins this amazing chapter with so many instructions in it with the message, "I appeal to you, be motivated by the mercy of God," is he knows if that's not what motivates us, then everything he is telling us to do, not just the wearing the WWJD bracelets, but everything we do might become just something for show,



 for our own decoration to bring approval to us rather than to be a response to the mercy that God has given. As a consequence, he is reminding us that what God instructs us to do, if it comes out of a heart that is not motivated by mercy, that is right as it may be, it may actually be offensive to God.



 Believe that?



 Actually it was Jesus Himself who taught what? That on the day of judgment, there will be people who say, "Lord, did I not feed the poor in Your name? Did I not cast out demons in Your name? Did I not perform miracles in Your name?" And Jesus will say to them, "I never knew you." Why?



 Because it was not done for His name.



 It was done for show.



 It was done to establish their glory. Simple message. Obedience not motivated by mercy is offensive to God.



 But there's another message. Obedience that is motivated by mercy is informed by God. If these are not handcuffs of legalism saying, "What do I have to do to make God happy?" But they are rather the marks on hands that are yielded to God to say, "God, now that You've been so merciful to me, how can I show You my gratitude, my thanksgiving, my love?" If that's what they are, then they need to be filled with the means that God gives us to show Him glory. And He has explained what that is. He explains that for the believer who is marked by mercy and wants to have hands expressing it back to God in glory are first marked by different priorities.



 You know the words of verses 1 and 2 present your bodies as living sacrifices. Don't be conformed any longer to this word, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind of what God has done in your behalf. You're not trying to gain His affection anymore. No, that's not it. You're giving Him your affection as a consequence of His great mercy. And that changes your priorities. So verse 3 says, "I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think."



 What would be, what would it be to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think? To think that would apply to Jesus does not apply to you.



 After all, the reason we offer ourselves in sacrifice is that He sacrificed. The reason that we want to follow the standards of God is that He followed the standards of God. And this of course may require sacrifice from us. But if we're living by His priorities, not just show, not just getting attention for ourselves, then that actually is part of our own glory and joy. The fact that we would live standards of God in sacrifice to show love is not supposed to be some sort of morose Christianity. It's actually saying we receive the privilege of expressing our heart for Christ day after day. And that brings us joy. I think of the strange words of Acts chapter 5, where after the resurrection that we celebrated last week, the apostles begin to preach in Jerusalem. And as they begin to preach and proclaim that Jesus is the Christ, He is the long anticipated Messiah, that the religious leaders beat them and put them into prison.



 And then an angel releases them at night.



 Now they already know the consequences of preaching, but what do they go right back to?



 They go right back to preaching. They say it's better to obey God than man.



 And as a consequence, they are arrested again, beaten again, and told not to preach.



 But they leave, think of these strange words with this, they left the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. For whose name?



 For Jesus' name. They're saying, "I get to give Him what He gave to me. That mercy toward me, I now get to express as I live in sacrificial godliness for Him's sake. And I actually rejoice that He counts me worthy to do that.



 I sense some of the joy." As I as a pastor of this church heard some of the Easter testimonies of people in this congregation whom the Lord used to invite people here to minister to people who ought to be here. I think of a businessman in our community.



 And he says, just as a consequence of Easter preparation, he was on a business meeting with some of his colleagues, a business trip.



 And at the end of the day's activities, the various colleagues began to get smashed and



 planned the evening's immoral activities, invited him along.



 No, well, why not?



 Well, I want to live for Jesus, who gave Himself for my sins.



 "Sins?



 You don't believe that?" "Trash," said one of the colleagues with more profanity than I just expressed.



 I do.



 Colleague left, went out with the crew, later called more drunk and asked in a late-night phone call. "You want to know why I don't believe in God?



 Because why would God take away the father and an 11-year-old girl?"



 And the woman on the phone asking the question was not only living apart from God, but living with a partner and wanting nothing to do with God until the cancer diagnosis a few days later, and whom then did she call?



 The one who was living for the Lord Jesus.



 I think of a man who took one of our Easter baskets, and he took it maybe to a place that not many people in this church would think to take it, to a trailer park in a not nice part of town, invited one of his friends, not knowing that when he went there and knocked on the door, the friend was high, and hearing the knocking on the door, thought it was an attack, so he burst through the door and put my friend in a chokehold, which wasn't exactly what he expected in delivering an Easter basket.



 But when we talked about it, he said, "You know, I was really distressed about that until we talked to it, but do you recognize God was counting you worthy of suffering for him and spreading the gospel?" I think of a young woman in this community who took one of those Easter baskets, and she has been for months ministering to a clerk in a retail store, and just thought, "Here's an opportunity." Knowing that it might be uncomfortable, knowing that it might be difficult, just took the Easter basket to invite to come to our worship service where that person then came.



 Each place, somebody rejoiced that they were counted worthy of suffering for the Savior because they believed it was making a difference for the kingdom, and they're living priorities out of mercy toward them that's turning their world, their priorities, their living situation upside down, that the world cannot understand it, but they understand it. I get to live for the Lord, and I tell you those different examples, because you begin to recognize that each of these persons is expressing their gifts in very different ways, and that's actually preparation for what the apostle is saying here. We don't just live different priorities. Recognizing different people are called to live differently, we begin to accept differences among us. Verse 4, "For as in one body we are many members, and the members do not all have the same function," I'll just stop there for now, "you recognize the apostle saying, God has called people to different functions in the church, even though they're all part of the same body. They will serve differently, their gifts, depending on the verse you're looking at in this passage, will vary in proportion, they will vary in measure, but all according to the grace of God." What plan he is working is using lots of us in different ways. And so the apostle will say in verse 6, "Some are given the gift of prophecy," which is about giving people spiritual direction. But right in the very next verse, verse 7, he says, "Some are given the gift of service that is giving physical aid to people." Now recognize, both of these are identified as gifts from God. One is very spiritually oriented, one is very physically oriented, but both are being used to take the ministry of the church into the community as God intended. As God is blessing those different things, he also says, "Some are gifted in teaching," verse 7. Some in exhortation, verse 8, which is probably about inspiration, even challenge, the way Cam was just doing a few minutes ago.



 "Some will be gifted in contribution, providing the resources needed for ministry. Some will be gifted in leadership, equipping and directing others for ministry. Some will simply be expressing mercy, taking the heart of the church to the disadvantaged and the oppressed."



 Nothing actually so builds a church as different people expressing God's gifts in different ways. After all, that is what verse 6 says. "They have gifts that differ according to the grace given." So Paul says, "Let us use them."



 The gifts are given so that we would actually use them. Nothing so builds the church as people identifying the gifts they have and then actually using their gifts. Verse 7, "If you can serve, serve."



 Verse 7 as well, "If you can teach, teach."



 What has God given you? Take it and use it for His service in the church. And I think, what does it mean to serve? And my mind immediately goes to the Monday morning crew who are here every Monday serving this church with just helping its physical resources to be prepared for following days and weeks and ministries. And there's the women's quilting, and it's not just quilts. I mean, they are knitting hats for newborns of families that can't afford it. They are knitting clothes bags for children who are being taken out of their homes by family services and put in other homes, and they would not have even a bag other than a garbage bag in this world to put their worldly goods in if it were not for the women of this church preparing for them and ministry to them. If you can serve, serve. If you can teach, teach. And my mind immediately goes to the Sunday school teachers, some who minister for decades. But the more I get to know the congregation, I recognize there are other people who are offering their gifts of teaching in other ways. I think of the unsung heroes of this community, the Christian school teachers, the urban school educators who could serve with greater affluence and ease in the suburban environments, but year after year, decade after decade, give themselves to the disadvantaged and underprivileged, put themselves in financial hurt in order to be able to serve this community. And they do it by the teaching that they can do. They are listening to the words of the apostle in your serving serve, the one who teaches, served by teaching. What has God given you the ability to do? You take it and you use it for the glory of God, and you counted a privilege rejoicing that I've been counted worthy to live for the glory of my Savior. There are those, of course, who will be called to do things like not only educate, but exhort.



 There are those who will be called to offer a contribution, and there they are told to do it with generosity. There are people we need to say to them, "Your gift is making money.



 Make it." And then be generous with it. It's God's calling on your life, because most of us, money would ruin us. But there are people specifically gifted in the kingdom of God to make money and know how to use it for God's purposes. There are people gifted, verse 8, for leading. And he says, "Do it with zeal." Not half-hearted, not dragging you into leadership. If you can lead, offer your leadership to the church. I think of the officers who do that year after year, who could be doing other things on their Tuesday nights, but offer themselves to leading this church. If mercy, not begrudging, but do it with cheer, says the apostle in verse 8. All of these are simply using the gifts, recognizing the church cannot be better built up than when different people use their differing gifts.



 At the same moment, the apostle is being rather cautious by making us aware nothing so damages the church as people demeaning others' gifts.



 You don't have my gifts.



 So you're not as holy, sincere, or good, because you don't do what I do or do it my way. Verse 4, again, so important, "The members do not all have the same function."



 We need to hear that and let it resonate. I think of what happens in our church if we are not careful. You don't evangelize like me.



 Therefore, you are not faithful.



 I wonder if people who say that sort of thing were thinking about what people were doing with the Easter baskets.



 Such a little thing. What people are doing when they invite children of all nations into their homes. How there are different ways of doing that. You don't give like me. Therefore you are not as faithful as I. You don't worship like me. Therefore you are not as sincere as I. You do not serve as I do. Therefore you are not as zealous as I. No.



 The apostle, having told us about these different functions, then offers the caution that we not only accept others' gifts, we respect others' gifts.



 Verse 5 gets us going down the right track. "So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another." Hey, we're different, but part of the same body and actually serving one another in that body. Every ball team knows, you know, the power hitter is not the same as the base stealer, right? They need to be different and still respect one another's differing gifts. Any corporation or company. We have the engineers, we have the managers, we have the attorneys, we have the HR people, we have the marketing people, and all of them are needed in the body. And for that reason, we are supposed to appreciate each other. Verse 10, "Love one another with brotherly affection." Outdo one another in showing honor.



 Outdo one another in showing honor?



 That means I should look at another person and be able to say, "You know, I profoundly respect your ability to evangelize. I don't have your gifts, I don't have the ability, but I profoundly respect." And that person should be saying to another person, "I profoundly respect your ability to teach. I mean, I just don't have those gifts." And we should be competing on outdoing one another in giving honor.



 Now, competing is harder to find than depleting one another with honor, right? Usually the church has lots of those people in surplus who say, "You're not like me. You don't do what I want. You don't," and deplete honor. But the apostle is saying, "No, we should actually be competing for who can give the most honor one to another." He's more explicit in 1 Corinthians 12. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you." The head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you." The parts of the body that actually seem insignificant are indispensable.



 This last week, I, with a number of you in this church, went with the men and women of St. Paul's and to continue to break down ethnic and economic barriers in this city, we took a trip to the Martin Luther King commemoration in Memphis, Tennessee. We went together. And as we went together, I must tell you there was a variety of persons there who were speaking to us. There were the social activists.



 There were the young hotheads. There were the political wannabes. There were the political has-beens.



 But the man who most impressed me was John Perkins, who for decades and decades has ministered in Mendenhall, Mississippi, establishing voice of Calvary, a voice of the gospel across racism and economic oppression across this whole nation. And John Perkins told the account of his conversion. He had actually moved out of Mississippi, moved to California, wanted to get away from it all, until one day one of his children came home, having been in a neighborhood Bible club sponsored by Child Evangelism Fellowship. Thank you, Katrina.



 And came home singing the song, "Jesus Loves the Little Children, All the Children of the World, Red and Yellow, Black and White, They Are Precious in His Sight." And that insignificant, silly, cliche, childish song touched his heart.



 And not only did it lead to his conversion, it led him back to Mississippi to become that voice for Jesus against the worst of oppression that resulted in his own torture in a Mississippi jail. Some of you will know the story. And his refusal to return in hate, but to live for the gospel. Who gets the credit for that? John Perkins?



 The child?



 The teacher who taught the child? The parent of the teacher who taught the teacher?



 Every member does their work. And what may seem to be least significant is actually indispensable. And for that reason, we love to give each other honor. Man, do I appreciate your evangelism gifts. That's amazing. Wow! I so respect your generosity.



 It's so few people who put their money where their faith is.



 It's amazing. I don't know how you have the patience and the tolerance to deal with those children week after week, much less day after day.



 Incredible.



 I don't have the courage to wade into those messy family situations the way some of the pastors and counselors of this church do. And they just do it day after day as God has equipped them with courage and care and write the same heart.



 Incredible gifting. And I praise God for it. Not just because of what happens in the church, but because you recognize if you get experience at outdoing one another in honor, that begins to overflow into other areas of your life. A husband will say to a wife, "Honey, listen. I don't know how you do it, but you can just speak to that child in a way that I can't. How God has gifted you for ministering to that child." And sometimes different stages of life, right? Sometimes it's mom in the early years, sometimes it's dads in the teen years. And it's not just moms and dads as they begin to honor one another with the way God has variously gifted them. We take it into business and we recognize that the common chatter in the lunchroom is the idiocy of the leaders of the company.



 What if we were able to actually turn it and say, "You know what? I couldn't do that. I honor those who have been able to do so." They had to make hard, difficult decisions. You might be ostracized by peers and at the same time be giving an example of what it means to honor people unlike yourself as God was beginning to work in you. And all of this is driven by mercy, that what I have received is the reality that I am holy and acceptable to God. I don't have to gain anything anymore. I don't have to prove anything anymore. And because I have the full resources of the mercy of the grace of God for me, I can begin to share it. I can outdo one another in honor. I can begin to show people that I don't have to just compete for attention and fame and honor.



 And that changes what happens in the church as well.



 After all, what we ultimately do as we are accepting and respecting differences is we are making a difference in the church. Verse 9, "Let love be genuine. Abhoor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good." And what does that genuine love look like? Verse 10, "Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor." It's this key word of love shown by honoring others that itself begins to have a reverberating effect.



 Verse 12, "Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer."



 Because you're not competing anymore for honor? What are you able to do to actually, in affection for others, to live your faith? Put your faith in it. You rejoice in hope. You believe God is still working. Remember, hope is faith future. I'm still believing God is working. He's still got a plan. Because He has that, I am patient in tribulation. I believe God's not done, even when it's hard in home, in place, in work, in relationships. I believe God's not done. And so I'm patient in tribulation and constant in prayer. I believe God is living and listening. And that's changing how I interact with people so that ultimately what I begin to recognize is happening is I am living wherever I am unto the Lord. Verse 11, "The apostle is giving us all these instructions of these difficult ways of handling relationships as, do not be slothful and zeal. Be fervent in spirit." And then the key phrase, "Serve the Lord."



 You're not doing it because they deserve it.



 You're not doing it because you're gaining anything. You're doing it because the Lord has given you the riches of His glory in grace.



 And so whatever I'm doing now is not done because that person deserves it, because it feels good.



 I'm serving the Lord in the way that I honor others.



 And that is supposed to have a profound effect on us and other people. Verse 13, "Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality."



 I just always like little Holy Spirit moments and I think, "Oh, great. Grace 150, campaign Sunday, and what does it say? Contribute to the needs of the saints."



 So if you can do that, do that. It will make a difference not just for facilities, it will make a difference for the lives and the eternities of many who are touched by the ministry of this church, unleashed by a generous people.



 But it doesn't just say contribution.



 It says, "Show hospitality."



 A 150-year-old church has trouble doing this, folks.



 Listen, I praise God for Sunday school classes that have been together for 25 or 30 or 40 years. But do you recognize what a relational barrier that is to new people coming in? How hard that class now has to work to say, "You're welcome. Please come in. Let us enfold you." And it's not just Sunday school classes. It's the way that we socialize in our homes. Do we invite others to our meals? Are neighbors welcome? Are people of different ethnicity welcome in our homes? I think of the hospitality on display to us when some of the families of this church are going thousands of miles across ethnicities and nations to claim children who are disadvantaged and bring them into our midst for the sake of the eternity of that child.



 And how there are families right here, even now, who are, I'm watching one in the back, holding a child that's a foster child from a disadvantaged or drug-infested neighborhood and is taking that child into their home.



 The cost not just of finances, but of emotion to raise and care for that child that may ultimately be given away, but to make a difference and to count it a blessing that I have been counted worthy of expressing the mercy of Christ in a child by hospitality that has such a profound impact upon others. I think of just a few weeks ago when I told you the story of Speedy Edie, the special needs girl who was changed by a teacher who would just go to her track meets and cheer for her, and one of the parents came up after the service, let me tell you my story, of my special needs son whom no teacher wanted in their classroom at school, except for one who said, "I'll take him. I want him in my class." And the difference that made for a lifetime for that child of just having hospitality in the classroom opened by a teacher who was living for Christ's sake. This is not legalistic rules. It is God's people recognizing the mercy they have received. They have the privilege of radiating and believing it will profoundly affect not just the church, but the world.



 After all, the apostle changes tone remarkably at verse 14. "Bless those who persecute you." Verse 17, "Repay no evil for evil. Eighteen, if possible, if peaceably with all. Nineteen, beloved, never avenge.



 If your enemy is hungry, feed him." Verse 21 at the end, "Overcome evil with good."



 This change of heart, this change of attitude, this motivation by mercy is ultimately not just directed at the Christian community. It is mercy on mission.



 Because I look at those who are evil in the community, difficult in my neighborhood, persecuting of me, and for Christ's sake, reach across my hurt to help them.



 My is that a change of priorities and fueled by the mercy of God who loved us while we were yet his enemies.



 I told you no man had a more profound influence on me in Memphis than John Perkins, who by the way is going to be here in a few weeks at Southside Mission, by a table, okay?



 Support that ministry across all those ethnic and demographic lines.



 But John Perkins talked about what it meant for him to be tortured by a police officer and what maintained him. He said, "I had to believe in those moments that the man who was torturing me was a man for whom Christ had died.



 It was all that would keep my heart pure." And he later said to us, "A word that you may have heard other places." He simply said, "I had to remind myself, let no man bring you so low as to cause you to hate him."



 It's driving the gospel out of us. Unless we have said, "No, for Christ's sake, I will live." I didn't know the profound effect on the world. Can good really overcome evil? The John Perkins said where he had told his life story with such impact, I could hardly believe.



 Yeah, I'd heard it in the Midwest. I'd heard it in the South. I'd heard it in California.



 But he told his story in the nation of Jordan in the midst of the Middle East conflict.



 And at the end of his story, the King of Jordan said, "If a man in Mississippi who is black can be reconciled to the KKK, then there is still hope for us."



 There is, there is still hope for us. I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercy of God to offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and acceptable to God, which is what you are. This is your reasonable act of worship for a Savior who died for you. Don't be conformed to this world. Be transformed by the renewal of your mind so that by testing you may discern what God's will is, His good, pleasing and perfect will, and Christ will be glorified. Praise God. Amen. Father, so work your word into our hearts that we who have received mercy might radiate it for Jesus. We ask this in the name of the Savior. Amen.