Romans Chapter 12:5-10

If you don't pour out your gifts in a body, whether it's this body, this church, or another church, then you're missing out and people are missing out.

So you have to make a decision to be committed. Often what we try to do is we try to find the perfect church. There is no perfect church. And a lot of times when you're looking for the perfect church, you know what you're doing?

You're being ripped off. Why? Because you're never going to go to church anywhere for any length of time.

Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. Many people nowadays spend a lot of time church shopping rather than finding one body and staying there. Find out why it's important to be committed to a local body today as Pastor David continues in Romans 12 with the Body of Christ. Turn with me to Romans chapter 12. Let's look at verse 5.

It says, So we being many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. So you have different gifts than I have. I have different gifts than you do. There are things that you do better than I could ever do. There are things that God has gifted me to do that are better than you'll ever do. But as we join together, there's this powerful thing that happens because no one does everything better than everybody else.

No one. If you don't pour out your gifts in a body, whether it's this body, this church or another church, then you're missing out and people are missing out. So you have to make a decision to be committed. It's interesting to me that, you know, we've gone to like a generation of church shoppers, hoppers, boppers. Often what we try to do is we try to find the perfect church. There is no perfect church. And a lot of times when you're looking for the perfect church, you know what you're doing? You're being ripped off.

Why? Because you're never going to go to church anywhere for any length of time. You're going to go until you figure out that there's something wrong with the people or there's something wrong with the pastor. I'll go ahead and tell you, if you're new here, there is something wrong with me. You can still call and still email, but I already know.

But here's also what I know. In love, there's something wrong with you too. So what we need to do is all join together and get along because again, if there was a perfect church, you couldn't join it because at the moment you walked in, you'd ruin it for everybody. They'd walk up and say, oh, sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave.

This church is for perfect people and you're obviously not perfect. Oftentimes in the scripture, we're given a military analogy that we're supposed to fight, that we're supposed to serve, that we're a soldier and whatnot. Can you imagine going out to a battlefield and seeing a soldier and go, hey, soldier, how you doing?

I'm doing good. Hey, well, what platoon are you fighting with? Well, I'm not really with a platoon. What do you mean you're not with a platoon?

Well, I'm kind of doing my own thing. Yeah, I mean, I go from one platoon to another. How do you fight? Well, I just kind of fight when I feel like it. Well, I mean, how do you know when the battle's going on? Well, I just kind of feel internally when the battle's going on. You would know that you were dealing with somebody that wasn't all there because that's not what soldiers do.

Soldiers serve alongside one another or it's a very weak and frail effort. Verse six says, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. If prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith. Again, I'll give it to you in the New Living Translation. I'm in the New King James. New Living Translation, I like to a large degree because of the way it phrases things, but it says, God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out when you have faith that God is speaking through you.

I'll speak through the prophecy thing in just a second, but those are first part. I've given each of us the ability to do certain things well. You do certain things well. And as you join and give the best that you have with the body of Christ, incredible things happen. Incredible things happen.

What happens if you don't? Jesus told a story about, and he uses the phrase talents. Talent was a form of currency, if you will. And he gave one person some talents and they invested it and did well and God rewarded them. And another person, they got less talents, but they invest them and did well. And then one person got just a little bit of talent, just got one talent and he went and buried it.

And then the story Jesus told the leader got very upset. See, you've been given talents and gifts. Don't bury them.

We've got people that, a lot of people that are on the media team, we got people that they, they didn't necessarily do camera work or film production or anything like that before they got here, but they got here and some of them showed just an incredible knack for it. The body of Christ is so cool. Here's the next life lesson. We got a lot of life lessons today because there's so much practical personal application here. You have a unique gift that will bless yourself and others if you use it. It will bless no one if you won't or don't use it. You have a unique gift that will bless yourself and others if you use it. It will bless no one if you won't or don't use it. It's cool to see people who have gifts and they get to use them that, you know, the worship team would get up here and so many people are very gifted.

They do what they do and it's just so cool. And God is glorified, but what if they refused? They would miss out on a blessing. Any form of ministry is a blessing. There's just, we are wired to pour out in the giveaway and when you don't pour out and give away, you're frustrating the process of God in your life and you'll miss out on a blessing.

You'll miss out on a blessing. This word here, having then gifts, this word gifts in the Greek is karimata. It's where we get our word for charismatic. And it's kind of interesting, you know, some people say, was it a charismatic church? Well, you know, in the truest sense of the word, they're saying, is it a gifted church? Well, I hope, I hope that there's gifts that are being utilized. And a lot of times, you know, it's kind of interesting because when we ask that we say it was a charismatic church, what we're saying is, are the gifts overemphasized more than the giver of the gifts? But you know, the Bible talks about these gifts and, and I know some people say, well, God, he doesn't do that anymore.

You know what? I don't see that in scripture. Now this portion of scripture is talking about natural gifts and there's another portion that talks about supernatural gifts, but, and you can look at first Corinthians 14 to see some of those supernatural gifts that read first Corinthians 12 as well. But so this prophecy, what is prophecy? Does that mean like to say, Hey, this was going to happen on that day? Could be, could be more often if the definition of prophecy is really speaking on behalf of God, it's not always foretelling the future. It could be, or it could be kind of knowing something that you're not supposed to know in the sense of, and we've all seen this stuff abused, or at least I have. So we can get all weird and freaky about prophecy, or you can realize that every Thursday night, every Sunday morning, there's prophecy going on in this church.

Why? Because I'm up here talking for God. I'm up here teaching the word of God. And I think that is one of the, if you will, greatest uses of the prophetic gift is to enlighten people on God's word. Now some of you make have come from fellowships where, you know, somebody stands up in the middle of services, you know, that's they have the Lord enough. And sometimes, I don't know, sometimes that can be of the Lord.

And sometimes it's not. Verse seven says, or ministry, let us use it in our ministry. Ministering again is an act of service. It's not, we think of ministry as well, ministry is teaching the word. Well, it can be, but ministry is also helping people park in a parking lot. Ministry is helping clean the restroom, showing up at the church at 7 a.m. on Sunday. Ministry is happening in the children's ministry, serving. The New Living Translation again says, if your gift is that of serving others, serve them well.

If you're a teacher, do a good job of teaching. There's an interesting thing in the New King, in the King James in this verse, and it says, or ministry, let us wait on our ministry. That's only in the King James, but that's kind of an interesting thing. Why? Because sometimes you may feel like you're supposed to do something. God reveals it to you, but it's not the timing yet to do it.

Depending on your nature and your personality, that can be a really frustrating thing. Cause you know what you're supposed to do, but God's going nope, nope, nope, nope, not yet. Ever seen the horses like at the Kentucky Derby and stuff and they, you know, they they're holding the back, man, those horses are ready to go, aren't they? They know what they gotta do.

They know what they're supposed to do, but it's not time to do it yet. So sometimes we have to wait on, on the Lord, but oftentimes God is waiting on us. We'll return to David's teaching in just a moment. First, I want to tell you about a special booklet that would be the perfect gift for any man on your Christmas list this year. The booklet is entitled A Father's Blessing and within its pages, David McGee discusses the power and responsibility a father has in caring for his family.

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Contact us today for your copy. Now let's return to David McGee's verse by verse teaching in the book of Romans. Let's look at verse eight. It says, he who exhorts in exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence and he who shows mercy with cheerfulness. Again, the living translation, if your gift is to encourage others, do it.

If you have money, share it generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly. Now, even just this, just this one verse, look at the encouraging people, giving financially, leadership ability, and a gift for showing kindness.

How cool would the church be at large and this church particular, if people all express their giftings towards us and walked in their giftings, it would be incredible. But oftentimes we're like, well, I'm waiting on the Lord. God is like three miles down the road, friend, sometimes. And that, well, I'm waiting on the Lord. No, I think more often God is waiting on us and we, we tend to spiritualize what we don't want to do.

You ever notice that? I'll go ahead and warn you. We're all about to get convicted. Okay. Well, you know, Hey, I'd like you to, maybe you could come help me with the children's ministry. Well, I'm going to have to pray about that.

And what that really means is no, but I don't want to say that to you. I want to sound spiritual, but sometimes the most spiritual thing is to just do it, step out and do something. Well, I'm waiting on the Lord.

No, you're not. It's rare that that's a real thing that we're really waiting on the Lord. It's often this, I really don't want to do anything, but I can't say, I don't want to do anything. I can't say, well, I just want to be a pupa tater. I never want to do nothing here.

I just want to kind of float in drift out friend. I know me. Oh, I'm praying. I'm waiting on the Lord.

There's a picture of this in the old Testament, Hebrew scriptures, but Jonathan, the son of Saul, who was a King they're fighting and he goes, he takes his arm around. He goes, Hey man, you know what? Let's go up here. Let's pick a fight.

We'll see how it goes. God may do something really, really cool. Do you know where his dad was? Says he was sitting under a pomegranate tree, probably sleeping. And then somebody wakes him up and goes, Hey, there's a battle going on over there. Battle going on. Yeah.

You know, like you're supposed to be in the battle since you're King and leader. And Saul does an interesting thing. He goes, first of all, he takes a census. Well, tell me who's gone. Tell you who's gone.

What does it matter who's gone? And they say, well, Jonathan and his armor bearer. Oh, well bring me the ark of the Lord.

Now that sounds really religious. Sounds like a good thing to you realize there's a battle going on. His son's in the battle and he's trying to be, Oh, well bring me the ark of the Lord. We'll consult the Lord and see what the Lord, you know, he was sleeping through the battle.

And in the midst of the battle, he's getting all religious with all these little different sayings. I hope that doesn't describe you friend. Cause a lot of times you say, well, I'm planning on doing this. I'm preparing to do that. And no, no, no, just, just get out there and do it. Just begin to do it. When you look at the Bible, some incredible things happen just with little small steps. You're supposed to encourage people, encourage them.

Yeah. Easy it is to encourage somebody smile at them. Say, Hey, tell them you're glad to see you. Maybe send them an email, send them a phone call, send them a text or whatever.

Hey, glad to see you. And then it says, you know, given with liberality. If somebody has been gifted to make money, they are also gifted to give money. They asked Rockefeller. He died. John D Rockefeller died. It's incredibly, incredibly wealthy. And the guy came up to his account and said, man, how much did he leave?

The accountant looked at him and said, all of it, all of it. So these things that we're gifted to do, we have to step out and begin to do them like another life lesson. Use whatever gifts you have to bless others. Use whatever gifts you have to bless others. Let us use them is what the verse says. Let us use them. A lot of times we think, well, I'll start serving as soon as fill in your blank.

As soon as I worked through some issues, when are you going to finish working through issues? Seriously? And you get to heaven. So you're going to get to heaven and go, well, I'm ready to serve now.

No gang. Here's the thing. And Jesus tells us, he's going to greet some people with this well done.

Thou good and faithful servant. And I think if we're honest and we sit here and if you've asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins, there's a part of you that wants to hear that. There's a part of me that wants to hear that. Okay. So that's where you want to be. That's where you want to end up.

So let's kind of work backwards. Okay. So if you want to hear well done, good and faithful servant, guess what needs to happen between now and then you need to serve the Lord so that on that day you can hear the Lord say that because friend, I guarantee you there's going to be people on that day ago. Well, well, uh, I was about to serve. I was, I was looking for the perfect church.

Couldn't find it. So I just kind of wandered around and never actually served. I've heard all the reasons people have for not serving in the church and I've never heard a good one.

Actually, I have a woman whose husband was very ill said it dropped out of serving so she could care for her husband. Well, I don't have time. What do you mean you don't have time? You got like 22 hours in a day and the people that show up here have 24 hours.

No, no. We all have time. It's a choice. Verse nine says, let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Clean up what is good. Man, new living translation. Just don't pretend that you love others.

Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Stand on the side of good and his is, this is a meaty stuff. And I mean, this is stuff you can sink your teeth in and, and you can just, you know, and I would encourage you for next couple of weeks, maybe read this chapter every day because there's great practical stuff in here. The word it's clean.

It clean in the new King James as Kaleo actually comes from the word glue. Hold fast to what is good. Don't tolerate what is evil. Now, before you go out and not tolerate people who are bad, I think a more practical application is don't tolerate what's wrong in your life. One more verse. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love and honor giving preference to one another.

Well, I think we got enough to work on. This is, this is just great stuff and understand this is not the way the world thinks. It doesn't matter if you were brought up in an incredibly spiritual family.

There's part of you that missed part of this. Paul is saying, Hey, there is a Christian code of honor, if you will, to love other people, to serve them. That is different than what the world says. And this is what we have to understand because a lot of times we think, you know, I want to ask Jesus to forgive me on my sins.

Awesome, man. That is, and that is a grace thing. God just gives you that forgiveness for the asking.

Okay. And then when God gives that to you, what, what do you do with it? See, if you're trying to figure out how Jesus can fit in your life, you're kind of missing the point. Jesus wants to be your life. He wants to be the center of who you are. And every one of us has something not good in that center. If it's, maybe it's money, maybe it's work, maybe it's even family or kids or your spouse or whatever, that place is only for God. And any life that puts something else in the center of it, friend, it's not going to go well. God has to be the center. That's the way we're built. That's the way we're wired. And God doesn't make like a, you know, a mystery out of it.

He reveals these secrets, but oftentimes as Christians, I got to say that oftentimes we, we focus on those things that are spiritually self-indulgent. We call a Sunday morning. What do we call it? It was service. I'm going to service. Well, some people came to serve here this morning, but some people came to worship the Lord and receive from God. Now that's great. We all need to be poured into, but we also need to be pouring out, spend time in prayer.

That's awesome. Communion with God, man. I love communion with God. I love fellowship and with the Lord, but who does that benefit? It benefits me.

It benefits me. But when we pour out, those are some of the most spiritual things we do. Why?

Because it's not spiritually self-indulgent. Now, again, we need to be poured into. And if you say, well, I don't want to be in service.

And one of the things I do is I make sure staff and team leaders and stuff, if they're busy, that they're in a service. Why? Because they need to be poured into.

Why? Because they're pouring out. But if you're just poured into and you're not pouring out, that creates a problem, doesn't it? There's two bodies of water in Israel, the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. The Sea of Galilee, the Jordan flows into the Sea of Galilee and it's filled with fish and all sorts of wildlife and stuff.

And then it flows out. The Jordan River continues on down to the Dead Sea. Well, the Dead Sea, the Jordan River flows into it.

Nothing flows out of the Dead Sea. And because of that, the waters have become toxic and no fish or nothing living resides there. Our lives can become like the Dead Sea if we're not pouring out. They become toxic. They become poisonous. We become bitter.

We become cynical. Heard a story. This lady comes to the pastor and says, pastor, I am, I'm really depressed and I need to meet with you. He said, fine. So we met with her and she talked most of the time spent about her, how she felt and she felt depressed and people didn't value her and all these different things and got to the end thing. He said, okay, here's what I want you to do before you come back in next week.

I want you to make three batches of cookies and give them away. She said, well, I don't understand. He said, I'm not asking you understand what I'm asking you. I'm just asking you to do it.

Will you do that? And she said, yeah, okay. Well, the next week time for their appointment, she didn't show up.

It was supposed to be a standing appointment next week. She didn't show up. Finally saw her in church and said, what's going on?

I thought we were getting together and meet. She said, pastor, I'll be honest with you. I made three batches of cookies and I gave them away. I didn't need to come back because once I started ministering to other people and really listening to what their problems were and what was going on in their life, you know, somehow I didn't feel so bad about the things that are going on in my life. Do you understand that even secular psychologists suggest that people that deny God, deny sin, deny Jesus say, if you're depressed, one of the best things you can do is begin to do something for somebody else.

I wonder where they got that concept. Jesus, Matthew 10, 29 says, he who finds his life will lose it. And he who loses his life for my sake will find it. Acts 20, 35, I've shown you in every way by laboring like this, that you must support the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus that he said, it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Psalm 84, 10, a single day in your courts is better than a thousand anywhere else. I'd rather be a gatekeeper in the house of my God than live the good life in the homes of the wicked. This is radical stuff. This is not the way the world thinks. And if we're following Jesus, guess what? We got to begin to change the way we think.

That's how the whole chapter started out. You got to change the way you think. And again, you need to receive. You're here this morning, you're hearing the word of God.

That's great. But you know, as you breathe and you're breathing in the word of God, you're, you're if you will. But what happens if you just inhale? You can't live like that.

You've got to exhale. There has to be an exchange. And maybe you sit there and go, well, I really don't have much to offer.

You just admitted you have something to offer. You may feel like it's a little bit, but you understand in this book, it's incredible stories of people having just a little bit and God doing a lot with it. If you think of Joshua, Joshua blew a horn and walls of a city fell down. Moses lifted this piece of wood and the water and the Red Sea parted. A little shepherd boy picked up some stones and became the King of Israel when David took out Goliath. A little boy in the New Testament offered up his bread and his fish.

And in the hands of Jesus, it fed 5,000 people. So friend, if you're looking at your gift going, well, it's not much, it's something that God can use. And a little becomes a lot in the hands of our God.

I really want to encourage you to begin if you haven't already a life of adventure, of pouring out your giftings and seeing what the Lord will do with them. You'll be blessed. Other people will be blessed.

The world will be a different place. Let's understand the first thing God wants from you is not your gifting. First thing he wants from you is your sin.

If you don't know Jesus as your savior, the Lord is saying, you know what? Give me your sin. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven and I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life and I've done wrong things. I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If this was your first time praying that prayer with Pastor David, we would love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Jesus. Also, if you have been blessed by the ministry of Cross the Bridge and David McGee, would you consider supporting us with a financial gift? This month, when you give to Cross the Bridge, we will send David's powerful booklet on Biblical Fatherhood entitled, A Father's Blessing. The number to call is 877-458-5508. That's 877-458-5508 or go online to crossthebridge.com. While you're there, make sure to sign up for David's email devotional and begin receiving daily inspiration in your inbox. That website again is crossthebridge.com. Thanks for listening today. We pray you will join us next time as we cross the bridge.