Devotion to Christ in a New Culture

Let's turn to Romans, chapter 12. We're going to begin with verse 3. We're going to read the chapter, and this is talking about us, the church, the leaders, the body of Christ, and that's Paul's application of things that we've learned from Christ in the past in the first 11 chapters of Romans. Verse 3. As the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.

For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly. If prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith, if service in his serving, or he who teaches in his teaching, or he who exhorts in his exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good, be devoted to one another in brotherly love, give preference to one another in honor, not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse, rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, be of the same mind toward one another, do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly, do not be wise in your own estimation. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone, respect what is right in the sight of all men.

If possible, so as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him drink, for in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Maybe see. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, we thank you for your great grace and mercy that you would call us, we who are sinners, out of darkness into your marvelous light and show us the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we thank you for your abundant grace and mercy in making us part of your kingdom. We pray, Father, that everyone who is a part of your kingdom tonight will seize upon these words, and those who are not a part of your kingdom will long to have this kind of fellowship with you. We pray this now in Jesus' name.

Amen. You know, at some point in everybody's life, you're going to go two different directions, and even in this globalist world in which we live, so to speak, we're going to go one way. Either we're going to go say, well, I'm not interested in God, don't talk to me about him anymore, or I'm saying, you know, I'm kind of interested, I want to know Christ, I want to know about this God.

You're going to go one way or the other. And Paul is addressing these, the thoughts of the believer here in Rome, how they're going to deal with life, and how should you focus mentally, and how should you think as a Christian, how should you be Christlike in your thoughts, knowing that you've been given great privileges in Christ, different from the rest of the world, because he's drawn you to himself. So in there in 50 or 60 AD, Paul's writing here to the Roman Empire, within the Roman Empire, and this is an expanding empire. And here you are, a little believer in that empire, and they've gone all the way to Britain, and they built Hadrian's Wall to keep the Scots out from attacking them all the time, and then they've gone as far as in the Mesopotamia, down into Iraq and Syria, and then taken over North Africa. The empire was kind of, in their eyes, a globalist one.

And even today in our world, we face people who have globalist ambitions to gain control over things. I think Francis Schaeffer kind of has a little diagram that he uses to describe the secular world that has rejected Christ, where men want to rule men and be God themselves. He says there's two stories. One, the upper story is like where people have God up here, and certain values are high-level values, and ethics are up here.

And the lower value, well, that's where you live. That's the material things. That's the natural world where you live. But Schaeffer says in the modern mind, or the post-Christian mind even, that the lower level has overtaken the top level, and God's been pushed out, and now man rules. Man is the center of the universe. But in chapter 12, Paul is telling us, no, this is not the Roman Empire.

No, the globalists don't control everything. No, God has a new culture. He has his kingdom in which we're part as believers, and so we are called to be a blessing to the rest of the world as God's people. So a believer is a blessing to others when our lives, when we are personally devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ, and we bring glory to him.

Then we are a blessing to others. So in this section of scripture, Paul is talking about a Christian mindset, and it is a humble mindset. You know, the scripture says, let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus, that he made himself of no reputation.

He humbled himself. The Lord God Almighty, the Son of God humbled himself, so we're to have a humble mind set by Christ. And Paul is writing these Roman Christians, and he said earlier in the chapter, he says that we're to be changed by the transforming of your minds. And so we're looking to God in his grace to change us, to mature us, to give us that mindset that brings glory to him and points back to his work. So we are being admonished in a number of ways in this passage of scripture where it says how to think, how to reason, how to look at things. And he says, a person is not to think more highly of themselves as they ought.

That's kind of like a personal rebuke to me and maybe to all of us. Don't think more highly of yourself than you should. Well, it's interesting that word think is, if I pronounce it right, is pharaonio. And the word for not thinking too highly of ourselves is upa pharaonio or hyper thinking. You know, oh, I'm hyper about my arrogance. Don't be hyper about your arrogance, he's saying, or you're thinking of how great you are, but rather be sound in judgment.

Sound in your thinking is what he's saying. So the point made is that each ability that we have, each gift that we've been given, we've received this by the grace of God. We did not create it ourselves. God has blessed us with what we have, the abilities we have, and so we're to see it that way. Paul says there that grace was given to me in the very beginning, and he really emphasizes this. And then later on in that verse where he talks about the grace that things were allotted to him as a measure of faith. And so the point is that all of us, all Christians, receive gifts from God.

We don't create them ourselves. It's because of your faith connection to Christ that you receive these. And so we're called out as God's holy people.

We are set apart. We are being changed into the likeness of God in righteousness and holiness and truth. And so God has given us gifts, and he's given us opportunities to serve others and be a witness in this world, all to his glory. So remember, the mindset here is that it's that I need, we need to be devoted to Christ all the time.

We need to have that focus. He is our Lord. It's not just copying an ethical system, oh, Jesus had all these ethical things. No, it is a relationship with Christ where we want him to be changing us. We believers are a new people, and we've been brought as a group to a new fellowship. And so the believer, as we do here in this church, we live in a holy fellowship in the midst of a secular world.

Very secular. But we're devoted to Christ. And so because we're devoted to Christ, we're devoted to each other. We're devoted to fellow believers in Christ. We are a salt and light community in this world. And so we are a kind of new culture.

We're a different culture. So there are several characteristics of the Christian fellowship that are mentioned here in this passage of Scripture. It begins there in verses 4 and 5, and he talks about this, and that every believer is given gifts to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.

God has a place for us all. And verses 4 and 5 refer to the illustration of the body, which is very obvious that my fingers and my toes are only part of my body, but my eyes, my ears, we all are different, these different parts, different people in this room. But yet, every believer is essential to the body of Christ, and it works that way. We all are important, but yet we have different functions. And this is true of each person in the church.

It says, we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function. And if you look at this another way, that Christ in this church, he's describing us in divisions of labor. There's a division of labor. But yet, there are different roles that have to be fulfilled, and not everyone has the same role.

Not everyone has the same set of gifts or gifts. But we are united, and we are to reflect the Lord Jesus Christ as one body in him. Now, I'll do a little contrast. I don't know if this makes sense or not, but in some world views, this is not what you see. So when you read this passage of Scripture, and you're thinking about the Christian world view, meditate on verses four through eight especially, about the Christian world view. In the Middle East, where Confucius grew up, he had a different world view.

It's kind of interesting, but then it's kind of discouraging. What he said was, here's the way society operates. There is the emperor. And what the emperor says, that comes down to everybody.

It's a hierarchical system. The emperor says this, everybody down the line, listen to the emperor. And then after the emperor, under him are the local governors or little small kings who are under that. And then after that, under the kings, there are the state officials, the scholars and the nobles, the next tier. And then after them, there are the peasants.

Okay, you got that? There are the peasants. Now, after the peasants come the craftsmen and the merchants. That's pretty low people, right?

Okay. And then after that, become the soldiers. And then after the soldiers are the slaves. And that's his hierarchy of society. And that is not what you want. But that was what he came up with in a humanistic way, just looking at life from man to man, that he thought that if everybody was in harmony and listened to the person above them, then everything would work out just fine. And it doesn't work that well.

It's a good model for a tyrant of some sort. But that was his view. Now, that's one worldview.

But you read this, you have another view of a different community, the Christian community. Now, another contrast in that is another fellow, I'll pick on him a little bit by the name of Karl Marx. He championed production.

Production is the key to all of society. And he was upset. And he's really, real theological fervency on this point. The problem with inequality in the world, maybe that's DEI in our day, but the problem with inequality in the world is that, well, if you had the visions of labor, then that separates people. That pits this person against this person.

This person is going to make more money than this person. And that's not equal. So we should have equality across the board.

One exclusive sphere of activity, but each can become accomplished in any branch that they want. So he said, so if you're going to be a fisherman today and pulling in the shrimp, and tomorrow you're going to be running a franchise of a fast food, and the next day you're going to have the scalpel in your hand. You know, it's equality. Well, it doesn't work. His concept is just so narrow that it doesn't work and never has worked. And so all of these things that people have, these humanistic concept of society can be very devastating. Well, but the model that God has for his people is right here in Romans chapter 12. He's describing the body of Christ, the church, the kingdom that lasts forever and ever. So, you know, our four pilgrim forefathers, they rejected the monarchs of Europe because they were a problem.

They were tyrannical at times. But the model for the church here is based upon our unity in Christ. Are you in Christ? Is Christ your Lord and the head of your life? Is he the one that you're following today? Does he have your heart?

Does he have your mind? So we're to have a mindset like Christ has as believers and strive to grow as a believer in Christ. He is the foundation of our community. And in this passage of Scripture, he mentions a couple of times, he says, verse 3, as God has allotted to everyone a measure of faith. And then in verse 6, he talks about gifts that are given there according to the proportion of his faith. Well, this doesn't mean, oh, if I have more faith than you, then I'm going to get a lot more gifts.

No, that's not what it means. It's our faith is in Jesus Christ. He is the one who apportions the gift. So we all who put trust in Christ, he will apportion that gift to us.

So we don't have any reason to run around boasting. I'm a Christian of this spread. If I have these gifts, oh, no, we boast in Jesus Christ because he is the one who gave us grace, gives us grace, and gives us gift.

He receives the glory in the church and among God's people. Now, when we get down to verses 6 and 7, Paul is making a point there. The point he's making here is that there are different gifts, and they're given by God for us to serve Christ and to edify other believers. That's why we receive these gifts in the body of Christ. And there's a long list.

You see the list there. And all of these gifts are given to encourage and strengthen other believers. They're not for our self-aggrandizement. Look at me. I'm doing this well. You know, I want Christian fame.

No, that's not what they're here for. They're for us to serve others in the body of Christ. So the first one I've mentioned, of course, is prophecy.

We'll run through these quickly. And prophecy, and you know what that means? That means the preaching of the Word. That means the teaching of the Word, primarily not the predictive.

The prediction's already been done. It's written in Scripture. But this is speaking forth God's truth. The next is come service, not necessarily only the diagonal role, but it's also just wanting to serve each other. And I see that around Grace Church.

This person's really busy over here. They have no accolades, but they've been there serving for a long time in this area. That is a gift of service. They want to help. They want to build the body of Christ.

And that's something they've got to put in their heart. And then there's the teaching. Those who are called to teach, the teaching elders, and even ruling elders who are required to be apt to teach, able to teach, and that really builds up the church.

And I want to tell you a true story. When I was at King College in Bristol, Tennessee, now it's King University, but there were a couple churches there, the Southern Presbyterian churches, went across the golf course that had a carillon tower about five stories high or something, beautiful church, nice people. I went there a few times, four, five, six college students in the college class. The guy was a professional in business, and he did a good job. But then we went to the Mill Village Church, that used to be a mill village, and down that church, and we sat down there in that class, and I looked around and I thought, what's going on? The guy who spoke, he was a high school graduate. I couldn't remember, he was over the mechanics, it was either Greyhound or school bus system, I wasn't sure, but he got his is, ahs, and weres all twisted around once in a while, but he really loved the Lord and he taught the Word of God. And I'm sitting there thinking, wait a minute, there's David Hopper. He's a misch kid, he's a pre-med student. Here's this guy, I can't remember his name, and he was a physics guy.

He has a 4.0 all the time. I'm sitting around all these King scholars, 15 to 20, week after week, and they're listening to this guy with a high school education. I'm thinking, what?

What's wrong with you? The man loved Jesus Christ, he belonged to Christ, he loved God's Word and he studied God's Word. That is the secret. That's what was going on. God had gifted him in that role.

It didn't matter about those other credentials. And so here we have another gift that's exhorting. Doug does a lot of exhorting, he's gifted in that area. And this is where I'm telling people, this is how you need to live.

This is an application and that's a very important role. Then there is giving. It's not just the deacon's role to taking up a collection, but this means that there are people in God's body and believers in Jesus Christ who have been given a heart to give to others quietly, privately, not known. That happens here at Grace. Someone in this church, and you do not know, and I've never told anybody who they are, they came to me and said, I will give you these envelopes, you go give them to people in need.

And I did, and they're still anonymous. He said, God has blessed them. There, they want to be a blessing to others. That's the gift of giving and charity toward others.

And they did this with liberality. And then there's the gift of leadership. This is not a CEO requirement. No, this is saying, what is biblical leadership? How does God lead us? How does God want us to do that? And the people who are in that position are admonished to do that with diligence.

Go for it. Then there's a showing of mercy. John Calvin made the comment, he said, if somebody needs encouragement, don't send a gloomy person who's always moping.

Don't send them, send a cheerful person. And it's Proverbs 17 says, verse 22, a cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. So there are people who cheerfully go and encourage people who are down and out or in distresses.

And that's a great gift if you have that gift of encouragement and showing mercy to others. But this is all about things that God has given to his people, the believing people of the Church of Jesus Christ. And so we have this kingdom culture and it's all for the purpose of building up each other as believers. Then he switches here to verses nine through 13. He talks about specifically about specific things in each individual believer's life, character, growth in Christ here. And he begins with saying that love be without hypocrisy and really, if you love people in Christ, then really love them in Christ. And 1 John 3, 14 says, we know that we have passed out of death and delight because we love the brethren and he who does not love abides in death. So being devoted to Christ, loving Christ means you're also devoted to other believers. You're loving other believers. Jesus put it this way, by this all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

What a witness to the world. But in this, he's saying love that which is good. And so you have to go to the biblical definition of love and look at that because in the same breath, he says don't love with hypocrisy.

Don't be permissive and not correct. What you know is really not good for someone, not really not moral, really not right in God's eyes. It said, but abhor hate that which is evil. But also that's not just out there evil. That's like, oh, what about me? I see sin in my life.

I'm supposed to hate that. If I'm loving Christ, the more it will bother me and trouble me that I need for him to cleanse me in that area or help me grow in that area. So verse 10 expands on this love. He talks about the brotherly love. It's saying that we as believers in Christ should be loving each other as brothers and sisters in a good family, not those that squabble all the time. But brothers and sisters, you have an affinity for those brothers and sisters that you grew up with. You're interested in them.

You want to see good things for them. We should have a greater supernatural love given by God for our brothers and sisters in Christ wanting to see each other grow in grace and not stumble. And then it goes on through and finally he gets to verse 12 and he mentions devoted in prayer to prayer. And this verse is very interesting. It says, notice the process of progress here. It says rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation and devoted to prayer.

There's a process there. In Ephesians 6, 18, it says this, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the spirit and with this in view, be on alert with all perseverance and petition for the saints. It's saying, you know, if you're facing difficulty, if you're going to be joyful, if you're facing persecution, then you need to be praying. In other words, we're not going to be joyful if we aren't praying. We're not going to make it through the persecution if we're not praying.

We've got to run to Jesus Christ and pour out our hearts to him for ourselves and for others. And verse 13 urges us to be contributing to the needs of the saints. Paul did this as they gathered things in Macedonia and took them to Jerusalem. But also, in that culture, and maybe eventually in our time as well, there were not always that many inns and hotels and people needed housing when they went from one city to the next. And especially during the times of persecution when people were fleeing from one city to another, they needed a few days here to get their lives a little bit oriented and think about what they're going to do, where they're going to go find a job next because they got run out of that city. And so in that times of persecution, that hospitality really becomes important. Then as we get to verse 14 to 21, we come to another aspect of Christian love and that is Christians are to live holy lives sacrificially and humbly, blessing their enemies.

What? Bless your enemies? I have a hard time with that.

I struggle with that maybe because I haven't really sought it out. But you know, if you flip back over here to Romans five, for while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. We were enemies of God before we came to faith in him.

So we should be seeking, how can I bless those who are our enemies? And we know, look at the cross, we know that Jesus prayed, forgive them for they know not what they do. And now we know also that he knew the human heart. So he knew when those Pharisees were vipers, he knew and he called them dogs. He knew they had rejected the God of Abraham.

That's what they were doing. They had rejected him. But on the other hand, he knew that people had done things in ignorance. Even the Apostle Paul said he had acted in ignorance even though he was a very educated man and God was gracious to him. God is poor and had his grace on him as he began. This says he says there in verse three.

So how do we deal with this? John Calvin makes this statement. Now listen to this quote. But God by his word, not only restrains our hands from doing evil, but also subdues the bitter feelings within. Not only so but he would have us be solicitous for the well-being of those who unjustly trouble us and seek our destruction. So we need the Lord Jesus Christ at times, at different times to work in our hearts to subdue those bitter feelings that we can have. We don't do it ourselves. We need God to work in our hearts. And then also we need to be solicitous. We need to be praying for those people that we don't like and that we're struggling with.

We need to pray for their salvation because without salvation what is their doom? So verse 18 calls for us to live peaceably with all men. Well we know that's not always possible, but as much as possible live peaceably with all men. Psalm 120 verse seven says, I am for peace, but when I speak they are for war. You can get into that situation.

But as much as you can, there's a limitation. God has to intervene and give us that peace. But we're to seek to resolve conflicts to the glory of God, not just to what the opponent wants, but to the glory of God because we are devoted to Jesus Christ. So Hendrickson says this, William Hendrickson says, true peacemakers are all those whose leader is the God of peace.

If Christ is the one you're devoted to and he's leading you, he will lead you in the right way. And we need to remember that passage in Ephesians, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, we have the message that brings true peace. So Christians are living in harmony with their neighbors and empathize with those who are suffering. Says rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those that weep.

This is not snobbishness, it's not conceited nature. It is to walk humbly with the Lord that we should be humble as Christ. Be not wise in our own estimations. And as it said in verse three, do not think highly of yourselves more than you ought to think. So devotion to Christ leads us to holiness. It leads us to a heart that's set apart to serve Jesus Christ. Now out of devotion Christ said, we defer judgment, we defer vengeance. And this can be very difficult too. And you've seen it in justice and it's horrible.

And you're looking at it yourself. So Paul here is, we know that he resisted evil. We should resist evil. Paul did, he used the means of the Roman courts to fight against the injustices and the lies about himself.

We should use all those just means that are possible. But the believer has the responsibility in relationship to Christ so that we can, by his grace, we can leave room for wrath. We can not play God and let God decide what is really going on and if he's going to exercise vengeance in this time or at the end of time. Leave it up to him. Call on him to change the heart of your opponent.

That's what we can do. So our devotion to Christ means that we should try to take thy wrongs and turn them over to the Lord. Now, it quotes several verses here. One of those verses is a reference that comes out of 2 Kings where Elisha is faced with the fact that there are Arameans who were coming down to capture him. They surround the city of Dothan and they want to destroy Elisha because he keeps telling King Joram where to run to get out of their way.

And they're intent on destroying him. So Elisha prays. God gives them blindness.

They go out. He leads them to the city of Samaria. They close the gates and now God opens their eyes and they realize they're surrounded by the Samaritans and their army and they can kill them right there.

But he says, no, don't do that. Instead, he had the king feed them and sent them away and the Aramean said, okay, we're not going back, not for a while. And so he was overcoming evil with good. And what a tremendous example. Now, that was God's supernatural intervention on that one.

We know that. But God can intervene for us in our circumstances and we need to pray diligently that he will. So do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.

That's the admonition he ends with here. Well, in every one of these points of interest as it describes the Christian church, as it describes the individual Christian and our relationship to the world and every one of them, it says, be devoted to Jesus Christ. He is the only one who keeps you and holds you and he will guide you in your heart and in your walk. So our devotion must belong to him in order for us to glorify God and be a blessing to others.

I wanna close with this example. Michael Barrett, who wrote a little devotional book someone gave me, a book called Wisdom for Life, he talks about how he's observing what God does overcomes evil. And it's ironic what happens here. He says, consider the cross, consider the cross. Satan's objective in the death of Christ was hampered and overruled.

Ironically, what he's Satan intended to be his ultimate victory became Satan's ultimate defeat. The cross was not Satan's blow against Christ, it was Christ's ultimate death blow against Satan. Sin, death and the devil died there at the cross. So what is it that makes an old church alive? What makes it a body of Christ grow?

What makes us grow? It is a devotion to Jesus Christ being committed to him, being in Christ and belonging to him. So our prayer should be this, my prayers should be this as well. Let us have a mindset. God, give us a mindset to have live holy lives devoted to you, Lord Jesus, in this new kingdom that you've blessed us with. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we do pray that you would give us a heart and mind to serve you and love you.

And Lord, without you, without fellowship with you, without knowing you, it is totally impossible. Oh, fill our hearts with your grace. Fill our hearts with a love for you. Fill our hearts with hearts of repentance and commitment to you because you've loved us first. Make us a blessing to others. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.