Romans 12_3-8 Ready for the Master's Use
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Summary
In this sermon, we continue our study of Romans 11 in the book of Romans, and focus on the theme of "Dedication." We see how the Apostle Paul emphasizes the importance of dedicating your life to Christ, and how we should do the same in all areas of our lives.
Transcript
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Well, praise be to God, and we are continuing this wonderful chapter in Romans 11.
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It has been a glory just to study this book, let alone teach it.
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What a wonderful blessing it has been to my family and just our time at home and in my own personal walk with the Lord.
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I remember a pastor once saying that sermon prep is worship.
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And it really has changed the way that I view my study time.
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Now, Romans 12, 3 through 8, I have titled this sermon, Ready for the Master's Use.
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Last week, we learned that Romans 12 essentially marked a transition point in the epistle
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from orthodoxy, which is chapters 1 through 12, really the end of 11, all the way to orthopraxy,
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which is really 12 and on. Now, there's a little bit of nuance there because
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what we're going to see is some structure that Romans chapter chapters 1 through 11 verses 33
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through 36 is really orthodoxy it's talking about the gospel doctrine and then that little section
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11 33 through 36 was the doxology and that was the praise for this wonderful doctrine of the gospel
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And then we learned that chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, was dedication.
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And the focus was a little bit of a shift from doxology to dedication.
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And then we know that from chapters 12, 3 and forward, it's duty.
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So we have this pattern of doctrine, doxology, dedication, and duty.
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we're kind of in the mix of it because, you know, last week we were, you know, we were in dedication
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and a week before we were in doxology and now we're here in duty. And so there's, there's a
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big transition point that we're in, in the middle of chapter 12. Now the apostle knows that belief
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motivates behavior. The way that you think will determine the way that you act. And when a person
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has been touched by the gospel, it'll transform the way that you live. In fact, if it doesn't,
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then I doubt that you've actually been born again. I really believe that the gospel will
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transition the way that you live. It'll bring conviction, and that conviction will grow
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over and over and over again as time goes. Yesterday, I was at men's warehouse because
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I was getting pants because for some reason I am good at losing pants to suits.
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But I got this pair of pants and my son was with me and they had only rung me up for the tailoring.
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And I could have easily walked out with a free pair of $100 pants.
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And don't believe for a second that my flesh didn't want to.
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dollars. But what the Holy Spirit does is it brings, he brings conviction upon you.
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And you go, I can't do that. I can't do that. And my son, who was seven, is sitting with me and
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it was a great lesson, a moment of showing what the Holy Spirit can do to a person.
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It supersedes selfishness and it goes into Christ's likeness. And so those small things,
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when the gospel touches you, it'll transform the way that you live. It's great evidence
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to know that you are saved when you have the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
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Now, last week, again, we focused on the preface of chapter 12, which was about responding to the
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gospel with sacrifice and transformation. You know the famous passage, you know, we're living
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sacrifices do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind
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beautiful passage of scripture we saw how the mercies of God should motivate us to sacrifice
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why do you sacrifice because God's extended mercy to you in fact we figured out that
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those who live lukewarm are those who live in a way that's not actually dedicated to Christ
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it's because you've forgotten the mercies of God
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and second we were commanded to not be conformed
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but we're to be transformed by the renewing of your minds
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so the way that we're not conformed is that we are transformed
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we always forget that jesus says to love the lord your god with all your heart with all your soul
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with all your mind an intellectual academic scholastic approach to the gospel
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transformation begins upstairs and then it informs the heart
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it's a call to biblical and theological literacy
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you want to be renewed you want to be transformed do it with your mind
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it starts there if you're not reading don't expect the heart to follow
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so if we follow again the outline we know that we have doctrine doxology dedication
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duty. Now, we left off with the apostle telling Christians that because of the mercies of God,
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full devotion is their reasonable service. Do you know why you owe everything to Christ?
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Why he is your master? You know, the number one term in the New Testament used to describe a
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Christian is the Greek word doulos, which means slave. You're a slave to Christ.
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You owe him everything. We saw that in doctrine. We saw that in doxology.
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We are seeing that in dedication, and now we are reflecting that in duty.
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Full devotion is your reasonable service. And as we're going to see today, our Christian service
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has, pay attention here, dimension and limitations. Your Christian duty has dimensions and it has
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limitations. Now, verse 3, if you look at your Bible, functions as an explanation clause. Again,
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we are going to be smart Bible interpreters in this church. Okay, it tells us how we ought to
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think about our Christian service. It says, for by the grace given to me, I say to everyone
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among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think,
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but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
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all right i want you to notice again he begins with this word for four is either signaling
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two types of clauses an explanation clause where he's going to offer further excellent
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explanation from the statement that he made in the previous verse or it's a causal clause where
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he's giving the grounds of the reason for the statement that happened in the previous verse
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Now here he's offering a further explanation on this concept of your reasonable service to God is full sacrifice and transformation.
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Paul is highlighting the dimension and the limitations of service he mentioned in verse 1.
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He wants to preface this call to Christian duty with a need for humility.
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and you look at the people that are trying to get to the top.
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You look at the people that are operating in that kingdom.
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There's always this desire to get a little bit higher.
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To think that that doesn't happen in the kingdom of God would be foolish.
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now just as god is sovereign over salvation he is also sovereign over your christian
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service over your gifts over your abilities over your grace over your duty sovereign over all of
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it paul speaks and pay attention look at it look at verse three paul speaks authoritatively
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from his God-given grace to make a point about self-estimation, about self-estimation.
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He calls for humility and sobriety. If we want to measure one another, which we do,
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don't lie to yourself. If you want to measure one another, let it be done by the measure of faith
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how great a person is? Do it by the measure of faith.
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These aren't the metrics that we use to assess a particular person's ministry or particular person's life.
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You get to use faith and faithfulness, faith and faithfulness.
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Now, I expect that many people wanted to have the authority of the Apostle Paul.
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They wanted to have the authority of Paul without the grace and faith that was given to Paul.
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and this isn't a foreign concept to our modern day. Envy is real and it is among the people of
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God. It happens all the time and I see it as a pastor. I've seen men want the authority of a
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pastor without the grace and faith to be a pastor. I've seen it. There's many men that go through
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seminary that fight, that think that knowledge is the metric that matters. It's not.
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yeah you need to know the scriptures to preach the scriptures
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but has the grace been given to you has the faith been given to you to be a pastor
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i've seen christian women want the life the family the giftings of other christian women
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without the grace and faith given to those particular women i've seen it i've seen christian
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Christian men want the skills or the success or the influence of other Christian men without the grace and faith given to those men.
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They want the thing instead of the substance that's fueling that duty.
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They want the skill and the money, but they don't want the faith and the faithfulness.
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to want the station of another person is one thing to exalt yourself to their station without
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the grace and faith for that station is another
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However, Paul is trying to demonstrate that true surrender requires sobriety and contentment.
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Now, contentment is one of the most difficult virtues in all of Christian life.
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Whatever fruit comes from that soil is the grace of God in your life.
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When you rest in that, you're surrendered, you're faithful, you're content.
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Whatever comes out of that, that's the Lord's grace on your life.
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for example, why am I a pastor? Why can I exposit the word? It's not my doing. It's grace. It's
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grace. I don't know why I have the ability to do what I do. It's grace. Why can someone counsel or
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sing or shepherd or evangelize or lead or defend the faith? I look at James White and I go,
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my goodness, your mind works in ways that mine doesn't. Why? Grace. A grace that's been given to
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him. That's it. It's not a skill that I can work my way to. There are some people out there that
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are just able and gifted in a way that you can just go, it's grace. Why has this man been given
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a massive flock. Many men said to Charles Spurgeon, grace, grace.
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This is why Paul warns, do not think too highly of yourself.
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Your service, your station, your authority and gifts are not your own. They are graces from God.
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in other words a surrendered life a transformed soul a renewed mind
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will think soberly and will think humbly about their work for christ
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i think paul captures this when he's writing galatians chapter 2 verse 20
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i think he's really grasping the idea of surrendered faithful and content he says
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It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
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Just for a second, can you say that about your own life?
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It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
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And he says, in the life that I live now, in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
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Now there's another form of pride that is more inconspicuous than envy or self-exaltation.
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He was entering a train station, and a gentleman walks up to him and says,
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Oh, Dr. Jones, I am just a chimney sweep in the house of the Lord.
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Let me carry your suitcase. I am nobody, and you are a man of great gifts.
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Dr. Jones saw through the man immediately and did not deal too kindly with him.
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quote, when a person acts like this, his expectation is that you will correct him by
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saying, no, no, you are really a great person and the Lord needs folks like you, end quote.
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But the way to truly correct a man, he says, is to encourage him to embrace where the Lord
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has placed him, knowing that it is neither random nor unimportant. It is precisely where God and
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his infinite wisdom deemed it necessary for him to serve. In Christ's body, every part matters and
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every role glorifies the same Lord, end quote. It's really an easier message to hear, but harder to
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believe for many people. We live in a self-exalting culture. Social media has been a time where
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everybody wants to be a star, and everybody wants to have a platform, and everybody wants followers
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and wants to be known, and everybody wants to showcase their gifts, and nobody can be content
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with where they are. I know I struggle with it. I mean, everybody struggles with this at some degree.
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Let me offer you another example. In a classical orchestra,
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few people know that there's actually the instrument the triangle is actually included
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in a classical orchestra it's one of the most vital instruments I actually listened to a few
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clips and the triangle offers these beautiful color or emphatic moments of tone and harmony
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that you would miss had the triangle not been included in this massive classical orchestra
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And too many people think that it's less because it's not the violin.
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The conductor knows that this particular small instrument, this one tiny little note,
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it contributes to this beautiful body of sound.
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In other words, self-exaltation and self-deprecation have no place in the Christian mind.
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Self-deprecation reveals doubt in God's wisdom.
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They want to cultivate sympathy in other people because they crave what?
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human affirmation, and they struggle with finding contentment in God's providence.
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each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
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Okay, this is just one more verse that adds to the stockpile of verses
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that says that faith is a gift and not some sort of intrinsic will of man.
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Romans chapter 4, 16 says, this is why it depends on faith.
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In order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all of his offspring,
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not only of the Jews, but also of the one who shares the faith of Abraham.
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I have the exact same faith as Peter, and the exact same faith as Paul, and the exact same faith as John MacArthur, and the exact same faith as Charles Spurgeon.
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But God has assigned different measures of that faith according to his will.
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We're all equally justified by the faith that we've been given.
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But there is unequal measures of faith that have been assigned to each of us.
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Because faith is the fuel behind Christian duty.
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who had people writing biographies that were selling hundreds of thousands of copies when he was in his 20s?
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and that he was reading Pilgrim's Progress multiple times by the age of six?
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I watched a video that one of our elders sent to me about Charles Spurgeon's daily schedule.
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it's not only is it wild but it was incredibly productive and fruitful without somehow compromising
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his family and you look at those moments and you go the man had not great organization skills
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and was really good at managing his day no the man had great faith and the lord used that faith
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When you see a man like R.C. Sproul, who was and is influentially, just massively influential in the kingdom of God.
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He left behind Ligonier and, you know, probably a hundred books that he's written.
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It's because the measure of faith that was given to him.
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and so faith is the fuel for your christian duty when you see a woman with many children
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a gentle and quiet spirit which is precious in the sight of god
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when she has a wonderful marriage she always has a smile on her face she's joyful she's joyfully
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submissive to her husband. She's got a deep maturity in the scriptures. Her children are
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well-behaved and they rise up and they call her blessed. It's because of the measure of faith that
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has been given to her. That's why. I've met these women. Veronica and I have talked about these
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women. We've seen women like this. We have a friend in Oregon who's got 11 children and is
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that woman. Why is she that woman? How can she be that woman? How can she remain faithful and
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steadfast and always persevere through incredibly difficult circumstances? Because the Lord has
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given her a greater measure of faith. That's why. Some people have been given a lesser measure of
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faith. And in our egalitarian world, we hate it. Some have been given a lesser measure of faith
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that requires them to be more dependent on the body of Christ.
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As a pastor, it's easier to see these things. I've seen families that have strong faith.
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I've seen families that have weaker faith. I've seen families that have been in the church for
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20 years with still a weak faith. I've seen families that just joined and just saved with
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incredibly strong faith. I've seen every dimension of it. Some have been given a greater measure of
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faith that allows them to lead and uphold others. It's just a reality. But in either case,
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all are saved by that faith, and God has designed their measures of faith
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according to his perfect will for the body of Christ.
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Let me give you another example here, if I could just not lose my space like I just did.
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to be used in greater ways desire greater faith that's the prayer if you want to be used in
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greater ways pray for greater faith you're not going to be used in greater ways with weaker faith
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until then and in that prayer be surrendered be faithful be content be surrendered be faithful
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and be content and the next verse paul offers an explanation for why this is he says for as
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in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function.
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So we, though many, are one body, and individually members of one another. Now, the word
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university, the word university means united while diverse. That's, if you break it down,
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that's what the etymology of that word is. Now, today's understanding of the word diversity
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has been kind of, you know, taken and perverted and twisted, and that's not what I'm talking about.
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I'm going to kind of digress here just for a second. I think, you know, like the world's
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dumbest bumper sticker is the coexist sticker, right? This is the culture's definition of
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diversity. It's basically unity by compromise. That's basically what you, every time I see that,
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I'm just like, this is so ridiculous. It's unified by compromise. It propagates the lie that Islam
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and Christianity, or Christianity and Hinduism, or Christianity and secularism, and Globo Homo,
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or whatever thing that presses against the church, that they can peacefully coexist together.
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They can't. It's Christ or chaos. It's Christ or chaos. That is the Christian message. And that is
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not the type of diversity that Paul is speaking about here in Romans. The body of Christ is what
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I would call a genuine university, a genuine university. It's diversity that doesn't compromise
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on truth, but cultivates it. It unifies on it. It actually becomes synergistic and harmonious
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as it builds itself up. And even the weakest member of the body is not without purpose.
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now some stations in the body are more frail they're more sensitive they're more vulnerable
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but no station is unneeded i'll tell you what i really appreciate the nail on my pinky finger
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i hardly ever think about it but if it wasn't there or it got ripped off my whole body
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would be thinking about it. Think about the eyelid. Just think about your eyelid for a second.
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It's frail. It's delicate. What does it do? It protects the eye,
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which is one of the most important portions of your body. Without the eyelid, the whole body
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would suffer. I don't think about my eyelids hardly ever. I probably haven't thought about
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them in years. It doesn't receive the accolades of the heart or the brain or the gut, which I
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think about often, and doesn't have the strength of arms or legs, but it still has a vital role
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in the body. Now, Paul is not trying to say, he's not trying to squash us into some sort of like
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androgyny where we're all equally and the same. That's not what Paul's saying. We're not. We are
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equal in redemption, but unequal in grace, in faith, in duty. Our generation really hates the
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idea of someone having a greater station, requiring greater honor, requiring greater respect,
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requiring submission. We hate order. We want everything to be the same. I want to treat the
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eight-year-old the same as I treat the 18-year-old as the same as I treat the 28-year-old. We want
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to speak to each other that way. Casualization and flattening out everything is our duty in this
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We are mutually dependent, but we are not mutually interchangeable. That is the teaching of
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scripture. In fact, in the next verse, in verse 6, Paul says, having gifts that differ.
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Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. We're different.
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My wife and I, we're different. We are equal in value and different in role. We're unequal in
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role. We're unequal in duty. We're unequal in responsibility before the Lord. I have a greater
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responsibility before the Lord for her. I'm responsible for her in a way
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There is a need for us to recognize and celebrate
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joyfully the order and structure that the Lord has put in place
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calls for spiritual self-awareness. He calls for contentment and he calls for effectiveness with
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your gifts. The word for gifts is charisma in the Greek, and it really means working out of grace.
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It's the working out of a grace in you is what a gift is. And so if that working out of the grace
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reveals that you can teach, do it to the glory of God. If that working out in you of grace
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reveals that you can sing, sing to the glory of God. If it reveals that you can lead or organize
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or administrate, do it to the glory of God. In other words, God is not assigning gifts
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as like, they're not like, oh, you're going to get gifts of administration and you're going to get
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gifts of generosity. It's not like handing out cards to us that this is your gift and that's
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your, you only get one. That's not what's happening. That's not what's being taught here.
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God gives grace and grace naturally works itself out in various ways,
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producing spiritual gifts that are evident to the body and used for his glory.
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So the question becomes, how has God's grace uniquely worked its way out in your life?
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And that gentleman is an incredible communicator.
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And in my experience, it's actually best to let other people recognize it.
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You don't want to be the guy, I'm a teacher, by the way.
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No, you want to be noticed organically and naturally through the body of Christ
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When you recognize that gift, go get training in that gift.
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the apostle here lists out seven spiritual gifts.
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And they're prophecy, servanthood, teaching, exhortation,
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1 Corinthians chapter 12 talks about another list that kind of overlaps with this.
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It also includes additional gifts like discernment and wisdom, as well as the possessive, miraculous gifts that I believe have ceased.
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Now, I want to just briefly talk about continuationism and cessationism for like a minute.
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okay cessationism is the idea that the miraculous gifts have seized
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now can God still perform miracles yes does God still perform miracles yes
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but they are not in the same way where you had a possessive gift of miracles like the apostle Paul
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had or the apostle Peter had where people are walking past his shadows and they're being healed
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where he has the authority to heal in a way that validates his apostolic office
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for the transition period prior to the scriptures being written.
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We also know 1 Corinthians talks about these gifts are going to seize at certain times
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or prophecy that is a forth telling of the future according to the perfect revelation of God.
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There are so many different ways that we understand the reality around the possessive gifts.
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now so there are people who have possessive gifts that are still continuing on today
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and they are more administrative gifts they are more uh gifts that are functional for the clergy
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functional for the office of uh eldership functional for the congregation but they are not
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The one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation,
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the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal,
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the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.
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Now, I believe that Paul is speaking to some of these, specifically to elders and deacons.
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You're going to see that in the first couple, but I'm going to just briefly go over them
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and then we'll wrap it up with some application and close out.
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As I said this week in our Bible study, there is two types of prophecy in the Bible.
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There is a foretelling of the future according to God's perfect revelation and will.
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And if you get it wrong, the Old Testament says to stone that person to death.
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there is also a forth telling of the truth of the gospel by faith which is more like
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proclamation or preaching that we see in the new testament now i believe the old testament we would
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see more of the foretelling of the future like an ezekiel or an isaiah and i do believe that
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the apostles and even John the Baptist functioned as a prophet in that way. And there was also some
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degree of transitional gifts in that time. But when we talk about the term prophecy today,
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we generally mean a forth telling of truth according to the gospel by faith. And so that
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is a form of prophecy. And I don't want to get too much into it, but what I want to say
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is that if you have that gift to forth tell the truth with passion and zeal
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which is different than teaching, which we'll talk about in a minute.
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And this English word deacon is to mean servant.
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Now, again, in general, I think that he has in view, when he's talking about prophecy,
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I think he's talking to the elders in the church, the pastors in the church,
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those that are leading the church, and he goes here to service,
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and I believe he has in view, at least, the deacons, the diaconate,
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those that are serving if you have been totally blessed with a servant's heart
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then serve the glory of God now I don't think that it only applies to the deacons I think it
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applies to men women young people if you have a deacon or a servant heart use it to the glory of
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God and then it says teaching and again teaching you know can essentially be expressed by any
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scripture that you can bring clarity or explanation. Now, teaching in the scriptures is
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commanded to men to teach other men and women to teach younger women and to parents to teach
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their children and to members to instruct one another. So we see teaching as a regular reality.
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But again, there's something here talking to the elders of the church, the leadership of the
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church, but there's also a gift of teaching among many of you. I've seen incredible homeschool moms
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that can communicate great information to their children, to one another, to other women.
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We know that the older women are to teach the younger women to love their husbands and love their children.
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I remember Martin Lloyd-Jones once came to a seminary.
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Now I apologize, I am a preacher, and I'm going to try to teach you.
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So if my lecture turns into a sermon, forgive me.
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And so preaching is really more of a proclamation, a heralding, a passionate, spirit-filled presentation of the truth.
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now i think the remaining gifts that they talk about here are more broad
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to exhort means to encourage someone to obey or to not sin
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it's not a rebuke it's not really even a correction it's an exhortation
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it's it's the ability to speak the truth in love that leaves people feeling both helped
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and encouraged and i have met people who can do this well
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and you would think that as a pastor i might be able to do that well i don't think i'm the best
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at it i can be a little bit too blunt there are people with a gift of exhortation that they sit
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down with you and they basically punch you in the face with truth and you love
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them for it. And you're like, wow, thank you. That was so
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every day as long as it is called today, that none
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of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. It's one of the one
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another's. Do you have the gift of exhortation?
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Now, this is speaking to those in the church who give their resources with sincerity and, I would say, with liberality.
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But I've met some folks that have the gift of generosity.
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And in our church, back in Oregon, one friend got into a serious amount of debt with the IRS, about $100,000.
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and we had another family in our church who had the gift of giving and they paid off their debt
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for them and these are people that are normal they don't have like they're not living on like
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a million dollars a year these are people that live on maybe 150 to 200 thousand dollars a year
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and they just took a hundred thousand dollars out of their savings and paid off somebody else's debt
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I remember going to dinner with this gentleman and we would regularly have dinners with our
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whole church and we'd have 40 50 people at dinner and the tab would be you know
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$1,500 and he'd sneak away to go to the bathroom and the dinner would be paid
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this is the gift of generosity they are just looking for opportunities to give
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not just with their money with their resources with their time with their hospitality
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the housers have people at their house and in their house all the time it's expensive
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to host people but they are they enjoy it they love it
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last two leadership this speaks to the ability to preside which biblically i believe is speaking
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to men. It's the domain of men to preside. Yes, we have women that are presiding over their
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children in a real way. But, and there, yes, there is some leadership that can apply to men
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and women equally here. There's leadership in a home. There's a management of a home that requires
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a real leadership. But I believe this, again, is speaking to a gift of leadership. When I was a kid,
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I always found myself as the captain it was just something that happened my dad noticed it
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my friends noticed it I was the pitcher on the baseball team I was always trying to gather a
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group together to lead them somewhere it was something that the Lord had gifted me even as a
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child and it's something that was recognized and I didn't even make sense of it until I was a teenager
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Are you a leader? Has the Lord blessed you with the grace of leadership?
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Think about this for a second. Mercy is showing compassion and kindness with cheerfulness.
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you would think that oh the pastor must be able to do this and yeah I believe I can do this I've
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called to do this I've done hospital visits and I've met with the people that have lost loved ones
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but I really believe that the acts of mercy generally historically has been the domain of
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women. Women are so naturally blessed and gifted with acts of mercy. Wherever there's a hurting
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person, you're going to find women around them. It's just a natural response for women.
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What our generation calls humanitarian aid historically was called mercy ministry.
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it's caring for the sick and the poor and the destitute and if you look throughout history
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you want to know who's running that it's women women are gathering together to raise money
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to go be nurses to go care for the poor who are at the bedsides of the dying men
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they're not other men they're women who are at the side
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of the cross when Jesus was dying? Where did the men go? They weren't there.
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It was the women that were caring for the master. And so mercy ministry, is this something
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that is natural to you, that is a working out of grace in your own life?
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so i'll close with this a life surrendered to christ requires total service to god
00:46:40.640
total service to god now this doesn't mean you're going to become a pastor
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just glorify god with what you're doing build a business run for office
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operate a school i don't care whatever you do do to the glory of god
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But do not envy the service or station of another that has gifts and graces that you do not have.
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Appreciate that this brother has something that you don't have.
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Appreciate that that sister has something you don't have.
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When I see a brother that has discernment and wisdom, you know what I do?
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I draw in. Hey man, I got tough circumstances. I need help discerning. I always tell people,
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Joel Webin, who's a friend of mine, another pastor, he has a gift of discernment. His
00:47:42.660
diagnostic ability to tell you a bunch of information and then drop a one-line sentence
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that's exactly the problem is uncanny. I'm like, wow, that was extremely helpful.
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I don't have that and I love running to him when I need that type of clarity
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there are people in our congregation that have these gifts and there are people that know that
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they don't have certain gifts it calls us to bind to one another to use them effectively
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So as I said many times today, I'll close by saying, be surrendered, be faithful, be content.
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Father, we thank you, Lord, for the blessing of grace,
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for the measures of faith that you have provided.
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Lord, we pray that you would use us exactly as you have designed us.