This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Romans chapter 12, verses three through eight. Welcome to our
look at Romans chapter 12 and daily drive time devotions. This is day three of
that look.

We're taking a look today at Romans chapter 12, verses three to eight. As we
begin this chapter and this section of Romans on service, it's pretty obvious
that it begins by talking about how you think about things. If I'm going to serve,
I gotta start thinking about things differently.

And these verses that we've just looked at the last couple days, verses one and
two, talk about God's way of thinking about him, about worship. As we look at
verses three to eight, we begin to look at what God has to say about how you and
I should think about ourselves. How does God want us to think about ourselves?

And God's goal, very obviously, is confidence without conceit. A recognition
that I'm God's creation without feeling like I'm God's gift to the world. So our
goal in looking at these verses is more confidence, genuine confidence in God as
my creator, and the kind of confidence that allows me to depend on him rather
than having to selfishly depend on myself.

And less conceit. Listen to what Romans chapter 12, verse three says. For by the
grace given me, I say to every one of you, don't think of yourself.

Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought. But rather, think of
yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the measure of faith that God
has given you. He starts with the words by the grace given to me.

This is a grace message. It's also a message with authority. It's about how God
wants you to think about yourself as a believer.

In these verses today, we're going to see what he has to say about how God wants
you to think of yourself as a believer, and how God wants you to think about
others as believers. First, how do you think about yourself as a believer? A lot
of people think that true spirituality is somehow never thinking of yourself at
all.

Wrong. Obviously, you think of yourself. It's impossible not to.

What the Bible teaches is how we should think of ourselves. And some Christians
think only of themselves, even when it comes to faith. They're always taking
their spiritual temperature.

They're always feeling their spiritual pulse. They're always worrying about
their spiritual condition. Don't think too much of yourself means don't evaluate
yourself all the time, focusing in on yourself.

But it's interesting that the Bible here does tell us to think of ourselves.
Right in the middle, he says, rather think of yourself with sober judgment. The
Bible says to think about yourself.

It just tells you how. When we think about some of our standards of how we think
about ourselves, we think about ourselves and we focus on our feelings. Do I
feel good about myself today, bad about myself today?

Or we think about ourselves and we focus on our appearance. I was reading some
statistics a couple weeks ago. 13% of American women consider themselves pretty.

28% of American men consider themselves handsome. 94% of American men would
change something about their looks if only they could. And 99% of American women
would change something about their looks if they could.

We let our appearance and our desire to change it somehow focus in our thinking
about ourselves. Or we let others' opinions become the focus. The reactions of
others become my sole mirror of evaluation.

The mirror mirror is of the crowd. And that's what we're focusing on. Well, God
changes our thoughts about ourselves.

He says here, think about yourself honestly. Think of yourself with soberness
and measure yourself by faith. You think honestly.

The word think, by the way, is repeated four times in the Greek in these few
verses. He wants us to get this idea. Don't think too much of yourself.

Don't think too little of yourself. Be honest about your strengths and
weaknesses. Think of yourself honestly.

And he also says you want to judge yourself with soberness. Now, obviously sober
here doesn't mean not drunk. It means with seriousness.

Here's some thoughts to sober you. You are a sinner. Sin is deserving of hell.

Your sins have hurt others. You can't trust your own judgment. You are a selfish
person.

Those are sobering thoughts. When I think about myself, I see all those to be
true. But it's also sobering to remember these truths.

God loves me no matter what. Jesus personally died for my sins so I can be in
heaven with him and don't have to face judgment in hell. I will one day stand
before my Father in heaven forgiven and holy.

The truth about yourself. Let that truth sink and soak into your soul. When you
get up in the morning, remind yourself of three things.

I am made in the image of God. I am filled with the Spirit of God. I am part of
the plan of God.

I am made in the image of God. I am filled with the Spirit of God. God is
willing to work in me even through the little problems and the pressures of
life.

He's willing to work in me throughout the day. And I am part of the plan of God.
As a believer, these are truths about you.

Whether you act like it or not, these are true of you. You judge yourself with
soberness. And then these verses remind us to measure ourselves by faith with
the measure of faith that God has given.

The measure of your life is not your job or your bank account but your faith,
your faith in Jesus. That's the greatest measure of your life. By the way, does
this somehow mean that God gives some of us a greater measure of faith than
others?

This phrase is a very strong indication of how you and I should interpret the
Bible. This one phrase here, when it talks about the measure of faith, there are
70 different combinations of words and phrases where faith and measure and even
the word of come together. And so there's a lot of different ideas about what
this means.

Two main ones are that this is a different measure of faith that we're all given
or that this is talking about the same measure of faith that is given to all. I
think it's the second one. According to the measure of faith that God has given,
it's not talking about individuals.

It's talking about the fact that God loves us all in Jesus Christ and has given
every one of us a measure of faith because of what has happened in Jesus. And
that's how God wants me to think about myself, with faith, with soberness, with
honesty. These verses also talk about how God wants you to think about other
believers.

Verses four to six. Just as each of us has one body with many members and these
members do not all have the same function, so in Christ, we who are many form
one body and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts
according to the grace given to us.

We aren't made just to think about ourselves. In order to have the right view of
you, you also have to think about others. And God's chosen place for giving us
the right view of ourselves is the church.

There are three truths to keep us healthy when it comes to thinking about
ourselves in relationship to the body of Christ, the church. The three truths
are the truths of unity, diversity, and accountability. There's one body but
many members.

We are united together in doing what God wants us to do. But also the truth of
diversity. We're one body but many members.

God's given us different gifts and different parts in the body. We shouldn't all
try to be the same. God doesn't want us to be the same.

That's why he made us different. Unity, diversity, and accountability. Each
member belongs to all the others.

We belong to each other. If you have a headache, sometimes the rest of your body
will feel so bad that it sits up all night to keep your headache company because
your whole body feels that headache. Well, that's what the body of Christ is to
do when one member is hurt.

We are tied to each other. And when one hurts, all hurt. But we're also tied to
each other so that when one has victory in ministry, all have victory in
ministry.

We're a body. In our high tech age, it is an easy temptation to try to do life
alone. You live life in an online world and all your connections are
technological.

God built us to relate to others. To live life in a connected world where all
the connections are personal connections. And you need to be connected not just
for yourself to meet your own needs but also for others because God has put
things into your life that can help to meet their needs.

You have something to contribute to other people's lives. That's what the next
verses say. Beginning at the last part of verse six, he talks about our
spiritual gifts.

If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If
it's serving, let him serve. If it's teaching, let him teach.

If it is encouraging, let him encourage. If it is contributing to the needs of
others, let him give generously. If it is leadership, let him govern diligently.

If it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. Romans 12, these verses we
just looked at, and 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4 are the three main passages
in the Bible that talk about spiritual gifts. You have abilities, natural
abilities.

You were born with those, but you also have spiritual gifts. You got those when
you were born again. And there's a quick list of spiritual gifts here.

As you go through this list, one of three emotions will predominate. You'll
either feel affirmation. Wow, that's a gift that I'm using.

It's right there in the Bible. Or you'll feel conviction. That's a gift I'm not
using.

Or maybe I'm only using it for myself. Or you might feel confusion. I don't
really know what gift I have or how to use it.

I'd like to talk together about what to do with those emotions, affirmation or
conviction or confusion, after we've taken a very quick look at what these words
mean. Prophecyne, that's from a root word in the Greek that means to cause to
shine. It refers to the ability to take God's word and make it shine.

And the specific instruction here is do that according to the proportion of your
faith. Now that means just stay with what you know. You start with where you
understand scripture.

This is not saying that God gives some automatically a greater portion of faith
for life than others. We can all grow in faith. This is simply saying don't
prophesy about something that you don't have yourself the faith to believe.

Prophecyne's a gift. Serving's a gift, the second one. Comes from the same Bible
word as deacon.

It's the gift of helping others in practical and needed ways. Teaching is a
gift, the ability to impart knowledge and information to instruct the mind.
Prophecyne tends to move the will.

Teaching instructs the mind. And that instruction is essential as a foundation
for prophecy and many other gifts. He talks here about a gift called
encouraging.

What a needed gift. Just lifting others to faith and action through your faith
and actions. Encouraging, contributing or giving to the needs of others.

God will give you something to give and then he'll give you the desire to give
it. And the specific instruction here is when you give, give generously because
God gave generously to you. And then he talks about the gift of leadership.

That comes from a word that at its root means to stand up before others. It
means leading a group of people to take the next step. And the specific
instruction here is to lead diligently.

As a leader it says don't wing it, work at it. And then the gift of mercy,
helping those who are undeserving or neglected by others. And the instruction
here is to care cheerfully.

Who in the world wants someone to visit you in the hospital who's more miserable
than you are? This is not about fake smiles. It's about a genuine joy that you
take to people and let them know God is even here in the midst of this
difficulty.

What do you do with the feelings you might have about these gifts as we talk
about them? Well, if you feel affirmed, then receive that affirmation from God
because he gave you that gift. If you feel conviction, then start serving where
you know that God is pointing.

If you're thinking I'm not sure how I feel, I feel confused, my advice is to
start serving somewhere. The only way to work through the confusion of what
exactly is my gift is start serving somewhere, almost anywhere. The only way to
really figure out what your spiritual gift is, is not to sit in a chair and
contemplate and hope it comes to you someday.

I found the only way to determine what your spiritual gift is, is to get out
there, start serving, and then you find out, oh, God blesses that. Oh, God works
through that. That's how you find out.

These are verses that are all about how to think about ourselves. And just to
sum up, these verses remind us, don't think too highly of yourself. Don't think
too individually of yourself.

But also don't think too little of yourself. God's given you gifts to make a
difference in his body. I like to pray these verses as we end together.

As we pray, just say to God, "God, help me to think of myself with sober
judgment. "The judgment that realizes where I would be without you, "but also
rejoices in where I am, who I am, "and am becoming because of you, "and where
I'm headed because of you. "Lord, help me not to fall to the temptation "of
trying to live my Christian life, "live out faith all by myself.

"I admit right now my need of others. "It's hard sometimes to get along with
others. "They're as imperfect as I am, maybe even a little more so.

"And yet you put people into my life to help me grow. "You put people into my
life "so that I can be an encouragement to them "and help them to grow. "So I
thank you.

"Thank you for the gifts that you've given to me. "And I pray that even if I
don't quite understand "what they are yet, you'd help me in serving "to see what
they are, "and to rejoice in the fact that God, I have a place. "I have a place
in your church, in your body, "that you want to make a difference in and through
my life.

"I am grateful for that. "And I thank you, in Jesus' name, amen. " Tomorrow,
we're going to be taking a look together at Romans chapter 12, verses nine to 14.