Romans 12:3-8
Christ-Centered Humility
In vv. 1-2, Paul encourages you to enter into the fullness of your union with Jesus Christ. He is the true and ultimate living and holy sacrifice, which is acceptable to God and through faith in Him you are now living your new life in Christ sacrificially and holy in worshipful service to Him.
In this way, you are not being conformed by the mindset of this world, but God’s Spirit is conforming/transforming you – daily renewing your mind – that you may know and live out the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Paul told the Philippians:
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:12-13).
You are able to work and strive in your sanctification with fear and trembling only because it is Christ’s Spirit who is at work in you. And He is both willing and working out your salvation in your life for His good and holy pleasure.
But what does a life that is being daily transformed by Christ’s Spirit look like? Well, it looks like Jesus Christ. Remember Paul’s promise in Romans 8:
We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren (Rom. 8:28-29).
You have been predestined by God to be “conformed” into the image of Jesus Christ. That is what Christ’s Spirit is doing in your life right now.
In the rest of chap. 12, Paul will unfold for you what being transformed into Christ’s image looks like. In vv. 3-8 Paul will look at Christ-centered humility and in vv. 9-21, Christ-centered love. Both of these characteristics of Christ’s life – humility and love – were perfectly revealed for you at the cross of Jesus Christ. Let’s begin this morning by looking at His humility.
We previously looked at Phil. 2:12-13 this morning, where Paul tells you that God is at work in you to will and work according to His good pleasure. The verses immediately preceding that promise are very similar to our passage this morning. Let’s look at those together before we examine our text this morning (READ Phil. 2:1-11).
Notice that Paul begins with the description of your new life in Christ in v. 1: You have been encouraged in Christ, consoled in God’s love, communed with God’s Spirit producing affection and compassion towards you in Christ. Since you have been recipients of this Triune grace, together you are to be united in Christ. But, how? How will you find this unity, displayed so wonderfully for you in the Trinity? Through humility. By denying yourself, taking up your cross, and following Jesus Christ. This is the essence of Christian discipleship. The only way forward in the Christian life is to go to the end of the line. You become great by becoming a servant of all. You live by dying. You go higher only by going lower.
But what does a life look like that regards all others as more important than yourself? What will your life look like when you no longer look out for your personal interests, but the interests of all others?
Paul wonderfully sums up the essence of humility in vv. 6-8. Jesus Christ perfectly displays ultimate humility in that he didn’t grasp for power and prestige – the God of the universe – but rather He willingly gave up everything to become your slave – a slave of your very nature – so that he could become your servant in death and upon the most horrible death imaginable – the cross.
It is this self-crucifying humility that Paul calls you to in our passage this morning beginning in v. 3. Paul says you are not to “think” more highly of yourself than you ought to think.
Note that Paul makes it clear that the Spirit’s transformation of our whole lives centers in your mind – in your thinking – sanctification is first and foremost cognitive.
The Spirit is renewing your mind according to your heavenly life in Christ, which is in direct confrontation with the mindset of this world.
In this world, according to its images of success, power, and fame, you would never survive if you practiced Paul’s admonition to you this morning. It completely contradicts everything this world strives for. But you are not of this world. This is not your home, it is not your base of operation. You are a pilgrim here – an alien from a heavenly life that is to come.
But it is so easy for the church in America to loose sight of the very nature of her wilderness wanderings in this age and get caught up in her own programs of self-promotion. It is very simple to loose sight of her calling to make the precious name of Jesus great and instead turn all our energies to building our own man-made empires and temples dedicated to our own power-seeking, success driven, and fame saturated kingdoms of man.
Spiritual pride is just as easy to drown in as the earthly pride. And our self-seeking tendencies in the church today often lead to worldly competition and one-upmanship among the children of God, which results in the fragmentation and disunity that we so often experience today in the body of Christ.
So what is the only antidote to our self-seeking glory of man in the body of Christ? It all begins with how you think about yourself. Instead of the usual overestimation of ourselves that we are so prone, Paul wants you to have a more sober view of yourself in accordance with the one thing we all have in common as brothers and sisters in Christ: faith.
You are to change the way you think of yourself in accord with this one gift that we all have in common. What does Paul mean?
What we are before God has been given to all of us freely and graciously. As Paul says in v. 6, we each have our own gifts according to the grace given to us.
In other words, each of us are in the same boat together – we are all sinners in need of grace and we now belong to God for one reason and one reason only – He has given us life in Christ.
Knowing this should have very dramatic effects as to how we view our lives among one another – how we estimate our own service to Christ in light of others. How should you think of your own piety and spiritual life before God in light of others around you?
We must all remember that none of us brought something to the table that was greater than someone else. We all sit around the table by grace and because of God’s love.
Therefore, no one in the body of Christ ought to think of himself or herself as above anyone else. This includes pastors and lay-members, rich and poor, male and female, black and white, husbands and wives, parents and children. But it equally applies to Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, etc. It applies to Presbyterians and Presbyterians AND Baptists and Baptists.
We so easily divide the body of Christ because we think we are better than someone else. Our doctrines are straighter; our lives are more holy; our music more lively; our buildings bigger and prettier; etc.
But when we all stop and put all that aside for a moment, perhaps even forever, we quickly realize that at the foot of the cross of Christ we are all the same. We are all sinners who have been bought with the same precious blood of the Lamb of God and we are all equally His beloved children who will dwell together with Him forever and ever.
Now this should have radical effects in how we treat one another. Instead of being so easily offended when someone does something to us that we don’t like, we need to stop thinking so highly of ourselves. When someone else is pushing their agenda and their way to get to the front of the line before us, we need to deny ourselves. We someone is vying for all the attention and want the front seats, we should gladly sit in the back. Instead of focusing on our own spirituality and service to God, we need to be more aware and thankful of the significant contributions made by each other member of the body of Christ.
Think of what your church would look like if you did this? Or if different churches from different denominations in your city were to practice this one to another? What about your family, your community, your own heart? Remember the grace of God and don’t think so highly of yourself.
This takes place only through the life transforming grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now the unity that we have in the one faith we all share in Christ does not destroy our distinctions within the one body of Christ. We are all one in Christ but we have all been given a diversity of gifts to be used to strengthen, not destroy, that unity (READ vv. 4-8).
As we said above, it is so easy to become focused on your own service to Christ or piety before God that you begin to be filled with pride in your individual gift. In vv. 4-5, Paul uses the imagery of a human body to describe the necessary diversity and unity within the body of Christ. He compares each individual Christian to members of the human body.
Paul says in v. 4 that just as there are many parts in one human body and all those parts do not have the same function so we who are many are one in the body of Christ and individually members of one another.
The body is one system, like a machine, with a purpose and goal for which it was made. A machine works properly and efficiently only when all of its individual parts work together towards that goal. And the diversity within the machine is necessary to maintain the unity of purpose for which it was made.
You can also think of the body of Christ like a large factory with many parts, many workers, many assembly lines. The division of labor within that factory is absolutely necessary for the product to roll off the assembly line. You wouldn’t want all your workers huddled together in one part of the factory each attempting to build the engine. You need workers spread out throughout the factory, doing their individual work – like fashioning the body together, attaching the bumpers and wheels, inserting the seats and dashboard, etc.
But when they all work together as a team, not trying to compete with one another or take over the job they really want rather than the one assigned to them, then before long a well-built car will eventually roll off the assembly line, ready to make someone’s life easier.
In the same way, the body of Christ is made up of many individual members who are in a symbiotic relationship to one another to work towards the goal for which we have been made by Christ. We are interconnected to one another in one body to accomplish the task at hand.
In vv. 6-8, Paul gives us just a sample of the many different parts or gifts that are at work within the body of Christ. These gifts find their source in God’s grace, which we all have in common with one another. But it is the diversity itself of these gifts that makes the church so rich and strong.
God has graced each one of us with a different gift as your means by which you contribute to the building of the unity of the body of Christ. You are placed into a long tradition of “body-builders” going all the way back to the first century apostles and you are to use your gifts as God has personally graced each of you with all diligence and faithfulness to God. And if these gifts are to properly benefit the body they cannot be used for self-promotion but only for the purpose for which God gave them to strengthen the unity of the whole body.
1. Paul begins his list with the gift of prophecy, which he seems to favor according to 1 Cor. 14 (vv. 3, 24-25, 30). Jesus Christ is the ultimate prophet of God through whom God has spoken to us in these last days so that when we have seen and heard the Son we have seen and heard God (cf. Heb. 1:1-2; John 1:18). He is the prophet who has spoken the words of comfort to our hearts to proclaim God’s mercy and grace to His people. And it is the role of the prophet in the New Testament who, while sometimes including the foretelling of the future, most often gives a proclamation among the whole community of believers of a word which God has exclusively revealed to the prophet for the church’s edification.
But it is not enough to merely use the gift, as Paul adds, it must be used properly: it must be used according to the right proportion of faith. Now, Paul may mean one of two things here: First, he may be referring to faith in an objective sense, what we sometimes refer to as “the” faith, which has been passed down to us by the apostles:
They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer" (Acts 2:42).
Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3).
If Paul is using “faith” in this way here, then he is saying that the prophet is to give and measure his or her prophecy against the set or standard of Christian teachings which were handed down to us by the apostles.
But Paul could also be using “faith” in a more subjective sense referring to the personal faith of the prophet. If Paul is using “faith” in this way, he is exhorting the man or woman who prophesies to prophecy according to the right proportion of their own faith or trust in Jesus Christ.
Either way, it is clear that the prophet is to use his or her gift, not for their own personal aggrandizement but solely for the benefit of others in the community of Christ.
2. Secondly, in v. 7 Paul mentions the gift of serving, or ministering, or literally, deaconing. The word has an ancient meaning referring to those who wait tables (cf. Lk. 17:8). Now, it is not clear that Paul is referring more specifically to the office of the deacon, where a man or woman is set aside to serve the whole body in an official manner, or if Paul is simply referring more generically to the gift of serving in a much broader manner among the body. Either way, he or she is to use their gift in accordance with its true nature – to serve. This gift is not to be a source of pride but should be used in a selfless, sacrificial manner as Christ “came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many (Mk. 10:45).
3. Third, the gift of teaching is distinguished in the New Covenant from the gift of prophecy, mentioned in v. 6. Whereas prophecy has a more revelatory basis – the prophet speaks the words which God directly places in his or her mouth – the teacher proclaims the standard, written truth of the gospel preserved for us by God’s Spirit and recorded in the Scriptures. As Christ taught us the gospel, so the teacher is to faithfully exercise his or her gift in proclaiming the gospel one to another.
4. Fourth, in v. 8 Paul turns to the gift of exhortation or the gift of comfort or encouragement. This gift is used along with teaching to encourage others with the words of Christ and to call them to walk in faith and obedience to Christ.
5. Fifth, Paul refers to the giver or sharer of his or her own possessions. He or she is to give generously as Jesus Christ gave to us. Paul said,
"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9).
And as we give to one another as Christ gave to us, Paul reminds us that God loves a cheerful giver (cf. 2 Cor. 9:7).
6. Sixth, Paul refers to those who lead, or the elders or overseers among us. They are to lead with all eagerness and diligence and as Peter says they are to model the Chief Shepherd who came not:
lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock" (1 Peter 5:3).
7. Finally, Paul mentions those whom God has given the gift of mercy. These have the wonderful privilege of modeling the incredible mercy that God has shown toward us in Christ by ministering to the weak, the poor, the sick, disabled, the dying, the orphan and the widow. And as anyone who has worked in that kind of mercy ministry knows, he or she must always be careful not to let such work among the destitute cause them to become discouraged or downcast but rather to constantly strive to be cheerful and joyful in the many lives they are affecting through their display of mercy.
Together this small sampling of seven gifts gives us an idea of the nature of the work of ministry of the body of Christ. Each of these gifts, when exercised according to God’s purpose in giving them, reflect for us beautifully the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. After all, it is His work that we are continuing to extend into this world in the power of Christ’s Spirit among us.
And it is clear from the very nature of the work that Christ has given to each of us in the body of Christ that there is one essential element by which all these diverse gifts can come together and benefit the body of Christ: Humility -- to not think more highly of yourself than you ought to think but to see all others as more important than yourself.
And it is here, where we humbly serve one another, that we find Jesus Christ, the Master. For He came not to be served but to serve – He came as a physician to the sick, to call sinners to Himself, to show compassion for the weak – He is the friend of sinners and it is in Him that you have become a living sacrifice in your humble service to one another.
Amen! -SDG-
