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Using Our Gifts in Proportion to Our Faith, Part 2
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God Ministries is available at www.desiringgod.org. Let's pray together. History belongs to you. It's all about you. So don't let us think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. Make us lowly as a people. Make us humble. Make us servants. Forgive, Lord, our presumption. Our swagger. Our cockiness. Our self-centeredness. Our self-protection. Oh, that we might be a more lavishly generous people. May we be a more zealous people. May we be a more cheerful people. May everything we do, Lord, have a kind of lavish letting go about it. We should be the freest, humblest people, happiest, boldest people on planet Earth because our future is so absolutely secure, no matter what. So come now and help me be faithful to this powerful word of the apostle Paul under the inspiration of your Holy Spirit. May the same spirit that inspired these words illumine our minds and convict our hearts and transform us into the image of Christ. For the sake of the world to see our good deeds and give glory to our Father in heaven. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. If you are one of the hostages somewhere hidden in Iraq and you have on an orange suit, and in front of you there are five hooded men, four of them with rifles and one of them with a knife. You might say mercy, have mercy. But probably you wouldn't mean when you said mercy, have mercy, you wouldn't mean I do deserve to be beheaded for having taken up my mercy ministry in Iraq. But even though I deserve to be beheaded, have mercy and don't treat me according to what I deserve. You probably wouldn't mean that. You would probably mean, though you don't say it out loud, I don't deserve this. But I know you think I do deserve this. And so I'm not going to appeal to you on the basis of justice. I'm going to appeal to you as a last resort to the basis of mercy. So mercy can be asked for even when justice would be saving. How much more than, if you're in a courtroom before an all wise judge, and he has found you guilty of a great crime, and you are guilty of the crime. You know you're guilty, everybody knows you're guilty, the judge knows you're guilty, and the sentence is death. How much more than, if you have anything to say, might you say, is there any mercy possible in the court? I don't ask for justice. If I ask for justice, I would die. I don't ask for justice. I don't want justice. I want mercy. Is there any possible mercy in the court? And if, by some amazing turn of affairs, the judge could speak into your face against all expectation, yes, there is mercy. In fact, I will now commute your sentence, and I will pronounce you not guilty, and you may go free, and not only that, my son, who has taken your penalty, has died, and his risen again, I will commission to go with you forever to help you live as a mercy-loving, mercy-dependent, Christ-treasuring person forever. If that happened to you, if that happened to you, and you received that and walked out into the magnificent, bright sunshine of freedom and felt the cool breezes on your face, you would, from that day on, be a mercy-loving person. It would be very hard to strut at that moment, or be cocky, or self-assured, or demanding, or presumptuous. There would be on you a kind of humility, a kind of loneliness that would change your life forever. So that's the kind of people Paul is addressing in verse 1, isn't it? You see verse 1 there? Chapter 12, "I appeal to you, therefore, by the mercies of God." In other words, everything I have written in Romans 1 to 11 is about how the mercies of God triumphed over sin, and death, and hell, and satisfied the justice of God so that he could be both just and the justifier of the ungodly. Chapter 3, verse 26, chapter 4, verse 5. It's all about the mercies of God, these 11 chapters, mercies towards sinners who deserve everlasting death because of our sin and our rebellion against God. And in the courtroom, we have faced an infinitely just judge who cannot sweep sin under the rug of the universe. He has turned to his son, will you bear my curse, my just wrath and punishment, the son in covenant with the Father says, I will for the glory of your name and for their deliverance. He dies in our place. He comes back to life. Our sentence is commuted. We're dispensed to go free into the green pastures and still waters of eternity with Jesus at our side, saying I'll be with you to the end of the age, helping us do whatever we have to do. That's happened to everybody who has read chapters 1 to 11 and said, I surrender, I receive. What a God, what a mercy, what a Savior, what a salvation. Yes, that's who he's writing to. If you're not there, this chapter is not yours. You know what you'll do to this chapter 12 if you're not there? You'll turn it into a list of things by which you try to get the favor of God. And you'll kill yourself doing that. You cannot make Romans 12 be a list of things by which you gain what he only freely gives through the death of his son. So you got two choices as you face Romans 12. You can reject this Christ or treasure this Christ. And if you treasure him and are a broken, humbled, lowly, mercy-loving, mercy-dependent, Christ-treasuring person, you'll live like this. This is a description of mercy-loving people. That's what Romans 12 is. I beseech you, brothers, by the mercies of God. So all of chapter 12 flows from the mercy of God through hearts that have been broken by the mercy of God. Come to love mercy. Come to depend on mercy. Come to tremble without mercy. Come to cherish Jesus Christ. That kind of heart, that's called Christian. Through that kind of heart, it flows out through this chapter. That's what this chapter is. It is a description of people who have just walked out of the courtroom having been sentenced to death and then pronounced, not guilty. That's what this chapter is. It's a description of the kind of life you live if you're a mercy lover, because you've been shown so much mercy. Which is why the first specific that Paul gives of the new mind that he called for in verse 2, the first specific of the new mind is in verse 3 and it is humility. For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. If you've just walked out of that courtroom, knowing you deserve everlasting torment and a smile came across the judge's face, a smile came across his son's face, his bloody wounded son's face. And they both with joy said, not guilty. Let's go forth together forever, enjoy. You will be that way. You will not think of yourself highly. You will feel so humbled, so broken, so undeserving. You will tremble at the thought of every whiff of pride, every whiff of self-reliance. You will be so tender and lowly. Having walked out of that courtroom, I adopt you. He comes out from behind the bench and as he sends you out with his son, he says, oh, and by the way, I've officially adopted you so that now you are an heir of everything I own, which is everything in the universe. By the way, enjoy. You will have to suffer. But oh, this is going to be good someday. That kind of people who know mercy live like verse 3. Don't think of yourself too highly. Now, here's the really interesting thing. We really are going to verses 7 and 8. I know this is about spiritual gifts. We are going there. This is all leading somewhere. The opposite of pride in verse 3 is surprising. But middle of verse, don't think of yourself too highly, but think about yourself with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. And he means faith in Christ. Remember this sermon from some weeks ago? I'll give you the key summary statement. The opposite of pride is not mainly self condemnation. It is that, but if you stop there, you're dead. The opposite of pride or thinking too highly of yourself is thinking very highly of Christ. That's the opposite of pride. The opposite of thinking too highly of yourself is thinking really highly of Christ. The opposite of treasuring yourself too highly is treasuring Christ very highly. The way verse 3 works is that it says, the way to think about yourself is to think according to the measure of faith. And faith is that which looks away from us to Christ. So self assessment equals Christ assessment. If you are more in your eyes, Christ is less. If Christ is more in your eyes, you are more to God. If Christ is less in your eyes, you are less. The measure of your worth rises and the measure of your worth falls to the degree that you measure Christ highly. If He is much, you are much. If He is little, you are little. That's what it means to no longer think highly of yourself, but think according to faith. Faith looks away to Jesus Christ. Your valuing Him is your value. That's the meaning of Christian humility. It is a kind of self-forgetfulness produced by treasuring Christ. Don't think that the end point of Christian humility is self-condemnation. Self-condemnation is paralyzing. And if one thing is sure, Christian humility is liberating and empowering, not paralyzing. Therefore, you must move beyond the proper assessment of yourself to self-forgetfulness. The glory of the freedom of the Christian life is the miracle of looking away from ourself and being so ravished by something glorious and beautiful, sunrise, sunset, Christ. That in the moment of worship and love, we're not even aware of being a self. That's the most liberating, joyful experience. Heaven will not be a hall of mirrors. They will be gone. And the glory will be, we'll see Him, and we'll be drawn out to Him and out to Him. So if somebody asks you in heaven, are you humble? You will say, Christ is all. You will not be able to answer the question. You can't answer the question. If somebody says, yes, I'm humble, they're not. It is the kind of question you can't answer. The paradox and the miracle of humility is that it is faith, which is away from self. Self-forgetting Christ, exalting Christ preoccupation. That's what we long for. That's the liberty that we want. Now, all of this really does have to do with verses 7 and 8, the spiritual gifts. We've already dealt with a gift of prophecy, and now we are at a list of six gifts in verses 7 and 8. And we need to spend perhaps two weeks on these. I'm not sure, I think I'll spend one more week on these. The reason I have taken as much time in this message as I have with humility and mercy dependent, mercy loving, Christ-treasuring hearts is because I don't think Paul's point in verses 7 and 8 can be understood apart from verse 3 continuing in verses 7 and 8. Let me give you an explanation of why that is. When you read verses 6 through 8, what you don't realize in English is that there's no main verb in this sentence. It's all one long sentence, 6, 7, and 8. And in the original language, there's no verb. It has to be supplied, and that's OK. We do that a lot with our language, and we expect people to be able to supply the verb in our sentence. Let me read the text and show you what is supplied and why I would like to supply something more. Having gifts, I'm at verse 6, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us-- now, these next words, let us use them. That's not in the text. Paul expected us to supply that. It just says, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, if prophecy, in proportion to our faith. And you've got to supply the verb. So keep reading, and keep supplying. If service, let him use the gift in serving. If one teaches, let him use his gift in teaching. If one exhorts, or the one who exhorts, uses gift in exhortation. The one who contributes, use that gift in generosity. The one who leads, use that gift in zeal. The one who does acts of mercy, use that gift in cheerfulness. We have to supply a verb for every one of those in order to make any sense. Now, the problem that I have with the simple, let us use them, is that it doesn't seem to make any sense in verses 7 and 8 when you carry that through. That is, it seems to be empty and pointless. When you read verse 7, if service, let him use it in, or let us use it in our serving. The one who teaches, let him use it in teaching. And my response to that is to say, well, where else? You know, what's the point of saying that? If you're a teacher, use your gift in teaching. I said, well, what's the alternative? If you're a giver, use it in giving. If you're-- what's the-- I don't think Paul is just saying nothing. I don't think he's just saying teachers. When you use your gift, be sure to use it teaching. Servants, when you serve, be sure to use your gift serving. I just think that's empty. That doesn't say anything. I don't think Paul's into saying nothing. So here's my suggestion. I think what's going on in this whole paragraph is that Paul means to continue on with the point of verse 3, namely, use your gifts humbly. I think that's what he's saying. So let me paraphrase the way I would suggest we read it. We're talking about mercy dependent, mercy loving people being addressed about their spiritual gifts, starting at verse 6. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them humbly. If prophecy-- proportion to our faith. If service, let us use it with mercy dependent humility in our serving. The one who teaches, let us use this gift of teaching in mercy dependent humility in his teaching. The one who exhorts, let him exhort with mercy dependent humility in his exhortation. The one who contributes, let him contribute with mercy dependent humility and thus with generosity. The one who leads, let him lead with mercy dependent humility and thus with zeal. The one who does acts of mercy. Let him show mercy with mercy dependent humility and thus with cheerfulness. That's the way I think Paul means for us to hear the absence of these verbs. Fill in the thrust, fill in the point of verse 1, verse 3, verses 4 and 5, fill in the point of where I've been taking you. I've been taking you to mercy. I've been taking you to humility, not to think of yourself too highly as you do your gifts, but do it in a certain Christ honoring, mercy dependent way. I think that's what we're supposed to fill in. Now, there are two reasons why I think this because there are two things about this list that beg for that understanding and give you until you wanted a time. The first one is this. When you read these seven gifts, these six that we're looking at today, someone is on the receiving end in need in each of these, which puts some people in need and other people in a position of apparent strength, and the strong ones are moving towards the weaker ones. And that's dangerous for the human soul. Pride is on the edge, lurking, ready. Look at verse 7, if someone is serving, someone is in need of service. If someone is teaching, someone knows less and is being taught. If someone is exhorting, someone else is in need of exhortation. If someone is contributing, there's a needy person who needs a contribution. If someone is leading, there are people being led, sheep. If someone is showing mercy, someone is hurting in need of mercy. You got here a situation of diversity with some that apparently are moving from strength and others receiving in weakness. That is a call for humility if there was one, both for the strong, not to be proud, and for the weak, not to be self-pitying. The issue here in spiritual gift transaction in the body of Christ is a huge issue of diversity and unity. I think the reason God ordains that the body of Christ have so much diversity, even diversity, He wills diversity of spiritual temperature. I mean, there would be no point of saying, I come to you to exhort you if I didn't perceive some need on your part, some flaw, some lack, some need of exhortation. Or if I'm teaching some need to be taught, God in ordaining that there be gifts recognizes and we know from verse three ordains that there be differences of faith, morality. God ordains our diversity of spirituality. Says that in verse three, according to the measure of faith which God has assigned. And you see, you're kind of tremble. Whoa, what's the point of willing such diversity of some strong and some weak? And then the role might be reversed the next week or the next hour or the next kind of need. It might be reversed. And God is willing all this diversity in the church. Why? I think the reason is because if Christ can pull together a people in common cause and love and joy, all of the same, He's no big deal. But if Christ can pull together really different people, ethnically different, and gift difference, and personality difference, and political differences, and family kidrearing differences, and a lot of other kinds of explosive differences. If He can pull those together in worship, common ministry cause, loving one another, forbearing one another, the Bible says. What's the point of that verse? Verb, forbear one another means we got problems with one another. And He pulls all those people together into a magnificent, coherent unity of praise, He's somebody. He is somebody if He can do that. And God wants His Son to be somebody, and therefore He wills that kind of diversity and calls for unity and the only hope of unity for that group is humility. It's the only hope. Christ-treasuring, mercy-loving, mercy-dependent humility is the only way that these gifts will be practiced in unity. That's my first reason for saying that these lists beg for verse three to come down into verse eight. Don't think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. Do your gift of teaching, your gift of service, your gift of contributing, your gift of exhorting. Do it lowly, do it meekly, do it humbly. Do it as one who is tasting, depending on loving mercy, treasuring Christ, not trying to be somebody. And then we'll have unity in diversity. So Bethlehem, isn't that what we need? Isn't that what we need? Serve, teach, exhort, contribute, lead. Do acts of mercy in a way that puts others above yourself. Put some up, not down, and you assume a servant role. Here's my second and last reason for why I think these gifts, as they are mentioned in verses seven and eight, demand that we bring down verse three, as the verb in verse seven and eight. That is, use your gifts in mercy-dependent, mercy-loving, Christ-treasuring humility. That's the point of verses seven and eight I'm arguing. And here's my second reason. When you look at these gifts, there's a break in the middle of the list, shifting from just doing them in their sphere to doing them in a certain spirit. And I'm going to argue that this spirit that's demanded for the doing of these last three gifts is humility. And mercy-dependent, mercy-loving, Christ-treasuring loneliness. And you won't be able to do these last three gifts the way he says to do them if you don't do them that way. Now keep in mind what I said earlier, the opposite of pride in the Christian life is not mainly self-condemnation. That's real, I deserve condemnation. I should know that, recognize it, be broken by it, and tremble before it. And if I stop there, I will either be paralyzed or a lie to myself and be proud and both despair and pride are forms of unbelief. So that the opposite of pride for the Christian is not mainly despairing, paralyzing, self-condemnation. The opposite of pride is treasuring Christ. In a sense, the opposite of pride is happiness in Jesus, a self-forgetting, lavish, free, non-self-protecting, overflowing joy in something other than me. That's the opposite of pride. Now notice the break in the list of gifts. Verse 8, he doesn't say the one who contributes in his contributing, the one who leads in his leading, the one who does acts of mercy in acts of mercy. He doesn't say that. That's what he had been saying, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who serves in his serving. He doesn't say that. Something in Paul's mind changes here. He just can't keep saying just that. He shifts gears in the list. And now he says, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. There's an explosiveness that cannot stay in the apostle Paul. Now how do you account for this? Where does that come from? What's going on? Why does he explode and start talking not about the sphere and doing it humbly, but about the spirit and the attitude and the quantity of the gift? And I think that can only be explained by verse 1, verse 3. I beseech you as beneficiaries of the greatest mercy that has ever been shown. I beseech all of you gifted people ready to serve one another. I beseech you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think rather with sober judgment, letting the measure of yourself be a self-forgetful measuring of Christ as infinitely valuable. Because if you think that way and you have the gift of contribution, you will explode with generosity. If you have the gift of leadership and you think that way, depending on mercy, loving mercy, treasuring Christ, the happiest person in the world, all of your future secured, you will lead with passion and zeal and not to make money or to gain praise from men. And if you have the gift of being a lover of the poor and the broken and the hurting and you live like this and you love mercy and you're dependent on mercy and you're treasuring Jesus, you will be the happiest mercy giver in the world. Isn't it amazing? The one who contributes to it with generosity. The one who leads to it with passion and zeal. The one who does acts of mercy, do it with joy and cheerfulness. Nobody wants a begrudging gift. Thank you. Keep your visit at home. Don't come to my house out of duty. Don't come to my house begrudging this godly deed. Come to me with joy or stay home. Isn't that what it says there at the end? Who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness? I love God. I love the way God is. I love the Bible. I see new things every week. Isn't it amazing that our God is not just into duty? Like, OK, there's contributions to be given. There's leadership to be done. And there are poor to be cared for. Do your duty, Piper? Period. That is not the kind of God we have. That's not Christianity. God is not into deeds per se. He's into a spirit and an attitude and an overflow. God loves a blank giver. Tell me. That's 2 Corinthians 9, 7. And it's underlined in the last phrase of Romans 12.8. Let him who does acts of mercy do it with cheerfulness. God really cares about whether we're happy in our love, even if we lay down our lives in our love. I'm not talking about a greasy, sleazy, easy happiness put on the cake of American prosperity. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the joy of Hebrews 12.2. For the joy that we set before him, he endured the cross. He wasn't breezy and chipper in Gethsemane. Sweat and blood for our souls. But it was joy that held him there. I will one day come out of the grave. I will have redeemed millions of people. They will surround me with everlasting praise. We will give glory to my Father, and we will be happy forever. That kept him in Gethsemane. And it can keep you on the hard road. And evil enable you to do some hard things with cheerfulness. So I think the point of this list is not just, OK, teachers teach. OK, exhorters exhort. OK, servants serve. OK, givers give. That's not the point. That's not the point. The point is, I beseech you, as beneficiaries of infinite mercy. Be humble, be lowly, and forget yourself and treasure Jesus. And then you will become the most lavish people in the world. I mean, does the world need more mere philanthropists who do their duty and leaders who just have managerial competence and do gooders to the poor? Is that what the world really needs? No. What the world needs is givers who are so satisfied with Jesus, they're just lavish. They're not self-protecting people calculating really carefully. Well, now is the tenth required? Or is it on the gross, or is it on the net? That's not the way people who've just walked out of the courtroom feel. This is not the way they feel. And the world needs that kind of giver. The world does need leaders, but not leaders who lead for the praise of man or lead for money, but leaders who-- it's common from inside. It's all about making much of Jesus and getting underneath people to lift them up to Him so that they make much of Him and not much of us zeal. And the world does need people who do good to the poor and love the hurting, but not begrudgingly or under compulsion. The Lord loves a cheerful, merciful person. So we have our work cut out for us, don't we, namely, to be renewed in the spirit of our mind so that we can discern and embrace joyfully what is good and acceptable and perfect, the will of God? Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Feel free to make copies of this message to give to others, but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission. We invite you to visit Desiring God Online at www.desiringgod.org. There you'll find hundreds of sermons, articles, radio broadcasts, and much more, all available to you at no charge. Our online store carries all of Pastor John's books, audio, and video resources. You can also stay up to date on what's new at Desiring God. Again, our website is www.desiringgod.org. Or call us toll free at 1-888-346-4700. Our mailing address is Desiring God-2601 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55-406. Desiring God exists to help you make God your treasure, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.
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