Trinity Church Spokane Valley
Romans 12:3-5
we are in Romans chapter 12 this morning. If you were visiting with us today we have been going through the book of Genesis as a church for the last year. During the summers though we take a break from our regular series and what we like to do here at Trinity Church is memorize a passage of Scripture together. This summer the passage of Scripture that we are memorizing together is Romans chapter 12 and as we memorize this passage together as a church we will preach through this same passage so that we can understand what we're memorizing. This is a help to us as summer is a time busy people people leave or people are camping or people are doing all sorts of activities and this is a help to us even as we're out and about to continue memorizing together. I hope and I want you to hear me carefully I am not down on people going camping and people traveling and all that I love the fact that people can rest and use that time to relax and reset that's good this is good for us. But I want you to come to a place in your thinking where the church your your church the body of Christ that you are a member of and what we're doing as a church really anchors your thinking about your life. So even as you're out and about and even as you're traveling here and there I want you to work diligently as much as you're able to memorize Romans chapter 12 with us because this is what your church is doing. More than that even Romans chapter 12 if you understand what it is teaching what I was saying it will transform your life will change your life it will grow you in ways that are needed. So as we begin this morning let's stand in honor of God's word and I will read Romans chapter 12 and if you've memorized it already in some other translation that's okay you can that that'll pass I have a hard time not quoting in the King James it's really really hard for me not to to do it in the King James. Let me read if you will follow along please as I read starting verse one I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind so that by testing you may discern what is the will of God what is good and acceptable and perfect. 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 but to think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members and the members do not all have the same function so we though many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us let us use them if prophecy in proportion to our faith if service in our serving the one who teaches in his teaching the one who exhorts in his exhortation the one who contributes in generosity the one who leads with zeal the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness let love be genuine abhor what is evil hold fast to what is good love one another with brotherly affection out do one another in showing honor do not be slothful and zeal be fervent in spirit serve the Lord rejoice in hope be patient in tribulation be constant in prayer contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality bless those who persecute you bless and do not curse them rejoice with those who rejoice weep with those who weep live in harmony with one another do not be haughty but associate with the lowly never be wise in your own sight repay no one evil for evil but give thought to do what is honorable in the side of all if possible so far as it depends on you live peaceably with all beloved never avenge yourselves but leave it to the wrath of god for it is written vengeance is mine i will repay says the lord to the contrary if your enemy is hungry feed him if he is thirsty give him something to drink for by so doing you will he burning coals on his head do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good this is the word of the lord you may be seated i'd like to pray for us again as we approach god's word and the preaching of it father we come to you once again this morning asking for you to use your word in our lives to adjust to change to alter to transform us in our thinking so that we would be transformed in our living i pray for all of your people here this morning who all of us we want to hear from you we want to know what it is you have for us and what it is you want for us to do how we can serve you how we can please you i pray that you would use your word in our hearts and in our minds to change us to grow us to work in us and to work in this body as a whole so that trinity church would glorify you we thank you that that trinity church is not the only church in spokan or spokan valley we thank you that that's not the reality we thank you that this is not all of the believers in spokan valley and in spokan sitting here today we praise you for all of the other faithful churches we pray the same prayer for them that they would be so unified and so in sync with what you are doing in your son jesus christ that it would be obvious to our our city and to our county and even to our region it would be obvious god of what you're doing because of the unity of your people and the effectiveness of their ministry together we pray that you would be glorified in our midst we pray all this for your sake and the sake of the name of your son amen the subject of god's will god's will has produced countless christian self-help books apparently it seems there is a large market for people who want to know what god's will is for their life indeed there are many decisions to make in life aren't there there are many choices that we have we want to know how we are to please god we are we want to know how we are to walk and where we are to go with all the many decisions and choices that we have life can be difficult sometimes can it and yet i want you to stop right here at the beginning and consider something maybe you've considered this maybe you haven't have you ever considered have you ever considered how the fact that we are born in 21st century american culture has paralyzed us in this pursuit of knowing and understanding god's will what we experience in 21st century america is far different than christians have experienced throughout the ages and around the globe let me give you a little illustration of that just how decision-making has been complicated i went to the store the other day with my daughter we were getting ready to make some hamburgers amen and we had to we had to choose my wife gave me this short list we went to the store and our job was to get some things and among the the things we were to get were some pickles i went down the aisle to the pickles do you know how many choices for pickles there were there were like there were like 20 different choices of pickles and all different sizes i could get a few pickles i could get a lot of pickles i could get a whole pickles or slice pickles they were sliced in every way i'd want them sliced there i was looking at the pickles and you know what happened paralyzed pickles what kind of what kind of pickles do we need too many choices and i i listen i don't want to miss out on the best pickles i want the best i don't want to come home with the wrong thing that's a little silly isn't it but but you see how this is the case for us how many some of you are either in college or getting ready maybe to go to college in a couple of years some of you are in high school you're thinking about college how many colleges are there that you can pick from is callous so many different opportunities so many different choices this paralyzes us what what if i choose the wrong college what if i choose the wrong if i choose the wrong place and god has me going over here instead and and my spouse my future spouse is at this other college what if i miss out people are paralyzed god what do you want me to do how many options do people have we find this as well with churches don't we did you know there was a time there was a time not really all that long ago even in america where if you went to church you have one choice if you were a baptist there was one church if you were a Presbyterian there was one church that was it if you didn't get along with the people down to that church guess what you had to figure it out but now we've got a church for every shape and size and guess what not just that we will meet at all the different times that are convenient to your schedule isn't that nice we will make it convenient for you to do whatever it is that is best for you to do see we we've paralyzed people and so when relationships get hard listen i i've i've seen this so many times when relationships get hard at one place guess what we'll just go down the road to another place and when relationships get hard that we'll just go down the road over here too so we we end up not actually living like the church when we live that way because we take the church and we bend it around us and what we want this is called consumerism individualism i dare say this is called americanism and this is what the american church looks like so we've got churches full of people that are wondering what what does god's will for my life and what they've actually mean by that is god how can you help me find what will be most satisfying and best for me and my individual ambitions and pursuits we've got what was coined not too long ago we've got fomo you know what fomo is the fear of missing out i don't want to miss out and this has kept us it's made us incapable of seeing the simplicity oh i want you to hear this brother sister the simplicity of god's will for our lives this morning i don't want you to miss out i don't want you to miss out this morning on what god has for you i want you to see and this is one of the reasons we chose roman's 12 because roman's 12 opens up four chapters where the apostle paul after he is exposited after he's explained the gospel for 11 chapters he starts in chapter 12 by by giving us practical instruction for how to live a life pleasing to god for four chapters he says you want to know what god wants here it is four chapters this is god's will for your life so when we're finding god's will for our life we don't start by looking up at the heavens and shouting out to god god what do you want me to do we need to start that pursuit of god's will by turning our attention down to where god's word actually speaks clearly this is god's will for our life roman's 12 13 14 and 15 this is what god wants i want you to see god's will for your life and i want you to see how exciting it is i want you to see how clear it is and that you don't need to go somewhere else to find it it's right here in front of you let's start by recalling verse one and two you remember verse one and two some of you can already quote it because you've memorized it i know you've been working diligently on it i beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of god that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable that means pleasing to god that's what paul says after he expounds on the gospel he says this is what god's will for you is that you would give your life holy devote your life devote everything in your life to god as a living sacrifice pleasing him why because of his mercies he's been so merciful to us don't we want to serve and love and obey the one who's been so merciful to us well how are you to do that he starts flushing it out in verse two do not be conformed to this world don't be conformed to this present evil age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind the renewal of your thinking be transformed by the renewal of your thinking so that you may be able to test and prove what is good what is pleasing what is morally sound so that you may be able to discern and prove what is the will of god what pleases him and that with that is a foundation verse one and two as a foundation paul now is stepping into the practical outworking of that today he wants to transform your thinking the apostle paul wants to transform your thinking and you're living by what he gives us in verse three through five for every christian he wants to change your thinking so let's look at verse three through five can i read it for us again verse three through five 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 but to think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that god has assigned for as in one body we have many members and the members do not all have the same function so we though many are one body in christ and individually members one of another so here here's the simple point that verse three through five is making this is the main point for this morning our unity as the body of christ our unity as the body of christ is what our individuality should seek to serve our unity as the body of christ is what our individuality should seek to serve again i don't know that there's anything hard or foreign american to to adjust in their thinking by nature we think of ourselves first as individuals paul is saying to us in verse three through five of chapter 12 your unity as the body of christ that is important and your identity as an individual is meant to serve the higher identity as the body of christ our unity as the body of christ is what our individuality is meant to serve he gives us some adjustments in our thinking first he says we need to think humbly for by the grace given to me i said everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think it's pretty straightforward isn't it if we are to serve the unity of the body of christ we need to start out by thinking humbly paul's instruction here is for everyone in the church everyone in the church every single one lest you think that his instruction is really just for those have-nots you know the have-nots in the church the leavings of the church well hey hey know your place don't think too highly of yourself no no no it's for every member of the church paul himself is not excluded from this he demonstrates this by how he introduces the subject look at it notice he appeals to the grace that he has been given that's what he says for by the grace given to me i say to everyone among you paul the apostle appeals to his place as an apostle but he says i have this place as an apostle because of the grace of god he's an apostle which means we should listen to him but he's not in that position because he earned it i want you to stop and listen to me paul the apostle is not in his place as an apostle because he earned it somehow quite the opposite he's not in the position because he's the most qualified he's not in the position because he's most deserving he's not in that position because he's the best among all christians no in fact paul says the opposite he says god has seemed fit to to make the chief of sinners the apostle because god is magnifying his grace paul the apostle is in his position solely because of grace can i translate what he's saying there what he's saying is to all these christians to us today he's saying i'm speaking to you from the place that god has graciously assigned to me that you and i need to not think too highly of ourselves why because it's all of grace it's all of grace i alluded to this a moment ago in our prayer for the offering every one of us every one of us has received what we've received by grace all that we've been given has been given to us by grace this is so important are you talented are you smart are you beautiful are you competent are you athletic i mean we could just go on and on and on everything you have has been given to you by grace and it is no different than when we look at the church everything you have is a gift of god's grace the position you hold the role that you serve in all of this we stand in the mercies of god so how then can we be lifted up with pride it's a simple question it's a logical question how can we be lifted up with pride if everything we have is is because of grace we've not earned anything we've been given everything so then how can we be lifted up with pride you would think that the church would be a place void of pride right no pride in the church we all come as recipients of grace understanding that we're sinners understand that we deserve nothing but the wrath of god understanding that we we have earned nothing but god's judgment everything we have is by grace the church should not be a place of pride right but do we see pride in the church constantly i'm afraid that we have churches and and let's just talk about Trinity church i think it's very possible that we have here people who think that they own something in the church as if the church is theirs to possess or theirs to run or or theirs to organize the church doesn't belong to you the church doesn't belong to me how many of us have seen a church where a pastor let's let's start let's start with the guy that we think is in charge right the pastor how many of us have been a part of a church or seen a church where the pastor forgets that he doesn't own the church where the pastor forgets that that his ministry is by grace that's not his a pastor who thinks that it's about his ministry it's about his impact it's about his gifting and everyone else in the church has meant to serve him we've seen that right of course we've seen that but but how many churches also have we seen where uh the sweet old Sunday school teacher splits the church causes division in the church because they have the audacity to remove me from my position that i've been in for 35 years who do they think they are they are i've been here through five pastors this is my ministry this is my Sunday school class this is where i serve those leaders do you see you see what whether you hierarchily if we were going to think that way whether you're up here or down here right you have pride and it it splits the church it divides the church when you start prising yourself and you're placing ministry over the good of the body it's damaging it's destructive if we are to maintain and pursue unity as the body of Christ it starts by adopting this this new way of thinking you've got to think humbly are you are you willing and ready to submit yourself and what you know and your experiences and all the things that you've got to offer are you willing to submit this to the good of the body or does everybody need to know all that you've accomplished and all that you've done and all the things that you have seen in your experience has the church really become more about you Paul says no i i by the grace he says by the grace give it to me he says look look i'm here by grace just like you are by the grace given to me i say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think think humbly then he says don't think of yourself more highly than you ought to think but think with sober judgment we need to think with sober judgment that's not a phrase you probably use that often a good way to translate that word sober judgment that phrase sober judgment is with the word sensibly he says i i tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but instead think sensibly each according to the measure of faith that god has assigned we need to think sensibly about ourselves let's walk through this real quick what Paul is saying is that we we need to have a clear headed objective sensible evaluation of ourselves one author puts it this way and there's a lot of wordplay going on with the apostle Paul in the words he's using here in the greek one author translates it this way he says we are ought to be high-minded above what we ought to be minded but so to be minded as to be sober minded we need to think clearly objectively and sensibly about who we are and who we are not part of this and this is really hard this is not popular in our day and age you got to get this part of this is to understand our limits and that that god has given us these limits let's use the grocery store analogy again some of you can relate to this you go into the grocery store and you have an allergy or or you are lactose intolerant there you go guess what your options have been narrowed greatly you walk in you you can't you can't look at the shelf and choose anything you want you got a couple of choices that's it you know that what we think of as a limit is actually kind of a blessing if you think about it in that way but our culture our world that we live in our culture prizes stories of individuals overcoming limitations our culture loves stories of people who overcome their limitations the blind man who learns how to fly a plane the boy without legs who wins the wrestling tournament we love those stories isn't that great he he overcame his limitations these are our culture's heroes why because our culture prizes the motto if you can believe it you can achieve it right if you can believe it you can achieve it do you know do you know who coined that phrase do you know who expressed that sentiment first besides satan in the garden i mean come on does i if you can believe it you can does that not sound like jens is three do you know who coined that phrase his name was napoleon hill napoleon hill lived last part of the 18 1800s first part of the 1900s so the first part of the 20th century is when he coined this phrase he was a swindler who's a con artist who got rich by taking advantage of people who wanted to be rich see napoleon hill was smart enough that if you if you said you have the secret to being rich everybody would buy your book so he got rich he published a book called think and get rich think and get rich i'm going to time out time out right here time out i'm just going to ask this of all our our members here are some of you hoping to get rich is that what you're setting your side on oh if i can only have that job where i only work three days a week and i get paid three hundred thousand dollars i think some of you actually think that's your goal and you are useless as a christian because you are setting your eyes on prosperity on the riches of this world and it's keeping you from effectiveness in life it's paralyzing you nepoleon hill wrote a book produced a book called think and get rich the premise is if you can conceive it and believe that it can be then you will achieve it the power of self-belief arkelly you know the famous arkelly who's now in prison arkelly in his song i believe i can fly yeah right he takes that sentiment i believe i can touch the sky right and we see that so we love that song that song michael jordan the montage michael jordan crossing the street oh i believe i can fly that i can do it the problem is none of us are michael jordan i was i played in hoop fest yesterday and this is a silly illustration but i played in hoop fest yesterday and there are like three hundred and seventy-four courts and i'm pretty sure on every single one of their court those courts there's somebody who thinks that they're michael jordan and you know what happens do you know how many fights there are you know how many fights there are hoop fest every year why because there's some 43-year-old guy who never had a great vertical to begin with who had one game in double a high school ball where he scored 23 points and he thinks he thinks he's awesome and he's angry because he's not i mean it really is sad you watch people they're angry i mean this this is something they they are living for this and they're angry angry because it's just not working out the way they thought it was going to work out man could could that not describe so many people in our society so much depression and disillusionment because they said if i could believe it i could achieve it no that's not the truth that's a lie to think sensibly about oneself is to understand your limits and who's given you those limits god has assigned them to you that's what he says god has given you an assignment and who is he given that assignment he's given that assignment to you but who has he given it to you for he's given you that assignment for his church here is the way paul wants us to think we are to think humbly which means we are to think sensibly which means we are to think rightly about the place god has assigned us embrace your place wow man even coming out of my mouth that sounds offensive doesn't it embrace your place i can't think of a more offensive message to our current culture then the idea that god has given you a place a role a function and that our responsibility is to embrace that place embrace the place that god has given us and live for his glory there in that place we've drunk in this idea that we should be moving up and out of where we are born right you see this so much of the time why would you let me just illustrate why why would you ever stay in a small town when there's a whole wide world out there to see why would you settle for the job that your father had when there's so much more you could do be why would you be satisfied with where you're at don't you know there's so much potential in you this has infected the church it's corrupted the church the subtle and dangerous belief that you have to be moving up or climbing a ladder moving up and out and if you're not then you're just not significant you're not having an impact you're not changing the world i think i think of the guy have you ever seen the guy who's in midlife crisis right he gets to the age of 47 50 years old and he looks at his life he's kind of he's kind of reached the top of where he can reach and he looks at his life he's like what does my life mean anyway what's the point i'm useless and he starts going through midlife crisis start trying to add meaning to his life right i think some people in fact if i were honest i think this is a lot of people in ministry and in the church they look around and they what's my impact anyway what's my significance anyway i hear it in statements like this well you know so and so he's just been a member of this church for 30 years but he's he's never really done much around here he's just been a member of a church faithfully for 30 years get a member of a church faithfully for 30 years and he hasn't done anything i was having a conversation with a man this last week who was he goes to another church he doesn't go to this church but we've crossed paths in different places he was bemoaning to me the fact that he really doesn't feel like he's useful in ministry because he he tried to be a growth group he tried to be a small group leader and that just didn't work out he tried the music ministry and that just didn't work out what's what's my place i'm still trying to find my niche still trying to find the place where i'm supposed to serve do you know what i know about this man and he's done this anonymously nobody else knows this except for me and him we're the only two people probably his wife that man has in the last five years that man's given over thirty thousand dollars of his own money to people in the church who've needed it over thirty thousand dollars of his own money and he'll meet up with me at coffee and he'll say hey do you know anybody that needs do you have any needs him let me just write you a check for five thousand dollars a go and i'll give it to somebody they don't know who gave it and yet he thinks that he's having no impact why because he he doesn't know where to fit in the structures of the church do you see the craziness of that he's serving faithfully he's giving generously now next next week we're going to talk about gifts we're going to talk a little bit about gifts and how God has gifted people in the church Paul lists out seven gifts here in Romans chapter 12 and there's other places where he lists out a set of gifts we'll talk about that this this is kind of like the first part to that part this is like the ground you know preparing the ground telling the soil a little bit if we're going to use gifting rightly we've got to think humbly we've got to think sensibly we've got to think according to how God has gifted us how how God has assigned us i want you to understand that that God's gifting of you God's God's assignment for you may not be found in fact probably is not found within the ministry structures of a church like i'm glad you serve on security team why i'm glad you serve in nursery that is not your ministry God has gifted you uniquely for the sake of his church your ministry is not contained or or defined or limited to just someplace you serve in a structure and i say that because i have all the time people say to me i just don't know how to serve i'm like what do you go do you go to a small group yeah but are you not serving there in fact if we went into small group thinking this is my service this is where i minister using what God's given me that then what happens is ministry begins to appear everywhere the opportunities for ministry begin to abound i've sent out a couple of emails about people talking too much in small group you know why i don't want you talking too much in small group because you're not there for you you're there for the other people stop talking too much why because you're there to serve and people are not served if you dominate the conversation see we are an approach every relationship in the church every opportunity as God has assigned us as God has given us the place that you have been assigned by God is described as a unique measure of faith here in Romans 12 so so the implication is we we have each and every one of us every single one of us has been given a unique measure of faith here's what that means here's what that means the Lord has not asked all of us to carry the same exact responsibility or to accomplish the same purpose in the same way God has not asked all of us to carry the same responsibility God has not asked all of us to accomplish the same purpose in the same way He's uniquely gifted us He's uniquely prepared us and he's done so for the church and for the benefit of the church we need to think humbly we need to think sensibly and then third we need to think as a body we need to think as a body that's what he says this is the illustration he uses for as in one body we have many members and the members do not all have the same function so we though many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another one body here he emphasizes unity one body with many members and each of those members has a unique function so here's the good news for you I don't care who you are if you name the name of Christ if you've turned from your sin and place your faith and trust in Jesus Christ here is the good news you have a place here you have a place here you have a ministry here get this the churches is not about me as the pastor did you know that I am as much a part of this church as you are my ministry is is just as important as yours is we have different functions we have different responsibilities we all have ministry here and we must all work together just like he says the body the human body just like the human body has many members but not all the same function so we though many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another we are one body in Christ and members one of another in other words who we are together is more important than who we are separately who we are together is more important than who we are separately we've been given different functions different measures of faith by God's assignment for the benefit and health of the unified whole he this is not the only place Paul teaches this right we know that listen to first Corinthians 12 not all the first Corinthians self just listen to a little bit of first Corinthians 12 Paul says the same thing he says for the body does not consist of one member but many he's talking about the human body the human body doesn't consist of one member but many if the foot should say because I'm not a hand I do not belong to the body that would not make it any less part of the body and if the ears should say because I'm not an eye I do not belong to the body that would not make it any less part of the body listen if I did show up on a Sunday you would all go well why didn't pastor Paul show up wouldn't it wouldn't you if I didn't show up you'd be like well what is he doing what does he think it's more important than church wouldn't you but your attendance isn't as important right see see how we get this wrong head of notion in our mind your attendance and faithful attendance it's just as important as mine no no I'm just a foot are you any less part of the body he goes on to say if the whole body weren't I where where would be the sense of hearing if the whole body were an ear where would be the sense of smell but as it is got a range of the members in the body each one of them as he chose if all were a single member where would the body be as it is there are many parts yet one body so just like I was saying we are all part of this body we're all not this we're not all the same we're different we serve different functions different roles the eye cannot say to the hand I have no need of you nor again the head to the feet I have no need of you on the contrary the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty which are more presentable which our more presentable parts do not require but God has so composed the body given greater honor to the part that lacked it that there may be no division in the body but that the members may have the same care for one another if one member suffers all suffer together if one member is honored all rejoice together so Paul is simply saying we need to think as a body not as individuals and then in Ephesians 4 he has the same logic and I'm going to speed on here at the end of Ephesians 4 at the end of his argument there he says rather speaking the truth and love we are to grow up in every way into him who's the head into Christ from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint which is with which it is equipped when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love let me summarize it this way we need to think humbly which means we need to think sensibly which means we need to think rightly about our assigned place which means we are to prefer the body of Christ over our own selves that's it so let me give you some implications we are to think humbly which means we are to think sensibly about our role at our place which means we are to think rightly about what God has assigned us which means we are to prefer the body over ourselves let me give you a couple of implications the first one I just want to get out of the way right right right quick and this blew me away as I was meditating and thinking this week all of us have received grace from God wow think about that all of us if we are a part of the church we have received grace from God what grace we've received we've got from being sinners and slaves to being servants of God isn't that what David expressed it's always the joke right I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord all to be in the house of the Lord to be a part of what God is doing in his son Jesus Christ just let me serve somehow the fact that I can be here the fact that I'm here at all is amazing the church is not a place for pride or for self-exaltation in fact self-exaltation talking about oneself exulting oneself having your own ambitions and own goals that are self-centered selfish ambition that listen to me is gross it is abhorrent it has no place in the church selfish ambition in the church is awful we've all received grace from God that should stagger us second implication I've already said this but unity unity does not demand uniformity we're not all the same we have different giftings different place we are not meant to be all the same I am a little concerned sometimes when churches begin looking and acting all the same everybody's the same we are not meant to be the same not all of you are meant to be deciphering group leaders not all of you are meant to be servants of mercy I was thinking I'm going to pick on her for a second I'm going to pick on her for a second I hope it's okay my wife and I were talking about Rachel Leo this week if you spend any time with Rachel Leo you know what comes out of her mercy just mercy just like pours out of her if there's a need I'm going to help I want to help I want to help I want to help she just has this heart that just wants to help and if she sees somebody in need she's she's wanting to minister to them I have a little bit of that maybe but right we're not all meant to be that way we're not all meant to be that way and I think sometimes we can we can fall into this trap of guilting people because they don't all do it the same way listen what your passion is that's great that's great not everybody's going to have that same passion and so we don't want to fall into thinking that everybody has to look and act and serve the same role we're different and God this is beautiful God has made it that way for the good of the body number three implication number three our place in the body of Christ is not more important than the body of Christ our place in the body of Christ is not more important than the body of Christ once again your individual aspirations and goals are of secondary importance my my aspirations and goals are of secondary importance to the body of Christ if you've been around here very long you've heard me say this but because we have so many new people I've got to say it again right I kind of I kind of have a trouble when somebody asks me what is Paul Paul what is your vision for the church when I hear that I just go have you read your Bible pastor Paul doesn't get to have a vision for the church pastor Paul's job is just to explain what the Bible teaches and what Jesus vision for the church is it's not my vision for the church it's what Jesus has said in fact if I start having a vision for the church you want to go excuse me pastor Paul it's not about you and what your personal goals and aspirations are gets us in trouble are you are you using the church for what you want to accomplish your selfish ambition maybe maybe you're using the church because you think this is your latter some kind of significance or prominence I could give so many and anecdotes here I know man one time who spent 30 years of his life wanting to be a pastor because he thought that was really important I just want to be a pastor I just want to be a pastor I just want to be a pastor because that that's real significance that's real importance I want to be a pastor and that's all he cared about is his ministry his goal and his aspiration you know what he was not designed to be a pastor and that's okay in fact that's glorious the fact that not everybody's designed to be a pastor that's wonderful are you discontent are you insecure needing the church to somehow boost your ego your place in the body of Christ is not more important than the body of Christ and then I want to finish with this our identity as the body of Christ get this our identity as the body of Christ should be chief should be first in your understanding of God's will for your life our identity as the body of Christ should be first and foremost in your understanding God's will for your life God's will for your life isn't out there God's will for your life is here and through this body to minister you want to make a difference you want to make sure you don't miss out you have a fear of missing out FOMO right you want to make sure you don't miss out you want to make sure that your life is useful you want to make sure that you have an impact here it is here's God's will for your life join a local church and give yourself faithfully to that church over a long period of time that's God's will for your life and he's going to use the people on that church to stretch you to grow you to challenge you you're gonna have to learn how to work through difficulties and relationships and all that God's will for your life is glorious and we as his church we are one body and that reality that definition should be chief in our understanding for God's will and our life join the church this is usually what I say to college students I think it's applicable for all of us join a church and use God's gifts that he's given you use what he's assigned you for the growth and the sake of that body you say well that's not exciting where are my dreams where are my aspirations but don't you see don't you see that's the point do not be conformed to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind change your thinking wrap your thinking around the new age the coming age you see when you take your dreams and your aspirations when you take that and you submit it to what God is doing in Christ in his church guess what that is that is glory right there powerful meaningful this is you showing in real time that you are submitted to Christ and what Christ is doing do you understand that that's exciting that's glorious the church the unified church this is why Paul hits on unity Ephesians he does the same thing remember he unfolds the gospel in three chapters or our union with Christ and then what does he do in chapter four the first thing he says is maintain unity maintain unity be unified why because our unity as a body we are one body in Christ our unity as a body in Christ this is the signature of the coming age the messianic age that is breaking in you and I are part of what he's doing and is going to accomplish he's uniting all things in heaven and earth in his son Jesus Christ can I just say it this way it is not about you and that is wonderful and it is not about me and that is even more wonderful it's not about any of us individually it's not about what story God is writing for my life see that's what we think about God's will no no God is writing his own story in the name of his son and you and I as the church we are his signature that he's placed right now in this present age to say I'm coming and all things are going to be united in my son Jesus Christ you want to be a part of that think humbly which means think sensibly which means think rightly about where God has placed you which means consider the body and how you can serve the body instead of yourself let's pray Father thank you for this word thank you for Romans 12 thank you for what you are doing in the church thank you for your body thank you that you are bringing in the age of peace and blessing in the name of your son and that you have built your church and our building your church to show the coming in of this blessing and peace being accomplished in the name and the blood of your son I pray that we would see that and that we would repent of our sin and our individualism and our consumerism that we would come to a place and realize this is not about us and our our story it's about you how can we limit ourselves and be faithful in a body to seek your glory in our midst we pray that you would open our eyes and help us see that and all for your glory in the name of your son we pray amen [BLANK_AUDIO]