Think Aright!
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Introduction
Introduction
We are the beneficiaries of a beneficent Benefactor. In simpler terms, we are those who are given good gifts from a giving God. If that is our state of mind, we are thinking aright. Another way of thinking aright is that we are the beneficence to the beneficiaries from the Benefactor. Or, to put it simply, we are the gifting to those who are the given from a giving God . If we think of ourselves as the gifting given, we think aright. However, we think wrongly if we ever think we are the Benefactor bestowing beneficence upon beneficiaries. If we think we are the Giver of the gifts to the given, we think amiss; we think wrongly.
This morning, I want to show you how all three of those statements are true, namely that we are either the beneficiaries or the beneficence, but not the Benefactor. Thinking aright is critical if our goal is to love God and neighbor more. Thus these three truths are the focus of this morning’s message.
We are not the Benefactor
We are the Beneficiary
We are the Beneficence
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.
We are not the Benefactor
We are not the Benefactor
The first truth that we must accept and put into our minds is that we are not the Benefactor. We are not the Giver. The moment that we think ourselves the Benefactor is the moment that we are thinking of ourselves on the level of God. We are seeking to usurp God’s throne. We are thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought, and yet, Paul tells us to think the opposite way.
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.
Notice that in the last two weeks, we have dealt with three verses in a row that talk about thinking. Pastor Matt showed last week that what the ESV and CSB translate as spiritual worship or true worship, might actually be translated better as the King James says: reasonable service. The word reasonable comes from the word in which we get logical. And the word latreia, which can mean “worship or service”, if you think about it, it makes sense to think that we worship through our service of God to others. We even use that same language today. We are currently in a worship service. We worship by serving. We serve by presenting ourselves as living sacrifices to do God’s will. Thus it is reasonable—thinking aright—to see ourselves as living sacrifices that serve God.
What is not reasonable, what is not thinking aright, is seeing ourselves as God. Now we would never say those words. In fact, we’d never think those words hopefully. But our actions can betray our inner heart. The moment we think “it’s my way of the highway,” is the moment we think too highly of ourselves. The moment we think ourselves indispensible and that “the church can’t live without me” is the moment we are thinking too highly of ourselves.
That idea of indispensability is hyper-thinking. That’s the word that Paul used. To think highly of one’s self is to think hyper-thoughts. There’s no place in the church for hyper-thinking. There is only place for sober thinking or sensible thinking or sane thinking. To think highly is to think insanely. Insane thinking does not benefit the church.
On the way back from our Christmas vacation, I listened to the original Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. Two quick notes about this book: first, it’s nothing like what we think of, when we think of Frankenstein’s monster. Second, it was unbelievably boring and I would not recommend it. But in the book, Dr. Frankenstein thinks he can help the world by bringing to life a creature impervious to disease. He insanely thought that through his playing Benefactor, the world would be the beneficiary of his beneficence. Instead, those who were closest to him died horrible deaths. The moment he brought the monster to life was the moment he began to think sensibly and regretted his actions. But there was no turning back. The clock could not be rewound.
Beloved, if we want to kill a church, let us think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think: think hyper-thoughts. But if we want to actually benefit the church, let us think sensibly about who we are and who we are not. We are not the Benefactor. As James wrote:
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
We are the Beneficiary
We are the Beneficiary
We are not the Benefactor to God’s church. God is the Benefactor. That’s the first truth we must come to terms with and keep in our minds. The second truth is that we are the beneficiaries. We are the ones receiving the good and perfect gifts from the Father of lights.
If you go back, you’ll read in verse 3 that we are to think according to something.
“each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”
God has given to us a measure of faith. That word “measure” is where we get our word, “metric” from—as in the metric system or simply a standard of measurement. We’ve probably heard of a “new metric”—a new way of evaluating (or measuring) something. God has given us a measure of faith. That’s God’s doing. Some have been given strong faith. Other’s weak faith. Some have been given long-faith, others short faith. Some of been given weighty faith and some much lighter. But what we all have in common is that we are beneficiaries of God’s gift of faith.
We don’t have time to go into all the details, but we see a parable that Jesus told in Matthew 25 about three men who were given talents. One man was given five talents, another was given two talents, and a third was given one talent. Now, talents then are not what we think of as talents now. We think of talents today as an ability to do something well. Talents in ancient Rome were measures of weight. In this case, a certain amount of money: a talent of silver. The first was given a measure of money (5 talents) by his master. The second was given a lesser measure of two and the third was given still a lesser measure of just one talent. It was all by the prerogative of the master. Each was to utilize that measure of money for the benefit of the master and his household.
We know the story. The one with five measures of money went out and traded and turned five into ten. The second went out and traded with his two talents and turned it into five talents. But the servant of one talent buried it and had nothing to give except what was given. Two of the three were faithful with the measure that was given them. One was not. After all, what good is having just a small measure anyway?
That’s what some of us think about our faith, isn’t it? My faith is weak. My faith isn’t like so and so’s faith. That all may be true. But it is a faith that God has assigned to you. You are the beneficiary of God’s gracious gift. You are the beneficiary of the good and perfect gift from the Father of lights. Think sensibly, soberly, sanely about what that means. It means that as small a measure as you’ve been given, it can still be put to use. It was given so that you could put it to use. Do not think that you have no part to play because your faith is so small, so light, so weak, so insignificant. No! Your faith is exactly what God has entrusted to you because he desires for you to put it to use for him and his household.
We are the Beneficence
We are the Beneficence
Which leads us to the third truth that we must work through. The first is that we are not the Benefactor; God is the benefactor. The second is that we are the beneficiaries of God’s good gifts. The third is that we are the beneficence of God. We are in fact the gifting to the beneficiaries. We are at once both the beneficiaries and the beneficence. And this takes up most of the verses we are looking at this morning.
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.
Quickly, just to reiterate the last point, look at verse six. “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.” We are the beneficiaries of God’s grace. He has benefited us with gifts. But those gifts were give that we might utilize them for the benefit of others in the body. God gave me a mouth that benefits the rest of my body. I eat with my mouth. But my mouth has no right to think that its superior to the hand that feeds it. And my hand has no right to think its superior to my stomach that digests the food it gives. And my stomach has no right to think that it is superior to my digestive tract that dispels the waste and keeps the nutrients. And my digestive tract has no right to think its superior to my blood that delivers the nutrients to the body and so forth and so on. You get the picture.
The problem that church’s have today is that they act more like an NBA team than a body. I am not a fan of basketball and even less of the NBA, so I’m going to pick on them for a moment. You have your greats: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Steph Curry, LeBron James. And the teams are built around these great players. The rest are just bench warmers or supporting players. They’re there to help the stars look good.
That’s not what the church is to be about. The church is not a professional sport’s team. There are no bench warmers or supporting players here. This is a body that works together for the mutual benefit of its members. We are not to wish that we were something more in the church. To do so, is to think wrongly. Who you are and what you do in this church is God’s gift to this church. You are not only God’s beneficiary, you are God’s beneficence. You benefit this church. You as an individual benefit the body of believers here. At least you ought to. That’s Paul’s point. Some think they are God’s gift to the church rather than God’s gift to the church. That’s hyper-thinking.
But let me say that in today’s church, there is a case of hypo-thinking, which is just as deadly to the body. That’s thinking of yourself too lowly as if you have no gift to utilize. You compare your gifting and faith to others and think that yours don’t matter. But they do! The hand, mouth, esophagus, stomach, digestive tract, blood, veins, heart, etc. all keep the body alive and functioning well. People may not see what you do. They may not understand how exactly your work, but that doesn’t mean you are unnecessary or unwanted or useless. You show your love for the body by being the Benefactor’s beneficence to the beneficiaries.
And let us do it thinking aright! That’s the point of the list of gifts. The list of gifts is not to say, “here’s an exhaustive list of gifts God’s given.” It’s an example to show how to think aright while using your gifts. We could simply say, that we are to use our gifts with gusto. We don’t use them with shame or with hesitancy any more than we would haughtily. We use them with confidence in the grace that God has given us.
And let’s stay in our lanes. Remember, we are not God’s gift to the church; we are God’s gift to the church. It is not our job to do everything as if we are the only one’s who can do it all. We utilize the gifts we’ve been graced with, not those we haven’t been. We use according to the measure of faith, not beyond that measure. Instead, it is everyone’s job to do something—and that something is what ever gift you’ve been given. Benefit the church with that.
The one talent man was not expected to do what the two talent man did. Nor was the two talent man expected to do what the five talent man did. Each was to utilize the measure given to him in his own way for the benefit of the master and his household. So it is with us.
Conclusion
Conclusion
As we finish Romans 12:3-8, my hope is that it helps us grow in our love for God. That we see him as our Benefactor who, in his wisdom and grace has gifted us exactly what we need and what he wants for us. But I also hope that it grows us in our love for each other, our neighbors. God has benefited us so that we can be a benefit for and to others. I love the old story of how the loss of a nail brought about the loss of the war. It’s not a true story, but it gets the point across so well.
For the loss of a nail, a shoe was lost. For the loss of a shoe, a horse was lost. For the loss of a horse, a soldier was lost. For the loss of a soldier, a captain was lost. For the loss of a captain, a company was lost. For the lost of a company, a battalion was lost. For the loss of a battalion, a battle was lost. For the loss of a battle, a war was lost. What seems so small a job as a nail keeping the shoe on a horse led to the outcome of a war. If you are using the gift God has graciously given you for the good of this body, God is accomplishing great things through you. You may think that your just an insignificant nail in an insignificant horse. But that’s not thinking aright; that’s hypo-thinking. You may be a general who thinks that nails are not as important as you. That’s not thinking aright! That’s hyper-thinking
We are living sacrifices, living sacrificially, giving of ourselves in reasonable worship in service to God through serving the body. This is not the way of the world. The world is about self-adulation and self-gratification. But we are not to be conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of our minds. We must think aright as to who we are, who God is, and what we are to be in this body of believers. So what God has given you, give to others with as much gusto as you can because who you are matters to this body and what you do matters to this body. You are God’s gift to us and we are God’s gift to you.