The Ministry of Spiritual Gifts part 1

After World War II, a group of German students volunteered to help rebuild an English cathedral that had been severely damaged by German bombs. As work progressed, they became concerned about a large statue of Jesus, whose arms were outstretched and beneath which was the inscription: “Come unto Me.” They had particular difficulty trying to restore the hands, which had been completely destroyed. After much discussion, they decided to let the hands remain missing and changed the inscription to: “Christ has no hands but ours.”

John F. MacArthur Jr., Romans, vol. 2, MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1991), 153.

During the age in which we live we are the hands and feet of Christ.

This is the point that Paul is making in Romans 12.

The work of Jesus Christ in the world is in the hands of those who belong to Him.

The Lord commissioned His earthly ministry to His followers saying Matt 28:19-20

Matthew 28:19–20 ESV

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

We the ones that Paul talked about in the previous 11 chapters that are bought with a price and now serve Him are the ones that must carry on His work.

It is through our faithfulness, obedience, and usefulness that the work of His kingdom now depends.

Christ sends out His servants with a common commission to serve Him, He equips us for that responsibility with greatly diverse gifts.

His divine plan for believers is unity in message and commitment, but diversity in service.

We all have different gifts allowing us to serve Christ in different ways.

We all carry the same message and commitment to Christ but we do it in different ways.

With what it says in 12:1 that we are a living sacrifice we are do be devoted to Jesus and His mission every day.

Devotion to the Lord and active, faithful ministry for Christ are inseparable.

We cannot be truly sacrificed to Him and be inactive in His work.

Service to God brings honor to Him and blessing for us only when it is the outflow of our worship in offering ourselves as living sacrifices.

The Proper Attitude: True Humility (v 3)

The Christians proper attitude is humility.

The lack of this trait often causes believers to stumble.

No matter how well we are grounded in Gods word, how theologically sound we may be, or how vigorously we may seek to serve Him.

Our gifts will not operate so that our lives can be spiritually productive until self is set aside.

First We must have Self -Denial in our worship

Second flows from us self-surrender to the will of God.

Third From that surrender flows selfless service in the work of God.

Just as we are saved only by Gods grace so we also can only serve Him by that same grace.

Grace has more power than anything we can offer from human ability.

We will never exhaust the power of Gods grace.

As powerful as Gods grace is we must never be prideful of that grace and we must understand that it is given to us to serve a higher purpose that anything we can think of.

The Proper Relationship: Unity In Diversity (vv 4-5)

Unity in the body of Christ is an important thing.

Often times we mistake unity as everyone being the same.

This is not what unity is, everything being the same mean uniformity.

Unity in the body of Christ means that all members are doing their part and the whole body is working in different ways to achieve the same goal.

God made each and everyone of us different, we each see and feel things differently and we have different talents and abilities.

It is only when we has a united body using our individual gifts and talents that we can have true unity and harmony in the body of Christ.