In our study of Romans, we have talked about living in Christ, about living a servant life of love in action doing God’s will. We talked about entry into God’s family as co-heirs with Christ Himself! We talked about the Holy Spirit interceding for us; that the Holy Spirit knows our real needs. We talked about Providence
We show that love by yielding to His purpose; doing love. We must get into the will of God. We don’t have the tools to work the puzzles of our lives without help from God through the Holy Spirit. We need to lean into the lion-strength of our heavenly Father.
Paul says confess out loud that Jesus is Lord, and believe that God raised Him bodily from the dead. That is the Gospel in a nutshell. Do that and you will be saved. Christ brings the righteousness. He is as close as our hearts reaching out to him and our mouths confessing our belief. He has come to us. He meets us where we are!
Today, we will talk about calls, gifts and ministries. We are called to use our gifts in ministry. All of us have gifts. Some have more than one, but everyone has a gift and everyone is called to ministry. Our own Book of Order says that “members and officers alike serve mutually in the mandate of Christ, who is the chief minister of all” [old G-6-0101]. Our church bulletin acknowledges Jesus Christ as our minister, and indeed he is. Our Book of Order also says that [Christ’s] “ministry is the basis of all ministries.”
Today’s passage has multiple themes. I want to touch briefly on three of them. First, we are called upon to shed the conforming attitudes of the world and to be transformed into new persons that reject the patterns our world has set for us. Secondly, we are to seek and develop our spiritual gifts. Third, we are reminded that no gift is sufficient, no person complete in the body of Christ. It is only through our efforts in the church as the body of Christ that the transformation can be complete and functional.
You have all heard that art imitates life. So it is in the 2007 movie Transformers. Only in the movies can a Peterbilt 379 truck turn into a twenty foot tall robot named Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots (that’s the good guys for those of us who didn’t catch the movie). Or a Chevy Camero into an Autobot called Bumblebee. In the movie, the battle for the fate of earth takes place in Mission City
Okay, I realize that one or two of you might not have seen the movie. As a matter of fact, I didn’t either. But it’s useful to us here because it so clearly illustrates the concept of transforming. Caterpillars metamorphosize into butterflies; tadpoles into frogs. Take this car, for instance (holding up a Transformer Car). It is the evolution of one being into another quite different being, but still constituted in the same elemental makeup as the original. Nothing is added. Nothing is subtracted. And yet, something is very different. In the movie, one might not recognize the changed being. The same might be said of the transformation that Paul describes for us in Romans 12. How many of you know others that, having become strong, practicing Christians, actually seem to look different from their former selves?
In the movie, Optimus Prime, leader of the benevolent Autobots, narrates the collapse of the Transformers’ home world, Cybertron. The Allspark is the key to rebuilding the universe, and both the Autobots and the Deceptikons (the bad guys) want it. Of course, the Deceptikons want to take over the universe, while the Autobots just want to restore it. In the end, the Autobots Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ironhide, Ratchet and Jazz, led by a pretty normal guy named Sam, prevail. Mission City
Well, there’s nothing really magic about the movie Transformers, but it does illustrate how heroic is this story that we call the Gospel. It is played out on stages and screens all over the world in a myriad of different genres, but each of them tells the same story. Right triumphs over wrong. Good trumps evil. In the movie, it turns out that the Allspark isn’t the key to civilization after all. It’s the cooperation of all the good guys pulling together. It’s the normal guys, linked together, that make it happen.
Transformation. Paul talks about renewal, specifically of our minds. But just before that, he petitions us to present our bodies as living sacrifices. The Greeks thought of the body as a vessel of the soul. The Hebrews viewed the human being as one unit. The Expositor’s Bible Commentary says that Paul “views the body as the vehicle that implements the desires and choices of the redeemed spirit.” So we serve God through the body. It carries out the will of the mind. Paul uses a very familiar analogy: the altar. God’s people were used to making animal sacrifices. Of course the animals were dead, so here Paul refers to us as living sacrifices. The further implication is that we must become acceptable and pleasing to God. Like the animals used for sacrifice, we need to be without blemish. In our present state we are not. We must be born again in order to be an acceptable sacrifice. Our act of spiritual worship is our act of becoming Christian.
The world in which we live says otherwise. It says take care of yourself. Look after Number 1. Always hold something back. Is this your spiritual act of worship? Does that sound like transformation? I love what William Barclay says about true worship. “Real worship is not the offering to God of a liturgy, however noble, and a ritual, however magnificent. Real worship is the offering of everyday life to him.”
Spiritual Gifts. That sounds nice. Ever feel like your neighbor has the whole list and you don’t have any? You’re in good company. So did Moses and Isaiah and many more of the saints. Paul says in verse 5 that he is talking to every one of us. No one is left out. Paul mentions seven gifts specifically, but this list is only representative. In 1st Corinthians, 12, Paul recites another list which adds several more gifts. Paul’s list includes prophesying, serving, teaching, encouraging, contributing to the needs of others, leadership and showing mercy. Some spiritual gifts are obvious, like preaching or teaching. Some are less obvious but equally important, like parenting and nurturing and listening. Paul calls these charismata. These are gifts given by God to believers. They may be enhanced by natural gifts, but they are imparted to us specifically to use for God as ministers. They are our charisma, the gifts which we could not have acquired or attained by ourselves. Each of us has that charisma, but it is up to us to discover and apply these gifts. What is your charisma?
Ever tried to walk with one leg? Cross a room with your eyes closed? Tie your shoes with one hand? Try it some time. Every body part has a function, and most of the time the function performed is in conjunction with many other body parts coordinating in the effort. I used to play baseball. You don’t play a lot of baseball unless you can hit. You can’t be much of a hitter without pinpoint coordination of eyes, hands, wrists, hips and feet. Each body part has a function to perform in order to hit a baseball. The church works the same way. Paul says that “in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
The church is people, not pews. It is not building, but people building. It is not God’s home, but rather a gathering of God’s people. It is noisy in God’s church. There are babies crying and teenagers fidgeting. There are widows and young mothers. There are young men and their grandfathers. Church is ecclesia; the gathering of God’s people. In that body are many functions, and it takes the whole body to make it all work. What part are you in that body? God knows you are part of it.
Unity in the work and purpose of the church cannot be overemphasized. Just imagine what happens when you break a bone or just have a bad cold. Your body doesn’t work right. Imagine this, too. Music ministry with no instruments, or no choir. Youth ministry with no camps or programs. Sunday school with no teachers. Imagine a minister who brings the same sermon week after week or ushers that close the doors when the first 50 people have been seated for worship. This lack of diversity or self pride or depletion of all God’s gifts in a congregation will deform and cripple the message we have been charged to deliver. We need each other to do God’s work!
In the movie, trucks and cars transform into robots. They are personified with human attributes like pride and selfishness and greed. They also assume characteristics of honor and courage and persistence. In the world of Transformers, Mission City
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