The Letter to the Romans: Message #6 – Chapter 12

Okay. The year is 56 A.D., and we’re in Rome, Italy, and you’ve just come to a meeting. It just so happens that it’s a Roman holiday. Now, that’s important for you to know because the Romans didn’t have a day off. They didn’t have a Sunday or a Saturday. They just had holidays, and they had lots of them. So, every time there’s a holiday, the church would do something special.

Here we are, we’ve come from many nations with many varied experiences, which is going to make this church extremely rich because there’s so much background to handle so many different things. I hope someday there is a Roman experience where we can call in brothers and sisters from all over America to go to some big, hard place, and they don’t know one another, but they’re each rich in the Lord and each in the experience of church life.

Well, anyway, it’s evening here in Rome, Italy. We rarely ever get to have an evening meeting here. They always have to be early in the morning because there are so many slaves. Sometimes we have to have our meetings at 4 o’clock in the morning because the slaves are not called on until, say, 6 or 7 o’clock. We have a lot of early-morning meetings, which is why you’re all so sleepy-looking. But it’s evening today, and we are in the home of Priscilla and Aquila. Now we’re meeting at their home. What we’re doing in chairs, I don’t know, because chairs weren’t invented for another way over a thousand years afterward. Anyway, we’ve managed to have chairs here. I will say this: you all look the part. Every one of you looks like an Italian, except Caesar and me, and that’s all. I think everybody else, without exception. Don’t you? Is there anybody else around here that looks—oh, yeah, yeah, I saw—sunburned Italian. We have brothers and sisters here from Jerusalem, probably one or two from Judea, I don’t know. We have a good number from Antioch, and then from a number of Paul’s churches. I don’t know how long you’ve been together, perhaps as long as two years, perhaps as little as six months, but let’s just call it a year by now, all right? By the way, the first year or two are the most difficult. They’re the crucial ones. Most churches, in my own personal experience, crash and burn during the first two years. The largest mortality rate is in the first two years. Now, Paul has reached back in his writings, thoughts, and experience and told you all the possible problems you’re going to have.

Now, there are a few of us here who are illiterate, and we’re going to read that part of the book of Romans that we’re covering tonight. So, I’d like to know — and I’d like to have someone who can not only read but also speak distinctly—to come and read chapter 12, say, 3 through 8. I’d like for someone else to come up and read 9 through 21. Who’s a nice, distinct, clear reader? Who can speak well? Alright, somebody tell us. Who? Rosemary? Where are you, Rosemary? Come on up, and we’ll cut that off. While you folks who got your tapes get your Bibles out, you can read them there wherever you are. We’ll come back after this reading to save tape.

Alright, if you’d like to read a note that I have skipped verses 1 and 2 in chapter 12, and I’ve done that for a significant reason. Yes, sir? I’m just saying, hold on for just a second. Okay, hold on just a second. All right, you will notice that I have skipped verses 1 and 2, and we’ll find out why later.

Well, the very first thing Paul led off with us here in Rome is talking about our gifts. Isn’t that wonderful? We all love gifts, and we all want to know what our gift is. What’s my gift? What’s your gift? What’s your gift to the body, and what’s your gift to the church, and so on and so on? Well, I’ll tell you this: whatever your gift is, you’re not satisfied with it. It’s probably too humble for you. Unless, of course, you are an apostle, and I assure you, you’re not satisfied with that gift. You wish you had never been born.

I remember…where’s Paul writing this letter from? Corinth. What do you think of when you think of Corinth? Drugs. Drugs? And what? Wildlife. I also think of the over-exercise of gifts. Their meetings were an orgy of spiritual gift demonstrations, and he’s had it just about up to here with these Corinthians. Now, this problem will recur among Christians everywhere. Basically, what is it? It’s a contention for a position. Is that fair to say? This is a contention for a position, using as an excuse what God gave you as a gift. Or, in other words, blame it on God. “God gave me this gift.”

Now, brothers and sisters, I’ve been around for a little while, and I want you to know that this is not just happenstance. This is serious, serious business when a man or a woman really, truly gets out of control with his…whatever it is he’s good at. Now, I’m going to just take a moment to chase gifts. Can I talk about gifts just a little bit? Is a gift something given to you? Well, it’s what it says, and it’s your gift, yeah, but when is it given to you? At salvation? I’m not sure. I used to think that. I think it’s probably given to you in your mother’s womb.

I think I would have been a public speaker if I had never been saved. Now, I might not have been a public speaker only, but I was a public speaker before I was anything, and I was very frightened when I got up to speak. Still, it was a drive in me, and I didn’t even know. In fact, I didn’t figure out most of this stuff until the last two or three years, and brothers who are leaders in the church would have probably been leaders in industry or business—whatever you are, there are compulsive drives going on in you that make you what you are. It is no accident. Some of you, by the way, in your secular work, are really out of place. You’re in something that really doesn’t fit you. Eventually, you will get out of it and into what you’re more comfortable with. Now, there may be a dozen things you’re comfortable with, but there are hundreds of things you’re not comfortable with. I wonder if that lights any light bulbs in any of you, if that turns anything on. Usually, just so you know how smart I am, usually we go through a lot of trial and error until we are 30 to 35, and if you have not figured out who and what you are by 35, you’re usually considered a person who will never be able to figure out who or what or where they belong. He’ll be job-skipping the rest of his life, probably, but we do a lot of tasting and experimenting up until we’re 30 to 35 years old. There is a natural inclination among all of us. Now, I do not doubt that God will give you a spiritual gift, but brothers and sisters, we are also driven by the very nature of what God made us in our womb. Now we have come to the house of the living God, and that changes everything.

And I want to say to you, Priscilla and Aquila, and this letter which has arrived in Rome, Italy, is -now y’all listen to this very carefully – this letter is irrelevant. You know what that word means? Irrelevant. It has no purpose. This letter has no purpose outside the living room of Priscilla and Aquila, and those of you there inside that little black box, and I’m sure you’re uncomfortable in that little black box, I don’t know if we as Christians will ever again be able to break down the barrier, the mindset that causes us to think in terms of the individual. Even in this room, in a close-knit community of believers, there is constant thinking of the individual, and the gift across America and around the world is always thought of as individual. I am telling you that this book is irrelevant outside Priscilla and Aquila’s living room. It is not relevant to you nor to me. It is relevant to those of us who are gathered together from all over the Roman Empire, who live here together and will be living together for the rest of our lives.

Now, I know that this book has brought a lot of comfort to a lot of individuals. All of us have been helped and comforted by it, but it was not written to an individual. It was written to those of you who are here in Priscilla and Aquila’s home today. Do you understand? It is written to a body. It has a head, it has hands, it has arms, it has fingers, it has legs, it has a body, it has eyes, ears, a nose, and it has all sorts of parts, and each part has a function. I would really prefer the word “function.” And that body will suffer when one of those members begins to think more highly of himself than he ought to. Now then, let’s look around the room and see just who might start thinking more highly of himself than he ought to.