Gifts of Grace

November 13, 2022 Download: Audio

Romans 12:3-8

Encountering the gospel is a life-changing event. It gets hold of you just as you are and prepares you for glory.So what does that change look like?

The first thing we see is an invitation to worship. How could we begin anywhere else? If the gospel reveals the greatness of God in his plan to redeem people who are otherwise destined for death and driven by unmet longings, our natural response is to worship.

In the Old Testament, that worship would take place in the temple. You would bring your offering to the priests as a sacrifice and watch as he slaughtered it and placed it on the altar. You would smell, alongside the Lord, the aroma as it went up to heaven. But now, with the coming of Christ, worship for God’s people looks different than it did before. God’s presence is no longer the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus told the woman at the well in John 4:21-24 “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father…But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth…”

How are we to worship now? Paul opens chapter 12 with this: “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.” We worship by offering ourselves to God. And as we make our way through the rest of Paul’s letter, he shows us what that looks like. We worship by using our gifts, according to our measure of faith, for the building up of the church.