Insight for Living

Guest (Male): Do you ever come home from a great church service all fired up to live out your best life? And then the flame dwindles. It's frustrating.

So how do we close the gap between Sunday morning convictions and Monday morning compromise? Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll finds the answer in Romans chapter 12. The solution isn't more enthusiasm or stronger willpower. It's a renewed mind that thinks differently about yourself, others, and your spiritual gifts.

So let's discover how transformed thinking breaks the cycle of spiritual compromise. Chuck titled his message: How a Renewed Mind Thinks.

Pastor Chuck Swindoll: Have you noticed how much God loves variety?

I mean, compare the deer to the alligator. Just for an example. Compare a zinnia to an orchid. Compare a little yellow canary to a parrot. Just simple little illustrations and God made them all.

I mean, compare the catfish. Is there anything uglier under the water than a catfish? Compared to a sleek marlin slipping through the water about ready to be caught on my line. Different as they can be, but they're all part of the fish species. So it is in the body, the diversity. God loves it that way. He made it that way.

And mutuality, we care for each other. We notice each other. We relate to each other. One of us hurts, the other one hurts too. One of us is weeping, the other one cares. One is laughing, the other rejoices with them.

This is all part of mutuality. So we have unity, diversity, mutuality, and it all works together. I remember years ago playing sandlot football as a kid, and I was running out for a pass and I turned and was looking toward the passer, and my leg dropped into one of these holes where these big sprinklers pop up.

I like doing that. Sprinkler. Anyway, it wasn't doing that part. It was just down there like a landmine. So I turned and I'm running and I run into that hole and I sprain my ankle so badly. It swells up.

That ankle hurt so bad that when it came time for bed, I went to bed and my body felt it so much, it stayed up all night to keep my ankle company, knowing how much my ankle was hurting. So I couldn't say it's just my ankle, it's not my head. Everything else is great, it's just my ankle.

Ever gotten a little pebble in your shoe? You think it's that big. And you shake it out and it's a little thing, it looks like a top of a head of a pin. Or a splinter. A splinter in your finger. All you have is a paperclip. You're digging in there. You're just a splinter.

You, I mean, you try to work on your computer with a splinter in your finger? You can't do it. What's wrong? The body works together. So it is in the body of Christ. That's why such stark independence is not healthy.

We relate to each other. Hold your place. You can go to Philippians 2. There's another grand section that you need to tie in with Romans 3. Philippians 2, beginning at verse 2. Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit. There's unity, intent on one purpose.

Next verse. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit. But with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

I'm third. All based on Philippians chapter 2 and Romans chapter 12 verses 4 and 5, where we, being many, are one body in Christ. But don't miss this: we are individually members of one another.

Listen to me. You're a believer. That person sitting next to you that you just met as we began our service today, you're a member of his life, of her life. You just learned her name. You're members. You're together.

And all down the row where you're sitting, you're together. This reminds me of two warnings I need to take the time for. A little sidebar. Ding. A little sidebar here. Change the subject for a moment.

Guard against extreme individualism. If there is one weakness in the independent Bible church movement, it's the cultivation of this independent spirit. Nothing wrong with thinking as an individual. There's everything right about that.

But don't think of yourself as the only one on the block or the only one on the beach or worse, the only one in the church. You're one. And the church doesn't revolve around you.

May I say, I'm one. It doesn't revolve around me. You don't have your seat. You have, hopefully, a seat. But if they got there before you did, you can't move them over saying, "That's my, I've had that seat for seven years, this is my seat." Please.

Isn't it funny how we like the same seat? People always wonder how the pastor know I wasn't there last Sunday. Well, you dodo, you sit in the same seat for eight years. Even I could get that. Give it up. How about parking space? Just be grateful there's a space.

Guard against extreme individualism. Here's the other warning. Guard against pedestalizing anybody. I don't care how gifted. I don't care how influential. I don't care how helpful they've been in your life. They don't deserve a pedestal. One deserves the pedestal.

And He'll never let you down. He has no feet of clay. He's never done wrong, thought wrong, or acted wrong. He's the Savior. He's the head of the church. No one else is the head of the church. Christ.

Read widely. Don't read just the books of one author. Think broadly. Think beyond the one who taught you the most. Teach yourself that there are many voices that come with many helpful insights into the Scriptures.

Certainly, we're to be selective and discerning, but guard against making one your only source of spiritual information. Now, when we have a renewed mind, we think correctly about ourselves, not arrogantly, but with a reasonable assessment. Second, we think correctly about others. God first, others second, us third.

We guard against individualism to the extreme and unrestrained pedestalization of individuals. Now, the third, we think correctly about spiritual gifts. When I use those words, I realize that some of you have never in your life heard about spiritual gifts. I also know that others of you have been taught this subject for hours. So my task today is to address the subject so that everybody's on the same page.

So let's begin with a definition, just to make sure we understand what I mean by spiritual gift. A spiritual gift is an extraordinary ability given to each believer by the Holy Spirit that enables us to perform a function with ease and effectiveness.

You got it? It's an extraordinary ability given to each believer. That's you too. That's you too. Most of us have more than one gift. An extraordinary ability given by the Holy Spirit that enables us to perform a function with ease and effectiveness.

In the Bible, there are four lists of such gifts. You want to make your own study of them, here is one of them, here in Romans 12. Another is in Ephesians 4, another in 1st Corinthians 12-14 and lastly, there's another list in 1st Peter 4:10 and 11. But the list we're looking at offers a sample of seven gifts.

In fact, if you read along with me a few minutes ago, you heard the naming of these seven gifts. Look closely. Let's just sort of click them off one after another. One, he mentions prophecy.

Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, if prophecy according to the proportion of his faith. Strictly speaking, prophets, before the Bible was complete, spoke ex cathedra. They spoke under divine inspiration without error. They were the oracle of God.

When a prophet came and spoke God's truth, you could count on it. That's because there wasn't a completed set of scriptures. Now that we have the Bible complete, there is no need for such a prophet. God speaks like no other individual could speak today. His word speaks without error.

Now, you could use the word popularly, as many people do, they refer to a preacher as a prophet. What do they mean by that? Well, that's often used to describe a person who communicates truth about our times in penetrating and convicting ways.

They have the ability to address specific issues of our culture, and they sort of cut through it like a hot knife through butter. They offer insights and understanding, and they often are people of great passion and deep conviction.

So in that popular sense, a person could be called one who has prophetic kind of gifts, but not in the sense of telling the future or in speaking without error. There's a second one mentioned here in verse 7 it appears, if service, in his serving. This is called the gift of helping or the gift of serving. It's the word from which we get our word deacon. Serving.

Now you say compared to a prophet or compared to a teacher, who would want to have the gift of helping? Well, let me encourage you. Mark 10:45 says, the Son of God did not come to be ministered to, but to minister. Same Greek word, diakoneo.

He came to serve. Jesus demonstrated the gift of serving throughout His ministry. If I may say it this way, you are in your helping just like Christ. You're serving in ways behind the scenes that enable the body to function well.

A few examples: assisting teachers in the ministry of teaching, ministries of music, the playing of instruments, the singing of songs, being a part of a choir, serving in that capacity, helping with construction, doing nursery work, parking lot attendance. Along with that is the gift of courage, I might add.

Ushering is a gift of serving. Clerical duties. You would never have an outline if it weren't for the gift of helping. Individuals who are gifted to put things like this into print, to make sure there are worship folders every Sunday, to make sure that the place is clean.

Custodial work, transportation assistance, technical work, and audio-visual, and the value of that. Do you realize if the lights went out in this room, we would be in complete darkness? There is no outside light.

Do you realize if this microphone weren't on and appropriately dialed up, blended correctly with this room, you couldn't hear what I'm saying from about the fifth row back? Some of you thinking, what a blessing that might be. But that's another subject.

Serving in a technical way, how important that is in the body of Christ. That may be your gift. So he says, if it's service, then serve. How about the teacher, verse 7. He who teaches in his teaching. This is the ability to communicate revealed truth with clarity and ease and effectiveness.

Teachers have a way of lifting print off the page and blending them into our lives, helping us grasp with understanding truth that we would otherwise overlook or miss. Every one of us could name teachers that have impacted our lives.

Sometimes teachers become mentors, and that's the finest level of teaching. Someone who rubs alongside your life and helps shape you into the person you were meant to be, teaching at its best.

Then there is exhortation. You see that word? He who exhorts in his exhortation. This is the ability to drive home truth. This is an appeal for action. Now some preachers have the gift of exhortation. They have the ability to confront wrongdoing, to deal with sin, to address indifference.

And when you hear an exhorter, you feel like he's been reading your mail. When you're around an individual like this, you think they, man, they know every dark place of my life. But wait a minute. Exhortation is not just about the negatives.

Parakaleo is the word, it means to call alongside. That's the word used for the Holy Spirit. So this is a word for comforting others. This would be the gift of counseling. How valuable is that gift in the body of Christ? If you have never been in great emotional need and never had the need to talk to someone else, you can't imagine the benefit. But if you're ever there, you can't put a price tag on how much they can add to your life.

It's part of the gift of exhortation. And how about this next one in giving. While all believers are instructed to give and to be generous, this is a person who has an extraordinary sense of need and is prompted to give beyond the normal measure. Sometimes they're rich people. Often times they're not the rich people.

And sometimes the giving is done with time and energy, expertise. When Cynthia and I were in seminary, by my second semester, first year, we got word that a man had decided to pay for our tuition. This is a man with the gift of giving.

And he not only paid for our tuition for every semester from then all the way through our four years at Dallas Seminary. He paid for 16 other students as well. You don't know his name. He told me to never call his name publicly.

But you never knew that till I told you that. I decided my third year to sit down and write him a lengthy thank you letter. And I just wrote, "Dear Mr. So-and-so, I want to tell you how much your gift means." And I really wrote it carefully, and I mailed it to him. He wrote, he sent me back that letter. Wrote on it and said, "Stop writing me letters about my giving. You study. That's why I'm giving you these gifts." Isn't that good? That's the last letter of thanks I wrote him, I'll tell you.

"You keep writing letters, I'm not giving." Okay, man, I'm not going to write you. When you have the gift of giving, you're not looking for your name in bronze. You're not looking for the building to be named after you. Though sometimes that does occur, nothing wrong with that. But the whole point is, that's not your motive for giving.

You're giving because you love the project and you want to give for that special need. Now look at showing mercy. He ends with that one. That's not the least, but he ends with that one. Showing mercy with cheer. This is the extraordinary ability to sense the need of those who are hurting and to know what to say and how to say it and when to say it.

These are people who are masters at hospital calls. They are wonderful in dealing with the dying. They know how to address those who are deeply, deeply hurting. My dear longtime friend, now gone, Joe Bailey. He and his wife survived the deaths of three of their boys. If you can imagine: Danny, and John, and Joe.

One of them died when he was 18 days old, following surgery. Another one died when he was five of leukemia. One died at 18 from a sledding accident and a mild battle with hemophilia. Joe ultimately wrote a book called "The View from a Hearse." I love that book.

Mine is dog-eared, the pages are coming out of it. It later was named "The Last Thing We Talk About." I like the first title, "The View from a Hearse." Joe writes:

"Sensitivity in the presence of grief should usually make us more silent, more listening. Don't try to prove anything to a survivor. An arm about the shoulder, a firm grip on the hand, a kiss. These are proofs grief needs, not logical reasoning."

"I was sitting, torn by grief. Someone came and talked to me of God's dealings, of why it happened, of hope beyond the grave. He talked and talked constantly. He said things I knew were true. I was unmoved, except I wished he'd go away."

"He finally did. Another came later and sat beside me. He didn't talk. He didn't ask leading questions. He just sat beside me for an hour or so. Listened when I said something, prayed simply and briefly, and left. I was moved. I was comforted. I hated to see him go."

That's the gift of showing mercy. If you've got that gift, don't hold back. There's a broken heart in every pew. There's a needy life nearer to you than you would ever, ever imagine.

When I begin to think with a renewed mind, what difference does that make? Initially, get this, it breaks the habit of groupthink. I'm no longer as impressed by what everybody else is saying and thinking, or even what the majority is saying.

I start thinking like Christ, like the Scriptures. It breaks the habit of groupthink. The second, continually, I reap the benefit of seeing what others fail to see. I've given a discernment that's missing in this world.

I'm not so given to panic. I don't rush to judgment. I'm calmed rather than panicked. That continually is a benefit of a renewed mind. Ultimately, others are influenced to start doing the same thing.

I challenge all of us to realize who we are in Christ. To respect others for what they are and what they add to the body. And ultimately to understand and value the spiritual gift God has given you and those around you, especially those gifted in ways you're not.

I want us to bow our heads together, and I'd like us for just a few moments to sit quietly before the Lord. You've listened very patiently and there's been a lot of information. Perhaps it's a right moment to have you do a little evaluation.