The sermon "Every Part Doing Its Share" by Mike Davenport, based on Romans 12:3-8, highlights the metaphor of the church as a body, emphasizing that each member has unique gifts and roles. Davenport underscores that the church functions effectively only when all members actively use their God-given gifts, which vary in nature but are equally important. The sermon warns against both overestimating and underestimating one's gifts and stresses the necessity of sober self-assessment. Davenport argues that the concept of the church as a body necessitates local church participation and active engagement. He discusses specific spiritual gifts such as prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leadership, and mercy, urging congregants to use these gifts for the collective benefit. The message concludes with a call for self-examination and active participation, reminding listeners of the importance of unity and cooperation in the church's mission.

Well, if you'd like to open up to follow along, open up to Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12. The title of the message is, Every Part Doing Its share, every part doing its share. We'll read Romans 12, 3 through 8. For I say through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. If prophecy, Let us prophesy in proportion to our faith or ministry. Let us use it in our ministering. He who teaches in teaching, He who exhorts in exhortation, He who gives with liberality, He who leads with diligence, and He who shows mercy with cheerfulness.

Lord as we open up this portion of Scripture, we ask that You would come and teach us by Your Spirit, lead us and guide us, leave us not to ourselves, make us a changed people. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Well when I was a very young teenager, I remember my youth pastor addressing the church. I don't really remember what the message was about, but he was using an overhead projector. Probably half the people in this room probably don't know what an overhead projector is, but it was before the days where we had the video sources that we have now.

And I remember him putting a slick, what it did was whatever the clear piece of paper was that had writing or picture on it, it would by means of a couple of different mirrors and light put it up on the board. In that picture was a cartoon, a cartoon similar to a political type cartoon. And picture it with me. There was a church building. The church building had a, it was all like a flat bed.

It had some wheels underneath it. And then there were, at the back, there were people pressed up against the back of it, pushing it. In the front there were some ropes coming off the church with people with it over their shoulder. They were pulling it. The church was going places.

The church was doing something. But then, interestingly enough, there were people sitting up on the roof, sitting there with their legs propped up and their elbows on there just watching the whole thing. There were people leaning outside the window telling those people that were pushing and pulling, they're doing it wrong. And I believe there was even a couple with megaphones standing at a distance, and they were telling everybody what they should be doing. Even as a young person, it was quite funny and quite serious.

And his point being is that the church goes places. The church is constantly moving. It's going forward. And there are people pushing, people pulling. There are people that seem to be along for the ride.

There are people that know exactly how it should be done, but aren't really doing it. And there are people that are just, they just want to point out things and give orders and don't want to put their shoulder to the work. Well Paul here having talked about a living sacrifice, He moves on in verses 3 through 8 talking about loving service, because a living sacrifice gives way to loving service, a service in which every part does its share. So if you note, the very first thing that we see in verse 3 is the word for, the word for. Note that in the use of this word for, the two previous verses that our brother Robert Bosley so ably and helpfully dealt with a couple weeks ago, it's connecting us to what was just given.

And if you remember His message, His verses in verse 1 and 2 had the therefore, which tied it back to all the doctrine and everything that had been working up to this point. So there's a therefore that leads to a living sacrifice, and then there's a for that connects our passage to that living sacrifice. So there's a connection. It's almost like a chain with each of the links. And these links that are connecting here, the first one is in the first verses, therefore, but now we have a connecting piece that links us to this chain that the Apostle Paul is here building.

Now the conclusion that Robert shared with us was that all the commands of the rest of Romans, particularly those that involve the one-anothers of church life, are only possible if we are presenting ourselves to God and having our minds renewed. Those who live for themselves cannot serve and love their brothers as they should. Only those who live for God can do the things that healthy church members ought to do. Another Robert, Robert Haldane, whose commentary on this passage is most helpful, he says the following, The word for appears to indicate the reason why those who were addressed should in all things ascertain the will of God. By introducing a particular instance of the importance of this duty, Paul enjoins the necessity of giving heed to his exhortation.

It is the will of God that his people should make a estimate, a just estimate of their own gifts and not from ignorance overvalue themselves and despise others. This very will of God that we are to be seeking and doing, this will of God should make a...we, living out that will, should make a just estimate of our gifts. And so having linked us back with the word for, he says, for I say, through the grace given to me. Dear ones, the exhortations given to us in Scripture, Yes, these very exhortations that Paul is giving us here in Romans 12, all of these come to us through the conduit of grace. They come to us through the conduit of grace.

We often think exhortations don't come with grace. But the giving of exhortations is grace. And Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, the recipient of Christ's grace, here speaks with authority. And he says, these exhortations are coming to you with weightiness. There's a weight given to them.

And So he says, I say, through the grace given to me. What is he saying? Well, we first need to see to whom it is said. Because in the next part he says, for I say, through the grace given to me to everyone who is among you." He doesn't want to assume that they understand. He wants to make sure that they know who it is he's addressing.

And note that there are none left out of the exhortation, not a single one. He just doesn't say you, and we see it as plural in the Greek, and so well it's many. He says, to everyone who is among you. How much clearer could Paul be? The need, the need for such a phrase to be added here highlights the propensity in all of God's people to not do the very thing He is here exhorting all of us to do.

He says this is necessary, I gotta make this really clear, it's for all of you, all of you, none excluded. We too often fail to assess with soberness what our sacrificial life should entail. Now there's both a positive and a negative exhortation given here. There's both a positive and a negative. First the negative.

What is Paul exhorting each and every one of God's people to actually not do. Well, he says to not think of himself more highly than he ought to think. Don't think too highly of yourself and your gift. Do you see here that Paul's assumption of these believers is that they are thinking of themselves and what God has equipped them to do? They obviously are thinking.

Their particular problem is not that they are failing to assess their gifts. Their problem is that they are not thinking soberly about it. Now, I think that there are actually a couple of problems in the American church culture having to do with this. Not only is there the possibility of thinking of ourselves too highly, as these believers here, Paul is writing to, there is also the reality of failure to even think at all about what God may have equipped us with and equipped us for. Paul here is talking to a group that they've been assessing all right and my gift's better than your gift.

But in our culture, like in that picture of the cartoon, we have some people that may be sitting on the top watching all the work, or leaning out the window or on the megaphone saying, this is how it should be done and you should have done it this way. That's all too often what we can also see in our American church culture. Some maybe, maybe some here even in this room have not stopped to consider. They've not stopped to assess. But not only do we have a negative to not think too highly of ourselves and our gifts, we also have a positive, what we are to do, to think soberly as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

This means as God hath given to each his particular capacity to take in or receive the gifts and graces which He designs for the general good of the whole congregation." Let me say that again. As God hath given to each His particular capacity to take in or receive the gifts and graces which he designs for the general good of the whole congregation. We are to consider soberly and judge accurately what God has dealt to us and what his expectations of the use of those gifts actually are. Then he goes on to say in verse 4, "'For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function. So we, being many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another." So we have here the concept of the church being a body, being a body.

One body, many parts. And Paul notes here the connectivity of the parts. They are members of one another. Are members of one another. This means that our part in the body is determined by what grace has gifted us to do.

We do not all have the same function. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, if the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased, just as he pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be?

So the image here is of a body full of only one type of memory, either all ears, all eyes, all feet, all hands, etc. Think of the limitations that would exist. Think of those limitations. So please note the following four things that flow out of Paul's instruction. First, the connectivity to a body that he's speaking of here, this connectivity requires the concept of the local church of Christ.

The local church of Christ. This connectivity is not a universal church concept. Just like, you know, I've got some eyeballs, they just happen to be back at home in Youngsville. No, there's a connectivity, right? There's a localness.

Where I am, there my eyeballs are. So there's a connectivity that tells us he's dealing with a local church. Second, your presence here connects you to the other people in this church body. Your presence here connects you to the other members of the body here. There is no connectivity.

There is no expression of your gift without your presence and without your participation. It's necessary. Third, the grace of God has gifted you. Okay? The grace of God has gifted you.

Paul's talking about a body. Every part of a body is necessary. It's necessary. Now some may say, oh well, you know, as you get older this becomes unnecessary and that. That's not what he's talking about.

He's talking about how we were knit together, how we were put together in our mother's womb. And he says it's necessary, and God's got a gift. He's gifted you with something because He's put you into the body. You have at least one gift because God doesn't bring ungifted members into His body. He doesn't.

Some may be given five talents, gifts. Some may be given two, but everybody's got at least one. Fourthly, you are expected to soberly assess your gift or gifts and to use it or them. You are expected to soberly assess what it is and how to use it. Another image is set before us, a full man, all members of the body present.

But let's say the eye refuses to look. Let's say the feet decide not to walk. The mouth draws back from participating in the eating process. Do you see what harm becomes? Here's a man having to make his way and the eyes won't open, and he's got to make his way.

Years that won't hear, you won't learn how to do necessary things because instruction cannot be gained. A mouth that stays shut and the fork can come near it with the hand and the mouth's not going to do its part. What harm comes to the entire body, the entire body? The mouth doesn't lose out in the process. He just has less work to do.

The whole body is affected by it. So then Paul goes on in verse 6 saying, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. So here we have the loving service of this living sacrifice. A sacrificial love to God, our head, results in a sacrificial love to one another in the body. That's why the two greatest commands, love the Lord your God, love your neighbor.

And God's given a special closeness that Paul realizes do good to all men, but especially to the household of faith. There's a connectivity that's just there within the body, the local body of Jesus Christ. Robert Haldane again in his commentary writes the following, hence Christians ought to love one another as part of themselves. Love it as part of themselves. As the apostle says, no man ever hated his own body.

For a like reason, a Christian, when loving his fellow Christians, is loving himself. His loving himself. It is thus that Christians in the Church of Christ taken individually are many and are together one body in Christ, having the Spirit of Christ, and all of them are members of one another. This consideration ought to operate powerfully to unite them, To unite them. Note here that the wisdom of God saw fit to dispense differing gifts.

The wisdom of God saw fit to dispense differing gifts, and with the dispensing of the gifts comes grace from on high in the use of them." Do we despise the wisdom of God in dispensing these gifts? Do we? Do we envy what God's grace has worked in another brother or sister? And are we using the gift that God's grace equipped us with? These are all questions that we have to wrestle with.

So then he goes into some of these gifts and the verses that follow. Please note some of these gifts. Prophecyne. He first talks about prophesyne. This gift refers to the proper understanding of the Scripture and a God-given ability to explain them.

Now, this can be a gift that's exercised in private just as much as it is in public. It's not just a gift that resides with elders in the church. I believe that there is a prophesy and there's a gift of understanding and being able to explain the Scriptures. And I think of someone like Aquila and Priscilla. They had this gift of being able to come alongside and take a man mighty in the Scriptures like Apollos and help him to understand the ways of God more fully.

But this is definitely a gift that one as an elder in the church must have. He must be able to teach. There is ministering, ministering. And the Greek word here is diakonos, diakonos. And it points to the word required of a deacon.

So the very first two things are actually things that are represented by the two offices in the church, an elder and a deacon. But Haldane actually points out that this word for ministering here, it applies to everyone who devotes himself to the interests of the body of Christ. And so it's not just among the deacons. This is a gift to look around you and to see what the body of Christ needs and to fill in and to serve where you can. Then the next one, Haldane points out, is exhorting.

Exhorting. He says this gift of exciting one to duty or dissuading one from sin. Exciting to duty or dissuading from sin. And he notes, hear this, that this gift requires a peculiar talent. It requires a peculiar talent.

What does that mean? That means that we don't really look at ourselves and boy, I really know how to give it to them. I'll put them in their place. I see it right. It requires a talent to be able to exhort, to be able to come alongside and to say, brother, can I talk to you about something?

Something's really, I have some questions for you. Is it possible? And the same thing with encouraging somebody, maybe somebody who's not using their gift, and you come alongside. Brother, you've just been so absent, so distant it seems, you haven't been able to make it. I understand the providence of God does that sometimes in certain seasons of life, but I have a concern and I see you lagging.

Are things well with you? And some people just have a gift of coming alongside and you know in your heart when you've received this, it's like these are the faithful wounds of a friend. And there's a gift in being able to do this in exhortation. There's giving, giving. The gift of relieving the needs of others.

It includes deacons, but it's not limited to them. What needs are there in order for us to be able to give? And it doesn't always have to be material things. It could be giving of time, looking around you. Can you give your time?

Can you give your emotions? Can you give some conversation? Or can you give to meet a need, a physical need? Another is leading, leading as he describes it. And the church of all generations has need of this gift.

You see there is kingdom work to do and the sheep are to be equipped for ministry, equipped for certain leading. All such ministry, all such ministry requires leadership. It requires leadership. There are some who have stepped forward to help take a leadership role in organizing people to be there at carillon every other Thursday night. There's leadership that's necessary in order to get people together out at the abortion clinic on Saturday mornings.

There's leadership that's needed in every ministry that the church does. And so the church of all generations has needed this gift. And then there's a gift of showing mercy, showing mercy. This gift requires an entering into the afflictions of others at such a level that requires a cheerfulness in dealing with them. It requires a cheerfulness in coming along and showing mercy to this one who is in the throes of affliction, and it's a gift.

Now we should desire to do all of these things on some level, But then there's the realizing of God has placed us in the body for certain things. And these are some of those gifts. And then Just note quickly the context for this living, loving sacrifice. It's verses 9 through 13. And understand this is the context.

These are the constraints in which we exercise the gifts that God has given us. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love and honor, giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints given to hospitality.

And so you see that he doesn't necessarily look at these things as, well, you've got a gift for doing this and that. After he talks about some of this gift in this, he talks about this is what it all should be done like in the midst of all these things. And so all of us should be practicing this on some level even as we work out the particular gift or gifts that God's grace has worked in us. So what does this have to do with the concept of joined and knit together? Well, Ephesians 4, 15 and 16, the very context of those words, joined and knit together, says, but speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things, and to him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effect of working by which Every part does its share causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

That's the end goal. The growth of the body, the health of the body, the edification of the body. So, two applications. First, do you know your gift? Do you know your gift?

Have you made a sober assessment of your place in this local body? Every member of our physical body knows its task. Okay? Every member in our body knows its task. So if I'm walking and I hear something over there, I want to see what it is, I don't go...

I mean, if I did that, you'd look at me like, what is wrong with you? What kind of hand do you have? What do we do? We turn. We give our attention, our eyeballs taken, our communicating, right?

Every part does its hand. You young children here, I didn't see... Don't get an idea. I didn't see any of you take up your fork with your foot when you were eating. You didn't do it, right?

Every one of you sat down and you naturally grabbed the fork to eat. Every part of our body knows what it's supposed to do. There's a knowledge. Some of it requires some teaching. Some of it requires motor skills and having to learn, right?

That that young baby is just starting to get table food and trying to get that fork. I mean it's trying to find the end of it and get it. It takes motor skills. But there's a purpose for the hand. There's a purpose for all of these things.

If it doesn't seem obvious to you, discuss it with your family, discuss it with your brothers and sisters here in the body. And then second, not only do you know your gift, are you using your gift? Are you using it? Let's say you know what it is. Are you using it?

Think for a moment again what the body suffers when one of its members is not functioning for the good of the body. How much slower you would move if your eyes decided to shut themselves. How weak you would become if the jaws refused to process food? How immobile you would become if the feet decided they weren't going to walk anywhere. We're taking the day off.

Are you functioning where God has placed you? And for you who are married, are you helping your spouse use their gift for the good of the church and the glory of God? Are you helping them use their gift? And is there a function you are fulfilling as a couple? Is there a gift that you as a family are engaged in?

And it might be that one person of your family has really been given a specific gift, well, sometimes you can come as a family and get behind them and give that gift a whole lot more weight and a whole lot more speed. Think again, thinking of couples, think of Aquila and Priscilla. We don't know exactly what Priscilla was involved in, in that, but together the two of them are ministering. Aquila and Priscilla ministering to the Apostle Apollos. So think again about that cartoon that I mentioned at the beginning.

Where are you in that picture? Pushing, pulling, riding, finding fault, ordering. Where are you in that picture? Where are you? And I am hoping to come up with an assessment program of some sort to help us in this.

I want to come up with a program of some sort and to follow up. And I'm hoping I can do that sooner rather than later, but to come alongside and say, hey, have you assessed what your gifts are? And talk about it. Why? Because the body needs you.

The body needs you. And maybe you haven't given it serious enough thought. Maybe nobody's ever challenged you in it before from the pulpit. And you're like, I don't know. I don't know.

Let's work on it together and find out. Because God's given you something. And the last thing you want to do is go and bury it in the ground. Because the Lord's coming again. And he wants an increase from what he's given us and The health of this body needs you it needs you it needs your presence your connectivity.

It needs your gift So stay tuned more to come on that Well, let's pray Father we thank you for your goodness to us. Oh father We thank you that when you led captivity captive you gave gifts to men And Lord you've gifted your church in order that your church might grow into maturity to be a full man in Christ. So give us help, Lord, to assess what you've given us, to assess it soberly, to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, to not envy somebody else's gift, but to assess rightly and to use the gift that you've given to us. To the glory and praise of Jesus Christ. Amen.