Serving Church

Sermon from CCM Fallowfield

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LISTEN

This sermon was preached by Andy Wisdom at the Fallowfield site of Christ Church Manchester on Sunday 20th October 2019.

SERIES

 

This message was part of the ‘How to Pray’ series, preached at Christ Church Manchester’s church in Fallowfield in early 2018. The full series included the following sermons:

 

BIBLE VERSES

This sermon was based on Romans 12:1-8.

A Living Sacrifice

1 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. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Gifts of Grace

3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; 8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

KEY POINTS

Why Serve?

  • Serving at CCM has helped me to understand God better, understand worship better, grow in faith, maturity and love.
  • Why should we serve?

Reason 1: God

  • Romans 12:1-2 presents a ‘new way of thinking’ about who God is.
  • The only rational response to who God is is worship!
  • God is a generous giver of gifts, the greatest gift being Jesus Christ. He also distributes gifts/grace to His people for the building up of the church.

Reason 2: Grace

  • It’s easy to feel jealous of other people’s gifts.
  • Paul calls us to remember that each of these spiritual gifts is freely given by God, not based on what we deserve, but based on His grace and according to His pleasure.
  • Yes—God gives different gifts to different people, and not everyone receives the same ‘amount’ of gifts. But giving them to individuals isn’t the point; they are designed to build up the whole church.

Reason 3: Growth

  • In vv. 4-5, we see that God’s intention is that the church would grow because of His gracious gifts.
  • In a garden, ‘growth’ would mean the growth of individual plants, and the growth of the garden as a whole. Here, it means both as well. Jesus shows in the parable of the talents what the individual dimension of this growth looks like. The idea is that using these gifts (serving) causes them to grow.
  • But as individuals in the church grow in maturity by using their God-given gifts to serve the church, the whole church grows/is built up as a result.

MORE SERMONS

 

To see more sermons from Christ Church Manchester, you can visit our sermons page, or why not consider subscribing on iTunes.