Sober Thinking

INTRODUCTION
(Series Slide)
Good morning! My name is David Sorn, and I’m the Lead Pastor here at Renovation Church.
If I asked you the question,
“Do you think people are overly concerned with themselves?”
How would you answer?
Well, turns out there was a survey about this question.
And here’s what they found;
Do you think people are overly concerned with themselves?
60% of people believe that most people are overly concerned with themselves.
However, then researchers turned the tables and asked, “Are YOU overly concerned with yourself?
Do you think people are overly concerned with themselves?
60% of people believe that most people are overly concerned with themselves.
17% of people believe that they are overly concerned with themselves.
Ha! “It’s not MY problem, but it’s definitely everyone else’s problem!”
(Series Slide)
The truth is that most of us love thinking about ourselves.
Let me give you another example.
I’ve led somewhere between 100-150 interviews at this time in my life, especially as our staff has really grown these past few years.
And often, in an interview, it may be hard for a person to talk about their faith or their work history.
But as soon as we ask, “Have you ever taken any personality tests? Like Myers-Briggs, or Strengthfinders?”
People sit straight up and loudly exclaim, “YES I HAVE! I’m a 6 with a wing 7, and INFJ, and let me tell you all 36 of my strengths in order!”
Most of us love ourselves…maybe too much.
And one of the challenges of that is that we don’t always think of ourselves rightly, or accurately, or with “sober judgment” as the Apostle Paul is going to say in our passage today.
In fact, let’s take a look at that passage
Romans 12:3-8
Page 775
We are in week 2 of a 4-week series on Romans 12 in the Bible.
If you are back from the Grand Opening for week 2 of the series, we’re so pumped you are back!
If it’s your first time today, that’s awesome!
Romans is a letter written by one of the early leaders of the Christian faith called “The Apostle Paul”
And he’s writing to some new Christians in in Rome about Jesus.
And last week we read how “In View of God’s Mercy, we should offer all of our lives to God”
This week, we’re going to get some more specifics on what that looks like.
Okay, let’s read it. We left off at verse 3
(Romans 12:3-8) – NIV
3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
(Sober Thinking – Title Slide)
Okay, so here’s a passage about how we need to think accurately of ourselves
In verse 3, Paul even says that you must “think of yourself with sober judgment”
That means thinking rationally, accurately, and with reason.
Because when someone is intoxicated, one of their main problems is that they can’t think properly.
And so the question before each of us today is: “Am I thinking of myself accurately?”
Or, have I begun to, perhaps, become a little bit intoxicated with myself?
“Do I (as Paul writes in verse 3) think of myself more highly than I ought to?”
It’s a tough question…because most of us are not very good (or used to!) challenging ourselves on this subject.
But let’s let the Bible challenge our thinking this morning.

THINKING OF YOURSELF RIGHTLY
In a second I want to start showing you a chart that we made for this passage, and it compares intoxicated thinking vs sober thinking.
And again, when I say intoxicated, I don’t literally mean intoxicated with alcohol.
Paul is talking here about an intoxication where you get so focused on yourself, that it actually alters your perception of reality.
(Chart 1)
Intoxicated thinking says “I saved myself”
Now, we don’t usually overtly, or outwardly, say it that way…but often we think:
“I’m wise for believing in Jesus…so smart. What’s wrong with the rest of my family and friends?”
But Sober Thinking, Accurate Thinking, says:
(Chart 2)
“I can’t believe God would even save me…I was so sinful. And yet He did.
“I didn’t save myself”
As verse 3 says:
Think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you
God gave me this faith!
And so I don’t want to think more highly of myself, for I was lost and He found me;
I shouldn’t be walking around feeling pride about finding my way out of the darkness.
He found me (in the darkness!)
I was dead, and He brought me to life
Dead men don’t come back to life and say, “Guess who woke themselves up?”
And so if we’re going to have sober thinking, and accurate thinking…we must give God all the credit, and all the glory for our salvation.

THINKING OF YOURSELF IN LIGHT OF THE GIFTS GIVEN YOU
And God’s mercy is so great, that Romans now tells us that God loves you so much that not only has He saved you, but He’s also given each believer spiritual gifts.
In verses 6-8, seven different Spiritual Gifts are described.
Here’s a list for you:
Spiritual Gifts of Romans 12
1. Prophesying
2. Serving
3. Teaching
4. Encouraging
5. Giving
6. Leadership
7. Showing Mercy
Spiritual Gifts in the Bible are gifts that God gives each and every believer, where He empowers them in a particular way to serve His purposes.
So take, serving for an example, we are all called to Serve, but some people have the Spiritual Gift of Serving, and thus can serve at a supernatural level.
I think of my friend Ryan Speck, who was on stage the other day with our Building Team.
Ryan has the Spiritual Gift of serving…so he’s always looking for a way to jump in and help with another project or to help someone out at their house.
He’ll drop everything, instantly, just to serve someone.
That’s a Spiritual Gift…from God
And all believers have different spiritual gifts…and even different levels of it.
That’s why verse 6 says: “according to the grace given each of us”
And Romans 12 is not an exhaustive list of Spiritual Gifts.
There are other passages in the Bible about Spiritual Gifts as well.
Other Spiritual Gifts Passages
Ephesians 4:11
1 Corinthians 12:4-11
1 Peter 4:10-11
Some of the Spiritual Gifts in these passages are miraculous (like healing), some are gifts of ministry (teaching, evangelism), while others are great people gifts (discernment, mercy, etc.)
And again, we’re all supposed to most of these things, but some people have THE GIFT!
Like, we’re all supposed to evangelize and share our faith, but some people have the GIFT of Evangelism
They just meet random strangers, strike up a great conversation, and say, “Can I tell you what changed my life?”
And people listen!
That’s a spiritual gift!
But the main point that Paul is making here is that once you begin to find out what your spiritual gift is (and you start to use it), you MUST…continue to think of yourself with sober judgment.
And that’s easier said than done.
Because…
(Chart 3)
What we often start to do, is take credit for the gifts we’ve been given.
For example: You start thinking about your friend or family member who is having a rough time, and how it’s always you who is supporting them, or running errands, bringing them meals, mowing their yard…
And where are your other siblings? Or their other friends?
And you start thinking, “It’s a good thing YOU’RE SO GOOD at showing mercy!”
Or you’re teaching a class here at church, or leading a small group, or a ministry, and you start thinking, “It’s a good thing this place has me…this would all be pretty messy without my unique set of gifts”
But timeout for a second.
What’s the definition of a GIFT?
Why does Paul use that word?
A gift is something you didn’t earn that somebody else (God in this case!) gave to you!
I recently watched a movie about the famous Olympic runner Steve Prefontaine.
And I don’t know if I can recommend it to you or not because I watched it on a plane, and I have no idea what they did or did not edit out 😊
But in the movie, Prefontaine, who in the early 70’s was the best middle-distance runner in the country, got 4th at the 1972 Olympics at the 5,000 meters.
And if you’ve been watching the Olympics the past couple of weeks, you know that the worst place to get is 4th.
And Prefontaine was devastated about it.
And so later, his coach said to him, “You know what your problem is? You think that your solely responsible for your success”
And Prefontaine says, “I am. I can endure pain better than anyone”
And his coach said, “Maybe, maybe that’s true, but all the hard work in the world isn't going to get one person in a million to run a 3:54 mile. That takes talent.”
And this coach said,
“Listen, your heart can probably pump more blood than anyone else on this planet.”
“And your feet, could take a sledgehammer to them and not get hurt.”
“Yes, you work hard, but you’d be less hard on yourself if you stopped thinking it was all on you, and started realizing that a lot of it, is just a gift.
And the same is true for us and how we serve God.
(Chart 4)
When we think soberly, rightly about our gifts, we will see them as just that…a gift from God.
God gave your natural talents, and your spiritual gifts…
…whether it’s administration, or encouragement, or giving.
They’re all gifts.
And I think it’s hard for many of us to think Biblically about this because for those of you that grew up in America, we grew up constantly being told that we were special BECAUSE of our gifts.
You’re so great at sports, or “you’re such a servant,” or “you’re so hard-working”
And we let those gifts become our identity.
But they’re not your identity, because they’re not yours.
They’re gifts
And life is a whole lot less stressful, when you think soberly, and you see those things as gifts.

THINKING OF YOURSELF AS A PART OF THE BODY
And there is a 3rd way Paul wants us to have sober thinking, and it was actually in the middle of our passage.
Look again at verses 4 and 5.
4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
So, not only has God given each believer a Spiritual Gift…we see here the main purpose of the gift.
Paul says that each of us is a member (a part) of the body of Christ.
So that means that you’re an arm, and I’m a toe, and she’s an ear, and he’s an eye.
We all play a part in moving the Body of Christ (God’s church and His Kingdom) forward here on earth.
But in order for that to happen, EACH of us must not only USE our gifts, but primarily use them to serve other Christians.
Not that our gifts don’t play a role outside the church (some of them more than others), but their primary function is typically to serve each other as believers.
Paul even goes as far as saying (at the end of verse 5) that we belong to each other.
And many times we don’t think Biblically when it comes to Our Part in the body.
(Chart 5)
We get intoxicated with ourselves, and we start believing the lie that our “faith is a private thing,” which is found nowhere in the pages of this book.
And only in the pages of our self-focused culture.
Because Paul would say, “What happens what a part of the body (like an ear) goes off on its own?
Well, firstly, it’s not going to be very helpful to the body anymore…it’s not going to do what it was made for.
And secondly, on its own, it’s going to slowly, spiritually, die off
See, we must think rightly, and soberly about what God’s Word says about OUR PART
(Chart 6)
Because the Word says you are a valued part of the body of Christ.
And just as an ear has a specific purpose, you have been gifted to serve the body of Christ with a specific purpose.
THAT’S AMAZING!
But sometimes we forget that.
It reminds me of a story I remember reading about years ago.
Back in 2009, a man went to a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game, which by the way, is that not the laziest team name ever?
The Phillies. Oh man.
Anyway, this young dad had been going to Phillies’ games his whole life and his goal, ever since he was little, was to catch a foul ball.
Well, one day, it happened.
A Philie’s player hit a foul ball right over his way…he reached over and caught it!
He was so excited and had so much joy, that he wanted to share the moment with his 3-year old daughter.
So he handed her the ball
And guess what she did?
She took the ball, and threw it away.
And I feel like that’s what we do sometimes.
Our Father in heaven gives us a gift, and we throw it away.
We never use it.
Now, I get some of you have only been coming here for 2 weeks, so this next part is not for you (just look at your phone for 2 minutes)
But if you’ve been here a while, I want you to hear this challenging word…
…because that’s my job… to challenge you with the counter-cultural truth of God’s Word!
In its authority, this book sits above every culture on earth.
But it’s hard for us, here in self-focused America, to hear the Bible’s teaching, when it teaches against selfishness.
But listen, one of the main reasons that here in this country, so many Christians have allowed themselves to fall into this non-Biblical, consumeristic form of a privatized-faith…
…where we just walk in and walk out of church…
…one of the main reasons for that….is our pride; our self-focus.
I know many suburban Christians who haven’t served the body of Christ for years, but they come every week…
…but if one week we said:
“Sorry, there are no words on the screen today, we didn’t have any volunteers.”
“Sorry, your kid can’t go into their classroom today, no teachers, no volunteers”
I think many people would say, “This place has gone downhill, what time’s that Eagle Brook service?”
We are so submerged in a self-focused, consumeristic culture…that almost like a drunk driver just can’t see why they shouldn’t drive…
…we don’t even see the irony anymore of expecting the other members of Christ’s body to serve us…but never a need for us to serve them.
And it’s simply because our model of the church is now more like a Shopping Mall, where we expect to show up and receive an array of services…
But that’s not the model in the Bible.
The model in the Bible is a “body”
Where we’re all members of the same body.
We all belong to and serve each other.
And again, I get that a TON of you are new within the last month, so again, that’s fine.
Just get yourself acquainted with this place (remember you weren’t supposed to be listening!)
But if you’ve been here a few months, a year…
I want you to change your model of what church is back to a Biblical one.
And I love practical, real steps, so here are two:
1) We don’t have enough people right now for our Parking Team, and we’re going to need them more than ever as we continue to really grow over this next yar.
2) With the exception of our Grand Opening last week, we haven’t been able to open our 8 year old room in Renovation Kids because we don’t have enough volunteers
And I actually love that example because it’s a perfect example of how the body can serve each other….
…because you benefit from my teaching every week, and I now can benefit from you.
I literally have an 8-year-old.
My family needs you!
This what this passage is all about.
We’re all one body, and we use our gifts to serve each other!
You can sign up to serve today out at the welcome table, or through our app, or online.
But we’ve got to come back to the truth of the Bible.
Because it’s actually sober, Biblical thinking that will move you to do the right thing.
Because if you just guilt yourself into serving…and as Minnesotans, we love to guilt ourselves.
We say, “Oh I guess I’ll serve in Kids or help out my neighbors more”…
If you Guilt Yourself into it, it won’t last…you’ll quit in a month.
Because serving is often hard.
And so you have to go into it with the right thinking.
Too often we go into serving with a mindset more like more like Marie Kondo than the Apostle Paul.
We say, “Okay, I’ll serve in Kids, but if this doesn’t spark joy, I’m out”
That’s self-intoxication.
But if you can change your thinking from an intoxication with the self into sober thinking, Biblical thinking.
And you can say,
“The only reason I’m even still alive right now is because of the breath God is putting in my lungs”
“The only reason I’m saved is because of His grace”
“The only reason I’ve ever grown in my faith is because other parts of the body served me”
“The only reason I’m good at anything is because of His gifts”
If you can acknowledge that truth, then it’s so much easier to then say, “And so I want use those gifts, for His people, and His Purposes, and His glory…
(END HERE FIRST SERVICE….let me pray)

BAPTISM
(SWITCH TO BAPTISM SUNDAY SLIDE)
And this point I want to call out Baptismal Team on stage.
As we are going to celebrate a baptism at this service
Baptisms are a visual reminder that God’s Son, Jesus Christ has paid for our sins.
And by our faith in Him, we were forgiven, washed clean.
And not only that, that God has raised us up from the dead and given us new life.
And so when we get baptized, we’re publicly proclaiming that Jesus has washed away our sins.
Baptism doesn’t save you.
But it is such an important symbol of his love.
Every person you see baptized at Renovation Church is baptized by a sponsor (people who’s had a spiritual impact on them)
But before we do the baptism, we get to hear their testimonies
So I want to invite up:
9:00 –
10:15 – Ben Wahl
11:30 - Danielle Tilly

GOSPEL
(Sober Thinking - Title slide)
Thank you for your testimony
We believe that testimonies are so important to rightly understanding how God’s truth works out in our different and individual lives.
And at the foundation of truly having God in your life, is, as we said earlier, thinking rightly (soberly) about yourself.
Because too many of us, in our intoxication with self, think we can save ourselves.
I thought this passionately for the first 18 years of my life.
I wasn’t a follower of Jesus at all, but I was CONVINCED that I was going to heaven.
I figured, I was a pretty good kid (based on whose standards, I’m not sure…my own?)
I figured, I was a good student, I never killed anyone, surely God would let me in.
But that wasn’t based on any evidence.
I had never read the Bible, or studied God.
And as I think about it now, that’s the definition of intoxicated thinking.
I was wagering my entire eternity (billions upon billions of years), on an assumption…
It’s like walking up to a cliff blindfolded, and saying, “No, I never looked to see if I’m 3 feet up or 300 feet, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.
I was wagering my eternity on a guess, that God would let me into heaven because I was “good” by my own standards.
It sounds crazy to me now.
I had so much pride.
But when I was 18, I started to secretly read the Bible myself (because I didn’t want anyone to catch me reading it and mock me)…
And I found out that I wasn’t good enough…and that I had sinned against God.
And the only way to be forgiven was to believe that Jesus came and died for me, in my place.
(Ephesians 2:8-9) – NIV
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

The only way you can be forgiven by God, and have him in your life to change you and transform, AND…offer you enteral life in heaven and not in hell….
The only way…is to receive Him in by faith.
To say, “I believe Jesus died for me, come and lead my life”
That’s the truth, the sober, God’s-honest truth.
And if you’ve never done that before, you should do that today.
Let’s just have everyone, just for a minute, close your eyes and bow your head.
If you need to make this decision for the first time today…to tell Jesus that you need His forgiveness for your sins…to make Him the leader of your life…to believe He died in your place
In just a minute, I’m going to ask you to raise your hand
No one’s going to be looking at you, that’s why we had everyone close their eyes.
But this is a way for you to accept that gift from God…and walk into a new life.
And I urge you to receive Him now…
He’s the only one who can save you, and forgive you.
The Bible says TODAY is the day of salvation.
Invite Him in TODAY
And so if you need to tell God for the first time today that you do believe, and you want to follow Him and be forgiven.
Then I invite you to raise your hand wherever you are.
The Bible tells us that in this moment we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths.
Repeat after me
Dear God
I confess to you, that I have sinned against you.
But God I believe, that you sent your Son Jesus, to take my place
And God I thank you, for forgiving my sins.
And now I commit, to following you, with my life.

(NEXT STEPS)
Amen, you can put your hands down.
For those of you that raised your hand…
Important decision, need resources, what to do next.
I’m going to pray and close the service in a second, but for the TWO/THREE of you that raised your hands, come see me after.
Let me pray