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“If you’re able...” Reading Rom. 1:8–17. “....Thanks be to God.”
As fall presses on, we’re getting closer to the season where we’ll likely be part of a “white elephant gift exchange.”[1] These can have different rules—nothing over $5, nothing over $25. But sometimes the rule is, “you can’t buy anything. It has to be something from your house.”
So, you roam around your attic or garage or closet, asking, “What do I have to give to someone?”
My favorite “white elephant gift” in this, “bring what you already have,” category was from Mark Schlax. Mark brought an old telephone like you’d find in a phone booth. Big, metal, heavy. The real deal. If you’re younger and don’t know what I’m talking about—it’s something like the phone in the booth in Harry Potter outside the Ministry of Magic.
What did Mark have to give to someone? A big, metal telephone.
In our relationships, we’re often in that same position of asking, what do I have to give?
What do I have to give—to this person in a totally different life situation than me. Who’s a lot older or younger. Who’s divorced and single parenting, and I’ve never been married. Who’s been very successful in his career, and I’m struggling to keep a job. Who’s from the Middle East, and I’m from East...Carolina.
What do I have to give? The apostle Paul will show us what we have to give. This morning we’ll think of him as an example to follow.
The apostle Paul wrote the letter to the Romans we’re looking at this morning. In some ways he could have asked the same thing we’re asking: What does a converted unmarried Jewish Pharisee from the edge of the Roman Empire have to give to the sophisticated Romans in the capital city of the whole empire?
Paul in our passage this morning answers our question, What do I have to give to others?
The answer: “MORE THAN YOU THINK.”
In this series we’re in the book of Romans.
Today the topic is what do we have to give to others when we minister to them. The answer is, more than you think. Here are four things we have to give:
Prayerd
What do we bring to others? Prayer.
Right after Paul’s greeting, he turns to the subject of prayer. He models for us the prayer we can give for others. “Thank my God” (Rom 1:8), “without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers” (Rom 1:9–10), “asking that somehow by God’s will I may” visit (Rom 1:10).
He offered constant, thankful, specific prayers.
Now sometimes prayer is almost a substitute for actual care for someone. Someone tells us their hardship, and we say, “I’ll pray for you.” Which at times is another way of saying, “I’m probably not going to do anything at all.”
But when we say we’ll pray for someone, and we mean it, what we’re doing for someone is amazing.
And in the end, almost all the situations we pray about are ones where there’s no human solution. We’re praying, because we can’t make something happen. We can’t turn the heart of a boss to offer a job. We can’t make the body with cancer get rid of that cancer.
We can’t. But God can.
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” (Mark 10:27)
What do we have to give? Prayer.
What do we have to give? Prayer. And second, “some spiritual gift.”
“I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you.” (Rom 1:11)
The second thing we bring is “some spiritual gift” (Rom 1:11).
What is this “spiritual gift”?
First clue is the phrase “spiritual gift.”
A “Spiritual gift” is a gift emanating from and bestowed by the Holy Spirit.
John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans[2]
The adjective “Spiritual” (pneumatikon) is used in Rom. 15:27 to speak of “spiritual blessings.” In 1 Cor. 2:13–15 it’s used to speak of “spiritual truths” that only God’s Holy Spirit can reveal.
The noun “gift” (charisma) can be used of general blessings God gives that we call “gifts”—like the “gift” of salvation in Christ (Rom 5:15–16; 6:23).
In 1 Corinthians 12:4, 9, 28, 30, 31 it is used of the many “spiritual gifts” God gives. Gifts like teaching, prophecy, speaking in tongues, the gift of healing, miracles, many others.
In 1–2 Timothy he speaks of “the gift” given to Timothy, which had to do with being given new power in the Holy Spirit:
Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. (1 Tim 4:14)
For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. (2 Tim 1:6)
A “Spiritual gift” can look a lot of different ways. But since “gift” is combined with that adjective “Spiritual,” meaning “given by the Holy Spirit,” we can assume it’s not a general good thing Paul is talking about but a distinct work of the Holy Spirit.
Second, he ways to bring “SOME spiritual gift,” an undefined, unspecific gift. It’s not the gospel, then. The gospel is not “some” spiritual gift but a very specific and defined gift. A blessing he’ll define very exactly in Romans.
Paul is mind something other than the gospel here.
A third clue is the verb Paul uses. He says he wants “to impart to you” a gift. The Greek word “impart” is used five times in the NT, each time with something very tangible “imparted.” Other things “imparted” in the NT are a tunic (Luke 3:11), money (Rom 12:8; Eph 4:28), or “our own selves” (1 Thess 2:8). Connecting charisma and some form of didōmi echoes 1 Timothy 4:14 and 2 Timothy 1:6–7, passages that speak of giving a spiritual gift through the laying on of hands.
Now it’s a “SPIRITUAL gift,” so Paul knows he is not the SOURCE of the gift. The Holy Spirit. He’s just the human agent to minister the gift to someone. He’s the UPS guy, not the package. The package is from the Holy Spirit. Paul’s just delivering it.
A fourth clue is that he’s talking to Christians. In Rom. 1:6–7 he makes strong statements about who they are. They are “chosen to belong to Christ Jesus” (Rom 1:6), they’re “beloved of God” (Rom 1:7), they’re “saints” (Rom 1:7).
To these Christians he wants to bring something more than what they have.
They have the Spirit, because they’re Christians (Rom 8:9–11). They even have some amount of spiritual gifting, because they’re Christians (Rom 12:3–6).
But to these Christians who have the Spirit, he wants “to impart some Spiritual gift.”
That’s an important part of the Christian life. It’s always “aspirational.” There’s always something more we’re pursuing. Even as we live in the good of what we have in Christ, we’re pursuing something more.
Here that something more is described as “some spiritual gift” imparted through the ministry of another Christian.
We don’t know what God will do.
Perhaps we’ll be like Ananias:
So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 9:17)
Or the elders in 1 Timothy:
Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. (1 Tim 4:14)
We don’t need to feel the pressure of making something happen. It’s a gift of the Spirit!
And it doesn’t matter who it is you’re praying for, they need more of the Spirit!
What do we have to give? Prayer. Some spiritual gift. And third, faith.
Verse 11 made it sound like Paul had something the Romans didn’t. So, here he speaks of ministry in more mutual terms.
A third thing we have to give to others is our faith.
“Mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine” (Rom 1:12).
Someone with true faith is encouraging. Faith is a miracle of God in the heart of a person.
Mack Stiles who has ministered in the Middle East for decades:
In the Muslim context where I live, many people from other faith backgrounds find it disorienting to hear me preach that no one is born a Christian, that all Christians are converts.
Mack Stiles, Evangelism[3]
It’s a miracle...every time. There’s nothing natural about it.
There’s encouragement in hearing about how someone came to Christ. Even if a person’s testimony is that they don’t remember when it happened. They believe now, and they have grown in faith over the years. That growth is encouraging to hear about!
Sometimes the encouragement is that the person has faith for you. When you are with them, you can tell they have faith that God is up to something good in your life. You might not see it. But they know it.
When I was in college and a few years after, I was at several retreats where a man named Don Farrar was the speaker. Don was about ten years older than my dad. Had a knack for communicating that he cared for you. That you mattered to him. But also that you mattered to God. And God was up to something good in your life, and you can trust him to do it!
I recently read a letter he wrote to another young man, fresh out of college and struggling with adulting—with finding his purpose. He asked if Don had ever struggled with these things. Don wrote,
“Yes, I have struggled (and continue to struggle at the age of 73) with these things, as you have, and failed millions of times and taken detours and false starts millions of times. But I know now what I didn't know back in my teen years, that God has never left my side. He took all the detours and false starts with me and was still there when I found my way again—until I got off the track again. But I've never done anything alone. That is a basic truth that I have learned and depend on” (Don Farrar, letter).
Sometimes what we bring to another person is faith that God is up to something good in their lives. That kind of faith can be contagious.
What do we have to give? Prayer. Some spiritual gift. Faith. And fourth, the gospel.
Read Rom. 1:14–17.
A fourth thing we have to give is the gospel. Paul is excited to pray for the Romans, to impart a spiritual gift to the Romans, and to share their mutual faith with the Romans. But it’s the gospel that most excites him.
He says he’s “under obligation” (Rom 1:14) to share the gospel, “eager to preach the gospel” (Rom 1:15), “not ashamed of the gospel” (Rom 1:16) because it offers salvation to everyone who believes it.
“Obligation” means a sense of owing a debt. This is a debt of gratitude, though. Christ had suffered for him, died for him, been buried for him, revealed himself to him, called him into service as an apostle.
He felt a sense of debt to Christ. This wasn’t work of someone trying to earn enough money to get out of their debt. It was the service of someone who just realized they had inherited a fortune and wanted to invest and spend that money to bless as many people as possible.
To these Roman Christians, who lived in a city that was the cultural center of the Mediterranean world, he wanted them to know that this gospel was
“Both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish” (Rom 1:14).
He’s saying he wanted to preach to those at the center of their culture and those at the very fringes of it and forgotten by it. Those respected in the eyes of the world and those despised by the world. To all of these Paul was eager to preach.
The reason is the gospel is THE GREAT ANSWER to everyone’s problems. There’s no one too sophisticated or knowledgeable or rich or powerful or well-connected or financially savvy who doesn’t need the forgiveness of sins offered in the gospel.
There is no professor in any elite university, no CEO of any fortune 500 company, no all-star athlete, no trailblazing inventor who doesn’t need the forgiveness of sins offered in the gospel.
The gospel isn’t ONE OF THE ANSWERS we might find. It’s the ONLY ANSWER to the universal problem everyone has—the problem of our sin and God’s judgment.
That’s true for you, too. Your greatest problem is what you will do about your sin. The only solution for that problem is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Faith in him is what gives to you the RIGHTEOUSNESS of God, that declaration by God that you are ACCEPTABLE to him and forever welcomed into his presence.
What do you have to give? As a Christian, so much!
But notice what’s not on the list:
Those things aren’t on the list, because you don’t have it, and that’s not what people need.
They need Christ! They need grace! They need God!
For some of us, that’s a rebuke—you try to help people by being the ANSWER to their problem. God is saying, “They don’t need you, they need ME.”
For others, it’s an encouragement—you don’t feel like you have something to give, but you have amazing things to give.
If you’re a Christian, then you have something to give to others—far more than you think!
The apostle Peter knew this. Walking along he saw a man paralyzed and begging. He looked at him. The man expected a handout. Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” (Acts 3:6).
Amen.
Prayer
[1] See https://qz.com/353936/whats-so-special-about-a-white-elephant.
[2] John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (Eerdmans, 1959), 1:22.
[3] Mack Stiles, Evangelism: How the Whole Church Speaks of Jesus (Crossway, 2014), 36.
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