Think with Sober Judgment

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.  Romans 12:3 

Romans 12:3–8 – Romans: The Righteousness of God
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 17, 2023 (am)

We find ourselves already in the middle of an important discussion as we enter into today’s passage. In the largest turning point that exists in this lengthy but meticulously unified letter, we were introduced in vv.1-2 to the initial response we should have toward the many mercies of God that are sovereignly lavished upon us through the saving work of Christ that we receive by faith. In short, we live all of our lives for Him. We present [our] bodies to Him as a living sacrifice. And, resisting the pressures of this world to squeeze [us] into its mold (Phillips), we embrace the mind (1) that is [ours] in Christ Jesus (Phi.2:5), with the transforming effect that has on us, toward living and loving the good and pleasing and perfect will of God (2).

Now Paul turns his attention toward telling us just what this transformed life looks like. And the first characteristic he identifies is humility, the personal disposition that displays our clear understanding that there’s nothing to boast about personally when all the blessings and benefits we enjoy by faith in Christ are gifts given to us by God according to His merciful grace, and by His sovereign will, not because we’ve earned them or, still less, deserve them!

But even more, I think we’ll hear a uniquely relevant word in this passage, one that speaks to our present day in a way that’s helpful, even redemptively corrective. So, let’s dig in and see where this text takes us, what it gives us, where it leads when we present [our] bodies to God and have our minds renewed by Him (1-2). We’ll take this journey in three sequential steps.

The First Characteristic of a Transformed Life – 3

We just identified the first characteristic of a transformed life as being humility. But let’s see how Paul makes that point here. 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. It’s an apostle saying this—the apostle to the Gentiles—so, if the grace of God was sufficient for Paul not to think of himself more highly than he ought, we have to believe it’ll be sufficient for each of us as well! As he wrote to the Corinthians: 1Co.4:7 … What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? Paul knew all he had was from God and through him and to him (11:36), given to accomplish the purpose for which He gave it, so that left no ground for boasting.

And in its place, the transformed believer is to think with sober judgment, a sane, sensible, realistic estimate of [oneself] (Schreiner 633), the product of the “renewed mind (Moo 2018 779) we might say, and each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. That’s the challenging description. One commentator wrote that there are seven different ways to understand measure, five for faith, two for of; so, there are seventy combinations to consider! (Cranfield in Stott 325) But the differences are subtle. And just two or three that are primary. So, two key questions help us decide.

What does measure mean? It could be talking about the device by which something is measured. Or it could be the amount of the something that device measures. If you point out a gallon jug of water, you may be referring to the gallon jug itself or to the gallon of water that’s in it. So, Paul is referring either to God’s measure of faith assigned equally to all believers (our saving faith), or to the faith God measures out seemingly in varied amounts to all believers (likely most observable in the exercising of our gifts [6-8]) (cf. Schreiner 635).

What does faith mean? It’s either common faith or it’s distributed faith (Moo 2018 779). It’s either our common salvation, … the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (Jud.3), the gospel, even Jesus Himself—so, faith is the measure (Moo 2018 779)—or it’s the quantity of faith measured out differently to each believer, the trust that each believer possesses (Schreiner 634).

Deciding which one it is, to me, almost doesn’t matter. What Paul is telling us here is not to think of [ourselves] more highly than [we] ought, but to think [in a sane, sensible, realistic way], [that is anchored to the saving, sanctifying, serving quality and quantity] of faith that God has assigned [to us]. It seems to me like it barely matters, and almost seems wrong-headed, to try to decide whether Paul is talking about saving or sanctifying faith, faith that is the same from one of us to the next or faith that differs in measure from one of us to the next. It’s all given by God. It’s all for the accomplishment of His purpose in us (individually) and among us (as His people). And the bottom line is not at all unclear: don’t be proud; there’s no reason for it! Just glory in the fact that you belong to God! You’re a recipient of His sovereign grace/faith! You’re on His team!

And that’s precisely where Paul goes next. But before we go there with him, I believe there’s one more thing we should notice here, that uniquely relevant word I mentioned earlier. The absolutely central point Paul is making here in v.3 is that the foremost characteristic of a transformed mind (2) is a humble, sober (sane, sensible…) understanding of who we are, embracing a self-perception that is assigned (3) to us by God. Just as the transforming renewal of [our] mind (2) happens from the inside out, the grace and faith (3) which accomplish that transformation come from the outside in. Just as (in Martin Luther’s words) we have an alien righteousness, meaning, it comes to us from an outside source, namely, God Himself by faith in Christ, we could say here that we have an alien self-perception; it’s worked in us by God’s grace through faith.

This is how healthy self-perception is formed. We’re told by our Creator who we are, what we’re made for, what makes us happy. Things don’t work best when we try to do that ourselves. And they go even further awry when we start going against the Designer’s intent, and insisting on our right to do so, saying we have the freedom to determine who we are and what we want and how we want it, and now, today, even how others ought to respond to our choices.

We learn two things here that are of fundamental importance to our happiness as human beings: (1) that we’re at our best when we embrace God’s definition of who we are.

But even if we reject the offer of His grace, (2) we’re far better off if we realize that He made us to live and thrive in community, not in isolation (Gen.2:18). So, life goes better if we learn who we are and develop our self-understanding in the company of others, whether family or friends or society as a whole, and surely best including all three of these spheres.

But when we reverse this course and insist on defining ourselves according to our own internal desires, then forcing those choices outward in an attempt to redefine the world around us (essentially trying to recreate the world in our own image), only chaos will result. And this observation isn’t judgmental. It’s sociological. The world just wasn’t made to work that way, community values redefined to satisfy the desires of the individual, indeed the competing desires of each individual. When that mindset arises (the mindset we see trying to redefine our world today), the very foundations of social order will soon crumble to dust, unable to support the weight of divergent self-interest, cavalier self-assertion, and unyielding individualism.

The Primary Rationale for this First Characteristic – 4-5

So, what’s the answer? For our world today, even those in it who reject the call of Christ, we’d be far better off if we could remember that freedom is marked by self-restraint, not self-expression, and therefore the well-being of society is dependent on the individuals within it at least curbing their aberrant desires, if not harnessing and guiding them in the direction of what is best for all. That’s just a simple truth writ large—a selfless and sober, sensible realization that this is the only way a growing plurality of people can live together in a finite space with finite resources.

But more to our/Paul’s point today, these few moments of reflection are just a broader application of the truth being affirmed here about a subset of humanity—those who have embraced the truth of the gospel by faith in Jesus. This instruction on the foundation of personal identity is true for us all because God is the Creator of all, even of those who don’t believe in Him. But there’s more to this picture than just identity instruction. The rest is just reserved for those who’ve been adopted into God’s family by faith in Christ and are looking to be transformed by the renewal of [their] minds (2).

So, we should 3 … think [of ourselves] 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. We’re part of a community! And the definition of who we are is found when we’re in among the whole, not when we’re off on our own! This is the same metaphor describing life together in the church that Paul used in 1Co.12:12-28. We’re like one body with many members (4). And it doesn’t make any more sense for any of us who are in Christ by faith to be off on our own, away from the church community, than it makes for our hand or our foot to be off away from our physical body.

So, bottom line here, a transformed mind (2) enables us to think rightly of ourselves, which leads us to recognize that we find our identity in the most satisfying way in and among the community of the redeemed, a spiritual group that’s defined by the same sort of organic and unified diversity that’s observable among the physical members of a human body.

The Truest Expression of this Characteristic and Rationale – 6-8

So, how does our identity express itself? How does this individuality show up if not in the individual self-expression we see all around us today? Paul tells us. 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. In short, God gives gifts to His people, described elsewhere (Eph.4:7-8) as the spoils of the victory Jesus won for them at the cross.

And those gifts are given to be used as His people’s uniquely individual expressions which fit together in the body of Christ like the interlocking pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to display the unified beauty of God’s plan and purpose in and through the life of the local church—in the undeniable oneness discernible among her members and in the world-changing impact demonstrated through her message.

That’s the big picture. But what Paul is describing here (6-8) is how the gifts should be exercised, how they should be put into practice by God’s people. So, Rom.12 is not quite like 1Co.12 where Paul provides two lists of gifts so that we’ll learn a bit about them and how they work—so we’ll have some examples of the gifts and see the contribution they make in the life and ministry of the body. Here in Rom.12 he’s doing something different. He’s giving us a list of gifts, yes, but the emphasis is not on the definitions of the words or whether there are any additional gifts that aren’t on this list or that one. Here the emphasis is on believers exercising their gifts with their whole heart.

We’re seeing what prophecy and service and teaching and exhortation and [giving] and leading and mercy look like when they’re expressed by Christians who’ve presented their bodies as a living sacrifice to God and are being transformed by the renewal of [their] mind such that they humbly recognize that their God-given, Spirit-enabled expression of their spiritual gifts is the most profound display of who they are, not just as Christians but as human beings! Nothing gives a clearer or greater or truer or more lasting demonstration of our identity, who we are, than this. So, we exercise our gifts with an increasing awareness that this is so.

A quick word on one definition, though; I think we’re comfortable with each of these gifts with one exception: how do we understand prophecy? Generally we think of it in Scripture as speaking under divine inspiration (Stott 326), speaking not only with God’s voice but also with His authority. And we know that the prophets along with the apostles lay the foundation for the church (Eph.2:20). But we also know that there is a gift of prophecy in the NT where the words of the prophet need to be tested as they’re heard, not just received as God’s Word (1Co.14:29; cf. 1Th.5:20-21; 1Jo.4:1). So, that is likely the sort of prophecy Paul is referring to here.

Conclusion

So, what is our bottom line today? Just hear this text and seek God to help us live it, together, as the body of Christ. [Don’t] think of [yourself] more highly than [you] ought to think, but think with sober judgement, according to the measure of faith that God has assigned [to you] as members of one body [of believers]. Show your individuality by exercising your gift as just one part within the unified diversity that is the miracle of the church; nothing presents a better picture of who you are! And exercise your gift with your whole heart, in keeping with the great salvation we’ve received!

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Resources

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NEXT SUNDAY: Let Love Be Genuine, Romans 12:9–21