Christ, His Body and You

Trinity Baptist Church August 17, 2008
Combating Complacency

Christ, His Body and You
Romans 12:3-8

There was a Danish philosopher named Kierkegaard whose writings are weighty and tough to read. But that deep thinker one time told a simple parable that describes how easy it is to slide into complacency.

According to his parable, one Spring, a duck was flying north with a flock. In the Danish countryside that particular duck spotted a barnyard where tame ducks lived. The duck dropped down and he discovered these ducks had wonderful corn to eat. So he stayed …for an hour….then for the day….a week then went by and a month. And because the corn and the safe barnyard were so fine, our duck ended up staying the whole Summer at that farm. Then one crisp Fall day, some wild ducks flew overhead, quacking as they winged their way south. He looked up and heard them -- and he was stirred with a strange sense of joy and delight. And then, with all his might he began flapping his wings and rose into the air, planning to join his comrades for the trip south.

But all that corn had made the duck both soft and heavy -- and he couldn’t manage to fly any higher than the barn roof. So he dropped back to that barnyard and he said to himself, “Oh well, my life here is safe and the food is good!” After that in the Spring and in the Fall, that duck would hear wild ducks honking as they passed overhead -- and for a minute, his eyes would look and gleam -- he’d start flapping his wings almost without realizing it….but then a day came, when those others would pass overhead uttering their cry -- and the now tame duck would not pay the slightest attention.

Last week we began talking about how the American Church has been attacked by the diseases of apathy and complacency. It seems that like that barnyard duck -- American Christians have gotten tamed….and spoiled…in the process, we’ve often forgotten -- whose we are and therefore who and what we’re to be about. Complacency is a disease that sneaks up on us. But in Romans chapter 12 we find God‘s prescription for it. We began there last time in verses 1 and 2, and I’d like encourage you to turn there as go on today.

You heard Matt read verses 1 and 2 along with our verses for today. You remember in 1 and 2 that Paul began by urging the Roman Christians to respond to God’s mercy and grace. John’s gospel tells us that grace and Truth were revealed in Jesus Christ. God’s plan in Christ’s first coming was to take all the sin of mankind -- along with its penalty -- and lay it on His Son when He died on the cross. God then took Christ’s righteousness and apply it to everyone who would put their trust in Christ alone.

That’s the story of grace that Paul spent 11 chapters in Romans explaining. It’s the story you and I became part of when Christ’s death was applied to us and we were made alive in Christ.

God’s mercy and grace then become the great motivation for NT believers. We’re not under OT Law -- God’s full favor and covenant love became ours because of Christ. We don’t work for God’s favor, we respond in devotion because of God’s favor.

And in 1 and 2, Paul called for the commitment of all of life to God, because of His mercy. But there’s more. Commitment isn’t commitment at all when it has not legs -- when it doesn‘t result