A Christian Self-Assessment | Romans 12:3

Scripture

• Romans 12:3

About this sermon

Introduction: Confidence does not equal competence. You can be very confident and be wrong. You can be very confident and be awful at something. I think about this sometimes when a person is loudly declaring, “I’m not afraid of him!” in some setting where physical violence is being threatened. I think, “you don’t have to be afraid to get beat up.” Just because you’re not afraid of him doesn’t mean that you can match him! In my short lifetime of 58 years, I have never seen a more confident, yet incompetent, nation than we have the moment. We are now seeing the fruit of a godless approach to education, discipline, sports, the false religion of self-worth. All of it satanically well-orchestrated to produce a generation that is high-minded but low achieving. In 2014 a study was done of 15-year-old students, all over the world. It was the “Program for International Student Assessment.” In math testing, ranking first in PERFORMANCE was Korea. On a scale of 0-600, the Korean students scored 554. Ranking 23rd, and finishing 13 points below the average, were United States students, coming in at 481. What was interesting is that the testing also asked questions about attitude. In every question, United States students tested more confident than Korean students. “Confident that you can calculate the petrol-consumption rate of a car? US 69%; Korea 31% “Confident you can calculate how many square meters of tile you need to cover a floor? US 73%, Korea 55%. And on it went, on every question. The less confident finished 1st. The supremely confident (because US students were more confident than the average of all the nations), 23rd. CONFIDENCE DOESN’T EQUAL COMPETENCE. What was true in that test now characterizes an entire culture. We are witnessing a generation characterized by confident pronouncements — about just about everything — that only amount to an announcement of its ignorance. WHERE YOU FIND SUCH PRIDE, you will also find AN UNWILLINGNESS TO LEARN. Hand in hand with this hubris will come disrespect for people who older. Utter disrespect for people who are more experienced. No real appreciation for something that didn’t come from you, or doesn’t contribute to you. No genuine appreciation for what came before you. IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU. IT’S ALL ABOUT NOW. And we see this all over our world. IT IS THE FRUIT OF SIN. GOD FORBID, THAT THIS SHOULD BE SEEN IN THE LIVES OF HIS PEOPLE. God forbid that the insanity of OVERESTIMATION should characterize His church. As Paul moved from 11 chapters of some of the most glorious doctrine found anywhere in Scripture, to the 12th chapter where he calls for an appropriate response to that doctrine — and where he especially emphasizes the corporate nature of that response (THE CHURCH IS IN VIEW when you get to verse 4), HE WARNS US ABOUT THE INSANITY OF AN INFLATED SELF-PERSPECTIVE. So, with our time this morning I want us to think about a sober self-assessment. Or you could say a sane self-perspective. He says in verse 3 that we are to think in a way “so as to have sound thinking.” We will examine that statement under four headings. Let’s call it “Four Elements Necessary for Believers to Keep a Sound Mind.” • THE FOUNDATION FOR SOBER SELF-ASSESSMENT (vs.1-2) I’m not going to spend much time on it, but it is obvious that the exhortation of the 3rd verse flows from the truth found in verses 1-2. What do you find there? You find the foundation necessary for the kind of thinking that Paul is calling for in the 3rd verse in verses 1-2. • YOU MUST BE A BROTHER (vs.1a) • YOU MUST HAVE MET WITH THE MERCIES OF GOD • YOU MUST BE DEVOTED (YOUR ENTIRE PERSON) TO WORSHIP AND SERVE THE GOD WHO HAS HAD MERCY UPON YOU. • YOU MUST RECOGNIZE THAT NOTHING ELSE IS FITTING • YOU MUST HAVE PLEASING GOD AS YOUR AMBITION What does all of this add up to you? You have been humbled by God. You have been broken by God. You have been rescued from an insanity that belongs to the unregenerate state of a human life. ESV Ephesians 4:18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. ESV Colossians 2:18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. This is what God saved us from, when He saved us out of the domain of darkness. You have seen the truth about your wretched life, AND about the glorious Savior. You have been rescued to live your life from an entirely new vantagepoint.