May 22, 2016 A Living Sacrifice by Pastor Henry Wiley of Grace Baptist Church

Romans 12 and the Shift From Doctrine to Exhortation

Father, may we hear this word well, when you have prepared your servant Henry to preach to us. Lord, may our hearts be ready, we step close to the Lord, and may it grow in memory, as close to the image of the Lord we come to you, in Jesus Christ, in his name, amen.

Amen. Brother Henry, please.

Good morning, everyone. Good to see you all again. It'd be great if you had your Bibles open to Romans 12, because that's where I'll be spending our next few minutes with you, and if you've ever studied the book of Romans, you'll find that it's divided into two main sections.

Chapters 1 to 11, Paul explains the foundation of the Christian faith, with faith in God's righteousness as the focus. He explains the plan of salvation through grace, and he tells us what it means to be justified by grace, and why we're no longer under condemnation.

And it's a summary of Christian theology, basically. It's a foundation, and there's very little exhortation. And he ends chapter 11 with doxology, for from him and through him and to him are all things.

And that's the transition to chapter 12, verse 1. And it's almost like Paul is saying to us, from chapters 1 to 11, I've just covered all of this, now what? What does it look like? How does it show itself in our hearts?

What does it look like in real life, and what difference should the gospel make? And here Paul gets extremely practical in this chapter, and why does he do this? Well, because true worship begins on Monday morning.

Just look at all the exhortations in this chapter. I think there's 40 of them. In the first 11 chapters, you can hardly find any. But in this chapter here, it's all exhortations. He begins in verse 1 by telling us to present our bodies a living sacrifice.

And he says, love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Be fervent in spirit. Rejoice in hope. He's showing us what a renewed mind looks like. What a transformed individual looks like in a transformed body of believers.

And Paul wants us to know that faith is not just checking the right box. Yes, I believe in justification. Yes, I believe in the Trinity. Yes, I believe in the depravity of man. No, it's receiving the mercy of God and being placed into a living union with Jesus Christ.

And that will show. It has to show in real transformation. And if you notice in the first two verses, that there are two separate powers that work on us all the time. The first is the pressure to conform.

If you look at the beginning of verse 2, do not be conformed to this world. You see, there's a massive power of conformity in the world. And we're all pressured to fit in and not stand out. And there's almost no belief that we won't compromise or on truth that we won't believe, so that we won't stand out.

Almost. And in high school, it's a cruel force. You see it with young people today. But as we get older, it becomes a little bit more subtle and sophisticated. And we're immersed in this world which lives according to the pattern described in Romans 1 -3 or Ephesians, walking according to the course of this world.

So there's the one power, the power to conform. Just Friday night, my wife and I went to see a play where she works, and it was really kind of off and didn't glorify the Lord. It was kind of, you know, everything that comes out today is anti-Christian, and there was a little of that and that.

At the end, everybody applauds, and I applaud. My wife goes, why are you applauding? I go, you're right. The pressure to conform. So that's the one power. But there's the other one, the power of God that's transforming us, that's remaking us from the inside out.

So when you become a Christian, you begin to take your everything from God and his word, not from the culture, not from the world. That's the big change. Because having renewed minds, we want to offer ourselves to him ongoingly.

We want to walk in the will of God on a daily basis, and we draw our strength from his mercies on an ongoing basis. You see, we're meant to live with increasingly renewed minds, transformed minds. That's what God's designed for us.

So the church is not about making nice people nicer, right? This is about transformation from the inside out, the renewal of our minds, so that when you become a Christian, you actually rethink your whole life.

That's what the Holy Spirit does to you, every part of your life. And if you stop rethinking parts of your life, it's a good thing to start again. It's like Josh said, we go through trials, and we lean to our own understanding or perception of things that are not.

So what does it look like? Paul's trying to describe that to us today. There's three sections in this chapter. The first section, verses 3 to 8, it speaks about our relationship to Christians. And then the last paragraph, verses 14 to 21, speaks about relationships with non-Christians and even those who are hostile to us.

And the middle section, verses 9 to 13, is kind of a hinge. So what does a renewed mind look like in action? When verses 3 to 8, it looks like a community of grace. The place where the apostle starts is that we need to take our place in the local body, in the local church.

In verse 4, he says, For as in one body we have many members. And the first thing we're meant to rethink is our self-identity. The moment you place your faith in Christ, God places you in the body. Being united to Christ means being united to other people who are also united to Christ.

It's like being born into a family. You don't have a choice about it. But the choice you have is how you think about yourself in Jesus. We're no longer to think about ourselves as individuals, simply as individuals who decide and choose our involvement based on our personal preferences.

That's gone. That's the old life. We're meant to see ourselves corporately in Jesus Christ, as Paul says here, individually members one of another. And you can't put it any stronger than that. And I know a lot of us, we fall down on this one a lot, don't we?

And that's why verse 3 starts, Do not think of yourself more highly of yourself than you ought to, but to think with sober judgment. And there's a terrible arrogance about individualism and consumerism, which are the marks of the culture all around us.

We're bombarded every day with it. It's my needs, it's my desires, my preferences that count. What's in it for me? People almost go to church that way. What's in it for me? And if I don't get what I want, I'm going to go somewhere else.

Then you think of other people in the body of Christ. They're, you know, I don't like that one, I don't like this guy. They're just not worth me getting involved with. It's pride that's at the root of disengagement and disregard for the body.

And it's pride that's the enemy of the community of grace, serving one another. That's what we're supposed to do. And this is something that all of us have to rethink, because to belong to Christ means your involvement in a church body cannot be a secondary concern for you.

It's a lot more than just attending or being a spectator. It's talking about a renewed mind, the way we think about ourselves and each other, our involvement being members one of another. It's no longer me, it's I have to think about you.

You see, that's what the Spirit does to us. That's how Paul thought. You read the New Testament, it's all about this one another-ness type thing. So Paul's being very practical in our verses here. And then he talks in verse 6 about having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.

He goes, let us use them. You see, gifts are grace things. And it comes from the Greek word charismata. Having grace things that differ according to the grace given to us, use them. So every Christian here has received a gift or gifts of grace.

All of us have charisma, charisma gifts. And in a sense, every church is a charismatic church. Not in the sense we hear of it today. So how does God come into a Christian community and transform it into a community of grace?

Well, the preaching of the gospel is essential, but there's another part. And what Paul is saying here is that the way in which God demonstrates and expresses his grace within the body is as you exercise your grace things, your gifts.

And it's very straightforward. If God has given you a gift, he wants you to use it. If you're trying to find out what you can do for the common good of the body, you'll find what you can do. If you're good at it, people will ask you to do it again.

And if you're not, well, try something else. The point is that we make use of our gifts for others. And there's a point or a place in your Christian life where you find that you're involved and it's more about God blessing people through you than about you getting blessing.

And you start to realize, it's not about me. I'm not wanting so much for myself. I take the little that God has given me and I give it to others. And then it not only blesses them, but it blesses me as well because now I become a channel of God's grace.

Now, I don't have time to, because there's all these gifts here, to look at all of them in detail. A lot of attention is given to the first few, the upfront gifts, the preaching and teaching. But I want to look at the last three gifts with you for a moment in verse 8.

It says the one who contributes in generosity. And then secondly, the one who leads with zeal and the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. It's all about believers serving one another. So the first one, he or she who contributes in generosity.

And Paul is talking about the man or woman who has the capacity to give generously, who's over-the-top wealthy, perhaps. And it doesn't matter whether they came by this wealth by accident or by inheritance or by their own ability.

God has given that to that person. It's one of the grace things, a gift from God used for his good. It's just as much a gift as teaching and preaching or evangelism. And what the apostle is saying, if God has given you wealth, you become a channel of his grace.

Because in God's providence, there are some people in your congregation who find it very difficult to make ends meet from week to week. And God has given the wealthy people the privilege of giving and blessing those individuals.

You see, if you're hoarding onto this money that God has given you, you're not using your gift. And that's our tendency. Every one of us, you know, I'm going to put it in this stock and that stock and I'm going to save it up.

But you forget it's not yours, you see. And God has given you a privilege of giving and blessing those individuals around you. So the purpose of spiritual gifts are not for your benefit, but for others, the benefit of others.

And if you're hoarding your money, you're burying your talent in the ground. And I think it would be awfully awkward when you face the Lord if you die a millionaire as a Christian, and Jesus asks you, what did you do with the wealth I gave you?

Or my wealth I gave you, you see. Well, God doesn't want you to give with strings attached or for hope of recognition. Don't do it with complaining. You do it as generously as your Savior has given to you.

Well, what about the next one, the one who leads with zeal? I won't spend too much time on that one. This is a person who has the ability to preside at groups, and that's a grace thing as well. We're to do it with zeal, with gladness of heart.

Be a blessing to the body. I mean, if I came here today and I just came well, I guess I have to do this. So why don't we pray and let's just get through it. I mean, you're already depressed if I start that way.

But we're to lead with zeal. It doesn't mean you have to be Zig Ziglar, but do it with zeal of heart. And the last one Paul mentions, the one who does acts of mercy. Do it with cheerfulness. And these acts can be spiritual and physical, visiting someone who's sick, buying groceries, or forgiving someone who's wronged you.

It's both spiritual and physical. And then there's a lot more that you can add to the list. These are the people that all of us should have large hearts, basically, who know how to bear the burdens of others and needs of others.

And those of you who do this are also a channel of grace to the body of Christ. But you need to be cheerful about it. Don't do it begrudgingly. That the gospel has changed our hearts and minds so much that we're willing and happy to disadvantage ourselves to advantage others, right?

That's the nature of the believer. And the opposite is just as true, sadly. Because the wicked advantage themselves by disadvantaging others, you see. That was our old, that was the old man, right? But the two of them, we still kind of, they get intermingled still.

Well, when was the last time you disadvantaged yourself or someone else? See, that's what a community of grace looks like in a body. You receive a gift to minister to others. You don't receive the gift of teaching to teach yourself.

And you don't receive the gift of generosity to give to yourself. Gifts are meant to be used in the service of others. You see, when the gospel prospers in us, the affection and love for one another thrives in us as well.

And did you know that Peter and Paul exhorted all Christians to experience affection for fellow believers? In 1 Peter 1 .22, love one another earnestly from the heart. And even here in our chapter here, in Romans 12, which verse was that?

Love one another with brotherly affection, Paul says. You see, the Christian life is not a solo act where each of us works out our relationship with the Lord in isolation from other believers. That's not how God designed it.

Paul spoke of sharing his soul with those believers who were dear to him in 1 Thessalonians 2 .7 and 8. And sharing your soul is not sharing information, not even if it's the most valuable information.

It's good to do that, but that's not it. When you share your soul, you let a person in to see what's really there. You're open, not guarded. And you see this with David when he read Psalm 139, how open he was with the Lord and how transparent.

You're not private. You're a channel of God's grace to others. And so just as it's not helpful to give money resentfully, and it's not helpful to lead a meeting like you're bored to do it, so any act of mercy that's done grumpily is just not helpful.

And this is the first mark of the renewed mind that Paul gives us. It's going to show itself in the community of grace in your body. And I encourage you all to take this and maybe read through it later this week and pray through these words.

Genuine Love, Holiness, and Spiritual Fervor

Well, let's look secondly. What is the second work mark of the renewed mind? And we come to the hinged passage in verses 9 to 13. It looks like a community of love. This is condensed. It's like a little catechism for Christians, these verses.

And the headline is love, verses 9 to 10. And there's a couple of examples of love in here. So why is the headline about love? Well, if we're going to be a community of grace, it means we're going to have to exercise our gifts.

But if you exercise your gifts without the love of Christ, you may as well not bother. And that's what 1 Corinthians 13 is all about. It's not gifts that make a true church of Jesus. It's gifts exercised in the love of Jesus.

And you can have the gift of teaching or giving, and you can have a church with all the programs and all the money in the world, but if the love of God isn't there, you don't want to be part of that. It says, let love be genuine.

That word means without hypocrisy. And then he says, abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. In other words, outdo one another in showing honor. You know, Paul's not saying, you know, all you need is love, you know, all together now, right?

That's not what he's talking about. He's saying that love has to be real. And what does real Christian love look like? And I've already described one side of it, but there's a flip-flop. And the answer is in the next verse.

It says, abhor what is evil. You see, true Christian love has a moral content. It's not a superficial, sentimental feeling that avoids moral issues at every opportunity. It's a love which hates and loathes what is evil, and it clings to or it's glued to the word, literally, to what is good.

If you turn back to Romans 139, what Josh read earlier, if you notice how David, it's the language of love in here with David, how he's appealing to God and how he's so transparent. In verse 1, he says, O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up. And then verse 4, even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. Verse 6, such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain it.

Verse 13, you form my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. And in verse 17, how precious to me are your thoughts, O God. How vast is the sum of them. If I would count them, they're more than the sand.

I awake and I'm still with you. And so far, it's good, right? So far, so good? But then you look at verse 21, and I kind of envision David that he maybe took a break or something, went to get some coffee, and he comes back, picks up the pen.

Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? It's like it's the flip side of love. And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with a complete hatred. It's almost like, wow, you know. But it doesn't mean that we're to love our enemies.

But we love the Lord so much, that David loved the Lord so much that he hated sin. He hated what sin did to the human race. And so it's a love which hates and loathes what is evil, and it clings to what is good, right?

And if it's not, it can't be Christian love. In this psalm that Josh read, it speaks of a God-feared life, a God-focused life. We're not to have a live and let live approach to life. We're to be like David.

We love what God loves, and we hate what God hates, right? See, if you love, because people today talk about love in general terms, and if you love and you have no moral compass about what is right and wrong, true or false, you'll end up loving what is evil.

I mean, you know, I think that, and I never talk about politics, and I won't this morning, but everything about us, that even in voting for someone, we want to vote for someone who is the best out there.

I mean, I don't know, right today it's a different world. I mean, if Christopher Walken was running, I'd vote for him. But it's, you know, but if somebody has a stand on abortion and says it's okay to murder babies, should you vote for that person?

And if you do, I mean, there's Christians I talk to who say, I'm voting for that person. You're not abhorring what God abhors. Well, anyway, that's, Paul is talking about what's going on in our hearts.

True love's not going to turn a blind eye to evil, because turning a blind eye is not love, it's just caring less. In our verses, Paul is describing a lovely wholeheartedness here. There's nothing half-hearted or lukewarm about it.

You know, if you look at verse 11, it says, do not be slothful and zeal. Be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. These are active terms. They're not passive. He says, be fervent in spirit. And this is about being hot on fire for God.

And where does this fire come from? You know, a lot of times we can't muster that up, can we? A lot of times it's not there. But where does it come from? Where does the energy come from? It's not something you generate in yourself.

But verse 11 is helpful. It says, be fervent in spirit. The word fervent means boiling, bubbling, something in a pot with a fire underneath it. And it's the Holy Spirit who's the fire. And he supplies the energy, the love of what is good.

He continues to kindle the fire, and he sets our lives bubbling, in a sense. And we're to cultivate the bubbling through the Word of God and stop anything that's going to quench the fire. Well, how do you do that?

In verse 12 it says, rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. You know, when you're weary and you're troubled, you pray. You're tired of the troubles that come your way. What's the best remedy?

It is prayer. It's where we draw on the Lord. And so don't let yourself be drawn by your troubles, but let them drive you to prayer. And so this is where the renewed mind shows itself. It's a community of grace, it's a community of love, and it's a community of blessing.

Blessing Those Who Persecute You

If you look down at verse 14, it says, bless those who persecute you. And the basic call of God for all of us is to rethink our relationships, to be a blessing, not just to those in the body, not just to those who are outside, but the non-Christians, but to those who are actually hostile to you.

And that's a real hard one. And there's two expectations in these verses. The first is God expects us to live in the real world. When you get up tomorrow morning until you come back here next Sunday, you're in the world.

You're on the job. He expects us to be engaged in the common life of this community around us. To know enough about our neighbors that we share their joys and their sorrows. As a church body, we don't isolate ourselves, do we?

We don't want to create a quarantine and we don't want to build up high fences to keep people out and keep ourselves in. We're to be in the community. And you should know what's going on next door, not as a busy body, but at least you should know your neighbor's names, right?

Get to know them and talk to them. And so the Lord wants us to live in the real world. And secondly, it says we're going to have opposition. If you're living out a renewed mind in the world of conformity, is what I call it, you will be opposed.

Your workplace, your neighborhood, it may not be a comfortable place for you. I mean, the world has changed so quickly. I mean, I remember growing up in the 60s, it was kind of a rebellious age, but there was still right and wrong in a sense.

Now, today, anything goes and it's all about tolerance. And if you take a stand for anything, you're intolerant. Living out a renewed mind in the world is very threatening to the culture around us. So how do we bless the world and how do we reflect the renewed mind?

Well, if you look down at verses 17, 19, and 20, it's one thing not to retaliate, but it's another thing to bless, to bless those who injure you. This is a bit hard. Helping them when they're hungry, it's exactly what Jesus taught, right?

What Jesus did when he was being nailed to the cross, he said, Father, forgive them. They have no idea how wicked their actions are. I mean, he's praying for them. And this isn't la-la land. This isn't, it's realism.

And you look at the realism in verse 18. It says, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. It's not always possible to be at peace with all. There are some people who are just not going to allow you to be on good terms with them, to live in peace with them.

And sometimes it doesn't depend on you. You can forgive and you can bless and you can give water and food. And it's very realistic how the Lord tells us. But when we're injured for doing the right thing and there's no remedy or no solution, God says, leave it to me.

In verse 19, he says, Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. And there's times when you're bitter and you're hurt about something and you're thinking this is so unfair, life is so unfair.

And I think God wants us to take it to him. Well, he obviously does. He wants us to take everything to him, to pour it out to him without any politeness, pour out what we really think and plead his promises and leave the outcome of justice with him.

And I think that's what the last verse is calling us to do. Because you can't overcome evil with strategy or programs or a bigger show of power. Maybe you can. But God doesn't want us to do that. You can't overcome evil with a...

The only way to overcome evil is through the opposite, by doing good. You see, what would it mean for us to love the good and loathe what is evil, to bless those who oppose us? What would it mean to rejoice in hope, to be patient in tribulation, to be constant in prayer?

And I just want to finish with a few things that Paul exhorts us to be as a body, as a church. First, that we are a community of grace with a supernatural unity. Secondly, we're a community of love where there's a genuine affection for one another.

That we're willing to disadvantage ourselves to advantage others. That's what the Spirit will do in you. And third, a community of blessing where we overcome evil with good. So my question to you this morning is how are you doing?

And I know there's no church on the planet that ever existed that has constantly lived up to these things. But the main thing I want you to take away from this today, if you can remember anything, is that your primary identity is not as an individual, but as a member of the body of Christ.

It says, You are not your own, for you were bought with a price, so glorify God with your body. Is your love genuine? Are you using your gifts to serve others? Are you bubbling in the Spirit? Are you constant in prayer?

I don't know what you think about all this, but I know I have a long way to go. The question is how. How do we do that? And this takes me to the last part. I think if you notice, every part of this in Romans 12, when I read it, I thought this is completely impossible and impractical and unreasonable.

That none of these things, none of us have hearts big enough for this apart from the renewed mind. But did you notice that God is present in every section in these verses? In the first section, verse 3, it's God who assigns the gifts.

In verse 4, we are members one of another only because we are one body in Christ. In the second section, it's the flame of the Holy Spirit that keeps us fervent and bubbly. Not you. Maybe you have a bubbly personality, but that's not the Holy Spirit.

It could be. And finally, in the third section, Paul begins verse 19, Beloved, which means loved by God. He's speaking to Christians. Paul's not saying, guys, I love you. He's telling them, God loves you.

And the only reason we're able to love one another with brotherly affection or outdo one another in showing honor or any of these exhortations is because we belong to a faithful God who is working in us to do of His good pleasure.

And the key to this renewed life is not to try harder or keep on trying harder. It's learning to draw on God's Word, to walk with Him, to abide in Him. We can't be a channel of God's grace until we begin to draw on His grace.

We can't be a community of love unless we know that we're loved by God. And we can't be a community of blessing to others unless we receive the blessings of the Gospel. As Paul began in verse 1, let me read verses 1 to 3 again in closing.

I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

You see, it's abiding in Jesus and being in His Word. He's the Word. This book that we carry is the voice of God. It's God's voice. It's a living Word. And this is the voice of Christ to you this morning.

With that same voice, He spoke creation into existence years ago. And with that same voice, it says on Judgment Day, it says all in the tombs will hear His voice. It's a powerful voice. And they're going to come out of the graves, aren't they?

The dead will respond to His voice. So we have the Word of God for us to help us to abide in Jesus. And I pray that we would do so for Christ's sake. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, we thank You, Lord, for Your Word to us.

We thank You for Your love and Your faithfulness to us, Lord. Our love to You and our faith to You is nothing to boast of, Lord. We have all gone away. We wander at the slightest impulse. But we thank You, Lord, that Your Holy Spirit keeps us.

We pray that we would be like David, a man after Your own heart, that You would give this to us and help us to love You with just a zeal, Lord, that You would give this to us, help us to bubble in the Holy Spirit and all these things.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.