Book of Romans - Unity in the Church | Be a People of Prayer (08/22/2021)

Romans 12 and the Call to Unity in the Church

All right, folks, we're in a new chapter starting today. And so we're in Chapter 12, the Book of Romans, and we're excited about that. It's a wonderful, wonderful book and a wonderful chapter. Now, it's interesting because this chapter has a lot of practical application in it.

Some of Paul's writings are deep and spiritual and mysterious. Even the Apostle Peter said that Paul's writings, scriptures, were hard, difficult to understand sometimes. But this one is quite easy. He made it easy for us.

And he's talking about unity in the church. And so we'll be talking about this for the next week or so. So we, being many, are one body in Christ. And that's sort of the theme of the whole chapter. So we'll go with that.

So let's take a look at something here. I've got, hold on, I've got to move something that's on my screen that I don't like it being there. One second. Always a Zoom thing. Okay, so I want to go back and review just a little bit.

The Mechanics of Prayer in Romans 8

Not what we just finished in 11, but way back a year and two months ago. We were in Romans chapter 8. And there's a particular little passage in Romans chapter 8. I don't think it's known as a chapter about prayer.

But probably the most significant, most important teaching on prayer in the Bible is found in Romans chapter 8, in my opinion. And although there's some amazing teachings in the Gospels by Jesus Christ straight to his apostles and then straight to us through the written word.

And those are amazing. But this little passage in Romans 8 shows the mechanics behind how prayer works. How did God himself design our relationship with him, his relationship with us, and how prayer actually works.

And we covered it in pretty good detail. But what's interesting is when we were in Romans chapter 8, we referred to Romans chapter 12 right towards the end of that study. And so we're in Romans chapter 12.

In fact, it happened to be verses 1 through 3, which is exactly where we are. And so I can't leave that out of the teaching on Romans chapter 12, 1 through 3. So I'm going to review a little bit. And this is how we can apply these first three verses to prayer.

I think the primary application of these first three verses, however, have to do with unity and oneness in the church. And so we'll get to that. But I want to give you the secondary application of these first three verses, because then I'll be done covering that part.

And that has to do with prayer. And I'll show you how. So you might remember part of this. But I'm going to say with regard to this entire chapter 12, where we're talking about how to have unity in the church, I'm going to say that because of the application of the first three verses to prayer, then this is the first step in having unity in the church, is to be a people of prayer.

What do you guys think about that? Anybody raise your hand on that, that that might be the key point. Maybe that's why that's what the first three verses talk about is before it really starts giving us application of things to do to have unity.

It tells us, first of all, though, you've got to be a people of prayer. I think that's probably of utmost importance. OK, so that's to me the first step. Now, going back, though, to Romans chapter eight and reviewing the mechanics of prayer.

Let's look at verse 26 in Romans chapter eight. Likewise, the spirit also helps our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

And this passage is misused a lot by denominations who want to talk about speaking in unknown gibberish, which the Bible has nothing of the such in it. It's never unknown gibberish. That just came out of the unfortunately English translation where it says unknown tongues in the Scripture.

The word for tongues means unknown languages. They're actually languages of the world, actual languages that miraculously people were able to speak in the book of Acts when they were witnessing in Jerusalem to people from many nations who had come in there for Pentecost and so forth.

And even that gift, the Apostle Paul said, would cease. And it did cease. We know Chrysostom said before sometime prior to 300 A .D. in his commentary on the books of first and second Corinthians where it discusses tongues.

He says, I can't tell you exactly what this is because it no longer happens in the church today. So a lot of people don't want to read that stuff. But it's church history. It's a fact. And the Scripture says it, too.

So this is not a reference to that. What this is speaking of when it talks about the Holy Spirit interceding, I mean, if you just look at the context it's found in, he intercedes with groanings which cannot be uttered, is the fact that we have such infirmities being in this flesh that we're in that we cannot speak the language of the Father.

If you want to pray to the Father, our little descriptive adjectives are so meager and pathetic that we can't really speak his language. But the Holy Spirit knows the mind of God, and he knows our mind, and he's the connector.

He connects us with Jesus and with the Father. And he can take our meager language and translate it into God's magnificent language so that the Father is blessed by our prayers. That's what this is talking about.

Now, if you go a little bit deeper, it's talking about more than just the translation of our language to the Father's language. But it also says, and he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit.

Now, that Spirit doesn't mean the Holy Spirit. It means the Father, because he is pure Spirit being. He is invisible. No man hath seen him at any time other than the Son of Man who did see him, has seen him, and who was with him before anything was made, who's with him for all eternity, always has been with him.

He has seen him, but no other man has seen him. And he is invisible. I remember I asked Brother Otis one time, I said, I don't really like that teaching. I don't like the fact that it seems like I won't ever get to see God.

He said, oh, Brother David, you'll see God. You'll see him through the eyes of Jesus. And I thought, dang, how does he come out with his stuff? But anyway, this is the Spirit that's referenced in verse 27 there.

And so, he that searches the hearts, that being the Holy Spirit, knows what is in the mind of God the Father, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Now, that's interesting, because first of all, it says he goes to the Father, and he knows the Father's mind, and he knows what God is going to do in what we call our future.

Now, God's not in time, but the Holy Spirit has seen it all, because he can see the mind of God the Father. And so, then the Holy Spirit comes to us and mentions this word intercession at the end of verse 27 again.

And he comes back to our mind, because he knows our mind as well, and he places within our mind what God the Father wants us to pray for. And what is it God the Father wants us to pray for? What he's about to do in the future that you don't have a clue what it is unless he tells you.

And these two verses are magnificent right there in the middle of Roman chapter 8, because it shows the mechanics of prayer. It shows exactly, you know, it's amazing, but prayer doesn't really originate on the earth from us.

It originates in heaven, and the Holy Spirit brings God's mind to us and puts in our heart to pray it, and those are the prayers that get answered. All right, so I remember one time when my father had been put on a ventilator in Tennessee.

He'd had a terrible heart attack, and my mom drove him halfway across the country to get to this great hospital and barely got him there in time. And they had to put him on a ventilator, and for days and days he was on that.

I remember Jenny was there, Katie, Paul, and my mom was there, of course, and Charlotte, and we were praying and praying. And secretly, I sort of gave up hope. I did not have any faith, because a person looks so bad when they're on a ventilator.

I just didn't have any faith that God could or would save my dad. And this older couple, George and Sue Riddle, drove all the way from Mahea, Texas to Tennessee just to visit us and be with us. And Sue Riddle was sort of a mentor in my early Christian days, marvelous Bible teacher, and George was a deacon in the church at First Baptist in Mahea.

And I shared with George privately, I said, you know, and I was probably was crying at the time, I said, George, I just don't, I don't believe God is going to raise him up. I've given up. And George looked at me and put his hand on my shoulder, and he said, David, he said, I don't think I would give up on God quite that quickly.

And it was a kind rebuke from an older Christian, a deacon, and I received it. And I went out by myself and just prayed and cried. And then I remember I went and got Jenny, my oldest child, who was still a young child, took her with me, held her hand, took her with me into the hotel room where my mom was.

And just the three of us got on our knees and prayed and asked God to raise him up. And would you know that the next morning as we walked into that hospital, we saw a team of two doctors and several nurses literally trotting down the hall toward my dad's room.

And I heard the doctor said, we've got to get him off of that thing today. Let's go get him off. And they pull that thing out of his throat. And he coughed a couple of times and had the next couple of decades of his life he ever had as good as any.

He was strong again. He did fine. So you can't give up on God. And the thing about this is all of those days up until that, I had no faith God was going to heal my dad. But when George Riddle said that to me, which God directed him to say it to me, it put some belief in my heart that God might do it.

And then when my mom and myself and Jenny prayed, the Holy Spirit put complete faith in my heart that he was going to raise him up. And so that was a prayer of faith. And God answered that prayer because he already was going to.

The Holy Spirit had gone to the father, taken God's will from his mind and put it in my mind and Jenny's little mind as a child and my mother's mind and told us all, not in words, but in our hearts, pray for him to raise up.

I'm going to raise him up. And God answered the prayer. That is, that's just one example of how prayer actually works. And then it goes on and says, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God and them that are called according to his purpose.

Look at the context that verse is found in because it's used out of context all the time. But it's in the context of the most magnificent teaching on prayer anywhere in the Bible. As far as I'm concerned, that's my opinion.

All right. So the Holy Spirit who searches the hearts notice in the scripture, it says hearts. It's plural. It means our heart and God's the father's heart knows the mind of the pure spirit being the father, the invisible God.

And he knows our mind and he brings his mind to us. So we have, when we think about the will of God, knowing God's will. I mean, we all grew up with people telling us falsely that you need to get in God's will.

That is such an absurd statement. You can't get out of God's will. I mean, we're taught we can. We grew up being taught. Don't get out of God's will. You can't. He's sovereign. You're in his will. He only has one plan and everything in your life is his perfect plan.

And you're in his plan. You can't get out of God's will. All right. Only Armenians believe that. And people that believe, you know, they want all the power to be in man's hands, not God's. Only people like that believe that.

We were taught by people like that. So we say it. We need to get that out of our vocabulary. But there are two kinds of God's will that we know of. One is his revealed will, which is the scriptures, the word of God.

Jesus said, my words are spirit and they are life. That's God talking to us. And as we read the scripture, that is his revealed will. And then we have what Brother Otis used to call his secret will. And many older scholars, if you go back a couple of 300 years ago, they called it that.

God's secret will. And that part of God's will is what is not in the Bible. And you can think of a million examples. If you're trying to figure out which house you're going to buy, if you're moving. You cannot find in the scripture which house to buy.

This one or that one on that block. It's not in there. But the father knows it in his mind and heart because he's already seen you move into the house. It's his will for you to move into. Have you ever thought about that?

It's already locked in from God's viewpoint. And so you pray about that. And why do you even pray? Well, sometimes we don't know why. But as we're instructed by scripture, we know more why. The reason we pray is because we're asking the Holy Spirit to go to the mind of God.

And bring his secret will to my mind and show me what to pray for this house or that one. And listen, the best way to pray is to pray for the desires of your heart. Assuming you're walking with the Lord, right?

And then if he closes the door on that, you realize he's redirecting you to pray slightly differently. And it's great, you know, to ask the Lord, Lord, please raise this person up from illness. And that's the desire of my heart, Lord.

And please do it. But Father, if this is not your will, please redirect my prayer into your will. So I know exactly how to pray as the moments of time go by and the days go by. Please keep me praying in your will.

And that is just a marvelous way to pray, especially when the life of a loved one is in the balance. And so we're asking him to bring us his secret will. And that doesn't come from the water. The water is the word of God.

That comes from the spirit. And this is what this passage is talking about. The Holy Spirit revealing us God's mind to us so we can pray along with God's program. I mean, think about it. It's so easy for me as a businessman.

God started this family business. His first partner was Jesus and the Holy Spirit. But then when Jesus came, he said, as you have sent me, so send these, these sheep. I send you the same way as the Father sent me.

So now he pulled us into the family business. It's all God's business. All we need to do is say, Father, where are you going with your business today? And what is your plan? I want to be part of it. And let me pray and let that be a meager part.

Although God says it's an important part of what God is about to do in the future. So we align our prayers with the future, with God's will. And that is so powerful. Right. So. All right. So how does all this about how does this work?

You know, how does all this in God working in our heart, God working on earth. How does it have anything to do with answered prayer? Well, it just all fits together. And God wants us to be part of what he's doing.

And he wants us praying while he is doing things from heaven because it's a family business. He enjoys working with his kids. All right. So it's the greatest work we can do, perhaps, is the prayer part.

There's no way a church, a local church can have unity if it doesn't start by being a church that prays. And I don't mean together at church. I mean, that's important. But I mean, every individual member of that church prays a lot while they're walking with the Lord.

Presenting Our Bodies as a Living Sacrifice

All right. So let's take a look at this one in John chapter 14, verse eight. Philip said unto him, Lord, show us the father and it sufficeth us. And Jesus said unto him, have I been so long with you? And yet, you know, not me, me, Philip.

So it's kind of interesting, isn't it? He says, I've been with you this long and you still don't know me. He that has seen me has seen the father. That's what Otis meant when he said you'll see him through the eyes of Jesus.

And how sayest thou then show us the father? All right. So believest thou not that I am in the father, Jesus said, and the father is in me. You see now this is this connection of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit connects the father and the son and the father and the son with us, the body of Christ.

We're all connected by the Holy Spirit. And Jesus is teaching his apostles this principle when he said, don't you understand that the father dwells in me and I dwell in him? But the father that dwells in me, he does the works.

So the very miracles that they were seeing Jesus do, he said, the father does those and I don't do anything unless I see him doing it. Now, that is quite a connection, isn't it? In the family business, if you want to look at it that way.

And so Jesus did nothing independently of the father. He did everything that he saw the father doing. And that is so powerful to understand that. All right. So he went on and said, the words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself.

Even the words that Jesus said, he didn't just make them up and say them. But the father that dwells in me, he does. He gives me those words and he does the works. What a connection. Believe me that I am in the father and the father in me or else believe me for the very work sakes.

Because, you know, no man can do these miracles I'm doing. This is the father doing them in me and through me and with me. Well, prayer is our part of this type of activity on the earth. And it's pretty powerful.

Truly, truly, I say unto you, Jesus said, he that believes on me, the works that I do, shall he do also. Now we're brought into the family business. Do you see this? We're brought in and expected to operate like he was operating.

He's giving us an example of how he does it. Here's how you do it. You have to be connected to the father and to the son by the Holy Spirit to know God's will before you can move into it. But you're going to move into it because the next step you take, you're going to step into God's will, which is a concept I've never heard taught.

But it's absolutely how it works. So, you know, we need to be prepared before we take that step, wouldn't you say? And whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do. Now you got to look at people pull this one out of context.

Just ask anything and Jesus will do it. That's where the charismatic Pentecostal get this idea. This is speak it into truth. If you just speak it, God has to do it. They take it from this verse, but they didn't take the context.

This verse is in which they seldom do. And it's terrible Bible interpretation, totally breaking all the rules. And you end up with cult groups like that. And I'm not saying Pentecostal and charismatics are cult groups, but I'm saying they're off on their understanding of how prayer works because they took it out of context.

So it has to be the Holy Spirit bringing to you the mind of God and showing you what he's about to do so that you can pray in his will. You don't just ask for anything. That's not what verse 13 means.

It says and and that connects it to the prior verses. So once you've done that, once you've understood Romans chapter eight, and you understand how it works and you've walked with the Lord and spent time with him, then you can ask in his name and asking his name means you ask for what Jesus would be asking for right now if he were in this circumstance.

That's what that means. It doesn't mean you ask what you would ask. You ask what he would ask. And then he says, I'll do that when you pray that way, so that the father may be glorified in the sun. And if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.

But it's in the context of the previous verse. It doesn't mean just anything. It means anything that's in God's will. Because you've gone to the whole, you've prayed, the Holy Spirit has taken you to the heavenly has shown you the mind of God brought it back, given it to you and then put the words in your mouth to pray.

Now you say that, you know, David, maybe you just made that up. Well, then he says, if you love me, keep my commandments. Right. But, you know, the whole thing is talking about answer prayer, and it shows us how it works.

And the way that we know that I didn't make it up. If you go back in their archives 14 months ago and you check out that teaching in Roman chapter eight, you'll see all of the teaching where it goes into many scriptures in both Old and New Testament and shows that the saints of God that are recorded in the word of God actually did pray that way.

And even says they did. It even says that God put in their mind to pray this certain thing. Then they prayed it and then it happened. So it's all there. You just have to go back to the archives. I don't have time to go back and, you know, repreach that today.

But I did want to review it because we put chapter 12 in as a parallel and I'll show you that in a second. So what is our prayer life all about? Well, it's asking the Holy Spirit to teach us the revealed will of God in the Bible.

Number one, as we do our Bible studies every day, but also further than that, to show us the secret will of God. In other words, what God is going to do with us and to us and through us. So that we can then pray for it before it happens.

And that's something. And that's our part of working with God. And that's how prayers are answered. Isn't that fascinating? If we wish to be like Christ, this is how we work. This is how we pray because that's how he did it.

Right. That's how he did it. He did it as a man, even though he was God. So then in that study back in Roman chapter eight, we put this passage in. And that's why I want to bring this up. So let's see how this fits in with this idea of prayer.

And now we're in Roman chapter 12, where we're actually studying now. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

That is how this chapter on unity begins. It begins by us realizing we don't own our own body, that Jesus bought it with a price, his own blood, and he owns our body. And we should, therefore, it's reasonable for us to say, here, I'm yours.

What are we going to do today, Lord? Rather than saying, Lord, I'm going to go do this. Will you go with me? That's backwards. So it starts by realizing that he has rightful ownership of us because he bought us.

He ransomed us away from Satan and the world system and our own flesh. And he set us free. And now we're free to serve him as bond servants, which means servants that stay with their master because they love him and serve him because they love him, not because they have to.

And that's the relationship that we have. And it starts out with that, right? And be not conformed to this world. So that tells us something about the passage to come on unity. We're not supposed to be worldly.

Well, what does that mean? Well, we're not going to make a list, a list of rules. I'm not in our church. I don't believe in that anymore. It doesn't ever work because that appeals to the flesh and the flesh can't keep the rules.

But if we love God with all of our heart, mind, and soul, and we love our brothers as ourselves, all the law is contained within that. And therefore, we will not be worldly if we walk that way, because the world walks through selfishness and pride and the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life.

And so we won't walk that way, but rather we'll be transformed by the renewing of our mind. How does that happen? By the water and the work, by the water and the spirit. The water is the word of God and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit.

And by the water of the word being in the word of God and the Holy Spirit teaching you the word of God, you are changed. You are transformed and your mind is different than it was before your salvation.

And this takes place over our lifetime continually. So I've said this, and I think it's true. It's my opinion, but I think it's true that if you want to take a look at the really strong Christians and how to be a strong Christian, I believe it's directly proportional to the amount of time you spend in the word of God.

That's what I think. Now, that's after you're saved, but after you're saved, how good of a Christian, how strong you are, how many people you can help is directly proportional to the amount of time you spend in the word of God, because you have to be transformed to be more like Christ.

You ain't liking, neither am I. Our flesh is the furthest thing from it. And more often than not, sadly, the first thought we have is the fleshly thought. Somebody cuts in front of us in the car or says something to us that hurts our feelings.

The first thought is fleshly, and we tend to strike out. And then the Holy Spirit says, wait a minute, that's not your new mind. So get in that one. Think through that one. You have the mind of Christ.

Always think that way. And there's the transformation that you may prove what is that good, acceptable, perfect word of God. Now, this verse here, the end of verse two, is how Romans chapter 12 fits in with Romans chapter eight on the teaching of prayer, because you heard what I just showed you from Romans eight about how that works.

And what's interesting about it is when you go to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to go to the mind of the Father and bring you that mind and show you what God wants me to pray for so I can be in His will, see my prayers answered because I'm working together with the Father on His family business project.

You know, when I pray that way, what am I actually saying? I am saying, show me His secret will before it happens. Really? Don't you think? I mean, that's what I'm saying. Well, look what the end of verse two says you can do.

When you give your body over to the Lord, you already saved, but now you take it another step. You're growing as a Christian. You now understand through your study of the scripture. Wait a minute. This body isn't mine anymore.

You know, the stuff I might have done to it or put in it or done with it, that's not mine. It's His now. And I will willingly give my body as a sacrifice to let Jesus live in me in this world because He bought me with the price.

And you get to that point, and then you start studying the word and praying, walking with the Holy Spirit, walking with the Lord. And all of a sudden, you're no longer conformed to this world, but you're transformed and your mind is different because you have a new mind, a new me, a new man, new woman, new boy or girl, right?

And when that happens, then look what it says. You can prove what is the good and perfect and acceptable will of God. Wow, you can prove it? Well, that's interesting. So I can prove God's secret will for the future.

So what are the steps here in this very passage? Number one, I got to live for God rather than myself. Number two, I've got to be different. I can't be worldly. I cannot be conformed to the world. I got to be different than the world.

The world won't like it. Number three, I've got to live an acceptable life. Jesus said, I am holy, therefore you be holy, right? Well, how do you do that? Well, you know, a lot of what we learned in Romans chapter 11 tells us how to do Romans chapter 12, verse 1 right there.

And we already covered that. We might review it later, but we covered it, right? You think about the awesomeness of God all the time. The more you think about that, the more you will live an acceptable life because you see him for who he is and the reality of everything that is.

In fact, you wouldn't be here if he hadn't made you because nothing would be here. No, nothing would be here if he didn't exist. But he did exist and we don't know how he did it. So that's the most awesome thought there is.

And, you know, deal with it because you're not going to know how he did it until you meet him. And then he might tell us or he might spend several eternities telling us. I don't know. Number four, don't be worldly.

Number five, let your mind be renewed so that you think like with the mind of Christ and you do those. The result is you test and discern and see the good and acceptable and perfect secret will of God.

And then you know how to pray. Is that cool or what? So this is where these two verses came into that teaching in Romans chapter eight. If you want to go back and listen to it 14 months ago, it's a lot deeper, brings in scriptures from all over the whole Bible.

And it is a study in and of itself. But this is the gist of it. And some of the most important part came right here out of these two verses in Romans 12. Because this shows us how we don't just know God's will, we prove it.

Now, that's interesting when you think about that. Because what does this word mean? Well, in the Greek, it comes from a root word for watching. And therefore, it denotes being tested in battle, being reliable, being trustworthy.

And so you look it up in Webster's, the old English meaning means to find something out by experience. So what does that tell us? The way you know God's will is you pray and ask the Holy Spirit to take the mind of the Father, bring it into your mind.

For the sake of you being able to work together with God. And then you just take a step. After you've had that time of prayer, you go out your house, you get in your car and you go do something. Whatever you think God's will is, you start to step towards it.

That is how you prove the will of God. So you can't just know God's will, you have to prove it. You got to take a step and then you know it. Take another step and then you know it. And it's fascinating because I don't hear this taught a lot, but I've taught it around the country.

I put that very lesson in a lot of the tradeway stuff. Man, you got to, what does it mean to have an entrepreneurial spirit? And the reason we're so dumbed down in this country and everybody doesn't want to start new businesses and take risk, is they're not willing to take that step.

They just, they're afraid, like, I don't know the future. I'm not going to take a step. I'm going to stay here where safety is. What if Abraham had done that? Think about what Abraham did. He left everything he knew and the wealth that he knew and his whole family.

And he went into a country nobody knew about because God said, I'm not even telling you where I'm taking you, just follow me. That is a step, right? One step at a time. And he became the father of many nations.

And we're all saved through the Abrahamic covenant now. That's what Jesus tells us in the book of Galatians. Paul told us that as well. So you got to take the step. Well, I think there's probably a lot more when you think about on these lines.

What does it mean when you prove the acceptable will of God? It means fully agreeable. It means his perfect will. You've just stepped into his will. And it's well pleasing to the father when you do that.

And perfect means not sinless, but it means mature and complete. So when you take these steps directed by the word of God and the Holy Spirit, and you actually take some entrepreneurial risk, and you take a step, not really knowing if you're stepping through the right door, but you think God wants you to.

You know what? He can close that door and open the one over here. That's how he can redirect you. Don't worry about it. He will direct you into his perfect, acceptable, pleasing, and complete will. This is exciting stuff.

All right. So there you go. We prove his will. We don't know it. We prove it by taking a step, right? We're watching what God is doing. We test it by going to battle. You're not in safety when you're out in the battlefield, but that's where God says we're supposed to go.

This country is in trouble because Christians won't take the kind of risk it takes to make large amounts of money. So therefore, the liberals own Hollywood that influence every human. They own the music industry that influences all of our kids.