Romans 12, “How Do You Live?”, Dr. John Carpenter

Romans 12 and the Question of How to Live After the Gospel

Romans chapter 12 will be reading the whole chapter here the word of the Lord. 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? 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. For as in one body We have many members and the members do not all have the same function so we though many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another.

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. Let us use them if prophecy in proportion to our faith. If service in our serving. The one who teaches in his teaching. The one who exhorts in his exhortation.

The one who contributes in his generosity. The one who leaves with zeal. The one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection.

Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the Saints and seek to show hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all if Possible as far as it depends on you live peaceably with all beloved. Never avenge yourselves. But leave it to the wrath of God for it is written vengeance is mine.

I will repay says the Lord to the contrary if your enemy is hungry feed him. If he is thirsty give him something to drink. For by so doing you will heat burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.

May the Lord add his blessings. The reading of his Holy Word. I know who I belong to.

She said.

She professed to be a Christian. That was her fashion of faith. She said she belonged to Jesus. I know who I belong to. There's Jesus. There's me and That's all. She was responding to the question as to why she hadn't been in the church that she committed herself to.

We hadn't seen you in a while. Oh, she responded. I know who I belong to. So she was saying don't worry about me. I Belong to Jesus and that's all that matters. How I live is between me and God. I an individual.

Belong to him.

Mark Dever commented that Jesus and me looks a lot like just me and there are Christians who take the great truths of Romans that we've been looking at ever since January now and Conclude that since I am saved by my faith alone.

And I believe in Christ alone on the basis of what I read in the Bible. Alone that I am justified now because I belong to some group but alone. How do I live? All alone, and then they wonder why they're so.

Alone.

At the end of the unfolding of the gospel in Romans 1 to 11 is God's plan. Really just about you and Jesus. Alone, that is what many modern American Christians believe. How I live is my business. Many therefore simply drop out of church.

One lady named Susan said she is an introvert and struggled for 35 years to go to church. Forcing herself to do so because she said she felt it was her duty. But finally she says it dawned on her and she wrote quote that God was not asking this sacrifice of me.

So she stopped going and now she reports a tremendous peace joy and happiness as. Though she's been set free. Now she's alone. Oh the joy of just Jesus and me which looks a lot like just me. Others don't physically drop out.

They keep going but more because of a habit because they feel they should. Maybe they're more Extroverted and so they don't really mind mixing and mingling but they're sure Because of what they think Romans teaches.

That it really is just Jesus and them alone and that being part of a church isn't important now. Maybe going is but belonging isn't. You'll have some people that'll go to several different churches go here.

They're wherever you've got the newest show the newest person guest speaking or whatever. But never never commit to one in particular the church might offer advice on how to how to live and I have Inspiration it even maybe it even offers some help in living but it is not in itself How you live.

After all we live by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. So can't I do it that live that is.

Alone.

Is that really the conclusion that really the ethics the outworking of the great truths of Romans? Well, we see the answer to that here in Romans 12 in four parts. First, how do we live?

Physically.

Second mentally. Third corporately and finally socially. How do you live first physically in verse 1. Paul appeals to them by the mercies? Plural of God would say mercy that God has had on you. He urges notice.

I urge you that in other words. This is urgent. He urges them to do what? Accept Jesus into your heart. Have a spirit of faith. Say the right confession. Sing passionate praise songs. Learn sophisticated theology.

No, not just the n-word not just the verbal but the physical. Present your body. You put your physical self on the altar for the Lord a human sacrifice. Not of course by killing yourself, but by giving it a living Sacrifice a living offering.

Of what is physical about you of this what can be touched and seen and felt. Not just your heart. Some like to say well give your heart to the Lord if they mean well give your heart to love and serve the Lord.

That's great. But how do are we to know that you have done that by what you do?

Physically.

Physically.

Who you do and do not have sex with. What you do with your hands. What they touch and give. What they grab and what they let go of. Where your feet walk. What your eyes see. What you listen to? What your mouth eats and drinks.

Where your dollars go. Where you're sitting. Including on Sunday morning that Paul says is your spiritual.

Worship spiritual worship is.

Physical.

It's also reasonable. The word there's translated spiritual can be translated reasonable. It's only logical that if Jesus gave his body for you. That you give your body for him. Only then does God see your worship as holy and acceptable.

How do you live second?

Mentally.

Living for God includes the mind. Now that's not just what you know. The right facts the knowledge you have and that you can gain but how you think. In verse 2 don't be conformed to the world. Don't let it shape.

You shape your ways of thinking your assumptions your attitudes your values. The way you way you judge things as good or bad as valuable as not valuable you live in an individualistic Consumeristic culture that tells you if it feels good.

We'll do it. That man is the measure of all things that you should follow your own heart everything outside of you every relationship exists for you to consume. That it's there for your individual pursuit of happiness.

So that's all that matters and if any commitment anything outside of you appears to be crimping that well, then ditch it. I saw a professor of ethics. Who's in the wrong profession, but that's about the point professor of ethics say that he hoped if ever he was interfering with his wife's happiness.

That she would leave and divorce him. He wanted her he said to be a consumer of marriage. I think probably was setting her up for something. Of course Christians recoil at that idea of radical individualism the assumption that happiness comes through.

Consuming everything in every relationship for myself, but the same ethic they denounce and worldly professors. They live in the church showing that they've been conformed to the world. I know who I belong to meaning.

It's just Jesus and me and the church. This is this for my my consumption. It's all really just me. And so they live just as individualistically and switch churches like they switch restaurants our phone service providers.

We are to give our bodies as living sacrifices, but our bodies follow our minds. So our minds the minds of Christians must be transformed. It's a command. Transform your mind. Telling us that our minds are not that way naturally our minds need to be changed.

We are naturally already conformed to the world. The world has taught us how to think. It's been been training us how to think all the time how to see ourselves and life around us. What is valuable what should value what you want what to pursue money pleasure ego?

It's told us what is pleasurable and rewarding. It's told us Who we belong to mainly ourselves and all of that will need to be emptied out and replaced. You can't pour anything into a full cup. And our minds come full of the world's ways of thinking and the only way you're going to change that is to empty your mind.

Out of these worldly ways and let God's ways be poured into. You use another analogy if you have a yard full of weeds. First you need to kill the weeds. You got to get rid of the weeds first got to uproot them.

Don't just chop off the leaves because they'll grow back you get the roots and then you got a plant with good seed and then with transform minds, you'll be able to test and to know the will of God what is good and acceptable and perfect and Then knowing it we give our lives as living sacrifices to do what is good acceptable and perfect.

You will live for the Lord.

Physically and mentally. How do you live third? Corporately starting in verse 3. Corporately from corpus. Meaning body means to think about the body. Not just yourself. We're all members of one body in verse 4.

It's the as the opposite of the selfish individualism. That only thinks about what what I want. That way of thinking that our culture loves and then cocaine us from young that trains us in it. That that I can be anything I want to be.

All I need to worry about to think about is myself. What I won't want. What I feel satisfied in doing. Untransformed minds try to sanctify that as well. It's just Jesus and me I know I belong to which is really just me here are living sacrifices everything to do with the way we live with others.

We live corporately and we see that here in two parts a first what we live corporately with and. And second how we live corporately. What do we live corporately with? Well our gifts and for those gifts to be used as God has assigned notice the emphasis here on this.

One body but with many gifts, of course. He talks about since the first Corinthians 12 too, but for as in verse 4 for as in one bought one body. We have many members. Right, he talked about that first Corinthians 12 was one's an ear one's an arm and the members do not all have the same function.

So different members have different functions that everyone does the same thing. And so we though many there's the emphasis on many the fair variety are one. There's unity in Christ and individually. There's the variety the many Individually members want the unity of another having gifts.

Variety that differ there's variety according to the grace. They differ according to the grace the gift given to us and then he goes on listing like that. What do we live with we live with these gifts?

Depending on what each of us has. How do you know what your gift is? Well, what has God assigned to you to know that you have to have a transformed mind that thinks soberly in verse 3. Sober think soberly about yourself that is unintoxicated.

Unimpaired judgment. You're not drunk on your own ego. Don't live under the influence of arrogance. Stop thinking so highly of yourself that this body. Exists to make you look and to feel good or satisfy your fantasies about what you think you can be.

Maybe you really can't be to recognize your greatness to give you a fancy title like a parcel Chief Prelate, I like that one a reverend doctor to always listen to you and do what you say to put you in the spotlight or Just to put on a good show for you entertain you.

Well, that's the worldly way. Let's be transformed change your minds from the world with its pride. Where you're the customer? The customer is King right? You're the customer customers King. You've got to have your way.

You got to be satisfied. Think clearly about your place in it. Think differently than that think think about the body your place in it and your impact on it. One of the biggest problems in churches now is when people think too highly of themselves.

Maybe they think they can do something. They really can't. They think they can be a singer and they really can't. Or are they they think that they're they have more wisdom than they really do or they imagine that their pet issues whatever they're obsessed with the color of the carpet or whatever it is are.

More important than they really are often they think of themselves so highly they assume that they deserve to get their way. Maybe about everything. Hearing verses 3 to 8 Paul tells us first transform your minds.

Remember that transform your minds by replacing that natural pride with sober thinking. That is a clear view of who you are. You are one member in a bigger body. The church you aren't a body all to yourself.

You aren't detached. You can't live by yourself. You can't do everything. But you can do something. Each member has a gift. Right, and he lists their seven gifts. Prophecy service teaching exhorting or encouraging giving leading and mercy.

And there are other gifts in other places. His point here isn't to describe all the gifts. But to say that everyone has one no one has them all. Everyone is a part of the body and you should use your Gift and you use your.

That's why he says all this. If service and is serving the one who teaches and is teaching. Oh, is it that's your gift. Do your gift? Think soberly about what your gift is and do that one. That's not the one maybe you want to have the one you fantasize about having.

But the one you really do have sober thinking. When I was in seminary in Los Angeles I did the internship at a Methodist Church there which decided to refurbish their sanctuary. They had to make a decision on the color of the carpet and interior design and all that kind of thing and one lady In the church and this is near Hollywood.

Hollywood sign was nearby. Had actually won an Emmy. Believe it or not. I believe it was an Emmy or maybe it's an Oscar. I think I confused now and past but it's one of those big awards for best set design.

Imagine that this is Hollywood. I mean, these are the people who are all about looking good. They may not be very good underneath but as far as appearances go they know how to make things look good and this lady won an award for making things look good and This church wants to make things look good.

All right, so who you're gonna turn to to make things look good. You should turn to her. I saw the trophy myself when I visited her house there was but you would think then that they would Delegate those decisions to her.

We want the sanctuary to look good. Take it away.

It's all yours.

She's one of the best in the world after all she's a gift for it but no. Other people thought too highly of themselves. They didn't we weren't thinking soberly that they were just as good at it as she was and They had to have their way.

Let's be different. Let's not be like the world that has to have its way. It's know our limits. Acknowledge others people's gifts see there's gifts. Even if they didn't get a Emmy a trophy award and let them let them be used.

Think with sober judgment that is judging yourself Accurately not like the world just so full of pride. They exaggerate themselves. They think too highly of themselves without craving to do what the world so the world conforms us into thinking What is the most important and then before like the world then we want to do what the world tells us is most important.

And this culture many people see preaching is the most important. Probably what is equivalent here least when comes to the church. Preaching is the most important probably what is equivalent here to prophecy in verse 6 and so they long To be a preacher even if they don't have a gift for it I think where he says them each according to the measure of faith in verse 3.

That is the spiritual gift that is activated by faith to do it. So people have different gifts assigned by God and some people have different gifts in greater proportion greater measure. They've given more Ability to prophecy or to preach or to serve or to give than others and so they should do it even more.

Some people have gifts of preaching or serving and if there's a need for serving there. They have that gift but that kind of people they see a need they'll go immediate or teaching. Communicate well information give other people's minds or in.

Encouraging that is motivating people or giving or leading or showing mercy, but if we have untransformed minds. If we're worldly we were conformed still. We see the church like a theater. So this is a big show going on right now and the preacher is the main actor.

And if you're worldly.

You want to be a star right? Everyone wants to be a star. It wants to be an usher. Or janitor or just a bit player. No one wants to do that. Everybody wants to be the star. That's the worldly way of thinking.

The worldly way is you know, I don't care what the body needs I don't care what I can do. I Want to be in the spotlight and so with this culture. We have so many men who aspire to be preachers, but who can't preach many of them.

They could do other things. They could give. We need people who can make money and give that's one of the gifts here give or serve. We need deacons, you know to take care of practical things around the church.

People who can share the gospel often one-on-one. You got to develop relationships, especially in our ministries. A Jim jr. And Jim We have a great opening for people who can do that. People can visit mr. Perry in the nursing home to give to mercy.

Or visit members who are missing church too much and encourage them courage them to do better motivate them to be more faithful. They could do any of those other things. But if they're if they're worldly they're conformed to the world.

They're not thinking clearly about how their particular gifts meet the needs of the body. They are thinking corporately. They're only thinking individually of themselves and so they go looking for a spotlight somewhere.

The Puritan William Perkins wrote quote here's some 16th century English. So you got to pay attention whom God calls To them he gives competent in convenient gifts or knowledge understanding Dexterity to do this or that and such like and thereby Makes them able for the performance of the duties of their callings.

Test that I'll read it again whom God calls to them. He gives competent and convenient gifts or knowledge understanding dexterity to do this or that and such like thereby Makes them able for the performance of the duties of their callings.

In other words God equips the called. If he calls someone he equips them and Perkins continues Contrary wise they that enter into any calling being on. Being utterly unable to perform the duties thereof were never called by God.

That is if God hasn't equipped you with the needed skill He hasn't called you to do that thing. So applied to preaching for example someone who lacks effective public speaking abilities. Can be discouraged from ministries which require frequent preaching you'd be talking less.

It's not your gift do something else. Their lack of skill. Suggest a lack of call to do that. Calling it's not some kind of just mystical experience just subjectively and my own soul individually. Determined only by how I feel and you just have to believe me.

I like I identify as something you okay, you're that. People have been saying I identify as a preacher. I can't see it. No, it is demonstrable calling is demonstrable verifiable and subject to the Corporation the body.

It would be like a football team in which every player only wants to be a quarterback. It doesn't matter if they already have Tom Brady on the team and if they can't even throw a pass or If there are 300 pounds and slow, but they're great at blocking or they're kind of scrawny, but they're great at kicking.

They insist on being the quarterback and they will not do anything else other than the quarterback. That's what churches are like when they're full of people with untransformed minds who are still thinking just like the world just about themselves and.

Not.

Corporately.

When I was a junior in college I was on a partial athletic scholarship meaning that the college paid me by deducting money from the tuition to be an athlete. They also required me Along with every other student to take a PE class.

Which I thought was kind of ridiculous because they're actually paying me to work out Strenuously and then they required me to take this class which made me work out hardly lightly. It was something you call that working out, but I didn't really mind.

It was easy class. Our last requirement for the class was to go to the track and to stay moving. Stay moving in some way walking or running. For half an hour. That's that's it. Easy, like I said, I started running and tried to coach the other guys, you know, stay with me.

Come on. I'm going about six Minutes per mile something that like it's just a matter of willpower. You can make yourself run with me if you really want to. Of course they couldn't. They didn't have the gift or the training.

We can't do what others are gifted. To do if we don't have that gift, we can't do it even for running. Some people think if you just try hard enough you can get fast.

No.

You can't there's a certain amount of giftedness and you either have it or you know. As he says here in verse 6 having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. We each have different gifts and it's different for each of us.

We just can't make ourselves do some kind of ministry. Just by sheer willpower by choosing it. I was told the church that not everyone has a gift for evangelism. Some of us just don't have a gift to easily share the gospel with every waitress that serves us now.

We can all share the gospel the opportunity comes. Some of some people can kind of open up conversations easily and share the gospel like that and go door-to-door engaging evangelistic conversations with people they just met.

Some people could do that very Naturally and you're gifted for it and some others can't it. Someone told me well I was wrong. I Shouldn't have said that that we can all do it. It's just a matter of willpower.

It's a matter of dedication. He didn't understand that we have different gifts that we can't all just will ourselves to do something I can't by sheer act of will. Be a good musician. It's not gonna happen.

Others will never be effective preachers. They don't have a gift. We we don't need to make people feel guilty for not doing What they're not gifted to do. But we're all gifted to do something. So the church can have an evangelistic ministry that you can use your gift whatever it is to help and.

So you are then? Helping evangelism, even if you're not personally gifted to share one-on-one kind of evangelism understand second how We live corporately in the church in verses 3 to 8 with our different gifts, but how we are to live is the same in verses 9 to 13.

Verses 3 to 8 about our diversity different gifts all kind how we what we contribute is all each different in verses 9 to 13. Is this is what we should all do? We all together are to let love be genuine.

You don't say I don't have a gift for loving Genuinely, so I'm not gonna love genuinely. I'm gonna be a fake or I'm gonna be rude because it's not my gift. No, you don't say that in other words. Let love be genuine.

Don't don't be fake not empty words. Not a show. We don't talk about the church family and then leave like we're trying out a new restaurant. We don't say like one lady I love this church so much I'll never leave unless the Lord audibly tells me to go elsewhere and then a couple of months she leaves just because he feels like It and then she presents those who remind her or her earlier words.

That's fake. It's Keith Green wrote in the song We just heard I make my life a prayer to you. I want to do what you want me to. No empty words. No white lies no token prayers. No compromise. And our life together shrink from evil abhor what is evil in verse 19 I hate it detest it don't tolerate it.

Don't turn the church into a sin club. All right. Some people think church is a sin club. You know what the first rule of sin club is don't mention sin club. Turn the church into a sin club. It's the first rule you no one mentions your sin.

We all become enablers of each other's sin because our relationships are so shallow. That if I dare mention your sin or you dare mention mine we'll get mad and leave instead of verse 10.

Philadelphia in verbal form.

Brotherly love one another.

Warmly.

That's how it knows the emphasis of that brotherly love. That's already family like and then do it warmly. Like I gotta do it. No, do it warmly brotherly. Love be familial. Family like not business like.

Not like we treat our TV service provider and if it gets too costly or the service is poor. We just ditch it and get another one. No put up with each other like you put up with family and do it warmly.

Affectionately.

Out do one another and showing honor. Literally, it says are in honor preferring one another. In other words prefer to give honor To others in the church rather than get it. In verse 11 do not be swathful and zeal.

Otherwise, don't let your zeal Flag. Don't excuse losing that first love revive it. You know if you become lukewarm if before you remember those days a while back you would never miss church. You'd pray and you'd read the word and you listen to sermons and sing praise songs and you would give and now All those habits are slipping away.

And you're just too distracted. By work or relationships or sports or the newest thing and you're tired of the songs and the sermons. You've got to be attention. Take that when you see those signs. Take that at least as seriously as you would take bad medical signs.

High blood pressure.

High cholesterol spot on an x-ray. Revive your fervor for the Lord. Serve the Lord he says. That will look differently depending on your gifts how you serve. The Lord may be differently than how do I do it, but each of you can be serving the Lord somehow in verse 12.

Rejoice all of you no matter your gift. You don't have a gift for depression. No one has that gift. Rejoice because you have hope. Endure under affliction when you're being pressed when life is hard with relationships have disappointed you.

Keep enduring especially persevering in prayer. Somebody have a gift for generosity. Like Mary's friends in Singapore who gave generously so that we could have it in your lease that for the down payment of this building.

And and so that we could refurbish it so it looks decent. The same two friends, by the way. I also have a gift for mercy which made them go visit Mary's mother and They were key in her confessing Christ.

They they had their gifts and they did them. They didn't say well the pastor he gets paid to do this stuff. I'll let him they had the gifts and they did them. Right, they have a gift. Some people have a gift for generosity in verse 8.

Remember each one has a different gift and so making and giving money is their gift. But that doesn't mean well, I'm off the hook because that's not my gift.

So I'll.

I'll does not give. We all have the responsibility in verse 13 to give to the church. Verse 13 contribute to the needs of the Saints I think in. Individually if one of our church members is in need or corporately as the church.

God's people fellow believers. There are the Saints and seek to show hospitality notices. Seek. To be hospitable not just be hospitable. With opportunity comes your way. Go seek and go out of your way.

Looking for opportunities to show hospitality. The fellow members of the body have an attitude that.

Whatever you have.

Spare bedroom. Something a ride you can give time you can give you want to share it with the body. You can't obey any of these If you don't know who you belong to. Now some say because they say they're saved by grace alone, I know I belong to.

But no, they don't. They don't know because their mind hasn't been transformed. They're still conformed to an individualistic world. They don't know that if you belong to Christ You belong to his body the church.

Living as One Body in Christ, Not as “Just Jesus and Me”

How do we live? forth.

We live socially from verses 14 to 21 that is we live in Societies and we are to live for God as transformed living sacrifices because of his amazing grace.

In the world in.

Societies in worldly societies. We're not trying to flee the world now for over a thousand years the ideal of what many people thought many Christian professing Christians anybody thought as. The way for Christians to deal with the world.

They're really committed the way they dealt with the world Was escape it you get away from it. You void it as much as you can. They're really committed. You're really a believer and you're gonna love the Lord.

You become a monk or a nun and you live separated from the world in a monastery or a convent. That was the path they thought to true spirituality. But here the Apostle says live in the world, but don't be conformed to it.

Don't be conformed so you're just as greedy as materialistic a self-centered as as individualistic as Consumeristic that everything is for my consumption as the world instead live in it and be transformed socially in the world but different.

In the world, but not of it. The old preacher's phrase First realized that as nonconformist to the world. We will be different if you're not different than the world and there's a problem with you conforming.

Being nonconformist different. You will be persecuted. You may be as we heard about when looking at chapter 1. Banned from distributing your materials on the campus of a nearby college if you tell the truth about some sexual behavior.

If you call a man near claiming to be a woman a man you just tell the truth about biology. You will be banned by some social media. You may be cursed. Don't curse back verse 14. You don't seek vengeance in verse 19.

Now the world loves vengeance even kind of whole genre of movies and TV series about vengeance. Revenge movies or series are popular was the hero suffers. I've got a horrible injustice and then goes about getting his revenge.

I recently watched the Amazon series Terminal list which is a nothing but a gory revenge show. I think I suffers. Horribly, and then he goes about getting his revenge on everybody. There's really no higher moral to the story.

Compare that with what starts out as a gory also a gory kind of vengeance movie the first half of it maybe the first Orifice of it, but man on fire with Denzel Washington. Have you ever seen that he gets his revenge but ultimately it's not his wrecking bloody revenge on everybody.

That saves the girl that he was getting vengeance for and the end it is his sacrificing himself that wins. And so it's a much better Movie. We can be justice seekers, but not vengeance seekers. Now vengeance is not necessarily wrong.

Tell us not to seek it. But it doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong since God says vengeance is mine if it were wrong. It wouldn't be his would it. He never says God never says murder is mine. Adultery is mine.

No, he doesn't say that it's not always wrong, but it's not for us to seek more on that next week. Because we're living in the world. We might be persecuted if we're bakers people might sue us if we don't bake a cake that help with them celebrate sexual perversion.

They might ban us they might insult us. But we don't escape to some Christian commune where we'll never have to worry about running into those kinds of people. Just so totally separate from the world.

But what he's saying here is no you live in the world. Even if sometimes you suffer persecution you're insulted and he says your response to that not to escape it if you're Cursed you bless that as you say good things about your persecutors.