Romans 12 Garden to Garden City

Bible Reading

Romans 12:1–21 CSB

1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. 3 For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one. 4 Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, 5 in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. 6 According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts: If prophecy, use it according to the proportion of one’s faith; 7 if service, use it in service; if teaching, in teaching; 8 if exhorting, in exhortation; giving, with generosity; leading, with diligence; showing mercy, with cheerfulness. 9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Detest evil; cling to what is good. 10 Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters. Take the lead in honoring one another. 11 Do not lack diligence in zeal; be fervent in the Spirit; serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer. 13 Share with the saints in their needs; pursue hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud; instead, associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own estimation. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Give careful thought to do what is honorable in everyone’s eyes. 18 If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Friends, do not avenge yourselves; instead, leave room for God’s wrath, because it is written, Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord. 20 But If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For in so doing you will be heaping fiery coals on his head. 21 Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.

Explain that we have looked at the start of the church, how it spread edt.

how justification works

at how our justification gives us a new family

So now the question is, if that is all because of faith - then

Why should we obey God?

Why should we do what he says?

And so today we are going to look at obedience to God’s law.

Obedience is a beautiful thing in God’s eyes. It is like a gemstone. A deeply beautiful and valuable thing.

And we are going to hold up obedience kind of like a diamond, and look at three different facets of the diamond.

On the one side, we are going to look at what the basis for our obedience is

Then, turning the diamond, we are going to look at the powerhouse, the engine of obedience - what drives it.

And finally, we are going to step back, and look at the diamond as a whole - that is the outcome of obedience.

The basis of obedience? (v1-2)

Explain that we have looked at how justification works

at how our justification gives us a new family

So now the question is, if that is all because of faith - then

Why should we obey God?

Why should we do what he says?

I can think of two different reasons in life about why we obey.

The first is because we are afraid of the stick. We are afraid of the consequences if we don’t obey.

This is the why people obey dictators - out of fear.

If as a government official in North Korea, you criticise the might/power of the north korean missles - you lose your spot at the head of the table.

Or rather you lose your head and your spot at the table.

Obedience there is based on fear.

Should we obey God out of fear?

I mean when we think of God as the Almighty

, all powerful

, all holy

, all just God that he is,

this should create a sense of fear in us.

It is not for nothing that when the Bible talks about our respect for God

or awe for God

it often uses the

phrase the fear of God.

I remember growing up in South Africa

where we still had corporal punishment in school,

While technically against the law,

was implicitly encouraged by both parents a

nd school teachers.

If you disobeyed in this context,

you would get a smack.

I remember the well worn wooden paddle

One of my teachers kept

Above his black board

Haning on the wall

As a reminder to students

of the consequences of bad behavior.

It inspired a sense of fear.

And,

indeed resulted in solid obedience amongst the students.

But obedience out of fear does not change the heart.

It might cause us to do the right thing,

it might cause us to actually obey

, in fact it might cause us to obey for life

, but it does not change the heart.

And it certainly does not transform us.

And we can see God in the same way sometimes can we not.

Why is it that we obey God.

IS it simply from fear?

Is it simply because we don’t want to end up in hell?

But that kind of obedience isn’t what God wants from us.

Yes, a true sense of awe before God is right,

And this does evoke a kind of “fear of the Lord”.

But that isn’t what God wants.

He doesn’t just want us to obey the rules to the letter.

He wants our heart.

And the basis for heart obedience, cannot be fear.

So if it’s not fear, then what is it?

Look at this:

“Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”

Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God,

Obedience here is not because of fear. It is because of love for what God has done for you - in light of his mercies.

(Think of illustration of washing dishes, growing in love)

Love, Gratitude, Thankfulness

What are these mercies that he has in view here?

What are these mercies of God

that Paul talking about?

In fact is talking about all of Romans one through to 11.

You see Paul has spent the last 11 chapters

explaining to his readers

everything that Jesus has done on the cross,

how he came to bear their sins,

how we are completely lost without him,

how without Christ and is sacrifice we could never turn from our sin.

He showed us

that our hearts are completely wicked and without help,

how even when we want to do good

we end up doing evil

because our entire being is bent on doing sin.

He has shown us our rebellion to God,

He showed us how in Jesus

God has poured out his wrath of sin,

and how as a result

we now can live with Christ

for ever.

How we are freed from the consequences of our sin

forever.

How When we believe in Jesus,

when we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord,

and believe in our Hearts that God has raised him from the dead,

we will be saved.

And that doesn’t depend on our obedience,

That doesn’t depend on our works.

That doesn’t depend on how good we are, or how much we do for the church.

It depends entirely on Jesus’ completed work on the cross.

That is what the basis for our obedience is.

That is what Paul means by “God’s mercies”.

As a when Paul says in view of that,

In light of everything that God has done for us in Christ,

we are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices.

You see friends,

if we were to obey out of fear,

our hearts would never be changed.

Fear as a motivation over time

would lose its power.

If you live in obey only out of fear,

over time that fear starts to numb.

Slowly you become too tired to care about what the person you are fearing

thinks about you.

Perhaps after a while you are so exhausted with obeying out of fear

that you end up completely apathetic,

indifferent,

not caring.

We see this in people who walk away from the faith,

because it’s all just too hard to obey the rules.

This is a symptom of not loving God enough.

They are not living as living sacrifices

in view of God’s mercy.

They are trying to live as good people

in view of God’s wrath.

What about you?

Can you say, “What a friend we have in Jesus, all my pain and grief to bear?”

OR are you stuck with “What an overload we have in Jesus, all my works and words to judge?”

How do you know if you are obeying God out of fear, or out in view of his mercy?

When you see God only as a fearful overlord,

What tends to happen

Is we obey right up to the line.

We study scripture,

we draw up a line in the sand

and say I can go this far up to the line

, and if I step over it

then I can expect bad consequences.

But when we obey God out of Love, when we live in view of God’s mercy,

The line is stil there.

We still know when we cross it.

But instead of walking as close to it as we can

without stepping over,

we run the other way.

You see when we love God,

when we live out of our love for him y

you want to be as close to him as possible

not walk along the border of sin,

looking with ever greater jealousy at what’s on the other side of the line.

When we live out of fear of God, we constantly ask “how much can I get away with”

But when we live in view of God’s mercy, we say, “How far can I get away from sin?”

When we live out of fear, we see the sin on the other side of the line, and think – the grass is greener there.

When we live out of love, we see the truth,

, the grass is always greenest

around the throne of the lamb.

The essence of true obedience then,

Is love.

Love for God

in light of what Jesus has done on the cross.

The heart of true obedience, is Gospel Love.

How do we get it? How do we train ourselves to live in this love?

That is the second thing we see this morning.

The engine of true obedience

So how do we turn,

from fear to love based obedience?

How do we do this offering our lives as living sacrifices stuff well?

How do we do it in a way that sustains us?

How do we do it in a way that allows us to keep going,

even when life gets tough?

What is the engine of true obedience?

What if I don’t feel the kind of love for God that generates true obedience?

What if I don’t really feel like obeying?

What if sin really does seem like the better option?

What if I really do want what is on the other side of the line?

How do I deal with that?

It is by seeing the mercies of God.

IT is by meditating on the mercies of God.

It is to turn again, to the cross, and to see, again, with fresh eyes, all that Jesus has done.

It is to see the mercy God pours out on us each and every day.

Notice what happens in the text, it is not the mercy (singular).

Paul doesn’t write, just, in light of what Jesus has done.

No, it is in view of the mercies of God.

It is not just that once for all decision of God

to punish Christ in our place

and therefore to forgive our sin,

but every mercy we have from him.

Now of course, the biggest gift we have ever received is that of Jesus.

The biggest gift we could ever receive was to have our sins forgiven.

We know that.

But God loves us so much more than just wiping the slate clean, on the cross.

If you want to enjoy God

, if you want to truly love God,

If you want to find a real friendship and relationship with God,

then

, it is important to develop a spiritual discipline of thankfulness

for the mercies that God shows us every day.

I was an open doors event,

this week.

And this event was about the lessons we can learn from the persecuted church.

You see the persecuted church sees the church in the west

as having great financial and material treasures

, whereas they have significant spiritual treasure.

While they are thankful for the help of our material treasures,

they want to give something of their spiritual treasure to us.

And one of the things they want us to have,

is this spirit of thankfulness.

One of the things they said,

one of the principles that the persecuted church wants us in the West to learn from them is this.

“If you can’t live in thankfulness every day,

you are dead.”

If you can’t live in thankfulness every day,

you’re dead.

You see

when you’re a persecuted Christian,

there is no room for the bitterness

we often feel as Christians were not persecuted.

One of the disciplines they have,

is to start the day reciting

all the things we can be thankful for.

The speaker gave us this example of how one of the Russian orthodox Christians

Was captured for his faith.

And as an orthodox Christian and they have a prayer bead.

and it has 33 beads

and one for each year of the live of Jesus on earth.

These beads are broken up into three sections for the first 11 beads

, he would pray in the morning,

thank you Jesus for.

Thank you God for.

Now this particular Russian Christian

, was in a concentration camp

because he was a strong believer,

during the Communist USSR days.

And he would start his day

reciting 11 thing

s that he could be thankful for.

Dear God,

thank you that the person who tried to rape me last night

didn’t succeed.

Dear God thank you that I still have all my teeth.

Because most of the prisoners because of their diet

would lose their teeth.

Dear God thank you that I can still pray to you every day.

Even when my bible has been confiscated,

and I’m locked in solitary confinement.

You know what the result of this kind of thankfulness is brothers and sisters?

It gives us joy even in the darkest places

over time it generates the kind of Christian joy

that the world cannot understand

in light of the difficulties of life.

It helps us see the love of God, the mercies of God each day.

And living in this concentration camp, the orthodox Christian said.

Some days, it was hard to get to 11 things.

But when we meditate on all that God has done for us,

we can always get to 11.

And do you know what this does,

As we thank God, every day, over and over, we really start to geniuinely love God for who he is.

We find we spend less and less time at the border of the line in the sand,

And more and more time, at the feet of the lamb.

As our Love for God grows, so our love for sin diminishes.

And eventually, before we realize it, we don’t spend time at the border any more.

In view of God’s mercies.

That is the engine of our obedience.

So we have seen the basis of obedience, and we have seen the engine of obedience.

Let’s look briefly then, at the outcome of obedience.

The outcome of obedience builds up the church body (v3-8)

Romans 12:3–8

Romans 12:3–8 CSB

3 For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one. 4 Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, 5 in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. 6 According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts: If prophecy, use it according to the proportion of one’s faith; 7 if service, use it in service; if teaching, in teaching; 8 if exhorting, in exhortation; giving, with generosity; leading, with diligence; showing mercy, with cheerfulness.

If you have read the book of Ephesians,

you will notice that there is a list of spiritual gifts in the book,

but they are designed to build up the church.

If you have read 1 Corinthians 12,

you will notice that there is a list of gifts spiritual gifts,

for the use of building up the church.

And here in Romans 12, too there is another list of spiritual gifts,

And it is for the sake of building up the church.

Now none of these three lists

the one here in Romans

or Ephesians

and one Corinthians is complete.

But generally speaking there are three kinds of gifts,

there are speaking gifts

here in Romans it is prophecy teaching,

exhortation et cetera.

Then we have leading gifts

, in Romans it is leading in verse eight,

and the other passages we find gifts of wisdom for administration and leadership.

Thirdly there are sort of serving gifts if you like,

hospitality

giving

generosity

service and so on.

But in each case, these gifts are for the service of building up the body of Christ first.

Now notice what Paul is doing.

In view of God’s mercies, offer yourself as living sacrifices,

and then he explains what that living sacrifey stuff looks like.

He is holding up the diamond of obedience,

stepping back,

and looking at what it produces in the world

- what this gemstone does.

And the first thing that comes to Paul’s mind is that is the up building of the church.

And here we discover a prominent Christian truth.

Loving Jesus,

goes hand in hand with loving the church.

You cannot claim to love Jesus

And hate the church which is his body.

Now that does not mean the body of believers is perfect.

We have many many flaws.

And that is because the church body is made up of broken people.

But you cannot love the head of the church, Jesus, and not love the body.

That is completely inconsistent.

It would be like saying to your wife

Darling,

I love your face,

Your hair is beautifully luscious today

And your freckles really do it for me.

But your body… its pretty flawed.

Your body needs work.

Husbands, go try that this week,

And you come and tell me how that works out for you.

And this has immediate and enduring consequences for all of us here today.

Loving Jesus, serving him,

living as a living sacrifice,

means you work at building up the body of Christ.

It means you LOVE the church people.

You strive for their best.

You chose to love them, even though, just like you, they are actually pretty unlovable sometimes!

If you find it hard to love the church,

it is because you have lost sight of the head of the church.

You have started living, outside of “in view of God’s mercies”

We are to loveeee the church.

You know, The Holy Spirit

Gives each believer spiritual gifts.

All of us.

You, me, her him.

And the reason the spirit gives us spiritual gifts

is to help us build up the body of Christ.

Some these gifts are used and turned towards outside evangelism and outreach.

They are building up the body of Christ

by bringing others into the kingdom.

Some of us this is by doing all the things behind the scenes.

The people actually make things happen.

Some of us like myself it is speaking God’s word,

proclaiming it from the pulpit in my case,

but also in individual conversations

reading Scripture with one another

sharing the truth of God those around us.

The spirit gives us these gifts,

to worship God,

by investing in the body of Christ.

Now for us to do that,

For us to serve the body well

requires us to see ourselves as we are.

Now see how Paul opens this section,

for by the grace given to me

I tell everyone among you

not to think of himself more highly than he should think

instead think sensibly

as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one.

This is a call to humility.

This is a call to be humble.

This is a call to not think of yourself more highly than you ought.

You see true humility flows out of an understanding

of what Jesus has already done for us.

Now let me be clear.

True humility is not self-effacement.

It is not a kind of

“oh I cant do anything,

I am but a worm,

don’t even look my way

because I am not worthy kind of thing”.

Humility, to quote Keller,

is not thinking less of yourself,

it is thinking of yourself less.

It is about looking at what Jesus has done,

and understanding who we are as a result.

Knowing,

yes it was my sin that held him there on the cross

, until it was accomplished

, so none of us have the right to boast about who we are.

For, like the psalmist says,

we are but dust

Psalm 103.

We are all sinful and worthy of condemnation.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

None of us has any right to boast before God.

But at the same time,

humility is knowing,

that we are so loved by God,

that he was willing to die on the cross for us.

That he has purchased us at great cost to himself.

.And has willingly paid that price,

so that we could be saved.

Humility then,

is changing where we find our identity,

from ourselves,

and then finding our identity in Jesus.

This is what paul means when he says:

I must decrease, Christ must increase.

So how then do we know if we are falling into the trap of either thinking too highly,

or too lowly of ourselves?

The test is,

how are we relating to the body of believers?

How are we using our gifts to build up the church?

If you think too highly of yourself

you wont be willing to do the things

you see as beneath your calling.

Are you willing to go wherever you are need,

to do the jobs that no one thanks you for,

to achieve the things that no one sees,

in view of God’s mercies.

One commentator puts it this way.

He says,

the easies way to tell if you have a servant heart

is to look at how you act when you are treated like a servant.

Are you too big to serve?

And then how do you know if you are thinking too lowly of yourself?

The test again is,

how are you relating to the body of believers,

how are you using your gifts to build up the church?

Do you believe that you have nothing to offer the church?

God disagrees.

He

through his spirit

has given you a gift to build up he body.

Do you believe you are too sinful to serve?

God disagrees

, he went to the cross to deal with that.

And now he calls you yo obey.

To obey on the basis of his mercies, in view of his mercies.

He calls you to obey by giving you an engine room of gratitude and love.

And he calls you to obey, by loving his church.

So will you come?

In view of God’s mercy,

to offer your body as a living sacrifice?

That is the call of every believer.

Will you answer it?

Amen