Romans 12
Notes
Transcript
A Living Sacrifice
A Living Sacrifice
Good morning everyone!
I just you’ve had a good week. Here we are already in the month of December, and just so you know, Christmas is 21 days, 3 weeks away. Now let that set in, and I hope anxiety doesn’t start to build because you are behind in shopping, planning and just getting ready for the holiday.
Well that is enough of that...
Lets get ready to look at our text today. Without a doubt today, this is probably one of my favorite, if not the favorite verse in Scriptures.
The reason being is that challenge being given, and our response can have life long implications to help and bless so many, especially the Father in heaven.
This morning I want to challenge you to pray as we walk through these texts and ask God, have I given my life to you fully?
Remember Paul has been sharing a great deal of theology concerning salvation, the calling of the Jews and the Gentile community and of course our response to that salvation.
Chapter 12 is the call to live fully for God in a way that honors him and helps us understand and do the perfect will of God for our lives.
You see once we understand the truth and know how we are to live and serve God, to fail to do that is sin my friends.
So this morning we are only going to look at verses 1 and 2 today, so look with me at Romans 12:1-2
1 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. 2 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.
So as we open these verses my friends, I want to share these thoughts with you… I hope you have your Bibles.
1. You Are to Be a Living Sacrifice...
I would remind each of us that Jesus died for us and He is calling people today just like He has in previous days, Come and find Jesus, come and follow me…
Lets open the text and see what Paul will tell us... This is so important, Paul says “I appeal to you”…, which can be translated as beseech or urge in different translations… but each word has the meaning that Paul is exhorting these believers, or encouraging them to action.
Why Is Paul making this strong appeal to them? He tells you, in light of God’s mercies! What is that, what are the mercies of God?
God’s mercy is that He was at work on our behalf.
It is the salvation God has extended to mankind. Do you remember Romans 3:21-25? Let me remind you of it..
21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
Think of what God has done for us my friends.... He sent his Son Jesus into the world, we celebrate that here at Christmas.
God has made no distinction between Jew or Gentile, man or woman, The gospel came to his people Israel first and now has been given to the whole world.
God has sent us His Son who became our atoning sacrifice for sin, Jesus took our punishment upon His own body. He was punished, He died and was buried and on the 3rd day rose from the dead.
We had sinned before God and the wrath of God had to be satisfied, sin must be punished. We could not satisfy that wrath, we couldn’t make things right before God in our own flesh. So God allowed His Son to take our punishment upon his life, He atoned for our sin..
By believing in Jesus and by exercising faith, His righteousness is applied to your life. The Scriptures declare that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
God owed us nothing, but in love, He has given the world the greatest gift of all. No works required, just faith.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This is the mercy of God..
So Paul says I urged you, encourage you my brothers and sisters since you have been saved by the grace of God to present your life, give your life as a living sacrifice.
This is one of the the most beautiful expressions in the Scriptures my friends. Romans 12:1
1 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.
A living sacrifice, - think about this: to be sacrifices, a preacher once said “... we are baring our necks to be sacrificed for Him.” Paul is calling for believers to lay down their lives to God, given to Him fully and freely.
There are many types of sacrifices listed in the Old Testament, animal, praise, and thanksgiving.... but there are two truths about an offering that we must pay attention too...
A.) They are given from us to God.... they are the gift of our lives, whether it is monetary, or symbolic through praise and adoration, or if you lay down your life. We give this from our life, we give us to His life freely because of who He is...
B.) A sacrifice is costly.... The animals that God required as part of the sacrificial system were costly, each one was valuable from bulls and rams to the smallest turtle doves. Thes animals had to be perfect without spot or blemish. People were to give these to the Lord at various times depending on the situation at hand.
People lost a portion of income when these animals were sacrificed, but also understand the animals had to die, they were put to death and the blood shed. It was very costly my friends.
So notice the four aspects of this offering Paul is calling us to give to the Lord.
1. it is a living sacrifice. Paul here is calling us, to die to self, to lay down our lives not just once at the moment of salvation, but daily as a living sacrifice, our life given to God for His glory…
2. The offering we give to him is holy. We have been redeemed, we have been called and set apart from the world. We are called to give this to him whole heartedly.
3. And finally this offering is pleasing to him. We are called to make it our goal to be pleasing to Him. When you look at those offerings in the Old Testament, those that were given correctly, with a right heart in front of God. it was pleasing to him. A life well lived, given to God, following Him is a life that I believe is pleasing to God and thus our sacrifice is pleasing.
We my friends are called to live for God each day, living in such a way that we lay down self and we give our life as if it were a sacrifice, given to the Lord for his use and glory.
4. Laying down self in front of God is our spiritual act of worship.... Our whole life must be considered one of worship. Every moment is the act of serving and celebrating God in our lives.
Just as the act of offerings and sacrifices that were given to God were acts of worship, so it is when we lay down our self in front of God.
So there is a question to consider....
Are you living that way, or are you pleasing self more?
I want t give my life to Him more and more. Do you? How are you going to follow through with that desire?
I think it begins with the commitment, Lord I am yours, use me! Like Isaiah when we heard the Lord say who will go for us? Isaiah said Here am I, send me.
Send me....
Will you do that today?
Now this bring me to a second thought today..
2. Be No Longer Conformed to this World....
Please understand that at the moment of our conversion, we were made different, we were called out form the world, and set apart for His glory.
Because of the great work He has done in us, we are called to live and act differently.
Listen to the second part of Paul’s exhortation for us....
1 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. 2 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.
My friends, the world seeks to own you. And we cannot allow that. Conformity means to be made like, the world wants us to be like it. We cannot allow that… We cannot allow the world with its shallow, lifeless ways to transform our inward life and walk before God.
The world doesn’t have life. “...don’t allow the world to squeeze you into its mold...” one preacher once said....
Look at what the world promotes; Consumerism, the pleasure principal, sexual immorality. Consider the television and film industry, , The stories and shows it promotes, It glorifies sin, shakes its fist at God and says I will life like I want to and you cannot say anything about it.
Don’t you believe it, God is not mocked He will answer all these people and their sinful ways, you don’t believe so, He has left us an example, look at Sodom and Gomorrah.
Friends gospel in us calls us to live differently. You know what that means? It means the gospel has priority in our lives. Our life and actions are called to be like Jesus and Him alone.
So Paul says here, instead of being conformed, listen here is the key…be transformed.... Listen to verse 2 again
2 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.
Paul says..... Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
I want you to remember this truth first as we think about renewing our mind, about transformation. In Christ, you are a new creation.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
A transformation has already taken place, you have been born again, body, soul and mind.
But the mind is where the battle still takes place. It is a life long process where the mind is taken from the world and we are to take or have the mind of God in all things.
Do you remember when Jesus first told the disciples it would be necessary for him to die, to lay down his life? Peter jumped in and was like heaven forbid, this should never happen.. And Jesus rebuked him
33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
You see there is that call to let go of the world, to let go of what the world says is important and seeing what God says is important.
Do you want to live a victorious Christian life? Keep your eyes on Jesus.
The world seeks to control us, to control everyone. But I want to remind you, you are not everyone, you are a child of the King. Serve and live for him and him alone.
Challenge
If you have spent your life chasing after self, after the world, after things, you can stop right now and say, Lord, forgive me for living my life with my priority on the world and not you. I confess that to you and ask you to take back my life, my focus and my desires and let it be you and nothing else.
Now this leads to one last thought my friends. it is the last part of verse 2.
3. Discover God’s Will.....
People want to discover the will of God for their lives, I hear people saying this.. what is God’s will?
Well the answer is easy, have you lived just as we have been talking about...
Go back to the text one more time. I’m gonna ready it again because we need it to stick in our minds. Romans 12 :1-2
1 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. 2 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.
So as we present our lives as living sacrifices, we do not allow our lives to be transformed to the pattern of this world, instead we are transformed to a new way of thinking.
In this we make God and his ways our priority, and with that we can better understand the will of God. Living in a way that is good, acceptable and perfect in front of Him.
You see it is the mind that our Spiritual growth takes place and it is with the mind where we make decisions that determine our Spiritual direction.
Are you making decisions that follow His direction in your life?
People ask me what is the will of God… First, the will of God is that you are born again, you have received Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
It is only with that act, that the rest can be determined. Then as we grow, follow, serve and let God be first in our lives that we can see the rest follow.
When Paul says here that we may discern or prove what that will of God is…Those verbs, discern or prove means to examine something in order to live according to it...
So as we seek to please God, and obey his will, we discover that His will is best for us, pleasing and perfect. The word perfect speaks to growing in maturity.
As you live for and obey God, my friends you discover just how pleasant, and fulfilling God life is for us. He not only gives us life eternal, but life that is perfect and to the fullest.
The first step in all that we do before God is the hardest. Man must settle our accounts before God.
We must let go of self and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. He is the Son of God sent to redeeem us from our sin.
Have you been struggling and life is overwhelming at times, do you struggle finding peace? Then reach out to Jesus.
Jesus says come to me all or everyone who are weary and havey laden and I will given you rest.
Are you ready to take that first step?
And if you have, but you have allowed your life to be patterned after the world and things of the world., you can change that, you can seek forgiveness and reestablish your focus and place Him first and follow HIm.
Its there that we find, peace, hope and the blessing of following God.
Come to Jesus with your needs today....