There's Joy in Serving Jesus

Practical Christian Living

A Logical Request

Paul now moves on from doctrinally themed writing to very practically themed principles.

I believe that that is how our lives ought to be generally formatted

We have too many Christians that are shaky about what they believe and not shaken by what they believe

John Walvoord once said at a seminary graduation:

“I’m afraid for this class—that we are turning out too many graduates who have a great number of beliefs but not enough conviction.”

It is vitally important to have the right beliefs but also to have great convictions that drive our actions.

It is so imperative that we are not just hearers of the word

Or we just become like the pagans

Acts 17:21 KJV 1900

(For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)

The “therefore” is not only referring to the preceding passage regarding God’s gift of salvation to both the Jew and the Gentile, but to everything that Paul had been teaching from the beginning of the epistle

All of this is the foundation for the rest of the book

If our practicalities had not basis on scriptures it would simply be some good advice about how to get along with each in the church

Theology in isolation promotes a barren intellectualism. Ethics apart from a theological base is impotent to achieve its goals.

It is typical of the teaching of the epistles that belief is followed by behavior; doctrine, by deeds.

I love how Paul implores these believers to serve God unconditionally.

An Unconditional Service

Paul beseeches or urges these fellow believers to do something in light of God’s holiness…perfection…justice…authority…power…greatness…worthiness...

NO! He urges he fellow believers to do something in light of God’s mercies.

We ought to be willing to do anything for God simply due to the fact that He has shown us immeasurable mercies

We see in this very verse the Old Testament and the New Testament collide.

We see God’s mercy and grace.

But we also see Paul alluding to the Old Testament thought of sacrificial offerings

This offering is not out of duty but now out of delight.

At least it should be

The moment serving God becomes a duty instead of a delight is the moment a child of God has the wrong priorities

It is of little avail to know theoretically the truths of Romans 6-8 if the body is not surrendered so that the life of Christ can be expressed in the everyday affairs of life.

Robert Mounce put it this way:

God has saved us from sin, from its penalty and its power.

He has saved us from self in all its features and all its forms.

He has overruled the destinies of nations.

He has triumphed in His grace and multiplied His mercies.

He has, as it were, besieged us with His mercies, brought them up against us in countless number, built the bulwarks of His grace against our souls, poured a ceaseless cannonade of kindness in upon the breaches in our hearts.

He has overwhelmed us with unmerited favor and carried all before Him on the resistless arms of love.

"I beseech you therefore," says Paul, "by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies."

It is the proper thing to do. It is the only possible thing to do.

It is the only fitting answer we can give to "love so amazing, so divine."

It is not only the proper thing to do, it is (2) the practical thing to do. It makes possible the translation of the principles of Romans 1-8 into the practice of Romans 12-16.

It is all very well to have our heads in the theological clouds and enjoy the great truths of positional sanctification.

God wants us to live a holy life in the home and on the highway, at the bench, the counter or the desk.

The link between the two is the presented body.

There is a very real sense in which to present our bodies to God is the most strategic thing we can do as Christians

It is possible for us, as believers, to live lives on one of three levels.

We can live lives that are sensual, soulish or spiritual.

A person, for example, who is ruled by the physical is sensual.

To be sensual does not necessarily mean that we live in the constant indulgence of the worst forms of carnality.

It simply means that we are ruled by the senses.

Think of each of the following expressions: "I don’t like the smell." "It’s too hot." "I’m too tired." "Does it taste good?" "What does it feel like?" "Don’t do that, it hurts." "Isn’t it ugly?" "Let me tell you what Betty said."

Each one of these statements reflects a physical reaction.

People who are ruled by such considerations are ruled by the senses—by what they see, feel, hear, taste or smell.

The motivation from this source may be very subtle, very well disguised, very genteel; but, nevertheless, people motivated by such considerations are sensual.

It is possible for a Christian to be sensual.

He will not go to prayer meeting because it is too hot.

He will not work in the slums because they are too smelly.

He doesn’t like John Jones because he uses bad grammar.

In other words, he is a sensual Christian. He may be saved, but he is living his life on the lowest possible plane.

On the other hand, it is possible for us to be soulish in our expression of the faith, to be ruled from the intellect, the emotions or the will.

This is a far more subtle possibility.

A life so lived can come so close to genuine spirituality that it can be very difficult to detect the flaw.

For example, a believer may give himself over to intellectual pursuits in his practice of Christianity.

He studies his Bible and becomes a walking Bible encyclopedia.

He becomes a great theologian, a great controversialist for the faith.

People admire and respect him for his great grasp of truth. He is not necessarily spiritual, however.

This grasp of truth all too often is merely intellectual. It may be soulish.

Or he may be strongly given to emotion.

At the Lord’s Supper, the thought of Calvary brings tears to his eyes and he weeps.

At the prayer meeting he gets so worked up he shouts his hallelujahs.

He is so deeply moved at the thought of the poverty of Korean orphans or the masses of India that he will empty his pocketbook into the offering when an appeal is made.

He is not necessarily spiritual, however.

All too often such displays are mere excesses of emotion. An unsaved man might do as much.

On the other hand, a believer might have an iron will.

When he is saved he learns he should give up smoking, shall we say, so he immediately throws his cigarettes into the fire and never smokes again.

That may not be a spiritual victory, it may simply be the assertion of a strong will.

Indeed, there may be a combination of two, or even all three factors—intellect, emotions and will, so that a person appears as an exemplary Christian without being truly spiritual at all. It is a very subtle trap.

Now, of course, this is not to say that the intellect, emotions and will play no part in the life of a spiritual Christian, because they do.

But just to be intellectual, emotional or determined does not constitute the essence of spirituality.

If the sensual side of a man is controlled by the soulish side, the person is indeed a fine specimen of humanity.

But he is not spiritual and may not even be saved at all.

For me to be spiritual the Holy Spirit must have complete control of me, and the key to this lies in the surrender of the body.

For it is through the members of the body that all impressions are received and all impulses expressed.

If, therefore, the Holy Spirit has control of the body He can control the whole man. To be truly spiritual a believer needs to hand over his body to God for Him to fill and use.

Then, not only are the senses controlled, but the intellect, emotions and will are controlled, and the person is a spiritual Christian expressing in all his ways the beauties of the Lord Jesus.

How then can we decide whether or not a given act is to be traced back to the soul or to the spirit?

Surely the line drawn here is very fine.

In fact, there is only one instrument which can cleave between the two and that is God’s Word. "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Heb. 4:12).

It is only as, in our daily waiting upon God, we allow Him to bring His Word to bear upon our motives that we can discern, through the Spirit’s enlightenment, the true reasons for our conduct and conversation.

The word translated "discerner" is especially significant. It is the word kritikos. "Once, and only once, has God used kritikos; thus confining it to His own Word as a ’critic.’... ’Dividing asunder’ of soul and spirit means not only differentiating between that which is begotten of the flesh and that which is begotten of the Spirit (John 3:6) in the individual, but also between the natural ( Gr. psuchikos) man and the spiritual (Gr. pneumatikos) man."

The believer must surrender with no strings attached.

He must surrender his emotions, and intellect, his whole being.

But it’s difficult:

Romans (1. Among Believers (12:1–21))

That the sacrifice is “living” reflects the voluntary nature of the act.

F. F. Bruce comments that “the sacrifices of the new order do not consist in taking the lives of others, like the ancient animal sacrifices, but in giving one’s own.”

A living sacrifice tends to want to get off the altar

Here is an interesting thought though

In the Old Testament, when a body was offered the animal was slain. Now, when the believer offers his body, he begins to really live.

Reasonable Service

There is no coercion here, no high pressure, no forcing of the will, no bending or biasing of the personality to make it conform to the divine will.

The reason we may feel that this statement is not true is simply because the Holy Spirit is working in convicting our heart.

We feel like we are being coerced.

But if we feel like that, hopefully that opens our eyes to see how far we have actually drifted from our Savior.

Did we not become a new creature when we got saved?

Did not old things pass away and all things have become new?

It is not natural for a child of God to despise the service of God.

When I survey the wondrous cross,

On which the Prince of glory died,

My richest gain I count but loss,

And pour contempt on all my pride.

Were the whole realm of nature mine

That were an offering far too small;

Love so amazing, so divine,

Shall have my heart, my life, my all.

God asks for nothing more and nothing less.

All other faiths make sacrifice the root, Christianity makes it the flower.

Because Christ died for me, therefore, I long to serve Him

Changed Life

The presentation of the body results in a transformed life.

The body of the believer is the vehicle through which the new life is expressed.

We do not cultivate the body like the ancient Greeks, who worshiped its beauty and its strength and glorified their worship in sculptured works of art and in their Olympic games.

We do not crucify the body like the ascetics who considered it evil and starved and mutilated it.

Simeon Stylites, for example, is said to have sat for thirty years on top of a column. Others wore hair skirts and scourged themselves with cruel whips.

We simply consecrate the body that the Holy Spirit, who has made it His temple, might have free access to all its courts and free control over all its activities.

The believer who thus presents his body is changed.

Be not conformed to this world.

Don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold.

The word “world” here is the system of this world not the people

It’s anti-God philosophies, music, practices, methodologies

The world has its fads and fashions and they change with each generation

Its mold exerts pressure on us all, not only in such relatively minor matters as dress and diet, but in such far more serious areas of life as morals, ethical standards and religious beliefs.

The world is the devil’s lair for sinners and his lure for saints.

It is human life and society with God left out.

The believer whose body has been laid on the altar for God will not be conformed to the world. He is morally changed. His life is not molded from without but from within.

But be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.

this word transformed is:

μεταμορφόω: to be or become changed in outward appearance or expression as manifesting a change in nature or essence.

you can see the the word metamorphosis in that greek word.

a caterpillar undergoes metamorphosis in its chrysalis and emerges a glorious butterfly

the same creature which enters the filmy tomb eventually emerges but the change is remarkable that it cannot be recognized as the same.

It is this kind of change the Holy Spirit wishes to work in the life of the believer, but to do it He must have control of the body and free access to the mind.

When the believer unconditionally surrenders his body, is unmolded by the world and his mind is metamorphosed, he takes on a whole new, higher, greater dimension of living.

Every Christian is responsible to discover for himself what God’s will is for his life.

When through the process of his daily communion with the Lord he discovers some aspect of the revealed will of God, he will embrace it, because it is good.

God cannot ask us to do anything that is not for our eternal good.

What God plans for us will be the very best that omniscient wisdom and divine love can conceive.

"God meant it unto good" was Joseph’s testimony when the dark clouds of uncertainty had finally rolled away and he could look back and see how marvelous were God’s leadings and providential overrulings in his life (Gen. 50:20).

It is Satan who suggests that God is not to be trusted; that He plans for us some unpleasant experience; that He will let us down and leads us into anguish, pain and loss.

Satan ever seeks to frighten us into a lack of trust of God.

But God’s will is good.

It is also acceptable.

God will not ask us to do that which we cannot accept.

He brings us along life’s path, maturing us as we go, so that when we come to Canaan and its giants, we are ready for them, or at least, we should be.