The Foundation for Christian living

If Peter and Satan would have been successful in talking Jesus into not going to Jerusalem, Peter would have trapped himself in his own sin forever. He would have no way out of his sin, and neither would we.

Book: RETHINKING HOLINESS- SIN IS WILLFUL

“Scripture teaches that we enter into sin in an intentional and willful act. …..the will is engaged in the conception, birth, and act of sin. While our wills may be ill-informed and even depraved, and while our conscienses may have become calloused and grown insensitive by our habitual sin (rom 1:21), it remains true that sin is always both considered and chosen. …Sin is something that we think about and plan for. … we enter into sin willfully and often provide justification for it.”

Just like Peter, we have a choice.

We can follow Jesus, or we can ignore him, listen to the voice of Satan, and walk in front of or away from Christ.

If we are to follow Jesus, we must take up our cross and follow Jesus.

In Romans - Paul gives us these same two choices, we can be rock of stability built on God’s Word, or we can be a stumbling block for others.

Tension

Today, just like every day, we must decide for ourselves which one we will be, we have to decide what we believe, and how what we believe impacts how we behave.

10 spies from Joshua only 2 of the 12 were focused on God's ways! And not man’s ways

Paul spends chapter 1 through 11 talking about What to Believe - He goes over several topics in this section, including:

The sinfulness of all people caused by Adam’ sin,

And tells us that forgiveness is available through the sacrifice of Christ Jesus..

He has a clear focus on the centrality of faith for salvation and Christian living

Based on chapters 1-11, Paul will go on in chapters 12-16 to tell us how we should behave.

Paul gives us some guidelines for living as a redeemed people in a fallen world-

We are to give ourselves to God

We are to obey the government

We are to love our neighbors

We are to take special care of those who are weak in the faith.

We are to live our faith out each day

Today, we are going to look at the first point, We are to give ourselves to God.

Truth

Eugene Peterson writes this in his The Message Paraphrase, I don’t like to use a paraphrase in Bible Study, but sometimes it just really gets to the point and makes it easier to understand.

MESSAGE - Roman’s 12:1-2

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

We are going to take a look at the ESV translation and break it down, there are so many deep concepts that we need to understand in this section.

Romans 12:1 ESV

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.

I appeal to you

Paul is begging his readers to make a decision. One way or another.

Paul hasn’t met the Roman church yet, they were founded from members who were at Pentecost and brought the gospel to Rome.

Therefore brothers

Again, Paul uses Therefore to. point back to Romans 1:18- Romans 11:36

By the mercies of God-

9 times Paul mentions God’s mercy in chapters 9, 10 and 11.

We are sinful people, we used to be slaves to sin, and that sin impacted every part of us. It impacted creation as well. (Romans 8:20-23

Romans 8:20–23 ESV

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

We were brainwashed by sin.

Fortunately God provided a way out through Jesus’ sacrifice for us, even though Paul and Satan tried to lock us into sin forever!

We wait for the complete redemption of our bodies on the day of Christ.

Until then we undergo a transformational process of sanctification through discipleship.

It’s not something we do, or learn, it requires a total change of thinking.

Present your bodies

Refers to the whole person, both body and soul - enclosed in our body.

In our western world, we pamper our bodies, so we can have every chance to live a long and healthy life, but Paul here is going to argue for the exact opposite.

As a living sacrifice

OT - Priest would kill the animal, cut it into pieces and place it on the altar, it would then be burnt

Sacrifice was important, but its clear that obedience from the heart was much more important - 1 Sam 5:22, Psalm 40:6, Amos 5:21-24

The language used here would have been understood by Jews and gentiles because animal sacrifice was used by almost every religion of the day.

God wants us to daily offer ourselves, laying aside our own desires to follow him, putting all our energy and resources in his service and trusting him to guide us.

We do this out of gratitude that our sins have been forgiven.

God has good and perfect plans for his children

He wants us to be transformed people with renewed minds

Living to honor and obey him

He wants only what is best for us

Because he gave his son to make our new life possible, we should joyfully give ourselves as living sacrifices for his service.

We are a Living Sacrifice- we will not be put to death as OT animal sacrifices were, but instead we die to our selves, and become useful to God.

Holy and acceptable to God

Holy - means set apart, not used for normal everyday use, but used for God only.

Acceptable is essentially the same thing. If God approves of it, its going to be holy, its going to honor him.

Which is your spiritual worship

Offering one’s whole life to God (Hebrews 13:15-16

Hebrews 13:15–16 ESV

Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Worship motivated and ordered in a reasoned way based on the careful understanding of the gospel and its implications presented in chapters 1-11.

Romans 12:2- Resisting conformity to the world and embracing the transformation that comes in Jesus Christ

Do not be conformed to this world

The present evil age still tempts Christians, so we must resist its pressure.

Since we are no longer slaves to sin, we have to change our thinking so that we don’t think like slaves to sin.

This is impossible to do on our won, we have to have the Holy Spirit changing us.

N T Wright puts it this way “we are to refuse to let the present age squeeze us into its mold, to dictate to us how we should think and indeed what we should think, and tell us how we can and cant behave. Instead, we are to be transformed; our minds need to be renewed.

But be transformed by the renewing of your mind

Compare with Romans 1:28

Romans 1:28 ESV

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

Only when the Holy Spirit renews, re-educates, and redirects our mind are we truly transformed - Romans 8:5

Romans 8:5 ESV

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit works to change wrong ideas that lead to wrong behavior

That by testing you may discern what is the will of God

As we allow God and his Spirit to do this transformational work in our lives, we grow in our ability to discern and approve God’s will.

The Word of God should form our minds in this transformation and leads us away from conformity to a strict set of laws, and take us rather to a willingness to die with Christ and also to live in him (Romans 6:4

Romans 6:4 ESV

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

What is good and acceptable and perfect

As we are transformed, we learn what is good. We learn what is acceptable to God and we can align our lives and our wills to God’s will , each and every day, each and every hour.

Application

“the Christian life is lived out not primarily in the hour or two spent “at church” but in the other 166 weekly hours spent in the home, workplace, or at leisure.” ESV Commentary

Once we have come to the conclusion that we have all sinned and have fallen short of God’s standard, and that we now have peace with God through Jesus, as we wait for the redemption of the world, we have no other choice but to give ourselves over to his service as living sacrifices.

Inspiration/ reflection

NT Wright says

“Christians are called to be counter-cultural—not in all respects, as though every single aspect of human society and culture were automatically and completely bad, but at least in being prepared to think through each aspect of life.”

He goes on to say:

“We must be ready to challenge those parts where the present age shouts, or perhaps whispers seductively, that it would be easier and better to do things that way, while the age to come, already begun in Jesus, insists that belonging to the new creation means that we must live this way instead.”

We need to recognize the voice of Satan, and respond with the Word of God, keeping our thoughts on the will of God, and not in the ways of the world.

Next steps

Psalm 37:4–5 ESV

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.

Modern Christianity lacks power and authority because they haven’t fully decided to follow Christ and get out of the way of what God is doing in the every day life of the community around the church.

the church lacks courage , we lack courage and faith

let’s look at Verse 5 first - The first step is to commit your way to the lord. we don’t do well with commitment do we?

You have to trust in him, and when you do, he will act

Now once you get the hang of verse 5, you will begin to delight yourself in the Lord, and because you are in His will more often than not, your desires are the things that God desires, and so he will give you the desires of your heart, because they are the desires of his heart as well.

Just like the land rested from war after Joshua lead the Israelites to full commitment to God, we can rest from war in our wills when we submit entirely to Gods will .