A Gospel Driven Life and Church

Introduction: Romans 12:1-18

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- CIT – A Gospel-driven life and church will always seek to honor Christ though we have a diverse family with different talents.

1. A Gospel Driven life. Vs 1-2

- Vs 1

- Paul starts out by making it clear who he is addressing in this portion, brothers and sisters. He is speaking directly to and only to believers in Christ. Those who have placed their faith in Christ.

- “in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,”

- Paul then gives an earnest plea for those who have been saved, that they should present themselves as a living sacrifice to God.

- Why should they do that? Because of the mercy of God. The mercy of salvation from hell, the mercy of breaking the chains and power that sin had over our lives. This is the mercy that set us free and made us a new creation in Christ!

- Because of that mercy, it is our duty, it shouldn’t be compulsory, no one should have to beg or motivate us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to Christ.

- IF we are true believers, we should not desire to live for ourselves anymore, to please ourselves and our lustful flesh, we shouldn’t need any other reason to live for Christ other than the mercy that He showed to us!

- But the last part of that verse is extremely important, “holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship.”

- Our sacrifice to God must be holy and pleasing to who? To God.

- This means our sacrifice must meet God’s standard, not your standard, not my standard, not the pastor’s standard, not the churches standard, but God’s standard!

- What is that?

- Psalm 51:16-17 “You do not want a sacrifice, or I would give it; you are not pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God.”

- God doesn’t desire religious ceremonies, God doesn’t desire outward displays of faith, the acceptable sacrifice to God is a broken spirit and a humbled heart.

- The mere act of reading our Bible, praying, going to church to check the box for that day, doesn’t ensure spiritual growth, or pleasing the Lord, the only time we grow and please God is when we do so with the proper attitude and humility.

- See this living sacrifice that Paul is speaking about checking off the box on a list of to-do’s for the day, the living sacrifice is a deliberate act of denying our own desires and instead doing what we know pleases, honors, and worship’s God.

- Did you catch that at the end of vs 1?

- What is living like this? It is our true worship. Not the music we listen to, not the dancing we do, not the handclapping, not the raising of hands, those can all be outward displays or parts of worship, but our true spiritual worship.

- Why is this true worship? Because this is how God desires us to worship Him, not how man has set up worship, not how we want to worship, this is how God Himself desires that we worship Him.

- So how do we do that? Paul tells us in

- Vs 2

- “Do not be conformed to this age,”

- Literally, we as Christians are not to be conformed to this age or the word itself actually speaks to a future age as well.

- What does this tell us? We are not to be conformed to the constant changing cultural norms of our day or the future culture, but rather we are to be rooted and grounded in the unchanging truths of God’s Word.

- Paul goes on to say instead we are to be “be transformed by the renewing of your mind,”

- We are to constantly be renewing our mind. How do we do this?Be reading the Bible, not just to read but deeply reading, seeking to understand, mediating on it.

- Not the ohm kind of meditate but thinking on it. Praying about it and asking God to open our minds to what He is trying to tell us and teach us through His Word

- Paul tells us a bit more about this in Colossians 3:1-2 “So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

- Our minds should be more occupied with Heavenly, Christ-centered thoughts then the earthly desires we allow to occupy them.

- Why are we to do this?

- “so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”

- So that we can know what is the perfect will of God for our lives.

- That doesn’t just mean His plan for our life in the sense of our occupation or how He would have us to serve in church. This is far more than that, this is the perfect, pleasing, good will of God for our every day lives.

- This how we should live, how we should treat others, how we should witness to others, how we should share the love of Christ with other people.

- This is so much more than just knowing what the will of God is though, this is DOING the will of God!

- One writer said it this way, “Paul is really saying not only that the Romans would find out that God’s will is good, but that having found out, they should put it into practice. He is arguing for the spiritual discernment that ascertains what God wants us to do and then sets itself to do it.[1]”

- Does that sound familiar at all to us? It should.

- James 1:22-25 “But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of person he was. 25 But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer who works—this person will be blessed in what he does.

- Why is this person blessed who hears the word and does it? Because of verse 25, he looks intently, studying, learning, loving, knowing and does what God says pleases Him!

- While this is our individual responsibility to live our lives driven by the Gospel, we are not called to go through this life alone. We are one of many diverse people with different talents that make up one family!

2. Diverse people and talents, one family. Vs 3-8

- One of the most amazing things about the Gospel and the church is the diversity of its people and their talents.

- None of us are the same, none of us have the same backstory, none of us have the same training, nor do we have the same philosophy on how to do things, yet if we are all loving Christ and desiring the Gospel to go out, we can all function together in harmony!

- Paul reminds them of that in this section, he gives a warning and an encouragement,

- Vs 3

- Paul starts with a quick and direct warning that we should guard our hearts and our minds against pride.

- We should not think of ourselves as more highly then we ought to.

- Why? A few reasons, pride is a sin, but we were all the same, we are all sinners saved by God’s glorious grace, and we must not think of ourselves as too important

- He is about to address them as a family, each having a different function. He is speaking about the spiritual gifts we receive after salvation and how we only receive those in faith and by the grace of God

- If we aren’t careful we can begin to think look at me, I am such a great teacher, singer, administrator, encourager whatever your gift and forget it is not you that created that ability but it was given to you by God through His grace.

- Paul concludes that statement with each of us have been given a measure of faith. Each of us have been given a spiritual gift from God by faith in Him and we are therefore not called to do anything alone

- You aren’t called to do everything in the church yourself, the pastor isn’t called to do it all himself, and the deacons aren’t.

- Instead, look at how Paul says things should be handled.

- We should have unity in diversity.

- Vs 4-5

- Paul says look as the body is made up of many parts with a different function, they all work together to make this body work!

- We should have unity through our diversity in gifts.

- We have each been given a gift to function and serve in a specific area so the church can function as a well oiled machine.

- One gift is not more important then the other.

- This is what Paul is telling us, there are many members, but there is one body.

- The body can only function properly if every member of the body is functioning well. When one part of the body starts to break down, it affects the entire body.

- Illustration – Shoulder and shoulder surgery. Amazing how many things you use your shoulder for.

- Back to verse 3, we must not think too highly of the spiritual gift we have been or think to lowly.

- I have been given the gift of teaching or administration so therefore I am far more important to this church then anyone else.

- None of us are more important then the other and the body of Christ, the church could not function without every single gift being actively used, and growing in grace.

- Vs 6-8

- Paul then reminds them of some of the gifts they could have been given and calls them to use them!

- Why have we been given spiritual gifts? What is the purpose in the gifting of the spirit?

- It is not for our benefit, not for us to say wow, look at how great of Christians and how great our faith is. Remember verse 3

- We are not given spiritual gifts as a reward for trusting Christ. God graciously gifts and uniquely enables each believer to further the Gospel and edify the saints by exercising your gift in the local church.

- Paul then lists some of them, if service in service, if teaching, in teaching

- What is he trying to get them to see? We should actively be using and growing our spiritual gift in grace. We should be employing our gift in the church.

- We aren’t called to be saved then come sit on a chair or pew and enjoy until Jesus comes back or we die. We are called to serve Christ and His bride, the church with our spiritual gift.

- We emphasize serving a lot, I believe I have done a disservice in that a bit, we forget to emphasize why we serve. We need people to serve but we often don’t tell them why.

- First and foremost is to reach others with the Gospel of Christ. To see lives changed by the good news and to then to see people grow spiritually. To see people grow closer to Christ, but serving Christ with the gift He has given us also helps us grow in our faith.

- No one ever looks back on their life at the end and says, I wish I would have served God less.

3. Striving together to be a Christ-honoring family. Vs 9-13

- Paul then gives us quite a few ways to practically be Gospel driven. How we should live to be a Christ honoring family.

- Vs 9

- We are first to love our brothers and sisters without hypocrisy. What does Paul mean? Literally not with ulterior motives. Not to love them for what we get out of their friendship, not because of who they are or what they can offer us, but to love them sacrificially as Christ loves us

- We are to love our brothers and sisters simply because they are in Christ, not because of anything they do or don’t do. Not to overly critical of them but to love them.

- Not only should we love them, but we should “detest evil; cling to what is good.”

- We should detest every form of evil. Not the person, love the person, hate the sin, hate the evil and cling to what is good.

- Flee from evil, but stay close to what is good.

- When something in our life is evil, we should remove it and then turn to and cling to what is good. Don’t surround ourselves with evil people, wicked people but cling to the Christians and good in our lives

- Vs 10

- Paul tells us to love one another deeply. Deep rooted concern. Deep rooted love that isn’t easily moved.

- A love like Christ’s that is unmovable and not based on emotion or whether or not that person upset me, but a love that is a choice. Love is not an emotion. Love is a choice that we make. We must make the choice to love each other deeply and

- Take the lead in honoring one another. Meaning we don’t show someone honor and respect only when we feel they deserve it or when they show it to us, but we honor and respect them first.

- We

Conclusion

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[1] Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press, 1988), 436.