Living Sacrifice

When it comes down to this weekend we are going to look at what the cost we as believers face as being disciples of Christ, God is good and through every single thing that we go through in life we have to remember that God is faithful. God continues to move even when things are not always the easiest but what does that mean for us and how for us and how do we live our lives sacrificially.

Romans 12:1–2 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. 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.

Faith through our Living

Romans 12:1 “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.”

There is something so important here that we see throughout the Scriptures that God showed his unbending mercies to every single one of us who have accepted the gift of the Holy Spirit and through this we see that throughout the whole of the beginning of the the book of Romans.

Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 12

12:1 Therefore Indicates a key transition in the letter. What follows appears in light of the preceding content of 1:18–11:36. Paul urges his audience to respond to the message of the gospel as he explained in the letter.

Romans 1:21–25 “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”

Romans 2:1–5 “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”

Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 12

mercies of God Refers to the undeserved kindness God shows toward sinners—one of Paul’s main themes so far in the letter.

It shows this throughout the who of the book leading up to this point because of the fact that we even us today turn back and forth away from God and even though we do not deserve any of what God has given to us he has through his mercies and loving kindness far beyond anything we could have ever understand or truly see because for us it is not easy to wrap our minds around this idea.

Now what does this fully mean though for us to living sacrificially the Bible explains this throughout the whole from Genesis all the way to Revelation yet we still do not understand it. We are seeing that we are being called to live holy and acceptable to God not being like the world which we will touch on in a moment but that is the life God calls us to live daily, Jesus throughout the Gospels, and Paul through the works of the Holy Spirit through him continued to show and examine what it means to live holy in this world.

Romans A. The Exhortation to Personal Sacrifice (12:1–2)

12:1. This verse is one of the most important in all the Bible, and contains more key theological terms and truths for its size than perhaps any other verse of Scripture. Having completed his explanation of sin, salvation, sanctification, and sovereignty, Paul now does to the Roman believers, in a manner of speaking, what the Holy Spirit does in our lives—he urges the Rome believers to act on the truth they have received. I urge you is the translation of parakaleo (to urge, call, exhort, encourage), from which is derived the noun parakletos, or paraclete. This is the term Jesus used to refer to the promised Holy Spirit who would come to the disciples after his ascension into heaven (

When looking at this passage I saw that there needs to have an understanding that we do not always look at and examine enough when it comes to being a disciple of Christ and that really is the end of the passage where Paul calls us to do these things unto God for this is our spiritual worship.

Worship of the Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength

Romans 12:2 “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.”

One of the most importance aspects of the Scriptures is reminding the reader and those who were there during the time of the Old and New Testament that we are not to follow the things and people of this world but to be faith to God in our lives being transformed every day to be more like Jesus. This passage connects with various passages throughout Scripture give us the reminded to live our lives differently from that of the world and this one is no different.

Romans A. The Exhortation to Personal Sacrifice (12:1–2)

12:2a. The person who has truly sacrificed himself or herself to God will be distinguished by one overriding characteristic that informs the rest of life. That characteristic is the unwillingness to be conformed to the pattern of this world.

Paul throughout many of his letters gives the reader a reminder of what they and those in the world today that the world around us is evil and filled with much darkness.

Romans A. The Exhortation to Personal Sacrifice (12:1–2)

Paul elsewhere calls this age “evil” (

Something that comes up when you are thinking of the ways of the world and how many people view these sinful acts of the what so many people have done and through this we overlook some of the wickedness of the world around us while speaking of the wickedness that we seem to think of as worse then another. However, this is something that I am thinking about when I have looked over this passage even though we not think about it one way or another could find ourselves conforming one way or another to the ways of this world. The reason I say this is because I see so many believers or those that say they are a believer fall into the ways of wickedness of the world and did not even realize it.

There is a Psalm or many different parts of the Old Testament that focused on this very idea of not being in the ways of the world and not allowing the world to get in the way of the discipleship we should be having with God and not with the “gpd” the devil of this world. This passage is Psalm 1.

Psalm 1 ESV

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Now do not be confused by this passage we should have friends that are non-believers because that is a way for us to minister to them, but this is the big part of this passage which is talking about the fellowship between us and who, who are you fellowshiping with today? That is part of the bigger question for this weekend.

This idea of renewing our minds is something that we need to have in our hearts today do you have a renewal of your mind today, are you giving everything you have today to God to not fall into the trap of the world around you today?

Romans A. The Exhortation to Personal Sacrifice (12:1–2)

12:2b. But how exactly is the renewing to take place? What is to “fuel” the metamorphosis that takes place in the believer’s life? Transformation (“conformation” to the image of Christ) happens when the renewed mind begins to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. It is the will of God—his standards, his desires, his motives, his values, his practices—which gradually pull the monarch butterfly of the believer out of the world’s cocoon into which he or she has been squeezed.

This renewal is so much more then we have to sit down and read or pray all day but what we need to do within our lives but while we read the Scriptures we pray behindhand to allow the Lord to move within His words so that they will move within us even if they are just the book of Numbers or something that we feel like it is nothing important every single word from the Bible is important and from the Lord and that is why we need to pray behindhand but also with that we need to take what we see within Scripture to know what the will of God is throughout our lives. We are giving so much of our lives to things that we do not need to or follow others, listening to every other voice but while we are praying we for so many times do not allow God to speak to us but do all the speaking and that is the challenge for your prayers this week I want you to take that this weekend and for one test the will of God and second do not speak with every minute of your prayers but to listen to what God is trying to say to you within that time.

Before we finish today I want to add something that we went over eariler because I know how important it is within this weekend and the weeks to come after Sunday that we all will give it to God everyday and to be transformed by the ways of these words today.

Romans: An Introduction and Commentary 1. The Living Sacrifice (12:1–2)

Be transformed. The same verb (metamorphoō) is rendered ‘transfigured’ in the transfiguration narratives of

Take this passage with you today as you go to your host homes and for those of you who may not believer in God today and have not yet given your lives to the Lord I want you to take a minute and listen up. Take these words with you as well as the words we will be going through every lesson and the sermon we will go through on Saturday with you as we beginning this evening and yes have fun and have a good time this weekend but I have to ask this final question before the band comes up. What is holding you back today from giving your lives to God? What is stopping you from taking this step to follow God with all your hearts, minds, souls, and strengths.