Romans 12:1-8 Notes
Notes
Transcript
Notes
Notes
Discipline without direction is drudgery. (Whitney, 15)
We aren’t merely to wait for holiness, we’re to pursue it. “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy,” we’re commanded in , for “without holiness no one will see the Lord.” (Whitney, 16)
We find a clear answer in : “Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness” nasb. (Whitney, 16)
The Spiritual Disciplines are the God-given means we are to use in the Spirit-filled pursuit of Godliness (Whitney, 17)
God uses means to accomplish nearly all of his puposes: sanctification is no different.
So on the one hand, we recognize that even the most iron-willed self-discipline will not make us more holy, for growth in holiness is a gift from God (, , ) (Whitney, 18)
The Spiritual Disciplines then are also like channels of God’s transforming grace (Whitney, 19)
The undisciplined are like playwright George Kaufman, who was enduring a sales pitch from a gold-mine promoter. The salesman was praising the productivity of the mine in hopes of persuading Kaufman to buy shares in it. “Why, it’s so rich you can pick up the chunks of gold from the ground.”
“Do you mean,” asked Kaufman, “I’d have to bend over?”
While Trueblood is right in calling discipline “the price” of freedom, Elisabeth Elliot reminds us that “freedom and discipline have come to be regarded as mutually exclusive, when in fact freedom is not at all the opposite, but the final reward, of discipline.” While emphasizing that discipline is the price of freedom, let us not forget that freedom is the reward of discipline. (Whitney, 23)
To introduce unconverted persons to the church, is to weaken and degrade it; and therefore an apparent gain may be a real loss. (Soul Winner, 11)
It is a serious injury to a person to receive him into the number of the faithful unless there is good reason to believe that he is really regenerate. (Soul Winner, 12)
12:1 To this head I should refer also the use of διά τινος in exhortations etc., where one seeks to strengthen his exhortation by the mention of a thing or a person held sacred by those whom he is admonishing (διά equiv. to by an allusion to, by reminding you of [cf. W. 381 (357)]): ; ; ; ; [yet cf. W. 379 (355) note]; R G.
ON THE MERCIES OF GOD (12:1)
Even our suffering is in some sense a mercy of God. For suffering, rightly understood, reveals the brokenness in this world as a result of sin, which in turn leads us to feelings of despair. But who is there to pick up the pieces of your despair? Our heavenly Father. It is his grace to you that your suffering should remind you of your sin and your brokenness and of the fact that what your sin deserves is the punishment of his wrath. Why is this grace? Because when you come to lament your sin, where is comfort to be found but in Christ Jesus our Savior? In him is found forgiveness for every transgression against a holy God, and hope for a redeemed world without suffering and death. By the grace of God alone we have this hope. No works of the flesh, no striving or intentions of our hearts can gain us such blessing. Only by seeing the reality of sin in our own lives and in this world can we we earnestly look to Christ in faith.
Breakdown of 12:1-8
12:1-2 Theology leads to Doxology; Worship is our response to knowing God
12:3-5 Worship is corporate in nature
12:6-8 The means of our worship is the gifts given to us
20 for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.
20 for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.
1 Corinthians
19 Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.
This is in the context of admonition against sexual immorality, but the principle of how we devote ourselves to God is the same.
“You are not your own”—> meaning you belong to God. You are his. So relate unto him as a servant, a slave does to his master.
Also note the significance of not belonging to ourselves. Since we belong to Christ, we belong to the body of Christ. This is what it means to be “members of each other.”
The local church is the local expression of this body. That is why membership is important. And part of membership is eschew prideful individualism and commit yourself to the accountability and care of the body of Christ, which is not only a part of your duty to Christ, but it is also part of Christ’s mercy to your soul.
Don’t waste your life living for yourself
9 All the nations you have made
will come and bow down before you, Lord,
and will honor your name.
Revelation
9 After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands.
9 And they sang a new song:
You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slaughtered,
and you purchased people
for God by your blood
from every tribe and language
and people and nation.