The Essence Of The Christian Life

Today we are going to be looking at Book of Romans, chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

If you brought a Bible, you may want to make your way there.

I'll read the passage in a minute.

If you'd like a sermon outline or borrow a Bible, just raise your hand or ushers will be happy to help you out.

Some of you are familiar with the comedian Brian Regan.

He tells a funny story about how an airline once lost his luggage.

So we went to the baggage service counter with a lot of other frustrated and angry travelers to ask where his bags were.

They told him that they were delivered to him as soon as they found him.

The service attendant then pulls out a little bag and says In the meantime, please enjoy our essentials kit.

Regan takes it.

Oh, so these are the essentials that I overpacked.

Today we're going to look at the essentials of living the Christian life.

Well, of course, we've got to start at the beginning.

The main essential is to make sure we know and have Jesus Christ in our life, as John says in his letter first letter, chapter 5, 11 to 13,.

He said this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life.

He's given it to us and this life is in his son.

He who has the son has the life, but he who does not have the son does not have the life.

These things I've written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so you may know you have eternal life.

When we believe in Jesus, god really restarts our life as a new creation.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 517.

And what Paul does in the book of Romans, chapters 1 to 11, is explain how God made our new life possible through our faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

Then, beginning in chapter 12, he explains the essentials then for living this new Christian life.

Let me read the passage we're going to look at Romans, chapter 12, verse 1,.

Romans 12:1

Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship, and don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

For through the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.

For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.

And since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly.

If prophecy according to the proportion of his faith.

If service in his serving, he who teaches in his teaching, or he who exhorts in his exhortation, or he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness.

I'm going to stop there.

After finishing his long explanation in Romans 1-11 about how the power of God in the gospel has brought salvation to the lives of those who believe in Jesus, we come to Romans 12, where Paul begins with.

The word therefore Therefore signals the compelling application for what he's talked about in the first 11 chapters.

Therefore, based on all that I've said, what does life look like?

Who is a beneficiary of God's grace in Christ?

What should our life look like if we really understood the gospel and had the Spirit of God in our life, which he's been talking about?

Paul says.

Therefore, this is what a person's life should look like if they've understood the gospel message, believed in Jesus and received the Holy Spirit.

Being in Romans, chapter 12, paul literally just crystallizes what it means to live out our new life in Christ after we believe in Him.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

As we're going to consider these eight verses, we're going to look at the essence of the Christian life, the adjustment to the Christian life and the outworking of the Christian life Three things Paul takes us through.

Paul says.

Paul doesn't waste any time getting to the actual essence of the Christian life, based on what God has done for us in Christ chapters 1 to 11.

The essence of the Christian life is being a living sacrifice to God.

That's the essence Once you know Jesus and experience His mercy and the power of the gospel in your life and receive the Holy Spirit.

This is what it should look like.

Here's the essence be a living sacrifice to God.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holding stuff to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

The Greek literally says which is your logocaine latraion.

Isn't that amazing?

Let me translate that for you.

It's hard to translate that in English.

So it comes out in these various ways Spiritual service of worship.

Here's how I would translate it Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holding stuff to God, which is your most logical response of worship.

Use the word logocaine, we get the word logic, reasonable.

This is the most reasonable response he could ask of us.

In latraion.

It simply means worshipping.

If we really understand the gospel, the mercies that God has shown us, the new life in the Holy Spirit God has given to us in Christ.

This is how we respond and live To be a living sacrifice, paul says, is the most reasonable response a believer can have.

What Paul is doing here he's drawing on and making an allusion to the Old Testament animal sacrifices, in particular the whole-burn offering.

The whole-burn offering in the Old Testament was an animal sacrifice offered to God where the whole animal was burnt up completely, signifying all of it belonged to God.

None of it went to the worshipper.

They didn't eat it, enjoy it or anything.

It was given completely to him.

The worshipper received no benefit.

Only God did so.

Like the whole-burn offering, paul is saying that the essence of the Christian life is really a total surrender of oneself to God.

Nothing held back.

All of my life is his to do as he pleases and, unlike the animal sacrifices, it is not something we do once, it's something the way Paul words.

This is something we must continually do, every day.

You know what the problem with the living sacrifices is?

Right, it keeps crawling off the altar.

In his analogy, what is Paul saying gets sacrificed?

What is he saying we put to death as a sacrifice to God?

We are putting to death the idea that we have the right to live as we choose, apart from what God thinks or desires.

That has to go to be a living sacrifice.

So what do you need to put to death in your life to live the Christian life?

What thing are you withholding from God, reserving your right to choose what you want?

You've crawled off.

Get back on Over.

What have you crawled off the altar?

According to the Apostle Paul's testimony of what it means to die as a living sacrifice, galatians 2.20 says I've been crucified with Christ.

It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

You know what the life I now live in the flesh.

I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

All of his life was given to him.

That's why I think in Romans 12 he says this is the most reasonable response Look at what God's done.

What are we holding?

What have we crawled off that altar for?

That supersedes what Jesus did for us in accomplishing our eternal redemption.

Like the burnt offering, our lives are completely given to God.

But, unlike the animal sacrifice, we don't sacrifice for the atonement for our sins, which is what the Old Testament believers were doing.

We do not need to atone for our sins.

Christ has already done that.

Another difference is that in the Old Testament, when the animal was sacrificed, the animal died.

The sacrifice was over.

But for a believer in Jesus, as a living sacrifice, that means we continue on that altar throughout the rest of our lives, our sacrifices, continually and perpetually given to God.

Our sacrifice to God is our life for the rest of our life.

Paul tells us that the essence verse-verse essence of the Christian life.

After all that he said about what Christ did for us, it only makes sense.

This response is the only thing that makes sense.

Verse-four the essence is to offer our life completely to God, to do His will, not our own anymore, but to do that.

You see, paul realizes he's had the same struggle you and I have To do that.

We're going to have to make some drastic changes in our life or be willing to, because, like I said, we keep crawling off that altar because we don't want to die.

We think we need, we've got to have that.

How will we know what we need to adjust and praise God.

Fortunately, god has given us the resources we need to do just that To learn what adjustments we need to make and how to live the new life God has given us in Jesus.

Paul continues to tell us that living the Christian life as a living sacrifice doesn't just involve external behavioral modifications, just become more religious.

No, that's never going to work and this is where Paul revisits really the truth of the gospel.

In the same way we cannot save ourselves, so also we cannot live the Christian life in our own power and resources.

We cannot Simple fact till we get that, we're never going to live the Christian life the way God intends.

Just like our salvation, our change begins on our inside, not our outside.

Jesus comes into our heart.

All of a sudden we've got new life.

We need to undergo, paul says, the process of inner transformation in order to live the Christian life.

Romans 12, verse 2.

Romans 12:2

Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, these adjustments you need to make and that which is good and acceptable and perfect, maturing, real change.

Transformation begins in our hearts, our minds.

I want you to notice something very important in that verse Just the verbs do not be conformed, but be transformed.

They're both passive verbs, which means the subject, us.

We're the ones being acted upon by something else, not us.

We're not doing it.

We're not doing the conforming or the transforming, we're being acted upon.

So first, how are we being passively conformed to the world?

I'll tell you how.

Just by doing nothing, you're already conforming, already.

Are All of us are.

We can't help it.

We're in the world, we are being conformed to this world and we don't even realize it.

Sometimes it's happening to us.

We're being acted upon.

You doubt it.

Let me ask you this the last time you were in really some adverse difficulty, how did you respond?

In trusting God fully or being anxious and upset and fearful?

And what do you value most in life?

Is it the kingdom of God, perhaps the great, firstest kingdom?

What gives you the greatest pleasure in life?

Is it the presence of God's joy or something else?

What makes you the most upset?

Where's your joy?

You don't think you're being conformed.

You are being and me are being conformed.

Our minds, our hearts, things we value, things we think about can't help it.

We're immersed in it.

We're being conformed.

Paul says OK, recognize this and don't be conformed to the world.

How do we do that?

Because we've got to be transformed.

Something has to happen in that spiritual dynamic.

Just by being in the world system, the world system and spirit is molding our hearts and minds into a godless and ungodly image.

We need to be aware of that.

Do you know what Jesus said about us in the world?

John 17 and his high priestly prayer.

Before he goes to the cross, he's praying to the Father and he says I do not ask you to take them out of the world.

Yeah, let's go, just live as hermits in the woods and forget about the world.

We'll cut ourselves off and be totally off the grid.

Then we won't make a vow oh, you'll still be conformed to the world.

I don't ask you to take them out, just keep them from evil the evil one.

They're not of the world.

If you believe in Jesus, you become part of his kingdom.

They're not of the world, even as I am not of the world, and here's what he says.

Here's what I'm asking you to do.

They're in the world.

Sanctify them in the truth.

There it is.

That's what Paul's getting out in verse 2, romans 12.

Sanctify them in the truth.

As you sent me into the world, so I'm sending them.

See, as believers in Jesus, our minds and hearts can be transformed by God's Holy Spirit as we interact with His Word, the truth.

He renews our minds as we receive God's Word deeply in our hearts, not just in our heads.

This is a fallacy I think a lot of us Christians get into.

We think, well, I'm reading, I'm reading away, I'm studying it.

Understand what this word means.

Head knowledge doesn't go far enough.

It's just information.

Has anything changed in the way you think, in the way you desire anything as you interact with the Word?

Head knowledge doesn't go far enough.

Heart knowledge here's heart knowledge means that the Holy Spirit helps us to see in God's Word what God wants to do in us, resulting in our transformation.

I'm going to say that again because this is how the spiritual dynamic works.

It's not just a matter of reading the Scripture, the interaction with the Holy Spirit to our eyes, to our hearts, is what's going to make the difference when we realize oh, that's where God's speaking to me.

Heart knowledge means the Holy Spirit is helping us see in God's Word what God wants to do in us, in us, resulting in the transformation being transformed.

He does it Now, renewing our minds, as Paul talks about.

It, is something we get ourselves involved in.

It takes place gradually as we encounter and immerse ourselves in God's Word, our in God's Word.

We're giving the Holy Spirit an opportunity to speak to us personally.

I'm going to tell you there will be no internal change whatsoever if we're not in this.

First of all, the Holy Spirit is going to take this and make it something God wants us to see and know and do in us.

There's going to be no internal change without this, no internal transformation without this.

The Word of God.

You see, god has given it to us and it's different from every other book in the entire world and there are lots of books out there.

The Word of God has a powerful.

God has made it so to have a powerful life-changing effect on those who really hear it and receive it.

Let me give you a couple of verses that talk about that.

Hebrews, chapter 4, verses 12 and 13,.

Hebrews 4:12

For the Word of God speaking of this, the Bible is living.

God, moses called it our life.

God has inspired this, breathed life through it to us.

The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-way sword piercing as far as the division.

Now listen to me.

It's going to pierce the division of soul and spirit.

It's not going to just stay up here If we're really listening and receiving the Word of God.

It's going to hit here.

What does this mean?

This means it's something I need to look at, just the information.

This is something God has sucked into me about.

It pierces the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Notice, this is not just a vision.

It's just about head, knowledge or external modification.

What's going on in here?

What's going on in here?

How are we thinking?

What are we valuing?

What do we love most?

God wants to get to those things.

It's where our transformation needs to take place.

There's no creature hidden from His sight.

All things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him, with whom we have to do and notice.

If we're not in this, we've lost the very thing God intends to use to help us be transformed.

Here's another verse.

I love this 1 Thessalonians, 2, verse 13.

1 Thessalonians 2:13

Paul says for this reason we also constantly thank God that when you receive the Word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the Word of men, but as for what it really is the Word of God.

Listen to this which performs its work in you, who believe that's what God intends.

It's in you personally.

That's where the transformation is.

You're not going to get there without this or without listening ear to the Holy Spirit as you do, you won't get there.

You'll continue to be conformed.

Paul says don't be conformed.

You have to be involved in this process.

We have to make adjustments to the Christian life.

It is not a natural life to us, it's supernatural.

It's totally counterintuitive to how we've learned things in the world.

You see, you can change external behaviors by your own willpower and discipline.

You can do that.

Problem is, you are the same.

You cannot change the inner motives and desires of your heart apart from God's work in you through encounters with Him in His Word.

Can't do it and I speak from personal experience.

I'm an expert at external behavior modification, pretty disciplined guy, you know I go work out, feel pretty good.

But I can tell you, when God shows me, my bitter spirit, my critical spirit, my unforgiving attitude, whoa, it'll last a while.

I need His help.

I'm listening.

I can't tell you how many times I've been in the Word and just convicted to my bottom of my feet.

That's me.

You got me Remember one time.

I'm reading the Word and praying and I said okay, lord, what's going on here?

I don't get it.

Why am I so anxious?

Upset, lord was very patient.

I'm reading a passage and you know what the Lord was saying to me.

You want to know why you're so anxious.

And I said yeah, you're so proud, you're just one, you're way.

Why don't you give it to me?

Ah, yeah, living sacrifice.

Okay, Give it to you.

And he took away my pride.

I'm like, I feel so much better.

Now let's say we do that Verses 1 and 2,.

We're on the altar, we're in His Word, we're listening to the Spirit and he's pointing out things.

Yes, that's me, that's me, and the Spirit's given us the power and encouragement to make some adjustments.

What does that look like?

Well, that's what Paul talks about next.

The first outward sign of God's gracious, transforming work is a new sense of humility.

Whoa, I'm not so big as I thought I was.

I got issues.

I'm a broken person.

Romans 12-3.

For through the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than you ought to think.

Think as if sound judgment has.

God has allotted to him a measure of faith.

First thing, out of the chute, are you being transformed?

Are you experiencing a greater humility in your life?

That happens when we've understood what came before the, therefor we really understand God's grace.

We don't deserve God's favor.

We deserve just the opposite.

We don't deserve what we think we deserve.

Jesus even said to that you think those guys are worse sinners than you guys.

That's a new disciple.

Jesus took our judgment so we, because of him, could receive God's favor.

Grace.

I love what theologian Jack Miller once said.

The Gospel says we are more sinful and flawed than we ever dared believed, yet more loved and accepted in Jesus than we ever dared hoped.

That's it.

That's the Gospel.

Second outward sign Paul talks about is the sign of God's transforming work in our lives a desire to be a functioning part of God's new community Humility and community, verses four and five.

For just as we have many members in one body and all members are united in the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, individually members of one another.

We begin to realize, as we've experienced God's grace, that life is not just about us.

There are others.

We become part of a new family.

We're not just a new creation, we're part of a new household of faith that God urges us to connect in.

The third outward sign of God's gracious transforming work is a new sense of responsibility, six through eight.

And we've got gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.

And you know what.

We're to exercise those gifts for the sake of the body.

And he talks about prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, giving leading mercy, all of them.

We have a responsibility.

God's grace and blessing is not just for us.

It is for us, but that's where it starts.

He wants us to be a blessing to our other brothers and sisters.

So these three things, I think, is where Paul starts and he continues, and I only had time to do the first eight verses.

But humility, community, responsibility are the outworkings of what God begins to do in us so we surrender our life to him and set our minds on his word.

There are three great things to kind of look at in our own lives.

What's my relationship to these three things?

Am I allowing God to meet me in my mind and heart, to make me the kind of person that he wants me to be?

Our spiritual senses, our inner life, needs to be transformed so that we'll live.

This is what Paul says, as we're a living sacrifice.

And then we are being transformed.

If you look at the end of verse two and here's why so you can understand you and I can understand what we know God wants us to do that is good and acceptable and right on, right on.

This is what he wants from us.

This is what he wants me to do.

But warning if we are a person who tends to crawl off the altar from time to time, okay, we're never gonna get to the transforming part.

We're off the altar, we're off the grid, we're off the spiritual how, the Holy Spirit's grid.

If we crawl off the altar and we spend less time in God's Word, we stop growing on the inside and soon we're all the way back to learning the essentials of the Christian life again.

God just doesn't pick us up where we thought we were.

Oh, we really advanced on it.

No, no, no, you're gonna go all the way back.

Let's see if you get this now.

Living sacrifice yep, I'm being conformed, but I don't wanna be conformed.

So, word of God, spirit of God transforming, speaking to me in my heart and my mind.

So, oh yeah, hebrews 5, 11 to 14, writer says concerning him, and he's talking about Melchizedek.

He says we have much to say and it's hard to explain, since you become dull of hearing.

Hearing what?

Hearing God's Word?

He's talking to believers.

For, though, by this time you ought to be teachers.

You need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you're back to needing milk, not solid food.

Everyone who partakes of milk, see, is not accustomed to this.

He's an infant.

But solid food is for the mature who, because of practice, they're making progress, they're growing, they're seeing what God wants to do in them and they're responding to that.

By practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

Did you hear this?

We don't just stop growing, we retreat ABC's all over again.

Let's start again.

Romans 12, 1, living sacrifice Can you put yourself on the altar.

I'm telling you, this is heavy duty stuff.

Living out the Christian life does not come naturally to us.

It never will really.

But to do it begins with surrender.

As our hearts and minds then are transformed by the Word of God, as we are led by the Spirit of God, the Christian life begins to do what it's supposed to do, do what it was designed to do.

You know what that is.

Our life begins to show the presence of Jesus in us.

That's the end game.

You can't live out Romans 12, though, without understanding what Paul has taught in Romans 1 to 11.

And what is that?

You know where he begins?

You gotta recognize we're all sinners, every last one of us, the righteous and the wicked, pagans and Jews.

We're all sinners.

But God loves us so much he sent His Son to die in atonement for our sins.

Romans 3, 21, and 23.

But now, apart from the law of righteousness of God, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.

Even the righteousness of God through faith in Christ Jesus for all those who believe, for there's no distinction All have sin, fall short of the glory of God, but when we believe in Jesus, god justifies us.

He declares us except my son's judgment on your behalf for your sins.

And now you are clear.

He justifies us.

We're at peace with God.

We receive His Holy Spirit.

This is in Romans 5.

Therefore, having been justified by faith in Jesus, we have peace with God through our Lord, jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace which we stand and we exalt in the hope and glory of God.

The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us While we were still helpless.

At the right time.

Christ died for the ungodly.

Here, at the end of those 11 chapters Romans, chapter 10, whoever believes in Jesus and calls on his name will be saved.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

If you declare with your mouth Jesus is Lord, that means basically is I believe Jesus is the Messiah, my Savior, who died and rose again.

If you believe and confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that he raised him from the dead, you will be saved, for it is with your heart that you believe and are justified.

Notice he didn't say head.

Get this in your head.

You'll be just in your heart.

God wants to go deep.

The you who's really you Is with your heart you believe and are justifies with your mouth that you profess.

Romans 10, though 12 and 13,.

There's no difference between Jew and Gentile or anybody.

The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses those who call on Him.

And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Everyone who does that.

Have you ever done that, lord, save me.

Through Jesus Christ, my Savior, I open my heart to Him to come into my life.

Have you ever done that?

I urge you to do it.

It's the only way.

And if you've done that, paul is telling us when he starts Romans 12, the most reasonable response a believer in Jesus can have is to surrender as a living sacrifice to God to please Him fully, completely, for the rest of our lives.

You're going to be tempted to crawl off that altar.

Get right back on when God shows you hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, get back up here.

Give that to me, die to that.

You want joy.

I'm telling you it's there.

Let us pray.

Father, thank you today for Paul's words here in the book of Romans, all about how you accomplished our salvation through your son, jesus Christ and Lord.

We acknowledge we are not worthy.

It is only by your grace that we've come to even understand what you did for us in love.

It's only by your grace that we continue to live.

And now that you've made us part of your family, now that you've given us your Holy Spirit to lead, guide and comfort and help us, would you help us understand how we can best be that living sacrifice?

It's different for all of us, all of us.

Our altars look different, but you're going to have to show us, lord.

You're the one who has to transform us.

We can't just be a different person by outward behavior.

You have to make it happen from our inner core, through our minds, our hearts, giving us the desires from you.

Help us to do that, lord.

We pray.

Jesus' name is in it.