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Could we be treating fellow Christians like second-class believers over food, holidays, clothing, or old religious customs? Romans 14 confronts our impulse to judge and reminds us that we all belong to Christ—not to one another’s rulebooks. We are called to welcome weaker believers, pursue biblical conviction rather than mere tradition, and live every decision for the Lord. Since each of us will give Christ an account, are you ready to learn how to treat your fellow sisters and brothers? Listen to today’s message, transcription available.
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Outline
I. Mercies Motivate — We give ourselves to God because of His mercy. II. Bodies Offered — We present ourselves as living sacrifices. III. World Resisted — We refuse to be conformed to the world. IV. Minds Renewed — We are transformed by changing how we think. V. Will Revealed — We learn and live out God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will. (Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Romans chapter 12. Now as we've been studying through the book of Romans, the first 11 chapters, to be honest, they're kind of tough to handle. There's a lot of things that are spoken of that we really have to delve deep in to understand, but that's because it's mostly doctrine. It's mostly telling us, it's 11 chapters are basically saying this. The Jews had their chance and they messed up, so the Gentiles got a chance now, but the truth is, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. In fact, last week we looked at verse 32 of chapter 11. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all. Now starting in chapter 12 for the rest of the book, it's more of a instruction manual, how to live when you've accepted that mercy of God, how to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Now being a disciple is different than just being a believer. You can be a believer without being a disciple, but you can't be a disciple without being a believer. There's a lot of people that say, yeah, I believe in God, but the way they live, somebody once termed it was Christian atheism. Christian atheism is you say you believe there's a God, but you live like there isn't. But God wants us to be disciples. And here in this first two verses, it starts off informing us some of the things that we need to put into our life and understand so we can be good disciples, good followers, good learners of God. Let's read the first two verses of chapter 12, and then we'll dissect them a little bit. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. These are great verses. I think sometimes we ought to read these on a regular basis to remind us. Notice he starts off, I beseech you, therefore, brethren. That's Paul saying, I urge you, I exhort you. What I'm going to tell you is important. Notice it's not a command, but it's an exhortation. It's not something that he says, you have to do this or you'll lose your salvation. It's something that you have to do this because of your salvation. And he calls them brethren. So we know these verses are not written to anybody except for those who are brothers and sisters in Christ. Brethren. He also writes it by the mercies of God. That word by really means through or because of. The things that we do to become disciples are because of the mercies of God. As we just read before, that God considered everybody in unbelief so he could show his mercy on us. That word mercy. Great, great word. Just means to have compassion. God had compassion on us. Because we could have all died and gone to hell. But because of Jesus Christ, he showed his compassion. Because of Jesus Christ, he showed his grace. And through our faith, we've trusted him. And we know we have eternal life. But unfortunately, friends, we have to live today. And if you read the papers or watch the news or just gained your information somewhere else, this is a sinful world we're living in. Somebody said once, if God doesn't do something soon, he has to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. It's that bad. But the thing is, is what the world will try to tell you is you need to go along to get along. If you try to tell anybody what you do is against the word of God, you're being judgmental. I find it fascinating. You tell somebody, a friend or a family member, somebody else something that they're doing you know is extremely sinful, you say, God says that's sinful. They'll tell you that you're a hater, that you don't love people. You're being judgmental. Well, just by them telling you you're a hater, they're being judgmental towards you. Seems kind of ironic, doesn't it? But instead, God wants us to live a life that shines. Live a life that's different. That's why he says, because of the mercies of God, first of all, you present your bodies a living sacrifice. That's the first step in being a disciple, presenting your bodies a living sacrifice. Just think about sacrifices, especially the Jewish sacrifices. They brought an animal, tell them you're not home. You bring an animal and you offer it up. But here's the thing, once you give that animal to be offered as a sacrifice, you no longer have control over that sacrifice. And that sacrifice has no control over itself. But the thing is, it's a once and done sacrifice, a dead sacrifice. Once it's offered, that's it. But what God wants from you, he wants you to be a living sacrifice. He wants you to give yourself to him voluntarily, by choice, to be used by him for his purpose. A living sacrifice. That's why I believe in Jesus. We read in Matthew some verses, it's also in Luke, in Luke 9, 23, he said to them all, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me. That's what a living sacrifice is. It's a choice you have to make. I'm going to give my whole self to God today. And then tomorrow, you got to do it again. Every day, we offer a living sacrifice to God. A sacrifice that is daily occurrence. The sacrifice where we give ourselves to him. In Romans 6, 13, it says, neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. When we give ourselves over to be a living sacrifice, we're giving ourselves over to live like Christ. To walk around clothed in his righteousness. And that's kind of hard. I understand. Depending on where you work and the people you're around, you start trying to live Christ-like, the first thing they do is going to make fun of you. They made fun of Jesus. The first thing they're going to do is any supposed thing that you do that doesn't match their idea of Christianity, they're going to say, well, if you were a good Christian, then you would do this. That's okay. They told Jesus the same thing. He ate with sinners and publicans. And they said, see, you're just like them. No, he didn't eat with them to be like them. He ate with them to show that they could be like him. So it also tells us in first Peter 2, 5, you as lively stones are build up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Christ Jesus. We are to be a living sacrifice, a daily choice you make, a choice that will change your life. Maybe not at first, but you'll start to feel more joy. You'll start to feel more contentment. The more you walk with Jesus, the more you give yourself as a living sacrifice. But it also tells us you present your body as a living sacrifice, holy. That's H-O-L-Y, not W-H-O-L. It's also W-H-O-L-Y, a living sacrifice, all of you, but it's also a holy sacrifice. And this holiness really has three different ideas. You know, when God tells us to be holy, one of the things he wants us to do is to be pure. To be holy means to be pure, to be physically pure, to keep from sin, to keep from lust, to keep from doing any of those things. The world will tell you something different. God says be holy. Be holy for what? For I am holy. Now, I always say this. I'm going to repeat it. When it says be holy, it doesn't mean be holier than now. It means be holy, be pure. Just like Jesus was pure, outwardly sinless. But it also means to be morally pure. That's the inward part, to know that you are set apart, to know that you are pure within. There's a lot of people pretend to be Christians, but if you could read their mind, you'd go, what are you thinking? He wants us to be pure, not on the outside only, but also on the inside, to be set apart, to be pure as he is pure. And how do we do that? We do it through the word of God. And we do it by allowing the Holy Spirit that dwells within us to guide us, direct us. I don't know about you, but if you're on the internet, if you're on TV or anything, suddenly these images pop up that your mind wants to drift to something impure. Don't let it. If you do temporarily sin through the lust of the flesh and the lust of the mind, just instantly say, Lord, forgive me. A good idea would be, Lord, forgive me and take those images out of my mind. That's being morally pure, knowing instantly that you've sinned, knowing instantly you need to request forgiveness for that sin. That can be hard. But the thing is, it's possible. Because you made yourself a living sacrifice, now you need to be holy. But it also means to be what I call ceremonially holy. In other words, set apart for God's use. That's what holiness also means, to be set apart for God's use. Remember, have you ever studied the old tabernacle? You walk in, you got the table to show bread, and you got the light stand over here, and you got the altar of incense. Those things, they were inanimate, but they were called holy objects to God. Why was that? Because they were used specifically by God for his purpose. But what happened if somebody, in moving the, say, table to show bread, dropped it and got it all dirty? Oh no, it's no longer holy because now it's all messed up. You know what they did? They cleaned it up, and they rededicated it to God, and now it once again become holy. Now knowing that, 1 John 1.9 gives us a verse that says, if you confess your sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to what? Cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It literally means if you sin, you confess it, he'll forgive you and return you back to that holy function he has planned for you. A believer can always be used by God. Sometimes believers will sin. Sometimes they will do things that in their mind, especially Satan, will come upon them and say, God doesn't love you. God can't use you anymore. You're done. That's a lie, a lie directly from Satan. Now, just to clarify, there are some sins that you can do that will disqualify you from some of the things God may have wanted you to do, but he will always use you in some other place. Does that make sense? All right. Plan B. God's got a plan B. You say, well, what do you mean? Well, let's say, oh, heaven forbid, you have somebody in church that likes to work with the children, likes to work in BBS and stuff, but for some reason, whether it's his fault or not, her fault or not, they get accused of child molestation or child whatever. You don't want them working with your kids anymore, because not only is that a bad thing for God, it's a bad thing for the church, but God will have something else for them to do once they sought forgiveness and got help and things like that. God can use them someplace else, but not in the same place. God wants to use you. Why? Because you should be holy, set apart. Now, what's the next one? A living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. That means as you're doing your holiness, it should be something that's acceptable to God. There's a lot of people, and you probably know some of them, that say they're good church goers or they're good Christians or they're good holy people, but man, you listen to them talk, gossip, gossip, gossip, judgmental, judgmental, judgmental. That's not acceptable to God. That's not a way to be holy. We need to do what is acceptable to God. How do we know what's acceptable to God? Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit and His word. Amen? If someone tries to tell you something that's not here, that doesn't match with this, don't do it. Because God's given us 66 books, and to me, that's enough to try to follow. Why would I want something else? So we need to be acceptable unto God, to be an acceptable sacrifice, to be what God wants you to be and not what you want to be. And that's a big thing. You know, we see the advertisement, be what you want to be. No, you need to be what God wants you to be. If God wants you to be a multimillionaire, God knows you can handle being a multimillionaire. But if God knows that if you start becoming a multimillionaire, that you'll never fellowship with other believers anymore and you'll start falling into other vices and sins, God doesn't want you there. Where you are is where God wants you. When you give yourself over as a living sacrifice. Because once you, just like a dead sacrifice, once the sacrifice is offered, and in the Old Testament, the high priest took it, once the high priest had it, the person who offered it had no control over what was going to happen. Only the priest and God did. And when you give your bodies as a living sacrifice to God, you give up total control of what you need to do and want to do. You give it to God. You let God decide what you're going to do. You let God decide where you're going to go. You say, well, how do I do that? How about a little prayer? How about listening to the Holy Spirit? Many times, people end up doing what they want to do, Christians, and then they become dissatisfied. They become bitter or angry. And it says that when you give your bodies a living sacrifice, when you are holy, acceptable to God, that is your reasonable service. Service means worship or service. It's reasonable. It's just logical. You're saying, well, wait a minute. It sounds pretty unreasonable to me. Me, give total control to God? Yeah. God says that's just reasonable. That's just what you should be doing. Don't fight it. Do it. Now, the next verse helps us to understand all of these things. Verse two, and be not conformed to this world. Conformed means to be fashioned or to have the same pattern. Don't, as a Christian, don't try to match your life to what the world thinks you should be. Don't be conformed to the world. First John, chapter two, verse 15. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that's in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. The world's always trying to make Christians more like them. In fact, sadly, there's a lot of Christian churches that have decided to have worldly standards in order to attract more people. God don't like that, I don't think. You get a lot of people, but on the other hand, what do you attract them to? Worldly things. And if you start convincing people that, yeah, this is a worldly thing, but we're doing it for God, then that gives them permission to do whatever they want to and say, well, it must be from God. But God has standards. Don't be conformed to this world. The world says, well, it's okay if you dress the way you want to dress. And by that, I mean, it's getting to be summertime, folks. Both men and women walking around half naked is not, I believe, the way God wanted us to be. I mean, Adam and Eve tried that just a little bit. They had just a few fig leaves. God says, that's not good enough. I'm going to sew you a bigger garment out of a sheepskin. Just something to think about. The world says, it's okay to go wherever you want to as long as you still worship God. It's just like in the old world when Christianity first started. They say, if you want to work here, you have to worship this God. If you want to be in this, what do you call it, guilds, I think Peter said, or like unions. If you want to be in that, you had to worship a certain God. Some good Christians lost a lot of jobs because they were not worshiping any other God but Jehovah. But the world says, well, it's just a job. You don't have to mean what you say. Wait, if you don't mean what you're saying, that's called lying, right? It's called being a hypocrite. And God doesn't want us to be hypocrites in order to satisfy the world just so we can get along and not have any problems. But sometimes we do. We've got to be very careful about that. So be not conformed to the world. If you're giving yourself a living sacrifice, it's not like the world. If you're trying to live like the world and talk like the world, it's just not the way to be. Ephesians chapter four, it says that you put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lust and be renewed in the spirit of your mind that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness. That's why it says we're to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Transformed means to change. Literally, it's the word, the word we have for metamorphosis is the word they use here to be transformed. How do we do it? By the renewing of your mind. Here's a great truth. If you're a believer and the Holy Spirit dwells within you, you cannot be possessed by the devil. Unbelievers can, but a believer can't because the Holy Spirit's within you and the devil tries to possess you. The Holy Spirit says, uh-uh. The way the devil messes with you is with your mind, by the things you see and you start thinking and it'll start you thinking different. But this says in order to be a living sacrifice, in order to be holy, you need to renew your mind. Start thinking differently. That's your whole thing. That's your intellect, your will, your emotions, everything. Start thinking differently. Start thinking like God, amen? Think like God does so you can change, transform by the renewing of your mind. And when you start thinking differently and start thinking like God, then we'll start putting things away that we used to think were okay. Let's see if any of these hit home with you. Ephesians 4, 25 to 29. Wherefore, put away lying. Speak every man truth with his neighbor. If we are members, one of another. Be ye angry, but sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Neither give place to the devil. Let him that steal, steal no more. But rather let him labor, working with his hands a thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that need it. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to edify. That means building up. That it may minister grace to the hearers. See, that's where we start to change. Things that the world used to say was okay, God says it's not okay. You can change. You've got to start with thinking. I know we'll all be tempted sometimes. That part about lying. Oh, yeah, yeah. You're with a coworker, and they may ask you some question. There's always a loaded question. And you'll be tempted to lie. Or with a husband, or with a wife, or with a family member. They'll ask you a question. And you want to be kind. You want to be honest. But you don't want to hurt their feelings. That's when you really need the Holy Spirit working in you to give you the right answer. You know what I mean? And he will. A little quick prayer. Lord, give me the right answer, but also allow them to accept it graciously. That always helps. And I like the part about let him that steal, steal no more. But let him work so that those who do have needs, not those that won't work, those who do have needs, you can help not only yourself and your family, but help those that have needs. But the government's already taken that over, and it messed it all up. They decided to give it to whoever wanted it. But really, Scripture says, no, if you can work, you should what? Work. And then you can help other people. So be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So why do we not want to be conformed to the world, doing what the world does? No matter what it is, if God says no, the answer is no. Instead, change our mind, our thinking. Why should we do that? For the very last part, that you may prove, that means test, what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God? You want to know, everybody, every believer always says, you know, when you start talking about the will of God, they'll go, I don't know what the will of God is in my life. Well, if you give your life over as a sacrifice, if you become holy, if you don't become conformed to the world, and you start transforming your mind, then you'll know what the will of God is for your life. It doesn't just happen. There's things that you have to do first. Many times when you find out what the will of God is for your life, you're going to go, wow, wow. I know a lot of missionaries, and a lot of missionaries that have gone to the field, when they were growing up in high school and stuff, you said you're going to be a missionary to Timbuktu. They go, no, I'm not. I'm going to be wealthy. God changed it. But there's a lot of people that thought, I'm always going to be a missionary, but God changed it and put them someplace else. See, when you give your life over to God and over to his control, when you're determined to be holy and change your mind and the way you think, to think like God, God will definitely show you what the will is, that good will. That means that which benefits somebody, either yourself or somebody else. Perfect will, complete. What was the third one? Acceptable, what God wants. It's not what you want. It's what God wants. And many times when we see what God's will is for our life, we ask ourselves, oh, Lord, is this really? You've got to be kidding me. But God wants to use each and every one of us that's a believer. Do you believe that? Say amen. Will he use you the way you want to? Eh, sometimes. But the bottom line is it takes a choice on your part to get to where God will show you what he wants from you. You need to become a living sacrifice, give God control. Part of that is being holy, both in your mind and in your actions. To not be conformed to the world, but be transformed, changed by the renewing of your mind. Start thinking like God does. Doesn't Scripture say we have the mind of Christ? We need to put that in action in our lives. What the world needs to see is believers who are living what the book teaches. Not what we hope it says, what it really says. Let's be those believers. Let's be that part of God's family that says, from this point on, God, you have control of my life. Let the Holy Spirit work within me. If I sin, Lord, forgive me. If I've been conformed to the world in any way, Lord, show me what that is. Whether it's the lust of the flesh, or the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life. And by the way, if you're wondering some examples on that, read the instance where Jesus went to the wilderness and a devil tried to work on him. Because those three things, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, are the same three types of sin that the devil tried to tempt Jesus with. That's your homework assignment. Let's bow our heads. As a believer, first of all, I hope you are a believer. I hope you have trusted Jesus Christ by faith. You believe that He died to your sins, that He rose the third day. You believe that He did it for you. And if you believe that, do you consider yourself a disciple, a follower, a learner of Jesus Christ? Not just a believer, but actively working on becoming a disciple, a true learner. When you follow God's will, He'll allow you to know it's your will. You'll work together, but then you'll find joy, you'll find peace, you'll find fullness of life. Before we pray, think about what Peter said in 1 Peter 4-2, talking about a believer, that he no longer shall live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lust of men, but to the will of God. We decide we take these verses and put it in our lives so we will know and follow the will of God. Let's all pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, just two simple verses with so many truths. Help each one of us here, Lord, first of all, to be assured that they know Jesus Christ as their Savior. And then, Lord, to be determined that we will be disciples. We will give our life over as a living sacrifice each and every day. We will, Lord, not be conformed to the world, but we'll allow our minds to be transformed so that we can live the way you want us to live, that we can share your word with other people and show them that the love of God expands to everybody. Help us, Lord, to be the kind of believers, the kind of disciples that you desire us to be, Lord. Use us in service. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.
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