Becoming a Romans 12 Christian, Part I
Romans 12:1-2
• Very few passages in the Bible so encapsulate the Christian life in one chapter as well as Romans 12.
• Very few believers are living a Romans 12 life today.
• It really does take effort and a single minded commitment to the renewal of your thinking and your mindset.
• Ex. Any successful businessman or successful athlete will tell you that you have to have a single focus, a constant unwillingness to give in to discouragement and set back.
• Romans 12 is powerful because it answers so many of our most vexing questions:
o How do I get victory over the temptations of my flesh?
o How do I discover God’s will for my life?
o How am I really transformed when I put my faith in Christ?
o Do I have a spiritual gift? How do I discover my spiritual gifts?
o How do I treat people who are mean and persecute me?
Vs. 1
• God wants you to use your body, your mind, and your life for His purposes.
• God wants each of us to be an instrument of His righteousness.
• Ex. When the priest offered sacrifices at the altar, the sacrifices were dead, but the Lord wants living sacrifices.
• Someone said that the problem with a “living sacrifice” is that it just keeps crawling off of the altar.
• But you might say, “Let someone else do it. He/she is much more qualified and educated than me.”
• There is this little prepositional phrase: “by the mercies of God.”
Romans 5:5
Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Romans 8:35
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Romans 8:39
nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord.
• The mercy and love of God have been poured into your heart when you place your faith in Christ and nothing can separate this love from you.
• The Lord loves you with an everlasting love and you become His living sacrifice only as you allow His love and His mercy to give you strength and power.
Vs. 2a
1 John 2:15-16
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world--the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life--is not of the Father but is of the world.
• There are 3 major temptations in the world system, called the spirit of the anti-christ:
1. Lust of the flesh
2. Lust of the eyes
3. Pride of life
• Sin is like a “spiritual leprocy” that deadens our spiritual senses, and after awhile we don’t feel it anymore.
James 4:4
Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
• Ex. There is a “world system” in operation through the movies, music, and TV. Paganism has invaded our nation! We are no longer a Christian nation; we are a “pagan nation.”
• Just listen to how the news is spun.
• Look at the kind of movies that are being produced.
• Pagan values; Pagan philosophies that the Apostle John called “the spirit of the anti-christ.”
• Why do we fill our minds with these pagan values? Why do we listen to pagan music and pagan philosophies?
• There are so many wholesome ways we can renew our minds. There is Christian music and uplifting movies.
Galatians 6:7-9
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. 8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. 9 And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.
• So, why pollute your mind? You will reap what you have sowed!
Vs. 2b
• Put into your mind things that will renew your mind into the will of God.
• You don’t discover the will of God; you become the will of God.
• Ex. So many of you ask me about knowing God’s will on a matter, like it will be this plan from God that will just come down and
tell you what to do step by step.
o I believe that you become the will of God through “progressive revelation.”
o As your life is transformed by the renewal of your thinking and your belief system, you will become the will of God.
o The reason many of you are not in God’s perfect will is because you couldn’t handle it if you were! You are not yet mature
enough.
• Here is a huge question: What do you think is in God’s heart for you? Is He most disinterested in what happens to you? Is He
some kind of cosmic kill-joy just looking for someone who is having fun, so he can bonk them and tell them to get serious?
• Do you really believe that God delights in you?
1 Corinthians 2: God’s Wisdom Paradigm
Vs. 6-8
• The wisdom of God has been a mystery but is now being revealed.
• But, this wisdom that is being released by the Holy Spirit is not understood by this world.
Vs. 9
• Your mind is incapable of comprehending all that God has in store for you.
• We cannot fathom all the adventure God has for us when we say “yes” to Him.
• Ex. As a 18 year old freshmen in college, I could never have imagined what God had in store for me. What a fabulous adventure
it has been.
o You must position your heart and mind to hear and see what the Holy Spirit is saying.
o God wants to fulfill all your dreams.
o God wants to fulfill all your longings.
• Go after His wisdom. He wants to give you revelation into His mysteries!
Vs. 10
• Paul is saying that “when I speak of this Man Jesus, His wisdom and knowledge is contradictory to the world’s anti-christ
system.”
• You can’t understand this like you understand math or flowers or the Grand Canyon.
• The Holy Spirit is the only One who can give you wisdom.
• Our human mind cannot figure out the heart of God; we must have a renewed mind.
• Ex. Without a renewed mind you cannot sit down and map out your life and figure out God’s wonderful and great plan for you. Some of you have planned God right out of the equation!
Vs. 11-12
• This is not an “intellectual understanding” but a “heart knowing”! We need a heart knowing from the Holy Spirit.
• We must let God into the deepest places of our heart. Open your heart to Him.
• Ex. God wants to give us special revelation, divine revelation from Him, but you have to open up your heart to that revelation.
• God’s divine revelation comes in order to show us the things that have been freely given by God.
• Revelation comes as we do four powerful things:
1) Revelation comes as we spend time in God’s Word, meditating, reading, and studying God’s Word, not just for a Bible Study,
but just taking God’s word and making it a dialogue with the Lord.
Psalms 119:1-2
Blessed are the undefiled in the way,
Who walk in the law of the LORD!
2 Blessed are those who keep His testimonies,
Who seek Him with the whole heart!
• Blessed means “happiness.” True happiness comes as we walk in the law of God, the scriptures.
Psalms 119:6
Then I would not be ashamed,
When I look into all Your commandments.
• The Word of God breaks off shame.
Psalms 119:11
Your word I have hidden in my heart,
That I might not sin against You!
Psalms 119:15-18
I will meditate on Your precepts,
And contemplate Your ways.
16 I will delight myself in Your statutes;
I will not forget Your word.
17 Deal bountifully with Your servant,
That I may live and keep Your word.
18 Open my eyes, that I may see
Wondrous things from Your law.
Psalms 119:25
My soul clings to the dust;
Revive me according to Your word.
2) Revelation comes as we seek God’s face in prayer and fasting.
Matthew 6:6
“But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”
Matthew 6:18
“so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret
will reward you openly.”
3) Revelation comes as we grow to worship the Lord in spirit and truth
John 4:23-24
“But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
• Worshipping in the spirit is the opposite of worshipping in merely external ways; it is the opposite of formalism and traditionalism.
• John Piper writes, “Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full of artificial admirers (like people who write generic anniversary cards for a living). On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the discipline of rigorous thought. But true worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine. Strong affections for God rooted in truth are the bone and marrow of biblical worship.” (p. 65 Desiring God)
• Tying it all together: the fuel of worship is the truth of God found in God’s Word, the furnace of God is the spirit of man filled, and the heat of worship is the Spirit of God invading the spirit of man with deep vital affections of reverence and joy in God.
4) Revelation comes as we grow to fear God. This means a fear of being out of His will, a fear of offending Him.
Psalms 25:14
The secret of the LORD is with those who fear Him,
And He will show them His covenant.
Looking back at Romans 12:1-2:
• It is then as you are transformed through the revelation of God that you begin to become the:
o Good will of God, which leads to…
o Acceptable will of God
o Perfect will of God
This sermon was produced at Mountain Springs Church in Colorado Springs, with Pastor Steve Holt. www.mountainsprings.org |
Email This Page