This morning will be Romans 12. And throughout the book of Romans, Paul has made it very clear that
we were chosen to salvation. He's made that very, very clear.
We were chosen to salvation. We did not earn it. We did not earn it. That's a
shocking declaration. But it's a very clear declaration. We did not earn it. We were elected
to it. In Romans 11, he said it was
an election of grace. We were chosen to salvation by
grace. Totally by grace. We weren't
chosen to salvation by our works. The Lord did not look down through
time to see who would believe Him and do good and come to Him
and that's who He chose. We weren't chosen by our works.
We weren't chosen because of any good quality or any good
deed found in us. It was not by our works at all. Not before, not after. Not by our works at all. It was
totally by God's free grace. Salvation is of the Lord. Of
Him, through Him, to Him. Salvation is of the Lord. Now
I wanted you to turn to Galatians 5 because there's one verse of
Scripture that perfectly summarizes what Paul is going to say and
exhort throughout the rest of the book of Romans. All right, it's verse 13, Galatians
5, verse 13. He said, for brethren, you have
been called unto liberty. Only use not liberty for an occasion
to the flesh, but by love serve one another. He said, you've
been called to liberty. That's something God did for
you. You were called to liberty. God did that for you. He set
you free, free from bondage, free from the law. Men and women put themselves
under so much bondage. Oh, I see what it says. I see
what it says. And I'm just not so much bondage. He set you free. from bondage,
free from the law, you've been called to liberty. Now, does
that mean that we can and we should just continue in sin? With no conscience toward it,
no care one way or the other, just because we've already been
called to liberty? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? God forbid. God forbid. He said right here, let's not
use our liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but rather because
of that liberty, let's grow in the grace that we've been given. Let's strive to put on that new
man. There's a new creation that God
has made in each one of his people. And He said, by love, for love's
sake, let's serve one another. As Christ served, because of
Christ's service to us and for us, for His goodness sake, for
His mercy's sake, may we respond to that with the same thing.
As He has done to us, may we do the same thing in return.
Now that's what Paul is going to say in Romans 12. That's our
text. Turn with me over there now to
Romans chapter 12. Romans 12 verse 1 says, 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. I beseech you, therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God. I beseech you because of the
mercies of God. He said, I'm beseeching you because
He had mercy on us. Because of His mercy, I beseech
you that you present yourselves. That's what He said. Present
means be present. That's what it means. This is
now present. I've presented it. It means bring. It means provide. It means show
your bodies. Your whole person, mind, body,
soul, everything you are, everything you have, everything you do. I beseech you, therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living,
breathing, vibrant, active sacrifice. Sacrifice means offering. And he said, I beseech you that
it would be holy, that means pure, and acceptable unto God, that
means well-pleasing unto Him. Paul said, I beseech that of
you because that is your reasonable service. Now, if God has revealed
to us something of the absolute ruin of our flesh, If He has
not, that'll make total sense. But if God has revealed to us
something of the absolute ruin of our flesh, something of the
total depravity of our sin, total depraved, total depravity, if
God has opened our eyes to what we are and the only thing that
we're capable of before Him, If He has, then when we read
something like that, the first response that we have and the
only response that we can have is, I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't present
my body. He's talking about our bodies.
I can't present my body, a living sacrifice to God. I could never in my flesh, in
this flesh, be holy and acceptable unto Him. Not in my flesh. In my flesh dwells no good thing. The same man who wrote chapter
12 verse 1, the Apostle Paul, that's the same man who in chapter
7 said, in my flesh dwells no good thing. In my flesh, in my body, I could
never do that. Here's the response. I know,
I know. Not perfectly, not purely, not in a way that would be acceptable
to God. If it was based on what we did
in our body, it would never be acceptable to God. We would be
delusional to think that in this flesh we could produce something
that would be acceptable to Him. In our dead, rotten, decaying,
stinking, wrong, sinful, wicked flesh. But here's the thing about
it. Christ could and He did. Now this is the gospel of substitution. This is the only gospel that
there is. This is the only gospel that
there is. The gospel, the actual gospel,
is all about substitution and satisfaction. That's the gospel. Substitution and satisfaction. Christ came and did for us. That's what was commanded of
us. Christ came and did for us what we could not do for ourselves. He presented His body, His actual
body, a living sacrifice. And it was holy. And it was acceptable
unto God. He did that for us. That's the
whole reason He did it. He did that for us. The Apostle
Paul is not changing his tune right here on how sinners are
saved. He spent 11 chapters. We could
go back to chapter 1 and see how he spent 11 chapters laying
the foundation that it's not by our works. It's not by our deeds of the
flesh. It's not by our sacrifice. It's by Christ's sacrifice. It's
not by our work. It's by Christ's work. He didn't say right here, 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 salvation. He didn't say that. He said, it's your reasonable
service. It's your reasonable service. Christ secured our salvation. He secured it. What he's saying
is because Christ perfectly accomplished that for our salvation, as a
loving and a thankful response to that, we ought to strive for
something. We ought to. He's saying, I beseech
you, brethren, that the grace that has been shown to you be seen in you. He said that's
our reasonable service. Turn with me to 1 John chapter
4. 1 John 4 verse 9, it says, In this
was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent
His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through
Him. Herein is love, not that we loved
God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. That's love. That's perfect love. He loved us and gave Himself
for us. He died for us. Greater love
had no man than this. No man's love could rival the
love of Christ for His people. No man's love. So, verse 11 says,
Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. You say, yeah, but our love is
imperfect. It's just so tainted by this
sinful flesh. Yes, it is. It most certainly
is. But even though we cannot love
as perfectly as Christ loved, for his love's sake, we ought
to love with all the ability that he gives us to. It's our
reasonable service. Just because we can't do it perfectly,
that's no excuse to not try with all the ability He gives us. Verse 19 right here says, we
love Him because He first loved us. Is our love for Him as perfect
as His love for us? No, but we still love Him. We do, because He loved us, He's
given us some ability to truly love Him. And verse 21 right
here says, not only has He given us the ability to respond to
His love and His work in us, He gives us a commandment too.
Verse 21 says, this commandment have we received from Him, that
he who loveth God, love his brother also. All who receive grace,
ought to. All who receive grace, it's our
reasonable service to. We're commanded to. We're commanded
to respond to His grace. And all who have received grace
will respond to His grace. They all will. If God starts
a work, then He'll perform the work in all of His people. A man made the statement one
time, He said, the book of Romans is all about grace. But he said, starting with Romans
chapter 12, we see the difference in believing grace and having
grace. He said, some say they believe
grace, but they don't have grace. And he said, that can't be so.
All who truly believe grace will have grace. If God has performed
a work of grace, grace will be there. It will be. I want grace
to be here. I do. I want to have grace. I want grace to be inside of
me. I want grace to be inside this congregation. I want grace
to be here. Grace. I want us to not just
believe grace, I want us to have grace. I pray the Lord will give
it to us. All right, now go with me back
to Romans 12. Let's read the first two verses here. Romans
12, verse 1 says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly
acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And
be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the
renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and
acceptable and perfect will of God. Paul said, for mercy's sake,
this is our reasonable service. We need to present our bodies
We need to be living sacrifices. We need to be holy. That means
pure and sincere in what we do. Sincere about it. And we need
to strive for those things that are acceptable to God. The things
that he says are good and right concerning his people. We need
to not be conformed to this world. This flesh wants nothing more
than to conform to this world. But God says we need to not conform
to this world, but instead of that, we need to be transformed
by the renewing of our minds, that we may prove God's good
and acceptable and perfect will. Now let's see if we can enter
into what Paul is beseeching of us. First, he said, present
your bodies. Bring your bodies, show your
bodies. The title of this Bible study
is Our Reasonable Service. Our Reasonable Service. Now this
has really struck me. I am excited to pass this along
to you because this has really struck me. I feel like I've gotten
a hold of something that I've never seen before, never gotten
a hold of before. The first thing that he mentions
is, present yourselves in all of this. Everything he mentions.
But he starts it by saying, present your bodies. The scripture speaks
of everything presenting itself to God. Everything. The book of Job begins with everything
presenting itself to God. All the sons of men, even the
adversary had to. Everything presents itself to
God. All through the Scripture, everything
and everyone, especially God's people, are commanded to present
themselves before the Lord. We are told to kneel before Him,
bow before Him. How many times does the Scripture
say, oh, worship the Lord? That's not just a positive suggestion,
that's a command. That's a command to God's people. God's saints are commanded to
present themselves before the Lord. God's saints are commanded
to assemble together in the congregation. Hebrews 10, 24 and 25 says, let
us consider one another. to provoke one another. Let's consider each other, to
provoke each other unto love and good works, not forsaking
the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but
exhorting one another so much the more as you see the day approaching. That means we're running out
of time. Every day that goes by is one less day. As you see each other, exhort
each other, and provoke each other to the one thing needful,
everything else is going to get burned up. Everything else is
going to be gone. So much more as you see this
day approaching. Provoke, exhort. Now, why do
we continually present ourselves before the Lord? Why do we keep presenting our
bodies time and time again? Why do we keep coming? I think
about God's people who have been coming to hear the same message. Tonight, Lord willing, will be
this same message in a moment, same message, Wednesday night,
same message. Decades, decades, people keep
coming back and they keep coming back. Why do we keep coming? After we have it, you know, the
things in kindergarten, I still remember a lot of those things.
I don't need to go back to kindergarten now. I got it. Why do we keep
coming? Why do we keep assembling? Why
do we keep worshiping? Here we are at Sunday morning.
Why would we come back tonight? Why would we come back Wednesday
night? What's the ultimate reason? We could say it's because we
need it so desperately. We've said that before. We need
it so desperately. We need to be fed. We need for
our faith to increase. Faith comes by hearing. We need
to grow. We need to be comforted. All
that's true, but that's not the ultimate reason. That's all true,
but it's not the ultimate reason. We could say, well, I come for
my brethren. I want to support them. I want
to be there for them. I want to encourage them as they
worship. Every time a brother or a sister walks through that
door, the whole congregation is encouraged. Every time. When we're all gathered together,
it's so encouraging, so supportive. And that is a wonderful reason,
but that's not the ultimate reason. What's the ultimate reason for
our assembling together every time the saints meet? to present
our bodies, living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God. Why do we faithfully assemble
together in worship? Here's the reason why. It's because
Christ deserves it. That's the reason why. Christ
deserves it. Christ is owed it. Why is this
our number one priority in life? And for God's people, it is.
This is life. This is it. This is number one.
Our worship does not revolve around our life, does it? Our life revolves around our
worship. We don't just sneak it in every
now and then. Our life totally revolves around
our worship. Why is assembling together before
Him, presenting our bodies to Him, why does everything else
pale to that? Why does everything else in life
take second place to that? It's because He deserves it. He is owed it. We could list
tons of reasons why we're here. Tons of reasons. Tons of good
reasons. All of them pale to this one
right here. He's owed it. He deserves it. After everything that He has
done for us, after the unspeakable sacrifice that He made for us
in order to make us holy and acceptable to God, When we appear
before Him living sacrifices, holy and acceptable before God,
we're not holy in our flesh and acceptable in ourselves, we're
holy in Christ. We're acceptable in His blood. After everything He did, He deserves
it. It has just hit me. It's our
reasonable service. It's our reasonable service.
May everything be unto Him. May Psalm 115, verse 1, which
says, Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Him. May that not just
be a mantra that we quote. May that be the reality of our
life. May everything be sacrificed. That's unto me. If in order for
me to have it, it means it has to come between me and Him. May
everything be sacrificed. May everything that I am and
everything that I have be an offering unto Him. Paul said,
I beseech you, present your bodies as living sacrifices to Him.
May everything that your body is and everything your body does
be a living sacrifice to Him, a living offering to Him. May it be for His service. May
it be for His cause. May it be for His ministry. May
it be for His gospel. It's His anyway. We're His anyway. Everything we have and everything
we are, it's His anyway. He's just loaning it to us anyway.
What do we have that we have not received? May God truly teach
us what it is to be a living sacrifice unto Him. Why? So we can secure our salvation.
We've already been down that path. We're not going to cover
that again. It's because He deserves it. It's our reasonable service. Now let me close with this comment
on verse 2. Verse 2 says, Be not conformed
to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.
that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God. Be not conformed. Conformed means
patterned after. Don't pattern yourself after
the world. But be transformed from it. Transformed means changed from
something into something else. And he said to do it by the renewing
of your mind. Renewing means renovating, just
like you renovate a house. Out with the old, in with the
new. What's the old? Works. What's the new? Grace. What's the old? Me. What's the new? Him. He said that we may prove the
perfect will of God. For mercy's sake, for mercy's
sake, here is our reasonable service. Be a living sacrifice,
living alive to God and dead to this world. And I think the
best way to explain that is through an article that Brother Henry
Mahan wrote many years ago. Let me read this to you. It's called Dead to the World.
He said a young student asked his Bible teacher this question.
And this is good. How is the believer dead to the
world when he lives in the world? Works a regular job. People have
to work. You gotta go to work. If you
don't work and support your family, you're worse than an infidel.
So how is the believer dead to the world when he lives in the
world? works a regular job, raises a family, and owns property in
the world. The teacher sent him out to the gravesite of a friend
with instructions to criticize the dead friend, harass him,
and find fault, and then praise him with glowing terms and brag
on him to excess. Upon his return, the teacher
asked, what did your friend say when you criticized him? Nothing. How did he react when you praised
him? It made no difference to him.
He's dead. That is what it means to be dead to this world, said
the teacher. Its applause means nothing and
its hatred means nothing. We neither admire the people
of this world nor do we fear them. The riches of this world
are but the fancy of fools, and the honors of this world mean
little or nothing. For to be a child of God is the
highest calling. The religious traditions and
ceremonies of the world have no attraction nor meaning when
Christ is all. That which was once important
to us, we now consider loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ our Lord. That's what the Apostle Paul
said. Everything that I used to think was so important to
me, it's all done. And I counted all loss that I
may win Christ and be found in him. One more here. This is, I don't
know who wrote this, but this is good. A man said, overcoming
the world is, to have no interest in the wisdom or philosophy of
this world. It's to have no interest in the
approval or recognition of this world. It's to have no anxious
care about the materialism and prosperity of this world. It's
to have no interest in the glory or fame of this world. It's to
be conscious of the fact that every relationship in this world
will end It's to have no interest in but only disdain for the religions
of the world. It's to believe God's Word only
and to believe Christ only in spite of all that is in the world.
That's what it is. I pray God will teach us something
of our reasonable service. After teaching us what salvation
truly is, I pray He'll teach us something of our reasonable
service. And I pray it won't just be our reasonable service.
I pray it'll be our desire. May the Lord cause us to have
a heart for these things. All right, you're dismissed.