So our first reading is from
Psalm 89. And I wanted particularly to
point out this reference in the opening verse to the mercies
of the Lord. This is Maskell of Ethan the
Ezraite. I will sing of the mercies of
the Lord forever. With my mouth will I make known
thy faithfulness to all generations. For I have said, mercy shall
be built up forever. Thy faithfulness shall thou establish
in the very heavens. I have made a covenant with my
chosen. I have sworn unto David my servant. Thy seed will I establish for
ever and build up thy throne to all generations. Selah. The heavens shall praise thy
wonders, O Lord, thy faithfulness also in the congregation of the
saints. For who in the heaven can be
compared unto the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty
can be likened unto the Lord? God is greatly to be feared in
the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all
them that are about him. O Lord God of hosts, who is a
strong Lord like unto thee, or to thy faithfulness round about
thee? Thou rulest the raging of the
sea. When the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them. Thou hast
broken Rahab in pieces as one that is slain. Thou hast scattered
thine enemies with thy strong arm. The heavens are thine, the
earth also is thine. As for the world and the fullness
thereof, thou hast founded them. The north and the south thou
hast created them. Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice
in thy name. Thou hast a mighty arm, strong
is thy hand, and high is thy right hand. Justice and judgment
are the habitation of thy throne. Mercy and truth shall go before
thy face. Blessed is the people that know
the joyful sound. They shall walk, O Lord, in the
light of Thy countenance. In Thy name shall they rejoice
all the day, and in Thy righteousness shall they be exalted. For Thou
art the glory of their strength, and in Thy favour our horn shall
be exalted. For the Lord is our defence,
and the Holy One of Israel is our King. Amen. May God bless
to us these verses from Psalm 89. Turn with me please to Romans
chapter 12. Romans chapter 12. And we'll read from verse 1.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, 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 ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God. For I say, through the grace
given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of
himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly,
according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in
one body, and all members have not the same office, so we being
many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of
another. Having then gifts differing according
to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us
prophesy according to the proportion of faith. Or ministry, let us
wait on our ministering. Or he that teacheth on teaching.
Or he that exhorteth on exhortation. He that giveth, let him do it
with simplicity. He that ruleth with diligence.
He that showeth mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil, cleave
to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to
another, with brotherly love, in honour preferring one another.
Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord,
rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant
in prayer. Distributing to the necessity
of saints, given to hospitality. Bless them which persecute you,
bless and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice,
and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind, one toward
another. Mind not high things, but condescend
to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits,
Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in
the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as
lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved,
avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath. For it
is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.
Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirst, give
him drink. For in so doing, thou shalt heap
coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but
overcome evil with good. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. Just in case there's any ambiguity
on that second last verse, where it says in verse 20, Therefore
if thine enemy hunger feed him, if he thirst give him drink,
for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Ye
have not to feed him and give him drink, so that his hair goes
on fire. That's so that his conscience
will be pricked when he sees your kindness towards him, even
despite the way that he has treated you. That's not a way of getting
your own back on him. On the contrary, it's designed
in order to bring him around and to win him with your kindness. Heavenly Father, we pray that
as we come to thy word this night, thou wilt be pleased to open
our eyes and our understanding to receive these good things,
this food from thy table, that it might nourish and help us
as we seek thy face. Amen. It's my prayer this evening that
the Lord Jesus Christ, who ever liveth to make intercession for
us, will grant us wisdom to rightly divide the word of truth. And that by God's grace, this
evening, as we look on these verses, this passage, that he
might show us the Lord Jesus Christ in them, the author and
finisher of our faith. Every now and again, the Lord
gives us a little reminder as to why we believe what we do
concerning sovereign grace and freedom from the law. Every now and again, the Lord
gives us a little reminder as to why we believe the things
that we believe regarding sovereign grace and freedom from the law. These two great distinguishing
doctrines that we have come to love and appreciate, that we
have learned from, and that we understand to greatly glorify
our God and our Saviour. Thereby we understand also why
we go to this church and not another. Why we rejoice to be
in this company rather than the company of others. Why we cherish
fellowship with those who know what it is to be saved by grace
and have learned what this means, that the purpose of God according
to election might stand. I say every now and again the
Lord shows us these things because I hope that tonight is going
to be one of those occasions. And I suspect that there have
been thousands, maybe tens of thousands of sermons preached
from these opening verses of Romans chapter 12. And I suspect
that in all of the sermons that are preached, the vast majority
of those sermons, this opening verse of chapter 12 will have
been applied in such a way as to tell people about how they
are to go about presenting their bodies as a living sacrifice
to God. a living sacrifice that is holy
and acceptable unto him. And I suspect that some of you
will have heard sermons like that. Sermons that have emphasised
our actions and our attitudes, our efforts and our enthusiasm
for things of the Lord and things of his glory. Stewardship and
the sacrifice that we are to make. And maybe they'll become
a little bit more applicable and they'll talk about how much
we need to give by way of our time and by way of our resources
and by way of our money. How we are to best use and employ
those gifts and graces that God has given to us. What our motivations
are to be. How we are to be dedicated to
the cause of Christ. And perhaps they would say something
like, God doesn't want a dead sacrifice. but let us give our
bodies as living sacrifices. Let us spend ourselves for Him. Let us lay down our all for Christ,
even our lives, if we are called upon to do so, as a holy, acceptable
sacrifice to our God. Well, Let me say at the outset,
if that is what those verses are talking about, then we're
in big trouble. We're in big trouble. Because
I'll tell you now that you can't do that. And I can't
do that. And Paul couldn't do that. If that's our reasonable service, to give our bodies as a living
sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, If we are to be a living
sacrifice to God that is holy and acceptable, then we need
to remind ourselves that there is nothing that we do in this
body that is holy. There's nothing that we can say
or think or act in this body that is going to be acceptable
to God. Because everything we say and
everything we do and everything we think is tinged and tainted
and spoiled and disrupted by our nature and our flesh and
our sin. So much so that the Apostle Paul
could say, I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth
no good thing, for to will is present with me. But how to perform
that which is good, I find not. If the Apostle Paul couldn't
find the means to do what was good in his body, though he had
the will to do it, then how are we going to be able to present
our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God as
our reasonable service? If Paul is saying that, then
what our reasonable service is, is an unreasonable request upon
us. Because we will never produce
anything holy and acceptable to God from these fleshy bodies. Though our spirit is willing,
our flesh is incapable. So let us look again at this
opening verse. Let us think about what the Apostle
Paul is saying here in these opening verses. Let me, if I
may, paraphrase a little bit and draw your attention to a
couple of things which the Apostle seems to emphasise. He says at
the outset, I beseech you therefore, brethren, I, Paul, I, Paul, who am writing
this gospel to you, I, Paul, who have spent so much time with
such clarity, with such emphasis, with such force, writing these
first 11 chapters of the book of Romans, I beseech you. I've just written all of this
about justification. and righteousness, and grace,
and covenant promises, and the imputation of God's righteousness
to a sinful soul. I, Paul, ask you, beseech you,
seek from you, that you will therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, present your body a living sacrifice. He calls upon them
on the basis of the mercies of God because that's what he has
been writing about. All these great gospel truths,
all these principles that he has emphatically declared grace,
justification, imputed righteousness, election, predestination, and
Christ being the end of the law for righteousness. And that is
why he says, I beseech you therefore, I beseech you, therefore, brethren. He is saying to them, that little
word, therefore, is a connecting word. It is a word that is holding
onto all that has gone before about the nature of the gospel,
about the nature of man, about the nature of God, and about
the nature of grace. The word beseech, it means I
really, really seek from you. There's an emphasis, the B in
beseech is to emphasize and intensify what he is seeking or seeking. This is what he is seeking from
them. I beseech you, brethren. I beseech you believers, you
who trust in the Lord. on the basis of all that we have
just said. Here's what I'm seeking from
you. I want spiritual worship. I want to see spiritual worship
in your lives. I want to see spiritual worship
founded upon justification by grace, founded upon the covenant
righteousness of which we have been speaking, founded upon that
imputation of God's righteousness to us. I want you to approach
God on the ground of his own sure mercies towards you. I want that to be the way that
you go into his presence. I want that to be the ground
upon which you stand. I want the sure mercies of God
that we have been speaking about, that I have been teaching you
of, that I have made the that the thrust and the force of this
letter that has been written to you to have an effect and
an impact on the way that you live and the way that you approach
God. I want you to see that it is
all of grace, all of God's goodness and all of the sure mercies of
God. I want your lively sacrifice
says the Apostle, I beseech you, I want your lively sacrifice
to be found and founded in Christ alone. That's why I read some verses
from Psalm 89. The first verse in Psalm 89 says,
I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. With my mouth
will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. Because it's
the mercies of the Lord. It's the mercies of God. that are the ground of our acceptance,
that is the door of opening to us, that enables us to approach
God at all, and it is the mercies of God that has made us righteous. holy and acceptable in his presence. So our living sacrifice is not
what we do in our bodies by our efforts, by our attempts, but
rather that living sacrifice is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He is the living sacrifice, not
the dead sacrifice of the Old Testament animals, but the living
sacrifice of that one who is the resurrection and the life
who nevertheless went to his death on behalf of his people. The mercies of the Lord are the
sure mercies of David. Jehovah's faithful commitment
to his people in the covenant promises of the Lord Jesus Christ. That great covenant, that's what
is referred to in the sure mercies of David. Isaiah 55 verse 3 says,
Incline your ear and come unto me, here and your soul shall
live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure
mercies of David. The sure mercies of David are
the mercies of God in Christ towards us. This is not talking
about David the king of Israel. It is talking about David's greater
son. It's talking about the Lord Jesus
Christ. These are the sure mercies of God towards us in covenant
promise. The mercies of the Lord is the
fact that the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled every obligation, served
every purpose, satisfied every requirement on the part of a
holy God in order to redeem his people. That the Lord Jesus Christ,
in his death on the cross, in his sacrifice there, in the shedding
of his blood, redeemed and atoned and reconciled that people for
whom he gave his life, that people that were always the apple of
God's eye, that always were the design of his purpose, that always
were the focus of his coming and the desire of his heart,
that people whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, that
people who were set apart, sanctified in the eternal councils of grace
for the salvation of their souls and their union with Christ and
their betrothal and marriage to the Son of God. That's the
people. These are the sure mercies of
the Lord. These are the sure mercies of
God, the sure mercies of David towards us in covenant promise. And when we think about our entrance
into this chapter, upon that footing, upon that ground and
foundation, we see that this verse is not talking about us
coming with our efforts and our actions in order to please God,
but rather looking beyond ourselves and seeing and concentrating
upon the sure mercies of God, seeing His grace and His goodness
as the ground upon which our approach is both holy and acceptable
to Him. and coming to him upon that ground,
standing in his presence upon the blood of Jesus Christ and
the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, makes all our understanding,
all our person both holy and acceptable in the Lord Jesus
Christ. So it's not about the extent
of our efforts. It's not about how dedicated
we are. It's not about where we draw
our motivation or how much that we do. Presenting our bodies
a living sacrifice is offering acceptable worship. It is the
worship of our praise and thanksgiving to God for what he has done for
us. Upon the only holy ground of
acceptance, Christ's broken body and his shed blood. That's a
reasonable service because it would be unreasonable for us
to do anything other than thank our God for what he has done
for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. It would be the most horrible,
horrendous activity to do anything other than to say to God, thank
you, for your grace and your mercy towards me. And in that
way our worship is acceptable to God because our focus and
our attention is on the blood of Christ and upon his broken
body. given all that the Lord Jesus
Christ has done for us, given God's faithfulness to us in these
covenant mercies, these mercies of the covenant God, sure mercies
of David, it would be unreasonable for his church and his people
not to give him the praise and the honour that he is due. And
I want to draw your attention also in these opening verses
to carry on the thought to the way in which it is a church that
is looked at here rather than simply the individuals. For while the apostle speaks
of the brethren, I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies
of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable
unto God which is your reasonable service. He goes on to speak
about the fact that we are many members of one body. So we can see in verse four and
five, for as we have many members in one body and all members have
not the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ and
everyone members one of another. Paul is leading us to see that
our acceptable worship, our lively sacrifice is as a body, as a
church, as the people of God. The emphasis is not upon the
individual here, as if one can excel another, but rather that
it is in our mutual union together. It is in that body, which is
the church, that body, which is the bride, that body for whom
Christ died, that a reasonable service is to be offered. So he says in verse 5, we being
many are one body in Christ and everyone members one of another. Those of us who believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ, we are members together, not just members of
a particular little group in a particular place, but members
of that body, which is the church militant, which is the church
spiritual, the true body of Christ. And Christ is the head. And we
are the body. We are united together under
the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ. And our acceptance with
God and the way in which God looks upon us, that holiness
of standing that he sees us in, is always and only ever under
the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ. only and ever as we are
connected to him as his body. We speak about being conformed
in verse 2. Be not conformed to this world,
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. That conformity
there, we cannot be conformed to this world if we are in Christ. Because the whole purpose of
the Lord Jesus Christ's coming was that we were predestinated
to be conformed to the image of Christ. We are made like Christ. We are made together with Christ,
united to him. And the apostle here is simply
proving this election that we have been reading about in the
previous few chapters in 8 and 9 and 10 and 11. So we understand this, I trust,
that we don't conform ourselves by our will or by our works or
by our doing. and nor should we imagine that
we can do. It would be high-minded of us
indeed, it would be presumptuous of us indeed to think that we
in any way can recommend ourselves to God by the things that we
do. And the apostle goes on to say
that we should not endeavour to think of ourselves more highly
than we ought, but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to
every man, the measure of faith. This measure of faith is something
which I think is, again, another interesting aspect of these verses
to us, because we are to act in the measure of faith that
we have been given. And who gives that faith? but
God himself. Our calling then is to act in
the measure of faith that we have been given. Now I don't
know what that measure is. Is it a pound or is it a gallon? Is it an ounce or is it a ton? It's the measure of faith that
God gives to everyone. In verse 6, he uses another phrase
to pick up the same idea. He talks about the proportion
of faith. So that's not the degree of ability
that we have. It's not the exercising of our
natural gift. It's the exercising of our spiritual
gifts that is in view here. It is coming to the Lord with
those spiritual gifts and graces that he has committed to us in
the proportion of the faith that he has given us, in the measure
of the faith that he has given us, and seeking the well-being
of the body. seeking the help and the support
of the body. Having then gifts differing according
to the grace that is given to us, we are to serve one another
in the body of Christ with those graces that he has bestowed upon
us. Some will be called to prophesy,
Some will be called to minister, some to preach, some to exhort,
some to give, some to rule, some to charitable works. And as we
are called to a variety of activities, to a variety of callings, we
are to do all patiently, simply, diligently, cheerfully, according
to the proportion of faith and the measure of faith that we
have been given. Prophesying is thought about
in the sense of foretelling what is going to happen and the idea
of the mystic or the sage. And I suppose in days gone by,
we could see those Old Testament prophets prophesying. But it
has to do in the New Testament age with declaring those things
which we have learned, speaking out those things, announcing
and speaking the things that we have learned. Ministering
is to serve one another. Preaching is to declare the gospel,
exhorting, encouraging, giving, sharing. and taking on the responsibilities
that the body has in the particular location where it is and serving
one another accordingly with those characteristics that we
see reflected in the person of our Saviour, His goodness, His
gentleness, His patience, His simplicity, His cheerfulness
in the way in which He acted. Do you remember the story? I
think it's probably in Matthew, Mark and Luke about the lady,
the widow, who came to the temple. The Lord was there with his disciples
and they were sitting over against, I think, the wall of the treasury
and they could see these people coming and putting in their offering,
putting in their gifts at the treasury. The people came and we're told
that they gave of their abundance. But this lady was different.
She didn't give of her abundance. She gave of her want. She gave of the little that she
had. She gave everything that she
had. And that was the measure of faith. That was the proportion of faith. You see, God's weights and measures,
they aren't physical and tangible, they're spiritual. It's not to
do with how much you give. It's not to do with how many
times you go. It's not to do with the fleshy
activities that so often characterise Christian service and Christian
ministry and Christian giving and Christian doing. It's to
do with the proportion of our faith. It's to do with giving
not out of our abundance, but out of our want. That poor widow
hath cast in more than all they which have cast into the treasury.
That little mite, that widow's penny was more than all of the
wads from the wallets of those that had plenty, because of the
attitude in which it was given, because of the way in which it
was given by faith. It was given with an eye to God,
with an eye to His glory. approaching God upon the right
footing, upon the right ground, upon the sure mercies of David
and the covenant promises of Almighty God. So let's remember
that principle as we think about the following verses, because
9 to 21, are beautiful verses. They're beautiful verses. So
beautiful, in fact, I'm going to read them again. And we're
just going to take a moment or two to savour the loveliness
of these verses and remind ourselves that it is in the proportion
of faith or to the measure of faith. It's the widow's might
that's important here. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil, cleave
to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to
another with brotherly love, in honour preferring one another. Not slothful in business, that
is the business of our spiritual worship. It's not really anything
to do with whether you work at the refinery or for the military
or in a baker's shop. This is to do with that business
of our spiritual worship to God, not slothful in our business,
fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient
in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer. distributing to the
necessity of the saints, given to hospitality. Bless them which
persecute you, bless and curse not. Rejoice with them that do
rejoice, and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one
toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend
to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for
evil. Provide things honest in the
sight of all men. And if it be possible, as much
as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. This is a lovely
catalogue of qualities and characteristics, graces, to be exercised by believers
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And note that it is primarily
for the blessing of the church. It's not looking inward. It's looking outward. It's looking
to the body. It's looking to those with whom
we pass our time in this world. It's looking to those that we
share fellowship with, that we worship together with. It is
the body of Christ in that particular place. And we are to share these
things, these gifts and graces for the benefit and for the blessing
of one another, the body of Christ. and they have a practical outworking. Some people used to say that
people were too spiritually minded to be any earthly good, but they
have a practical outworking, but it's from a spiritual origin. It's because we know what Christ
has done for us. We know what God has done. We
know about the sure mercies upon which we stand in the covenant
of grace. So in that sense, they're not
works at all. They're not duties and obligations
that fall to us. And we do not accept them as
such, but rather we see them as spiritual
graces, gospel gifts, an evidence of spiritual life and spiritual
interest. They are the effusions of the
Spirit of God within us. They are the outpouring of the
grace that the Lord has placed in us. So that when David says
in Psalm 23, verse five, thou anointest my head with oil, my
cup runneth over. It's the stuff that runs over
that we're speaking about in this passage. It's the fact that
we have the Spirit of God within us and that has an outflowing
and an outpouring, an effect. The drips and the drops and the
splashes that reach those around about us. They're not instructions
that we are to slavishly follow, but they are expressions of faith
in the heart of a believer. Not duties. but delights, not
commands, but privileges to be done one to the other in the
body, out of love for the Lord Jesus Christ and in appreciation
of His grace and mercy to us. Just at the end, let me turn
this around a little bit. In 1 John 4, verse 20, the apostle
says, If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is
a liar. For he that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? Rather, let us be as David and
remember with pity our brethren. David writes in Psalm 16, verse
two, O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, thou art my God. My goodness extendeth not to
thee, but to the saints that are in the earth. and to the
excellent in whom is all my delight. That's a lovely little phrase
that the psalmist there uses. Oh my soul, thou hast said unto
the Lord, thou art my God. My goodness extendeth not to
thee. Not our goodness, that's not
going to extend to the Lord our God that we have acknowledged.
My goodness extendeth not to thee, but to the saints that
are in the earth, and to the excellent in whom is all my delight. My friends, this evening, brothers
and sisters in Christ, you are the saints in the earth. You are the excellence in the
body of Christ. And as I delight in him by faith,
as I delight in God who has done so much for me, then I delight
in you also in the proportion of faith that he has given me. and I will never repay his precious
blood, and it would be offensive for me to try. But I will endeavour
to show kindness to my brethren in the Lord, as David did to
Mephibosheth for Jonathan's sake, as the Lord gives us opportunity
so to do. Amen.