Dale Partridge - Romans 12_1-2 Living Sacrifices： A Life Transformed by God's Will

00:00:00.000 Romans chapter 12. What an amazing book this is.

00:00:15.040 Well, we are starting a new chapter. I want to give you a little bit of background

00:00:22.260 to prepare our hearts as we get through chapter 12 over the next few weeks.

00:00:30.000 The Apostle Paul wrote 13 of the 27 New Testament books.

00:00:35.240 Five of those letters are personal, immediate concerns, and those are 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Philemon.

00:00:44.400 Three of them are pastoral epistles, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus.

00:00:49.260 And then five of them are what I call doctrinal treatises.

00:00:53.520 And that would include Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians.

00:00:57.280 Now, in those doctrinal epistles, Paul follows a consistent pattern.

00:01:04.960 You can see this.

00:01:05.980 He establishes gospel truth, orthodoxy, followed by gospel practice, orthopraxy.

00:01:15.300 Okay, orthodoxy goes before orthopraxy.

00:01:20.100 Now, the reason for this pattern is because Paul understands that belief informs behavior.

00:01:27.280 Belief informs behavior.

00:01:31.260 As we know, the previous 11 chapters covered several things.

00:01:39.280 The sinfulness of humanity, God's righteous judgment on the world, justification by faith alone,

00:01:45.580 Abraham's model of faith, the benefits of justification, sanctification in our struggle with sin,

00:01:50.320 the sovereignty of God.

00:01:51.800 In other words, Paul is expecting that all of that glorious truth that we have learned through the book of Romans is going to translate into glorious behavior.

00:02:04.280 Go try to tell someone to behave a certain way before they think a certain way.

00:02:09.520 Good luck.

00:02:11.520 No, the mind leads the heart.

00:02:15.900 The heart leads the body.

00:02:18.680 That is the flow.

00:02:22.800 Ultimately, the gospel is not just something you know, it's something you do.

00:02:26.920 It's something that you live. It transforms your life.

00:02:30.620 I often tell people that legalism says, be better.

00:02:36.680 The gospel says, be new.

00:02:39.180 Be new.

00:02:40.940 Be transformed into something new.

00:02:43.240 when you're transformed by the gospel you will be compelled to behave in a different way

00:02:52.360 it's going to reflect those truths and the more you know the more your behavior will change

00:03:01.060 that is maturity the more you know of the gospel the more you know of the scriptures

00:03:07.300 the more it'll change the way you live this is why you used to watch television shows when you

00:03:12.860 You're a brand new Christian that you can't watch now because the conviction, you know more.

00:03:19.360 It's too difficult. 0.99

00:03:23.100 It also reflect those patterns.

00:03:25.480 When you've received love, you will love.

00:03:27.880 When you've received mercy, you'll extend mercy.

00:03:30.440 When you've received forgiveness, you'll be forgiving.

00:03:36.280 It's the concept of reciprocity.

00:03:38.780 we know in first john 419 the apostle says we love why because he first loved us

00:03:50.820 it's reciprocation why do you obey why do you forgive why are you generous

00:04:01.540 it's because those things have been extended to us in christ

00:04:04.300 now if i put a theological label on that process it's called sanctification

00:04:08.620 sanctification is when you're purified and cleaned and how are you purified and cleaned

00:04:15.620 well it's when that truth comes in to your mind and into your heart it sanctifies you it cleans

00:04:23.820 you it's actually the heart behind james controversial statement what good is it my

00:04:31.820 brothers if someone says he has faith but does not have works can that faith save him

00:04:37.000 so also faith by itself if it does not have works is dead

00:04:41.820 but someone will say you have faith and I have works show me your faith apart from your works

00:04:47.960 and I will show you my faith by my works okay now James is is not saying that salvation comes

00:04:54.860 from faith plus works okay that's a heretical gospel salvation does not come by faith plus

00:05:00.320 works. Salvation comes by the work of Christ alone. He's saying

00:05:07.500 that salvation, real salvation, will produce good works. It

00:05:14.700 will. Works are not the root of your salvation. Works are the

00:05:22.240 fruit of your salvation. If I want to find out if someone's

00:05:28.440 saved. I'm going to look at the fruit of that tree. Is there good works on your tree? Or are you

00:05:34.060 complacent and atrophied? If a person claims to know Christ, that is that they agree with Romans

00:05:44.780 chapter 1 through 11. Oh, so glorious. But they reject the practice of Romans 12 through 16.

00:05:53.200 then I say liar. False. Not as many people in the church today. Many people in the church today

00:06:02.240 have come to Christ or have come to the church without coming to Christ. They're moralists.

00:06:06.440 They're legalists. They're in religion. It doesn't actually translate into anything in your life.

00:06:13.360 Self-examination is important. Look at your tree. Look at the limbs. What's hanging on them?

00:06:23.200 In the same way that a tree produces particular fruit, the Christian faith will produce Christian works.

00:06:30.920 It will.

00:06:32.400 Our works are not what saves us.

00:06:34.420 They are the evidence that we are saved.

00:06:37.740 Now, before we dive in, I just want to zoom out real quick.

00:06:41.640 Zoom out in Romans with me.

00:06:44.360 Show you the structure of this book.

00:06:46.920 Romans 1, 1-1 to 11-32.

00:06:53.200 Okay, the first basically full 11 chapters is focused on doctrine.

00:06:59.900 Now, Romans 11, 32 to 36, just three verses, was last week's sermon.

00:07:06.240 It's focused on doxology, right?

00:07:10.400 It's praise.

00:07:12.860 Romans 12, 1 through 2, is also its own section in this whole book.

00:07:18.920 And its focus is dedication.

00:07:21.160 and the rest of the book is focused on duty all right so you have four d's okay doctrine

00:07:31.860 doxology dedication and duty now we are at a major crossroads last week we talked about doxology

00:07:41.260 this week we're talking about dedication next week we're talking about duty that's the structure of

00:07:48.940 this book. So let's look

00:07:52.920 at verse 1. Chapter 12, verse 1.

00:07:57.140 Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God,

00:08:01.180 to present your bodies a living and

00:08:04.960 holy sacrifice acceptable to God,

00:08:08.440 which is your spiritual service of worship.

00:08:14.440 Okay, we are smart Bible interpreters, right? I always

00:08:16.960 say this, you are going to learn how to be grammatically intellectual around scripture

00:08:23.280 if you stay in this church. Okay, the apostle opens with what's called a result clause. You may

00:08:28.980 have heard the phrase, every time you see a therefore, ask what it's there for. Okay, a

00:08:34.880 therefore is a result clause. You could literally change it out almost every time with as a result,

00:08:40.600 comma. So he says, therefore, I urge you. I urge you or compel you to a particular task. As a result

00:08:53.260 of what was said before, now do this. Before we talk about that task, I want to just take

00:09:02.240 a moment to notice the audience. It says brethren. In the Greek, it's adelphos, or in the plural,

00:09:10.280 it's a Delphoi, so brothers is a Delphos, brethren is a Delphoi, and in the Greek it means in one

00:09:20.420 womb. When it says brethren, the root of that word is in one womb. It's trying to communicate

00:09:29.140 that we have a fraternal relationship.

00:09:36.160 We have the same Father.

00:09:39.320 We have, between Jews and Greeks,

00:09:41.080 which Paul was just talking to,

00:09:43.160 we are all brethren, 0.88

00:09:45.060 which again, to a Jew, was a shocking idea. 1.00

00:09:48.600 Wait, you're saying that the Gentiles

00:09:51.320 with the Jews are brethren? 0.70

00:09:55.540 Yes.

00:09:56.140 anybody that claims the name of christ is included in that one womb we are of the same

00:10:07.320 paternal existence we have the same father this also is a sign that this task what he's about

00:10:17.220 to talk about it can't be performed by an unregenerate person someone on the outside

00:10:21.680 Someone who's not been born into the family of God.

00:10:25.200 This isn't an instruction for, you know, moralism.

00:10:28.480 It's not general moralism.

00:10:29.640 It's about specific spiritual devotion for Christians.

00:10:33.300 This is for you.

00:10:37.360 Then he says this phrase, look down at your Bible.

00:10:39.500 It says, I urge you by the mercies of God.

00:10:46.400 You know, it's really easy just to like walk past that and go, yeah, yeah, the mercies of God.

00:10:50.720 You know, that thing.

00:10:52.660 But again, we are going to be smart Bible interpreters.

00:10:56.820 Right before Paul's doxology, I want you to turn back in your Bible and go to 1130 through 32.

00:11:02.900 If you just look back, you're going to see what's called the antecedent to the word mercies.

00:11:09.260 Again, I'm going to teach you a little bit about grammar today.

00:11:12.140 An antecedent is the object of a pronoun.

00:11:16.800 So if I say, John ran and then he kicked the ball.

00:11:23.540 When I say he, what is the antecedent to he?

00:11:28.780 Well, it's John.

00:11:29.900 John is the antecedent to he.

00:11:31.140 When you say he, you mean John.

00:11:33.620 So when I say mercies, or when the scripture says mercies, what mercies are you talking about, scripture?

00:11:40.520 We're going to be smart enough to understand what it means.

00:11:46.000 If you look back in 11.30-32, Paul used the word mercy four times in three verses.

00:11:55.640 And it is by the consideration of those particular mercies, which Paul is making a request here in chapter 12.

00:12:04.580 Let's read it.

00:12:06.080 11.30-32, it says, 0.94

00:12:07.680 For just as you were once disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, the Jews,

00:12:17.840 that because of the mercy shown to you, they also may now be shown mercy. 0.87

00:12:24.800 For God has shut up all in disobedience so that he may show mercy to all.

00:12:32.640 so this is if we're reading this in context you're going okay paul just said mercy mercy mercy mercy

00:12:43.000 and then he has a doxology of praise and then he says therefore i urge you by the mercies of god

00:12:49.060 well what mercies those mercies those mercies

00:12:53.580 so he's saying i urge you by the mercies of god to present your bodies

00:13:02.260 a living and holy sacrifice.

00:13:08.900 Because God has shown mercy to you,

00:13:10.880 because God has shut up everybody in disobedience

00:13:13.260 and shown mercy to all,

00:13:15.220 I now urge you by the mercies of God

00:13:17.880 to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. 0.98

00:13:24.180 We need to learn how to read our Bibles like this.

00:13:26.700 If you've been a believer for longer than a year,

00:13:29.000 you must learn to read your Bible like this. 0.98

00:13:33.200 Careful.

00:13:35.920 Trying to understand what is being said

00:13:38.660 by the words that are being used.

00:13:42.300 So the rationale or motive to surrender

00:13:44.680 and sacrifice your life is the mercies of God.

00:13:47.220 Your predestination, your justification,

00:13:50.200 your adoption, your sanctification,

00:13:54.020 your glorification.

00:13:55.200 All of these mercies that are promised to you.

00:13:59.500 You sacrifice your life because of that.

00:14:03.940 And I think this really gets to the heart of the matter.

00:14:07.880 Do you want to know what keeps a Christian from living fully surrendered to God?

00:14:13.880 Like if you look at those people, you're like, man, that guy is just so committed to the Lord.

00:14:19.160 Like he's just, seems like he's just always talking about the Lord, thinking about the Lord, operating according to the Lord's will.

00:14:26.780 if you want to know what keeps a Christian from living fully surrendered to God 0.90

00:14:31.980 is that they have forgotten the mercies of God on their own life that's it when you forget 0.82

00:14:40.340 the mercies of God on your own life that is when you will live in a way where your life

00:14:48.460 is not fully surrendered to God.

00:14:52.800 When you forget or live a life

00:14:56.000 where you can't prioritize prayer

00:14:58.660 and the reading of Scripture

00:14:59.900 in your daily routine,

00:15:01.420 you want to know why?

00:15:02.840 You have forgotten the mercies of God.

00:15:07.240 That's what it is.

00:15:09.860 You know what the blessing is?

00:15:11.320 Is that if you just keep showing up to church,

00:15:13.180 you will be reminded by the means of grace

00:15:15.600 that your pastor will tell you

00:15:17.320 about the mercies of God.

00:15:21.100 And you know the absolute curse of someone that stops going to church

00:15:24.480 is that they are not reminded of that.

00:15:28.280 And they slowly wither and fade into the distance.

00:15:33.820 Now, what does it mean?

00:15:36.960 Actually, let me back up.

00:15:38.220 I skipped something that I think is important.

00:15:41.800 When you remember the mercies of God,

00:15:43.340 you will work from a sense of gratitude

00:15:47.500 this is so important

00:15:50.760 if you've come out of any sort of legalism in the past

00:15:53.660 when you work from the mercies of God

00:15:59.040 you will work from a sense of gratitude

00:16:03.680 and debt rather than a sense of mere legal

00:16:07.540 duty

00:16:08.200 because when you work from these mercies your desire to obey is going to be motivated by love

00:16:19.980 and gratitude not fear and performance i know a lot of people perform for god they think if i

00:16:31.620 just do this god will love me more if i just behave this way god will actually bless me

00:16:37.180 more as if he owes you something. And if I

00:16:41.100 sin, God's going to be angry with me.

00:16:44.880 Maybe I lost my salvation. Maybe I'm not actually saved.

00:16:49.140 We talked about our Bible study. It becomes a roller coaster of despair

00:16:53.340 and pride, up and down.

00:17:01.540 Truly,

00:17:02.480 when you focus on the mercies of God, you'll obey because you want to.

00:17:07.180 because you're so focused on the love of Christ extended to you that you want to obey

00:17:13.060 and that you want to work for the kingdom of God. Now, what does it mean to present your bodies

00:17:20.920 a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship?

00:17:29.320 All right. To present yourself means to put yourself at the disposal of another.

00:17:33.920 That's basically what it means at a dictionary level.

00:17:36.600 It's to put yourself at the disposal of another.

00:17:39.660 It's really a form of submission.

00:17:43.240 I'm submitting my life to this master.

00:17:48.560 But Paul says to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice.

00:17:55.700 Hey, wait a second.

00:17:56.360 I thought that spirituality was just a thing for your soul, right?

00:17:59.160 no your bodies is a reference to all that is valuable to you in this world

00:18:04.780 it's the vessel that holds your soul

00:18:07.960 submit your body all of you your mind your health your money your strength your being

00:18:22.360 Paul says

00:18:26.020 present your vessel

00:18:29.340 present your vessel

00:18:31.720 honestly I want you to ask yourself the question

00:18:35.740 have you

00:18:36.840 given yourself

00:18:39.400 fully to God

00:18:41.080 are you on that altar before the Lord

00:18:45.440 kind of fighting to get away from the altar

00:18:48.120 or have you like reserved a portion of yourself

00:18:50.460 for the world and just putting a part of you

00:18:52.860 in sacrifice to the Lord?

00:18:57.520 I think about, you've maybe seen the painting

00:18:59.460 of the lamb that's tied up,

00:19:01.860 his legs tied up and he's just laying there.

00:19:05.940 That should be you.

00:19:08.120 You should be laying down your life

00:19:10.760 fully sacrificed to the Lord.

00:19:14.160 a question is whose mission is at the forefront of your life

00:19:23.640 like what is your ambitions i want you to just think about your ambitions for a minute

00:19:30.640 whose mission is at the front of your life

00:19:34.380 what vision are you pursuing with your money and your actions now i'm gonna have to digress here

00:19:43.860 because this is a really important kind of sidebar conversation around this.

00:19:50.320 In the past, questions like these have made people that aren't in ministry feel guilty. 1.00

00:19:56.500 And I think it's really stupid. 0.98

00:19:58.300 And we're going to talk about why. 0.99

00:20:00.080 I don't believe Paul intends Christians to view surrendering themselves as like selling everything

00:20:05.380 and all of a sudden just becoming foreign missionaries

00:20:12.020 or starting some parachurch ministry organization

00:20:16.680 or going into vocational ministry.

00:20:19.700 I don't think that Paul has that in view there

00:20:21.800 by giving your bodies fully and surrendered to the Lord.

00:20:29.140 It might be that for some.

00:20:31.400 It certainly has been for me.

00:20:32.560 but what it certainly does mean is that it's direct your life regardless of what you do

00:20:39.060 whether you own a business whether you work for a company

00:20:42.420 whether you're homeschooling and parenting little children

00:20:46.020 direct your life in a way that glorifies God builds up his church and sanctifies the world

00:20:57.300 That's basically what this means.

00:20:59.620 It's really easy to think that like being a pastor is some greater spiritual reality.

00:21:06.580 And that I will never be fully, you know, giving my life to the Lord until I go into ministry in some dimension.

00:21:13.780 No.

00:21:15.140 There is no biblical argument to support that.

00:21:18.640 No, the reality is some are called to ministry and some are called to business.

00:21:22.420 In fact, before I was in ministry, I was in business.

00:21:25.440 I spent a lot of my time making money to give it to ministry.

00:21:28.380 Now I spend a lot of my time preaching,

00:21:31.080 praying that the people that own the businesses would give and support our ministry.

00:21:36.160 The truth is, wherever you are, wherever you are,

00:21:40.780 do what glorifies God that builds up His church and sanctifies the world.

00:21:45.080 I don't care if that's changing diapers.

00:21:47.880 Do it to the glory of God.

00:21:49.220 Jesus in Matthew 6 24 reminds us that no one can serve two masters

00:21:57.900 for either you will hate one and love the other or you will be devoted to one and despise the other

00:22:03.220 is Christ your master truly like if someone who didn't know you watched your life for two weeks

00:22:14.520 are they going to know that Christ is your master

00:22:19.820 They should.

00:22:22.180 They should.

00:22:25.260 Have you presented your life holy and unblemished to God?

00:22:31.300 1 Corinthians 6, 19-20 says,

00:22:33.760 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you,

00:22:37.680 whom you have from God?

00:22:40.520 And you are not your own, for you were bought at a price.

00:22:45.600 Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

00:22:53.700 Again, let's kill off this hyper-spiritualism that doesn't include your body.

00:23:00.300 What you do with your body matters.

00:23:03.540 It really does.

00:23:07.780 If Christ is God's gift to you, your life is your gift to God.

00:23:12.960 That makes sense, right?

00:23:15.600 It's rational to repay life with life.

00:23:19.780 If Christ died for you, you ought to, in a sense, die for him.

00:23:25.860 This is exactly what Paul meant in Galatians 2.20.

00:23:28.760 It says, I have been crucified with Christ.

00:23:33.180 It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

00:23:36.820 And the life I live now in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

00:23:48.040 You don't have to be an apostle to say those words.

00:23:52.880 You can be a homeschool mom or a grandmother.

00:23:58.100 You can be an electrician or a plumber.

00:24:01.640 can you say those

00:24:05.020 I have been crucified with Christ

00:24:07.480 it is no longer I who live

00:24:10.020 but Christ who lives in me

00:24:11.740 and the life I do live

00:24:13.320 as a electrician

00:24:14.560 or a homeschooling mom

00:24:15.540 I live now

00:24:19.460 by faith in the son of God

00:24:21.060 who loved himself

00:24:21.740 or loved me

00:24:22.600 and gave himself for me

00:24:23.840 that's the context

00:24:26.460 that we need to have

00:24:28.200 our heads wrapped on

00:24:29.200 i think about the whole famous sin or the famous uh him uh jesus paid it all all to him i owe

00:24:39.180 sin had left a crimson stain he washed it white as snow

00:24:42.840 let's go to verse two we're halfway through guys we got this verse two

00:24:48.820 and do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind

00:24:55.480 so that you may prove what the will of God is,

00:24:59.140 that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

00:25:04.960 This passage, I thought, man, it almost needs its own sermon.

00:25:09.920 You know, you can't listen to R.C. Sproul

00:25:12.360 without thinking about renewing your mind.

00:25:14.780 I thought, man, we should just,

00:25:15.860 someone just said earlier this week,

00:25:17.500 we should just put R.C. Sproul's sermon,

00:25:18.900 like just right here, you can listen to that.

00:25:20.260 but i hope that i can do do it justice in the time we have

00:25:25.580 if you're not looking in the es if you're in the esv you're not going to see this word and

00:25:31.760 but if you look in the nasb it does have it in the word and as well as the greek the the word chi

00:25:37.980 is there and and is a coordinating conjunction and so if you look between these verses it's

00:25:46.180 basically saying, you got this and this. A coordinating conjunction is basically

00:25:53.120 showing two particular things that are not chronological, but equally important.

00:26:00.780 It's not saying first, then second. It's saying this and this. They're both of equal weight and

00:26:07.260 value. Sacrifice and transformation. They're both equally valuable. It's yes, truly,

00:26:15.520 sacrifice must happen first and then transformation. But the way that the

00:26:19.740 apostle worded this is he used the word and.

00:26:24.760 Now, I want you to notice also that Paul uses what I call

00:26:27.960 antithetical parallelism. Now, if you look at it, he presents a negative

00:26:31.940 command first, followed by a positive command.

00:26:36.020 This is a way to show emphasis in literary

00:26:39.900 structure. It says, and do not be conformed to the world. That's

00:26:43.960 the negative, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That's positive. You could say the

00:26:50.360 same sentence flipped around, but for some reason, he chose to put the negative first. It's emphasizing

00:26:54.800 that reality. Now, I want to start with the prohibition. Do not be conformed to this world.

00:27:03.960 now the word world is ione or it comes from ionia and this is a greek word not the same greek word

00:27:18.060 for world that you have in john 3 16 god so loves the world that's cosmos this word is for age or

00:27:26.680 for world system. And so when you're reading it, it's saying do not be conformed to this age,

00:27:36.660 this world system, this culture of the world. It's not saying do not be conformed to the cosmos,

00:27:41.560 to the universe, to the creation of the earth. That's not what it's saying there.

00:27:46.420 it's really going to say do not be conformed to think like the pagans do not act like the pagans

00:27:58.300 or work like the pagans or worship like the pagans do not be conformed to their way of being

00:28:04.720 first john 2 15 says do not love the world or the things in the world if anyone loves

00:28:09.460 the world, the love of the Father is not in him. The meaning here is do not let the world influence

00:28:17.440 you. Now, that's a hard thing to do. Don't let it squeeze you into its mold. That's a hard thing to

00:28:26.120 do when you have one of these that's constantly, constantly fighting for your attention, fighting

00:28:34.560 to conform your kids to it. The world system wants you, and it wants your kids. In fact,

00:28:42.780 it's more aggressive and hostile than probably any time in history because it has so much

00:28:47.640 access to you. It's in your media. It's in your phone. It's everywhere.

00:28:56.540 Resisting the influence in ways of the world requires militant vigilance and restraint.

00:29:04.560 There are literally apps now to keep you off your phone.

00:29:08.600 There are services that monitor screen time.

00:29:12.340 We know that we have pendulum swing from no tech to tech obsession.

00:29:19.380 And it's like a sewer pumping in worldly ideas straight into your house, straight into your mind.

00:29:28.340 You don't even know it.

00:29:30.120 It's like a fish that doesn't know it's wet.

00:29:31.680 You have no idea how much you have been influenced by the world.

00:29:40.260 You cannot be seduced by materialism, by the world's immodesty, by sexualization that's happening.

00:29:52.380 All of these things are after you.

00:29:54.240 Ask yourself, have you drifted?

00:29:57.260 Honestly, everybody in here should say, yeah.

00:30:01.680 I've drifted. I've drifted without realizing it.

00:30:07.520 I think modesty is a really easy metric to measure, so I'm just going to pick on it for a second. 0.88

00:30:15.240 Today, millions of women wear, you know, everything from leggings or bikinis or all these different things that are going on.

00:30:24.920 these are things like the prostitutes of jesus's day would look at a woman in a bikini and think 0.96

00:30:33.960 wow that's scandalous the prostitutes of that time 1.00

00:30:38.280 i was just actually doing some research you know women just started wearing pants really in the

00:30:44.440 1900s pants i'm just saying hey we should just figure out i'm not saying that every woman needs

00:30:52.160 to wear a dress. My wife wears pants. But it makes me think about it. I go, why did women not wear 1.00

00:30:57.380 pants for thousands of years? And all of a sudden, in the late 1890s, they started wearing what's 0.96

00:31:04.740 called bloomers, which was pants under your dress. And then all of a sudden, it was really

00:31:09.960 about the 1960s and 70s even, that pants really started becoming more mainstream for women.

00:31:16.680 but again it's it's just something to observe how much have we been influenced

00:31:22.640 is there a theological argument for dresses i don't know i haven't studied that far

00:31:27.880 but it made me think about it it's something to think about

00:31:31.420 it certainly is a great way to distinguish the sexes which seems to be very difficult to do

00:31:36.900 these days right nobody knows what a man and a woman is and we're kind of you know androgynous

00:31:43.500 unisex everything, it's weird. And it's something to think about.

00:31:51.920 Ask yourself if you've normalized what is not normal. I often remind Christians that the world

00:31:59.060 behaves, the way the world behaves is common, but it's not normal. It's common for your 16-year-old

00:32:05.880 daughter to sneak out and go hang out with her boyfriend. It's not normal. Not normal.

00:32:09.880 um it's common to be depressed and anxious and unhealthy hooked on pharmaceuticals

00:32:18.860 uh addicted to porn wasting your life on a screen it's common it is not normal it's not normal

00:32:25.400 um it's common to delay marriage purposefully delay marriage that's common

00:32:35.220 to to reject the idea of having children we have what's the new term dinks dual income no kids

00:32:42.220 it's common it's not normal the bible tells us what's normal for human life

00:32:50.920 you need to constantly don't conform to the world

00:32:57.000 don't conform to the world be transformed by the renewing of your mind

00:33:00.760 this is what paul is saying and it is a message for the ages

00:33:06.540 he says if you look down there's a contrast clause every time you see this word

00:33:16.320 but or therefore right all these these are little clauses that you need to learn so it says do not

00:33:22.500 be transformed or do not be conformed to this world but oh that means contrast don't do this

00:33:28.760 Rather, do this.

00:33:32.400 What is that?

00:33:33.400 Be transformed, how?

00:33:35.780 By the renewing of your mind.

00:33:39.360 So transformation comes from intellectual comprehension.

00:33:44.720 That's basically what he's saying there.

00:33:46.440 Transformation comes from intellectual comprehension.

00:33:51.540 Our orthodoxy informs or directs our orthopraxy.

00:33:57.040 Okay, we have to be transformed by renewing our minds from the ways of this world to the ways of God.

00:34:05.240 That is your duty as a Christian.

00:34:08.520 R.C. Sproul once said, we are intellectual non-conformists with this world.

00:34:14.300 We do not conform to the ideas of this age. 0.90

00:34:17.880 That is the first mark of the Christian lifestyle, end quote. 0.98

00:34:21.280 now the modern church unfortunately has cultivated what i call intellectual atrophy 0.99

00:34:28.760 we are a very dumb generation in the church okay you know that the vast majority of christians 0.98

00:34:36.080 for now there was a whole season of illiteracy before the printing press okay we get that but 0.99

00:34:43.140 then the printing press came in and all of a sudden we went to a generation what's called

00:34:47.180 scholasticism or the enlightenment. And I'll tell you what, we had Christians, kids. There's actually

00:34:54.220 a funny story. I remember this is a story from Paul Washer. He said that he was reading a book

00:35:02.220 that a friend gave to him on logic. And it was an old book, ratted, tattered up. And he said it was

00:35:13.360 the hardest and most difficult book he'd ever read on the topic, way beyond the stuff that he

00:35:18.340 was learning in seminary around logic. He found out that it was middle school learning in the

00:35:26.760 mid-1800s, okay? The average child for, again, when we had a really Christianized America, 0.72

00:35:34.540 we had a Latin speaking, we had Greek understanding children, we had a very heavy focus

00:35:42.480 on intellectualism.

00:35:45.320 The reading level was much higher

00:35:47.060 and our biblical comprehension

00:35:50.500 of the fundamentals of the gospel

00:35:51.960 was greater.

00:35:54.480 As society has deteriorated,

00:35:57.140 theologically,

00:35:58.380 we have lost much of that.

00:36:04.400 I'm going to give you an example.

00:36:05.620 The NIV is the most popular

00:36:08.120 Bible translation in America.

00:36:13.480 And it is ranked somewhere between a fifth and seventh grade reading level.

00:36:20.700 That's really just a kind of a sign of where we are in terms of our intellectualism regarding theological endeavors.

00:36:29.520 We are biblically and theologically illiterate as a church at large.

00:36:34.040 we are in desperate need of pastors who will train and disciple their congregations in biblical and

00:36:44.560 theological literacy because transformation comes by the renewing of your mind i don't know what it

00:36:51.620 is we have forgot that jesus said love the lord your god with all your heart with all your soul

00:36:56.720 now we love that we are an emotional generation you know jumping on stage and doing the things

00:37:03.160 Heart and soul, man, love God with heart and soul.

00:37:05.600 But it says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.

00:37:10.060 We just forget about that.

00:37:12.980 Love God with your mind.

00:37:17.400 Pursue him intellectually.

00:37:20.140 That is a part of your worship.

00:37:23.840 Figure out how to do scholastic learning.

00:37:28.040 Academic learning even.

00:37:29.100 Now, I will say this should be and ought to be done in the context of a local church.

00:37:35.820 This should be done rigorously in discipleship.

00:37:39.920 It's why we're having a Bible study on Welcome to Reformed Theology.

00:37:45.080 We want a church that is absolutely filled with people who understand at least the fundamentals.

00:37:51.800 Again, as I opened up this morning, to have less than 5% of American Christians share the gospel with one person per year, my goodness, that is revealing.

00:38:07.260 We cannot change this country around until we fix this problem.

00:38:14.800 this this city's not going to be christianized if we can't even christianize our own kids

00:38:20.820 because we don't even know what the bible says because we don't even study

00:38:24.800 we live in a great generation where we have the availability of so many different resources i mean

00:38:31.800 our ministry has the relearn app uh you know there's also the canon app we have an abundance

00:38:38.180 of resources to educate ourselves

00:38:41.560 on theology and scripture.

00:38:43.780 We could saturate ourselves in it.

00:38:46.680 This was not true of the early church.

00:38:54.160 Now, why are we doing this?

00:38:59.740 If we're not being conformed to the world

00:39:02.620 and we fight against being conformed to the world,

00:39:07.100 what are we actually being transformed into when we renew our minds?

00:39:13.460 What's the object or the goal of this passage?

00:39:19.940 Well, it's to be conformed to the mind of Christ.

00:39:24.200 To be transformed by the renewing of your mind

00:39:27.620 so that you might have the life and mind of Christ.

00:39:33.860 That's why.

00:39:34.800 Do you want to have the best life, the easiest life?

00:39:39.620 It's not through prosperity preaching, it's through being more like Christ.

00:39:44.600 And you can't do that if you don't know who Christ is, what he stood for, what he stands for, his doctrines and theology.

00:39:55.660 We can't do this with theological erosion.

00:40:00.320 The greatest goal of the Christian life is to have the mind of Christ.

00:40:04.800 Ephesians 4

00:40:07.000 22-24 says put off 1.00

00:40:09.280 your old self which belongs to your former

00:40:11.160 manner of life and is corrupt

00:40:13.040 through deceitful desires and to be

00:40:15.200 and be renewed in the spirit

00:40:17.360 of your minds

00:40:18.140 interesting and to put

00:40:21.360 on the new self created after

00:40:23.360 the likeness of God in

00:40:25.320 true righteousness and holiness

00:40:27.140 so if we go

00:40:31.400 back just to Romans 12

00:40:33.240 2 again. Paul emphasizes that same sentiment at the end of this verse. I have another clause for

00:40:42.140 you, okay? Every time it says but, it's a contrast clause. Every time it says therefore, it's a result

00:40:45.620 clause. Every time it says so that, it's called a purpose clause. It's the purpose. Why are we doing

00:40:52.800 this? Well, it says it in the second half of verse 2. So that you may prove what the will of God is,

00:41:00.400 that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

00:41:06.840 In other words, when you have the mind of Christ,

00:41:08.820 you will see by contrast the corruption of the world.

00:41:11.460 That's what's going to happen.

00:41:14.400 I don't know about you, but the holier my life gets

00:41:17.580 by the sanctification of the Holy Spirit,

00:41:19.880 the more I look at the world system and I'm frustrated.

00:41:24.260 I want to do something about it.

00:41:26.440 I'm engaged.

00:41:27.360 when you have the mind of christ the will of god that which is good and acceptable and perfect

00:41:35.640 the will of god becomes clear when you have the mind of christ do you want to know what the will

00:41:40.820 of god is read your bible you will find out what the will of god is people are always coming to me

00:41:46.200 as a pastor and this is again part of god's design asking me advice or counsel the vast

00:41:52.560 majority of these questions are really easy to find. And I want to encourage you guys to go to

00:42:02.160 the scriptures. Go to your pastor. Yes, this is a good thing. Go to one another. Discipleship,

00:42:11.680 deep, rich discipleship in the renewing of our minds for the transformation of our church,

00:42:16.460 our city, this town.

00:42:20.180 Why does this all matter?

00:42:21.800 This is my closing.

00:42:25.140 It matters because God has called us

00:42:27.860 to disciple the nations.

00:42:32.060 It matters because God has called the church

00:42:34.440 to disciple the nations.

00:42:37.980 Unfortunately, the past several decades,

00:42:39.920 the culture has discipled the church

00:42:41.500 more than the church has discipled the culture.

00:42:44.000 We've been influenced by the church

00:42:45.740 more than the church has influenced the culture. That was not the case 80 years ago.

00:42:52.780 What we did is we said, hey, you know what? Maybe if we're more like the world,

00:42:56.720 we'll get more people here. And you know what kind of fruit that bore? Really bad, weak fruit.

00:43:04.080 Now we're finally back having churches like this where people from the world walk in, they go,

00:43:08.640 what was that? That didn't make me feel uncomfortable at all. Good. It wasn't designed

00:43:14.240 to make you feel comfortable. It was designed to make you feel like a sinner and to repent and come 0.86

00:43:18.680 to Christ. That's what we're here to do. You walk in and you go, these people are different. What

00:43:25.180 are they doing? This doesn't look like my life. Why are they singing these songs and praying these

00:43:30.340 prayers and kneeling on the ground? Yeah, it's not different. We're not the same as you. In fact,

00:43:37.960 we have been born again.

00:43:40.700 Repent, believe.

00:43:42.280 That's how the church should work.

00:43:44.320 You should come in and feel convicted

00:43:45.580 if you weren't a believer.

00:43:47.600 It should change your life. 0.88

00:43:50.680 You should either come to Christ 0.87

00:43:52.020 or be absolutely offended. 0.75

00:43:54.740 But if you can walk in and stay at a church

00:43:56.800 for six months

00:43:58.100 and not be born again

00:44:00.600 because nobody ever preaches anything

00:44:02.280 that's of substance,

00:44:04.200 which happens in churches all around America,

00:44:06.520 my goodness, it's frustrating.

00:44:14.100 I'm going to leave you with a practical

00:44:15.740 ethic. Non-conformity with the world will always

00:44:20.460 produce curiosity.

00:44:23.700 1 Peter 3.15 says, always being prepared

00:44:26.000 to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason

00:44:29.820 for the hope that is in you.

00:44:34.040 This is saying that

00:44:35.440 people should come up to you and go,

00:44:38.140 hey, why do you have hope?

00:44:41.880 Because I don't have that.

00:44:47.820 That is your hope.

00:44:49.320 The way you live your life

00:44:50.780 should attract your family and friends

00:44:54.540 that aren't saved.

00:44:57.100 It should at least attract them to curiosity.

00:44:59.120 I'm not going to say that it's going to save them.

00:45:00.820 But it'll attract them to curiosity.

00:45:05.440 Does your life look so different that it attracts curiosity from pagans, teenagers, young people, when you're playing on the playground?

00:45:17.240 Does your life look different enough from the world that it attracts the curiosity of other kids?

00:45:30.840 If not, it's because you cannot do what you do not know.

00:45:34.760 You cannot do what you do not know.

00:45:38.420 Transformation is a result of learning.

00:45:43.720 So here's my call for action for you guys.

00:45:47.220 Stay with us.

00:45:49.080 Stay at Kingsway.

00:45:50.540 Let's go on a journey.

00:45:53.140 Let's renew our minds and learn together.

00:45:57.760 Let's take the scriptures and get into the deep end of the pool.

00:46:02.220 Let's produce multi-generational faithfulness

00:46:06.020 that kids and grandkids and great-grandkids

00:46:09.820 over the next 50 years

00:46:11.800 can understand the scripture.

00:46:15.820 We can be a transformed people.

00:46:18.620 And I've seen churches do this.

00:46:21.400 It transforms their church.

00:46:23.880 It transforms their town.

00:46:26.000 It transforms their county.

00:46:28.460 It really does.

00:46:31.260 But we need to be faithful and willing to do so.

00:46:34.220 Amen?

00:46:35.060 Let's pray.

00:46:37.180 Father, we thank you.

00:46:40.620 Lord, we thank you for the blessing of the scriptures, of our minds,

00:46:46.040 that you have chosen to reveal yourself through the written word.

00:46:50.820 Lord, give us theological rigor.

00:46:53.840 Lord, give us a desire.

00:46:56.320 Let us stop using the excuses that we're not intellectuals.

00:46:59.640 Lord help us grow

00:47:02.880 that we might be transformed

00:47:05.580 by the renewing of our minds

00:47:06.900 we ask this in your son Jesus name

00:47:09.140 Amen

Dale Partridge - November 23, 2024

Romans 12_1-2 Living Sacrifices： A Life Transformed by God's Will

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript