Sermon notes June 18th, 2025
ROMANS 12:1-5
Chapters 9 – 10 -11 are Israel’s past- present and future. Here in chapter 12 he takes a hard right. He’s not just addressing the Jew’s so much as he’s now addressing the whole church. Jew, Gentile alike, man and woman alike, this addresses all of us. To make it simple, it’s for you and me in today’s world.
• Paul told the Roman Christians how to live so that their behavior would be worshipful to God.
• God desires you to surrender every part of your life to Him.
Let me ask you this, would you buy a house if you were only allowed to see one of its rooms? Would you purchase a car if you were permitted to see only its tires and a taillight? Would you pass judgment on a book after reading only one paragraph? Nor would I.
• Good judgment requires a broad picture. Not only is that true in purchasing houses, cars, and books, it’s true in evaluating life. One failure doesn’t make a person a failure; one achievement doesn’t make a person a success.“The Bible says the end of the matter is better than its beginning,” see Ecc 7:8. It also says“be patient when trouble comes,” echoed the apostle Paul (Romans 12:12). We only have a fragment. Life’s mishaps and horrors are only a page out of a grand book. We must be slow about drawing conclusions. We must reserve judgment on life’s storms until we know the whole story.
Matthew 6:34
“Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
• He (God) should know. He is the Author of our story. And he has already written the final chapter.
What particular sin stalks you? When does it seize you with temptation? As a safeguard, memorize Romans 12:1–2. Whenever you feel tempted, repeat these verses in your mind and by God’s power plan not to sin.
Romans 12 New King James Version 1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
• Total commitment is our reasonable service. It is our reasonable service in this sense: if the Son of God has died for me, then the least I can do is live for Him. “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me,” said the great British athlete C. T. Studd, “then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him.” Isaac Watts’ great hymn says the same thing: “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my heart, my life, myall.”
• Reasonable service may also be translated “spiritual worship.” As believer-priests. What? Pastor, you called us Priests.
1 Peter 2:9 New King James Version
9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
• Believers today are a chosen generation, chosen by God before the foundation of the world to belong to Christ. But instead of being an earthly race with common ancestry and distinct physical characteristics, Christians are a heavenly people with a divine parentage and spiritual resemblances.
Ephesians 1:4 New King James Version
4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,
• We do not come to God with the bodies of slain animals but with the spiritual sacrifice of yielded lives. We also offer to Him our service (Rom. 15:16), our praise (Heb. 13:15), and our possessions (Heb. 13:16).
Romans 12:2
2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
• Secondly, Paul urges us not to be conformed to this world, or as Phillips paraphrases it: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold.” When we come to the kingdom of God, we should abandon the thought-patterns and lifestyles of the world.
• The world (the age) means the society or system that man has built to make himself happy without God. It is a kingdom that is antagonistic to God. The god and prince of this world is Satan
2 Corinthians 4:4 New King James Version
4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
• Satan is the culprit. He is here called the god of this age. He has succeeded in putting a veil over the minds of the unbelieving ones. He would keep them in perpetual darkness, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ … should shine on them that they might be saved.
• In our physical universe, the sun is always shining. We do not always see it, but the reason for that is that something has come between the sun and us. So, it is with the gospel. The light of the gospel is always shining. God is always seeking to shine into the hearts of men. But Satan puts various barriers between unbelievers and God. It may be the cloud of pride, or of rebellion, or of self-righteousness, or any one of a hundred other things. But all of these serve effectively to hinder the light of the gospel from shining in. Satan simply does not want men to be saved.
• The gospel has to do with Christ in glory. It is not the Carpenter of Nazareth who is presented to the believer’s view. It is not simply Christ outstretched on the cross of shame. But it is the Lord Jesus Christ who has died, buried, who has risen again, and who is even now at the right hand of God in heaven. He is the object of everybeliever’s faith—the glorified Son of God in heaven.
• All unconverted people are Satan’ssubjects. He seeks to attract and hold people through the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.
John 16:8-13 New King James Version
8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
• The Holy Spirit would convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. This is generally taken to mean that He creates an inward awareness of these things in the life of the individual sinner. While this is true, it is not exactly the teaching in this portion. The Holy Spirit condemns the world by the very fact that He is here. He should not be here, because the Lord Jesus should be here, reigning over the world. But the world rejected Him, and He went back to heaven. The Holy Spirit is here in place of a rejected Christ, and this demonstrates the world’s guilt.
9 of sin, because they do not believe in Me;
10 of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more;
11 of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.
John 14:30 New King James Version
30 I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.
• The work which the Lord began has to be continued by the Spirit of truth. The Holy Spirit, He would guide them into all truth.
• He will only speak the things that are given to Him to say by the Father and the Son. “He will tell you things to come.”
1 John 2:16 New King James Version
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.
• The world has its own politics, art, music, religion, amusements, thought patterns, and lifestyles, and it seeks to get everyone to conform to its culture and customs. It hates nonconformists—like Christ and His followers.
• Christ died to deliver us from this world. We are crucified to the world. It would be absolute disloyalty to the Lord for believers to love the world. Anyone who loves the world is an enemy of God.
• Believers are not of the world any more than Christ is of the world. However, they are sent into the world to testify that its works are evil and that salvation is available to all who put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We should not only be separated from the world; we should be transformed by the renewing of our mind, which means that we should think the way God thinks, as revealed in the Bible.
• Then we can experience the direct guidance of God in our lives. And we will find that, instead of being distasteful and hard, His will is good and acceptable and perfect.
• Here then, are three keys for knowing God’s will.
1. The first, is a yielded body.(Sanctification and honor)
2. Second, a separated life. (Your different, your demeanor)
3. Third, a transformed mind. (You don’t think like the world)
Our goal is to hit the proverbial “Bulls Eye” in regard to serving and walking the Christian life.Praying and making decisions according to what we believe is God’s Will for our lives is a must. We must pray, asking for God’s help in leading our decisions is absolute. But what if I miss the mark? “Not only did I miss the bulls eye, I missed the whole wall it was hanging on”.
• We serve a gracious and loving God. Don’t panic and think man I’ve missed the mark,now my life is done. God’s not going to ever trust me! God is not going to say, you missed it, now you’re on your own.
Forgiveness and Repentance:
The Bible assures that God will forgive bad decisions if one repents sincerely.
• The Bible makes it abundantly clear that no one is perfect, for we all make mistakes in life. Because of the original sin, no one is free from making mistakes, but through Jesus Christ we can overcome mistakes.
We all miss the mark:
Ecclesiastes 7:20
20 For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin.
James 3:2
2 For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body
1 John 1:8
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
• We all miss the mark (Bulls Eye) occasionally, some of us all more than others it seems. Let me try and give you an example:
You have what looks like a great job opportunity in Toledo. You pray about it, your wife cautions you, it’s so far away from our whole family. But it’s the promotion you’ve always wanted. You feel it’s God blessing you. So, you move your wife and kids to Toledo. Sounds great, at the moment.
• Months after the move you find the job isn’t all what you thought it would be. (You hate it, but you refuse to admit it). Your family is miserable and blaming you. You looked for a church like the one you left behind, but nothing even close. Is, all lost? Not at all!! Move back.
Talk to God. Ask Him if you missed the mark, if the answer comes back as yes, then ask for forgiveness. Repent and ask the Holy Spirit to lead you out of this mess. OR Ask God if He can use this bad decision, maybe there’s someone in Toledo that is waiting for someone like you to minister to them.
• God can and will make good our bad decisions if we will repent and trust Him. But remember there are consequences to our bad decisions.Some consequences are light, some last a lifetime.
Marriage for instance. This “Toledo” analogy does not work for marriage. Marriage is a commitment before God, one that He holds us accountable for.
• The Bible tells us there’s only two excuses for divorce.
1. Adultery of a spouse.
2. Abandonment of an unbeliever
Adultery
Matthew 19:9 New King James Version
9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”
Abandonment
1 Corinthians 7:14-16 New King James Version
14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise, your children would be unclean, but now they are holy
15 But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace.
16 For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?
• But what should be the attitude of a Christian if the unsaved partner desires to leave? The answer is that he or she should be allowed to depart. The expression “a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases” is very difficult to explain with finality. I believe that it means that if the unbeliever deserts the believer, and there is every reason to believe that the desertion is final, then the believer is free to obtain a divorce.
1 Thessalonians 4:1-9 New King James Version
1 Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God;
2 for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality;
4 that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,
5 not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
6 that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.
7 For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.
8 Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.
9 But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another;
ROMANS 12:3-4
3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.
• Paul speaks here through the grace that was given to him as an apostle of the Lord Jesus. He is going to deal with various forms of straight and crooked thinking.
• First, he says that there is nothing in the gospel that would encourage anyone to have a superiority complex. He urges us to be humble in exercising our gifts. We should never have exaggerated ideas of our own importance. Neither should we be envious of others. Rather, we should realize that each person is unique and that we all have an important function to perform for our Lord. We should be happy with the place God has dealt to us in the Body, and we should seek to exercise our gifts with all the strength that God supplies.
4 For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function,
• The human body has many members, yet each one has a unique role to play. The health and welfare of the body depend on the proper functioning of each member.
5 so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.
• That is how it is in the body of Christ. There is unity (one body), diversity (many), and interdependency (members of one another). Any gifts we have, we are not for selfish use or display but for the good of the body. No gift is self-sufficient and none is unnecessary. When we realize all this, we are thinking soberly
