In this “Whatever It Takes” series we’ve covered some ground. We’ve dug into some pretty challenging texts… and hopefully we’ve learned a few things. At this point, as we’re getting closer to moving into the Sermon on the Mount, I think it’s important to remind ourselves that we didn’t begin this journey so that we could get to the end and just become smarter.
That might be a goal… but it is not the goal… it might help us to get to the goal, but it’s not the goal. The goal of this series is that by studying God’s Word, we would allow God to change us… to make us new people. And we know that life transformation doesn’t happen by us willing it into existence… but rather by receiving the grace and love that God offers us in Christ. Embracing His gift of grace is where the transformation process begins.
And if you’ve been doing this for awhile, you might start to grow complacent. You might mask it as contentment, but it’s complacency. And yes, we rest in His grace… and we never want to stop resting in His grace… and we want to grow… but sometimes its hard… so how does this life transformation play out in real life?”
We’re in Christ… what does life transformation look like now? And what does this look like on the street? At work? In our living rooms? In our homes? In our schools? In our workplaces? Wherever you may step foot… these are the questions we want to wrestle with at this point in the series… how can I put this into practice?
Humans are weird. Sometimes we like to change. And sometimes we don’t. We are very inconsistent. It’s always situational. Humans are weird, but as human beings made in God’s image, I think we ought to ask the question, “How can I grow?” A whatever it takes mindset isn’t content with the status quo… but is longing for more Jesus.
In Romans 12, Paul offers us a plan for transformation. If only we will listen…
Romans 12:1-2, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
These are the basics for life transformation. And there’s a whole lot of meat packed into those two verses, so I’m comfortable slowing down and looking at them in some detail. Let’s work through it like this… the basis for transformation… the goal of transformation, the process of transformation… and the fruit of transformation…
BASIS
Let’s start with the basis… Paul is very clear… “by the mercies of God.” MERCY. Michael Defazio from OCC used to always take a text and do his best to summarize it in as few words as possible. And I like it when preachers and teachers do that because it puts all the points under the umbrella of the big idea. It helps to keep the forest in view, not getting bogged down by the trees. When they say, “okay, in a word” then they give you one word that summarizes everything they’ve been saying…
It would be tough to do that with Romans 1-11… and I don’t know if that’s exactly what Paul is doing here… but the way he starts chapter 12 sure makes me think its possible… if so, in a word: MERCY.
In view of God’s mercy… in light of all that God has done… MERCY – the many ways God has taken pity on those in need and acted to help when they didn’t really deserve it. As always, before calling us to do anything, Paul reminds us that the first step is receiving what God has done for us. It’s a willingness to help those who haven’t earned it… it’s God reaching out and helping those who definitively don’t deserve it.
MERCY is the basis. We have to keep God’s mercy in view. Here’s where the rubber meets the road… failing to keep God’s mercy in view typically puts you on the path of legalism. Failing to keep mercy in view turns it all into a religion of attempting to justify yourself by your rule following and good behavior… and it can certainly hurt you and the people around you.
GOAL
The basis? MERCY. What about the goal? I’m gonna summarize it in one word… it’s not used in this section, but the principle is clearly seen… what’s the goal? WISDOM. It’s pretty amazing what he says here… that by renewing your mind you will be able to test and approve God’s will… His good, pleasing, and perfect will. That’s a pretty loaded statement!
Knowing the right answers and being able to put them into practice. It’s not just having a list of rules memorized. It’s knowing how to discern God’s will in any given situation. This is the goal. A list of rules doesn’t make the cut but having the spiritual wisdom and discernment to know God’s will in the moment… to know what’s going on around you and to keep that in perspective. To know what’s true about God and what He desires for the situation for myself, for those around me, and for the world.
Being able to discern what God has said and how His Word applies to any given situation… that requires wisdom. And that’s the goal behind Paul’s words here… that’s God’s goal for you… that you would be discerning… Knowing God’s will, and putting it into practice… that all lends itself to life transformation.
Our world offers all kinds of processes for transformation. A lot of different folks will promise that if you follow their way, you’ll be changed… you’ll become the real you… you’ll be who you were supposed to be all along. They might frame it up in all sorts of ways, but they all bring different promises to the table.
You can look out into the world and it kind of seems to me like you could break the world’s strategies up into two basic categories. On the one hand, you have self-help strategies…. These tend to be focused on the mind… you go to the self-help book and you learn about positive thinking and they offer you the secret ingredient… that if you would just think like this, then you will be fine. Broadly speaking, the self-help industry says to change the way you think and then it will change your life.
On the other hand, the second strategy is what we might call health and wellness. These are strategies that focus on the body. Eat right, exercise enough… and if you do these things… changing the way you eat and changing the way you exercise… all will be well. If you can do those two things, you can go ahead and become who you want to be. Self-help tends to focus on the mind… health and wellness tend to focus on the body.
Here’s what’s interesting about that… before these fads… before the self-help industry and long before our addiction to exercise and dieting… Paul laid out a plan for life transformation, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and it includes both… thinking rightly and using your body rightly…
PROCESS
That’s exactly what we see in verses 1-2. You want to change? Then you have to do something with your mind and you have to do something with your body. Let’s take them in that order… mind and body…
Mind first… he says do not conform to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind… your ways of thinking and valuing and evaluating things…. don’t conform to the way everybody else’s mind thinks… Don’t look like… them; don’t be like a little kid or a little baby, doing whatever everyone else is doing because everyone else is doing it. We constantly resist the pull of one world so we can live properly in another.
Before looking at what he says next, let’s look at what he doesn’t say… he doesn’t say, “don’t be conformed to the pattern of this world but instead withdraw from society”…. He doesn’t say to “go and make a Christian commune where you’ll be safe from the big bad world out there”… that’s not his heart at all. Instead, he says, “stay in the world, but change the way you think!” Be transformed by the renewing of your mind! How we think impacts how we live… what we believe, what we think, how we process and evaluate things matters… how we think about God and the world and ourselves makes a difference for how we live now.
This means that one of the most powerful disciplines you can practice… one of the most important habits for you to form is thinking about what is true. I know it sounds simple but this is what it means for your minds to be renewed… think about the truth. One author put is this way… “One of the greatest powers any of us have is the power to choose what we think about.” This is something you can do!
I love Romans. I love what Paul says about grace and justification… I love the freedom he talks about in Christ and how our salvation is not dependent on our religious performances… free from the need to produce or win or be impressive or to seek other’s approval. That kind of stuff wears me out and no one can do it forever. 
I love the good news from Romans… that God loves me, and in Christ I’m not in trouble because He accepts me because of Jesus, not because of my perfection. I love that. It’s wonderful. It’s everything I need… and there are moments where I understand it all intellectually… and yet have no idea what to do about it! There have been times when I’ve been so good at legalism that my natural tendency was to always try to earn for myself, or justify myself by measuring my status in the eyes of others, thinking that my security is found in the approval of others, or that if I had a little more knowledge then I’ll be good… rewiring the way we think was never going to be an easy task… and I don’t want to oversimplify it… but I do want to say that like most things, time and practice go a long way.
When Paul says to be transformed by the renewing of your mind… he is telling us to reprogram our minds with the Gospel. How do we do that?? Think about it! Repeat truth! Over and over…mark it on the back of your eyelids so you see it every time you close them… keep it on the tip of your tongue, so that you’re always repeating truth. Truth reinforces faith, so let your self-talk be saturated with the Gospel.
We all talk to ourselves… some of us are honest about that… I bet we all do it… we think to ourselves about what’s going on and we have these internal conversations… so let those internal conversations be saturated with the truths of God’s grace… with the truth of what Christ has done for us.
Meditate on it. Think about it. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. There’s a mind component… and there’s a body component… What about our bodies? They might still be weak… they’re so used to listening to the master of our old life… and we still have these old habits… and they pull us away from this new way of life. And we know this new life is great and that’s what God wants for us… we know it’s so much better…
But we’ve gotten so used to using our bodies to break the rules, or to legalistically follow the rules… and it’s clearly not about that… and we don’t really know how to grow the body component to this life transformation thing. And so we typically settle by doing what we’re told to do… we go to church and we sit there and we listen and read and pray… and that’s all well good… but then that’s the end of it… and we still may not know what to do with our bodies… but this text does… and it forms the other half of what he says…in view of God’s mercy… offer your bodies as living sacrifices! This is your spiritual service of worship…
If the “sacrifice” language didn’t connect, please don’t miss what is clearly taught here: Morality is an act of worship. Understand what this means… it’s not all that complicated… we’re talking about obedience. We’re talking about God’s call on our lives to obey. We’re talking about offering your body as a living sacrifice, doing what you know God wants you to do… but Paul frames it up as an act of worship! Obedience is being linked to worship… we offer our obedience, through our bodies to God as an act of worship.
This is the kind of worship-service that makes perfect sense… as a response to all God has done. People have been brought from death to life – what should they do now? Probably devote their entire lives to the one who rescued them from death!
I like a fancier word for this idea… consecrate… it’s sacrificial language… to offer your body as a living sacrifice… Actually think about this… the family or community would set aside one animal for the purpose of being sacrificed… it would express rightness with God… or re-establish peace with Him… and that’s the language Paul applies to us! This idea of setting aside an animal and offering it as a sacrifice… and now we offer our bodies as living sacrifices… holy and pleasing to God. If nothing else, we learn that we are not our own! We’re talking about obedience, but we’re understanding it as worship. And there you have it… the mind and the body… that’s the recipe for transformation…
If I could help drive it home…
- With the mind – concentrate. Concentrate your mind on the truth.
- With the body – consecrate. Every morning when you wake up, devote your body to His purposes… God, I give you my hands, my feet, my eyes, my mouth… and then as you go through the day, continue to submit those parts of your body to God. Offer your body as instruments of righteousness, rather than wickedness…. And remember, this is all in light of what God has done… His MERCY… this is what Paul calls sensible worship.
To think and to obey. Not to earn God’s favor, but by the Spirit’s power to build new habits.
I beg you to take this personally. Please don’t leave these ideas on the level of theory… or treat them just as words to examine… here’s what I want you to think about… practically speaking… how can you arrange your day so that your thoughts include and focus and concentrate on the Gospel? How can you put these things into place as you go about your normal schedule? Maybe its as simple as reading your Bible before you start your day… or changing the lock screen on your phone so you see a Scripture every time the screen comes on… or have a reminder set at the same time every day to remember the cross… or while you bless your food before you eat, thanking God for His Son Jesus’ sacrifice. I don’t know… but how can you arrange your life and organize your day so that your mind is feasting on truth. Thinking of His MERCY.
And second, you need to ask yourself with as much honesty as you can muster… what body habits are present in your life that take their cues from the old way of living? Whether it’s a way of life that openly serves something other than God, or one that serves God but in a legalistic fashion… or if you offer your tongue and your hands and your stomach and your sexual organs and feet to wickedness… what habits have you set up that continue to keep you in bondage to your old master, sin. What habits need attention? What still needs to be discipled?
Paul gives us a process here for transformation. And again… we have to remember that the world is watching to see if your Christianity… your faith makes a tangible difference in your life. I think Paul says with certainty that it can, it should, and it will… if you’ll let it.
The Basis? MERCY. The goal? WISDOM. The process? Concentrate and Consecrate! Paul isn’t all that interested in us just being perfect little rule followers… but rather that we would remember His MERCIES… be able to discern in any situation what God’s will is… to test and approve it… His good, pleasing, and perfect will. With our minds we think rightly…. And with our bodies we obey.
FRUIT
And in this process of transformation… if we stopped here, we would be in pretty good shape… we would have some solid truth and some things to put in place to help us transform. But something would be missing. We would be missing something essential to this whole process. So… where does Paul go from here? The fruit of life transformation…
Let’s frame it all up here… Paul didn’t write Romans to an individual… this is encouragement to the church. This letter is written to the church. Romans is not just practical advice for a life well-lived… it is that, sure… but it is more than that… it is addressed to a community… written to God’s people on God’s mission… and God’s mission has always moved forward through a community of faith.
Of course individuals play important roles along the way… but their contributions to the Kingdom only make sense in relation to the whole. It’s not just a collection of individuals… it’s a community… not defined by ethnicity, but defined by faith. We’ve been grafted into this Branch and we are God’s people. We are the church. It’s not just you or me… Paul is writing to us… the church.
The way I like to think of it is that a truly believed Gospel is a lived Gospel…. And a lived Gospel requires a church. We need to understand that in order to know why Paul says what he says next… and to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to us.
So, look around at these people on your right and on your left… and in front of you and behind you… and maybe you think they’re great… maybe you think they’re weird… I don’t know… these are real people… and God’s intentions for this church are realized through these people. God’s mission continues to move forward… and His purposes continue to press on… and it happens through these people!
And this is exactly where Paul heads next… and if I could sum it up in a word… LOVE. We are called to love. We’re called to love everyone, sure, but in this context… we love the CHURCH.
This is the process that Paul lays out for us. I’m jumping ahead of our text here, but in chapter 13 Paul says it so well… here’s Romans 13:8, 10, “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law….10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
What Paul says is significant… when you live in love… you fulfill the Law. This portion of Romans reminds me of Mark Twain’s quote that “it’s not the parts of the Bible that I don’t understand that bother me. It’s the parts that I do.” In other words… the parts of Scripture that are really clear are also really hard to put into practice… back to our text…
Romans 12:3-8, “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. 4 For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6 Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; 7 if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; 8 or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”
Verses 1 and 2… love/worship God, verses 3-8 love/serve the… church. The church’s life together is above all a life of love. Paul starts by saying to think rightly of yourself… don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought to… instead have sober judgment… and from there he goes into this section about how each of us have been given gifts to serve the body.
Loving the church means we choose humility over pride. He ties our gifts to God’s grace… God’s grace has given us gifts, which means that pride is out of place! He knows that humans have a tendency to compete and compare. Yes, even church people. Loving the church means we think rightly about ourselves, with sober judgment.
We not only think rightly about ourselves… we think rightly about the church – Loving the church means we choose the body over parts. We love the church well by exercising our gifts.
Let’s be candid here… you can’t do this well if you don’t know your gifts. The picture is the church working together so that the whole thing could be built up and God be glorified!
What do we do with a passage like this? Here’s the Joe Seaton paraphrase… God has graciously given you something, so do what you do and do it well! God makes people good at what is needed for the church to do her job. This doesn’t mean that someone can do what no one else can do… but it might mean that they can do it better… or more effectively and that they might actually enjoy it. And on the flip side… just because we might not have the spiritual gift of giving… doesn’t mean we are excused from living generously… gifts are given by God’s grace… they are intended to be used for His glory… not as a copout to not do what you know you should do.
Practically speaking… there are just things in life and ministry that have to get done… so do what needs to be done. When possible, do what you’re good at. When you’re not good at something… Don’t think less of it and remember its okay to let someone else do it.
And when you are good at something… Get really good at it. Remember that all credit ultimately goes to God. The moment you find yourself looking down on someone… the moment you find yourself comparing yourself and competing with the people who are part of your team… is the moment you start to lose… that’s the moment you fail to play your part because you are so focused on trying to one up them, forgetting your call to love them.
What is the main point? Not even “we need each other”; we are part of each other.” Don’t get me wrong… I have an appreciation for healthy competition, in its proper place… and if we ever get to play some games together, I’m gonna do my best to win and to try to beat you… and I wouldn’t be offended if you did your best to try to beat me… that’s fine… all well and good. But church is not a game. We are not in a competition. We are in a war and in war the soldiers on the same side don’t compete with one another. They stand side by side and they fight together. And there’s no place in the church for that other junk because it tears apart what God wants to do among us. We do not fight for our territory in the church. That’s not how this works. We fight for the Gospel.
It’s like a masterclass in healthy churches. You want to know how to hurt a church? Compare and compete… forget that mission is not about you and make it about you and get up in arms when you don’t get your way. You want to know how to hurt a church? Only love some people… pick and choose… some people we love and other people we don’t.
That’s exactly where Paul goes next… Romans 12:9-13, “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; 11 not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; 12 rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, 13 contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.”
I just want us to ask, “Jesus, what do you want me to do first?” Because in these verses… there’s something for everybody in there. What impresses me about this portion is that Paul basically just blows out the boundaries and says, “we love everybody!” We love people who need us and we love people that we need. We love people who are kind to us and we love those who are not. We do not repay evil for evil… we don’t retaliate when people do us wrong. We don’t just love the people who are nice to us, we love everybody… we love the people who are mean to us. We love the people who are above us socially and we love the people who are below us socially. And if you jump ahead to chapter 13… we even love those who rule over us.
If anything is clear… it’s that we are not in a position to say to anyone, “you are off the list of people we’re called to love.” And I wish I didn’t, but when I make a statement like that I feel the need to define love. Love here doesn’t just mean happy thoughts that we feel about each other… it means we do what we can for their good. I know what God has said is good and I’m gonna commit myself to doing what is good for you.
And sometimes we violate this calling… sometimes we ignore this principle… sometimes we intentionally and sometimes unintentionally fail to love people as we are called to. Sometimes we’re mean to each other and mean to people… and I know it often happens by accident… other times it happens by negligence… or we have an attitude that says, “I’m not going out of my way for them… I’m just gonna be indifferent” … we may not be unloving on purpose… but we can still be unloving. And that means that we can hurt the church. We can hinder her mission… and in the eyes of some, we can give them reason to call into question the faithfulness of God.
Now… I just want to leave us with some questions… they’re pretty simple questions… easy to understand, but hard to actually do. Some things I’d like us to think about today… are there any people that we just naturally struggle to love? Like if left to our own devices, are there any individuals who if you had your way, you’d kind of rather they leave and just go to another church? Are there groups of people who you feel that way towards? Who, if you’re being honest… maybe its an age group… maybe it’s a cultural subgroup… maybe its people who like a particular kind of music… I don’t know who it is for you…. but are there any groups of people who you naturally tend to not love? And I want you to honestly answer that question…
And then I want you to consider who you compare yourself to… every time you compare or compete with somebody in the church, you keep both them and yourself from playing your part? Who are you comparing yourself to? Or competing with? Or maybe, who are you looking down on?
Measure yourself today. But do this properly: this is not a new list of rules to live up to, but a portrait of what God is doing in you. Paul wants us to see, to envision, our new life together. One preacher said, “If you’re looking down on them, then you’re not looking up at Jesus.” Hurting the church is a big deal. So please don’t do it. Would you choose to love her instead?