Offering the Body and Renewing the Mind

Introduction

You’re making your way to Romans chapter 12. Romans 12, we’re just going to read a couple verses this morning. John gave me so much time. I thought about expanding that a little bit, but we’ll just stick with these two verses this morning. We’re getting into a transition in the letter of Romans. I appreciate you sticking with me so long. I guess you just had to, because that’s what I’ve been preaching on. But all the way through chapter 11 and kind of getting the main argument of what Paul’s been working through and what the gospel is and how it reveals the righteousness of God, and that the just shall live by faith, all these important themes and ideas that now sort of come to a head in Romans 12, and he’s going to now transition and start doing some different things.

Still going to be teaching. There’s still going to be some good information about God and who he is. But now it’s also about expectations and the response that we should have as those who are his people. And this is where Paul is heading now, 12 through the rest of the book, essentially. So let’s begin reading in chapter 12 and verse 1. We’re going to read just two verses. I’m probably going to break this into two or three sermons in chapter 12 because it’s just such an important transitional text, kind of like Romans 8 a while back when we did multiple sermons from there. And then Paul gets into some more detail as you work into chapter 13, 14, 15, 16. But he begins with a little bit of a preamble here, trying to set them up with where things are headed.

He says in verse 1, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Probably one of the most well known texts in the book of Romans. And I’m sure you’ve heard countless sermons. You’ve probably talked about this text often in Bible classes, Sunday, Wednesday devotions. It’s going to be a text that you’ve probably heard a lot about. And there can be great applications that come from this text, and I hopefully we’ll get to those and pull some of those out.

However, it’s really the truths behind them that matter the most. And one of the dangers in preaching and teaching, actually both, is that we feel this need to kind of scrape the applications off the top and just give you something you can walk home with and apply immediately, as if that’s the only goal. But I want you to understand that actually truth and the substance of truth goes much deeper. And I want us to be able to ruminate and to meditate on truths that then we find applications, maybe for months or years to come, just on a basic reality or a basic truth. So I am going to give applications and hopefully we’ll get there.

NT Wright lists three keys to understanding Paul. That’s not just this text, but just the Apostle Paul in general. And this applies to pretty much everything we’ve done so far and everything we’ll do in the future in the letters of Paul. But I want to pull out a specific element of this that I think is helpful for us this morning. I’ll give you all three, and they are all sort of wrapped together in the one I’m going to focus on the most. The first is finding main themes within each paragraph. so rather than just picking a verse out, you know, you look at the whole section and get the context and more particularly the beginning and the ending and see kind of the signals and the ideas that are given by Paul about what he’s really dealing with.

So for example, he starts with I appeal. So this is now an appeal he’s going to begin making. And the last word in the text is the idea of perfection, right? He’s wanting to push us to perfection. So that’s just an example of that idea or that concept. The second key is learning how Paul’s words intersect with the wider Jewish and Roman world. Now that’s a deep and complex thing that’s just going to have to surface throughout greater discussions about what’s going on with Paul. But you will see that. I may not point it out, but it’s going to be part of our discussion this morning. But the third is the most critical, particularly in Romans 12, 1 and 2, and that is the importance of paying attention to small connecting words in a text.

This really helps us see the flow of what Paul’s doing as he makes arguments. And it’s actually vital in grasping the depth of a text like Romans 12, 1 and 2. And as we kind of pinpoint these small little words in the text that we may just read over sometimes and not even think about, like the word by, this preposition, or this sort of transition word therefore, which we’re going to talk about some this morning, it’ll actually help us kind of wrap everything together with those other keys. You don’t have to remember them, it’s not that important. If you want to, that’s great. But the important thing I want us to focus on this morning are the small words. These little words that make such a difference and understanding a text as we move through it.

1. Therefore, by the Mercies of God

Paul begins this appeal to the saints in Rome. And it’s based on really two fundamental ideas that are all kind of encapsulated in this word, therefore. Now, if you happen to be looking in a Greek Bible, you probably aren’t, but it’s not the first word. I appeal or paracalo, which we’ll talk about later, is the first word. But sometimes that doesn’t really matter because the word therefore in Greek is what’s called a postpositive. And that means it will never ever be the first word of a sentence. There’ll never be a case in which the word therefore starts a sentence. And for whatever reason, it doesn’t really matter. It’s syntax and structure. But the reality is this is where Paul’s starting, right? So he’s starting with the idea of therefore.

And there’s two aspects of this, one I have on the screen for you. When Paul says therefore, what he’s saying is everything I’ve talked about before in chapters one through 11, well, that’s the way we see it. He didn’t have chapters back then, but preceding this in the letter, all of this is coming to this moment now where I want to draw you and urge you to live a certain way. Now the other aspect of this is where he ties it in with this wording, the mercies of God, right? I want to do this by the mercies of God. So another small little important word. That’s going to be the instrument of the appeal. The way he’s going to make this appeal is based on the argumentation he’s already used, but then also just the natural reality of God’s compassion and God’s mercy.

So those they’re very similar, but they’re not exactly the same. So the first is hey, if you remember all the stuff I said, and all the things I said before, we got to this point, it’s based on that. But also, if you could just think about how compassionate and merciful God is, then I’m urging you to live a certain way. I’m appealing to you to do things in a certain manner of life. Now, this word paracalo I already mentioned, and by the way, it doesn’t matter if you remember the Greek terms. But they are important in terms of what’s happening with the wider world, as I mentioned in one of the keys. Paracalo is the word urge or appeal. And I’ve talked about a long time ago now when I preached on the idea of grace, that this term is kind of a key term in the language of grace.

It’s found in honorific decrees, where you know, a king or somebody else, a great benefactor, that they have an inscription or something. It’s like, here are all the great things I did for you. You know, I built the gymnasium and I built the bathhouse and I built this civic area and did all these things for this. Now here’s what you can do in return. Right? And so this word paracalo, or I urge or I appeal is very often found in what is called the resolution clause of an honorific decree. So you have manifesto clause, here’s all the great things I did for you. Resolution clause, now here’s how you respond to that. Here’s what you now do in return for the great things that I’ve done.

And this is the term Paul is using, a term they would have been very familiar with to say, hey, I just told you all about the gospel. I told you all about how Christ at the right time, he died for the ungodly. I told you about how God’s righteousness is revealed, not through the old law, but in the revealing of his son, and that by faith in Jesus Christ, you can now have a relationship with God. And all of this is done by God’s grace and God’s power and making known that he is just and he is the justifier of the one who has faith. So, with all of that in mind, now I’m going to urge you to do some things. The points are relatively simple.

2. Sacrifice Your Body

You’re not going to be shocked by them. Probably they’re the focus of most of what you’ve ever heard from Romans 12, 1 and 2. And that is the first, the urging here is to sacrifice your body. Sacrifice your body. Because of what God has done through Christ, we’re called to give our bodies to the Lord. Now he modifies this in three ways. Most of your Bibles say to present your bodies a living sacrifice. And that’s fine. But the structure in the original language is to give your body a sacrifice, living, holy, acceptable. There’s three elements of how this works. And I think one thing we need to identify here is that Paul is pulling out something they would have been very familiar with, the idea of sacrifice.

The Jews are very familiar with sacrifices for sin. The pagans would have been too, in a kind of warped incorrect way. But they understand the idea of sacrifice. And what he’s saying here is it’s no longer a dead animal sacrifice. You take this animal, you offer it, and now there’s some things about that align with what he’s going to say. When you take that perfect lamb or you take that bull, whatever it is you’re sacrificing, and you put it on the altar and you kill it, there’s no coming back. You don’t offer the sacrifice and then pull it back off there and put it in the field. That’s not how it works. I mean, they’d be pretty gross if you did that. It’s not going to work very well.

So it is complete, it’s full. Whatever that offering is, you’re making it in wholeness, which is really the concept of holy, right? So it’s living, it’s holy, and it’s acceptable. And so holy is the idea of being consecrated or separated. Often that the things in the temple, well, always, the things in the temple were consecrated for their use. You didn’t bring just regular, ordinary, everyday items into the temple. They were sprinkled with blood, they went through a process of sanctification. Do you kind of see how this should start aligning in our minds with what God wants from us? This is not just a single decision, and then you don’t worry about it anymore after that. To put in our kind of our modern Christian language, you don’t just get baptized and then go on about your life and live how you want.

Paul’s emphasizing this concept of consecration or sanctification, which is in this instance a lifelong process, right? This is where it is in contrast to the system of animal sacrifice. We are living sacrifices. So we give our bodies, we give ourselves, and this is a process that lasts our entire life. It is ongoing.

Now, this all connects to what Paul’s been talking about previously in the book. He spent three chapters talking about this concept of slavery. You were a slave to sin and you obeyed your master, and then you were freed from sin, and now you’re a slave of God, and so you do things in a way to please your new master. Right? You were a slave of sin and you which led to death, and that’s what you did. But when Christ died for you and you became a slave of God, now you aim to please that master. Right? And so you give your whole body, you give your whole self, you give your life, and it’s an ongoing sacrifice. It is a process of consecration and dedication. That’s really what the word means.

And you’re doing this in a way to honor and please the one who is your master. Now, there’s this term in here, which in my Bible is translated spiritual worship. And we could talk about all the various ways that could be translated. It’s really not all that significant. I’ll just say that the word there is where we get our word logical. And the concept here is he’s saying this just makes sense. It makes sense that you would do this. You know, with everything we’ve looked at and with what God has done for you, it makes sense that this would be the response. This is the logical response. It’s the logical service. The word worship there is a word that’s very much connected to the sacrificial system in the Old Testament.

So often you’re going to find priestly service or sacrifice connected to this term in the Septuagint. And so again, he’s he’s pulling on something they’re very familiar with, the idea of worship in the temple, and saying, here’s what it is for you. It’s your whole life. You give your life. Now, there’s a term I want to bring up that is, it’s not a hard term, but I think it’s a great way to conceptualize a lot of what happens in the New Testament and what we’re called to. As far as I know, it is introduced by a guy named Michael Gorman. He wrote a book with this name called Cruciformity. And so often what’s happening within biblical text is we are being called to the cruciform nature of Christ.

So everything that’s going on here, when Paul says this is the reasonable or rational worship in your life, it’s because it’s like Jesus. Why is it that we give our bodies? Why are we called to give our bodies as a sacrifice, a living and holy and pleasing sacrifice? Well, because we’re supposed to be like Jesus. And Jesus gave his body.

Hebrews 10 talks all about this, a body you’ve created for me to do your will. This is the idea of what the Messiah was accomplishing. He came, it’s no longer animal sacrifice, now it’s human sacrifice. He’s giving himself for the sins of the whole world and the call, the response to this, it just makes sense. It’s logical. It’s logical based on all the arguments Paul made in 1 through 11, but it’s also just logical because of what Christ did for us that we would give our bodies and service to him.

3. Be Transformed by the Renewal of Your Mind

And then he says, I want you to be transformed. Now, there’s really no good way. I wrestled with this for quite a while. There’s no good way to separate these two ideas, which probably makes sense as well. Because ultimately the point we want to see is that God really wants body and mind. He wants it all. He doesn’t just want us to go through a bunch of actions and rituals. That’s that’s you know, sacrifice in itself is not pleasing to the Lord. He wants the heart too. And so just showing up at the right times and saying the right words and going through the right actions is really rather empty unless there’s heart behind it, unless there’s a kind of a mental appreciation of what’s happening in that process and a desire to be doing it to honor God.

So these two have to work together. And that’s part of the point Paul’s making here. And essentially, you can’t be a living sacrifice. You can’t be a sacrifice that’s living and ongoing and continual without going through this next part of the process. And so he says, don’t be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Probably the number one phrase from Romans 12 that people know. Living sacrifice and be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Those are the two phrases that we know the most from Romans 12, probably the whole chapter, but especially one and two. Those are the that’s the content, that’s the idea. But they work together in a really beautiful way. Both of these terms could be either what’s called a middle voice or a passive, and they’re probably translated in passive in most of your translations.

And so what that means is do not be conformed, but it could also be do not conform yourself. Do not be transformed, like the action is being put on you, or transform yourself. The second of those is kind of puts each of us in a position of acting upon what’s happening, right? And the idea there of conformity is kind of like a schematic, right? You have a paradigm or a model, and sometimes we find a model or a paradigm, we’ll follow that to produce something. And what he’s saying here is if you’re gonna be a living sacrifice, ultimately, you’ve got to be transformed, and that’s not going to happen if you model yourself after this present age. The beauty of Paul’s writing is it applies all the time.

You know, he’s in the first century world, and he’s saying, don’t model yourself after the present age, after this age. But has that changed at all? And when we look around and we see what the world is like, it is this is a situation where it is 100% as applicable now as it was in the day of Paul. Do not model yourself. Don’t follow the schematic of the world. Don’t look at the world and think that’s what I want to do. That’s where I want to be. And all the things that the world thinks are important, that the world highlights, some of those are very similar in the first century as they are now. There’s probably some nuanced changes here and there. But it’s like that’s that’s not the model.

That’s not what you should be following. If you’re going to be a living sacrifice, your mind has to be different. Your mind can’t be geared toward the things that the world’s minds are geared toward, the things that they think matter and things that they think are important. All of that has to be changed, it has to transition, it has to be something that is different and then renewed. So I want you, I want you to draw a parallel between the idea of being a sacrifice that’s living and renewing the mind. Those two things go together. The renewing of the mind is something that is also ongoing and continual. I don’t know who the oldest person is here this morning. I’m not going to try to pinpoint them or look through the audience and point them out.

That’d be a big mistake. But whoever it is, every single day they should be working on renewing their mind. They’ve not reached a point to say, I’ve got it. I figured it out. I’ve got this Christ thing down, and I’m good to go. That’s not what Romans 12, 1 and 2 is about at all. Transformation is about a continual process of renewal. Every day bringing in information, testing and working through that information, living it, and seeing which of these things is right and which of these things is not right or not as good. And it’s this process that’s always happening that then also connects itself to the idea of sacrifice, a sacrifice that’s living and holy and pleasing. They just go hand in hand. So being transform is really a change and fundamental character.

Again, we don’t go into water. The waters of baptism, super important. This is part of God’s plan. Just the image alone is significant that we die to ourselves and we’re raised up to new life. But that is never presented in a way in scripture where that happens and then you’re just good. Everything’s fine, don’t have to worry about anything anymore. No more change is necessary.

And the way it’s presented in scripture is that you’re taking the old man and you’re continually working through this to renew your mind and become something different. Right? So Colossians 3, for example. Right? You’re putting off the old man and you’re putting on the new. That doesn’t happen in three and a half seconds, right? I think we all get that. It’s what’s taking place throughout the rest of our life as we give our bodies in service, which is a reasonable and rational worship, sacrifice, way of living. And I told you I’m not gonna try to make a bunch of applications this morning, but one of the reasons is they’re innumerable. I can’t know all the things in each person’s life and say, what is being a sacrifice that’s living mean for you based on that reality?

4. Testing to Discern the Will of God

You know, what do you have to give up? What do you have to change? I mean, I that’s it’s different for each person. But that truth, that fundamental reality and truth should be shaping me and changing me every day. Which things are pulling me to be conform to the world, and what things are helping me transform and renew my mind. That’s what I need to be asking. This is important because this is the means by which we come to understanding of God’s will. This is the renewing of the mind as the means of transformation. As I’m reading scripture and I’m letting it shape me and change me, then he uses this phrase, the idea of discerning. Now, in my Bible it says that by testing you may discern.

So testing that you may discern to me looks like two words. In Greek, it’s just one, which is sort of confusing for us. That’s just how language works sometimes. But the concept of the word there is that’s how you make judgments. Just think about like a scientific process, right? Like we put things to test. We have a hypothesis, we go through some different processes, we come out the other side and say, here’s what we learned. Right? We can’t make good judgments without working through that process which takes actions. It means you have information and you work through that information and you try things, and as you’re trying things, you’re aligning that in terms of scriptural and spiritual realities with what we’re seeing with God.

And God doesn’t delineate every single choice we’re supposed to make in life. That’s just that’s not how he works. In fact, Colossians 3 talks some about that, I already referenced it, so I’ll pull you over there and we’ll just look at this phrase here. I love this statement in Colossians 3 15. Colossians 3.15, he’s talking about this transition of the old man to the new. And then he says in verse 15, Colossians 3.15, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. Now, gratitude, huge part of all of this. If the message of the gospel is grace, the response is gratitude. It’s understanding who we are in relationship to God and how grateful we are for what he’s done.

But the point I want to make from Colossians 3.15 is this phrase, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. The idea there is that we’re so in touch with Christ and who he is, because we’re trying to be like him, right? The cruciform nature of the message of the gospel. We’re trying to transform our life into his, and we’re so in touch with that our understanding of Christ is what’s calling the shots in our life, not the things of the world. The idea here is kind of like an umpire. That’s the best way to maybe describe it in our language. It’s they’re they’re the one making the choices. Right? And so the peace of Christ is what’s ruling my heart. The understanding of Christ and who he is and what he wants and my effort to be pleasing to him and acceptable to him, that’s what’s helping me make the decisions.

And so that’s why saying, well, is it sin or is it not sin just doesn’t work that well. Because there’s so many things in life that we may not be able to say, well, that’s sin. I know it’s sin. But the question is, and you’ve heard me say this before, is it wise? Is it smart? Is it a wise choice based on what I know about Jesus Christ and about God the Father? This is letting the peace of Christ rule in my heart. Making decisions, not because somebody can’t tell me it’s wrong, but because it’s the best outcome for my soul and for the kingdom and for the people around me. Just a lot of discernment that goes into that. We really like for people to say, this is wrong and that’s right.

That makes everything really easy. But that’s not really what we’re called to. There are times God does say that. There’s times he is very specific, but a lot of times the choices that we make, they’re a matter of discernment. Should I change jobs? Right, I’ve got all this information over here, and I got this information over here, and I have to work through the pros and the cons. What’s better for my family? What’s better for my relationship with people at church? And I’ve got to weigh all of that. Is that a matter of sin or not sin? Probably not. But it may have something to say about my ability to transform my life by the renewing of my mind and my ability to sacrifice my body in service of the Lord.

And notice as well that God cares about body and mind. Our bodies are important to him. What we do with our bodies matters.

He wants us to serve him in wholeness. And the purpose of all of this, the transformation, is that we can make these kind of judgments, that we can be discerning of what is the will of God. Things, again, three things, what is good, pleasing, and perfect. So this mirrors the early section about sacrifice that is living, holy, and pleasing. And so if I’m not living in a way to transform my mind, I’m also not going to be able to be a living sacrifice. Those go hand in hand. If every single day I’m not attempting to renew my thinking after the image of my creator, if I’m not trying to do things in a better way each day, the sacrifice is not living. It does not continue on.

And Peter warns about this. He says, do not be conformed to your previous passions that you had in ignorance. 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 14. So we can be pulled back. Don’t allow yourself to follow that pattern that’s in the world, right? Do not be conformed, but be transformed. And in that process, a learning process. I don’t have it all. You don’t have it all. We’re constantly working through this. To then also continually offer our bodies and service to God. And so just as this is the starting point of chapter 12, it’s the starting point of understanding Paul’s appeal. What he’s going to be calling people to in service to God. All the things he’s going to be telling them to do, it all connects back to this idea of giving their bodies and their minds to the Lord based on God’s grace and mercy and love.

And so we’ll see him tie that all together with the idea of love in chapter 13. Right? And the idea in 14 and 15 of working together and being in unity as God’s people.

Conclusion

Ready to test, ready to prove what is good and acceptable and perfect. We’ll bring it to completion. That’s the idea. And it could be this morning you need to start that process. Maybe you’re in our midst this morning. And we have a variety of people in a variety of places in their faith this morning. That’s just the nature of how it works as we grow. But it may be this morning you realize you need Jesus Christ. You know he’s the Son of God. But you haven’t given your body, you haven’t given your life to him yet. And I want to urge you this morning to do that. It is giving up. It’s giving up a past life, but the rewards are beyond anything we can imagine.

The rewards are eternal. And you will be with God’s people and you will be with him for all eternity. And experience in fullness the majesty of God. Can we help you do that this morning? Why don’t you come now as we stand and we sing together?