Published: June 1, 2025 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Romans - Part 67 | Scripture: Romans 12:2
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Sunday school as it uh very much I think Paul echoes Deuteronomy 6 in Romans 12 especially in these first two
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verses that we've been looking at going to reread them Romans 12 verse 1 I urge you therefore brethren by the mercies of God to present your bodies
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living, holy, acceptable sacrifice to God, which is your reasonable service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
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renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Let us pray.
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Father, we do ask that you would continue to open your word to us and our minds and spirits to your word. By your Holy Spirit, you would illuminate what you have caused your apostle Paul to
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write. And help us also to hear the echoes of what you have revealed to your children through Moses and through the psalmist, through the prophets, and through the
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through the apostles. Indeed, through the mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ himself. Help us to see the unity of the revelation of scripture that you have given
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us. And more than that, help us to obey it and to walk in it. For your blessing is as much contingent on our obedience and our
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doing of your commandments as it was for the Israelites. And though we know that we cannot lose the salvation that you have given us through Jesus Christ, we still
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ask that we might live as who we are. That we know ourselves to be the sons and daughters of the living God and to live our lives
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to think and to do accordingly. We ask this father for your glory and for the edification of the church in which Jesus Christ is glorified. for we ask in his
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Amen. This may seem a little bit uh blasphemous to say, but the Lord's prayer has been a problem for the church for 2,000 years. We don't really know what to do with it.
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There are many churches of course that recite it every time they gather somewhat like a Christian shama. We say the Lord's prayer by
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wrote. Many Protestant churches including our own try to move away from such ritual and lurggical use of prayers
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and other liturgy thinking that by saying it too often it becomes commonplace. It becomes trit. we end up despising it. What do we do with the
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Lord's prayer? Is it is it a lurggical prayer or is it a pattern for prayer? Jesus himself in introducing the Lord's prayer in Matthew chapter 6 says
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in this manner then pray. So he seems to present the Lord's prayer as a pattern of our prayer. And and I think we can look at the Lord's Prayer, and I'm I'm
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not going to recite it because I think most of you know it, but it's in Matthew 6 and in Luke as well. It begins with address and adoration. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy
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name. Then it moves into what I call ultimate concerns, followed by proximate concerns. Give us this day our daily
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bread. concerns that are near at hand, followed then by a prayer for preservation and protection. Lead us not
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into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Really is a fabulous pattern for prayer. And and I think many Protestant churches and and I think rightfully
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moving away from the recital of the Lord's prayer by wrote week after week have also forgotten it in terms of a pattern. they've forgotten the the
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introductory comment by Jesus in this manner. Therefore, manner. Therefore, pray. And so I do think that it should govern our prayers. And I want to focus
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on that second rubric, ultimate rubric, ultimate concerns. I think it is fairly clear that we ought to begin our prayers with
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address and adoration. that we should not come to God in a in a manner that does not acknowledge his holiness, his his almightiness, his
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sovereignty. But then what we bring to God first is often indicative of the state of our own maturity and spiritual
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health. Do we come to God first first with our proximate concerns, our daily bread, or do we begin with these
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ultimate concerns, the subject of which Jesus puts right after his address and adoration, thy kingdom come, thy will be
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done on earth as in heaven. That is often missing from prayer. We move from the address and adoration
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directly to the approximate concerns of our daily life. Sometimes we even forget to pray the section on preservation and protection. And that's not smart. It's
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like not wearing a seat belt in life, frankly. But the ultimate concerns of that second rubric, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, are crucial to what
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Paul's teaching us here in Romans 12. That is the mind that is renewed and being renewed because it's being renewed in conformity to the will of God. Thy
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will be will be done. Jesus's own prayers remarkably in the sense that they should be remarked
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upon left out the third rubric. He seemed very unconcerned about his proximate needs because he knew that God takes care of the of the lily of the
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field and the sparrow in the air. Why should we worry about our daily bread? Why should we worry about our food for today or for tomorrow? But Jesus never forgot the
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ultimate concerns. ultimate concerns. never forgot that God's will being done, God's kingdom God's kingdom coming is really what it's all about for the people of God, for the children of
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God. But I want to ask the question, when when we do pray the Lord's prayer, when we do remember that second rubric, thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
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when when are we thinking God's kingdom will come? When will we think that God's will be done? Well, frankly, due to the influence of dispensational teaching
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over the past roughly 150 years, most of us when faced with that question think, well, at the Lord's second coming, second coming, right? That that's when the kingdom will
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come and that's when the will of God will be done is when the Lord Jesus Christ returns. But isn't that bit of a of a tautology? Isn't that kind of
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I mean, we know that when Christ comes, he will set all things right. When Christ comes, he will come in his glory to set up his kingdom, and God's will will have been fully done. So, why are we praying for
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it? Why are we praying for something that we know will come in fullness when Jesus returns?
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Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15 24. He said he said he's speaking about the second coming of Christ. He's speaking about what will happen at the end of the age when all things are summed up in Christ. And he writes, "Then comes the
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end when he delivers up the kingdom to the God and father when he has abolished all rule and all authority and power." He delivers up the kingdom.
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But doesn't that imply that the kingdom is already being developed? That the kingdom is already being built so that at his second coming, Jesus is handing
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over to the father a completed sovereignty of his kingdom. Well, I think that's exactly what Paul goes on in verse 25. He says,
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"For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet." He must
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reign. Jesus, which means he is reigning. That during this period between his resurrection and his perusia, he is
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reigning. And that our thought should not be, "Thy kingdom come someday when you return, but rather now on this side of the empty tomb, thy kingdom grow."
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Having come, now may it grow. Now may it spread. Now may it prosper fully in the period before his return.
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And so when Jesus says or Paul writes that he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet, think again of what Paul says. A very enigmatic
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statement in Romans chapter 16 verse 20. He says, "And the God of peace will soon crush Satan where?" Under your
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feet. So he must reign until all his enemies are put under his feet. And Paul says, "Soon the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet." Which means the
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reign of Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God is here and now within God's people. And his reign is now mediated through us, through you and me and all
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his believers throughout the ages and throughout the world. Let's look at it another way. Let's look at the Lord's Prayer from a different light. Give us this
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day our daily bread. What's the focus? Today. He says, "Forgive us our trespasses when when they're all total
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at the end." No, today. Because we say as we forgive those who trespass against us. When? At the end. No,
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today. Lead us not in temptation. What? after we've already entered it. No, before today. Lead us not. The entire
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prayer is current. It's all about today. So why would that second rubric not also be chronologically temporally
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in the same context? Thy kingdom come today. Thy will be done today through thy church. Thy kingdom come through the
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work of the Holy Spirit in the church. Thy will be done. Knowing and doing the will of will of God in the church is the progressive
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coming of the kingdom. Not yet fully, in fact, not fully until the end of the age, until Jesus does return. And yet partially and
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progressively this was God's will. This is God's will. And so when Paul says that you may prove what the will of God is that which is good and acceptable and
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perfect, this is our daily business. John or in John Jesus is recorded as saying, "My food, my bread
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is to do the will of him who sent me. Can that be any different? We pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." And if we're imitating Christ, what is that
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daily bread? It's to do the will of the one who sent us. And so Paul says here, "That you may know, that you may prove what that will
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Adolf Schlatter writes, "But since it is no longer their goal," speaking of believers, it is no longer their goal to do what everyone else does, but to do God's will. They need a renewed
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mind. The latter enables them to test, to inquire into the will of God. They do not come to know it unless they inquire into it with the concerted
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strenuous labor of their mind. That's what Paul's saying here. The will of God has been made known through his word and through the
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word Jesus Christ. He once made his will known in parts and portions through the prophets. Now he has made his will fully known in his son and he has revealed his
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entire redemptive plan through the death, the burial, the resurrection and the ascension of that son, our lord Jesus Christ. And so now Paul admonishes
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us that through a renewed mind, we might know that well. And why? Well, that's where we get into the rest of chapter 12 and 13 and 14. that by that renewed
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thinking and that knowledge of what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, we do his will. Because as was pointed out through
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Sunday school and through Deuteronomy 6, it's no good simply to teach it. It's no good simply to know it. The only good comes from doing it. But the doing of it
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presupposes the knowing of it. You cannot do something that you do not know. Although many times we do things thinking that we know, but we don't
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know. And so what we do doesn't count. I'm always impressed by that vision of the last day when those who
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were separated to the left of our Lord said, "Lord, Lord, we cast out demons in your name. We did this and we did that. We preached. We went we went door todo. We handed out tracks in your
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name. He said, "Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you." That's that's a frightening passage that it shows that we can be
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selfdeceived. That we can think we know, but we do not think with renewed minds. And therefore, what we think that we think it's logical and reasonable and maybe even biblical, we will come to
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find out, no, you didn't have it right at all. at all. And so I think what Paul is saying here in Romans 12, these first two verses, they may be among the most important
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disciplehip verses that exist in the Bible. And I think that's why I've been spending so much time on them is pretty much our entire sanctification, our
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entire disciplehip, our entire walk as believers in this world starts here. This is go and you don't get $200. This is where we begin. Okay? And
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if we don't begin here, and if we don't stay in this walk, then we might as well go straight to jail because we're not doing God's will, we're doing that which is right in our own
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minds. And don't think for a moment that as believers, we are immune to that error. We are not. Or Paul would not have admonished us otherwise. He would
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not have said, "Do not be conformed to the world." If that was an impossibility, it would be like saying, "Do not Chuck, do not eat limema beans. That ain't going to happen
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anyhow." You talk about coercion. Okay? So, it's like it it clearly implies that we now have what it takes. We are equipped with the ability to do what God
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has commanded because we are now born again. But you know when people read this and when others preach it many times the church responded the
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same way Israel did at the mount and that is Moses you go up we'll just stay here we'll wait you you come back and tell us now that did display a fear that
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God was glad to see that they did fear him but but later on we also read that the people were not really interested in what God said. Moses
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himself at one point says, "Oh, that God would pour out his spirit on all the people that they might know, that they might hear." And of course, the new covenant promises exactly that, that God
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will write his law in the hearts of every Israelite, every child of God, and not not one teaching another, but rather they they will all be taught of God. And
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so that was even promised in the Old Testament. And yet that tendency to say, you know, that's kind of hard stuff. Why don't we just preach free
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grace, once saved, always saved, make it easy, our church will grow, but let's not put too much of a burden on the
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people. See, this is the justification for clergy. for clergy. get a professional class, a Levitical class within the church and they kind of take care of all this stuff that Paul's talking about that we would rather not
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be bothered with because it's not the path of least resistance. As Schlatter says, this is this is the concerted and strenuous labor of the mind.
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Now I don't think anybody any social commentary today will tell you that concerted strenuous labor of the mind categorizes the current
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generation. Mindlessness generation. Mindlessness might but not the concerted strenuous labor of the mind. not the the
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transformation of life through the renewing of the mind. And if you do not follow in that path, then you do not know the will of
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God. You have not proven, you have not tested, you have not inquired into the will of God. And therefore, whatever it is you're doing in the name of Christ and whatever you're doing in the in the guise of Christianity is not according
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to the will of God because you don't know it. And so this is this is heady stuff. This is difficult
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is difficult stuff and it's easy to avoid it to pass it off in somebody on somebody else. And then there's the other argument that is prevalent in the church today and that is not only is it hard to preach this
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kind of stuff, we shouldn't do it because that's works salvation. And and there is an entire body of evangelical preaching today and writing that is teaching that you're saved by grace
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through faith and that's it. And therefore to put any other burden on you is to retreat from grace
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into works. Never mind that Paul talks about the obedience of faith. We we don't want to deal with that because that detracts from grace. And so it's once saved
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always saved. Then it doesn't matter how you live your life. If you made a decision for Christ, if you walked the aisle, if you raised your hand, that's all it takes. And however you live after that really doesn't matter. Although
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they do teach that it does matter in terms of eternal rewards, that if you're going to get any rewards in heaven, then you you have to act certain ways. You can deserve rewards, but not
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salvation. That is a heresy. That is a false teaching. false teaching. And it's something I think we all recognize. We we read in the scripture if we read our scripture. If we don't,
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well, we're not even on go yet. We haven't even opened the board. But as we read scripture, we do see that God does expect us to be holy as he is holy. And
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there are so many admonitions, exhortations, prohibitions, and commands that there's no way that we can read the scripture with any degree of understanding and come away thinking,
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"Well, I don't really have to do anything because Jesus did it all." And so we we look at many that we know who profess to be believers, but in whom there's there's
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no spark of divine revelation through the Holy Spirit, there's not even a desire for desire for it. And and we wonder, can can they be
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saved? And think about it. Can one who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit have no interest in the will of God? What's the Holy Spirit doing
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there? Is he just a squatter in some back room that you never use? Is that why he came? Although Jesus said he will come, he will dwell within
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you and he will lead you into all truth. And yet for many professing believers, he's nothing more than a squatter. And he's certainly not listened to. Which I
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think is one of the reasons Paul would write in his letters, do not grieve the Holy Spirit. Do not grieve him. Basically, by ignoring him. If God is at work within
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someone, and we love uh Philippians the verse chapter 1 verse 6, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to perfection until the day of Jesus Christ. Isn't that an encouraging? put that one on your refrigerator, right?
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How's he going to do it? Just magic? Or has he revealed how he's going to do it? And so, can it be that someone in whom a work has
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begun and God is working with that one as Philippians 2:3 says, both to will and to do his pleasure. Do they not also have to work
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out their salvation with fear and trembling? Is that not the result of God through the Holy Spirit working within us? Paul puts those two things right next to each other in Philippians 2.
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Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. And those words have the same context. They're used in the context of the Greek the Greek marathon to describe the runner at the
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end of the race. Now, I've never been accused of being a runner, so I don't know this firsthand, but I I do know from younger years that
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you you can exercise tennis, for example, which is what I played, to the point where your muscles spasm. That's actually what this phrase
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means. It's the uncontrollable spasming of the exercised muscles after a marathon. In other words, concerted and strenuous
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labor. And yet immediately Paul says, "For it is God who is at work within you both to will and to do his good pleasure." It's all through Paul's
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letters. How have we made the obedience of faith, which is so central to Paul's understanding of the regenerate life, how have we made it an option for
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spiritual Christians? spiritual Christians? And it is taught so much in today's evangelical churches that you have a choice that you can either just, you know, be saved, get that fire insurance
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policy, and live your life knowing that you're going to go to heaven when you die. Because frankly, that's what it's all about in modern evangelism. It's not about the glory of the Lord covering the earth as the waters cover the sea. It's
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not about the kingdom coming and his will being done through the church on earth as it is in heaven. It's about where you going to go when you die. you're going to go to heaven when you die, which is a completely wrong
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esquetology to begin with, but we're not going to go there this morning. How have we separated the obedience of faith that is just so natural to Paul's understanding of regeneration that we
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are baptized into the death of Jesus Christ that we might rise to walk in newness of newness of life. And how's that been categorized? either as a oh that's the clergy or or those are the real religious people the
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monks and the nuns or those are the spiritual Christians the rest of us are carnal that's heresy too this is for all of us as what Moses was delivering to
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Israel was for every Israelite so what Paul is delivering to us is for every believer but it is hard and constant
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work And I would submit to you that is why we don't do it. We've been taught that we can't
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mention work because if we mention work, we detract from detract from grace. But we can mention everything Paul mentions, everything Peter mentions, everything John mentions. When
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John says in his first letter, though all those who have this hope, this hope of of not knowing what we're going to be, but knowing that when he appears, we will be as he is. All who have this hope
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purify themselves as he is pure. That's of the same vein of what Paul's saying here. And so we can't get away from it by evading it under some
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type of free grace mantra. But it is hard work. So I want to point out in in looking at this last part about the will of God that he has given us all that is
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necessary for life and godliness. He has equipped us completely for the task that he lays before us. A parallel passage to
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Romans 12:es 1 and 2 is in uh 1 Corinthians and I want to read um that at length. Excuse me. Yeah. 1
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Corinthians chapter
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11. This is a a lengthier passage, but I want to to again the rubric under which I'm bringing this passage into the message is once again the renewal of our mind. And this is how God has equipped
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us to do just that. 1 Corinthians 2:1, for who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which
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is in him? Even so, the thoughts of God no one knows except the spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of
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the world. Do not be conformed to this world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also
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speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
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But a natural man does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are
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spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things. Yet he himself is appraised by no man. For who has known the mind of the
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Lord, that he should instruct him? Here's the key verse. But we have the mind of mind of Christ. There's the transformation.
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There's the There's the metamorphosis that we no longer think with the mind of this world or the mind that we once had before our regeneration. We now have the mind of
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Christ. And in us dwells the spirit of God who dwells who seeks the deep things of God and as Jesus said reveals to us and leads us into all
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truth. So at the foundation of this transformed mind is the divine source, the Holy Spirit who seeks out the deep things of God and then discloses them to
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us. This is not new revelation. but illumination of the revelation that God began in Genesis and completed in revelation. The
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revelation that God has given to us first through his prophets, then through his son and afterward explained by his
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John writes in his first letter again. He says, "And as for you, the anointing which you have received from him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing
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teaches you about all things and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in him." There's there's the full package.
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There's the equipment. If you are in Jesus Christ, you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. If you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, you have the mind of Christ. And therefore, when Paul says,
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"Be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you might prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God," you don't have to go to seminary
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to get to get it. You already have it. Now, as with the kingdom of God, you do not have it fully. I do not have it fully. Paul himself in Philippians 3 says, "I have
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not yet attained perfection. This I do. I press on." And so, none of us possesses this knowledge fully. But what I'm saying is we have
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what it takes to get there. And I frankly think we'll spend eternity getting there, but it'll be more and more blessed with every passing whatever. I was going to say day, but I
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don't know. Whatever it is, what God has revealed of himself, we we read in Job, are the fringes of his ways. We'll get to dig deep. We get to
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dive deeper. We'll be in the Mariana's trench of the wisdom of God without any any hindrance of sin. That that will be a truly blessed existence. So if God has
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given us this anointing and put the spirit of truth within us, then it is as Paul says in verse one, it's our reasonable, it's our logical, as Paul
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puts it, service of worship that we be transformed in our being by the renewing of our mind. Now again, I want to resist
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first of all the conclusion that this is all about academics. It is absolutely not about academics. It's about knowing, discerning, and doing the will of God.
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And it's about thinking the way God thinks and conforming our thoughts to the obedience of Jesus Christ. It's about listening to the spirit who is
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delving into the deep things of the Godhead and then disclosing them to us through the word of God. That's that's what it's about. And I would submit to you that there are many who have attended seminary who are as far from
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this as a rank unbeliever and many who have never had any seminary training who got this. One of the premier examples of that is Charles Haden
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Charles Haden Spurgeon who understood this and never attended seminary a day in his life. But I want to give another caution that we have often gotten verse
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two flipped around. And by that I mean that we think by not conforming to the world, we are thereby transformed. In in other words, we
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recognize the evils of the world and we in our own power and thinking don't do that. We don't go with those people. We don't we don't run with them as we're
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told not to run with them. We don't dress like them. We don't we don't wear our hair the way they do. We we we have developed a a sanctified language. We
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don't even speak like them anymore. We have our own language and we think that by not conforming we are thereby transformed. And I would say no. No, you're not because you're still
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operating under the mentality of this world's mind. So for example, let let me let me use a very close to home example and that is
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the family marriage and the family. Now clearly those are important institutions in God's word, right? And that marriage
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is between a man and a woman, right? That two shall become one. And that the family is is the is the schoolhouse. Where as we learned in Sunday school, we are passing on the commandments of the
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Lord and more importantly the love and obedience of the Lord's commandments to our children, to our children's children. All that's good. But you know, obeying the gods and and honoring
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marriage and family, you can find that in Cicero. You you can find that in Plato. you you can find that in in other
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writings. So that in of itself isn't it if you're doing it in the same thinking the same worldly thinking as Cicero or Plato then it's of no benefit to you. It
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is a benefit in in a sense that your marriage will be better and your children hopefully better. But that's not what Paul's talking about here. certainly these things that I've
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mentioned that we separate ourselves that we we don't associate with with wicked people um we dress differently we don't do this and we
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don't do that and a lot of people's Christianity is exactly that but listen to what Paul says about this in Colossians he says these are matters which have to be sure the appearance of
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wisdom and self-made religion and selfab a basement and severe treatment of the body, which here in Romans he's telling us to present to
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God as a sacrifice. But they are of no value against fleshly against fleshly indulgence. In fact, what they are are
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religious hypocrisy. And the sad thing is is the hypocrite doesn't recognize it himself. There are very many many people today and throughout the ages who have taken
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upon themselves not to conform or to not conform. They are the Lord's loyal opposition and whatever wickedness they see in the world, they will
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oppose, but they will do it the wrong way. And the heading of this section of the sermon always reminds me of the Chinese cleaners uh that were forced to take
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down the motto uh the apparently two brothers both named Wong and their motto was two Wongs will make it white. Okay, I think that's very funny and you know
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but they were not allowed to do that because that was offensive. So thus is the world we live in. But two wrongs don't make a right and we know that whatever the wrongs do. And so if we recognize a wrong and
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then combat it in the wrong way, does that how somehow make us right? No. Lord, Lord, I cast out demons. Lord, Lord, I pro protested the the gay and lesbian movement, right?
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Lord, Lord, I I burned down an abortion clinic for that day? I don't think Jesus was giving us a
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parable. I think there will be those who say that. And this is what they'll say. They won't necessarily say, "I cast out demons." They'll say, "I bombed an abortion clinic. I I murdered an abortion doctor in your
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name. I I hated those who hated your law." Isn't that in the Bible? And Jesus will say, "You know, not what spirit you
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of." We want to call down thunder and fire from heaven, don't we? Like the sons of of thunder, John and James. And Jesus saying to us, "You do not know what spirit you are of. If you respond
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to a wrong with a wrong, there's no right that comes out of that. And I would submit to you that that the church has done that throughout its history. We can read about it. We
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can read about the Crusades, right? Okay. Everybody knows about the Crusades. Were the Crusades right? No. No. It's not politically correct to say the Crusades are right. It's also not correct at all. Right? They weren't.
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They were misguided, weren't they? But they thought they were doing right, didn't they? They were bearing the cross. That's what crusade means. They were doing the Lord's will. The Pope told them
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so. They were wrong. Do we not do that today? Oh, we don't do that today. We're immune from that. No, we do other things. And we we name the name of
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the Lord as we do them because we recognize indeed this is a wrong-sex marriage. The whole LGBTQABC, that whole movement is wrong.
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It's perverted. It's worshiping the creature rather than the creator. It's it's it is it's giving themselves over to depravity. We can read that in Romans 1. But who is it that will judge them?
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God. And so how we respond to that as believers and as a church is very much in Romans 12 1 and 2. Are we responding
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with a renewed mind? Are we responding with a mind that is renewed by the new creation? Are we thinking about the world as a new humanity that God has raised up from among the fallen races of
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this planet? Or are we simply thinking the same way the world is thinking only with a different dichomous view? What makes us makes us different? If you listen to some talking
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head who goes on and on about the evils, the social and moral evils of our day, read your history. They have always been there. both the evils and the talking
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heads. How do we make it any different in our day than it was in Cicero's day, in Plato's day, or even in Victorian England? It's no different. We're
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thinking the world's thoughts after the world, which shows that we have no wisdom. It all comes back to the source of our renewed thinking. It is new
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creation thinking. Therefore, it will never be fully represented by any philosophy, any political party, any economic system that exists in any age
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because any and every age is what? Passing away. So, if you hitch your cart to a political party, to an economic system,
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to a social philosophy, then you're not thinking with a renewed mind. Because the only horse in front of our cart should be the new creation in Jesus
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Christ. And that's all revealed to us in his word beginning with the first creation going all the way through to the consummation. And that's our world.
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That's our identity. That's our world view. These are the ones Paul writes in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. He says that God has shown the light of his
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revelation. in the same language as God speaking in Genesis 1, let there be light for every believer. He has done that. He said, "Let there be light." And now in that he says in chapter 5, "New
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creation." He doesn't even introduce it. He just says, "New creation. All things have passed away. Behold, all things are new, including our thinking."
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our thinking." But as I said before, unlike our heart which is completely regenerated by the grace of the Holy Spirit, our minds must be progressively renewed by the washing
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of the water of the word. So what is finally what does he make? What do we make of this good, acceptable, and perfect will of God? Now that's something that I'm only going to
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briefly touch on, but I want to correct an error. A lot of believers and a lot of preachers like to view sanctification as
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a ladder that we can measure our progression as we are sanctified. And so they look at something like this when Paul says
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good, acceptable, perfect. acceptable, perfect. You you know where I'm going. Okay. We we we get to one rung of the ladder. Oh, that's good. Yeah, that
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that's good. Not bad. And then we get up a little higher. Oh, that's acceptable. And then we get to the top. Well, that's perfect. And so they look at these progressions of three that Paul
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uses, especially in Romans, and they say they are in fact progressions. Well, that doesn't work with what Paul writes elsewhere. The will of God is not
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separable by degree. And so what he's saying here and in verse one when he talks about the living holy acceptable sacrifice. Now that's
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kind of weird because the third highest stage is acceptable whereas only the second stage in the will of God. That should tell us something. Okay. That's not what he means when he says about the
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law that it is holy and righteous and good. Well good's third when it's first. See, see, we get ourselves all twisted up by wrong thinking. So, he's not
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talking about a progression of disciplehip that, okay, here's your little uh I guess it would be bronze star. You You're good. Okay. Or we're
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going to, oh, I graduated to a silver star. It's acceptable. That's what your parents say. That's acceptable. But what they want is of course the gold star. You perfect child. No, that's not what
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Paul's saying here. What he's saying here in these triplets that we see here, verse one, back in chapter 7 is really just an intensification of a description
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that is one whole description. It's like looking at different facets of a gem. The will of God is good. The will of God is of course acceptable because only the will of God is acceptable to a holy God.
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And the will of God is perfect. Now, interestingly, that word perfect means it is the goal. It is the end to which we set our sights and that is what to do
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the will of God. And so though we're not climbing a ladder but rather the will of God is
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being unfolded to us as we spend time in his word illuminated by the Holy Spirit and through prayer it becomes unfolded. Our teachers help us to understand the
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whole council of God. But we have no need of any to teach us because we have the anointing. We have the Holy Spirit. So this is our true
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worship. To be transformed by new creation thinking so that we may both discern and do that which pleases God is to worship in spirit and truth.
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And these are the worshippers that our father seeks. Let us pray. Father, we do pray that having given us your spirit, we would not
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grieve him, but rather submit ourselves to the renewing of the mind that it is his purpose to bring that we might indeed be
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indeed be transformed and be shown to be what we are, new creation, sons and daughters of the living God. We ask that you would do this for your
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glory and for the exaltation of Jesus Christ, the building up of the church and for our good. For we ask in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.