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12. We will be spending uh a few weeks on the first two verses as they do set the stage and the foundation for the next three next three chapters. So if you think we're going rather slowly, it it should pick up
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speed in in a little while. Again, we're going to look at verses one and two, primarily verse one. I'm going to read both verses. I'd like to ask Ariel if you would pray for the ministry of the
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word this morning. Romans chapter 12, beginning in verse one. I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your
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bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. and do not be conformed to this world, but be
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transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Let us pray.
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Heavenly Father, we gather together the spirit that you put in us. We look forward through that spirit to the preaching of the word. I ask now that your servants labor fruit
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that the study he has put into your word those who have studied it before him would bless would bless us. Pray that any here who are listening
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do not yet believe in Jesus Christ their savior your son that today would be the day their hearts would be the stone would be replaced with the fleshy heart
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we learned about this morning that your word written on it, they would understand and desire to do your will. Christ's name we pray.
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Amen. Matt, one of the um traditional markers of reformed worship is what is called exclusive psalm. Many of you are familiar with that. uh we have
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um looked into that as a congregation. We've had members who who strongly advocate that only the psalms are acceptable as worship music for the body
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of Christ. It is actually an attempt to apply the regulative principle but in great rigidity and as a doctrine of
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worship. the elders have rejected it in terms of of our
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singing. The idea of exclusive somy, however, is still uh very influential in reformed circles and Lord willing when we resume the study on worship in Sunday school. We're going to look into that in
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in greater detail. But the the issue that we faced when as elders we looked at the idea of exclusive psalm is is that the psalms sing of the work of the
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Lord in creation and in redemption through the through the exodus. But at the writing of the psalms the work of the Lord was not yet done. And in fact in a manner of
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speaking the work of the Lord is not yet done even today. For we await the consummation of the ages and the return of Jesus of Jesus Christ. And I think the argument the the
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strongest argument against exclusive psalm is that if God has had revealed himself in parts and portions through the prophets and yet now he has revealed
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himself in his son. Should the singing of the church be limited to the time of parts and portions through the prophets? or rather should we not sing of the work of God
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through his son. And so we are inclusive psalmists. And that is actually a very unique position among reformed churches
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and certainly among evangelical churches in general. And that is a church that not only sings the psalms but also sings the hymns of the church. Inclusive psalm sounds like a compromise but it is
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not. It has been well considered and we do believe that we continue to sing of the work of God as his redemptive plan unfolds in his culminates in the
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revelation of his son Jesus Christ. And yet that does not mean that all Christian music is worthy to be sung. So
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this is all kind of leading up to a point. There is a lot of of Christian himnity and Christian songs that by the simplicity the simplisticness of their
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lyrics by the repetitiveness of their lyrics or even by the doct do doctrinal inaccuracy they they should not be sung. I I would submit to you that there are
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hymns in our himynel that ought not be sung. And yet as a whole, the himnity of the church has been a
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response to what God has done through Jesus Christ, what God has done in and through the church and also a hope and a looking forward to what God has promised to do in the consummation of the ages. I
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I don't think that our songs need be limited by the words of scripture any more than our prayers need be limited by the words of scripture. In fact, six
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times in the psalms themselves, we are admonished to sing unto the Lord a new song. For example, in Psalm 149, praise the Lord, sing to the Lord a new song
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and his praises to the assembly of the saints. That that's what we do. when we sing the hymns of the church and and even Lord willing when we sing
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compositions of our own body songs written by members of our own body that is to be encouraged because it is a response to the redemptive work of God in Jesus Christ. I want to talk in
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particular about uh one contemporary Christian music Christian music artist. Now, he was actually a contemporary Christian artist in the
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late 17th century and early 18th century. His name is Isaac Watts. And none of you think of him as a contemporary Christian contemporary Christian artist, but but don't be mistaken, his
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music was not fully accepted in his own day. He was considered it might have been Christian rap for all the seriously he was he was really
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maligned when he wrote the hymns and the modified psalms that he wrote in the in that era. He was a contemporary Christian artist that he was much maligned for it. But one of his hymns
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has great application to what we are looking at here in Romans. When I survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died. That word
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survey, that word survey has so much more meaning than when I look upon or when I when I see. The word survey means to look
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around, to look circumspectly, to take into one's view the entire the entire terrain of the work of God through Jesus Christ on the
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cross. That's what Paul has been doing in Romans. In a matter of speaking, he has been surveying the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died. And when
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he surveys that wondrous cross, it brings him and us to Romans 12 and how we should then live when we consider what God has done in Christ. As
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I've said before, right theology always ends in doxology. And what do we do with the doxology? We sing
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it. So right theology always results in right singing. God has made us to respond that way to him. Song is a form
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in fact a very deep form of prayer. And so Paul himself at the end of chapter 8 and of chapter 11 he ends in doxology. He ends in in a in a hymn
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of praise. What shall separate us from the love of God? And then in Romans 11, he says, "Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
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How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways." Now, I for one am glad that I don't have to sing the word unfathomable. But that is such a song.
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That is such a hymn. That is a doxology. And so when we when we look at this verse and we're going to be it's important that we I think that we get this because we're going to be getting into some really practical things in
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chapters 12 13 and 14 and it is very easy to get into the minutia and become legalists even though that's exactly
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what Paul is not teaching but he's going to be taking us through some areas of great controversy not only in the Roman church of the first century but in the American church of the 21st
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century. He's going to tell us, for example, that all rulers have been set there by God and that we're to submit to them. That that's not he he's going to
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tell us that we need to pay our taxes. That's that's not a very popular position among many modern evangelicals. And so what Paul is doing is really as
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he as he lays out the theology of redemption, it's as if, you know, he he responds as we often sing, how can I keep from singing? How can I keep when I
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when I look at this and I can just imagine Paul writing these things and thinking, "This is good. It's true. It's God, but this is really good." And his response is, "Oh, the depths of the
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wisdom of God and his understanding. How unfathomable his ways and yet what he has revealed is enough to raise our hearts in song. So we survey the wondrous cross. How then shall we live
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in in light of that vista of that panoramic view that Paul has given us and the the even more panoramic view that we have in scripture beginning in Genesis 1 all the way through to the end
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of Revelation. You're surveying the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died. How then shall we live? And more closer to the context of
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Romans 12, we survey Romans 1-8 and God's redemption through Jesus Christ of his creation. We survey Romans 9 through11 and the redemption of God
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through his Christ of Israel, his people. How then shall we live? The language that follows an answer of
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that question beginning in verse one of chapter 12 but onward through the rest of this section. The answer is
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Levitical. The answer is oriented around the ironic the ironic priesthood and the tabernacle in the wilderness. So I will submit to you that
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we cannot understand the terminology of the New Testament if we do not understand the history of the Old Testament. We cannot understand the position of the church in the world as
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the redeemed people of God who have had their own exodus out of the bondage of sin if we have no knowledge of the people of God under the old covenant and
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their exodus from bondage to slavery in Egypt. That was a microcosm. That was a picture of how the people of God are set in the midst of the nations.
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No less is the church set in the midst of the world. And the law of God was their wisdom and understanding. The word of God is today our wisdom and understanding in the face of the nations
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in the midst of which we have been placed. And so as you hear the words, I I hope to to exposit them more clearly to you today here in Romans 12.
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I want you to think of the priesthood. Think of the tabernacle. Think of the altar and of the sacrifices. When the tabernacle was consecrated at the end of Exodus, the glory of the Lord came down
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and inhabited that tent so that even Moses could not go in and minister before the Lord. Then you move directly into the book of
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Leviticus where you learn about the entire tabernacle system. And if you let your mind's eye picture what you're reading, you realize that there was a
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steady stream of Israelites presenting their offerings to the Lord at the tent of meeting. You can envision thousands of people with a lamb
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or a goat or leading a cow bringing them up to the doorway of the tent of meeting. That that's the picture that Leviticus gives us this steady stream of
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presenting of offerings and gifts and sacrifices. And every one of them, the picture gets a bit macabra because every one of them was killed and their blood
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was shed and it was sprinkled or spread on the altar and the animal was then emulated on the altar or it was given as food to the priests or if it was a peace
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offering it was given back to the family that they might have a feast in the presence of Yahweh. It was a lot of offering, a lot of sacrifices, but they were all dead as a
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result of that sacrifice. Atonement was achieved by the grace of God. Forgiveness was attained by the grace of God. He says, "I have
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given the blood in which is the life. I have given it to you on the altar for the atonement of your souls." But it was all nothing more than a
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picture. It was a parable. The writer of Hebrews tells us it was a living, active parable that was surrounded by and immersed in death. The death of these
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animals, the blood being shed and applied so that atonement and forgiveness might be received. And yet because of those deaths, the writer of Hebrews remind us these things had to be
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done over and over and over, day after day after day, year after year after year, always, always, always. The writer
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of Hebrews says in chapter nine, "The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed, while the
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outer tabernacle is still standing, which is a symbol for the present time. Accordingly, both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make the
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worshipper perfect in conscience." But now the veil has been torn. Now the outer and the inner part
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of that tabernacle, that sanctuary has been made, has been thrown open. Now, the animal sacrifices have been abolished because again, as the writer
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of Hebrews reminds us, Jesus has entered into the most holy place, the sanctuary that is in heaven, not made with hands, with his own
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blood. And as was read this morning, he sat down. I want you to picture that image. Where was the throne of God? It was in
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the Holy of Holies. And yet when the high priest entered on the day of atonement once a year, he did what he needed to do and then he got out of there not to return for another
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year. But scripture says Jesus as our great high priest and not with the blood of bulls and goats but with his own precious pure blood. He not only went beyond the veil, he sat
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down and he remains there seated at the right hand of majesty on high to make intercession for us. But the sitting down means I don't have to do this
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again. It doesn't have to be done again. It has been done once for all. And so that steady stream of worshippers carrying lambs and goats and and
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dragging cattle behind them, that's gone. Well, no it's not because now it's a steady stream of offerers without goats,
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without lambs, without cattle. They're still coming to that same holy same holy place to offer themselves as living
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sacrifices. That's what Paul's saying is that image that we see in Leviticus, it's still there. We still stream. We enter boldly. The writer of Hebrews says
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in chapter 4, "We enter boldly to approach his throne of mercy and grace." That's the image. We now go into the holy of holies, not by the mediation of
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a priest or a pope. We go in by the blood of Jesus Christ shed once for all. We don't go in with a lamb. We don't go in with a goat
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or the blood of some animal. rather we go in with our lives living sacrifices. That's that's the image that Paul is giving us here.
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Literally, I I read the New American Standard and and the New American Standard puts the word and between living and holy and then a comma before acceptable. That's actually not the way
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it is in the Greek. It is literally living, holy, acceptable to God. Those three words are together to describe the new sacrifice under the new covenant of
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each and every believer before the throne of God. Living, holy, set apart and acceptable, which means
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accepted. The accepted. The Israelite wasn't ever sure that his or her sacrifice would be accepted. That was to be shown by the immulation
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of the animal on the altar as we see in the story of Elijah and the priests of Baal where their sacrifice just stayed there and his
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was eaten up by fire from heaven. That's how they knew that it was acceptable. Well, we know that ours is acceptable through the resurrection of Jesus Christ
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by which the father has put his stamp of approval on all that Jesus has done. And the fact that Jesus now sits at the right hand of the father tells us that
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what he has done through the cross has opened up again the writer of Hebrews says a new and living way. And we go that way. But what does this look like?
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Well, there there's so many verses in the Old Testament that speak of this, and I'm only going to read two. One from Micah, a a verse that we often sing. He
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has shown thee, oh man, what is good and what the Lord requires of thee. Well, you know, that verse has a context. And sometimes we don't really
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know the context. And so, I'm going to give you the context of that verse that we sing. It begins with what with what shall I come
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to the Lord and bow myself before the God on high? Here's the question. With what shall I come to the Lord and present
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myself before the God on high? Shall I come with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams, in 10,000 rivers of
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oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Well, certainly it's what you're
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told to told to do, right? You're supposed to bring the ram. You're supposed to bring the oil. This is Micah. This this is the old covenant. And yet, this is the Holy
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Spirit. as he says elsewhere, he he takes no pleasure in the blood of bulls and goats. And so Micah goes on and this is what part we sing. He has told you,
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oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. There it is in the Old
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Testament. Present your bodies a living sacrifice. Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. Because God himself has given his
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firstborn for our rebellious acts. He has given the fruit of his eternal divinity for our the sins of our souls. David in Psalm
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51, having been convicted of a great sin, actually a couple of them, he says in his psalm of penitence, "The sacrifices of God are a broken
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spirit, a broken and contrite heart, oh God, you will not despise." You see, this has always been the living, holy, acceptable sacrifice
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to God. to God. That did not mean that David or Micah or any other Israelite could forego the sacrifices of the temple. What it means
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is they understood the symbolism and the meaning behind those bulls and goats and lambs and the blood that was shed. They understood that what God desired was a
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contrite heart, a penitent heart, and that a broken and contrite heart God would not reject. It would be acceptable to him. And so we read the difference
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between us and them as we discussed some in Sunday school class is that the way now has been completely opened. We read in chapter 10 of
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Hebrews starting in verse 19, a familiar passage. Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of
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Jesus, you've got to see that that that one sentence has no meaning outside the tabernacle. that that if we don't
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understand the Levitical system of priestly mediation in the tabernacle that verse is just words and yet if you do that verse brings out such an image
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that we now have the boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he has inaugurated for us through the veil
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that is his flesh. And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in the full assurance of faith, having our
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hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. That's what Paul's talking about here. That's what is our new new
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covenant ministry. And in fact, what he says here in verse one of Romans 12 when he says to present your bodies living,
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holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Now, as you're reading your Bibles, what I just said may not be what you read because
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the last few words in our English 12:1 is actually just two words in the Greek and they have been variously interpreted by our English
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Bibles. For example, this that's the New American Standard. The New King James Version says, "Because this is your reasonable service."
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reasonable service." And the ESV says, "This is your spiritual worship." Well, there's a perfectly good Greek word for spiritual that Paul uses
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quite often in his letters, and that's not in this text. And there's also a word for worship that is not in this text.
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The two The two words are significant to what follows in chapters 12,3 and 14 because what he's going to do in those chapters he's going
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to unpack those two words and the first word I think is going to be rather familiar to you. It is the
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word logicane which sounds a lot like logical and that's only because that's where it comes from. Okay, that's where our word logical comes from. And it means in this
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context what we would think that it means and that is that which is reasonable or logical. In other words, that which follows from what has gone
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before. Okay, I've I've now laid out, Paul says, I've laid out what Christ has done by the mercy of God for creation, for Israel. Now, what logically follows?
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In fact, we can go far beyond that back to the the tabernacle in the wilderness and wilderness and the ironic priesthood and and say this is what they did. Now, what logically
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what logically follows the reality that Jesus Christ has fulfilled all of that and that he has taken his own blood? What logically follows? But now, this doesn't mean
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rational in the modern enlightenment sense of being acceptable to human reason. We need to be careful that we don't fall into that trap and do as Thomas Jefferson did and said, 'You know
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what? I'm only going to agree with the Bible when the Bible agrees with my perception of the way the world ought to be. I'm only going to agree with scripture if the scripture is opened and
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acceptable to my human reason, to my scientific mind. That is not what Paul means here. means here. But what he means is logical as following logically on what God has done
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in Christ. So here's the logic. Jesus having presented his body as a dying sacrifice is risen and he lives ever
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more. And so because of that dying sacrifice of the perfect lamb of God, we need not give any more dying sacrifices at the tabernacle.
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But we now give living sacrifices because Jesus lives forever more. So we who are in Christ do not volunteer as tribune. We do not offer
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ourselves to be killed for Christ. Although that may come to pass. And there was a time in church history when people thought that it was a a good idea that it would somehow improve your
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afterlife if you somehow did volunteer as tribune and become a martyr. that was never called for in the scriptures. Rather, we do something that is oddly
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more difficult. We give our lives a living sacrifice. I'm not suggesting that giving your life as a martyr is a simple thing to thing to do, but it does have a kind of end
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point, doesn't point, doesn't it? You kind of only do it for that moment and then it's done. No, not this. This is your life and it is now a
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sacrifice holy, acceptable but living presented to God. This is what Paul means in Galatians 2 verse 20. Again a very
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familiar verse. I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I
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live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. On the basis of his sacrifice, I'm now a sacrifice. His dying
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sacrifice manifested by his resurrection as approved and acceptable to God is now my living sacrifice. The life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave
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himself up for me. So the first word logicon just simply means this. This follows logically on the entire redemptive scheme that you've been
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reading in scripture and I have been summarizing. Paul says in Romans this follows don't talk about bringing goats and bulls and the blood of of of sheep. rather talk about your own life as a
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living sacrifice. Now, it's the second word I think that that really brings home to us what or how this plays out. The second word is a tabernacle term. It is
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a word that means to minister or to serve. And in the Greek Old Testament, it is used uniformly of the priesthood in the tabernacle. And so what Paul is
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saying here is that the logical and and reasonable result of all that God has done is that we are now priests to our God. But instead of bringing this dying
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sacrifice of animals, we are priests as Jesus was who brought himself. We're not doing it for the atonement of the world as he did, but we're doing it because of the atonement
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of the world through what he did. And so the word is a priestly term. Paul uses the word in chapter 15 where he refers
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to himself as a minister of Christ. It's the same word as in this verse here in chapter 12. He is a minister of Christ to the Gentiles. And here's where he
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describes it. Ministering as a priest the gospel of God that my offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable to God. He's using many of the same words there
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as he does here, but he's he's not killing the Gentiles, okay? He these are an offering. Your your children as you lead them in the
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honor and mission of the Lord, you're not going to kill them and present them to God. You're going to lead them as living offerings that they might be acceptable to God. This is the principle that flows
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out of all that God has done. not as is so often taught that God has wonderfully and mercifully given you a fire insurance policy and you don't need to
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worry about how you live your life now. That is actually taught in modern churches today that as long as you've walked the aisle or raised your hands or got dunked, everything's okay, you'll
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get to heaven when you die. That is that is that is heresy. That is so wrong. It is so deceptive. There there going to be so many people in hell who are going to
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who are going to scream out against the preachers who gave them that assurance, that false that false security. That is not biblical. It's never been biblical. The whole idea of
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the bloody sacrifice was to show Israelites, those who had faith, those who could who could see that their lives because of the grace of God,
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because of the deliverance of God, their lives belong to him. You have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. That's exactly what
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he's saying here in Romans 12. Present your body living holy acceptable to God because of what Jesus has done. It's not a one-time once saved
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always saved. It's a new life in which we walk. Those who have been buried with Christ in baptism now rise to walk in newness of life. There isn't a third
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option. And that's a disturbing thought. Because we know a lot of people who profess to be Christians who don't have the least idea what Paul is talking about here nor the
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least care. And I'm not saying this is a new work and a new law. This is simply the logical outcome of what God has done for us in Jesus
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Christ. Paul says, "I am constrained by the love of Christ." It's not like someone who is born again by the Holy Spirit indwelt by the
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Godhead cannot do this. For he is at work within us both to will and to do according to his pleasure. So it's not a new law. It's
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not a new work. And and yet it it is a work. It is a manifestation of the grace and mercy of God that if if it's not
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there, then chances are there is no life. And that's a hard thing to say about our loved ones, about our neighbors, about our co-workers. When they profess to be Christians, we get excited, but then we kind of realize
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there's no life there. There's no living, holy, acceptable sacrifice there, which means there's no Christ there. There's no Holy Spirit there. And
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they still abide under the wrath of God. But those who have believed, those who have been regenerate by the Holy Spirit, they are a new priesthood in Christ
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Jesus. Every believer is a member of that priesthood. that priesthood. We have a new pope, Habamos Papam. That kind of baloney has been
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going on for 1500 years or more. That vicor of Christ on earth. All of the ceremony and the pomp and so many people excited about it. Excited because he's
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American. It's all it it's it's it's such a false Christianity. It is such a heretical satanic lie that
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we have intercessors and mediators between us and God when scripture says no present your bodies living holy acceptable to God. Every single one of
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you because this is your logical ministry to God. It follows from what God has done for you in Christ in light of what Christ has done
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through the tender mercies of God. Our lives as living sacrifices are just simply our logical response. And as that contemporary Christian artist said, love
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so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. Let us pray.
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Father, we do ask that you would open your word to us and help us to glory, glory only in the work, the person, the blood of Jesus Christ. And yet to realize that because of that shed blood
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and that resurrected life, we are now living sacrifices and we present ourselves to you and we enter into the Holy of Holies into your presence by
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your mercy and we are seated with Jesus at your right hand. Paul says that we might receive mercy and grace in our time of need which is all the time. Give
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us confidence to enter boldly into your presence by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. For it is in his name and his name only we pray.
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Amen. Well, please stand for the benediction this morning from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians. A short benediction. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the
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love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
