What Are You Dedicated To?

Father, we pray that your Word would have its impact upon us tonight, that we look at these two verses and we think about who you are and what you're saying to us. We pray, Father, that you would apply these things to our hearts by the work of your Holy Spirit. We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen. This section, at the beginning, also looks backwards because he's got a therefore, therefore, and that means that he's looking back at the first 11 chapters of Romans, and that's the foundation and the grounding of the theology, the teaching, the doctrine that's there. And so he opens it up, but in the beginning, last time I spoke, we were looking at chapter 11 and the last part of that, verse 33, you'll notice it says, Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable are his ways. We talked about the riches of God's mercy and the riches of God's grace, and that's the background for this push forward. And I know that in our daily lives, we run across all types of different things that influence us, that influence our minds and influence our hearts.

Of course, this passage is dealing with what really controls us, what are we truly dedicated to. But I know you've looked on TV and sometimes it's humorous, but then it's kind of sad, but you'll see a couple, older couple riding on their bicycles, they're just so happy. And then they take this particular pill or drug and don't worry, you may cause dizziness and nausea.

And you know, at the end it says, and it might cause death. I'm not kidding that there are some like that. Okay. And so, but you're sitting there and you're so enamored with it. Oh, I want to be that happy, smiling couple riding on their bicycles. And so you think emotionally, that's so nice.

Maybe I should get some. Okay. So, but feelings and impressions are sometimes what carries us along. And it's a mental impression. It's an emotional impression.

In 1962, there was a man by the name of James Vickery. I didn't know his name until I just looked this up, but he confessed that it was true, that Coca-Cola was putting some liminal messages in some of the movies that they were putting out. And so you would suppose that it was so fast, but not too slow, just so you could catch it in your mind, but not really be all that aware.

That's a drink Coca-Cola, you're thirsty, drink Coca-Cola. So that's when the break came, you would go out and buy some Coke and popcorn, just wolf it down. Well, he admitted later on that they had done that and people were really concerned that they were being used and abused by this. But then there was a study done that said, well, actually they found that it only jumped up about two or three percent.

So they kind of tapped it down. I don't know who did the study. Maybe he did. But anyway, but you know, have you ever heard of entrainment? We've all experienced entrainment, I would say.

I would guess. Entrain means to draw out or to draw after someone else, to pull something out along with you. It's a scientific term, a chemical term. It also has a social meaning. And the studies show that our attitudes are based on strong feelings. Even I guess, you know, attitudes of everything you see in the world are based on strong feelings and your emotions. And so they can affect us for a lifetime. You get a set of emotions and you remember those and they just stay with you.

It doesn't matter what is true or what is factual. It's your emotions that are really pushing you along. And that's what entrainment can do. Have you ever been in a crowd and somebody tells a joke and everybody's laughing and you're thinking, you kind of smile because everybody else is laughing. Ah, you're being pulled along, right? Or you're standing around, people start clapping and you say, why are we clapping? Why are we doing that?

That's entrainment. You're following the mood of the crowd. You're just kind of joining in. You're not thinking about it, but then that's what's happening.

You're being pulled along. And so sound thinking, however, can offset those kinds of powers and those kinds of influences, those kinds of social pressures. And Paul has spent the foundation, the first 11 chapters laying the foundation of truth of what God has done for us in the work of Jesus Christ, so that we will not be led astray by the ways of the world and the thoughts of the world. And so he begins, he begins now in chapter 12, applying those good truths, how those truths are supposed to be worked out in our daily life. And so we can just look at the riches of God's mercy that he talks about in those chapters. And we see the corruption of the world, the corruption of our lives, and yet the forgiveness of God that is offered only through faith in Jesus Christ and his redeeming work. So Paul is urging these new believers in Rome, he's urging us to have a new mindset. And he wants the brothers to be founded on these basic truths. And that is that he wants us to dwell on the internal foundation for Christian living.

And that is, it's out of the heart that come the issues of life. Paul is having us reexamine our internal attitudes in light of God's rich mercy in these first 11 chapters. This is a call to you and to me to dedicate ourselves to Christ because of his rich mercies and his grace.

It's the motivation. It's what should push us to be thankful and grateful. That's why we belong to where we serve Christ. What has he done for us?

What hasn't he done for us? And so we look back at those verses and those chapters and we realize that life is only obtained as a gift from God, both physical and spiritual. And coming to faith in Christ is by his calling because he is wooing us.

He initiates that call. So verse one is an exhortation. He's beseeching us. He's exhorting us on the internal foundation of a Christian life. The foundation is that because we've been saved by grace, then we are to present ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ and to his service.

We belong to him. This means presenting your body, your whole body. What that means is your body, your mind, your spirit, the whole you is to be presented as a living sacrifice to the Lord. So this is a personal giving of yourself.

And if you're a believer, of course that's possible because of the work of God's word and spirit in your life. He is pushing you along and calling you to that. So it says now you take action. You present your life to Christ. So, you know, we can dedicate ourselves to all kinds of causes. You know, they can be mediocre causes. They can be great causes. However, in that cause, you can't exalt Jesus Christ. You can't speak for Jesus Christ.

Maybe you should look for a different cause or a different way to present it. So Romans 1 through 11 drives the application of Romans 12 through 16. So does Christ-centered theology drive our methodology? Does it drive our practice? And not mine all the time.

I don't even think about it. And I just, oh, that's the way you do it. Okay, I'll do it that way.

And it may be the wrong way. Pastor Harry Reader wrote a book, a little small book on leadership. And he bemoans the fact that in the church that you may have some great Christian men who are good businessmen.

They're great guys. But they use their business model in the church rather than going to Scripture to find what the model of the church should be. So we can get things turned around backwards without going to Scripture. But Romans 1 gives us the foundation of why we should be giving our lives to Christ.

When I worked under RUM with international students, the founders of the organization, Bebo Elkin and Mark Lowry, they gave us some good things. And one thing I distinctly remember saying to me, and they taught the whole class this principle. They said, our theology drives our methodology.

Think about that. Most of the time people may say, I have a theology, but I choose this method, this method, this method over here. Just put the hodgepodge together without thinking about the fact that know what God has taught us in Scripture. That should drive how we do things as well. And so we can best learn how to live and lead at the feet of Jesus. That's where we learn. So the theology of God's rich mercy in Romans should drive the practical living in our lives. That's kind of a long introduction, but anyway, that's where we're headed.

Okay. So the presenting of our body to God as a living sacrifice implies that we're not only avoiding sins, but we've committed our body, our whole being to praising the Lord, to serving Him, to glorifying Him, and to use ourselves as instruments of righteousness. So, but you know, being a living sacrifice is our spiritual worship, our reasonable worship.

And it's good to say that it's living. You're not, it's not telling you to go die as a martyr. That's not what you may die as a martyr, but that's not what you're supposed to be aiming for. You're supposed to be living for Christ. I'm supposed to be living for Christ. It's not though that I'm going to kind of abuse my body in some way so that I show that I'm more committed to Christ. No, it's not asking you to do that at all. You're not doing anything to harm yourself to earn the favor of God.

That is off the charts. And so we think about the nature of our dedication to Christ. Paul describes it with three words.

We'll choose three words out of this. Living holy and acceptable, the way that we live. Living for Jesus means to be set aside for Christ, no longer living for ourselves. And we say, I must deny myself, take up my cross, and follow Christ.

And when we get down to another grass tax, do I want to do that today? Maybe I don't. You know, that's really giving up yourself. He said living for Christ.

That's easy to say, but when it comes to the heart, we may not be doing that. Okay, a living sacrifice means that Christ is living in your heart by faith. And we no longer, thankfully, we don't need animal sacrifices.

They were pointing to Christ. Christ has accomplished that work for us. He shed his blood. He's earned and paid for our salvation. And so now our sacrifice of gratitude and praise, thanksgiving, our sacrifice is to live for Christ now, to live for him.

Then also another aspect of that sacrifice is that it is a holy sacrifice. It means that we're not to conform to the unholy. We're to conform to what is holy, and that is God himself. We are separated from the worldly to Christ.

We are in the world, but we're not of the world. And one author says that we are to conform both to the nature and to the will of God. Just who is God?

We're supposed to be like him. And so as a tabernacle, vessels, and the things and instruments in the tabernacle, the bows and the other instruments, tongs for the foot, those who are holy set aside for a particular use. Now we, you, each of us who are believers, we are those holy instruments set aside to God, to do the will of God. And what is holy is holy to whatever you do according to the will of God that is holy. Also, it's supposed to be acceptable, and we think about what is acceptable and wanting to be acceptable and pleasing to Christ.

This one I need to ponder. Do I ever ask myself, maybe I come across the text I ask of myself, but am I what I'm doing today? Is that acceptable to Christ? And what I'm thinking now, is that acceptable to Christ? You know, so that's the way we're living and holy and doing what is acceptable and thinking to the Lord Jesus Christ. So these three describe our rational service and practice before the Lord. The word for rational or reasonable or spiritual worship, as defined, is the word legoico.

It's an adjective describing worship, and the root of the word is where we get the word logic, but it's also the basis of the word logos, which is word. So it's logical words from God that is supposed to be affecting us. So that's the kind of worship and service we give to God. One person put it this way, that our worship or service to Christ is in harmony with the highest reason.

Well, that's God's thoughts. That's how we live for him, in harmony with his thinking. So this is the kind of presentation we are to make of ourselves to Christ.

And Paul urges us, he's urging the Romans in their context, in that day in which Paul was living, which was under Nero, he's urging them to live for Christ that way. Now, when we get to verse 2, it talks about the believers living for Christ is aimed at what is pleasing to God. It is different from the world, but it is also a new mindset. So we're going to look how different we are from the world, but then there's a new mindset. We are not to live in conformity to the world. We're to be nonconformist in the biblical sense here. So Paul urges believers to not be conformed to the world, or by the world, or not to be fashioned by the world.

Don't allow the influences of ungodly people or things to fashion our lives. Now, in 2 Timothy, Paul was making this very sad comment. He was grieved because he says this, Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. He didn't go to Thessalonica to do ministry. He just left the ministry and deserted Paul. In modern days, this same desertion of the gospel takes place among believers.

It takes place among ministers. And there's a common denominator, however, in this desertion and this walking away. First, there is doubt. I doubt the Word of God. I want to do my own thing and I doubt the Word of God, and then I forsake the Word of God.

That's what happens. No longer is the deserter's life in submission to Christ. No longer is it the burden of their life. I only want to say what thus says the Lord does, what Scripture says.

No, it's not solo scriptura. It's, well, in my opinion is this, and I want it to be this way. That's when you see people drift away. They may still be fully engaged in ministry. They may be very popular, but they could actually be drifting away from the Lord. So the conformity to the world is the great enemy of being renewed in your mind. That's what Matthew Henry said. To conformity to the world is the enemy of being renewed in your mind. The world is passing away, but it is also true that the world will be judged and it's already decided.

I'm going to give it a couple of examples of drifting away and conforming. Years ago, many years ago, when I was in seminary, I came out of the chapel and we were walking along and right in front of me about 10 feet from me was a very astute man, godly minister. His name was Sam, Mr. Sam, and he was known in the southeast for being a pastor to pastors. He was a great teacher. He was a very humble man, but he was also a great evangelist. He had a great impact on a lot of people's lives in that region, that part of the southeast. He was walking along and this was the time when denominations were discussing all kinds of issues and denominations were shifting and moving. There was another gentleman beside him. I didn't know who he was.

They were both all suited up nicely. They were walking along and the guy says to him, he says, Mr. Sam, he says, you know, we don't need to compromise, but we need to be accommodating to other people. We don't need to compromise, but we need to be accommodating to other people. I didn't say anything, but I thought that is a tricky, tricky statement. That is deceitful. When I was a young boy, I was that at one time, down in eastern North Carolina, I had a collection of 26 different kinds of snakes that I had collected and put in alcohol jars and had them all stored away. Twenty-six, and I didn't have them all. Well, also, behind our house, there was a low area with a very little small stream. I thought, I want to raise some pigs. My dad got a couple of pigs and we put up a couple wire fences, a little electric wire fence around it. My duty was to go around every day and make sure that there wasn't a stick laying on it, grounding it out. Well, I came along and lo and behold, about that high off the ground, there lay a little copperhead with his head on it and he was a goner. So I took a stick. I didn't want to get shocked. So I picked him up, carried him back to the house.

I was going to put him in my collection along with the other copperheads I had. But then I walked to the back porch and said, my sister is coming in the door in a minute. So I laid him down and I just curled him up there and I walked on through the kitchen. I said, I'm going to hear the biggest scream in just a few minutes.

You just wait. Well, I hear the back door open. She comes in.

She walks off to the back porch and into the kitchen. She didn't say anything. She just tried not to say anything. I said, hey, did you see it? She said, see what?

The snake. I said, come here, let me show you. Uh-oh, he's not there. Oh, he wasn't dead. He was just unconscious. So I had to go and look around.

I finally found him and I kind of stepped on him a little bit, not too hard, took him out, finally finished him off. I was very accommodating. Be careful what you accommodate. I was thinking about that man and said, we don't need to compromise. We just need to be accommodating the people. What you're accommodating in your thoughts and your life and what my life is, is it poisonous?

Oh, I'm strong enough to handle it, but can you really? Anyway, we were warned. Henderson makes some statements about this, William Henderson. He said, avoid the pattern of this age. And Jesus says, I mean, Paul writes in Galatians, Jesus gave himself for our sins so that he might rescue us from this present evil age.

So don't allow yourself to be shaped by the pattern, by social influence, entrainment, or whatever. Yielding to temptations always ends in a bitter disappointment. The lust of the world is passing away.

John says this in 1 John, the world is passing away and also it's lust, but the one who does the will of God lives forever. What a blessed promise. I remember one time in South Carolina, I was talking to this doctor and he shared a discreet little story. I didn't know who it was, but it was a teenager came into his office and the teenager had a certain ailments and he knew if you have this ailment, you've been doing something you shouldn't be doing.

So the teenager comes in and said, what was his advice? Being discreet, even though he's a Christian, he's trying not to be too pushy, but what he told the person was this, you need a pressure inside of you that is greater than the pressure outside of you. That is the word in the spirit.

So we're not to be conformed to the world. By God's grace, working in us, he begins to transform us and we are to be transformed. The scripture says do be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Now transformation begins, of course, obviously with regeneration. When God changes our heart, he puts the spirit, brings about that new birth in us and we become a believer. But be transformed here is in the present tense to continue in action.

So we're always being transferred more and more because we're never reached perfection on this earth. But it's by the presence of the Holy Spirit where we are being sanctified, we're to be transformed and we're to have a new mindset that we are acquiring as God instructs us from his word. So it's the renewing of our mind. It's an ongoing growth in the knowledge and practice of the word of God by the help of the Holy Spirit.

But transformation in this term is passive. It is the work of the Holy Spirit working in us, this passive voice. Let us be transformed by the Holy Spirit. Don't grieve the Holy Spirit, but allow God's spirit to convict you and say, okay, I'm convicted, convict me more, change me, work on me, work on us in making us very different so that we become more and more pleasing to Christ.

So transformation here is very practical. It is imperative that you and I as believers be being transformed because it's in the imperative mood. It is our responsibility, not just the Holy Spirit, it's our responsibility to not grieve the spirit to cooperate with what God is saying in his scripture and the spirit is confirming and pointing particularly to us in a particular setting and application. So the believer's mind is to be renewed and if you are a believer your mind is being renewed. Matthew Henry says, the mind is the acting ruling part of us. So when we're dying to ourselves and living more and more to righteousness, that is part of that process of having a renewed mind. We're seeing things differently because God says this, not because my friends or I learned this from my granddad or whatever. It is really what God is teaching. Proverbs 6 23 says, for the commandment is a lamp and the teaching is light and reproofs for discipline are the way of life.

Then you know this one, as a man thinks in his heart so is he. We are to pursue the word of God and ask God by his Holy Spirit to illumine that scripture as we compare scripture with scripture so that God can change my thinking, your thinking, change our thinking as believers and we are to learn to think God's thoughts after him. It's not our opinion, although we can be very opinionated, I can be opinionated about things, but we need to learn God's thoughts on things. When we're doing that we're using the means of grace to change us. We're asking God to use his word, spirit, prayer, the sacraments, reminding us of the sacrifice of Christ, that we belong to him, that he has given his life. We have been recipients of great mercy and great grace and yet now so this is our response is to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to the Lord and that's our spiritual worship.

So what is the purpose of this internal foundation in Christ? What is the purpose of being transformed by the word and the spirit? The renewing of our mind is to demonstrate and prove the will of God, to prove and demonstrate that God's will is good, God's will is acceptable and God's will is perfect.

The word used there is Dachamadzo and the verb means will be able to discern or to test or prove or approve. So prove what is the will of God, the word of God here, and the meaning is that we are to demonstrate in our lives by the way that God is changing us, that God's will is good, God's will is pleasing, God's will is perfect. And it will become evident to many people that this is true as we are renewed in our minds. We will be also be able to discern more clearly the good, goodness of God, what is pleasing to God, and the nature, the perfect nature of God.

One person put it this way, the aim of perfection is to be more pleasing to Christ. As we grow in grace, we will experience and you know you have experienced as a believer how God has been good to you, how you've experienced things that are pleasing he's giving you and that God's will is even though at times it didn't look that good but yet his will has been good for your life. And one way of looking at others is that other people may see in you, God may work in you and change you so that other people say, oh, why are they different?

What's happened to them? And they realize, oh, God may use something he's done in your life to draw that person or draw their attention to his grace. It is God's grace that he is now working to renew you and I. That is an amazing thing that he's still putting up with us and he's still changing us by his grace, renewing our thoughts.

Hebrews 5 7 5 14 says, but solid food is for the mature who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. Jesus said, let people see your good work so they will glorify your father in heaven. Oh, no, not the preacher. We're not going to glorify the preacher no matter how many people are out there.

No, you've thought they'll glorify your father who is in heaven. Peter said it this way, keep your behavior excellent among the gentiles so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of vindication. And Titus says, likewise, urge the young men to be sensible. In all things, show yourself to be an example of good deeds with purity in doctrine, dignified, sound in speech, which is beyond reproach so that the opponent may be put to shame having nothing bad to say about you. We need daily the transforming work of God in our lives. We need our human, as I think who said this, William Henry said, we need our human consciences because they are affected by sin. We need our human consciences to be schooled by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. We need him to change our way of thinking so that God's will actually becomes our delight. Now, I don't think about that. What is God's will today? Is that going to be delightful to him?

I don't think about it, but I realize, okay, I'm supposed to be thinking that way. The effects of transforming of our lives is to be seen in those three things. It will show that God is good and that he's good for us. His statutes are good. All the words of God are good. It's a hedge about us so that we don't get tripped up in deep sin. And even the Ten Commandments, you can say, well, this is good preventative maintenance.

If I just pay attention, that might give me a clue that I shouldn't go that way. God's scriptures are sufficient for the rule of faith and life and practice. God's goodwill in the scriptures furnishes us with everything that we need. Now, the proof of the acceptable ways of God practically show up in that we are being transformed and that produces different fruits in our life. So in a believer's experience, a faithful believer experiences the excellency of God's of God's goodwill. We may not always understand it, but we as believers have experienced the excellency of what God has done in our lives. The evidence of God's love, his joy, peace, long suffering in your life in the long run, we realize that is excellent. That is good for me. But what is perfect?

Perfect means by according to the Word of God, the truth of God is perfect and he's perfect. It's evident. You know, it's a blessing to have a heart that is after the will of God. And mine is not all the time.

Very seldom, I think. Jesus was talking to his disciples and he was speaking of his relationship between him and the Father. And he says, if anyone is willing to do the Father's will, he will know of the teaching whether it is of God or whether I speak for myself, meaning I'm speaking independently of the Father or he doesn't.

So you will know. As you read God's Word, you know this is what God's saying. Jesus' words, they're great.

If we desire God's will and God's perfect will, he will give us discernment in our daily lives and living for him. The believer is being transformed and that is a testimony to the world. Some people will wonder, why are you so different? They may like it or dislike it.

Peter says, in all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them in the same excess of dissipation and they may malign you. But also the hope you have in Christ stands out to other people that there is life in Jesus Christ. So they're reminders here of God's grace. Romans 1 through 11, Romans 1 through 11, it teaches us, life is only obtained as a gift from God, spiritual and physical life. And coming to faith in Christ is only by his calling, only by God initiating and regenerating us.

So we need to pray. I picked a few lines out of Psalm 51. Renew a steadfast spirit within me and sustain me with a willing spirit. Open my mouth and my mouth may declare your praise. If our mindset conforms to God's will, it is pleasing to God and it brings favor and blessings to us.

Did you know that? If our mindset is pleasing to God, it will bring blessings to us. Our thinking should be that God's revealed will in scripture is more than sufficient to mature us.

It's more than sufficient as a rule of life. Our thinking must be that God's way and will is good and good for us and his purposes are good. That is very foundational. How rich his grace is that he works to motivate us. His work has motivated us. His death motivates us to live for him. He calls us to be living sacrifices, living with a purpose for him. He calls us to be internally transformed by the work of the word and spirit. He works in us by grace, the work of the spirit to renew our mind, to change our thinking. By grace, he saves us from our corruption and the corruption of the world.

We are called by the word of God through the apostle Paul, as he writes this, we are called to present ourselves, to dedicate ourselves to Christ. That is the internal foundation of Christian living. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we pray that you would be merciful to us and our wayward thoughts, our wayward ways are often on hot and cold Christian faith. Lord, help us to be motivated by the great grace that you pour out on us every single day. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.