the letter iconSo today we continue this study of the book of Romans and today is a pretty special day.  Today is Father’s Day, and I have to say that I am just amazed at how this series and this chapter of Romans fits into a Father’s Day talk.  We will be walking through Romans 12, it is a powerful chapter of scripture with a very clear message.  I think that you can really sum up what Paul is writing in Romans 12 in one sentence.  Paul says, we are to live like Jesus lived.  Which leads to a big question…How exactly did Jesus live?  He was a servant.  He modeled for you and I what it looks like to place His Heavenly Father’s desires above his own.   All through scripture we are challenged to live as Jesus lived but that is hard to do isn’t it?  Seriously how can we be that loving, that self-less, that…well that perfect.  I mean Jesus is God in skin right, so he had some help laying down His life and serving others right?  We are very clearly not God in skin, so this is going to be a challenge…but all through scripture we see this laid out for us.

1 John 2:6 Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Christ did.  NLT

This is pretty clear.  There’s just no getting around this.  If we say that we live in God we should live our lives as Jesus did.  This is Romans 12 in a sentence.  You know as I studied this chapter of scripture I just kept thinking.  What if we lived this way?  What if we were able to live as Jesus lived?  What would we look like?  What would our community look like?  What would the world look like if we were able to get past ourselves a little bit and begin to live out Romans 12?  Well really if you think about it that is where we left off last week.  Last week in our study of Romans 11 we really tried to dial in to this idea that we are to focus completely on God, remember the big question last week?  It was really the focal point of our study of Romans 11…

Is your relationship with God more about God and His desires for you or you and what you want or need from Him?

Think it through.  When is the last time you went to God, slowed down, quieted your soul and just listened?  Has that ever happened?  Is it even possible to slow down and allow God to speak into your life or is this God thing all about what we need next from God?

So why did I go there last week and read some prophet’s talking about watchmen and rest for your souls in the middle of this Roman’s series?  It’s because we can’t get the focus off of ourselves and onto God if we can’t slow down and allow God to speak to us.  We live in a culture of busy, of chaos and clutter.  We run and run and run, and I have to wonder if we let God speak into our lives much at all.  You see, here’s what I know, if we can’t stop, slow down, and engage God in a real way we won’t experience grace.  We won’t be able to live out Romans 11, and we certainly won’t live as Jesus did, which is the message of Romans 12.   It’s amazing how many of us are tired, cluttered, and looking forward to summer vacation as our chance for a real rest.  I have been touching on this over the last few weeks, no I’m not anti-vacation…vacations and beach trips are great!  The reality is though, they can’t be the place where we go for real rest.  The reality is that you will come back from the big beach trip with the same problems you had when you left your home town.  You will come back from the big beach trip with a sun tan and some pictures to show people, but it isn’t a real rest is it?  I’m always amazed at how hard we work on resting!  Can you hear how funny that sounds?  We will spend thousands of dollars and hours in the car to find what Jesus wants to give you right now.  Real rest.

Jesus says- “Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest.  Walk with me and work with me — watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. 30 Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”  (Matthew 11:28-30 MSG)

So why in a talk about Romans 12 do we need to talk about real rest?  It’s because the reality is that if you are not spending time with Jesus this just won’t happen.  Now I’m not talking about getting up and banging out a couple seconds with God, and I’m not talking about jamming him into a few waking moments in our busy lives.  I’m talking about prioritizing God into our schedule, slowing ourselves down, quieting our souls, and allowing God to speak into our lives.  We have read in scripture that when we are able to spend time with God, eventually the focus shifts off of us and onto Him…and that is where we need to be, probably more so than sitting in a chair under an umbrella at the beach.  There really is no more important place to be if you want to live out Romans 12.  With that said, let’s read the first 3 verses…

Romans 12:1 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2 Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. 3 I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.  (MSG)

When you read this can you see why it is so important for us to start with our time with God?  I’m not sure there is a human on this planet that can live this out without God’s love inside them.  Let’s read those first two verses again this time in the NIV…

Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will.  NIV

You know when I first realized that I was going to be speaking on Romans 12 on Father’s Day I got really excited, but then I kept thinking about just how challenging this was really going to be.  If you think about what Paul is saying here, it isn’t necessarily the kind of message that people want to hear is it?  Lay your life down for others.  Take everything you do and offer it to God.  Offering yourself as a living sacrifice, isn’t the warm and fuzzy type of message that people like, especially in the culture we live in.

I mean let’s be very honest here.  We live in a culture where we really make decisions through this grid; “What’s In It For Me?”  Seriously in all aspects of your life isn’t that the underlying motivator?  You pick a neighborhood to live in, a job to go to, the clubs your kids will play sports in…and even your church based off of this question right?  So how then do we take a message where Paul would urge us to take our lives and give them as a living sacrifice and live this out in the culture that we live in?  Well it goes back to this, we must begin to carve out time and space to slow down, quiet our souls, and allow the focus to shift off of us and onto God.

So before I completely ignore the text for today, let’s jump into this.  In these first two verses of Romans I see Paul urging us to fully surrender our lives to God by offering up three things…Our bodies, our minds, and our will.

  1. Offer Your Body As A Living Sacrifice.

Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship. NIV

Now what exactly is Paul talking about here?  Offering my body as a living sacrifice?  This is about giving God all of you…your total self, not bits and pieces of you.  The other thing I kept thinking about is how our bodies are visible aren’t they?  Paul is talking about sacrifices which wouldn’t have been a new concept to these people.  Back in the day they would take sheep and goats and sacrifice them, it was a very public and visible act of worship for all to see.  Now we are to offer all of us, our total self as an act of worship to God.

Do you see the challenge in this?  You live in a culture where every decision is made through the grid of “What’s in it for me.”  Now Paul urges us to live through the grid of “It’s not about me.”

  1. Offer Your Mind to God.

Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  NIV

So what we see here is that we must break out of the ways of the world.  We have a mindset.  We live in a world that keeps us focused and thinking about us.  We must break free from this mindset and focus on God.  This is such a huge point, and it’s exactly what I have been trying to push in on throughout this talk.  You live in a culture where everything is coming at your though the grid of “What’s in it for me?”  This is the way the world thinks, and Paul is urging you to renew your mind, to give your mind over to God where He becomes central in your thinking.  The world says “what’s in it for me?” we are to no longer conform to the ways of the world, and live through the mindset of “It’s not about me.”

  1. Offer Your Will to God.

Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will.  NIV

Here’s what is really interesting God will not force you to do his will.  He allows us to choose between our will and His will.  So let’s think this through, that means that I have a will of my own that is different than God’s and my job is to get on the same page with God.  This is not easy to do in the culture we live in that makes everything about me!  So what is Paul saying here, that we are to lay down our will, and focus on God’s perfect will for our lives…which is the exact opposite of the will the world has for you!

You know it’s really interesting to me how many people wonder what God’s will is for their lives.  You know a lot of us can spend our whole lives wondering just what God has planned for us.  It can make us restless, frustrated, and searching all over the place for the plan that God has for our lives.  Is this you?  Do you ever wonder just what in the world God has planned for you?  I know a lot of really frustrated Christians who are searching and searching for the answer to this question.  They read books, they go to conferences, they talk to anyone that will listen…and they just can’t seem to figure out what God’s will is for their lives.  If this is you, spending days, and months and years trying to find the plan that God has for your life, I want you to hear me say something that may help you here today.

Finding the plan that God has for your life starts here.  It starts by living out Romans 12:1 and 2.  Until you can offer yourself to God as a living sacrifice you will always wonder what God’s will is for your life.  Do you know why?  It’s because your signals are getting crossed.  God isn’t first in your life, you are, and until God is first your fleshly desires for your life will continue to blind you from God’s perfect will for your life.  It’s interesting how this is written in the Message version, let’s go back to that…

Romans 12:1 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2 Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. 3 I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.  (MSG)

So Paul would say that all parts of our lives are to be given to God.  So many good Christians miss this.  Paul says take all parts of your life your sleeping, eating, going-to-work and walking around life and give that all to God.  That is all part of His will for you!  So many Christians are looking for something spectacular.  They want to be a superstar for Christ and as they search and look and run looking for that “something special” that God as for them they are completely missing all the people, all the relationships, all the amazingly intentional situations and circumstances that God has intentionally placed them in right here, and right now!  So God places us intentionally in moments that we are to engage but for many of us we are so busy searching for God’s plan that we don’t realize that we are standing in it!  I truly believe that what God sees as spectacular and what you and I think God sees as spectacular are completely different things.  It’s just so hard to see if we are in control of our lives, and if we are the focus of our lives.  Do you catch where I’m drifting to here?

For those of your who are tired and frustrated because you are just so tired of searching for answers to this big question what is God’s will for my life?  I have to ask you this…

When is the last time that you stopped and engaged God?  When is the last time your quieted your soul, and allowed God to speak to you?  Has this ever happened?  What if God is speaking to you every day?  What if God does love you and does have a perfect will for your life?  What would it take for you to live out His desires and not yours?  This is the challenge of your life…to live as Jesus lived.  That is so hard to do, and frankly it is impossible to do if God isn’t running the show in your life.  God must be central.

So it’s Father’s Day, and I want to ask you Father’s something here today…(really this is for all of you but I’m trying to be all into the day here…but Dad let’s talk for a minutes.)  What if I told you without even knowing you that you have four areas of ministry that God has directly placed you in right now?  You do, and what is even more interesting is that those areas of ministry all build off of each other.  You can’t do the second one well until you do the first one well.  Here’s the 4 areas of ministry that you have.

  • Your Heart
  • Your spouse
  • Your children
  • Your job

This is a really big deal to me that we go here for a minute today.  The first and most important area of ministry you have is to your heart.  The Bible talks about the importance of your heart…

Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. NIV

Above all else…the most important thing you can do is guard your heart.  This is your most important area of ministry.  You must engage God each and every day of your life.  Scripture says that the most important thing we can do is guard our hearts…so I’m thinking the most important thing we can do is guard our hearts.  It’s the well spring of life.  If you ignore this area, you having nothing to take to the next areas.  Dad when is the last time you carved out space and time to engage your heart well?  When is the last time you shut the lap top off, turned off the game, stopped working long enough to quiet your heart and hear what God has to say to you?

Paul says,fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.” 

We are changed from the inside out when we fix our attention on God.  When we are focused on this first circle of ministry and are allowing God to change us from the inside out, then we can step into our next circle of ministry.  That is our spouse.

Ephesians 5:25 And you husbands must love your wives with the same love Christ showed the church. He gave up his life for her NLT

So when are engaging our hearts well, and spending time with Christ so that we can live as Christ lived.  We can live out Romans 12…and here we see it again in the second area of ministry.  We are to love our wives as Christ loved the church, He gave up his life for her…guys this isn’t easy!  What thanks did Jesus get for loving the church?  They killed him!  The reality is that we cannot live out this level of sacrifice without first being changed from the inside out…so when our hearts are right, we can live as Jesus lived.  We can step into the second circle which is loving our spouses…then our children…and when we have that down we can step further out into our work place, and then who knows where it goes for you from there…but it starts with your heart.  Every area of ministry is an act of serving, or loving and really all your serving and sacrifice should be coming out of the overflow of your relationship with Christ.

When is the last time you engaged your heart?  When was the last time you rested in God’s presence?  When was the last time you were able to allow the focus to come off of you and onto Him?  Has it ever happened?

Romans 12 is all about living as Jesus lived, and frankly we can’t do that if we aren’t spending time with Him.  In verse 3 Paul says something that is so important and again we just can’t even begin to comprehend it if we aren’t finding real rest in God.  If we don’t quiet our souls we will never understand just how important this statement even is…

Romans 12:3 I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.  (MSG)

We must understand that God brings all of it to us, we aren’t taking it to God.  We can’t even begin to understand this on our own.  You see without God we will live in a world of “me” we will make decisions based off of this statement “What’s in it for me?” and Paul is saying the exact opposite here.   Living as Jesus lived just can’t happen without being changed from the inside out, which can’t happen if we aren’t allowing God to speak into our lives.

Romans 12 ends with some really incredible words from Paul and really in these words you see what it means to live out this living sacrifice in your ordinary everyday lives…

Romans 12:9 Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. 10 Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. 11 Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, 12 cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. 13 Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. 14 Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. 15 Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. 16 Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.17 Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. 18 If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. 19 Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”20 Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. 21 Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.  (MSG)

So let me ask you where does this type of love come from?  A love so deep will only come from God.

Where will not burning out and finding real rest come from?  It’s not coming from the beach trip, and it won’t come from hunting season…it comes from God.

Where does the ability to love our enemies and not judge and need justice come from?  It comes from God.

The reality is that in this chapter we are challenged to live the exact opposite way that our fleshy desires would tell us to live.  We are to live as Jesus lived with a full, profound and pure love that can only come from God.  So if you are out there wondering what God’s plan is for your life can I ask you something…are you living out Romans 12:1 and 2?  Are you offering up all of you as a living sacrifice for God?  Because the reality of it is that without God none of this is possible.  Without God we will continue to live through the grid of “What’s in this for me.”  We will continue to wonder what God is up to, and we will continue to ignore the amazing and deliberate world that He has placed us in right now.  It starts when we engage our hearts, then it can move out from there.

Happy Father’s Day everyone, hopefully you can take time today to listen to what Your Heavenly Father is saying to you…because when that starts to happen, living out Romans 12 is possible…until it does, it just is not possible to live as Jesus lived.