Christian responsibilities specifically toward God. And as you see, hopefully you have your notes from before, but I didn't print out new ones, but you'll see where we're going here with our responsibility toward God. Lord willing, next week, we will get into the second main section here of our responsibilities toward those in the church. My plan is to cover that lesson in the next two Sundays, so that'll be the first two Sundays of October, and then this is Sunday before and after the week of prayer, and then Another Sunday we'll begin into the next lesson after that, but I plan the next two Sundays to go into this next section from verses 3 to 13, dealing with the responsibilities of the believer to those inside the body of Christ. But we'll finish up this lesson today of our responsibility toward God. And we have seen already, if you have the notes here, we've seen already the requirement of absolute surrender, that is, presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice. one that is holy, one that is acceptable to God, and then that responsibility of absolute surrender, not only to present your body a living sacrifice, but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And so where we are in our notes right now is Roman numeral two. So the top third there of page 3, and we're coming to the motive of our absolute surrender. So let's just look at the verses again in Romans 12. We'll read verses 1 and 2 together, or I'll read them to you, you follow along, and we'll see how this fits together, the motive that God has given to us to surrender our lives to Him. So Paul says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may be able to prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And so, we have two motivations, if you will, given to us here in this passage for our absolute surrender. And each, in a sense, goes together with the requirements. the requirement to present your body a living sacrifice is motivated by the mercy of God. And so the other aspect of our absolute surrender is to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The motive for that is, you'll see letter B there, discerning the will of God, that will of God that is good, well-pleasing, and perfect. So if we look at these in order and try to tie these together with their individual parts, I believe this will be very helpful for us. So the first motive given to us for this absolute surrender is the mercy of God. So, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. The word beseech that's used there really carries with it the idea of imploring or begging. And remember the context, we've dealt with this the past two weeks, the context of where we're coming from. Paul in these first 11 chapters has been laying out for the most part and with the greatest emphasis on the doctrine of the gospel. And so he comes to this transition point, and remember, we've gone over those words, therefore, and those individual occurrences of that through different parts of the book of Romans. And he comes to this very practical section, and he's saying, in light of all this, I put this before you as something very solemn, something very important, something for you to pay very careful attention to. And so in that sense, begging or imploring, I beseech you, therefore, brethren. This would be the same word that's used in the New Testament for prayer. It's used for our beseeching the God of heaven for various needs or whatever. And Paul is using this same kind of language to the church, to the believer, present your body a living sacrifice by the mercies of God. The word by that is used here is a word that is often used to convey something of a purpose. This is the reason why he is begging this. It's because of or on account of the mercies of God. Now, the word mercy that is used here is really not the normal word for mercy. Um, let me have you turn over. Oh, hold on. I didn't write this verse down. Yeah, there it is, verse 15. Turn over to Romans 9, 15. This is not the normal word for mercy. There is a Greek word for mercy that is used, you know, scores of times, the vast majority of time, both a noun and a verb coming from the exact same root. This word is used If I remember my count right, I think it's five times in the New Testament, five or six times it's used. But it's a word that carries with it more the idea of having compassion or having pity. And so it's interesting, and I'll have you look at Romans 9 and verse number 15, because in this verse, both of the normal words are used. Romans 9.15 is a quotation from the book of Exodus. for he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." That's the normal word that you would find for mercy all through the Bible. And, I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. Where it's translated as compassion in Romans 9.15, is the same word that's used in Romans 12 and verse 1, where he says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the, if I can make some parallelism here, by the compassions of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. So we have the same word here. not dogmatic, I'm not going to jump up and down and make a big huge deal about this, but perhaps it could be translated in this way, I beseech you therefore brethren, because God has demonstrated so many mercies. Now that's an interpretive translation, the word demonstrated is not in the Greek, and I think you understand what I'm saying here. The word that's used here is a word that seems to carry with it a flavor of something that is acted out. It is mercy that God has, yes, God is merciful, but God has acted out this mercy to his people. He's demonstrated this mercy in tangible ways. And one that I was reading made the point, and I didn't flesh this out and go search all these exhaustively. But he says that the Hebrew word for mercy is always in the plural. And it is true. In Hebrew, in English, what we would say, pronounce as im, I, the letter M, is a plural form of a noun. Well, the Hebrew word is in that plural sense. I'm not sure how much to make of that. But he pointed out the fact that when this word is used here in this context, he's using the plural of that word playing on that Hebrew idea that the mercies of God are innumerable. And I think it is a valid point, because when you begin to think of The reason that's given, the motive, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, well, it's not just one thing the Lord has done for us. Count your many blessings, name them one by one, right? Where do you stop in identifying how God has been merciful to you? Well, they are innumerable mercies. They're mercies from one who is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. And there are mercies that God has shown, let's face it, that because of our sinfulness and our dullness, we don't even recognize them. When we start counting our many blessings, how many do we miss because we're too spiritually stupid to realize what God has done? But He's done so much. So just to highlight just a very small portion of this, for 11 chapters, Paul has been giving us details of the mercies of God. And so one of the big illustrations that's used earlier in the book of Romans is how God was merciful to Abraham. And he uses Abraham as this massive illustration in chapter four of Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. God was merciful to sinners, Romans 5, 6, in that while we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly, an illustration, an example of his mercy. God made it so that his grace abounds more than our sin abounds, Romans 5 again. God's mercy is in that there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. And again, you see how you can just pick illustrations of verses all through these first 11 chapters of Romans and see that God has been merciful over and over and over. And so it stands to reason as a motivation given here, that if you've truly experienced the mercy of God, then what other choice can you make but to present your body a living sacrifice. which is your reasonable service, your spiritual act of worship, as we looked at. So you see how Paul argues this as the motivation for being absolutely surrendered to the Lord in all that we do. It is really our only logical service. And so I want us to consider a few things about the mercies of God and how it's framed here. given this really just as matters of application in what God is calling upon us in this motivation. So, four that I'm going to list out here. The first one, when we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, God is merciful to use us in just the right way. So, I beseech you, because God is merciful, because God has demonstrated mercy, that you present your body a living sacrifice. Well, when we present our body as a living sacrifice, God is merciful to us to use us in the right way. So, you know, When I first started working on this lesson, I didn't know that Jim was going to be taking the young people out of here. So I have applications in here for, you know, like a teenage crowd. But as I started looking at some of these, I thought, well, you know, we as adults are not exempt from some of the same kind of thinking. But you take a young person who is like, well, you know, if I completely surrender out to the Lord, then God's gonna do something awful to me. He's gonna make me be a missionary in Africa, and I'm gonna have to live in a mud hut for the rest of my life. If I totally surrender to the Lord, then my life's gonna be miserable. I'm not gonna have any friends. I'm gonna be in isolation. People will think I'm a weirdo, et cetera. Well, I don't really think that we as adults are exempt from that same style of thinking. That if I surrender out wholeheartedly to the Lord, and in a sense of, the nuance of this phrase might be a little wrong, but just complete self-abandon to Christ and the gospel. I don't care what people think at all anymore. then God is going to call me to something that I don't really want. Well, I think you all are mature enough to hear that being said out loud and realize that really is a foolish way of thinking and that's not a right way of thinking because we know, we have enough theological perspective to understand that God does not call us to something that we don't want to do. What happens in the call of God? first gives a burden and desire to do and follow His will, and then God opens and paves a path ahead of you that is His will, and really in that sense makes it plain, and enables you to do everything that He calls you to do. And so when we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, God is going to take that willing vessel, if you will, and use it in a merciful, gracious way that is not only for His glory, but is for your good, and I would go so far as to say for your pleasure, for your enjoyment. Because God is not about making us miserable in this life. God has given us good things to enjoy. I was having a conversation just a couple days ago with some people about the book of Ecclesiastes and how God prospers his people for his glory and we rejoice in that. Okay, so a second one. God is merciful to consider our frame and remember that we are but dust. And so it's because of the mercies of God that motivates us to live for Him. And so God is merciful to consider our frame. In God's mercy, we understand from the book of James, He doesn't put on us more than He, by His grace, by the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, enables us to bear up under. If you're crushed by your circumstances, then This could be taken out of context, but hear me out. If you're crushed by your circumstances, it's more often than not because you're seeking to bear up under those circumstances alone. If you're trying to live under the circumstances of this life by yourself, they will crush you. But you weren't meant to live under the weight of the circumstances of this life on your own. That's why the Lord has given to us his spirit. I may have mentioned this last week. Sometimes I quote things that I read here, sometimes just in conversation with other people. So if I said this last week, forgive me. But we often pray for the Lord to change our circumstances, only really to later come to understand that the Lord gave us those circumstances for the purpose of changing us. We so often chafe under what we're going through and say, Lord, I don't want to go through this, take this away, only for the Lord to say, no, I'm busy. I'm busy doing something in you. I'm trying to change you. Stop trying to change me. So what are we doing? When we say, God, take these circumstances away, We would never say it in these words, but is there not something of the insinuation of, Lord, you've made a massive mistake. I don't deserve this. You don't understand. You did wrong by bringing this. You should have done this instead. And if you had only done this instead, then I would be in a better place. And the whole time, The Lord is saying, you don't know what you're talking about. God is the one who is doing the merciful thing. Now, we've gone round and round and round on this when we've talked about Romans 8, 28. God works all things together for good. And we've been very careful to emphasize the fact that sometimes what the Lord is doing, we have to be sensible, and we have to be realistic and understand what God is doing is going to work together for good, yes. It is good in the sense it is what God is doing, yes. But it's not good. The circumstances are terrible. They're terrible. OK, so you're a Christian that lives in Western North Carolina, East Tennessee today. And your house is eight feet underwater. Well, don't worry about it. God works together all things for good. Well, my house is underwater. That's not good. That's bad, right? But no, what is God doing? Well, God cannot do evil. God cannot sin. He is not doing wrong. And this is where we as Christians have to step back and be very thankful that we're not God. We're not like him. Sometimes we don't understand what he does. But he is doing the best, and he is doing the right thing. Most of us here are parents, so I can put the illustration in this context. How many times have we as parents made a decision for our children, and our children say to us, I don't understand? And we as parents acknowledge. I know you don't understand. That's why I made the decision and not you. Because I know that the decision you would have made would have been hurtful for you. And so I stepped in, I've used this illustration, we as parents are taller, we can see farther over the horizon than our children. And our children don't perceive the evil that's over the horizon, we as parents have a better perspective on that. And we can say, look, where you're headed, this is dangerous. I'm going to step in here. I'm going to stop this. But I don't understand. Well, it doesn't matter if you understand or not. You still have to obey. As parents, we do this. Well, can we not blow that up infinitely so and say, of all that understand is God. All who know what is best is God. And of all those that don't understand, it's us. And we just have to say, Lord, I trust you that you're merciful. You know my frame. You know that I'm but dust. You know what I'm able to take. You know what I'm able to bear. And I trust you. Lord, help me. And off we go, living for him. So number three, it is only because of the Lord's mercies that we've not been consumed and have been preserved alive to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to him anyway. If the Lord were not merciful, he would have taken you out a long time ago. You think in scripture, Nadab and Abihu. Were they in the back room of their tent that morning, having this secret meeting with one another, saying, how can we totally corrupt and undermine and destroy the worship of God? You know, it was Nadab saying to his brother Abihu, you know, I hate Jehovah. I wish we could do away with him. I wish we could invent some new worship that would get him off our case. That's not what they were up to, okay? But they did offer strange fire unto the Lord. They disobeyed what God said. Was it with malice and wicked intent? We don't know their heart, but they disobeyed what God said. And God slew him. Immediately, God slew him. Now, Ananias and Sapphira, we know that they did connive and lie, and theirs was a premeditated lie to the leaders of the church. And God slew them. So we have illustrations of scripture of God taking someone out basically immediately for their sin. Achan. commanded him to be stoned because of his sin. Well, you start thinking of illustrations like that, and then you start thinking back to your own life. Well, how many times have we not done substantively the same kind of thing? And the Lord's not taking us out. Here we are. He's been merciful to us. He's preserved us alive. And here we are. And because God has been so merciful, what do I do? Do I run from Him? No. Because God has been so merciful, and our eyes have been opened to the fact that, man, I should have been really, really punished for that. God's been merciful to me. And so instead, we run to Him and embrace that one that has been merciful, and just sell out. Lord, whatever you want, I'm yours. absolute surrender. And so there's this motivation. The fourth one, it's because of the Lord's mercies that Christ made his soul an offering for sin in the first place. And it's because of the Lord's mercies that we can be redeemed. That, if I can put it in this way without being flippant, that God would want to have anything to do with us anyway. That God would even care that we live for him or not. Well, Galatians 1, 3 to 4, grace be to you and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world. There's an act of mercy of God in Christ, Christ giving himself for us. Out of an act of divine mercy, Galatians 4, 4 to 5, God sent forth his son. made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the law. Ephesians 2, but God who is rich in mercy for or because of his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. And so again, it's all an act of mercy that God in Christ has redeemed us to himself. He called us to live for Him and to serve Him. So when we consider the scope of God's mercy, then what answer is there but to present our bodies as a living sacrifice? Well, then we come to verse 2, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. We come to the second motive of absolute surrender, and that is discerning the will of God. And so we discern the will of God That's part of the motive for being transformed and having our minds renewed. And so we've talked about this part of it, the requirement for us to be transformed, that metamorphosis that has to happen, and the renewing of our mind, a different thinking. Our thinking is naturally corrupted because of sin. but our mind is renewed, we are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. And what's the motive in the doing of this even? Well, part of the motive is discerning the will of God. Well, what is the will of God? Well, the will of God, is to present your body a living sacrifice. That's the will of God. The will of God is to be transformed. The will of God is to have your mind renewed. You do the will of God, you pursue the will of God, and God will show you the will of God. I'm not gonna go through my whole testimony. Most of you have heard my testimony to some length, but that concept was for me at the age of 15. I mean, the preacher may as well have hit me between the eyes with a sledgehammer. It was one of these concepts that as it was being preached from the it was being preached from Ephesians 5. Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the spirit and you know that that passage of Scripture. But the main point of application that preacher was making at a youth camp in Fort Walton Beach, FL when I was 15 years old was. Do the will of God, and God will show you His will. Well, I mean, that's just brain dead simple, right? But for me, it was, wow, that's powerful. And then you begin to unfold in the New Testament what is the will of God, even your sanctification, and It takes what in the mind of a 15-year-old is, you know, I need to go down some dark alley and find some crazy lady with a crystal ball to find out what God's will is, to, man, this is really not any more complicated than it needs to be. God has made things very plain and very straightforward in the scriptures. And you just, a day at a time, follow the Lord's will. And one of the points of application was why in the world would you have any reason to anticipate God showing you what his will is five years from now or 10 years from now if you're not even doing his will today? If he can't trust you to obey today, then why is he gonna show you and tell you what he wants you to do years from now? And man, for me, that made all the sense in the world. And my thinking as a 15-year-old was, I got to get my act together today. And the Bible makes it pretty clear what I'm supposed to be doing now. And so that's what I need to do now. I'll do that today. And then tomorrow, I'll do that again. And the next day, I'll do that again. And here I am, right? And I've been basically following that principle and idea since I was 15 years old. And the Lord leads. Had you told me 20 years ago, I'd be in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I'd have told you you're nuts. I mean, I never saw myself here. But yet the Lord, a day at a time, Shows you his will, you do his will, and the next day you do his will, and the next day you do his will again, and you'll find yourself in the will of God. But where does it start? Well, it starts with a presuppositional foundation of life. I'm gonna do what God wants me to do. I don't know what God wants me to do. Well, that doesn't matter. I'm still going to do what God wants me to do. So I do know what God wants me to do now. And so I'll do that. And then tomorrow, I'll do what God wants me to do. And the next day, and the next day, and the next day. And it's really not any more complicated than that. But the will of God that is being spoken of here really is the will of God as it is our duty toward Him. This passage of Scripture is not so much It does not so much mean, be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God for your life's vocation or for your, you know, you name the thing, right? It really is more focused in our terms of obedience. Do the will of God, obey God now, and you'll know what to obey tomorrow. The Lord's not playing games with us. But when he talks about this will, he tells us first that this will is good. And so we have to derive from that, that there is no place, there is no thing that God will ever lead you to do that is not for his glory, and ultimately not for your good. And so you know God is not calling you into sin. So how many people have said, well, you know, it's the will of God that I do this thing. Well, you look at this thing that they're telling you it's the will of God to do, and it's objectively, sinfully wrong. Well, that's not God's will. You know it's not God's will, because it's forbidden in scripture to do such a thing. Micah 6.8, he has showed thee, O man, what is good, so we know what good is. Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God. And so, we're called upon, we're motivated to be transformed in our mind that we would have a discerning spirit as to what is the good thing that you want me to do. Also, that thing is well-pleasing, the will of God. It's not just that God accepts it. but he is well pleased with his own will for you. He's pleased with it because it's what he has ordained for you to do. There is nothing better for you to do, and God cannot ordain for you to do something that is second best. He can only ordain what is best. That is based just simply on the foundational character of the fact that God is good. And because God is good, he can never do that which is less than good. It has to be perfect what he has done. If I can repeat what I said earlier about us often praying that the Lord would change our circumstances, well, no, we understand the Lord is changing us and he's leading us into this will that he is very, very pleased with. It makes God happy, if I can put it in these terms, to lead us in the right way. So it's good, it's well-pleasing, it's perfect. And that's how he ends here. Every true believer wants to know what God's will is, and it serves as a motive for our being totally and absolutely surrendered to him. So we're gonna stop there. We're finished with these verses. Starting in verse three, we're going to get into the aspect of the responsibilities that God has given to us in the church, more about obedience, and then also getting into the subject of brotherly love in these verses. But let's close here. We'll stop for today and prepare our hearts for the worship service here. So let's pray. Our Father, we do thank you that in your word, you have dealt faithfully with us. You've not sought to deceive us or hide from us what you require, but instead you have spoken to us plainly and we pray. that you would, by your Spirit, write these words on our own hearts, that we would have a wholehearted devotion to serve you, that we would follow you in the way that you would have us go, and we pray that you would give us a greater sense of discernment about your will, preserve us from error, preserve us from a wrong way of thinking. And in that we're asking that you would renew our minds. And we know that you do that through your word. And so we pray for this worship service that's to follow. We pray for Pastor Kimbrough as he preaches that that word, the means of grace that go forward here would that you would use those as a merciful tool in our own hearts and thinking to conform us more to your image. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.