We have reached a key moment in our studies in the letter to the Romans. Paul has spent 11 chapters detailing his great theology on what the gospel is. But it has to be more than head knowledge and so in these closing chapters, chapters 12 to 16, Paul tells us how we apply this gospel in our daily lives. He begins by detailing what our response is to God. Knowing the gospel means we respond in love to God and understand that everything we do is our spiritual worship.

Having established our response to the gospel is love for God, Paul goes on to talk of how the church its to be a place of sacrificial love. Believers are to be transformed by Jesus and not conformed by the world. We are to be different people who demonstrate a better way - the Jesus way. We are called to live as Jesus did so that we will show what the love of God looks like in our daily lives.

Romans - The heart of the Gospel is a teaching series from Annalong Presbyterian Church. Find out more at www.annalongpc.org/sermons.

We have reached a significant moment in the letter of

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Paul to the church in Rome because

for 11 chapters he has been digging

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deep and he's been digging very deep

into what is the heart of the gospel.

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And as we concluded chapter 11

last week we saw that the heart of

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the gospel is God's love for us.

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So that we would know the great

salvation in Jesus Christ.

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And Paul is so filled with the

truth, with this truth, that

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he couldn't contain himself.

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And he burst out almost in song

in verse 33 of chapter 11 to

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say, Oh the depth of the riches

and wisdom and knowledge of God.

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How unsearchable are his judgments

and inscrutable his ways.

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Just because this is a significant

moment doesn't mean that Paul

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is going to go easy on us.

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Because what he wants to look

at further is why God would

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bless us with such salvation.

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And the simple answer is, if we

were to look at ourselves as we

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are, we don't know why he does it.

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But he does, and we truly are

eternally grateful to him for it.

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Because we don't deserve this salvation.

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It's not of any merit of our own that

could have persuaded God to love us.

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Paul tells us in his great theology of

the gospel in these 11 chapters that God,

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or that salvation is God's initiative and

we are to be his joy filled recipients.

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But this is not about head knowledge only.

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The gospel is to be lived out and

so we now take all that we have

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learned and begin in chapter 12.

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And although we're shifting gear

with our response to the gospel,

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Paul is not changing what he

believes or he's already taught.

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What he is now demonstrating is the

application of these 11 chapters.

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When I was a business studies teacher for

all of three years, between qualifying

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as a teacher and then going into the

ministry, I was I was always conscious

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that when I taught or what I taught would

have bearing and relevance to the students

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to what the world of work would be like.

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There was no point in me standing up at

the front of a classroom and teaching

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different aspects of marketing or

production or human resources if it

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didn't make sense in the real world.

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And as teachers, we would often try

to take students off on a field trip

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so that they could see what they were

learning in class did indeed have

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relevance in future job opportunities.

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And let's face it, who

doesn't love a field trip?

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Teacher and pupil alike.

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And if you were in business

studies, you got the best of field

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trips because you got to Coca

Cola and you got to Tato Castle.

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And do you know what's the benefit

of going to both those places?

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You get freebies.

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Free crisps straight off the

conveyor belt, unflavored.

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Free coke as much as you could

drink on the bus journey home.

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Maybe it wasn't so good

for teachers after all.

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But it was all about seeing that what

we were learning in the classroom

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actually made sense in real life.

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life terms.

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That for business studies students, they

could see that what they were learning

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about these things, as dull as it looked

in a textbook, well, they could see a job.

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They could see a career.

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They could see life after school.

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In a real way that they could see in front

of them were opportunities for employment

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and what we discovered that when we

returned from these field trips, there

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was indeed greater application in GCSE

and A level students because they could

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see what they were learning first hand.

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being worked out in front

of them in the real world.

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And because of that, it great, it gave

great greater drive to understand, to

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learn, to pass coursework and exams so

that they could see their own future.

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You see what we learn in the classroom

must have bearing on how we daily live.

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Well, chapters 12 to 16 of Romans, it's

not work experience, it's not a field

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trip, but it is supposed to ground

us so that we can know how the gospel

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works out and is lived out day by day.

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If you like, it's an ever ongoing field

trip that as we learn, so we live, and

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we see the purpose of our learning.

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in how we live.

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And so Paul begins for us, drawing us back

again to the heart of the gospel in verses

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one and two, I appeal to you therefore by

the mercies of God to present your bodies

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as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable

to God, which is your spiritual worship.

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Do not be conformed to this world,

but be transformed by the renewal

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of your mind and your spirit.

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that by testing you may discern

what is the will of God, what is

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good and acceptable and perfect.

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In the opening sentence,

we have the word therefore.

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Whenever we see therefore in

scripture it indicates that

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what has gone before has come.

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will have bearing on what is to come.

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So Paul is saying, I hope you've

paid attention to the past 11

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chapters, because now we're going

to see what that does for us.

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And the first action that we come to

that is to be taken is that we are

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to present our bodies and our minds.

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as living sacrifices

there in the second line.

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Jew and gentile alike in this

community of God's people in the

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church there in Rome would have been

very aware of the sacrificial system.

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The only scripture they would have had

would have been portions of the Old

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Testament, certainly the first five books.

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And so they would have understood,

as I say, Jew and Gentile alike,

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even though living in Rome, what the

whole sacrificial system was about.

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They would have known its practice

and they would have known its purpose.

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But here Paul, in the New Covenant,

is adjusting it so that it makes

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sense for how we live today,

without the sacrificial system.

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Because even in this day, this

system, as in Paul's day, it was

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still very much in operation.

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But, as we now know, it was fulfilled in

Jesus and therefore was no longer needed.

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We were thinking of this this

morning with the girls and

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boys when we learned together.

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Hebrews 10, verse 10, We have been

sanctified through the offering of

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the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

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Because that's what the

sacrifice was to do.

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It was to sanctify the people,

to make them right before

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God on that day of atonement.

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But that's been done for us.

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Christ has fulfilled

the sacrificial system.

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And so presentation of our bodies as

a living sacrifice tells us of that

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fulfillment of what was intended by

certain Old Testament sacrifices.

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And it now signifies worshippers,

to worshippers, their

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personal commitment to God.

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Such sacrifice then and now needs

to be holy and acceptable to God.

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And of course, we're never going

to be perfectly holy in this life

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because of the influence of sin, but

we are to strive to do things the

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way God would have us do them, and

to do them for His glory, because

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they are to be our spiritual worship.

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Spiritual worship can be understood

as worship motivated and ordered in

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a reasoned way based on the careful

understanding of the gospel and

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what its implications are to us

given there in chapters 1 to 11.

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You see there's a battle going on And

it is a battle for your very soul.

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The world wants to conform you to its

standard, but we are to be transformed.

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This transformation takes place when

we focus our thinking and meditation.

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on Christ.

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And when I use the word meditation,

I'm not using a, a new age word.

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I'm using scripture because that's the

picture that the psalmist gives us in

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Psalm number one in verses two to three,

but his delight is in the law of the Lord.

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And on his law, he

meditates day and night.

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Meditation is simply thinking And

that's what we're to do with God.

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We are to think deeply about

him and of him as his word

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has revealed himself to us.

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Because when we do then

look at what we are like.

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This rich image that we are like

a tree planted by streams of water

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that yields its fruit in its season

and its leaf does not wither.

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In all that he does he prospers.

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Our transformation in Jesus Christ

is actually for our benefit.

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It's for our benefit so that

we will grow closer to God

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and thereby live in His will.

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So our immediate response to the

gospel is to live a new life in Christ.

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A life that is good, acceptable,

and perfect to His standards,

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and not to our own standards or

to the standards of the world.

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And so, this is a passage divided in

three, and in this first section of

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spiritual worship, we have to take stock

of who we are and what our lives are like.

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Are we being conformed to the world, or

are we being transformed to the world?

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It's all very well being here and

singing our hallelujahs tonight.

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But what about tomorrow morning?

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What about next Saturday

on the sports field?

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What about how we interact

with those at home?

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With family members?

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You see, the world would conform us

that we simply don't care, that we'll

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speak how we want, use language that is

inappropriate and do what we want to do.

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That's what it means to be conformed

by the world, to be self centered

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and do what I want to do in

word, in action and in thought.

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But to be transformed by Jesus is

to become his standard, is to learn

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from him so that that transformation

is recognizable by all those around.

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That indeed, yes, it will make

a stand out, but it will make a

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stand out in a way that is good

and for the glory of the kingdom.

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So how does Paul tell us to

live out the gospel of these

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11 chapters of deep theology of

what is the heart of the gospel?

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Well, his first point of application is

to live as sacrifices for Jesus Christ.

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We forego this world.

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We do not be conformed to it, but

we be transformed by Jesus in our

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thoughts, in our actions, in our words.

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Take stock tonight.

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This is what is required of us if

we profess faith in Jesus Christ.

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This is how we live out the gospel

and show it to all those around.

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But Paul has more to say.

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Moving on to verses 3 to 8.

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Paul wants to speak about our

life together as believers.

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Because this is a church really pressured.

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It's in the imperial capital.

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It's under persecution.

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And it will be under persecution in

due course in the history of the world.

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And so Paul is getting

them ready for that.

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And what he's wanting to do is

what the book of Acts has stressed.

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Because in the book of Acts, we read of

the one another's in the early church.

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These are the verses that tell

us of how close members of the

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church were to one another.

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They held everything in common, and they

came together for worship, for fellowship,

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and even for food, meals together.

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This was a display of

their unity in the gospel.

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Paul now wants build on that and to

give us the image of a body because

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Paul at the end of the day is a realist.

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He knows what we're like.

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He knows humanity.

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And so we're all too familiar with the

image of the body, not just in scripture,

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but in the reality of our own bodies.

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I was told that once you hit

40, you begin to know your body.

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You begin to feel the pains and the aches.

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You didn't even know you could be painful

and achy in certain parts of your body.

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And the older you get, the more

problems our bodies cause for us.

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And there's very little

we can do about it.

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But we know that we need each

part of our body to function

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well so that we will feel well.

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How much discomfort can even the

littlest of thorns give in a finger and

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it unsettles the whole body for days?

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Well, Paul wants us to know that

this transformation in Christ

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leads to a bit of self awareness.

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We are to see ourselves as

equal to every other believer,

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not more or less important.

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Regardless of our position in

the church or status in society,

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the number of qualifications we

have or the money in the bank.

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When we are in Christ, we are to think

with sober judgment of who we are.

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Because Paul goes on in verse 4

to say, For as in one body we have

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many members, and the members do not

all have the same function, so we,

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though many, are one body in Christ,

and individually members of Christ.

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off one, sorry, members one off another.

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See this transformation isn't just

for us alone, but it is for the

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whole community of God's people.

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We are to recognize that we

actually need each other.

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We do need each other.

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We may differ in the gifts that

we demonstrate, but it is not our

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gifts that define us, nor is there

one gifting greater than the other.

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It is true that certain gifts in the

church carry greater responsibility, but

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that does not mean it is more important.

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Paul helpfully goes on to lift the gifts.

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prophetic understanding, serving,

teaching, challenging, giving,

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leading, and showing mercy.

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Now this is not an exclusive list, but it

is a list that has things that we could

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all do, and some that only a few will do.

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But each gift is needed in the

church to bless believers and to

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speak the gospel into society.

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That's why the image of a body is

perfect, because we truly need.

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each other, to be the body

that we're supposed to be.

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Regardless of what our gifts are, do

you see how we're supposed to use them?

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We are to do them to the absolute best

of our ability, because when we serve

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the church, then we serve God well.

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When you look around this congregation

of God's people, not just tonight,

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but tomorrow, When you think of those

who attend morning and evening, what

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do you see and what do you think?

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If you're thinking negatively, even about

one person, then you need to sharpen your

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perspective of what the church is about.

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The church is not a place

where we make things harder

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for our brothers and sisters.

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The world is good enough

at doing that for us.

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We are to support, we are to encourage,

and we are to bless each other with

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our acts of service in Jesus name.

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The church has been given to us by God as

the vehicle by which we gather together.

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We are to love the church, to love

the people, to forgive and to love

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even when it is hard, because this is

God's standard for us and was so well

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displayed in the actions of Jesus Christ.

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And this is where we are taken to

in the last section of this passage.

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But before we get there,

what is our life together?

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Are we simply people who walk in

through the door and walk out again?

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We'll even try to avoid making eye

contact with certain people because

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of things that are going on in life.

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That's not what the church is to be.

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The church is to be a place

of blessing, of safety.

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The place is to be where the world is

out there, and we as the people of God

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are in here where we may be built up

and edified together, one of another,

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so that when we have to go out again, we

will stand strong, knowing that someone

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has our back here and now, as well as

the strength and comfort of our Savior.

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Life together is an important

part of living as the church.

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Once again, we need you.

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We need to encourage each other,

we need to bless each other,

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and we need to serve each other.

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These are the commands that are given

to us, the church, and we must obey.

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And so Paul wants to develop

this and think more about this.

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And so in verses 9 to 21, he develops for

us what are the marks of a true Christian.

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And I think this is going to make

us a little bit uncomfortable.

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Because here's what Paul says, Abore

what is evil, hold fast to what is good.

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Now the love that Paul is speaking

of here, the word, uh, if you've been

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to a wedding that I've conducted,

normally there's an explanation of

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what the three words of love are,

but this is agape in this, uh,

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verse, which means sacrificial love.

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And that's what Paul's speaking about.

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Paul has already spoken of this love

and he thinks it's a love that thinks

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of others more highly than ourselves.

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But it is a love that is for

others and not for ourselves only.

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In other words, our life together

as believers is to be genuine.

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And this is harder than we

think, because look at what is

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contrasted with sacrificial love.

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Well, we are to abhor evil.

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So if we are not genuine in our love,

then the contrast is that our actions

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are not what God desires for us.

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And we so easily ignore others

because of our own thinking of them.

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and actions.

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We refuse, as I've said, to greet

someone that we worship with.

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This is not love.

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This is the opposite of love.

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We are to hold fast to what is good,

because it actually takes a lot of

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work to live together as God's people.

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Because verse 10 continues, as we

live out the gospel, we are to love

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one another with brotherly affection.

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Outdo one another in showing honour.

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Now I'm not suggesting that when you

walk in the door it's one of those, you

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know, old romantic style phone calls.

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No you hang up, no you

hang up, no you hang up.

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I couldn't be bothered with that.

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I put the phone down when

the conversation was over.

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We're not talking about who can be the

most blowing up of the other person.

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We're simply saying we

treat each other special.

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We are to be kind, we're to be

sincere to one another, and to

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demonstrate this affection with true

devotion, not object detachment.

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An emotional bond is implied

here in what Paul is saying.

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We are truly to love one

another, even with our faults.

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As the commentator Ian Duguid says of

this verse, Something is wrong when

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believers feel less care for each other

than they do for their household dog.

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And you may love your dog,

you may love your cat, but we

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are to love God's people more.

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Even though they irritate us, even though

they may annoy us, we are to love them

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more because not only are we to fellowship

together in this life, but indeed we

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will be together for all eternity.

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And that's a very long time.

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We are to demonstrate the love of

Christ to each other so that we

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will not only know a great sense of

fellowship, But that we will see before

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us the love of Christ living in the

lives of our brothers and sisters.

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And this was brought home to me

simply last week when God's word

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was opened and someone responded

and said they'd heard of the love of

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God but they'd never before seen it.

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In this very building.

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Take courage in that.

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Take courage that we are noticed and

not noticed to be criticized or to be

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made fun of, but to be admired as Jesus

lovers because we demonstrate love.

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This is what we are to do.

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This is the command that is given

in chapter 10 and verse two,

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we saw that zeal can be misd.

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That we can be so fervent that

we can take our eyes off love

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and start loving the things that

aren't true and aren't Genuine.

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And so Paul wants to keep us on the

right track and says don't lose your

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focus Continue to show love so that

people will notice and he speaks here

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of zeal in verse 11 Where he says that

it is a component in expressing love and

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it is indispensable that we are to be

zealous for it When he uses the word in

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verse 11, slothful love suggests dead

formality, simply going through the

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motions, turning up and as quickly as you

can getting out through the door again.

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That's not true love,

that, that's rushing.

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We are to be more sincere in our love,

to be zealous, to have zeal in it, to

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be fervent, suggest inner intensity,

showing itself in what might appear

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to be extreme, but yet doing it.

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Because that's what required and Jesus

did it because an example of this

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would be Jesus is washing the disciples

feet You know how that went down.

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They were a little bit put off by it.

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They weren't sure that Jesus should

be doing this In fact Peter said

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it should be him who did it to

Jesus But in this action Jesus was

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expressing his love for his disciples.

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It was fervent love Displayed in

the washing of the feet in John

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13 and verse 1 because we are to

serve the Lord in all that we do.

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I can remember an outreach team leader

down in Carlo in my younger days would

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say that the greatest job on an outreach

team is the person who washes the toilets.

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I didn't agree because I

didn't want to wash toilets.

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But his rationale was why do you need

clean toilets on an outreach team?

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Because it stops the spread of disease.

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And if you have a team that goes down with

sickness and disease, then you can't do

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the work that you've been called to do.

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See, everything we do, from the cleaning

of the toilets, to the serving of

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tea, to shaking hands at the door,

to lifting the collection, to simply

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being the smiling face across the pew.

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is all service to the Lord.

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It's not little, it's not small,

it's all for the good of the kingdom.

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And when we do this, then we're led to

what the outcome is in verse 12, that

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we rejoice in hope, we be patient in

tribulation, and we be constant in prayer.

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We are to be people who are

confident in their future.

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We may not know what lies ahead, But we

can be prepared because the heart of the

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gospel is about looking to the future.

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We are to be hope filled people

who, when discouraged with the

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challenges of this world, can

draw near to the Lord in prayer.

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And prayer should not be something that's

relegated to those times of hardship,

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but prayer should be a daily practice for

each and every one of us, so that when the

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hard times come, our prayer life will be

a natural response to what we're facing.

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And notice in Verse 11 what this

sacrificial love leads us to and it's

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for the good of the church and it's

giving because we demonstrate our

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knowledge of God's goodness to us by

showing it to others through our giving

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and our hospitality and this again is

thinking of others above ourselves.

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Well the chapter closes in verses

14 to 21 with a shift in Paul's

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direction and it's almost a rhythmic

shift in how he sees how we live.

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In verse 14, he echoes the beatitude

of blessing those who persecute you.

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There is to be joy in the moments where

it is called for with others, but also

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weeping with others during their difficult

times, that we may support each other

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in every significant moment in life.

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And look at what verse 16 tells us.

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Live in harmony with one another.

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Do not be haughty, but

associate with the lowly.

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Never be wise.

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in your own sight.

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Churches can be places of strife

at times for God's people,

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but look at what love does.

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Look at what agape,

gospel centered love does.

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It enables us to live in

harmony, one with the other.

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The gospel in our lives should minimize

what is our fraught attention to things.

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It should make us behave better before

each other, and it should also make

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it easier to avoid being wise in your

own sight, because once again, we are

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to think of others above ourselves.

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Verses 17 through to 20 speak of our

engagement with those who do us wrong,

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or who we find difficult, because,

by the way, the world conforms us

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that we, we pay back evil for evil.

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That if they strike us, will

we strike them back harder?

384

That's not what we're told here.

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What we're told is that the one who

does evil to us and the one who causes

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us strife, well, we are to respond and

we are to live as Christ teaches us.

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Paul tells us to live as Christ lived.

388

To live in peace, but to live in

trust in the Lord, for his judgment on

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those who do not live to his standard.

390

And this is the great

refrain of this passage.

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We are called to trust in

God, to truly trust him.

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When we do, we can live his way

and know that he will keep us.

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And so Paul concludes where he started

in verse two, do not be overcome by

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evil, but overcome evil with good.

395

And this should be our

strategy against evil.

396

Don't be overcome by it.

397

We are to be proactive in

our living of the gospel.

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And as we do this.

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Then we will be led into a life ruled

by fervent love for God and will

400

ensure that good Attains the upper

hand in the Christian life because as

401

Paul writes in Galatians 5 and verse

16 Walk by the Spirit And you will

402

not gratify the desires of the flesh.

403

Walk by the ways of the Spirit

and allow the Lord to lead you.

404

It may mean that you have to change your

relationship with certain people because

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you find them difficult, but it will

be for the good of the kingdom of God.

406

And I need to say what I'm going

to say next because the church

407

hasn't always done this well.

408

This is a great list, and this is a

beautiful list, and this is what we

409

should aspire to, but if you have been

hurt by the church, I am sorry for that.

410

Genuinely.

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Because the church should

not be the place of hurt.

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The church should be the

place of gospel love.

413

That builds up.

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That strengthens.

415

And that in our fellowship together,

we will be ready for that day when we

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will be brought into the kingdom of God.

417

But if the church has hurt you,

please don't let that hold you back.

418

Because the church can do

better, and should do better.

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Together, the church is not

an institution, it's not a

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building, it's, it's all of us.

421

And it takes each and every

one of us to live in this way.

422

And so what are we to do?

423

Well, let's conclude with

what Paul says in verse 9.

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Let's let our love be

genuine for each other.

425

Let's abhor what is evil.

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Yes, let's take our stand for what is

wrong, biblically, because we must.

427

But let's hold fast to what is good.

428

Let us stand tall in the strength of

Christ so that as his people the heart of

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the gospel will Transform us and continue

to transform us so that as we know in our

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heads what it means So we will live it out

and we begin Here because how can we show

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the love to our non christian neighbor

if we cannot show the love to each other?

432

How can we speak well of the gospel when

we're not speaking well of each other?

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How can we supposedly build up the church

by seeing souls one if we cannot edify

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Fellowship and love one another what good

is it for us to rush out the door home

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and miss the opportunity of fellowship?

436

To demonstrate the love of Christ you

see Paul's changed and what he wants

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to do But he has not gone any less deep

He goes deep and it is a challenge for

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each and every one of us that there

is a standard By which we are to live

439

If we're not living in that standard,

then we are not living God's way.

440

But look at what the standard is.

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Isn't it beautiful?

442

Isn't it something that

we want for ourselves?

443

Well, if we do, then we

live it and we show it.

444

Because in it, we show

who Christ is to us.

445

Well, may we show him well to each other,

even this night, as we go out into all

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this world and proclaim his goodness.

447

And his grace.

448

Let's pray.

449

Our Father, God, we thought it

was a little bit tough so far in

450

Romans by the depths to which Paul

brings us to try and understand

451

what it means to be your people.

452

But now, as he points us to how we are to

live it out, it gets even harder because

453

it means we have to be transformed.

454

We have to change, but thank

you that we tr that we change

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into the likeness of Christ.

456

We follow his ways.

457

So help us not to be conformed

into the ways of this world.

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But may we stand strong in Christ

and live for him firstly before you

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before each other and then into the

world where you've called us to work

460

to live and to declare your truths.

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And we ask this in Jesus name.

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Amen.