Romans 12:1–2Scripture
So we have made it to Romans chapter 12, and I want to look this morning at Romans 12:1–2, and so you can turn your Bibles there with me and we'll read it together. Somebody got worried when they saw this is not my notes, all right, this is my notes over here. 12:1–2 says this: I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Man, there is a lot in that two verses, just so much. I'm going to just kind of really do some broad strokes here and hit on a few subjects that I think are important, partly for us to consider, partly for us to wrestle with, and partly as a point of summary of where we have been since Romans chapter 1 all the way leading up to Romans chapter 12 and the first few verses. It is very easy for us, when we're engaging Scripture, to consider only the Scripture that we are reading and then forego anything we've learned up to this point. Because we are going through Romans kind of a few verses at a time, we have the
Introduction
Opportunity to be able to take the gospel holistically as it is, and every verse then and everything that is said to begin to inform the other verses. We do have a tendency, though, because we have been in church for a certain amount of time and we have participated in this, instead of going chronologically or instead of going through verse by verse, we have come to a service and we'll hear one verse here, a few verses here, a few verses here, so when we engage it, although we're going through it verse by verse, we tend to engage Scripture still according to the way we always have. Let me give you an example. Just recently I encouraged us to not make New Year's resolutions. Let me back up for those of you who weren't here, that oftentimes when we make New Year's resolutions we do so with us in mind. Makes sense, right? What's problematic about it is we just came off of Christmas, where we made much of Christ, and in just a matter of a few days we move from making much of Christ to making much of us. We have this tendency in us to make much of us, make much of the way we look, make much of the way we talk, make much of the way we work, make much of our occupation, make much of our goals, and make much of our hobbies. We make much of us. And so there are moments, oftentimes fleeting, even for believers, where we make much of Christ. Take for instance your week. You have set aside, many of you, and we have the statistics of who reads their Bible through the week, who prays through the week, how many people actually do that, and these are professing believers, so-called Christians. And the reality is we have set aside, for many of us, an earmarked hour to an hour and a half of our week, where much of our week is about us and little of our week is about God. Or let me say it this way: much of our week is dedicated towards improving our lives and very little of it is dedicated towards reflecting on the goodness of God. It is then understandable that when we approach God's word we do so from the mindset of us at the center or epicenter of everything we think and consider regarding the Christian life. So then, although we have for eleven chapters been reflecting on the goodness of God, the fact that grace is not by works, it is a gift that no man can boast in themselves, moving us away from this idea that it's me-centered and it is Christ-centered, that it is in his strength, by the Holy Spirit, through the gift of Jesus Christ that we are saved and transformed, only. And I think Jared did wonderful with verse chapter 11, at the very end it says, let's see where, that's not the end, for from him and through him and to him are all things. Not from him and through him and to you. Not from you and through him and to him. Not from him and through you and to him.
It is not okay to give him two of those and you one of those. It is all about him. The gospel is about him. Your life is about him. Your life is a beacon unto him. It is to glorify him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 6:10
Your life is not your own. It was bought at a price for him. To him, from him, through him, that's what we've been learning. But it is amazing, although we go from right understanding, orthodoxy, to right living, orthopraxy, we then all of a sudden forego everything we've learned for eleven chapters, and just like moving from Christmas to new Year's, we now get to a place where we think that right living is about us, is accomplished through our strength, and is about what we do. How do we do that? Because most of our life is about us. Paul is calling us here in this verse
Point 1Paul's call to total devotion is impossible
To complete devotion, but be careful to not forego the eleven chapters. That devotion is predicated upon something in this verse that you should not miss. It is not human effort, it is not human will, it is not determination and discipline that you achieve such things. He predicates it upon something in this verse, and if you miss it you miss the whole point. But he is calling us to complete devotion, that our passion for Christ would consume our lives. Does it consume yours? Not just on Sunday for an hour, but does the passion, does your passion for Christ consume you? Oh, that should be challenging to all of us, right?
I wonder, when you pull into CVS and you have to pick up a prescription, I'm not speaking from personal experience here at all, and the line in the drive-thru is fifteen cars deep, so you get wise, you're tricky, you want to beat the system, and you go inside and the line is thirty people deep. There's not even that many people, there's not even that many cars in, does everybody walk here? Where are these people from? Does the passion you have for Christ consume you? Come on, get perspective.
He is calling you to something that is not possible in your own strength.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 8:59
It's not possible. He's calling you to a way of life that is insurmountable. He is calling you to the impossible. Now, all of you acknowledge that when we read this, the Bible is teaching us this. You would also acknowledge that Christ definitely is worthy of this. Most of you here today would. The problem, however, that we miss, and oh, it's so subtle that we miss it, is the motivation for this. The text is not written for laity, it is actually written for all of us, both laity and those apostles and pastors and teachers and preachers of the gospel, to those who are elders in the church and to those who are under the elders' leadership. It is to all people. Paul, in essence, is not only charging the people of the church, he is charging himself to a life of impossibility. We look at men like Paul and believe they don't have issues with some of the things we have issues with. I've been with some great men of faith. I've sat in rooms with them, I've visited with them, I have fellowshipped with them, I have hung out in their homes, and the one thing that all have in common is, they're quite common. Some try to find motivation in worship, some find motivation in eloquently delivered motivational speeches or a podcast or maybe some perfectly worded memes to inspire you to make it through another day, some find motivation by attending church midweek to get them through the rest of the week, some find motivation by coming on Sunday to get a quick charge that will hopefully strengthen them to make it through another day. Where does one find the genuine and true motivation to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength
Point 2Therefore points back to eleven chapters of grace
And to offer yourself as a living and holy sacrifice that Paul speaks about here? From where does the motivation come for this type of living? Chapter 1, he starts out, I appeal. You listen to the appeal, it is urgent and it is essential. I appeal to you. But let's go back first, and I love this: I appeal to you therefore. Some translations say therefore I appeal to you. I think I've said it already, but what's therefore? Therefore, whenever there's a therefore, is connected to something that precedes it, and I will say, let me go ahead and say this, it is the first verse, the last verse of chapter 11, but more importantly the therefore, everything he's about to say is attached to the entire eleven chapters that have come before. After all that you've heard, the depravity of man, the sin of man, God coming to condemn and to judge and him sending Jesus Christ, the fact that you're not saved by works but you're saved by grace, the fact that this is not you choosing but it's him choosing, because the Bible says in Romans, you don't choose me, I choose you, all of this, all of these things that you've learned, the sovereignty of God, the decision of God making vessels of wrath and vessels of honor, all of this, God's movement and his entire plan and what he is doing, all for his glory, that he might be glorified. Now, with all of that, I appeal to you, brothers. I'm making an appeal in the midst of all of that, so don't forego understanding all that. He urges men. What men? He's not urging people to come to Christ here to be saved, to respond to the gospel. He is not talking to lost people, and this is important. Now, he is specifically talking to saved people. That's important. That's the appeal. The appeal is that saved people would be a living sacrifice. That's the appeal. And then he goes on and he says therefore. Okay, I appeal to you, brothers, to present your bodies as living sacrifices. That's the way we read it. There's something in between there, isn't there? Here's how we read it: I appeal to you therefore, brothers, to present your bodies as living sacrifices. That's not what it says, but that's what we read. So let's just engage it that way. Let's talk about presenting your bodies. Now, I've been in ministry now for twenty-four years, I had to do the math this morning. I've spent much of my life calling people to holiness. People often say this in response whenever I see something in someone's life, either as a friend, as somebody I'm mentoring, as somebody I'm discipling, as somebody in the church, when I see them in something that is a course steering them away from the goodness of God, when they have professed to love God, here is often a response I get: "You don't know my heart. How dare you call me to holiness? Who are you to judge me?" Here's some things I've heard: "You don't know my heart." According to this text and the agreement of many others in the Bible, I don't need to see into your heart.
It is clear to me that what you are doing with your body is either for God or against him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 15:41
That's what Paul's saying, and therefore then we don't get to use the excuse of, "Well, in my heart I love him, but with my body I deny him." "With my heart I'm for Christ, with my body I'm antichrist." There is no allowance for this. There is then a call that what we profess with our mouth should be evident in our life. The heart and the mind, we would all agree, are the control epicenter of the life, and your body, what you believe in your mind and what you feel in your heart will be demonstrated in your life, because out of the overflow of the heart all things emit, that you can for a season fool people with your actions of your body, but in time your heart will win out, because it's ultimately in control of your body, and what you believe in your mind and feel in your heart will eventually be lived out in your body. So ultimately what Paul is saying is, let your body be in alignment with your profession, and then he is also then passively saying, if your body denies your profession, either come to Christ genuinely or stop professing that you love him.
Prove it with your body, with your conduct, with the choices you make, and with how you live.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 17:37
Now, so let's back up, because this is the part I've been waiting for. I've just been setting the ground for this
Point 3Sacrifice flows from God's mercies, not our will
And I'm super pumped, and if you're tired from a long day yesterday, don't check out and take a nap so you can be ready to watch the Chiefs game. All right, check back in right here, because this is the part that I'm excited about. Because we often read it, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, to present your bodies as living sacrifices, but what it actually says is, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God. That's the important part. It is by God's mercies that we do this.
You can't even present your body if not for the mercies of God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 18:34
Not possible. Oh, but you don't know how disciplined I've been. You don't know how disciplined I have been in reading the Bible every day. I finished it fifteen times in fifteen years, straight through. Discipline, that's not what he's talking about. He's not talking about this type of discipline, because there are non-Christian people who read the Bible, but that's not the sacrificial living he's talking about. He's talking about the sacrificial living that emanates from the mercies of God, not from an act of contrition or an act of the human will. They are different. And let us not forget that the Jews were doing many things in their flesh, but this is not the sacrificial living he is referring to, because he's rebuked that for eleven chapters. So then, as believers today, if you get to a place where you think that now I'm going to, in my will, go do stuff for God, you're missing the point, because doing things for God, or these things emanating out of your life, come from rejoicing over his mercies. Really, the emphasis here is on the mercies of God, by which we can only live sacrificially if we have experienced his mercies, because no man would choose him if not him first by mercy choosing us. You see it? That's what it says in the Bible. That's not what I said, that's what it says. For Romans, you don't choose God, he chose you. Let me put it in perspective, and honestly, it is amazing to me that in the church everyone is allowed to have an opinion, but sometimes I feel like I'm not. We have had so many families leave through Romans. You know why? Because they don't agree with my opinion, and that's fine. So as, but I think there should be a world where we don't maybe agree with certain things, but I should be allowed to express them, right? You don't have to agree with them, but I should be allowed to express them, otherwise why am I here? All right, so I'm going to express some stuff that you may not like, but I think is essential, right, and it's good for you to consider whether you agree with it or not. How you engage chapter 12 and the remainder is predicated upon how you view justification, and you will approach it therefore based on the way you view justification. In other words, if you believe you're justified by you choosing, which the Bible says verbatim, black and white, you don't choose him, he chooses you, but let's say that you believe that it is your free will who does that, and it's all of this, and it is your position to choose him, and it's not against the gift of grace, but it's just, if you choose him, it's out there for all men and it's based on you choosing him, then when you get to 12 you're going to think that it depends on you too, and sacrificial living then is based on what you do, not on his mercies. Are you with me? This is my opinion. This is my opinion, and so then somewhere you might rationally be at a place where you're like, okay, I get it, okay, I get it, but then you find yourself going to work in the flesh, because your perspective of justification is informing your orthopraxy, or how you live this out. Let me give you an example of what my opinion is in a very practical, earthly fashion. Right, is there a young man here today that would be willing to come up here and lay down? I mean woman too, but you got to have a belt, right? Somebody, one person, young. Okay, you don't have to have a belt, you just have to have yourself and some clothes, but you're willing to come down here and lay down right here? No one? I'm gonna call you. Call me? Who said, call me? All right, come up here, somebody just come up here, I don't care, I just need an example, you'll help me here. Here comes somebody. God bless you, God bless you, everyone, actually, specifically you, God bless you. Okay, thank you for coming. So he's got, he's going to lay down, we'll give an example, this will be great. Lay down right here, just on your back. Now this will be a perfect example. Now, if I were to tell you this morning that what I want you to do is I want you to take your hands, and maybe in your pants, maybe your shirt, and pick yourself off the ground, I want you to try that as hard as you can. What would that look like? He said, "You're serious?" That's good, that's all I needed here. Let me help you out. Yeah, that's it. God bless you, thank you. Everybody give him a hand.
Yeah, notice his response, because we understand the laws of gravity and the dynamics of physics, even if we're not a physics professor, you can have an elementary education and your response will be, "Are you serious? I mean, you want me to even try? That's nonsense."
So it is almost as if the law of gravity we think is a greater law than the law of sin and death.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 25:00
Why do we think that? Because we're me-centric in our thinking and we formulate our spiritual opinions based on earthly things. Oh wait, but we don't, because earthly things, we know that's not possible. What would a physics professor say? It would require for the man to be picked up, an outside force to act upon him to lift him. So in the temporal sense we see the reality that is impossible unless an outside force acts upon it, but in the spiritual sense we say we can pick ourselves up by our bootstraps and save ourselves according to our choice. If I choose to lift myself up, I will lift myself up. No, you won't. Are you with me? It's my opinion.
It's my opinion that I think is pretty backed up with Scripture, but it's my opinion, it's my position, and I want to make it clear today because I think you should consider it with more gravity and less flippancy, just because this is the way I've always believed, because it affects the rest of what we'll learn in the remaining chapters. All right, let me just mention this, and you can write these down. There are three positions held by chapter 1–12, there are three positions when we talk about justification, specifically atonement. The atonement is central to Christian understanding and experience. We are the beneficiaries when we pore over the word to better grasp Christ's work. When doing so, we often encounter questions. One common question I have run into recently over the last year and a half is this: Did Jesus die for everyone or only the elect? My answer to this question is this, just so you're clear where I stand, because some people are still asking, and let me tell you, this is dangerous, because I don't want to lose any more people. I want people to bear with us throughout the remainder of Romans, because I believe it's important, and also I think we can be in harmony. Part of where edification comes from is in the wrestling with the text, and if there's wrestling with the text that means we're not all going to agree. I believe, here's where I am, I believe Jesus died on the cross for the elect. He did exactly what he intended to do and accomplished redemption for all who would believe, and not every person who ever lived will be saved. That's what I believe. One might answer back, "Well, Shawn," and they have, "what about John 3:16, where we see that God says God loved the world, and then what about Hebrews 2:9, where it says Jesus tasted death for everyone, and finally what about 1 John, the Bible says that Jesus was the propitiation for the whole world? In light of this, how can anyone say that Jesus did not die for everyone?" I actually had somebody call me, a friend of mine, in a conversation, who they've been listening to through some of Romans with us, and asked me if I had flipped a lid because I believed in the sovereignty of God and the election of salvation and predestination, and began to ask questions and push back, and some of these verses were the verses that the individual used. First, let me start by saying that everyone, listen to me, everyone except universalists, that's one position, another position is an Arminian position, and the third position is a Calvinist position. These are the positions. Somewhere in that, I would say today, probably most everybody in here, probably, but I don't know for certain, is not a universalist. A universalist believes that everyone will get to heaven in the end, everyone, there will not be one person in hell, that everyone will be saved. That's a universalist position.
So let me start by saying that everyone except universalists, so when I say everyone I'm meaning Arminian and Calvinist, both Arminian and Calvinist, and this is what I said to my friend to help him understand, that he limits salvation as much as I limit salvation, but we limit them differently. Okay, so in other words, I might say that God died for the elect and an Arminian would say that God died for everyone, but when I asked this gentleman if everyone would be saved, he said, "Absolutely not." Oh, so you limit it. So both Arminian and Calvinist, just for education's sake, limit the atonement. Some limit the power of it and others the extent of it. In other words, to break it down more specifically, Arminians limit its power and Calvinists limit its extent, or expanse, or how it extends to men, but both limit it. All right, that's important, everyone, that is, except for the heterodox theology of the universalists, the view that all will be saved. The Arminian limits the power of the atonement, saying that the cross did not definitively save everyone but made salvation possible, save anyone but made salvation possible for everyone. So in other words, an Arminian says it's possible for everyone but it's not powerful enough to save everyone. Okay, the Calvinist, on the other hand, limits the extent of the atonement, that it does not save every person but it only saves the elect, those that God chose. That's the difference, and we have people from both persuasions and positions theologically and opinions represented here this morning. FYI, the man on the cross did not know if he was Arminian or Calvinist, he put his faith in Christ. I'll say that, and then I'll say, but it doesn't mean it is so secondary of an issue that it is a non-issue at all. So you can be saved without knowing what you believe about election and salvation and those sort of things in their specific places, but it doesn't mean you need to know that your position on that shapes the rest of how you live. Okay, B. B. Warfield says this, I like this statement: "The things we must choose between are an atonement of high value or an atonement of wide extension. The two do not exist together.
It is either one or the other." Listen, Christ did not come to put men in a redeemable position. The Bible says he came to redeem a people unto himself. Now consider this visual.
We think it's nonsense for a man to pick up himself, but we think it's completely within the realm of possibility for a man to save himself.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 33:29
We must consider what forms our opinion here. Here's another example, let's say, so my question would be this, the question I was asking as I'm journaling is, what forms this opinion? What is the cause of us seeing things the way we do theologically as we read the Bible? I believe it is idolatry. Let me put that in perspective for you. Let's take another example. Let's say you find a man with an extraordinary love for his wife. He's devoted to his wife and he's devoted unlike anything you have ever seen, ever. When you see that man and his devotion, what would you think? I would propose to you today that many of us would think, "What a wonderful man. What can I do to be like that? Maybe that man will disciple me, mentor me. How can I be like that man?" We then set that man and his behavior as the course for our life. That's what we do. Many young people today look at Taylor Swift and they set Taylor Swift as the target and the course of their life, and they let her songs influence their opinions and their positions more than God's word. That's why we have Swifties today who are more loyal to Taylor Swift than to God. That's personal. See, I got off, you parents, actually I didn't totally get off your parents. I went to somewhere this week, you don't need to know where, and the person who was at the desk talked about how they had been sucked into the vortex of Swiftyland, and someone who never liked football can't get enough of football because she loves Taylor Swift, and now she finds herself looking on Instagram for new things that are said, that are birthed, memes birthed out of her songs, and she has been so influenced and informed by this idol of hers. It's amazing, isn't it? Many young men look at, they like sports, they look at oh man, Mahomes, I had to think about his name there for a second. I know who he is, I just had a brain lapse. And they worship him. They hear that he is a Christian, he is a professing Christian, and then they just worship him based on his profession, and then they get to a place where they watch the replay of his personal life when they mic him for an entire year and see that what he professes doesn't really line up with the sacrifice he makes with his body and his mouth and his life, but they give him a pass because they worship him. Are you with me? I'm not talking about football, I'm talking about idol worship. I'm not saying you shouldn't like Mahomes, I'm not saying you shouldn't cheer for Mahomes, but I am saying you should rightfully determine whether what someone professes is true or not, and not be so blinded by your worship of an individual that you can no longer see whether a profession is true or not. The reality is we look at men, we find men that are great in our eyes, and we worship them. Maybe the man who adored his wife is not so wonderful at all. Maybe he's not so extraordinary a man at all. Maybe it is his wife that is extraordinary, and who he is birthed out of her greatness, not his greatness. Oh, the women love that. See, I got points right there, I got points right there. The women are like, "Yes!" And they're hitting their husband, "You need to pay attention to this, man, he knows what he's talking about." It could be vice versa as well. It may be that his wife's extraordinary beauty and her extraordinary virtue are so powerful that they draw the affections out of a subnormal man.
That man is how he is because an outside force has acted upon him in such a fashion that he becomes what he would never become because of who she is. She might be the outside force. Are you with me? This is a temporal understanding of a divine and spiritual thing, and this is dangerous, but let us just reflect for a moment. Maybe you aren't so extraordinary. Maybe you're subnormal, and maybe when people look at you they see you as extraordinary, but they don't realize that you have been acted on by an outside force, which is the mercies of
Point 4Our true worship is transformation, not a song
God. This is your spiritual worship. I'm almost done. What is your spiritual worship? Transformation. Let us read, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Then he breaks down what being holy and acceptable and a living sacrifice look like. This is what it is, he defines it in the next verse: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So in other words, to make this quick because I'm running out of time and I don't have time to expand on this, you can do your own homework. Your spiritual worship is transformation. It is amazing today the people that out of one mouth will come and praise the Lord and the next phrase, within an hour of church, will drop an F-bomb in their home, because we think our spiritual worship is the proclamation of a song on Sunday and not the proclamation of our tongue harnessed and submitted to the Holy Spirit. We don't get it right, we don't know that really
Our worship is not a song. Our worship is transformation over being conformed and looking worldly.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 40:40
That's our worship. That's our worship.
Oh, you are always worshiping somebody.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 40:53
I don't have time to go into this, but let me just drop a bomb: you are always worshiping somebody. It is whether or not you are worshiping God or Satan, the God of heaven or the god of this world, but you're always worshiping. This is your spiritual worship, being transformed. The reality is, and part of the problem is, we want to have dual citizenship. We've borrowed the notion of dual citizenship from earthly nations such as the US and Canada and the United Kingdom, and we've transposed it onto christianity. However, if you look at the Bible any amount of time, and you might disagree with this because there are a lot of articles and blog posts and pastors who say we hold dual citizenship, but it is not biblical, it's not biblical. But if you're a believer, believers aren't concurrently citizens of this world and at the same time citizens of heaven, and the evidence of this is that you are not to be conformed to this world and at the same time be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You can't be unless you are to be transformed. Why? Because you no longer hold your citizenship here. You are a citizen of heaven and you are ambassadors on earth. As a citizen of heaven, the reason why we have believers, Christians that profess to be Christians, who are being conformed by the world and trying to be transformed by God, is because they have this wrong idea that they can hold dual citizenships.
But you're bought at a price and you're no longer a slave to the world, but you are a slave of his.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 42:49
And if you're a slave of his it will manifest in your body. Are you with me? All right, it's your spiritual worship. Last thing, finding God's
Point 5God's will is found through Scripture and testing
Will. It goes on here and it says this: be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and that, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Notice here that finding and God's will, and testing God's will, is discovered through transformation. Some people want God's will without being changed. So they will pray, they'll use prayer as a tool to get God's will but remain unchanged. This is a problem if you're praying for God's will, because we learned in Romans that you can't even pray as you ought and the Holy Spirit has to intercede and goes, "Sorry for this idiot who doesn't know how to pray." Are you with me? With groanings and moanings because of your prayer before the Lord. It says this, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Oh, so notice here, we could talk about other scriptures, but notice here the way that it talks about discerning God's will here is by testing. Now there are many things in the Bible, some of you are going, "Why, this need a prophetic word?" That's not what it says here. We could talk about other scriptures, yada, blah. Let me talk about some scriptures, actually, of how we discern God's will. As a matter of fact, one of the books for extra reading, if you would like, and I don't think you have to do extra reading, because you can just read the Bible and it will tell you exactly what you need to know, but if you want to read some extra reading, one of the books that I have read twice and I'm on my third time reading it is called this, yes, and I printed it out, because I bought it on Logos and I didn't want to read it on a tablet because I'm old school, so I printed it out like a scroll and I don't even know what I'm talking about right now. So anyway, finding the will of God, a pagan notion? I read that, I was like, "Oh, what's this guy got to say? That seems weird." So, discovering God's will, a pagan notion? Oh, it is, it has become that in greater evangelism in America, because we don't discover God's will by testing. Why do you need to test if you can pray a prayer and he'll just tell you? Let me talk to you about something here. Here's how the Bible says that we discover God's will: God's word. You know why many of you are constantly praying for God's will and you don't know God's will?
Because you never read the Bible, because if you read the Bible you'd be amazed at how much you know that God wants.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 45:53
That's the first thing.
God's word, 2 Timothy 3:16–17, Psalm 119:105, Isaiah 8:20, and a multitude of other verses, and yes, I'll post this on Facebook so you don't have to write it down too fast. Number two, consecration, holy living, sacrificial living, being a living sacrifice: Psalm 37:3–4, John 7:17, Romans 12:1–2 Corinthians 8:5. It also tells us in God's word to pray for wisdom. Why do you need wisdom if God's going to tell you all the time through nudges and prophetic utterances? Matthew 6:10, Luke 6:12–13, James 1:5. Godly counsel is another way: Proverbs 7:24, Proverbs 15:22, Proverbs 24:6, Proverbs 28:26, Acts 13:2–3, Acts 15: 1–41. What we just heard here through testing, transformative work of the Holy Spirit, that's how we discern his will. The more we're transformed, the more we know, because he's transforming us this way. This must be what God wants, because the Holy Spirit is making me this way and transforming me into this image, it must be God's image. So we discover his image through the transformative work of the Holy Spirit: Colossians 1:27, Galatians 2:20, Romans 8:1, 14–17, John 16:13, Philippians 4:13, 2 Peter 1:3–4. This is a good book, Finding God's will: A Pagan Notion? You should read it. But let me just focus for a second, because I don't want to miss this. Paul here is saying, this is Paul, this is Paul, he's speaking from experience, he's saying the way we discover God's will is through testing. This is sandwiched in transformative work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and it's to testing. Whenever Paul decided to go somewhere, I'm going to give you the specifics, you go look it up, but he decided, it said in the Bible, that he set his mind and decided to go somewhere, and he tested the Lord. What does it say happened? I multiple times tried to come to you but I was buffeted, I was prevented, in some translations, from coming. In other words, I didn't pray a prayer and wait for God to speak to me through the air, through a nudge of whether or not, before I went. It was in the going that I tested whether God wanted me to go. So in here we are seeing that God's transformative work happens in process and by testing. For those of you here today who are not perfect and everything is not grand and you are not a perfect image of who he is, that's why he gave you the Holy Spirit. Be encouraged today. If you even give a rip, tater chip, it's probably because you're saved, because the Bible says that everybody else who is not saved will not care. They will know what God wants, they will not do what God wants, and they will encourage others to do what God does not want. They will know it, they will not do it, and they will encourage others to rebel against God. This is why I believe there are no true atheists in the world today, because it says of men of depravity, those lost in sin, those enslaved to sin, that they know God and they know what he wants and they refuse to do it and they encourage others to do the same. I saw the thing, and I'll close with this, to encourage you today if you're a professing atheist today. I watched Big Bang Theory, not sure if it's appropriate or not, but it's interesting, and I watched Big Bang Theory, and what's the main character, Sheldon Cooper, he's funny, dude, man, Dr. Sheldon Cooper, sorry, Dr. Sheldon cooper, his mom is a believer and he is an atheist, professing atheist. He gets to a place where he really wants, gets his tickets to go to comic-Con and they can't get tickets because they sold out in an instant. Was it Comic-Con? I don't remember what it was, Comic-Con or something, it's typically something to do with comic books. Anyway, and so he gets to a place where he's like, "What are we going to do?" And he falls down on his knees and he says, "I can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm going to pray to God." "I thought you didn't believe in God." And he begins his prayer to beg God to get him tickets, and his friend goes, "We got him," halfway through his prayer, and he goes, "Ha! I denied you and I don't really believe in you." You know why?
Because ultimately all men know there is a God, and all men know, because it's wired in them, what God wants.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 51:31
And they rebel, and because they don't want to do what God wants they reject him and they create a narrative and underpin it and call it atheism.
There are no true atheists in the world today. There are merely believers and non-believers, people in faith and people without faith.
Today some of us don't know God's will because we are not a living sacrifice and he is not transforming our lives.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 52:12
And we are waiting, or we are waiting on a word when he's already given his word.
By the mercy, I call this sermon "Mercy Me." By the mercies of God we are transformed, only by his mercies, not because we pick ourselves up by our bootstraps.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 52:52
Are you with me? But by the mercies of God. From him, not from you, to him and through him.
Notice you don't make the list.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 53:17
So when we flip from chapter 11 to chapter 12, don't add yourself to the list. Therefore, because you don't make the list, consider everything I'm about to say in the remaining chapters with that in mind.
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